Welcome.
I'm sorry you deal in this. But it doesn't sound like your direct struggle. It sounds like his struggle, that affects you. How much you let it affect you
is always up to you.
I don't see this as a "mono or poly?" issue. I see this as a "how secure is my BF? And do I want to deal in that? " issue.
Hello. I guess I'm poly, because I'm in a mono relationship with a man I love very much, but I have feelings for two other men. I'm refraining from talking with or seeing these other two men out of respect for my partner; I've been honest with him about where I stand.
Nothing wrong with having crushes. You are alive and well, and will notice beauty in the world. If you agreement is to not pursue, you are holding up your end of the stick. You aren't doing anything wrong.
I see you are also trying to be honest and open about you inner life thoughts and feelings. Those are things that help create emotional intimacy with your present Boyfriend. Thing is... sounds like he doesn't want the emotional intimacy from you and views attempts at building this as threat to his core belief.
So he doesn't want to hear it. And you are hurt your closest and dearest doesn't actually want to be all
that close.
He, of course, hates it since he is mono. He can't even understand how it's possible. I feel sad that I cannot even have friendships with these other two men, and it makes me just a little bit resentful.
Sounds like he has core belief #1 in
this article. Something like "If my partner really loves me, my partner will never have interest or desire or notice other people." And he's not ready to examine or challenge that wonky belief and wants to keep it how it is. He chooses to measure love by an odd "ruler." Rather update the ruler to something more fitting and change it to "My partners really loves me. They show it often by treating me well in loving and respectful ways."
I feel a little guilty in the back of my mind, because I can't help thinking about the other two sometimes and wishing that I could talk with them. I don't want to lose the man to whom I'm committed; but it just never feels 100% right.
You can think about them. You can talk to them. You can be friends with them if you want to. Just don't pursue. (Unless you renegotiate those agreements first. )
Don't shrink
your life just because BF wants to you to. Lead your mono life like any other monogamous person who has a BF and has some friends. If your BF has a problem with that healthy relating, suggest he work on his issues and if he does not? Lose the BF!
If you are poly, same advice. Poly people will have their partner(s) and their friends. If one of their partners balks at them having healthy relationships with other people? They suggest that partner work on their issues or they choose to lose the partner.
It is not your job to help him build his bubble against the world. And you don't have to crawl in it to live there with him. Not healthy for YOU.
I'm quite bothered with it tonight, so I sought out this forum to get some input from others who may have been in a similar situation before. I welcome your comments and/or private messages.
I had a BF like that once. At the time I had agreed to Closed. But for me to be happy that way, I need to be free to express my inner thoughts and feelings -- share my inner life. I'm ok not pursuing more relationships. I am not ok shrinking or stifling myself just because my partner doesn't actually want to know ALL of me and doesn't want to deal with processing his weird.
That's when I discovered he was deeply insecure. Drove me up the wall with his insecure weird. His behaviors were so off putting that I eventually broke up with him because he didn't want to change them. He wanted me to change to help him keep his weird up.
- If I let it slip that I thought someone was cute (not even crush, just the waiter is cute) he would WIG OUT. Total turn off.
- I refused to become isolated and shrink myself or my relating. He was always high stress -- so busy scanning the horizon to see who would come to "steal me away" that he wasn't present in our relationship. He was trying to police it/me.
- I told him his problem was not "them" -- it was ME. Focus on making it so I don't want to leave. Engage and participate with me and clear up his issues with a counselor. If anyone asks, I will say no thanks, I already have a good thing going. Nobody can "steal me away" if I'm content here. He ignored this advice.
- Over time, I felt like an object to be hidden away, rather than a PERSON to be interacted with and dealing with having to reassure him of my faithfulness became like filling the black hole of need. Draining and boring. He might gets lots of yay from that, but not me. It became a one-sided relationship and I didn't want to be doing that.
- I came to terms with the fact that he wasn't actual interested in me as a person, for all that he said he loved me. I think he just loved having me as a GF and black hole filler.
- He viewed relationships as possessive -- things to have. I view relationships as participatory. He wasn't participating with me, so I left.
- When I did, he said "I always knew you'd leave me." and I said "I'm sad you saw it could happen and did NOTHING to change it."
Years later he went into therapy for his issues -- and I was glad for him. But I think it took a whole mess of GFs dumping him for the same thing (not just me) for him to finally get around to examine his core beliefs and actually working to change them because they were not serving him well.
I don't know if you having some crushes means you are mono and just enjoy noticing people in the world or if it means you are poly. That's for you to sort out.
But if your BF is feeling like a drag, like you are having to shrink yourself and be uncomfortable so HE can be comfortable, maybe he just isn't deeply compatible and you are best parting? That's something else for you to examine and figure out.
But def don't shrink yourself from the world and from having friends you want to have just because he's not comfortable. You aren't doing anything in appropriate. He can learn to deal or not. And you can make your next choices from there.
Galagirl