30 Days to Becoming a Secondary Wife

Put another way Have secondaries who were out of town been upset to learn their primary had a party at their home......without notification? Is that an expected right?
But the difference between what you are saying here, dinged, and what happened is that it is the house that her and Piper own together that this happened at. If my husband and his girlfriend had a party at my husband and mine's house while I was out of town, you'd better believe that I'd be upset if I wasn't at least told it was happening. If they had it at her house while I was gone, I'd probably be a little sad that they didn't think to share with me that they were planning this exciting thing, but it wouldn't be the upset that I'd feel if it were at my house. Likewise, if my boyfriend, whom I don't live with, planned a party while I was out of town and didn't at least tell me, I'd be sad that he didn't share that exciting part of his life with me, but I wouldn't be really upset. It's about not respecting her right to know what is going on in her own house.

And, pocket, I found your email to be calm and collected, not aggressive at all. Much more calm and collected than I'd be in a similar situation.
 
What Hannahfluke said.

PocketPoly, have you and Piper sat down and discussed rules and boundaries IN DETAIL? It sounds like the both of you are making a lot of assumptions and then get blindsided when neither of you live up to said assumptions and assume wrongly. This I know something about :rolleyes:, my husband and I spend 19 years not discussing certain things because we "just assumed" that it was obvious to the other. Needless to say this caused a great deal of resentment and tears to the point we were 2 steps away from filing divorce.

Now the question to ask yourselves is do you want to stay married? Are BOTH of you willing to do the work required to stay married and living in the same house? To me marriage is a partnership, (it helped us think of it as a partnership because the word "marriage" seems to evoke too many traditional stereotypes that hindered our progress), if even one party isn't willing to work together to make the partnership work, then there is no point.

You both need to learn how to communicate effectively with each other. One key thing is to NOT assume the other party actually understood what you were trying to say. Frequently stop and asked what they heard/understood and thought you were saying.

My gut still says: Colada is a cowgirl and is actively trying to make your life miserable enough that you leave and Piper is allowing it and following her lead. Who cleans out a nightstand drawer, without your permission, talk about invasion of privacy. I'd be seriously pissed if my husband so much as re-organized my nightstand drawer, much less completely cleaned it out. In fact I do get upset and feel violated when he even opens the drawer because he is looking for a safety pin or something, to me it's as private as my purse. Neither of them are even showing common courtesies to you and then calling you crazy when you feel disrespected.

Spend some time doing some tag searches on rules, boundaries, foundations, etc.
 
Day 16

Thank you everyone for your insights and comments. You have made me think today.

Phy - I think you are right on the mark. It always strikes me how much I enjoy (and need) my work - and I know it's because I feel like I have control over my space...but then I feel so stifled when I get home. I understand the need to compromise but I feel tense, like I'm walking on egg shells, trying to
guess what will upset Piper. I really do think they were trying to do something nice for me - I don't think it even occured to either of them that it would feel violating. I should also clarify that it was the guest room before so Piper did a lot of just cleaning out his own stuff (which I'd been asking him
to do for quite some time) so I think he saw it as a genuinely nice thing...and for the most part, I took it that way. It was the cleaning out my upstairs nightstand that threw me and the fact that there was no communication about what is happening. I mean, fine, if they want upstairs, I gave them the option so I also need to accept the decision. But why not just do me the
curtesy to talk to me about it?

Dingedheart - I had to google gas lighting - I don't know what to say. <breathe> I haven't ever thought of Piper as being abusive, just as having a lot of difficulty being able to see things from others' points of view. I think mostly because, when he's calm, he tries very hard to make changes (and he has genuinely made great progress in his life through a lot of hard work). Having said that, I can't deny (though I'd really like to) that the comments I saw as examples of this are, unfortunately, pretty much exactly what I hear all the time.The examples I found were, "You’re overreacting.” “You always
want to talk.” “You’re just being too sensitive.” “You’re looking at it all wrong.” As I'm not really familiar with this term, I need to look more before I can determine what I think about it - but you do give me something to consider and certainly, at least from what I read, the comments (e.g. above), are what I hear. Regarding your second comment - also a good point.
For me, I think a secondary role, while not one's primary concern, still remains a concern. In other words, maybe it's fair not to invite me or include me in everything but to not share the plan and make sure I was ok with it (most especially because this is new and we don't know how we will react to
everything) would have made a huge difference. I am ok with taking a different role - I am not ok in not having a role. Demotion is not the same as exclusion. Regarding your last point - I'm not sure I would consider myself passive aggressive. If anything, I'd say I'm directly aggressive. :p I think being passively agressive would just be a lot of work with no return or possibly even harm - and I'm too practical for that. However, as I was thinking about this, I thought about one of my early posts where I said that I was surprised that he had her in the house and I felt really upset. Piper came on and clarified my point for everyone. What struck me as odd was that he IM'd me - "uh oh" and I responded "uh oh??" - he told me that he accidentally
started a discussion on my blog - but then followed by saying that I would probably appreciate what he said...and then I read what he wrote - and I did not appreciate it at all. It was very surprised that he thought I would appreciate him telling everyone what I thought - which a) I am fully capable of doing myself, b) felt like a violation of my "virtual space" and c) seemed
controlling in nature. See a theme? I don't know why we see things so differently - which means I have a hard time explaining things to him. I think he really thought he was helping. Having said that, I, very directly, said I did not appreciate what he said or how he said it. It's a good example of how I typically say things/react. I'm pretty direct.

Hannahfluke - yes - you said it better than me. I don't mind making changes, editing, compromising, doing different things, etc. - I mind being excluded, not considered, left out. In this case, in particular, because this is new and I am trying new things, slower would be prudent. If we had all met, and we
had figured out a happy place for each of us, I probably would be more ok. But this was too much, too fast.

Sneacail - We have discussed rules - quite a bit, I think. Having said that, we also understand the rules through our own eyes, experiences, and beliefs. In the end, we fail to understand each other - a lot. I am confident we are both very motivated to make this work between us. Maybe Piper and I can
read some of the tags you put here together this weekend. I'm sure he'd be willing to review together. I'll put it in the calendar now. :)

Rule #15 - Take things slow if everyone isn't quite sure how they are feeling.
Task #15 - Set the calendar to review with Piper, Sneacail's recommendations.
 
Ugh. Gaslighting. Thppt.

Look, before you go further, take this to highlighter. Figure out if there's more wacko afoot, and what the fav playgrounds are.

http://speakoutloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Tactics-Murphy-2010.pdf

This is just NOT going to work if you guys are not playing by the same ethical polybook game manual. There is mine and how I roll.


Conflict resolution framework? Something like that. http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_81.htm

Either put a lock on your door, or be the secondary in your house and he can go live with HER wherever she really lives be be the primaries over THERE during the experimental 30 days and coparent the children from the house home base.

The children most of all need to be stable.

The party stupid? It is stupid. You are the "downstairs neighbor." If there's a party in the upstairs apartment (even if you don't actually live in an apartment bldg) the polite thing is to give the neighbor the heads up there gonna be people around on (party date), parking all up and down the street, some noise and things. In a gesture of goodwill, invite the neighbor for a beer if they too want to come by for a bit, assure all the trash will disappear, and things won't get rowdy.

Nobody needs a pissed off neighbor and most of the time they don't even want to come, but they feel more agreeable about putting up with the woowoo for the birthday or whatever if the gesture is at least made. Someday they want to have a party too and you will be nice about their birthday woowoo.

You didn't even get basic neighbor polite there. Sheesh.

GG
 
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Day 17

I talked to Piper and told him the consensus of the comments about my
email. He seemed thoughtful. He did agree to spend some time this weekend
reviewing some of the tags that were recommended here. I figure that's
good.

I also told him today that I don't want to be involved with him and Colada
anymore. (of course, that's sort of a misnomer becuase I'm actually NOT
involved - so really I mean, I want him to stop trying to get her to
meet/be involved with me). I said that it's been nearly 6 months and we are no further
along. Last week, we discussed that as long as she was continuing to
make progress, even if it wasn't quite at my pace, he would keep seeing
her. But basically, as noted regularly here (it seems I'm at least a
semi-normal human being in that I take longer to see my own problems than
others who can see more clearly than myself) ;) - she gives every
indication that she just wants Piper to herself and wants me out. I don't
see her ever threatening family time, so I should note that. She doesn't
really demand his time at all, actually. It's more that he'd like to
have a situation in which she's involved in the day-to-day parts of his
life...which includes me. But, she doesn't seem to want that so it feels
like pulling teeth to get her involved and if he doesn't stay on her,
she disappears (stops emailing, interacting, etc.). so this is stupid
at some point. If she doesn't want to be involved like this, then that's
totally her perogative. That said, it's also my perogative to stop trying.
I only got about 5 minutes to talk to Piper about it because he is out
of town and was in the car with colleagues so he asked me to wait and
talk to him tomorrow or Friday - so we'll see.

In other news, I'll be totally out of the upstairs room tonight - regardless
of what he does with Colada. I need some space in the house that is my
own.
 
Day 19

EN-ER-GY! Yes, that’s what I felt today…more energy. I basically told Piper that I didn’t think Colada was into the type of relationship he wants. We talked, he listened, he said he will talk to her. But either way, I felt better being able to express my feelings, make a change, and it is allowing me to move forward.

I am fully moved into my new room – well, at least all my stuff is there. I’m still working on the decorating. But that’s the fun part. :)

And another thing happened last night. Piper always wants me to be interested in being with other men – which basically, I’m not. But sometimes, I can handle talking about it with him and when I can, I do. So last night, I was IMing with someone while Piper was on skype with me. The man was quick-witted, smart, complimentary, etc. My profile on the site has no picture – I guess people like my personality? because I get a lot of messages about what I wrote. Piper says people just like single females – maybe that’s true. But they sure take the time to write nice things about what I wrote – so they at least obviously read what I wrote, and that’s something. Well, it feels good to be liked for my personality – so I’m sticking to that assumption. So this guy and I ‘talked’ for about an hour and it made me smile – really smile. Not so much because I liked the guy – obviously I don’t really know him and I’m not really into having multiple relationships – but it made me smile because I felt like a good person. Someone that people would like. I saw myself through his complimentary eyes and I was like – hey, I’m not so bad….heck, I might even be pretty great. That felt so good! When I used to see patients, I would tell them to put a card on their bathrooms mirrors that said the old adage…”I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and damnit, people like me!” …maybe I should take my own advice.

Rule #16 – Life’s too short, make me smile if you can.
Task #16 – Make myself smile – I am my own primary….
 
Day 22

It’s been a long couple of days. Piper and I went away for a night. We went to a swingers party. It’s not really my thing – at all, frankly. But he enjoys it and so when I find I can handle it, we go. Needless to say, it’s been like 2 years since we went last? Yeah, so I don’t find that I can “handle it” very often. ;) It was ok. I always find those things to be pretty creepy. I have no issue with different body types – but what I can’t understand is why people choose to emphasize their worst physical attributes???It makes no sense to me – and frankly, is quite a turn-off. Anyway, I danced, I smiled, I talked to people, so Piper appreciated it. Colada, surprise, refused to join us.

So they didn’t see each other all weekend. Piper and I talked and talked and talked and talked. (Well, we also had some pretty mind blowing, errr, interactions too) ;) One thing I’m pretty excited about is that he agreed to go to a therapist to discuss more. We’ve even picked one out! So that’s a nice, concrete goal/plan/activity :) I also asked him to leave me out of his relationship with Colada. There is definitely a sexual interplay between the three of us, despite not having met. Which, frankly, I enjoy. <sigh> I wish I didn’t but it really turns me on, if I’m going to be honest. But if we engage in that sort of play, I expect a commiserate relationship, non-sexual involvement. Since that hasn’t happened with Colada and me, I don’t want to engage in the sexual piece. So he saw her last night and asked her to erase any pictures of me she has, refused to share with her our activities, and told her that I didn’t want to play any longer. Tonight, he’s telling her that it’s not really possible for them to have a continued relationship either if she can’t engage in the rest of his life (e.g. me, the house, the kids, etc.). He’s simply too busy and he doesn’t want to keep going like this. So she’ll either come home with him straight away, plan to meet me this week, or they will break up. I am standing by (metaphorically only though – I’m a bit “over” this).

Otherwise, my room is coming along. I’ve picked out my paint colors, moved all my stuff down, and am starting to pick out wall stuff. It’s beginning to feel like “my space”. I like it. I like him visiting me. ;) I like having somewhere I can hide from the rest of the house. I think I might like to stay in my room, even after this experiment ends. At least for some time, I think we need a little distance. Not total distance, but a little. We are lightening up. We are laughing and flirting with each other again. I think it is good for us.

Rule #17: Communicate, communicate, communicate…
Task #17: Let him deal with Colada on his own – don’t give him advice, don’t intervene, don’t veto. Trust him to deal with it without your dictations.
 
I forgot to add that we've been watching the poly show on showtime and it has given us good fodder for discussions. Now we briefly talk about expectations, boundries, etc. before he goes out. We've also benefitted from seeing others in poly relationships and talking about what would work for us based on what we're watching. Good talking points!
 
Rule #17: Communicate, communicate, communicate…
Task #17: Let him deal with Colada on his own – don’t give him advice, don’t intervene, don’t veto. Trust him to deal with it without your dictations.

Excellent advice! Communication - sounds so easy but wow can lack of it ever cause serious issues!!!

And excellent (yet challenging) task!

You sound like such a lovely person. I really hope everything works out for you. We're rooting for you!!! :D
 
Wow, it seems like sanity is starting to prevail!

Sometimes you just have to let people arrive at their own answers, right? The trick is to make sure that, in the mean time, your needs and wants aren't getting trampled on.

I know this has been rough for you, but it's starting to sound like your husband is really understanding you and your needs better.
 
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