Need some coping advice

Hi All,

I haven't posted here in a while. Things have generally been good however I need some advice regarding how to deal with my metamour.

We are going on a big vacation in a few weeks - me, my significant other, his wife and her boyfriend. We all get along very well but I have to admit privately that she is driving me crazy and I really have no one to talk to about it except here.

I am feeling very secure in my relationship with my OSO (J), in fact we are celebrating our 5 year anniversary this month. I like his wife (D) but I find her very manipulative and emotionally controlling, not with me but with J. Generally I try very hard to 'mind my own business and bite my tongue but this can be incredibly difficult when I am there to witness her behaviour. The few times that I voice my concerns to J I've noticed that I inadvertently hurt him as well when I point out how she treats him. This is the last thing that I want to do , I know that he is between a rock and a hard place so I keep my silence.

Whenever we are all together D constantly is bringing up all the fun times her and J have had...on vacations, etc., how they always are thinking the same thing, that she just loves his sense of humour...every single time, over and over...for 5 years. I know that they have been married for over 30 years, I know that they have history together, I know all the stories she keeps repeating almost by heart.

This is my first polyamorous relationship. I intellectually understand that I am sharing him but I do feel jealousy where his wife is concerned although I very very rarely verbalize it. This relationship is a choice I have made and I have to deal with everything that that entails.

Being around her now is causing me incredible anxiety as I steel myself for the onslaught or reminiscing and togetherness that she seems to love to throw in my face. I need help on how to deal with it. I'm starting to believe that she does it purposefully since she sees how close J and I have become but we/I are always discrete and respectful when around D. As an aside, my husband has an OSO that I love and I would never, ever torture her the way I feel I am being tortured. I think it is incredibly mean and selfish.
Instead of looking forward to our vacation I am very concerned that I may no longer be able to hold my tongue and say something that I will not regret but that will herald the end of my relationship with J.

I am seriously considering therapy to learn how to handle my growing anger and resentment.

I don't know if I can talk to her. Her behaviour is very unpredictable. How can I ask a wife to not reminisce with her husband? I can't, I don't have that right which she will happily remind me of. I don't feel like I have any power in this relationship...she holds all the cards.

*sigh*
 
Have you mentioned to Jay and/or Dee (I'm giving them names because initials are hard to keep track of after a while) how uncomfortable you feel when she acts that way? Ask her to stop. Don't make it about how manipulative you think she is of her husband, make it about how you are affected by her behaviour.

Set some boundaries. Tell Dee "I'm not going to listen to the same stories you tell every time we see each other". Then if she starts you just remove yourself. Tell her that she's started telling those stories again and then find an errand to run, go to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, take a walk, anything to be somewhere else. Don't be rude about it, don't tell her to stop, don't pause to listen to apologies or arguments, just be elsewhere, firmly.

Also, stop agreeing to group vacations if they cause you more angst than enjoyment.
 
Maybe Dee is just experiencing early-onset senile dementia... ;)

+1 on the "firm withdrawal" part... except for one thing: BE RUDE ABOUT IT.

Don't gotta be mean in doing so, of course. However, fear of "being rude" has IMO been a familiar stick used to keep people from asserting themselves when they really ought have.

See, even if you withdraw with superhuman grace & a statement of your reasoning that's so gentle & soothing that God Herself would ask to learn your technique, Dee will STILL get pissy about your "behavior" if that's her end-game.

Did she begin this behavior AFTER the vacation was planned, or BEFORE? Hopefully not the latter, because then I'd have to ask why you NEED to be a doormat... :eek:

(A credible therapist will tell you the same, take months to do it, & charge more.)
 
You certainly do have the right to tell her you don't want to hear the stories anymore. If you want to have a little fun, finish the stories for her. You've heard them for five years. You know them by heart. "Oh yeah I remember that one, that's when you and J did such-and-such." Sometimes annoying people are just annoying. It may seem they are annoying you on purpose, but they just don't know any better.

At the very least bring it up with J. Do you think she will do this with her OSO around?

Lastly, there is no rule that one must interact with their metamours. Spending 5 years being annoyed doesn't sound healthy.
 
You certainly do have the right to tell her you don't want to hear the stories anymore. If you want to have a little fun, finish the stories for her. You've heard them for five years. You know them by heart. "Oh yeah I remember that one, that's when you and J did such-and-such." Sometimes annoying people are just annoying. It may seem they are annoying you on purpose, but they just don't know any better.

At the very least bring it up with J. Do you think she will do this with her OSO around?

Lastly, there is no rule that one must interact with their metamours. Spending 5 years being annoyed doesn't sound healthy.


I think this is the approach I would take as well. I get that you can't be direct with her about your feelings, but this (finishing her stories for her) will make it pretty clear that not only have the stories been done to death, but that the focus should be on the here and now - the lovely vacation you are on - the new memories you are all (hopefully) building together. If I were to take an educated guess, I'd say she only acts like this because, even after 5 years, she is still feeling insecure in some way. It might not be about you per se. Perhaps it's a higher level thing - like her and her boyfriend have a different kind of relationship to you and Jay, and she's jealous of your chemistry/familiarity, and wants something like that for herself, rather than she's actually threatened by you (I mean, in 5 years he's not exactly dumped her to be exclusively with you, and he has other partners as well as you, so I'm thinking that's not the root issue). It could just be that she's like that - struggles with small talk so comes back to the one thing you guys have in common with each other - him! Try to look at this holiday as a chance to actually get to know HER a bit better. Have you spent consecutive days hanging out with her/around them before?

It's definitely advisable to share some of your concerns with Jay before you go though. Not in a 'here are a list of your wife's faults and reasons why she pisses me off' kind of way, but more in a general 'I'm nervous about how this vacation might go down'. Are there plans for the four of you to have some alone time, in individual dyads as well as on your own? If not, I think this would be wise. Maybe you and Jay can have a whole day to yourself, while she spends time with her boyfriend, and maybe Dee and Jay can have the same while you entertain yourself or maybe even get to know her other partner a bit better. That's another way of toning things down. You are under no obligation to all be hanging out as a quad all the time. It's your vacation too, so make sure you have some input into how you spend your time.
 
It is healthy to express yourself. Even at the cost of being "rude" sometimes, or "hurting someones feelings" a little. Really. Emotions are part of life, and so is conflict. All these sentences read worrysome for me:
I really have no one to talk to about it except here.
...
The few times that I voice my concerns to J I've noticed that I inadvertently hurt him as well when I point out how she treats him. This is the last thing that I want to do, I know that he is between a rock and a hard place so I keep my silence.
...
I do feel jealousy where his wife is concerned although I very very rarely verbalize it. This relationship is a choice I have made and I have to deal with everything that that entails.
You don't express your feelings in your own relationship (!), hence they all stay bottled down, and you don't advocate for your needs, hence no changes can be made.

And this is the result:
I am seriously considering therapy to learn how to handle my growing anger and resentment.
Anger is one of the emotions which should be addressed as early as possible after the event making you angry.

I am very concerned that I may no longer be able to hold my tongue and say something that I will not regret but that will herald the end of my relationship with J.
Is your relationship really so fragile, that saying something inconsiderate to his wife once, after 5 years, would break it?
 
The few times that I voice my concerns to J I've noticed that I inadvertently hurt him as well when I point out how she treats him. This is the last thing that I want to do, I know that he is between a rock and a hard place so I keep my silence.

When you notice the behavior, instead of telling J you could ask the wife: "When you do X, do you realize it comes across as Y? Is that your intention?"


Being around her now is causing me incredible anxiety as I steel myself for the onslaught or reminiscing and togetherness that she seems to love to throw in my face. I need help on how to deal with it. I'm starting to believe that she does it purposefully since she sees how close J and I have become but we/I are always discrete and respectful when around D. As an aside, my husband has an OSO that I love and I would never, ever torture her the way I feel I am being tortured. I think it is incredibly mean and selfish.

Know what? Maybe she doesn't do it purposefully. Maybe she's just an annoying chatterbox. Still annoying, but then you are not taking it personally. And that might be easier to bear.

How can I ask a wife to not reminisce with her husband? I can't, I don't have that right which she will happily remind me of. I don't feel like I have any power in this relationship...she holds all the cards.

If you don't want to hear stories, all night? Let her tell 1 or 2, and then change the subject. Tell your own stories. Or ask up front "Could we change topics to one everyone can participate in? I suggest X, but I'm open to other suggestions."

Be direct and assertive.

If you feel you need therapy, schedule it.

If you need changes on vacation, like your own hotel room to get breaks from her, arrange it.

If you need to tell J how you feel about things, tell him. Trust he can do his own emotional management.

If hanging around as a group bugs you? There's no law that says you HAVE to. Just see him separately.

In short, be more assertive about what you need.

Galagirl
 
Last edited:
Try a little sharp humor?

When she starts next time, roll your eyes and go "Gawd, not again" then recite the rest of the story. Give her a hug. "I adore you, but really, pleeeease, heeeelp!" Or similar.

Obviously don't hug her or say you like her if you don't, but you said you otherwise like her, so I suggested this. If not, improvise!
 
I suspect some stuff might be playing into this...

You mention that you don't have anyone else to talk to about this sort of thing. Do you all live in a kind of quiet locale without a whole lot going on? Maybe she is just talking about whatever she can think of and...this is all she can think of? If she doesn't have a really active social life with lots of happenings to refresh her conversational content, perhaps she's just talking about whatever...just to have something to talk about, at all.

Maybe she is trying to express that she is happy, that her relationship with J is wonderful and she's really pleased how great it continues to be even though you have an unconventional (poly) arrangement, and she's trying to reaffirm that your presence in their lives hasn't dinged anything. Maybe she's trying to self-soothe some insecurity, or maybe she's trying to reaffirm to you that she is really happy and comfortable even though you're around and she doesn't feel threatened by you.

And to echo just a smidge of how someone said she might have some early onset senility...I actually do know people (my ex, for one) who endlessly repeat the same stories from the glory days of their youth to people that they know have heard them again, and again, and again. Some people just do that. Again, I suspect they don't know it's annoying and that they just lack fresh conversational content.

Whatever the case may be though, I've got a feeling that she has no idea that you are perceiving it as annoying or selfish or anything, and that probably she isn't doing this maliciously to try and get at you (unless she is really a petty person who you know to have a habit of doing such things...I know such people, but they are rare.) So your first stop is to try and express to her that you have a difficulty in hearing the same sentiments and stories again and again. If you don't have a good connection/friendship to maintain with her, by all means, be rude. But if you do, and you want to maybe heal and strengthen it, maybe consider a way to bring some new content to her brain that you can have in common. Read the same book so you can talk about it, or watch the same show or movie...actively guide the conversation into discussions of different ideas. Or learn to tune her out when she gushes about how happy her relationship with J is and always has been.

So.
Step 1. Assess if she's actually being petty, or just clueless.

Step 2. Assess if you care how she feels and how sensitive you want to be. What is your investment in her? How careful and kind do you wish to be in handling this? Find your spot on the scale from "rude and mean" to "I'll just shut up and put up." It's somewhere in the middle.

Step 3. Structure your problem solving approach around 1 and 2.
 
Hi stillfiguringthingsout,

To me it sounds like you have some serious problems with your metamour. I think that you need to not be around her anymore. And therapy would be a good idea as well.

With the big vacation you spoke of being just weeks away, I'm thinking you don't have enough time to prepare yourself for it. I would consider canceling your part and not going. If you do go, you run the risk of saying something that will herald the end of your relationship with J. That's a huge risk.

Sorry I can't think of any better advice at this moment. :(

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Whenever we are all together D constantly is bringing up all the fun times her and J have had...on vacations, etc., how they always are thinking the same thing, that she just loves his sense of humour...every single time, over and over...for 5 years. I know that they have been married for over 30 years, I know that they have history together, I know all the stories she keeps repeating almost by heart.


Know what? Maybe she doesn't do it purposefully. Maybe she's just an annoying chatterbox. Still annoying, but then you are not taking it personally. And that might be easier to bear.

...If you don't want to hear stories, all night? Let her tell 1 or 2, and then change the subject. Tell your own stories.


You certainly do have the right to tell her you don't want to hear the stories anymore. If you want to have a little fun, finish the stories for her. You've heard them for five years. You know them by heart. "Oh yeah I remember that one, that's when you and J did such-and-such." Sometimes annoying people are just annoying. It may seem they are annoying you on purpose, but they just don't know any better.

I think this is the approach I would take as well. I get that you can't be direct with her about your feelings, but this (finishing her stories for her) will make it pretty clear that not only have the stories been done to death, but that the focus should be on the here and now - the lovely vacation you are on - the new memories you are all (hopefully) building together.

Just to add another perspective...I am a story-teller and I think it is a familial trait! So if something comes up that reminds me of a story...I tell it. If it reminds me of a story that someone else told me, I will tell that one, too!

I know I have told a story a million times, but I have no idea to whom. Obviously I have told each story a million times over to each of my boys - so I shorten it...and they finish it!:rolleyes:

My reminiscences tend to be triggered by location...we drive by a location on the PA Turnpike, I tell the "Swan story" that Dad always told on the drive to Penn State, about their (my parents') second date. Someone mentions something that happen in Yellowstone National Park, they get the "Buffalo Rock" story - followed by the "It was a rabbit when I saw it" story (which is two generations removed, as it is a story about my grandfather that my father tells).

If I know that everyone present has heard the story a zillion times...I preface it by saying "This one time, at band camp..." (American Pie reference) BUT the story still gets told!

My point is, this may not be any sort of pointed attack at you. Dude used to feel similarly, because MrS and I had short-hand ways to refer to conversations/discussions that we had had previously with reference to certain topics. Now that Dude and I have been together for 5 years and we have our own shorthand - and he has heard all of the stories ad nauseum - it bothers him less.
 
She starts reminiscing, you interrupt with: "Oh, yeah, I know this one, you tell it every time! Yep, he did this and you said that, and it all sounds like a lot of fun. Now, how about we all make NEW memories together instead of revisiting the past AGAIN? Seize the day!"
 
Last edited:
Back
Top