mono spouse feelings...

bailey

New member
Hi All...

newby here...I posted in the Intro forum.

my hubby has a girlfriend of two months... I want to be ok with this whole idea of the Poly relationship.

we have been together 2 decades...

there are days I am totally ok with it... other days... i dont want to share him with anyone else and jealous of him spending the time with his girlfriend.

he does make sure to fill my cup so to say and spend quality time with me before going to his girlfriend or chatting with her via computer, messaging etc.

I know hes in the "dating" stage and needing lots of time to get to know his new girlfriend. how much is too much?

we are still working it out. what the balance that I feel comfortable with etc.

would like to hear some tips and advice. I dont want hubby to get burnt out so to say and still have energy to concentrate on work, family, us and his girlfriend.

how do others poly balance all this?
how do other mono spouse cope with the roller coaster feelings? its perhaps still new for me and gets better with time?

Thanks in advance.
 
Try to be patient with yourself.

You've had 20 years to get used to being a monogamous married couple with your husband. You've had 2 months to figure out how to be with your husband with another partner in the picture.
That's less than 1% of your relationship with your husband, to adjust to a completely different relationship paradigm from not only your marriage, but everything society and media has spent your entire life programming into you.
Even less considering a chunk of those 2 months you didn't even have a name for it.

I don't think this kind of flip flop thinking is uncommon. I know I went through a similar process in trying to reconcile the idea of my wife being with other men, and that process did literally take months for me.

Most people are their own worst critics...so be gentle with yourself and allow yourself the time to readjust, and assume that there will be mistakes and challenges along the way...both for you, and for your husband, and for his gf. Try to be forgiving of all three.
 
Well I'm new to this myself but I will add my feelings.

I am also a mono spouse with my wife being the one who is dating. I have found that by talking with really open honest dialogue my fears have diminished.

I really love my wife and she feels the same about me. I want her to be happy and fulfilled. Throughout our marriage I went with the mainstream thought process that you can only have one love. I have since to realize that you can have more than one love and I actually think it's advantageous to open up.

I feel very confident that we will remain together and by her having the freedom to pursue other guys with my approval she will be fulfilled.

My wife had her first date since we opened up a couple of days ago and I was nervous and a little jealous that she wasn't with me. The more I thought about it the better I feel in that I have allowed her to explore what she really needs.

I think my feeling of the security in what we have together is what has helped me.

I hope this helps...
 
Sometimes you won't realize something is an issue until it becomes one. Just being aware of that fact can help you deal with it. Once you become aware of an issue, don't be afraid to address it. Hiding it can have worse consequences.
 
Roller coaster seems pretty common. What I thought I should mention is that your husband may be on a roller coaster too. You didn't really say whether poly is a side of himself he's recognized all along, but he may be grappling with changing a lot of expectations and self image too. just keep talking about what both of your are feeling. As was said, it's better than hiding things, which puts up walls; the talking can help you know each other in ways you didn't expect.

And for sure, it just takes time.
 
Sometimes you won't realize something is an issue until it becomes one. Just being aware of that fact can help you deal with it. Once you become aware of an issue, don't be afraid to address it. Hiding it can have worse consequences.

Thanks for that. I am stuffing and hiding my feelings and I think it is killing me slowly.
 
my guy feels the same way

My guy feels the same way...

Well I'm new to this myself but I will add my feelings.

I am also a mono spouse with my wife being the one who is dating. I have found that by talking with really open honest dialogue my fears have diminished.

I really love my wife and she feels the same about me. I want her to be happy and fulfilled. Throughout our marriage I went with the mainstream thought process that you can only have one love. I have since to realize that you can have more than one love and I actually think it's advantageous to open up.

I feel very confident that we will remain together and by her having the freedom to pursue other guys with my approval she will be fulfilled.

My wife had her first date since we opened up a couple of days ago and I was nervous and a little jealous that she wasn't with me. The more I thought about it the better I feel in that I have allowed her to explore what she really needs.

I think my feeling of the security in what we have together is what has helped me.

I hope this helps...
 
There are quite a few tags if you do a search for "time management." You might try "lessons," "boundaries" and "foundations" too to see how others have figured time management and boundaries out.

It all takes time, patience and a whole lot of communication. Just because he is in a "dating" phase doesn't mean you have to suffer and not spend as much time as you need. Going at your pace and easing in will mean that you are both going into this with your eyes wide open and ready for anything that comes up because you will have been on whatever came up before right away. It kind of feels like a clean slate every time something has been dealt with. If it doesn't then it likely isn't finished being dealt with.

Going into things quickly means that things are missed, feelings and concerns don't rise up slowly so that they can be dealt with. Its a fine art and a practice for sure. Good Luck. :)
 
Hi All...

newby here...I posted in the Intro forum.

Welcome :)

my hubby has a girlfriend of two months... I want to be ok with this whole idea of the Poly relationship.

I'm hallucinating an unspoken 'but' right there. You want to be okay, but you're not quite...yet... ?


there are days I am totally ok with it... other days... i dont want to share him with anyone else and jealous of him spending the time with his girlfriend.

I'm frequently jealous of people my men hang out with (and I'm the one that's in relationship with two of them).

I imagine it's very challenging to be at home, looking at all your familiarities and thinking of him ~ while you're knowing he's out doing something with someone else.

he does make sure to fill my cup so to say and spend quality time with me before going to his girlfriend or chatting with her via computer, messaging etc.

That's awesome.

I know hes in the "dating" stage and needing lots of time to get to know his new girlfriend. how much is too much?

(this is what made me want to reply)

Too much is however much makes you nuts. This is the place where you need lots of communication and working it out.

would like to hear some tips and advice. I dont want hubby to get burnt out so to say and still have energy to concentrate on work, family, us and his girlfriend.

how do others poly balance all this?
how do other mono spouse cope with the roller coaster feelings? its perhaps still new for me and gets better with time?

I'm not the mono one, but I think I'm more nutted about doing this poly thing than my men are. [we've all known each other for over 8 years, and we've just recently become a vee. they're deeply good friends]

One thing that has helped me always (cuz I've dealt with LOTS of rollercoasters before poly) is to remember and try to cultivate things that make me happy ~ apart from relationship. Friends are good, and sometimes it's really excellent to be with friends without going over all the troubles. Like someone to come over while he's out on a date and watch a movie or a bunch of folks for game night. Sometimes forgetting the sturm und drang of the work of relationship, and just having a bit of living is really strengthening and renewing for me.

Also, remember to breathe. A lot.

wishing you the best
 
Thanks everyone for your replies...

RedPepper... I did try to do a search on time management but only the word "time" was searched. How do I search it together?

I went on the newby section to read some old posts the other day as well.

Thanks again everyone its all very new and we see it as a new journey.

NovemberRain... yup a slight "but" you detect is surely right. as hubby stumbled onto he "new love" without realizing that he could possibly love two women at the same time. hes still trying to figure it all out too and how to balance it and if its really possible that he can love two women at same time. I been researching and finding out more about it for his sake and for mine as there was nothing wrong with our relationship and yet he loves another woman. Then we came across open marriage and then Polyamory that makes sense what we are now experiencing. Trying to see how we can make it all work. (I still had to overcome the grieving of finding out that he loves another woman as well this past month so its been a busy emotional time for us).

The main thing our communication is open and even more so. We are both talking lots about our feelings. I am also letting him know of my feelings too and how we can move forward and if I can embrace him having this other woman in his life etc.

I love him so much and I have always this quote my whole life "If you love someone set them free". I always give my hubby lots of rein to go and do his passion and not hold him back.

Thanks again everyone for your advice and tips. Its a new journey for us and am open for tips and suggestion on our new adventure.
 
Thanks for that. I am stuffing and hiding my feelings and I think it is killing me slowly.


Whether it's monogamy or polyamory, this shouldn't be acceptable in any relationship. You need to be honest about your feelings, and true to yourself. Never let somebody slowly contribute to your demise by deciding you need their freedom of adventure to be more important than your mental health.

I'd probably start early by setting a schedule, x nights date night for you, x nights you're ok with your partner being out of the house or on dates, without too much stress. Expand your giving in this department as you feel comfortable with it, don't feel like you can't say no if you want to say no. I don't think I'd ever be OK with more than 2 nights a week with my spouse being at another partners overnight, and if it was something he really wanted we would discuss it, but I wouldn't automatically feel obliged to offer that without a lot of discussion and deciding where my comfort level was.

To avoid too much roller coaster early on, it really just requires for us, a lot of discussion, awareness, and honesty. I admit in this, I've never been confronted with us, or any partner of mine or my spouses having too severe of NRE so if your husband is going to be dealing with that, my advice will certainly be less useful if he doesn't see how his actions are affecting you.
 
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Go to the search engine on the tool bar above and press "tag." A tag cloud should come up with "time management" being one of the tags, or type in "time management" into the tag search engine beneath the tag cloud.
 
wrote long post and then board signed me out...it didnt post... darn..testing to see if this works before i post again...
 
Hello all...

its been a month since I last posted...

we have come a long way since... its really interesting how natural Polyamory feels for us. Yet there are times when its stressful and emotional and still figuring things out.

I been mainly lurking and reading your blogs and posts which I really enjoy! Thanks for sharing and helping many of newbies that stumbled across this new term and new relationship identification, new journey in our life.

I have many questions....

1) How do you manage long distance relationships?

2) How do you manage family time vs time with multiple partners?

3) Time alone (esp for those in Poly relationship) and yet to still be there for the Mono Partners.

4) Dating as couples or as group dates? plan for future lots of group dates. I asked girlfriend if she wouldnt rather be going on couple dates with hubby. she rather as group. perhaps she still needs time to adjust? I am fine both as group and as couple. hubby rather as group then he doesnt get worn out having to go on many dates. and doesnt have to reach in pocket book too deep hee.

...

(I wrote a longer post but will have to write more later). running out of time... perhaps it will post later.
 
If you do a search, you will find other threads that have useful information on these questions. There are tags for "time management," "LDR," "long distance," "groups," "money," "dating dynamics," and "married dating," for example, as a start.
 
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Has your husband done any research of his owe on this site or others?

The topics you listed seem like those to educate the poly partner.

I suggest figuring out what you want in each category (every category) and start negotiating from there ..NOT....from whats offered to you ...here learn how to deal.


Adding partners or activities to ones life usually causes time management issues. Time is finite and it gets cut from somewhere...sometime one activity replaces another or sometimes everything or everyone takes a hit across the board.
 
Yes, sounds like you and your husband could benefit from getting a couple of the books recommended in the "Books and Websites" sticky post at the top of this forum.

Those will answer most of your questions and give you what you need to be discussing much more quickly and completely. There will still be lots of things to figure out after that, but at least then you have a better foundation.
 
I'm in a poly relationship with my wife of 16 years. I'm basically mono, free to date but not terribly interested, whereas she has a steady girlfriend (a very nice lady with experience in alternative relationships and poly in particular). They've been together about six months. Before that, our relationship was open with my wife having several casual partners.

My wife visits with g-f a couple of times a week for a couple of hours. G-f comes over and has dinner with us and our kids a couple of evenings as well. The kids love her, and she's very nice, well-adjusted, supportive of our marriage and my predicament.

The problem is, though I understand all the positive benefits to the family and get that my wife loves me, I continue to experience powerful depressive crashes based on fear of the marriage ending or me not being the primary. In bringing my deeply buried insecurities to the forefront, it's also highlighted numerous ways in which I become communication-challenged when under emotional stress. I feel as though virtually every time I open my mouth, I cause more of a train-wreck. I'm not abusive, but I'm depressed, hesitant to ask for what I really want, and not good at picking the right time to talk. My concern now is that I'm going to wreck things completely before I get a handle on this.

I also feel the time management element. It's not that four hours a week is a ton of time, but I would love to have two two-hour blocs of time with my wife every week where there are no distractions and we're completely focused on each other.
 
I would love to have two two-hour blocs of time with my wife every week where there are no distractions and we're completely focused on each other.

Tell her this!

Speak up for what YOU need to avoid the emotional crashes. I used to complain constantly that my husband was never home, he was too busy, I never saw him, etc. All he heard was Blah, Blah, Blah. His solution was to be "home" more but totally engrossed in the computer or on the phone, which left me feeling even more alone. I finally just said "I need quality time with you or I start to feel disconnected. Schedule some time for just us, even if it's just a drive down to the beach at 9pm". It was like a light bulb finally went off and he got it.

Check out information on "non-violent communication"
 
I'm in a poly relationship with my wife of 16 years. I'm basically mono, free to date but not terribly interested, whereas she has a steady girlfriend...

I also feel the time management element. It's not that four hours a week is a ton of time, but I would love to have two two-hour blocs of time with my wife every week where there are no distractions and we're completely focused on each other.

Well, I hope that your wife is also dating you as well as her gf! It seems that that is what married couples often forget to do when one or both of them has additional partners - date each other.

It doesn't matter if a relationship is poly or mono, if all the time spent together for a married couple is about housework, bills, and family stuff without regular, romantic, sexy times, the relationship will eventually feel stale and lackluster. We've seen that this gets magnified when a marriage (or any relationship where people cohabit) is opened up, because the new gf or bf doesn't have all those shared responsibilities that a partner or spouse has, so they get all the fun and the spouse gets all the chores. Quality time with your partner is very important. Make sure you negotiate for the time you need with your wife, schedule regular date nights every week, and romance her!
 
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