Theory, Practice

You can remain dissatisfied, seeing yourself as a martyr in your marriage, and viewing polyamory as a "snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls," if that is what you think is necessary to get through your misery. But many of us have found joy and challenges that have given us a way to fully express who we are through loving more than one.

Sheesh, couldn't you see I was only trying to offer a different perspective on things, as a way to be helpful? But since all your responses to me are nasty, smart-ass, nay-saying put-downs, I'm done. Go pick on someone else. Good luck.


Wow ... this got my attention . Had to go back and read all previous stuff.

A little let down ...I dont see the nasty smart-ass stuff but then again I'm a smart ass so I might be afraid to look into the mirror:D but on the other hand it takes one to know one ...

I think in post #28 the comment " polyamory as a snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls" ... goes with out saying thats it's been his experience and is his opinion ....and I particularly liked the humor at the end of ...thought you should know. :D albeit dark

Also there more than a few horror stories to back up what he's saying. And there are the success stories that make those blanket statements equally problematic.

Marriages, children, careers all have responsibilities tied to them, all have differently weighted meaning and all complicate our lives in different ways ...so at some point simple is a dream.

It looks like he's doing worst damage assessment. shit or shittier...shittiest. Not good vs bad.

I don't want the cheese anymore I just want to get out of the trap.

I was going to post on Anotherconfusted thread about her mono husband feeling resentful or bad being stuck with the kids during her weekend get always. His position was he was facilitating her rendezvous with her lover.
I think my kids were a bit older so that wasn't as big an issue BUT...I did always feel that my life and choices made her life and choices possible.

If your not out to your friends and family I would make some sort of contingency for accidents or illnesses they do happen ....It happened to me.

Whats your utopian dream ? Is it at all possible .... is slugging out for a couple more yrs part of that? I agree with cindie on selecting martyrdom as a strategy for a happy marriage....I don't see that working ...the frost and ice should get much thicker. Trust me life's too short to do it to yourself.


Good luck D
 
I hear what HS is saying.

With due respect NYCindie, poly in a world with a live in partner and children is so very different to practicing poly as a indie solo.

So different that I would suspect there's different ball parks involved.
 
And in addition. Love does have limits.

When the cost of giving love comes at a cost that is too high to bear. Love can fail.
Love does have limits and every person should be mindful of their own limits.

The idea that love is limitless is ridiculous. No resource is. In my opinion.
 
Don't assume anything about me. It is simple: we have choices to make, and we choose. We can choose or not to accept others' terms, we can choose or not to look inward and question our reactions to things, we can choose or not to continue in relationships where we are unhappy.

I was going to say something about choices, but that about sums it up.

I have chosen not to have children. The very reason being that I don't want to make that commitment, give up that time. Now you can sit there and call me selfish for that, and you know what? I would fully agree. I'm selfish. I'd prefer to be selfish and childless, than another one of those selfish, neglectful breeders.

I have chosen to limit the amount of time I spend at school, even though I'm a grad student and there's an unspoken expectation that I will spend every waking moment in the lab. I choose to balance my work-life scale on the side of "life" and if that means my degree takes a little longer, then so be it.

You, HS, have chosen to be married with children while having a career that is clearly very time consuming. It is those choices that limit your availability for polyamory. That is not a fault of polyamory itself, but a result of your own life choices.

I have a girlfriend who would love it if we spent more time together. But I have a personal need for "me time." I'm no martyr. I come first in my life. Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so, and the people who love me don't think so.

With due respect NYCindie, poly in a world with a live in partner and children is so very different to practicing poly as a indie solo.

Absolutely it is. We all live with the consequences of our choices.

It's not love that's limited, it's time.

We both had a hand in creating our current situation, we have both done damage to one another along the way, as any two people inevitably will.

That's probably the saddest thing I've heard in a long time. I don't see it at all inevitable that two people will damage one another over time. If that's the case, then you're doing it wrong. A partner should enhance your life, help you grow, help give you the strength to reverse the damage done from the rest of the world.

That's all part of the bind I'm in, the constraints that drain away my autonomy.

You're allowing yourself to play the victim and deny accountability in your situation. Your own choices are what drains your autonomy. You choose to keep a job in a place that is not healthy for your wife. Sure, you love your job, I get that. But acknowledge that it's your choice of having a job you love that limits your other options. My husband loves his job. When he's feeling sorry for himself, he likes to pretend that he's forced to work away from home to make enough money so that I can be in school. But the truth is that he prefers being able to dive into work and focus on it for 10 days at a time, and then come home and forget about it.

You can't stop your wife from going to Europe, but you choose to agree to care for the kids when she goes. You could just as easily tell her she needs to take them with her if she wants to go. Sounds like Doc would have no trouble sponsoring a private tutor to keep them up with their studies for a couple weeks, and the experience of another culture would be invaluable.

So don't pretend like you're forced into your situation. Accept responsibility for your choices, and quit trying to make us feel guilty for being successful with ours.
 
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Sheesh, couldn't you see I was only trying to offer a different perspective on things, as a way to be helpful? But since all your responses to me are nasty, smart-ass, nay-saying put-downs, I'm done. Go pick on someone else. Good luck.

I'm sorry, Indie. Really.

I saw your contributions in a different light, not as helpful but as snarky and condescending, but I'm entirely willing to suppose that was just me, on the defensive.

I really should stop posting to forums. They are terrible ways to try to communicate with people!

ADDENDUM: I should also listen to that still, small voice that, from time to time, tells me not to click "submit".
 
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Still Here

Against my better judgment, I'm still lurking on this forum, trying to sort things out.

After enduring one of the bleakest Christmas seasons I can remember, things have begun at least to stabilize between my wife and me. She's gone off on another jaunt to Europe, since then, and it was . . . less awful than the one before.

Things are still complicated, and I'm still baffled by many aspects of my situation, but I'm less despondent about the whole thing.

My resolve to be de facto monogamous has been wavering, in the last few weeks, which introduces agonies all its own. I don't think I was wrong in my assessment of my situation, the time and resources I have available to me, the risk of failing in my existing commitments if I start trying to make room for a new relationship.

But I long for a new relationship.

A hundred different perspectives on that longing are clamoring in my brain, pulling me this way and that: Give in! Resist! Grow up! Relax! It's okay! Who cares? Do your duty! Do what you want! Don't be pathetic! Don't be creepy! Go for it!

It doesn't help (But it does! No it doesn't!) that my affection for a particular person is growing more intense. This is an attraction with some history to it, someone on whom I had a professionally inappropriate crush a couple of years ago; the professional obstacle is no longer relevant, and I do see her, from time to time, in other contexts. Suffice it to say that the crush, which went dormant for a long time, especially during my relationship with Nyx, has rekindled.

I had a terrible flare-up this weekend, and it delights and worries and torments and frustrates and annoys me no end.

I've been trying to walk a tight-rope where she is concerned, opening up communication with her, trying to create opportunities for us to meet and interact - we had a very nice talk over lunch a few weeks ago - without giving in to my impulse to lay my heart at her feet.

What holds me back is that I keep thinking of it from her point of view. The question from the end of my relationship with Nyx still resonates: What do I really have to offer another person, I mean really?

Here I am, a busy professional with an often-absent wife, two children, and lots of other commitments to a community of which I am a part. There's not a lot left over.

Besides that, I'm about a dozen years older than her, and she was once my student. That puts a troubling edge of creepiness on the whole thing, seen from her point of view.

So, I tell myself not to be ridiculous . . . but I'm still drawn to her, more powerfully than I've been drawn to anyone in a really long time. I tell myself that what I'm really drawn to may just be my own fantasy; I tell myself not to be delusional.

And so it goes.

There's another voice clamoring for attention in my head, telling me that posting this is a waste of time, that I really shouldn't hit "submit reply".

Oh, well. Here goes . . .
 
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Look! There, on the ground! It's . . .

Negative Man!

I've discovered that I have a super-power: I can talk myself out of anything, given enough time.

Since my last post, I've been mulling over my crush and its prospects, weighing what I want and what I imagine - or, perhaps, what I imagine I want and what I want to imagine - against what is possible and what is likely, and against what is responsible and what is good.

The more I think about it, the smaller and cooler the flame seems to become. This morning, it's all but extinguished.

What a relief!

I still have a lot of affection for the person in question, but I can hold it at arm's length, without any particular hope or expectation.

Of course, I'll have to pay attention to my response to her, the next time I see her. She may be the equivalent of kryptonite . . .

In the mean time, I'll enjoy the calm, the detachment, of a mossy stone.
 
Riding the Pendulum

I wrote this as part of a new thread, last night, about a boundary dispute I had with Vix:

She seems firmly committed to polyamory, and I am riding a pendulum that swings between a principled commitment of de facto monogamy and reluctant resignation to de facto monogamy.

The image of the pendulum really captures what I've been experiencing, lately.

Some days, it seems reasonable and responsible for me to remain de facto monogamous. I wouldn't insist on compulsory monogamy for anyone; I think polyamory may be a fine choice for those who have the capacity for it.

For reasons articulated in this blog thread, I don't think I currently have the capacity for it: I have too much to do, and too little to offer to a relationship with someone else.

On especially good days, I can be more or less contented with such a commitment.

On other days, though, I chafe against de facto monogamy, though I seem powerless to do anything to change my circumstances, or to make anything else possible. I may want to be close to other people, but that has always been difficult for me, even under the best of circumstances.

I just don't relate well to others. I am, as Vix pointed out today, too reluctant to put my trust in other people. I can be awkward, get my signals crossed, miss important cues, one way or the other. It's entirely possible I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum, though I've never been diagnosed as such.

On such days, I'm awash in longing and envy and frustration . . . and resignation.

I'm stuck being who I am, where I am, and I may as well get used to it.
 
For reasons articulated in this blog thread, I don't think I currently have the capacity for it: I have too much to do, and too little to offer to a relationship with someone else.

Don't be so sure. For every set of things someone has to offer, no matter how big or small, there are people open to just such an arrangement.

For example, I have a husband, a girlfriend, and a busy academic life. Someone like you would fit right into my life. You wouldn't put unrealistic demands on my time, and I wouldn't feel guilty about leaving you with my kitchen scraps.

Sure, that obviously means we could never have a relationship as deep and intimate as our marriages, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be special in its own right.

The analogy that comes to mind is silly but apt. Suppose you have a peanut and you see a squirrel. Sure, one little peanut won't get that squirrel through the winter. But maybe he's already got lots of acorns to eat, and even though he really likes acorns and they satisfy his hunger, he would enjoy the peanut as a special treat.
 
For example, I have a husband, a girlfriend, and a busy academic life. Someone like you would fit right into my life. You wouldn't put unrealistic demands on my time, and I wouldn't feel guilty about leaving you with my kitchen scraps.

Kitchen scraps. Why, you make it sound so appealing!

Somewhere, earlier on this thread, I wrote of how troubled I was by the fact that all I had to offer Nyx were scraps of my time and attention; I might even have used "table scraps" as the metaphor. It just didn't sit well with me, as though I was just using her as a means to my own ends.

But, now that my marriage is changing so radically, now that my expectations are plummeting, I have to recognize that it may be my fate to subsist on what little affection and connection people can spare from their own private feasts.

To be quite honest, if I can no longer have a private feast of my own, I think I'd rather be alone.

The analogy that comes to mind is silly but apt. Suppose you have a peanut and you see a squirrel. Sure, one little peanut won't get that squirrel through the winter. But maybe he's already got lots of acorns to eat, and even though he really likes acorns and they satisfy his hunger, he would enjoy the peanut as a special treat.

Again, a troubling analogy. "Special treat"? Really? That makes it all seem so superficial, so . . . instrumental.

Even if I were to go with this analogy, there isn't exactly a surfeit of squirrels around, just now. Something about me might make them skittish - being a married man in his 40s with two children might tend to do that! - or maybe the peanut I have has gone rancid, or something.

Meanwhile, Vix has to beat the squirrels back with a stick . . . when she's inclined to.

Life is like that, sometimes.
 
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I puzzled and puzzed till my puzzler was sore . . .

Well, this does seem to be a week for trying to puzzle things out.

Because of an exchange on another thread ("Boundary Dispute"), I've started trying to figure out why it is I've had more and more doubts about my own capacity to be polyamorous, more and more of a sense that I should either settle for or embrace de facto monogamy, whatever Vix may choose to do.

Note that this is an exercise in explanation, not justification; what I offer below are possible causes of my doubts, not reasons why they are to be taken seriously.

In other words, this could just be a matter of diagnosing a pathology from which I suffer.

At the moment, I can identify several possible sources of doubt. They are not mutually exclusive.

1) I'm depressed.

The fact is that I have been struggling with depression and anxiety since August, at the latest. I have better weeks and worse weeks, but the general trend has been downward an inward. I've become withdrawn and detached.

I recently rediscovered the Pink Floyd song, "Comfortably Numb," and latched onto it as my current anthem.

(How sad is that? I mean, really!)

Seen from the bottom of a thirty-foot well, the world does not exactly abound in possibilities for warmth and human connection. From such a perspective, I do not seem to myself worthy of intimacy with anyone, maybe not even myself.

That may be part of it. But, also:

2) I'm busy.

I've said this before, but I have a lot on my plate. I have professional commitments from which I have been too easily distracted in the past; if anything, I should be spending more of my time focused on my work, at least in part so I can open up opportunities to get out of this city that is killing my wife.

(In fact, I should be working right now!)

I have commitments to my children. I have a number of active commitments to a community of which Vix and I are part.

There isn't much left, after all of that. If I give time and attention to a new relationship, one or another of those plates might drop.

3) I'm flawed.

I also suggested in a previous post that I may be constitutionally incapable of getting really close to another person. I may have managed an approximation of simulacrum of intimacy with Vix, but only after 20 years of struggle, and then not without inflicting some damage on her. I don't open up easily, I don't trust easily, I'm too easily distracted, and I tend to withdraw into myself too quickly. (See no. 1, above.)

The roots of my impairment may be psychological, or neurological, or both. Or maybe it's just a set of bad habits I've cultivated, if you want to get all Aristotelian about it.

(And who doesn't want to get all Aristotelian?)

4) I'm a victim of circumstance.

The unhappy truth is that the women I might want to get close to have no reason to want to be close to me. As a 40-something married guy with two kids and a lot of strange quirks, I'm not exactly a prize. In fact, my interest in them would probably come across as creepy.

To go with the squirrel-feeding metaphor, I've gotten to the park too late, and the squirrels are all too busy elsewhere to notice the stale cracker I have to offer them.

5) I hold myself to be bound by ethical principles.

This one is slightly more serious, for me, and I've been giving it more and more thought.

I am committed always to respecting other people, treating them as ends in themselves, never merely as means to my own ends, if you want to get all Kantian about it.

(And who doesn't want to get all Kantian?)

Given my circumstances and all my other commitments, it's hard to see how I could give another partner her due. It would be too easy to slip into taking her for granted, using her as a means toward some end of my own . . . and too easy to be used as a means to someone else's ends (a "special treat", for example).

I worry a lot about equity, about fairness, about respect, and it's hard to see how I could have another relationship in a way that would honor all those values, given all the other constraints under which I'm working.

6) I'm uptight.

I can already hear the protests from some on this forum, words I've read before in response to other things I've written: I should get over myself, relax, open up, not be such a prude or a prig or a prick or anything else starting with pr-.

I'm not sure I can get over myself, and I'm not altogether sure I should.

So, six possible causes. Any combination of them might explain my growing doubts, or there might be something else altogether at work here. Maybe I'm just being contrary?

And where does all this leave me?

Well, at the moment, it leaves me with a stack of essays that still need to be graded . . .
 
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2) I'm busy.

I've said this before, but I have a lot on my plate. I have professional commitments from which I have been too easily distracted in the past; if anything, I should be spending more of my time focused on my work, at least in part so I can open up opportunities to get out of this city that is killing my wife.

(In fact, I should be working right now!)

With all due respect, why is it entirely up to YOU to manage family and home and career in order to rescue your wife from this city...largely on your own from the sounds of it, while she's busy building a relationship with another man and traveling around Europe? If it's so vitally important to her to get out of a city that is killing her, maybe her priority right now should be on helping make that happen?

You know, this is the kind of thing people are objecting to in the other thread. Maybe you're depressed because you're carrying too much of the weight in what should be a partnership. Although I do not consider myself poly per se, one of the things I like and respect that I've seen at this board, is the repeated statement that poly does not mean just jumping from one partner to the next, but being able to maintain your commitments to your partners. I don't see her meeting her responsibilities and obligations to you or your children.
 
You know, this is the kind of thing people are objecting to in the other thread. Maybe you're depressed because you're carrying too much of the weight in what should be a partnership. Although I do not consider myself poly per se, one of the things I like and respect that I've seen at this board, is the repeated statement that poly does not mean just jumping from one partner to the next, but being able to maintain your commitments to your partners. I don't see her meeting her responsibilities and obligations to you or your children.

Perhaps that's because I've been the one telling the story, and I've been self-absorbed, sunk in my own misery.

The history of our relationship, and the history of my career, is more than I can really relate in these posts.

I do need to be better at managing my own time. That's on me. Since the post to which you were responding is about causal explanation, the focus should be on facts rather than on blame. Let me own this one fact: I actually suck at time management.

That one's on me.

No blame to anyone else.

It does suggest a basis for doubts about my own capacity to be poly, though.
 
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Yeah, I suck at time management, too. After all--here I am on the internet instead of doing MY work. ;)

But I can still tell the difference between my poor time management skills where, despite them, I am on the go 14 hours a day, at least TRYING to get it all done, and my XH who sat in front of the TV for 5 hours a day while I was doing dishes, dinner, cleaning, fixing, kids' homework, etc.

That your time management skills are not the best doesn't change the fact that a marriage should be a partnership, not one parent routinely playing single parent while the other skites around Europe footloose and fancy free.

Regardless...good luck with the path you're choosing.
 
Gratitude

I posted this on my other current thread ("Boundary Dispute"), but I think it also belongs here:

I'm sorry for posting so many things that have been whiny and annoying, and for occasionally responding with snark.

I am grateful for this forum, and for all the replies to my various posts - those replies that have been patient and understanding as well as those that have been, um, less than patient - for helping me, sometimes in spite of myself, to achieve a small measure of clarity.

I don't know, at this point, what my own choices will be regarding polyamory, but I think I do have some basis for a more constructive approach to my wife's current engagement with poly.​
 
I just read through this entire thread

1) I'm depressed.

No shit, really? Never would have guessed. :p

What are you doing about it? Are you seeking professional help? If not, you need to right now!

FACTS OF LIFE:
Raising kids is one huge time sucker! As responsible parents, sometimes our wants and needs are put aside to do what is in the best interest of the kids. As they get older, you gain a bit more freedom. Suddenly, they don't mind having the house to themselves for an entire Saturday, they go away to summer camp for a week, etc. They won't be with us forever, sooner than you think, all of a sudden they are 18 and off to college, the military or elsewhere.

Marriage takes work and needs to be a partnership or it becomes just another source of stress. Okay, your wife may have sacrificed a lot earlier in your marriage and now you feel like you "owe" her. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. The back and forth of shifting responsibilities and overwhelming/overstressing one person as "payback" or whatever is not healthy and won't work (even if it's you that feels she deserves it).

I spent years being resentful of organizations and my husband's involvement because it left me to pick up the pieces of our family. While I would have loved to have a little "payback", I felt guilty every time he allowed me to extended time to do my own thing. Through some counceling, I was finally able to get it through his thick head, that we were NOT acting as partners and should be. When we started acting as partner with regard to everything, my stress levels diminished and all of a sudden I had time to spend time making new friends (all my friends at the time were actually his friends and shared no interests with me).

I don't care if you spent the first 16 years of your marriage being a selfish bastard, you are not that person now. However, you still need time for yourself on a regular basis. Hang with friends, play golf, go listen to a band at the local bar, etc. If you wife's travels and other activities are preventing that, maybe you guys need to sit down and find a better balance. A balance for RIGHT NOW, not who owes who what. If she needs to move for health reasons, actively pursue that and involve her. That doesn't mean the only place to look, is where her bf lives.

After watching my brother go through an amicable divorce only to have things turn ugly with custody after she got remarried, I would STRONGLY advice not allowing your kids to move away from you and especially out of the country much less the state.
 
I don't know. I'm starting to lean toward the "too uptight" hypothesis.

I need to loosen up, let some of this stuff roll off me.

For all I know, Vix and I will work everything out by the weekend and I'll have a girlfriend by the end of the month. Or not. Either way, I'll work out a way to be okay.

Can I hear an "Amen!"?
 
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