New-ish and looking for advice

[southerngirl]

Post deleted by author.

[SNeacail]

It sounds like you guys need some serious marriage counceling. To me this relationship just sounds abusive.

[southerngirl]

Sorry I was long-winded and may have sounded hostile.

My basic question is: How do you help your partner when his secondary partner dumps him?

Also, it's not that I don't want a poly relationship that includes us both or in which I am an equal participant. I do. But, I think we have to find a third partner together. If my husband goes off and does it on his own, s/he's his partner, not mine. It would be like an arranged marriage.

I'm just frustrated that I have to pick up the pieces. Again. And there's no sense of gratitude for it on his part.

Can anyone tell me what they've done in similar situations to make their partner fel loved and validated?

[southerngirl]

SNeacail, thanks for you reply. Can you explain why you think it sounds abusive? Generally, my husband is pretty supportive. But, he does get needy and critical of me at times, which I'm learning is really just an expression of his own insecurities. I was wondering, though, what you picked up on that maybe I'm missing.

[Minxxa]

From my point of view, I don't see this relationship as being healthy at all. Your husband needs to seek help. He cannot find happiness in other people, which it seems he's trying to do. He has to do that by himself or he will never be able to give that happiness to anyone else.

I know you asked someone else what sounded abusive, but I'm going to pull out some of the quotes from your first post that all indicated either abusive behavior, or at the very least a complete lack of love and respect for you.

And just to note, someone isn't poly if they're lying and hiding things. I'm sure the most recent girlfriends' family is telling her this, the fact that she lied to her fiance and hid it is a sign that something is not right. And considering her parents are poly the lying is most likely what set them off. Just a guess though.

Originally Posted by southerngirl

He also began to tell me that I was not his type physically, but he loved me and didn't want to be with anyone else.

But then, my husband criticized me for having trouble losing weight after the baby.

Eventually it came out that he was jealous that I had been part of one-time sexual threesome that was a total disaster from my perspective.

He talked about her every day. She was smart, beautiful, this, that.

While I was in labor at the hospital this other woman kept texting him and telling him how much she loved him and how she couldn't imagine not seeing him for the two weeks he'd be on paternity leave.

When our son was 2 weeks old, my husband told me he was in love with her and didn't know if he wanted to be with me anymore or not.

Ultimately, my husband decided he wanted a poly relationship with the two of us.

Eventually, I realized that for whatever reason, my husband is very insecure and needs the love and support of multiple women.

We were in that relationship for about 3 years with a couple of breakups. I never really liked her although I tried very hard and did eventually feel honest affection for her. But she was violent and needy and just cold and mean to other people unnecessarily. Even though I was in a relationship and had sex with her and tried my best, I just always thought of her as a homewrecker and, at her core, a bad human being.

He became reckless and suicidal. He refused to get help. I felt like I had 3 kids to care for. He blamed me for the breakup. Blamed me for not trying to win her back for him,

She never told her boyfriend, fiance, though.

Then as our friend's marriage approached she decided to break off her engagement and all hell broke loose. She confessed everything to her parents and fiance and now everyone is telling her to go into counseling. That it's wrong, etc.

She broke up with my husband and now he's putting pressure on her, too, even though I keep telling him to give her space and let her figure this out on her own.

I can see him going down the rabbit hole again. And honestly, I don't know what to do. He keeps telling me I'm not doing anything to help him, but I don't know what he needs.

We haven't had sex in weeks because he was saving himself for his girlfriend because she didn't want to have sex until she broke up with her fiance.

!

Your husband is using everybody in his life to get his "needs" fulfilled. He doesn't seem to be showing respect for you or any of his other lovers. He wants what he wants and throws tantrums if he doesn't get it (and if you don't get it FOR him).

This is a much bigger question than helping a partner get over the loss of a partner.

[SNeacail]

Basically what Minxxa

I just found out that my SIL has been in a 20 year emotionally abusive relationship with occassional violence. From talking with her in great detail, what you have described sounds very similar, even if the details are different, including how she reacted to everything.

Originally Posted by southerngirl

We were in that relationship for about 3 years with a couple of breakups. I never really liked her although I tried very hard and did eventually feel honest affection for her. But she was violent and needy and just cold and mean to other people unnecessarily. Even though I was in a relationship and had sex with her and tried my best, I just always thought of her as a homewrecker and, at her core, a bad human being.

If you didn't like her why in the hell were you sleeping with her?

[southerngirl]

Yeah, I get it. I realize I did not paint a pretty picture. And I agree. He does need help figuring out how to be happy on his own. I've encouraged him to go to therapy alone and with me. But, he believes that he's not unhappy, but rather grieving the loss of a love. The day to day stuff just doesn't even come into our discussions because idonr want to pile on when he's miserable and when he's happy he is a wonderful person so that stuff doesn't come up.

Does that make sense? I. Other words, when he's being his good self, it's easy for me to be in denial that the other side exists at all.

[southerngirl]

Because I had always wanted to have a sexual relationship with a woman and the opportunity doesn't present itself very often. She was a bitch, but she had a smokin' body and I thought if she was going to force herself into my life and my marriage, I might as well get something out of it.

[ImaginaryIllusion]

Originally Posted by southerngirl

SNeacail, thanks for you reply. Can you explain why you think it sounds abusive? Generally, my husband is pretty supportive. But, he does get needy and critical of me at times, which I'm learning is really just an expression of his own insecurities. I was wondering, though, what you picked up on that maybe I'm missing.

I was actually thinking along the same lines as SNeacail. Not sure if it was as far as abusive, although that was only because initial posts like yours do tend to contain most of the crap about other partners(your husband in this case), with little of their merits. But something does seem off about the situation, and I certainly wouldn't rule out abusive from your initial description.

At the very least, there's a couple principles that I really like when working on poly relationships, and that you might want to give some thought to.

1. Respect.
I find this is a critical part of the foundation of any relationship. Poly, mono, romantic, friend, business, it really doesn't matter.
So when you say your husband is critical of you, or blames you for things beyond your control,...how much respect is he giving you?

2. There's no one right way to do Poly, but there's a lot of wrong ways.
There's a lot in your post about wanting to take care of your husbands needs and wants...without a lot of regard to your own. A lot of his actions appear to be self-serving and driven towards taking care of his own needs, and maintaining whatever other relationships he has with other women without regard to you, or your marriage...and especially when things aren't going well, which is precisely the time when he should be concentrating on home instead of checking out.

3. Sort out your own shit.
A common theme is that in order to maintain multiple relationships, you had better have yourself and your own shit sorted out first. Poly will act as a magnifying glass to your own issues which you aren't aware of, or haven't developed the tools to deal with. From reading your original post, it doesn't sound like this has been done. Not for you, not for your husband. Both of you seem to have a lot of shit to sort out, both individually (his insecurities, and your self-image), and as a couple. And I would suspect it's a major culprit in the success of the poly endeavors so far.


I know your question was about trying to help your husband through breakups, and you seem to have some idea of a poly ideal which you would be interested in working towards. But all I can figure is that all such efforts are moot with the path you're on. You're basically putting the cart before the horse.

Regardless of the outcome of the most recent gf, you and your husband would do better to take a break from pursuing poly, and spend some time rebuilding your marriage, and getting some proper counselling. And if he won't, you should, and decide if this marriage is something you really want to salvage. If it's really what you want for yourself in the long term.

[redpepper]

I agree mostly with the other posters here. I think before you go any further with this you might want to go back to that poly friendly therapist. Your family does not seem happy or stable. Please don't seek out unsuspecting women to create a bigger family with without sorting out the issues you two have.

The issues seem to be your husbands lack of self worth and insecurities that make him think its okay to blame you while you pick up the pieces of his miserable break ups; and your willingness to stay in this! Why? Why would you? Please don't say the kids, they are learning everything about how to have relationships from the two of you. Either show them how to take care of themselves and not take on other peoples shit, or show them when its healthier to leave. I don't think you do them any favours by leaving things as is. You don't do anyone any favours really.

I think your question could of been, "what do I do" rather than the one you asked. I think he would do better looking after himself (therapy?) rather than you trying to figure out how to support him. Sure you can say kind words, be their as a shoulder to cry on, but that's about it. Its his journey and he has chosen all of it.

As to feeling old and un-lovable? Really to me there is nothing more attractive than a woman who takes care of herself and doesn't let other people dictate her sense of self worth. Nothing to do with looks, weight, age. Its all inside and what comes out as a result.

You might want to get some ideas about how other poly people have learned some relationship lessons by doing a tag search for "lessons" and "foundations."