Jitters with opening up

MotMot

New member
Fairly recently my wife and I opened up our relationship. We have previously had physical encounters with others but over the years we have been married we I came to realize she had a strong inclination toward polyamory and I realized I have essentially been polyamorous all along. We have had many talks and done much reading and podcast listening.

We now find ourselves at a point where she has the beginning of a relationship with another guy, she has a bit of NRE which I actually love seeing since it makes her happy and giddy. At the same time I have realized a friendship I have with a friend in my circles, the friend is fairly new in the last couple years but the circle goes back to my teen years (I am 45 now), has grown way beyond a friendship. I have started falling in love with her. My wife is singularly afraid of this relationship I have with her because I do have a deep connection with her. I have a physical attraction to her but it is primarily an emotional attraction but for whatever reason my wife is very jealous and fearful of my relationship with her. I asked her if I developed a relationship with another woman if she would feel the same fear and she said no she is just very afraid of losing me to her. I have had other friendships with women that have come very close to this (I have always been much better friends with women) but something makes her fear this one. I am very much falling in love with her but I feel no loss of love for my wife at all, if anything seeing her happy and giddy with her boy, and with me feeling good after talking with my friend makes my heart sing for her...she is adorable, I was helping her flirt with him the other night with a guys input. She has said she doesnt want to feel the jealousy she feels and realizes it's not fair or OK when I am happy for her. Does anyone have any resources I can point her to? She has told me her head wants to be happy for me and her heart is battling that. We are both worried about overcoming this hump because it's a new one for us...we have a wonderful marriage and are both afraid of ruining that. We realize it will change, that is inevitable, but we have multiple kids with one being very young (6) and keep wondering if we need to just hold off for 10 years or so. Neither of us want to but we are both very cautious. I am just feel in my very gun shy so to speak. Is this a normal feeling when opening up a long term marriage?
 
It is fairly normal for couples newly opening up. One or both of them may feel jealousy. She says she wouldn't feel it if you were with someone else, but she has no way of knowing for sure.

If you do a search for jealousy you should come across a list of resources.
 
Hi MotMot,
Here are some jealousy links:

It is normal to get some jitters in the early stages of opening up a long-term marriage, don't worry too much about that part. I think the key here is to take it slow, and keep the channels of communication open. Your wife may want to do some digging to figure out why this particular woman scares her so much. Possibly with time and experience she will see that you're not going anywhere, and that will help. In the meantime I hope the links above can be of some help to her.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
It's a bandage only, while she does the internal work to be less fearful, but you could keep talking about mid and long term plans together. This ensures you continue having a shared vision of life, even though those plans may change over the years.
 
...I have started falling in love with her. My wife is singularly afraid of this relationship I have with her...

Captain Obvious at your service here. See the connection?

Mine wavers between gushing orgasms and jealous insults over it. Welcome to polyamory.

I figure I signed up for this knowingly and am just going to be patient and understanding with the jealousy. It's pretty natural, even when you incline towards polyamory.

But on the other hand, your wife agreed to something here and it's pretty late in the day to be objecting. When my wife talked it over with me she gave a clear list of prohibitions, like: "not with my sister".

If this girl was not on some "no" list like relatives or people living in the same neighborhood, or whatever - then it starts sounding like your wife is not actually digging polyamory on your part.

Because the falling in love with someone else, that's the whole point. And it's WAY fun. So she needs to be working on this, unless there is a good reason this person should not be your lover.
 
At the same time I have realized a friendship I have with a friend in my circles, the friend is fairly new in the last couple years but the circle goes back to my teen years (I am 45 now), has grown way beyond a friendship. I have started falling in love with her. My wife is singularly afraid of this relationship I have with her because I do have a deep connection with her.

Is it because your relationship with this friend started in your teens before wife was around?

Where if you were to fall in love with a new person, it would be wife who is "older to you" that way?

Like this friend from your teen years pre-dates your wife and she finds that threatening somehow?

She has said she doesnt want to feel the jealousy she feels and realizes it's not fair or OK when I am happy for her.

Why is it not fair or ok for her to feel whatever she feels? And just feel it without judging it as ok or not ok?

It is not a race, competition or "tit for tat." It's also two different skill sets -- to be a hinge and to be a meta. She's finding easy to be a hinge. Not as easy being a meta. You seem to be ok as a meta. But you are two different people with different skills or abilities.

Is part of it not so much jealousy around you having a crush on this friend person but ENVY that you are ok being a meta and she's finding it hard? So she envies that you have this skill set she thinks she ought to have too?

We are both worried about overcoming this hump because it's a new one for us...we have a wonderful marriage and are both afraid of ruining that. We realize it will change, that is inevitable, but we have multiple kids with one being very young (6) and keep wondering if we need to just hold off for 10 years or so. Neither of us want to but we are both very cautious. I am just feel in my very gun shy so to speak. Is this a normal feeling when opening up a long term marriage?

Well, if you have young kids there's nothing wrong with being cautious and holding off for a few years. You've waited this long. What's a few more? Plus it gives you more time to read, learn, research, and sort out some of these feelings. Before things get deeper for either of you with new partners.

Galagirl
 
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I went through what your wife is going through.

When I met my (poly) gf we had a nice honeymoon period. She wasn't seeing anyone else. I was however, just out of a very long mono marriage and very excited about dating. So even though my gf and I clicked right away (still together after 9 years now), I was dating a lot. I was having a blast. I even had NRE sometimes going for 3 people at once. (And some say that is impossible lol). My gf Pixi was great. She was experienced in poly and had tons of compersion for me.

But when she decided to start dating others, oh boy. I knew she had a profile up on a kinky dating website. She had very specific desires, so she turned down a lot of guys. Finally she started seeing one. I had a very jealous upset day when she said she'd be at her place when I went over there one morning, and she wasn't there. She's spent the night with the guy because she'd stayed too late, missed the last bus, her phone wasn't working and she was to shy to ask to use his phone or computer to text me.

So my jealousy was really worry she was OK. And feeling upset because she didn't let me know she'd spent the night when we hadn't planned that ahead of time.

She didnt see that guy all too long and it was on to the next. Again, she moved too soon. She asked if she could go to this guy's nesting partner's fetish photo shoot with them. i said of course, go ahead. Turned out once she told them she would go, it was a 3 day 2 night thing at some friend's house 30 miles away. And she went to a munch too, and met their friends, and her new partner and his (Domme) gf introduced her as "our pet."

But my jealousy faded again, once we established boundaries around clarity of agreements, whose pet she was (the guy's, not his pushy gf's too!) and so on.

So I agree with others here, to move slowly, expect speed bumps, keep talking and being loving and respectful, caring and kind to each other. Keep your own romance alive by continuing to have actual dates with each other too.
 
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