Paranoia?

AneA

New member
Thought I would see what opinions I get here, so here goes.

I've been poly for few years now and in love with several people, and about a year ago I fell in love with another.
Now this new love of mine (who we can call B) has been in a relationship with his/her partner for over 4 years and there is great love between them. About two years ago they opened their relationship and it's been open to this day.
They have both been having various little affairs with others and it seems like it worked well for them. Until I came along.

Since the first day I met Bee (and it was obvious something would become of us) B's partner has felt threathened by me and occasionally jealous. Now the problem here is that it took this partner about 6 months to tell B about this,
and in this time we had become very close in every way. We both love each other greatly and only wish we could explore our relationship freely and enjoy life and love. But neither of us is unreasonable or selfish and try to keep everyone happy, perhaps we are both too unselfish (one of my other loved ones said that to me).

So first this partner of B asked that we would not be physical for the time being. Ok, fine, we both agreed that we can put that part of our relationship on hold if it helps her to get her head in order and cope with this.
So three/four months pass and things progressed further into the wrong direction when B's partner now becomes incredibly anxious when me and B spend time together as she believes that we are having sex despite both of us trying to convince her that we would never break her trust. So, she wanted to limit the time we can spend together to just few hours per
meeting.
Ok, I didn't like this at all and neither did B, but we agreed to this also. Hey, if it helps and as long as there is light at the end of the tunnel.

But there seems to be no light as three more months passed since all that and things just do not progress anywhere.
As I said B and I have been greatly in love for about a year now and we are very close despite all these restrictions.
B truly loves her partner and spends a lot of time with her and talks about everything with her but it just doesn't seem to help, she has problems believing anything that B or I tell her and this is sucking all the energy out of B. Now I like her also (as a friend) and try to spend time with her (the three of us try to do things together at times) when I can so she would get to know me better but I'm never quite sure what is on her mind.
We've been talking with B about this situation several times but we're both bit at a loss here.
We do not wish to hurt B's partner, but we both agree that our feelings are too deep so we have no desire to give up either as we see great potential in this relationship. We are very frustrated as nothing seems to help and we both want this to be resolved.

This partner has talked about her feelings and fears to us somewhat. Fear of loss is a big one, fear that B will somehow
stop loving her (this is simply not possible and B tries to convince her all the time). She is also recovering from a rather severe eating disorder and feels
inferior when she compares herself to me, and as we know comparing is very bad but so far nothing has helped this either.

So what can we do about this somewhat paranoid(?) partner B has? Or is this a lost cause that will drive everyone crazy?

I know no one has a clear solution to this, but I gladly welcome all opinions.
 
This is "going at the pace of the one struggling the most" insanity (kidding ;)) there is taking it slow and then going backwards. There is respectfully waiting for someone to be on the same wave length and letting them dictate the pace entirely. It's everyone's right in a relationship dynamic to contribute to the pace and she doesn't seem to be able to allow you to do that. You don't seem to be willing to push the issue in order to get your needs met either.

I think if this were me it would be time to make a date to all sit down and talk about where this is all heading. It might be make or break time. It might be scary, but the reality is that it really can't go on the way its going, can it?

I think she has stuff going on that you don't know about and she might benefit, and therefore you, to have space to be able to talk frankly about her concerns. I think I would ask her questions and really listen to what she says... ask more questions and listen again.. when she is finished talking then ask what she would like to see happen, if she hasn't said already.

After that it can be your turn to talk about your observations, feelings, needs and requests. This is really a standard way of discussing conflicts and it has worked really well for us in our tribe. Perhaps it will help as it seems a possible component to your relationship not working right now is that there isn't a lot of communication.

There is lots written on here about communication. There is a sticky on the topic and doing a tag search will bring up some good threads too. :)
 
Communication, communication and more communication. Yeah, usually works, but I'm beginning to have my doubts in this case as I think we have been pretty good in that area. But then again I/we might just have to push it even further as we have been even too careful with her, that's true.

Thanks for the opinon and suggestions. :)
And I actually spent few hours reading articles and threads before posting, good stuff here.
 
The thing I find most troubling is the lack of trust she shows B. If that can't be worked out, then there's really not much hope for that relationship and her issues will emotionally drain B and anybody else who is close to either of them. Not only will that toxic element rot out their relationship, it can affect the relationships of everybody close to them in any fashion.
 
..........
This partner has talked about her feelings and fears to us somewhat. Fear of loss is a big one, fear that B will somehow
stop loving her (this is simply not possible and B tries to convince her all the time). She is also recovering from a rather severe eating disorder and feels
inferior when she compares herself to me, and as we know comparing is very bad but so far nothing has helped this either.


Hey Anea,

Isn't it ironic in situations like this that we actually create/bring on the things we are most afraid of because of our choice of actions from fear of them!
We see this all the time in different areas of life - not just relationships.

Maybe you might mention this fact to her ?

She's in a good 'position' at the moment but is threatening to wreck it on her own because of her own actions. Not yours - or anyone else's !

Respect is a big part of many forms of love and the more we do things that diminish our respect the more the love diminishes - or at least starts to morph into different forms.

Maybe a reminder of this will wake her up ?

GS
 
I have actually mentioned it to her that she is the biggest threat to her relationship, no one else. But too indirectly I think as I still feel it is not my place to say these kind of things even if I am involved in all this.
I have been thinking for a while now if I should just be brutally honest with her about this, no matter how mean it might sound at that time. Perhaps I should just do it sooner rather than later, before she has scuttled her own ship as I really do not wish to see that happen.

She really is poisoning her love with all this distrust.

I'm going to see B tomorrow and I will most likely share these thoughts with him/her and see what conclusion we come to. B is too protective and I am to kind, so I feel we are partially responsible for this. But B also knows that I can not take this forever as this is really taxing and the bad mood I get from this mess affects my other loved ones.

I appreciate your opinions, thank you. :)
 
One thing to be cognizant of is if your words and actions match up.

For me and our poly disaster - i was being told "its ok, we'll go slow, we know you need time" and then their words/actions told me "you should be ok with this already - we are"

And if I asked for things to slow down because I felt pressured and pushed... I was called controlling, irrational and unreasonable.

They would say one thing, then do another. i felt there was no respect of ME and my feelings and so in order to protect myself, I pulled further and further away, putting more and more restrictions - because every time I gave an inch - they took a mile and demanded the rest of the freaking journey.

They broke up when I told my husband that I wasn't going to make him choose - but I was going to have to choose for myself. It was about a month later when hubby and I had a conversation and he apologized to me for the damage he caused us. With the NRE out of the way - he was able to clearly see what he had been doing.

I am not suggesting that this is what is happening - but that was my experience.

Good luck figuring it out.
 
I have always regarded jealousy as fear and insecurity. A jealous person is concerned for her own welfare and happiness. To lay down so many rules and restrictions in a situation like this is a path that leads to a blow up or break up or even disaster.

By holding tightly to something, you will drive it away. You will lose it. If this situation progresses in the same direction that is likely to be the outcome. There must be a change.

If you raise a bird, keeping it in a cage, then open the cage door to let it chose freedom it is because you truly love that bird and want the best for it. You want it to be happy and free. If that bird comes back to you and lights on your shoulder, you have a friend forever. If it does not come back, you should be happy that you gave it the freedom it desired.
 
Had a talk with B today and it looks like we are still going to play the waiting game, for now.
Although B said he/she is running out of energy (he/she breaks up into tears almost every time we talk about this) which will lead to something soon. It is rather scary to go through the worst-case scenarios in my head, I have to admit that.

I did suggest to B that I could talk to his/her partner about what we have been talking about in this thread earlier but B thought it would simply lock her up even worse. Hard to say if that would happen but B knows her better than I do.
But after all this waiting to do even more waiting is not a fun idea, at some point I will crack and I suppose then the verbal floodgates will open no matter what. And on top of that my other loved one is not very happy at this situation as it's breaking me up, so that will also force me to do something soon.

What B thought would help is if they would live in different apartments for a while (they moved together after only 4 months and have been living together since, so nearly four years) as it might put certain things in a different light and perspective, but that is financially just impossible right now for them so that's hardly an option. So, we just wait until someone explodes.

Fun times ahead.
 
If this is looking like it might blow up sometime soon you might want to talk with B about taking a break until he works things out (whichever way they are going to work out) with the live in partner. Sounds like there's likely going to be a lot of shit flying and I'm afraid if you're too close a lot of it is going to be aimed right at you.

B and the live in partner need to work a lot of stuff out. It could be that she's never going to be comfortable with anyone else being in B's life. It's then B's decision to stay with her or to move on to a new life.
 
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