Hello. My wife and I have been poly for just under 2 years now.
My wife was the one who suggested the idea. My reasons for agreeing with her suggestion are sort of complicated, and I'll explain below. She began dating soon after. I met my gf in February of this year.
My dilemma is that I'm unsure if I want to maintain my two relationships. These feelings only really came up soon after I started dating my gf so I don't know if it's just limerence or something else. I am also at an age where I could be going through a mid-life crisis. Those are some of the reasons why I'm so hesitant to divorce my wife. Also, I still love her a lot and I hate the thought of hurting her with a break-up. We have 2 daughters that will be affected. My relationship with my gf is lacking in drama.
Another factor to consider (this is the big one) is that for most of my life, I've been very emotionally needy and completely reliant on external validation. I believe that the root cause of this was my mother, who has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. Before I moved away from her, she would psychologically abuse me on a daily basis.
I remember that when I first started dating my gf, the appeal of polyamory was quite simple: More people to love. This most likely doesn't sound like a bad thing to any of you guys but try to understand that this was coming from the thought process of a person with severe codependency and self-esteem issues.
It was pretty soon after I started dating my gf, that I also began working on my own emotional problems. I hit a point in the start of October, where I was no longer as reliant on other people to build up my confidence or make me happy.
I feel like quite a different person now. What sort of complicates things is that I feel incredibly muddled up, when it comes to my marriage and my relationship with my gf. Since I've become so much more independent, I don't know if I want to be in a relationship any more.
Any thoughts on this?
My wife was the one who suggested the idea. My reasons for agreeing with her suggestion are sort of complicated, and I'll explain below. She began dating soon after. I met my gf in February of this year.
My dilemma is that I'm unsure if I want to maintain my two relationships. These feelings only really came up soon after I started dating my gf so I don't know if it's just limerence or something else. I am also at an age where I could be going through a mid-life crisis. Those are some of the reasons why I'm so hesitant to divorce my wife. Also, I still love her a lot and I hate the thought of hurting her with a break-up. We have 2 daughters that will be affected. My relationship with my gf is lacking in drama.
Another factor to consider (this is the big one) is that for most of my life, I've been very emotionally needy and completely reliant on external validation. I believe that the root cause of this was my mother, who has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. Before I moved away from her, she would psychologically abuse me on a daily basis.
I remember that when I first started dating my gf, the appeal of polyamory was quite simple: More people to love. This most likely doesn't sound like a bad thing to any of you guys but try to understand that this was coming from the thought process of a person with severe codependency and self-esteem issues.
It was pretty soon after I started dating my gf, that I also began working on my own emotional problems. I hit a point in the start of October, where I was no longer as reliant on other people to build up my confidence or make me happy.
I feel like quite a different person now. What sort of complicates things is that I feel incredibly muddled up, when it comes to my marriage and my relationship with my gf. Since I've become so much more independent, I don't know if I want to be in a relationship any more.
Any thoughts on this?