New and Scared

Maybe what I've written here makes my point more clear?

Sure! But you weren't really unclear to begin with. I merely wanted to point out that while we can bring all kinds of particular meanings to sex, sex itself has its own meanings independently of what we bring to it.

Oftentimes, we bring meanings to sex which we've not considered carefully at all -- such as the one where sex = loving (of a particular kind) which must be exclusive in order for it to be "real love" -- or expression thereof. That can be shown to be false, if we're willing to examine it carefully -- since "romantic" love of the most satisfying kind can be sexually and emotionally non-monogamous (which is a fact, not a speculation). That is, it is a fact if we can accept the testimony of the MILLIONS of people who experience it as such.
 
Rough Day

Yesterday was a great day for me and the wife, went to the beach to help her parents with the cottage. A day filled with laughter and love. Today woke alone in bed and I knew where she was, upstairs with the friend. All my emotions came running back, why can I not remove these feelings? Why do I feel so alone in this? She is going away on vacation this week, I am sure it is to decompress from all that is going on in our lives right now. I tried to get her to talk the other night but she just shut down on me. I needed her to talk about her fears in this but she just does not want to talk about these things. Maybe I think it would help me if I knew shehad the same fears as I do, or if she has any fears about this. I find myself sitting alone in our apartment like a benched player waiting to be called into the game. Do any other Monos feel this way?
 
sports and poly

Bangel,

There are all sorts of potential reasons why your wife shut down recently. It might be she is overwhelmed with feelings and can't process any more, even if you need her to. She may not want to hurt you by openly discussing what's going on with her, your relationship, the relationship with the friend. (Gecko has a recent thread that touches on this.) She might be so anxious and fearful (losing you, losing the friend, losing the life she knew) that she shuts down.

I know I shut down when I can't process something anymore - because of pain, or exhaustion, or just too much-ness. I wish I had something more immediately helpful to suggest than being as patient as you can manage. And, yes, she needs patience with you too.

Also I was struck by the analogy of being the benched player waiting on the bench to be called in. You were the star player, lets say in basketball, and you're good, so there was no competition. Now, you are still a star but not the only one. To extend the analogy, your wife is asking you to be a team player more than you ever have been before. This is very, very hard.

Also, there is the point at which the analogy breaks down. If you and your wife are working towards ethical non-monogamy, you are NOT actually in competition with the friend for your wife. I have no doubt that it feels that way. But you are not replaceable; you can't be swapped out with a new model. You contribute something unique and irreplaceable to your relationship with your wife. Perhaps once your wife can process and talk things out with you, that will become clearer.
 
personally, as well as talking to my wife, I've found that talking with her BF calms my nerves sometimes. it's one thing to hear from her that everything is ok. it's something completely different to hear it from him. he and I have become fairly decent friends. I think we'll be better friends once I'm back in the country. hope this helps.
 
I seem to be having issues with wanting to remain friends with him, I have such anger towards him, i know that my wife get frustrated with me because she feels no matter haow many time she tells me that she loves me and will not leave me she seems to think I do not listen. I here her but the words are hard to swallow. But i guess that is the Mono inside me, if she truely loved me would she not want to be with me and only me. But then I guess the same arguement can be made at me that if I truely love her would I not want her happy and get everything she wants out of life? I really question if I can do this or not. I see alot of success stories but also some pretty bad disaters. I think that sometimes I am the lone man here, 2 for 1 against. Majority rules. Having another hard day if you haven't noticed. Sometime it is nice to vent when I know the other two don't want to talk about it. Sorry I rant like I do but I have to get this out otherwise it festers and turns into another emotional outburst. THank you all for listening ( READING) to me.
 
A Bun Dance -- Rather than Scare City.

.... if she truely loved me would she not want to be with me and only me? ....

This is our present culture's default setting assumption, to use computer talk. So, it is understandable that you might have difficulty imagining any other approach as valid, virtuous and real.

I can't help wondering if the myth of God creating Adam and Eve (rather than Adam, Eve, Steve, Robert, Anne, Jenny, Lary, and Joni ...) in the mythical original Garden isn't the basis of this fantastic notion about love. What could have caused us to cling to this dyadic image of the one and only "true love"?

Love is not like pie or cake or cookies. Unlike these, giving some away doesn't cause one to end up with less. One more often has more love when giving it to several than less. And why does one's wife's love of another seem to suggest she loves you less? These two facts are not necessarily related at all. I can appreciate huevos rancheros AND spaghetti maranara -- equally (and I do).

The source of love is a lackless awareness, really. It overflows with itself in abundance.

Which is why, I think, we should hold more bun dances. Dancing our buns we can learn to eradicate illusory scare-city.
 
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Hi from Northwest, FL

Hello everyone,

Obviously I am new here. My husband and I have been married for almost ten years now and have always had an unusual relationship. Both being musicians he gets hit on a lot so our agreement has always been as long as you bring them home to share. We recently ended a live-in situation with another female as things were not working out on her end.

We have only lived in the area for a year and find it difficult to find like minded people. Would love to meet local people for friendship or???
 
bun???

Which is why, I think, we should hold more bun dances. Dancing our buns we can learn to eradicate illusory scare-city.

River,

What's a bun dance? Is it shaking one's booty? I love doing that but have yet to achieve greater comprehension of the universe, or myself. :)

Bangel,

You do not need to be best buds with the friend. It's not required. In fact, you do not need to like said friend. But you will have to deal with him respectfully and honestly if you want to build a healthy non-monogamous relationship with your wife.

I feel sometimes that when I tell my spouse that I love her and will not leave her, my words go into a black hole where they disappear and have no effect. She does not believe me. It's frustrating when a loved one seems not to believe in one's love, even when openly and often stated and shown through deeds, not just words.

There are some things I cannot 'fix' for my spouse. Difficulty with accepting love is rooted in her internal mental, emotional and spiritual landscape. I can't make her feel secure by words, and not immediately at least, by deeds. Ultimately, you are the only one who can provide security for yourself. This does not mean your wife has no impact on you or does not have to do anything to help you feel more secure. Also the friend has a part to play in this as well. Not talking to you does not help at all.

However she may be experiencing similar frustration I've had over the years. Reassuring you may feel pointless if there seems to be no outward effect. Perhaps you can ask her what would be something you can say or do to indicate that you heard her - truly - tell you she loves you and will not leave. And, of course, she should not expect full acceptance or understanding overnight, or even anytime soon. But perhaps some token that you heard her, even as poly/non-monogamy is very undecided for you.
 
You do not need to be best buds with the friend. It's not required. In fact, you do not need to like said friend. But you will have to deal with him respectfully and honestly if you want to build a healthy non-monogamous relationship with your wife.

Just for clarification purposes, the guy already was Bangel's best friend:
My wife of 4 years has recently told me that she is in love with my bestfriend who lives upstairs from us . . . I have not spoken to my best friend in a week because I feel that if he was my friend he would have stepped away.
 
You do not need to be best buds with the friend. It's not required. In fact, you do not need to like said friend.

I think this may be part of the problem. If I read it correctly, he was Bangel's friend first. I imagine it might feel like the wife stole the friend and the friend stole the wife, so two losses at once. Logically, we know that's not really how it is, but gut reaction and emotions are not always ruled by logic and fact.

Sorry, I don't have any advice to offer.
 
a bun dance

What's a bun dance? Is it shaking one's booty? I love doing that but have yet to achieve greater comprehension of the universe, or myself. :)

A bun dance is a dance we do to celebrate or create abundance.

The way to create abundance is to realize it. That's seeing with your real eyes (which are discovered in part, in the center of your chest).

To realize abundance, we merely have to realize that it is already here with us, as a more-than-infinite supply of love -- more love than any of us could imagine; more love than we know how to open to. More love, for sure, than we'll ever "understand" as grasping.

We do the bun dance because when we begin to see with our real eyes the true nature of love, it makes us giddy and want to shake our stuff right off. All that stuff that keeps us from realizing the abundance. Or because the notion of a scare city (scarcity of love) is hospitalization funny, so funny that you'll rip your stomach muscles realizing it. And it's that sad, too. So we laugh because it's both that sad and that funny.

The true nature of love? It is abundant. All one has to do is open up to it, give it, appreciate it ... and it expands Without Limit.

Also true about love is that it is the prime value in existence! (Moreso, it is the very heart and core of existence.) Think of it! It's absolutely free, it expands when given away -- or even appreciated. It never runs out. And it is MORE THAN INFINITE IN SUPPLY! ... And it is valuable beyond any measure or comprehension! How good is that?!

When we clutch at it and want to control it, or offer it out in dribs and drabs, teaspoonfulls..., when we make laws and rules and concepts like prison bars around it... we have Scare City, which is hospitalization sad and hospitalization funny.

Our world is sick with Scare City, which calls for A Bun Dance!
 
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I seem to be having issues with wanting to remain friends with him, I have such anger towards him, i know that my wife get frustrated with me because she feels no matter haow many time she tells me that she loves me and will not leave me she seems to think I do not listen. I here her but the words are hard to swallow. But i guess that is the Mono inside me, if she truely loved me would she not want to be with me and only me. But then I guess the same arguement can be made at me that if I truely love her would I not want her happy and get everything she wants out of life? I really question if I can do this or not. I see alot of success stories but also some pretty bad disaters. I think that sometimes I am the lone man here, 2 for 1 against. Majority rules. Having another hard day if you haven't noticed. Sometime it is nice to vent when I know the other two don't want to talk about it. Sorry I rant like I do but I have to get this out otherwise it festers and turns into another emotional outburst. THank you all for listening ( READING) to me.

I've been there. my wife was friends with her BF in high school. they lost contact for a long time then reconnected on facebook. when I first met him, I wasn't sure whether to punch him or shake his hand. I took the road less travelled and shook his hand. we are slowly becoming friends and I find that we can talk about most anything.

she has told me countless times how much she loves me, how she won't ever leave me and even how much her BF respects me. it took a while for me to start believing it.
 
Thank you all for your support and insight, I have started to readt the book "The Secret of Letting GO" to see if this will help me to release my fears and become more comfortable with this. I love my wife more than anyone I have ever loved. I want her to get everything out of this life she can. I know that this will be difficult and especially not easy for me but I need to do this for her, and hopefully I will be reciprcated for my efforts. I know I cannot count on this and should not be thinking of myself but I need to be aware as do they of my needs as well. My needs and wants should be met as well right? I pray that this does not blow up in our faces ( wrong way to think I know). She still has not made the final decision but I am sure she will decide to do this.:(
 
My needs and wants should be met as well right?

I think what works best is for us to look upon all of our relationships as opportunities to share and expand our loving, and this includes the receiving and giving of love (though, ultimately, we realize that love transcends even giving and receiving, since it is part of our essential nature). It's not just about giving and giving all the time. Part of the practice of opening to love is learning how to receive it, allow it "in".

But if you want to experience a vast improvement really fast in your love life, examine closely, by feeling into it, what the source of love is. We make a mistake when we see our partners as our source for love and ourselves as one in need of that substance, out there, over there. And this image of love can be dreadfully difficult to give up! Perhaps especially for a guy like myself who wasn't loved properly at home as a child. For we will cling to an image of love when we're not growing in the experience of love, because we're too hungry and desperate to let go of the surrogate. (Any image of love is a surrogate for love -- which is why I'm practicing releasing all such images.)

This doesn't mean that we alone must be the source of love. That's not it, either. The problem with this notion is that we ourselves are not we alone. We're always with-together. We're together with all of life, all of Earth, every plant animal and person, the whole universe in all of its unfathomable dimentions.

This ultimate and universal togetherness of all things is itself love. The source of love is quite literally everything! This is a radically different notion of love than the one we were raised up with -- which imagined love as scarce, limited, small.... And we are this! Scarcity is just a sad illusion.:p
 
I have a question, is it not a choice to put yourself in a position to fall in love with someone? It is not like it happens overnight. You feel your self connecting to someone, becoming attracted to someone. It seems that you have a choice to put yourself in that position. Is it that Monos are more sensitve to this happening and polys don't until it is to late and they are in love? Or is it that Polys get a rush from this feeling and choose to alow the feeling to overcome them. I know from my personal experiences that I will remove myself from a situation if I start to have these feelings, not that I cut all ties with someone but I will pull back and look at the situation and decide that this is not what I want and I do not want to hurt my partner. Don't get me wrong I have Friends that are girls that I care for but I keep myself under control as to not fall in love with them or the love I have for them is not romantic in any nature.
 
Gave me something to think about today, Bangel. Looking back, I sometimes wish I had responded in the mono way you describe, rather than the poly way. Once I fell in love, it was TOO LATE. We're making the best of it now. But in the future? I think I would choose the route of distance/resistance.

Wow, does this make me "mono" caught in a poly life???

I have embraced polyamory because it was the best option when I found myself in love with two people at the same time. I couldn't rewind the clock, go back and "unlove" or will myself to fall out of love.

But, would I seek this out, intentionally? Well, no -- because both my husband and my boyfriend are mono! It would be totally different if they wanted to embrace a tribal lifestyle, because I believe I would love that. But my husband is tolerating this, and my boyfriend sees it as a temporary arrangement. It's very carpe deim, which is ok, but it can be hard to grasp. It is also very private, which is a challenge for me. If they wanted to stand on a mountain, all three of us, and proclaim their love for me and let me proclaim mine for them, that would be utopia for me! But since this is such a secretive way to live and love, (due to their reservations, fears, beliefs, male pride, whatever), frankly I will be relieved to someday have it be over. When my boyfriend moves on, into a traditional relationship, all I hope is that he will be happy and I can move on as well. My husband and I will move forward as a couple and we will have learned and grown from this experience.

I do have sadness, because "I have a dream...." of us all together with our kids, playing and picnicking and sharing the duties of raising a family and running a household, pooling our resources, going camping and going dancing, meeting each other's families and challenging them to open their hearts and minds.....

But I have to accept the reality that that is my fantasy, not theirs.

Notice the nicknames for my men. I am in love with two macho cowboys! The mere fact that they have even agreed to this V arrangement, even temporarily, is a fucking miracle in itself!
 
I have a question, is it not a choice to put yourself in a position to fall in love with someone? It is not like it happens overnight. You feel your self connecting to someone, becoming attracted to someone. It seems that you have a choice to put yourself in that position. Is it that Monos are more sensitve to this happening and polys don't until it is to late and they are in love? Or is it that Polys get a rush from this feeling and choose to alow the feeling to overcome them. I know from my personal experiences that I will remove myself from a situation if I start to have these feelings, not that I cut all ties with someone but I will pull back and look at the situation and decide that this is not what I want and I do not want to hurt my partner. Don't get me wrong I have Friends that are girls that I care for but I keep myself under control as to not fall in love with them or the love I have for them is not romantic in any nature.

I have spent my life pulling back from people to avoid feelings. Now 20 years into my marriage, I only have one close friend (and not really anyone I would want to sit by my side if I was in the hospital, other than family). It's not that I even wanted a "romantic" relationship with others, I just felt that I wasn't supposed to be that attached to these others, so I kept everyone at arms length, after all I was only "supposed" to have these feelings for my husband. It's a very lonely, empty way to live and feeds unhappiness and resentment.

My husband has a strong emotional attchment with a lady (non-sexual). He did not go out looking for this, it just evolved over the years. I had the feeling of being replaced and no longer necessary in his life. This was not true of course and now I can see where we both have very different things to offer. I am no longer under the preassure to participate in things I really don't enjoy doing and at the same time I know there is someone there to look after him in my absence.

We are not in a place where sex with others is even an issue yet, I'm sure that will bring to the forefront a whole new set of issues for both of us.
 
SN,
I have no problem with a non-sexual relationship and would actually encourage this due to the fact that people offer different things to different people. THe source of most of my anguish is over the fact that they wish to have the same type of relationship that my wife has with me including physical. Her words not mine. Why do I have such an issue with this? Why does this bother me more than the emotional relationship? Maybe I do put to much on the physical, maybe I lack in the emotional and that was what she was looking for and now they feel it needs to go to the next level because that is only the natural course of things.
 
I had the feeling of being replaced and no longer necessary in his life. This was not true of course and now I can see where we both have very different things to offer. I am no longer under the preassure to participate in things I really don't enjoy doing and at the same time I know there is someone there to look after him in my absence.

We are not in a place where sex with others is even an issue yet, I'm sure that will bring to the forefront a whole new set of issues for both of us.
Curious - do you feel you are closer to that? Is that even what your husband's friend would want? Maybe she's happy with things the way they are and doesn't want it to go further, but do you think you will ever embrace having additional relationships?
 
Curious - do you feel you are closer to that? Is that even what your husband's friend would want? Maybe she's happy with things the way they are and doesn't want it to go further, but do you think you will ever embrace having additional relationships?

Oh, they are completely happy with things as they are and knowing her, I NEVER see it going any further physically. I am completely open to either or both of us having additional physical relationships, but we haven't really discussed it yet (we have been working on solving some other issues we had). I just don't see myself going out of my way to set up "dates". I am actively trying to expand my circle of friends and activities to stuff I enjoy, with the freedom that I don't have to censor and control my feelings (actions yes). I had a list of things I needed to do for me and I think I'm only on number 2 or 3 and we are about 9 months into trying to fix things.
 
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