TrulsShadow
New member
Hi all, such is the question, and I have yet to find the light at the end of the fear tunnel.
I've been with my gf for 3 years now, and she entered my life when I was exploring being poly with my bf at the time. This was... just over 3 years ago I suppose, maybe close to 4 years. I was with my bf, and I was also with a poly friend who became and remains to this day a platonic one (bf had no problems with me and this male friend). Due to a few issues that continued to crop up despite communication attempts and also to lack of anger management I broke things off with the bf a year and a half ago, and moved to a new apartment with my gf. I remain friends with my ex-bf.
And fast forward a year of living with my gf, not pursuing any other relationships, simply choosing to be monogamous with her. From the start of knowing her she made it clear to me that she was a monogamous person, and she had no problems with me being with other people. We spent the past year exploring the relationship between the two of us (platonic friend moved out of town that same year). This past December (late dec.) she revealed to me that she was feeling closer to an online female friend of 8+months who had been introduced to her through someone she had grown up with. This online friend lives in the states, we're in canada. In January, I was in on a skype call with them both and my gf expressed her love to the new one. It was the first time this new change in my gf sunk in for me.
I've been... surprised in some ways by my negative reaction, and not surprised by it at the same time. I felt blindsided by her turning poly, and she was also very unprepared when she discovered the feelings were actual love and not just close friendship. It's been a hard past 4 months for me and for our relationship. I've gone through all kinds of grief, of anger, of resentment, of self loathing and most of all fear. I've felt especially like a hypocrite for being so unprepared to my partner being poly, when I have been the poly hinge and been fine with that, knowing in my heart I did love gf and bf completely the same. Now I am the arm of the V, and she is the hinge. I know what it's like to be where she is, I have no experience being the one who was not the hinge.
New partner (np) has on average visited our place once each month, for about 3-6 days each time, and they do a lot of private essaying and skyping which now happens mostly when I'm at work. Gf has visited np once, and I've gone with gf once a separate time. I try and understand it's a lot of NRE combined with long distance, and each time they see each other it's a long run of all positive moments and no mundane living. It helps that np is different from me and has her own husband and bf that live with her. I've expressed the need I have of being given the time to know np better and to grow into the change that has occurred. I've kept hoping that things will get better. And in a lot of ways, this has been the case.
So when I say I want to, I mean this: I want to make this relationship with my gf work. I want to reach the place of peace in the knowledge that I'm secure and loved. I want to feel normal again and not on an emotional rollercoaster. And I have a deep fear that just because this is something I want, it doesn't mean it's something that can actually be possible in reality. And I wonder in the light of day here if that was just my own bs talking, and that in reality I've been tricked by myself playing mindgames. And the answer is probably yes.
I've been re-reading the ethical slut, chatting with the new love in my love's life, digging to the roots of what cause my jealousy, speaking about boundaries and guidelines that could make me feel more at ease. I've scoured this site and others on articles and stories of those before me who've done this before. I think I've been mostly doing things right... I slip up a lot and forget the 'I' only sentences, or don't manage my own emotions and own them.
How did you all pass the fear (if there was any) that you would fail?
I've been with my gf for 3 years now, and she entered my life when I was exploring being poly with my bf at the time. This was... just over 3 years ago I suppose, maybe close to 4 years. I was with my bf, and I was also with a poly friend who became and remains to this day a platonic one (bf had no problems with me and this male friend). Due to a few issues that continued to crop up despite communication attempts and also to lack of anger management I broke things off with the bf a year and a half ago, and moved to a new apartment with my gf. I remain friends with my ex-bf.
And fast forward a year of living with my gf, not pursuing any other relationships, simply choosing to be monogamous with her. From the start of knowing her she made it clear to me that she was a monogamous person, and she had no problems with me being with other people. We spent the past year exploring the relationship between the two of us (platonic friend moved out of town that same year). This past December (late dec.) she revealed to me that she was feeling closer to an online female friend of 8+months who had been introduced to her through someone she had grown up with. This online friend lives in the states, we're in canada. In January, I was in on a skype call with them both and my gf expressed her love to the new one. It was the first time this new change in my gf sunk in for me.
I've been... surprised in some ways by my negative reaction, and not surprised by it at the same time. I felt blindsided by her turning poly, and she was also very unprepared when she discovered the feelings were actual love and not just close friendship. It's been a hard past 4 months for me and for our relationship. I've gone through all kinds of grief, of anger, of resentment, of self loathing and most of all fear. I've felt especially like a hypocrite for being so unprepared to my partner being poly, when I have been the poly hinge and been fine with that, knowing in my heart I did love gf and bf completely the same. Now I am the arm of the V, and she is the hinge. I know what it's like to be where she is, I have no experience being the one who was not the hinge.
New partner (np) has on average visited our place once each month, for about 3-6 days each time, and they do a lot of private essaying and skyping which now happens mostly when I'm at work. Gf has visited np once, and I've gone with gf once a separate time. I try and understand it's a lot of NRE combined with long distance, and each time they see each other it's a long run of all positive moments and no mundane living. It helps that np is different from me and has her own husband and bf that live with her. I've expressed the need I have of being given the time to know np better and to grow into the change that has occurred. I've kept hoping that things will get better. And in a lot of ways, this has been the case.
So when I say I want to, I mean this: I want to make this relationship with my gf work. I want to reach the place of peace in the knowledge that I'm secure and loved. I want to feel normal again and not on an emotional rollercoaster. And I have a deep fear that just because this is something I want, it doesn't mean it's something that can actually be possible in reality. And I wonder in the light of day here if that was just my own bs talking, and that in reality I've been tricked by myself playing mindgames. And the answer is probably yes.
I've been re-reading the ethical slut, chatting with the new love in my love's life, digging to the roots of what cause my jealousy, speaking about boundaries and guidelines that could make me feel more at ease. I've scoured this site and others on articles and stories of those before me who've done this before. I think I've been mostly doing things right... I slip up a lot and forget the 'I' only sentences, or don't manage my own emotions and own them.
How did you all pass the fear (if there was any) that you would fail?
Hang in there,
