AlbertaBea
New member
Hi poly people! This isn't my first time in a poly situation but I'm having some difficulty deciding how to navigate some things at the moment.
The characters in this scenario are me (Berta), my primary (Doug), my significant secondary (Red), and his wife (Jordan). I am a 26 year old female in the San Francisco area and my primary lives in Seattle. We open our relationship when we aren't getting along and my primary is no longer interested in being in an open relationship.
He has been making a lot of efforts over the past few months to make some changes I needed to see and I'm happy about that, but he's made these changes before and they haven't stuck. I don't feel like exclusivity with him is a healthy choice for me right now but it is something I could see us doing down the road. I had two secondary boyfriends and to compromise I am breaking up with the one Doug dislikes. That's not going to be easy but I'm not conflicted about it because Doug is very important to me.
Segway to my significant secondary and his wife. Red and Jordan are in an open marriage. I met Red last summer and we clicked, but he thought I lived in Seattle and I thought he was in a monogamous marriage. His wife Jordan told me around Halloween that their marriage is open and within about an hour of learning that, Red and I were making plans for a date. I was looking for casual sex and after negotiating the terms of what our relationship would look like we started hooking up. Jordan and I check in with each other frequently and we're friendly. Red recently reached out to Doug via email and that went well too. Things are fucking awesome with me and Red and things with Doug are pretty great too.
Red and Jordan's marriage is not that great though. Jordan dates a lot of people and also has significant secondaries. Red was monogamous until he met her and adjusted to her needs to be with her. She has broken the rules they've tried to set and is very inconsistent about what she needs from him. She moved out of their apartment and stopped having sex with him, but still wants him to be there for her emotional needs.
Red and I talk online and via text all the time when we're not together. We haven't had overnight stays for the six months we've been dating, by my request. We made some plans for a sleepover so we can have morning sex, and Jordan got upset so Red cancelled our plans at the last minute to attend to her needs. I was really hurt by that, but he apologized to me and I got over it. Jordan also apologized because she didn't mean for him to cancel our plans. I realized that I shouldn't be getting that upset about him attending to his wife's needs and I apologized to them both, and things were going smoothly again for all of us until this past Thursday.
Red and I had been making plans for a few weeks to stay at a haunted hotel together and we were both really excited about it. Jordan told Red she was upset because he doesn't take her to haunted hotels, but the trip was my idea and I booked the room. We had already changed the date of our trip once so they could do something together.
We had a great time. It was an amazing night and an amazing day after that. When Red got back Jordan was really, really upset. She gave him an ultimatum: monogamy, or they're breaking up. Red said he would resent her if he had to break up with me because he hasn't been this excited about a relationship in a long time. That's part of what I told Doug when he brought it up as well.
So, I proposed a compromise for Red to offer Jordan and she accepted it. Red and I won't have overnight stays or plan adventure trips together because that seems to be Jordan's trigger and I respect her needs. I'm mad at her though because she just doesn't care about my needs right now, she seems to believe hers are just flat out more important. When Red has asked her for monogamy or for more emotional support, she has told him to work it out himself or seek the support outside of their marriage. Now she's asking him for monogamy and he doesn't want it. Isn't that how it always seems to go??? I'm glad because I don't want to stop seeing him either. I fucking love the guy! He's amazing.
I need to express my feelings to Jordan though, because that's the nature of our relationship. We are open and honest. But I've never had to express this kind of frustration to my secondary's primary partner before. I don't want to comment on their relationship because that's up to them, but I'm frustrated about her double standards. I want to work them out with her but in the past when I have helped couples I've dated improve their relationship I've gotten dumped or hurt. What do you guys think I could say to her to make my feelings clear, while respecting their marriage and her feelings?
The characters in this scenario are me (Berta), my primary (Doug), my significant secondary (Red), and his wife (Jordan). I am a 26 year old female in the San Francisco area and my primary lives in Seattle. We open our relationship when we aren't getting along and my primary is no longer interested in being in an open relationship.
He has been making a lot of efforts over the past few months to make some changes I needed to see and I'm happy about that, but he's made these changes before and they haven't stuck. I don't feel like exclusivity with him is a healthy choice for me right now but it is something I could see us doing down the road. I had two secondary boyfriends and to compromise I am breaking up with the one Doug dislikes. That's not going to be easy but I'm not conflicted about it because Doug is very important to me.
Segway to my significant secondary and his wife. Red and Jordan are in an open marriage. I met Red last summer and we clicked, but he thought I lived in Seattle and I thought he was in a monogamous marriage. His wife Jordan told me around Halloween that their marriage is open and within about an hour of learning that, Red and I were making plans for a date. I was looking for casual sex and after negotiating the terms of what our relationship would look like we started hooking up. Jordan and I check in with each other frequently and we're friendly. Red recently reached out to Doug via email and that went well too. Things are fucking awesome with me and Red and things with Doug are pretty great too.
Red and Jordan's marriage is not that great though. Jordan dates a lot of people and also has significant secondaries. Red was monogamous until he met her and adjusted to her needs to be with her. She has broken the rules they've tried to set and is very inconsistent about what she needs from him. She moved out of their apartment and stopped having sex with him, but still wants him to be there for her emotional needs.
Red and I talk online and via text all the time when we're not together. We haven't had overnight stays for the six months we've been dating, by my request. We made some plans for a sleepover so we can have morning sex, and Jordan got upset so Red cancelled our plans at the last minute to attend to her needs. I was really hurt by that, but he apologized to me and I got over it. Jordan also apologized because she didn't mean for him to cancel our plans. I realized that I shouldn't be getting that upset about him attending to his wife's needs and I apologized to them both, and things were going smoothly again for all of us until this past Thursday.
Red and I had been making plans for a few weeks to stay at a haunted hotel together and we were both really excited about it. Jordan told Red she was upset because he doesn't take her to haunted hotels, but the trip was my idea and I booked the room. We had already changed the date of our trip once so they could do something together.
We had a great time. It was an amazing night and an amazing day after that. When Red got back Jordan was really, really upset. She gave him an ultimatum: monogamy, or they're breaking up. Red said he would resent her if he had to break up with me because he hasn't been this excited about a relationship in a long time. That's part of what I told Doug when he brought it up as well.
So, I proposed a compromise for Red to offer Jordan and she accepted it. Red and I won't have overnight stays or plan adventure trips together because that seems to be Jordan's trigger and I respect her needs. I'm mad at her though because she just doesn't care about my needs right now, she seems to believe hers are just flat out more important. When Red has asked her for monogamy or for more emotional support, she has told him to work it out himself or seek the support outside of their marriage. Now she's asking him for monogamy and he doesn't want it. Isn't that how it always seems to go??? I'm glad because I don't want to stop seeing him either. I fucking love the guy! He's amazing.
I need to express my feelings to Jordan though, because that's the nature of our relationship. We are open and honest. But I've never had to express this kind of frustration to my secondary's primary partner before. I don't want to comment on their relationship because that's up to them, but I'm frustrated about her double standards. I want to work them out with her but in the past when I have helped couples I've dated improve their relationship I've gotten dumped or hurt. What do you guys think I could say to her to make my feelings clear, while respecting their marriage and her feelings?