Wife just got a new boyfriend! I already have a girlfriend - scheduling is hard!

zappafreak

New member
Hello all - I haven't posted on here in quite a while, so I thought I would re-introduce myself and my situation.

I have been married for almost 11 years, together for 15. I decided a few years ago to have an outside relationship. There have been ups and downs in regards to my wife's acceptance of this, and definitely some rocky times with ultimatums thrown in there - but happily that is behind us now. After A LOT of good (and sometimes bad) communication, we reached a level of trust and acceptance that is very very good.

Furthermore, my wife decided recently to pursue an outside relationship of her own. She tried to start something with an old friend, but that didn't work for her as he was very secretive and it wasn't right and comfortable for her. However, recently (2 weeks ago) she started dating a guy and they have fallen quite into place for each other - and she is very happy.

Now - obviously this has affected things somewhat within the dynamics of the various relationships in ways that are completely new to us. We had a set of "rules", or expectations in place for before, but everything is new and different now with another relationship added in.

The biggest thing that we are trying to work out now is scheduling. Here's another factor - my girlfriend is married, with children, and so am I. We have a limited amount of time to spend together. My wife's new boyfriend was previously single, with no children. As you can imagine, he wants to spend as much time with her as she will allow - and she wants to spend quite a lot of time with him as well - in fact more than we had previously agreed for me to spend time with my GF. And we have an 8 year old daughter.

My main concern is family time. I want to make sure that my daughter is getting enough time with both parents. Over the last few weeks they have spent a lot of time together, and I feel like my daughter isn't getting enough.

I don't personally want to put restrictions on her relationship, but I do want to make sure that we as a family are getting enough time. I don't want my daughter to end up with a single parent scenario every other day. I'm not quite sure what the solution is for this.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks!
 
Well, let's see... you have three dyads and there are seven days in a week. You and your gf could see each other twice a week, your wife and her bf could see each other twice a week, and you and wife would have at least three full days together. Make sure at least one of those is to date each other and not just be focused on household and parenting. One of the days you each see your other partners could overlap, too, which would give you more time to be together with family and less time the kid is with a babysitter. Google Calendar is your friend.

There! That wasn't hard. :p
 
Hi zappafreak,

Glad to hear your wife is accepting of the poly situation. I'd have a sit-down with her and say something along the lines of:

"My main concern is family time. I want to make sure that our daughter is getting enough time with both parents. Over the last few weeks you've spent a lot of time with your boyfriend, and I feel like our daughter isn't getting enough.

I don't personally want to put restrictions on your relationship, but I do want to make sure that we as a family are getting enough time. I don't want our daughter to end up with a single parent scenario every other day. I'm not quite sure what the solution is for this."

Get some feedback from your wife about how you feel, keeping in mind that she is probably experiencing some NRE (New Relationship Energy). Whatever solution you come up with must be fair to everyone.

Good luck; hope we can help.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Yes, she is heavily into the NRE. We did have a good talk today, and she asked for me to let her create her own boundaries - but we will work on getting a schedule together as well, to make sure our daughter gets the time she needs. One thing she sugggested was to have a babysitter once a week so we could both go out, and that way we would have an extra day that we would both be with our daughter. I like that thought...so we are working on ideas.

I'm very hopeful that we will work this out well. There is a lot of respect and love from all parties here.
 
Sounds pretty good to me.
 
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