Trouble accepting polyamory
I’m new to polyamory. I’ve been married for 25 years & have 3 children. Long story short, my husband met someone online about 3 months ago. They have started a relationship though they have not met in person yet. She lives in another state. He will be going out to see her at the end of the month and will spend a long weekend at her place.
I love my husband & I know he loves me. I don’t have an interest in being with another person. But I want to be with him.
In order to be with him & need to accept that he has another relationship.
It’s new. And it’s hard. And the only reason think of finding another relationship outside of our marriage is because I’m jealous that he has this NRE free of domestic entanglements. I personally don’t want the added complication. My life is full. But I’m having a tough time.
Any advice when only one person in a relationship has another lover?
My advice to you is the same if you were interested in polyamory yourself. You wanting other relationships wouldn’t make you necessarily less afraid of losing your partner, you just might have more distractions if you had dating to consider.
There is some amount of anxiety that is inevitable when you’re shifting to what is essentially a new way of doing relationships - especially given there is so little in the way of a cultural introduction or script in many places for polyamory. Part of dealing with that includes challenging some of the assumptions people usually have about the “safety” of monogamy and realising that you have little, if any, control over the emotions and feelings of your partner, even if you’re married and have children.
However, a good deal of anxiety can be alleviated by some understanding of how your life will change when polyamory is introduced. When you know more or less that your partner and you are on the same page in terms of what kind of life you want to have together and how polyamory fits into that, that can be something that makes some of the more anxious moments a little less intense. So, have you thought about that?
Why did your husband decide he wanted to be polyamorous? What will your future look like? How will he manage the discrepancy with child care while he is away? Even if you are not interested in dating, that’s still no reason for him to not take responsibility for the “domestic entanglements” while you enjoy a day out solo or with friends. If you have a partner who is genuinely interested in polyamory and interested in building multiple romantic relationships, even if they are new to it and unaware that this work might need to be done, they should be willing to work with you on an idea of how your schedules might look and what your life will be like going forward.
But if your partner just wants polyamory because they see it as permission for them to cheat, then there are bigger questions for you to answer there. It’s very important also that you have a reason for wanting this that doesn’t involve keeping your partner with you. I understand completely why this is important to so many people. However, becoming polyamorous for the sake of saving a relationship is somewhat similar, to use an example you might relate more to, having a child to save a relationship. Introducing more complexity into a situation isn’t going to solve that situation’s problems if the people within that situation are not willing to work through them.
I go through this a lot in my 101 article when it comes to finding your anchor and also working out what you want from polyamory and what your partner wants. Unfortunately, two people can be polyamorous and still incompatible (just as two people can be monogamous and still incompatible) so you need to actually have the hard discussions about what you want so that you can not avoid anxiety but be better able to recognise what you can control and what you can’t control. You don’t need to accept anything. First and foremost, you need to realise that you are capable of making the decisions you need to make your life better if you need to.I hope this helps and good luck!