PrettyDeadly7
New member
Hi all!
So, here's my story - I've been with my husband (R) for almost twelve years now, and a little over a year and a half ago, he brought up the idea of poly/having an open relationship. After doing some reading on my own, and having a lot of conversations about what this would mean for us, I agreed.
He started relationship with another woman, which was long-distance, at first. He would see her about once a month or so, and it was a little weird for me to begin with, but ultimately ended up being fine. After a while, she ended up moving to our area, and then things got a bit weird. It turned out our personalities did not mesh well, and while ideally I would have preferred to be fairly friendly with whoever he is dating, we didn't really get on. It made some social situations kind of awkward - he wanted to be able to hang out with our friends, and me, and her, at the same time. I tried to tolerate this as best I could. I didn't have any problem with him going to spend time with her, alone. I would just prefer not to be there for it. I also objected to having her over to hang out at our place.
Their relationship ended recently, though they are apparently still fairly friendly. My husband says part of the reason behind it is that he felt guilty for spending time with her, because of my discomfort around her, but also felt guilty not spending time with her. I'm trying really hard to not take this as "it's my fault".
In the meantime, there's a friend of ours that I'm interested in (J), who it turned out was interested in me as well. Yay! But then, it turned out that his partner, (S) who is also a good friend of mine, didn't want him to date me. He and I talk a lot, pretty much every day, and see each other often in social occasions, but are very rarely allowed to make plans to spend time together alone, and only under very specific circumstances. The rules seem to be different for other people that J is involved with, but in my case, I guess S is afraid that if things end up going badly between him and I, it will ruin friendships between all of us. It's been pretty frustrating for all of us...
Anyway, that's kind of where I am. Open relationships/poly are somewhat common in my social circle, but I'm mostly looking for people who talk to, who don't know/are not involved in any of these situations, to get some feedback and advice on how to handle all of this stuff. Real life always seems to end up being more complicated than the situations I've read about...
So, here's my story - I've been with my husband (R) for almost twelve years now, and a little over a year and a half ago, he brought up the idea of poly/having an open relationship. After doing some reading on my own, and having a lot of conversations about what this would mean for us, I agreed.
He started relationship with another woman, which was long-distance, at first. He would see her about once a month or so, and it was a little weird for me to begin with, but ultimately ended up being fine. After a while, she ended up moving to our area, and then things got a bit weird. It turned out our personalities did not mesh well, and while ideally I would have preferred to be fairly friendly with whoever he is dating, we didn't really get on. It made some social situations kind of awkward - he wanted to be able to hang out with our friends, and me, and her, at the same time. I tried to tolerate this as best I could. I didn't have any problem with him going to spend time with her, alone. I would just prefer not to be there for it. I also objected to having her over to hang out at our place.
Their relationship ended recently, though they are apparently still fairly friendly. My husband says part of the reason behind it is that he felt guilty for spending time with her, because of my discomfort around her, but also felt guilty not spending time with her. I'm trying really hard to not take this as "it's my fault".
In the meantime, there's a friend of ours that I'm interested in (J), who it turned out was interested in me as well. Yay! But then, it turned out that his partner, (S) who is also a good friend of mine, didn't want him to date me. He and I talk a lot, pretty much every day, and see each other often in social occasions, but are very rarely allowed to make plans to spend time together alone, and only under very specific circumstances. The rules seem to be different for other people that J is involved with, but in my case, I guess S is afraid that if things end up going badly between him and I, it will ruin friendships between all of us. It's been pretty frustrating for all of us...
Anyway, that's kind of where I am. Open relationships/poly are somewhat common in my social circle, but I'm mostly looking for people who talk to, who don't know/are not involved in any of these situations, to get some feedback and advice on how to handle all of this stuff. Real life always seems to end up being more complicated than the situations I've read about...