Help, my partner doesn't think she's Poly after all.

CorneliusGL

New member
I really don't even know how to begin with this. Basically, my partner of the past 2 years has expressed to me that she doesn't, in fact, have any desire to share me, or our emotional connections with anyone else.

To give a bit of back story on the situation it's kind of complicated. I entered into the relationship with my Fiancee over 2 years ago with the knowledge that she was Poly. Up until I met her, I had absolutely no knowledge of the concept of Poly. I did, however, agree that I was ok with it. Well, basically once we started dating, our relationship became completely mono. This was due in part to two factors. One being my slight hang up with the whole idea, and two, my partner's general lack of interest in dating outside of our relationship.

Fast forward 2 years, and we have realized that we are complete and total soul mates. Our love is that kind of Big Love that is so rare, you don't even know it exists until you've experienced it yourself. I have no doubt I'll spend the rest of my life completely devoted to her.

It had always bugged me that I was one of the causes of her no longer being Poly, so I started to do research on the subject. I read everything I could possibly get my hands on. In the end, I realized that I completely 100% identify as being Poly.

Feeling really good about all the new found self discovery, I broached the subject with my Fiancee and she agreed to the idea of opening our relationship up to new people. I couldn't have been happier. She also however, realized that she was not open to us finding our own secondary relationships. What she wants(ed) was either another couple to date/play with, or a single partner interested in some form of Triad relationship with both of us.

I agreed to this, and really thought that any issues of jealousy or envy would be coming from me. I was completely wrong. And now I am in an incredibly difficult position that no matter what I do, I'm going to end up being very upset with myself.

We recently met a partner who is a secondary in another relationship. I suppose I should say that *I* found her tho. But to make this horribly long and boring story short, what happened was this.

We had her over one night, and we (all 3 of us) seemed to have a *really* good time. She seemed genuinely interested in both of us. That night there was a LOT of touching/petting/hugging/groping/fondling etc. I thought it felt really good, and everyone had a great time. My fiancee had to work the next day, but later in the day. So we all piled into our bed together and fell asleep.

The next day, our new prospective partner decided to hang out with me until my fiancee got home from work. There was a bit of touching/hugging, but nothing too crazy. I accidentally fell asleep on the couch with her while waiting for my fiancee to arrive home (Big mistake, but I had only gotten about an hours worth of sleep the night before) and this seemed to upset her slightly. It wasn't enough to cause any issues at the time, but now I wish it had. We all hang out together for a while, and more touching/flirting between us all continues. Things seem to be going really really well at this point, so we all decide to go "watch a movie" in the bedroom. Again, in hindsight, I see yet another spot where things could have gone differently.

Once in the bedroom, before anything goes further, I decide to be completely blunt with our new possible partner.

I told her how my fiancee is only comfortable with a partner who is willing to be involved with both of us, how we are both hyper-sexual people, and that sex is something that we enjoy together, and how if we want to pursue this any further, we needed to know where her head was in all of this, and if she was interested in going further.

Her response should have been a bit worrisome I suppose, but we went ahead anyways.

Her response was that;
1) She already spoke with her current partner, and they are ok with her with us.
2) At first, she really was only interested in me, however, after getting to know my fiancee more, she was absolutely interested in the both of us.

So. As can be expected, after the conversation, we all had sex. I thought it all went very well. I don't think my Fiancee did tho however.

She felt that it didn't make much sense that our new partner would be willing to allow PIV, she was not ok with my fiancee to use her fingers. Our new friend explained that it had to do with her rules/fluid bonding with her current partner.

I honestly don't know enough about fluid bonding and all that to know if it was a bunch of bullshit or not, but my fiancee kind of felt so. We still all seemed to have a great time tho, but that was about to end.

After we all took a shower together, they both went out to the computer room to do the typical Facebook checks and whatnot. I decided that I was going to go to the store for something to drink, and also give my fiancee a call so we could talk about what just happened privately.

It seems as tho my fiancee feels that the new partner is really only interested in me, and that she doesn't feel comfortable with pursuing things any further. Furthermore, she determined that she actually has no desire for us to pursue any other type of Poly relationship either.

I'm so confused as to what to do now. I had just wrapped my head around, and really started to like the idea of poly, and now I am completely shell shocked to learn that I'm going to have to do another complete 180. I also have the added problem of how to deal with this new partner.

How do I go about this without feeling like a bigger scumbag than I already do? I know that I could lie, and make reasons it wouldn't work out up, but I refuse to not tell the truth here.

I'm really really sorry for the length of this post, but I'm feeling incredibly panicked and I don't really have any type of support network that I can discuss these sorts of issues with.

Thanks!
 
Welcome, first of all.

As far as you described things, I think that there are some steps need to be done. You need to be open about those issues and tell the new woman what is going on and that you need some time to sort things out. Put things on hold before anything else. This is a really fresh and new connection you have there, don't let it deepen if you aren't on equal footing with your fiancee. This wouldn't be fair and it will only complicate things.

The next thing is, understanding something theoretically and being OK with it and doing something practically and be OK with it are two different things. Talk to your fiancee about her issues. Maybe she hasn't experienced this specific constellation before, maybe her own poly experiences were more limited than you thought, maybe things simply changed and she doesn't feel comfortable to be poly with you, whatever her reasons are, talk about them.

And most importantly: Don't think about adding a partner as long as you two aren't on the same page. This won't do you any good and it could seriously disrupt your relationship. Of course, you don't feel too good about being pushed back and forth in this. Explain it to her, how you are feeling and why you feel reluctant to just call this newly developed relationship off right away and ask her to do some work concerning what she wants and why.

I don't get why you feel like a scumbag. You can't read her mind, she needs to learn to speak up if things don't feel right. Without honest and open communication you are both in for a ride that won't be pleasant. Lastly, search for some stories about triads and unicorns. The problem you discovered is a common one, where feelings don't develop equally and one of the three is feeling left out. It is a really utopian perception that equal loving or equal relationship development will take place in such a situation. That's not how humans function. Maybe your expectations are a bit off in regard to what is likely to happen if you start exploring this kind of relationship.

Wishing you some peace of mind and some good, clarifying discussions. Good luck.
 
Le Ugh.

Wow, sounds like you've been on a real rollercoaster over the past little while. It also sounds like you feel as though you've had a taste of something wonderful. That's a tricky place to be.

This "Big Love" is something that I share with my husband - it's the kind of thing you see in movies and read about in books, and when it happens to you it's like you've been let in on life's best secret. High fives for finding that!!!

I hear you not wanting to put that big love in jeopardy, but also that you've enjoyed your new connection and don't want to hurt this new young woman. The biggest and only real piece of advice that I'm going to put forward is - take the urgency out of the equation and be honest with all parties. You don't need to figure it out all at once, but it is important that you relay that you need time/space to work on your primary relationship to your new partner. "This has opened up a lot of questions and concerns in our relationship, and it's important to me that I respect my partner and you by taking some space" or whatevs.... honest, respectful, and giving you the necessary time and space to communicate and work out what you need both on your own and in your primary partnership.

Rushing has been one of my biggest personal pitfalls - when I don't rush, I make clear decisions that are best for me - when I rush and act from an emotional place it almost never goes well.....

Best of luck - keep posting and communicating!!!
 
Deciding as a couple to be a "package deal" (new partners gotta be with both of us or neither of us) so rarely goes well. Like, really, it's just the most counter productive way to try to avoid jealousy.

As for the fluid bonding thing, I assume you had a condom on but your partner didn't have a glove on. So if their rule was "no penetration without a latex barrier" it makes perfect sense that fingering would have been off the menu.

Apologize sincerely and tell the new girl you've gotta take a break, possibly a permanent one, while you two work things out. Then settle in to try to do just that with your partner. Frankly her behavior comes off as pretty selfish/self-interested, but I imagine it's probably a matter of lack if experience and her truly not knowing what would work and what wouldn't and how she'd feel. There are some great resources on www.morethantwo.com. All you can do is talk, give her time the way she gave you time, and see where things go. If you two do decide to re-open up at some point, you can try not to make the same mistakes.
 
Please do a tag search for "unicorns" here. There is lots written on it and it could be helpfui. Also, take a deep breath and slow down. Spending 24 hours on a first date is a bit much I think. Slow it all down. Small dates leading up to a sexual one means there is time between to gain perspective and have time to communicate alone with partners. It sounds to me like this all went too fast.
 
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