First, I’m begging any of you who read this to be kind.
I know I’ve fucked up in the past.
God do I know it.
But I’m in intense agony right now, and if all you’ve got to say is that I’m a bastard, please, don’t do it.
Onwards.
In this thread hereNevermore talked about how my then-girlfriend would be happy being monogamous with me. I pointed out that things didn’t quite jive, that she was too interested in Nevermore. My girlfriend’s name is Carolyn.
Just to clear up, I’m the fellow Nevermore was talking about in that thread. Very sorry for the cloak and dagger.
Now.
What my intuition was telling me was totally accurate.
My girlfriend, or maybe ex-girlfriend, I don’t know, wasn’t happy to be alone with me.
Even though I extracted promise after promise that if ever her love for Nevermore got between her and me she’d leave… she still decided to be with Nevermore
Up until 48 hours ago, Carolyn told me that if I wasn’t happy with the threesome, I should end it. That I was of primary importance to her, and that it was important that she and I be happy. Four days ago I asked her if she would marry me and she said “yes, some day.”
So, going on that, I told her that it was too much of a strain, that I didn’t want to have to keep working on the threesome, and I wanted to concentrate on her. Right after I told her that, she got furious with me and broke up with me. Later saying that she still wanted to be with me.
Only, now, she says that she wants Nevermore more than me.
That she could toss me aside but that she needs Nevermore
But that she still wants me to stay.
She doesn’t want either of us to be primary, but equal.
However. I don’t understand how we could be equals when she wants Nevermore more than me. When she was on the phone with me telling me “I need her. God do I need her!”
And she now says she doesn’t need me.
I don’t know what to do.
But I want to stay with both of them, forever.
I want to marry Carolyn, have kids with her, and have Nevermore remain in my life.
And I think they both want that, but I don’t know.
This is all chaos.
This is all a horror.
This was not supposed to happen, and both of them promised me that it never would.
If any of you have any advice, or can offer any help, please, I really need it.
P.S. Again, please, I’m feeling like dying, I know I haven’t been the best boyfriend or the best man I can be, and it agonizes me that I wasn’t everything I should have been. Please don’t point that out. Please.
if she ever started feeling like my presence endangered their ability to be happy as a an autonomous monogamous couple, she was supposed to tell me to go (or at least agree to it when he did). it happened quite a few times before, and every time she was willing (but definitely not pleased) to let me go, until this time.
I’m so, so sorry that this is so hard. I’ve been in your shoes, I understand how you may be feeling, beginning with bewildered and ending somewhere around nauseous mealstrom of ickiness.
That said, I think you might want to look seriously at whether or not you’re cut out to be in a polyamorous relationship at the moment. It’s really, really OK if you’re not. It’s not for everyone.
The reason I say that is what I keep reading over and over in regards to this situation is something along the lines of: “It’s OK if Carolyn likes Nevermore, but not if she likes her more than me.” And, as I said in that other thread, love isn’t quantifiable. Love ebbs and flows and waxes and wanes - in all relationships. If you’re not willing to give Carolyn the space she needs to experience her loves, that you’re not being open, you’re being petty and smothering. Better to simply be monogomous and honest than poly and destructive, no?
Really? Did she use the phrase “toss you aside” or is that being melodramatic? This has been going on far to long for the word “tossing” to feel appropriate. Could it maybe be that the problems you’re bringing to the relationship are begining to outweigh to positive things you’re bringing? That maybe she loves you truly, madly, deeply but just can’t live with you forcing her to choose between her loves? Maybe, just maybe she’s acting out of self preservation? That it’s not about “tossing you aside” but instead about making a difficult and heart-wrenching decision to remove you from her life? (Maybe not, I don’t know her, I haven’t been in on your conversations. I’m just offering another view that may be useful. Please don’t think I’m trying to say it’s all your fault - but you did ask for advice.)
Blech. Again with the “more than me.” Equality is for citizens and kindergardners. If you want to be on a pedastal, if you want to be someone’s one-and-only, then by definition you don’t want to be poly. Really. And I say that as someone who’s in an open marriage wherein my husband is my “primary” and all others are “extracurricular.” But that doesn’t mean he loves me more or wants me more than everyone else every second of every day. It means that he loves where his heart and spirit lead him (as do I) and that by the end of the night, he’s back with me (usually). At the end of the week, we’re paying the bills together. At the end of our lives, we’ll be holding one another’s hands as we shed these mortal coils (Gods willing). And if there’s someone else there holding his other hand, that doesn’t mean that I don’t get a hand. He has two. There could be a room full of loving people there, that doesn’t mean I won’t get a seat.
Think back to when you decided to be poly. If you’re like most of us, what went through your head was something like this: “Huh. Asking one person to be everything to me all the time is a little crazy. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses and times of turmoil, and finding one person who’s the absolute best conversationalist, cook, chess player, parent and lover all the time is a little unlikely. Perhaps I shouldn’t have to cut myself off to other connections - other wonderful souls with their own lessons to teach and to learn from me - but rather I should be in an open and honest dialogue with my partner where we can seek out other connections as needed for our individual growth and development.”
Or perhaps you thought: “Dude! Carolyn will let me fuck other chicks? Cool!”
My point? Yeah, Carolyn needs Nevermore. So what? How does that translate into her not needing you? Even when I was doing the mono thing, there were times I needed my platonic girlfriends advice, love and companionship while my boyfriend stayed home. Did that mean I didn’t need him? OF course not - it meant my girlfriends had a certain role that he didn’t fufill too well - namely, giggles and boywatching, comisterating over late periods and swapping hummus recipes.
Again - love is not finite. If you truly don’t understand how Carolyn can love both you and Nevermore, than you don’t understand polyamory.
umm…
It sounds like you do know. Carolyn wants to have relationships with both you and Nevermore. She doesn’t want to hear anymore about “more” needing and “less” needing. She wants “equal needing” as in, sometimes I actively need her, sometimes I actively need you, but I want to be in relationship with both of you. (I may be putting words into her mouth, so check with her. As in, ask straight out.) If that doesn’t work for you, then get out of these relationships.
Yep. Never is supposed to happen. But people are such messy creatures in the emotion department. My first love promised he’d love me forever. Didn’t happen. My son’s father promised me he’d be a great dad. Didn’t happen. Have you made any promises you’ve not kept in love? If you answer no, you’re a liar or a saint. Promising where things will or won’t go in love is really silly - you can never know what path your heart will take.
My husband promised to love and cherish, to support and honor and to always return to me. I vowed to give him the space he wants, the love he craves and the support he needs as we both work our way through this crazy planet. We trip and we fall, and we haven’t achieved perfection yet, but we’re really enjoying the journey together.
Who’s ever the best that they can or should be all the time? No one. You’re no exception. You’ve been the best that you’re capable of being at this point in time, with your history and your current level of emotional maturity. There’s no shame in that. There’s no shame in realizing you’re in a space of infinite growth potential. After all, you did say the magic words:
Admitting you need help is admitting you’re human. So go find those fantastic women, grovel a little and tell them you’ve seen the light. Love is infinite. Love is bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some.
Or, call them and tell them that you’ve realized you’re not cut out for polyamory at this point in your life, you love them and wish them well. Then find a fantastic woman who shares your beliefs and pour your monogomous love into her.
As a postscript to WhyNot’s wonderful post, how can you expect someone to promise not to fall in love? No one plans love. It just happens, and no amount of promises can keep someone from falling in love.
If it helps any, honey, I don’t think Carolyn’s ready to completely dump you. If she were just with nevermore, there’d be just as much “God, I need him!” I don’t think she’s ready for the sort of relationship you want, either, though, and I sort of doubt she ever will be. Unfortunately, you two seem to want incompatible things.
What she wants is to have an equal triad, or at least a triangle where you and nevermore are equidistant from her. From what little I know about polyamory, this seems to be a perfectly normal and healthy thing to want. My understanding is that such relationships are almost never 50/50, even steven all the time. They’re more like a pendulum, swinging closer to one end, then to the other, the relationships waxing and waning in a cycle like the tides.
What you want is to be her primary, with nevermore running a distant second for both of you, a triangle where you and Carolyn form a very short side and nm is farther away (and preferably equidistant) from both of you. This is also a perfectly normal and healthy thing to want, and something I can identify with a little better. Everybody wants to feel special and important and loved and needed, and being the most vital relationship in someone’s life is the most powerful form of that.
Neither of you are being unreasonable in what you want, which I’m sure doesn’t make you feel a lick better. And, unfortunately, now we get to part that’s likely to make you feel like shit. What you want out of this relationship and what she wants out of this relationship are simply not reconcilable. You can’t even find a compromise on this one, because there’s no middle ground that will satisfy either of you. Even if you patch things up for now, this issue is going to keep coming up again and again and again, making one or both of you unhappy in the long-term.
I’m sorry. I wish I could say something different, something that would make you feel better, but I’d be lying.
I especially have to emphasize that it can be better to decide honestly that you need monogamy than to stay feeling screwed over by being part of a polyamorous relationship. That just isn’t going to be fair to anyone, especially not yourself. (I lost someone who just couldn’t cope with sharing, and it broke my heart, but it was right for him, and better than the alternative of a long drawn out battle over who was foremost in my affections.)
I’m not sure where it’s ending…
right now I just know that I need carolyn, and I want very much to stay with Nevermore too.
I have defintely been seriously considering that.
I don’t know if any of us damn apes are cut out for anything.
And I know that more love is a good thing.
And I know being with both of them is right.
And I just want my damn head and my heart to synch up consistently.
A good point.
Mostly melodramatic.
She said that she can’t be without Nevermore but she could be without me.
Certainly feels like being tossed aside.
Yes, possibly.
But that was one of the reasons I asked her to promise that if she was too upset with how I was handling the threesome to end that and be with me.
But yes, I take full responsibility.
I fucked up, and I want to fix it.
Well, it is mostly my fault.
And yes… all that is true, but it still feels like being tossed aside.
And yes, I want to find a way to make this work, via evolution or paradigm shift.
Another very good point. Thank you.
Truth be told, when I first decided to be polyamorous it was long before I met Carolyn. I knew that I was never happy with only one woman and I’d always desire others to a degree. I figured it was natural and normal to love many people, but that it was good to devote yourself to one person and have a family with them, with, I suppose, “extracurriculars”
I had also asked Carolyn at that time to be with me and the woman I was seeing. Carolyn told me that she wasn’t polyamorous and wouldn’t make it work, that she wanted me all to herself.
I decided that I wanted to be with her badly enough that I could give up other things, would gladly give up other things.
She’s a very special woman, and I’d do anything I could to be with her.
In the specific situation with Carolyn and Nevermore, it started as just sex with Nevermore, with an explicit agreement of just sex. And yes of course it was exciting to be in a threesome. But I feel in love with Nevermore along the way. I just can’t help but put Carolyn first, by however small a fraction.
I’m sorry, I didn’t give enough background info.
She said essentially, that I could go but that she needed Nevermore to stay, no matter what.
To my mind, that’s needing Nevermore but not needing me.
Hummus is pretty good.
No, I understand that.
I didn’t understand how she could say that she didn’t need me, but did need her.
I still don’t’ know if I understand that.
But I’m working on it.
Sound roughly right.
True enough.
Stupid messy life.
Eris is a fucking bitch.
Sounds like a good model.
Thank you
I don’t think it will be quite that easy… but in essence, yes.
I love them both, I want to be with them both, and I’d like to find a way to do that.
Well… the idea was less about a promise not to fall in love, as a promise to not let something else get in the way of the two of us.
I don’t know if we want incompatible things…
I need her to see me as special, to want to share a marriage bed with me, to have children with me.
I don’t think that is, in essence, in conflict with her sharing her time with Nevermore
I respect your opinion, but I am not willing to bow to it, not by a long shot.
I want to be with Carolyn, and I want to be with Nevermore, and yes, Nevermore knows my dynamic and is okay with it.
What I want out of this relationship is to feel needed, to feel special, to feel essential, to care for someone, to build something bigger than myself with someone, to grow old with someone.
As long as I can get that, even if it stings my pride sometimes, I think… I hope that I can do that.
I would, and have, asked for both of their help in tolerating my stumbling attempts.
But I want this to work.
I dont’ know if I can do this.
I want to.
And I want to work at it, and I want to try.
And as long as they’re willing to have me, I want to stay.
And I don’t know quite what else what to say.
It seems like you’re dodging the point here - if it’s love that may or may not be getting between you, then you’re expecting her to not fall in love, whether or not she explicitly promised that. So, if an emotion comes between the two of you, you want her to, what, turn it off? Not feel that way anymore?
I’m not dodging anything, at least not to my knowledge.
The explicit agreement was that she would not act on such impulses, and would disengage from a situation where she thought such feelings were developing.
And no, not that she couldn’t love or fall in love with someone else.
But if that got in the way of her being happy with being with me, she’s seeing the other person.
Not that she wouldn’t love other people, but that she would respect her relationship with me and hold it as special and not let anything get in the way of that.
But yes, having written that, and looking back at it, I do not grok.
It would be wrong of me to expect her, if she met someone she wanted more than me, not to be with that person. Wrong and clinging…
I just don’t know.
But I’m not going to erase either bit of text, and I’ll post this as it is.
Cognitive dissonance and all.
Oh, I wanted to add that you most definitely have my compassion, I don’t really have much by way of good advice, but I do know how much it all can suck… so hang in there…
I want for it to work, very very much.
I don’t know if it can…
I kinda think that it can’t.
and it’s the little things… like having Carolyn want to sleep in my bed most nights.
I don’t know what I need, I don’t know what I can deal with, I do know that I want to feel special… and yes. preferred… and I know that’ll never happen again. But I don’t know that I need to be preferred. I just don’t know much.
As an addendum, I do know, without a doubt, that I need to be with Carolyn.
I guess the only question is if I can be accepting enough of who she is and give her enough space even if it hurts me sometimes, or if I can get over that pain, not think that way anymore…
I just don’t know.
Major conceptual problems.
Is there any way around this?
Is there just no way to get over wanting her to think I’m special, to want her to prefer sleeping in my bed…
do I just have to find someone who’ll think I’m as special as I think she is?
Sad cliche’, but true… you just can’t make someone do what you want/need/desire. It may be killing you, but you’d really rather not have something done for you out of obligation or pity. That has to be the absolute worst feeling for the recipient in the world, because you think they’re only doing it for fear of hurting you beyond repair. Everyone hates being (or made out to be) desperate. It’s terrible, actually, and I speak from recent experiences.
I can’t offer any advice, having never been poly myself, but I will say this; if you take care of yourself (ah, another cliche’) above all else, than the rest will fall into place. In the meantime, give yourself permission to grieve, have space, feel a little sorry for you predicament and questioning of what to do. Sounds like that, if y’all can make it work, you all would be on the same page and in a good way.
Yah… I don’t want anybody to do anything that they don’t want to do. I just want them to want it… if that makes sense.
Trouble is, I know that I need Caro, that’s what’s most important to me.
That’s what being true to myself is, I think.
And yeah… I’ve been feeling all the horrible emotions there are, I’m not sure I should indulge anymore… I just don’t know what to do.
I need to be with Caro, but at the same time, I don’t know if I can.
This is hell.
Thanks… I’d like to think that if this can work it’ll be good.
But I just don’t know.
Sorry to keep posting to this thread, but is there anybody who had to ‘work’ on being poly?
Anybody who had someone close to them who then wanted to add someone else?
What worked for you?
How did you ‘see’ it?
What ideas, etc… are helpful?