Confused with poly girlfriend

Maybe?

What's normal? Why are you making yourself stay with someone, "because you love them," but then forcing yourself to accept something about them that makes you ill?

If poly isn't for you, it isn't for you. Nothing wrong with that.
 
Well, starting to think that things might not work. I'm running into an emotional problem. Practically bipolar.

I cannot tell the "emotional volume" here. I am confused. :confused:

When you use strong words like that, I take note. Are you saying you are bipolar and you are participating in behavior that triggers your condition in a bad way? You could stop doing that behavior. That's pretty heavy, dude. :(

If you mean more like it is "hard to feel" in general or that you never felt like this before? You could elaborate and clarify what you need support wise and ask what you need from your poly people so your transition time is less rough on you.

Maybe reading these could help you articulate what you are feeling and what you might need from your poly people?

http://www.practicalpolyamory.com/images/Jealousy_Updated_10-6-10.pdf
http://www.cat-and-dragon.com/stef/poly/Labriola/jealousy.html
http://www.kathylabriola.com/articles/are-you-in-poly-hell

It takes TIME for the "new normal" to BECOME normal feeling and stop feeling weird.

Probably longer than the 17 days since you first posted. :eek:

If having a time limit for yourself and how long you are willing to "try this on" helps? Figure out how long you want try this on and what day is the final decision day to assess if this relationship model actually works for you or not with these poly people.

You don't want to spend 15 years "trying it on" but probably want to spend longer than 2 weeks. Unless you already know for sure in your heart/gut that it is just NOTfor you at this point though. If so, you could let your poly people know now rather than later.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be in a different relationship model for yourself where you can "thrive" in it and not merely "survive."

These days are usually when we haven't had a chance to make love in a while. After that, like right now, the thought of the other guy even holding my lover's hand makes me physically ill.

If you want Kelda (the shared hinge person) to spend some time with you so you can meet your need to feel close/connected to her again? You could ask her out and ask her to spend time with you.

You could not be comparing time spent with you and time spend with the other BF.

You could ask for what YOU need.
The other BF could ask for what HE needs.
Kelda could meet the needs of her partners or not.

Each person holds their own bag.

Is this normal, or do we need to look at walking away from this for now?

It is normal to expect a "transition time" when starting something new. It is normal to process emotions during times of change/transition. You can Google "stages of emotional change" and look at the emotional roller coaster in pictures. Every person is different, and every graphic is different too. But this one tries to put some time estimates on the process.

Maybe that helps?

Hang in there.

Galagirl
 
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Or maybe it's the age gap and vocab use? College student age 20's was a long time ago to me.

This is important. Time perception changes both with age and experience. I have this issue pretty consistently. If I would just let a few days elapse before drawing conclusions, I'd likely avoid a whole host of emotional trauma.

So "slowing down" for one person can be days, where "slowing down" for another is months.
 
Go with your gut...and your heart

There's lots of logic out there to explain what you should or should not do. But in the end, when it comes to people, you have to go where your heart and your gut leads you.

Logic will never win. There is no logical argument that says "you should feel good about..." anything. Just as no logical argument says that monogamy is the right choice, the same is true for the rest of our lives. If it feels wrong, leave and start again. If it feels good, then continue with it.

Rene
 
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