Category: jealousy

How to deal with negative feelings

Hello,

I saw your website and am hoping you can help. My partner and I have been monogamously together for 6 years. Recently, they have fallen for another person but they want to stay together, effectively opening up our relationship. I understand intellectually that people change and how this is brave and healthy for my partner but I am so deeply sad, angry and jealous. It’s been a month and I’ve seen no progress on these unwelcome emotions of mine. Do you have any tips for correcting these feelings?

Thank you for your help!
Hurt and Not Healing

 

Dear Hurt: It’s interesting that you say you want to “correct” your feelings because I don’t think feelings are ever “wrong” per se. They are simply the result of our natural reactions to changes, shaped by our past experiences. So my first suggestion is to not beat yourself up about having negative feelings – they are natural and simply the response you’re having to the current situation based on what you’ve believed and learned in the past.

With that in mind, the way to deal with such feelings is to examine the root of the beliefs that cause them. Let’s take them one at a time.

If you’re sad, is it because you see an open relationship as a downgrade to a closed one? Do you equate your partner’s request as a sign that they don’t love you any more? Open relationships can be just as fulfilling as closed ones, and are often more honest and authentic. And the fact your partner wants to stay together in the face of New Relationship Energy (NRE) is proof that they do indeed love you and want to be with you, difficulties notwithstanding. They’re leaving a six-year bubble of monogamy to try something new with you – that should tell you a lot about their commitment.

Let’s think about where your anger comes from. Is it directed at the new person for encroaching on your perceived territory? Is it directed at your partner for their wandering eye? Or are you angry because you’re afraid of change, of doing more work in your relationship? I think most times in these situations, anger can be traced back to the idea that one “owns” their partner, that they have claims on their time and anger comes from someone else “stealing” that property. Some people genuinely believe that relationships are based on mutual ownership. But in order to create a successful open relationship, one must let go of that idea of ownership and embrace the idea of individual agency, that each person in a relationship is a free and separate individual with the right to engage with others however they judge best. This engagement might include commitments to other individuals, but ultimately each person is responsible for their own actions in pursuit of happiness.

Jealousy – that’s the tough one, isn’t it? I think jealousy occurs when you covet something (e.g. your partner’s time) that you believe you have a claim to. This is different from envy, where you covet something you have no claim to (e.g. someone else’s musical talent). So once again, adjusting your idea that your partner’s time and/or sexual fidelity somehow belongs to you is the first step in dealing with jealous feelings.

Leon, what’s your take?

 

Hurt – I’m sorry you’re dealing with lots of feels triggered by this situation, but I’m glad you’re reaching out to understand them better.

While Mischa’s advice focuses on how to move forward, I want to look backwards and address the history of your relationship. I’m understanding from your original letter that you feel betrayed or blindsided by your partner’s actions, and if so I would start THERE, rather than jumping ahead to the future.

Trust is a crucial component of any healthy relationship. If you can’t fully trust someone, you can’t fully love them. Since you describe a six-year monogamous relationship “effectively opening up” by your partner’s falling for someone else, it doesn’t sound like you had much if any input or even advance notice of such a thing happening – and it would be more than within your rights to be furious and deeply hurt by your mono partner going behind your back to date and develop feelings for someone else. I wouldn’t try to pretend those powerful emotions don’t exist (or downplay them) if they do. You’d be justified in breaking up with your partner, regardless of whether or not you still loved them, if you felt this represented too large a betrayal of the monogamous relationship you shared.

This puts the ball in your court. Now, knowing all that transpired, if you still wish to continue/rebuild a healthy relationship with your long-term partner knowing it would no longer be monogamous, you’ll need to 1) re-establish trust with your partner, and 2) get yourself into the right mindset for an open relationship. Mischa’s advice addresses #2 by including some good tips for understanding and processing your emotions, but I think you’d first need to sit down with your partner and hammer out the issues surrounding #1 using open and honest communication techniques. Why did they go behind your back? Was there something they needed but weren’t getting? Why didn’t they come to you earlier? Do you each feel you can move forward in a healthy way? What would a healthy relationship now look like? What do each of you need to get from the other now, to feel safe again?

I have a feeling that once these and similar questions are discussed with your partner, and you start feeling like you’re on the same page again, you’ll naturally feel much better about moving forward with your partner – and those negative emotions will quickly be replaced with positive feelings like compersion and happiness.

Good luck!

Reader ‘alarmed’ by partners sharing emails

Hi,

I am extremely new to the poly scene and am still learning community ‘norms.’  In relation to that, I recently read the post on this blog from October 6, 2013 entitled, “Should I let my partner read my emails?”

It was alarming.

If a partner of mine asked to be allowed to read my emails (or whatever communications) and I said “yes,” I would be guilty of betraying the confidences of everyone who ever had sent and everyone who ever does send me email (or whatever communications).

My family sends me deeply personal messages. Friends send me deeply personal messages. It is *MY* responsibility to protect those confidences. They send those messages to ME, not to me-and-whatever-suspicious-partners-I-might-ever-have.

I know there is no “general policy,” but is this something of a community norm? To be expected to demonstrate trustworthiness by fundamentally betraying the communications of everyone I’ve ever known?

Is the notion that one should “always act as if everyone you’d ever met and cared about was watching” interpreted to mean that I should actually ENABLE everyone to watch? Should I put a video camera in my bedroom and distribute the live feed and recordings to anyone I care about – present or future – who wants it?

I feel like that would be betrayal on a grand scale. Furthermore, if I have a friend who behaves that way, I would certainly want to be made aware in advance that anything I send that friend might also be seen by any of his/her partners.

Please help me understand how poly people deal with this in real life. Do people actually give their partners this kind of access? If they do, do they make any effort to inform everyone else they communicate with that their communications are NOT private? How do people handle ‘crazy ex’ issues with this?

Thank you,
Loyal For Real

Dear L4R:

Since I practice open email communication with my partner, and wrote much of what likely surprised you about that post, I’ll explain my personal perspective.

First off, there is no workable universal policy for openness within a relationship, whether poly, traditional, or otherwise.  The best policy is the one you and your partner/s decide works best for you, and that may change from time to time. What I recommend is the optimal scenario from my perspective: open and honest communication to an extreme, the logical conclusion to the underpinning of ethical nonmonogamy.

Put into practice, however, total transparency isn’t realistic in all situations.  I see a difference between SECRETS with which you’ve been entrusted, and COMMUNICATIONS.

Let me pose it this way: if you received a message involving an interesting / problematic / curious / emotionally charged topic, would you feel comfortable discussing that topic with your best friend?  I don’t see any real difference between discussing the contents of a conversation with my partner, and actually sharing that conversation with my partner. If there’s an expectation of secrecy within a specific message or conversation (whether implicit or explicit), then I would tell my partner there was something personal or private that wouldn’t be appropriate to share, explain why, and ask that partner to avoid that particular area; perhaps I’d even delete it after reading, with my partner’s knowledge I was doing so and why.  But barring extenuating circumstances, I think it reasonable to expect that anything you tell, write, or message another person these days is likely to be shared, especially to a significant other if they have one.  The only question is where any of us draw the line between what we consider private, and what we consider fair game for sharing.

While I understand my position might not meet your particular needs or beliefs, I explained why I do it that way and why I consider it ideal, even if untenable for some. So is this a betrayal at all, let alone one of epic proportions?  I don’t think so at all, although your mileage may (and likely does) vary. Mischa?

As Leon pointed out, if the topic of the message is so secretive that you can’t talk about it with your partner, then you probably can’t have the kind of open relationships that Leon and I do – and that’s totally okay! FBI, CIA and NSA people can be poly too, as long as they are up-front about their reasons, lol

Personally, my partners have access to my online calendar and my messages (their fingerprints unlock my phone) and I have the same access. Do we pick up each other’s phones and scroll through texts and emails? Absolutely not, because we respect each other’s privacy. Giving each other access is one way we show that we have nothing to hide from each other.

For example, to think about it another way: If people expect me to hide something from my partners, I feel that’s a big “ask” and it’s incumbent upon them to inform me of that expectation so I can arrange a phone call or a meeting, or tell them I’m not comfortable with keeping something from the people closest to me.

That’s a 180-degree flip from your belief that people expect you to keep all their communications confidential. But the problem with that assumption is that you won’t know for sure what you can share with your partner(s) and what you can’t because EVERYTHING is assumed to be confidential. If your relationships never intersect then I guess you’re fine, but what happens if your partners and friends meet? How will you know what you can share so they don’t remain strangers?

In the end, it all boils down to consent. Your worldview is that nothing can be shared without consent, but I’m guessing that people end up sharing some of it anyway and violating that non-consent. Our worldview is that everything is shared unless WE consent to keep it secret from our partners. This ensures that whatever needs to be kept private is handled appropriately and leaves us free to share everything else without violating anyone’s privacy expectations.

Thanks for writing in and giving us a chance to once again address this sensitive topic!

I hate my married partner’s new girlfriend!

Hi,

I’ve been in a relationship for 10 years with a married woman. I am surprisingly comfortable being in this relationship considering her wife does not know. The married woman and I have been doing this without any idea of polyamory anything. This is Issue 1 and that last sentence will make more sense in a second.

My 10-year partner has recently fallen in love with another woman (Issue 2). I found out because I saw all the signs and asked. It was at this point that my partner told me that she loves us all and that even after I said I wouldn’t stand in the way.

The new woman and my partner have been together now for two years. The new girl knows about me and the wife. She has expressed to my partner that she is most jealous of me and says things like “I can work with the wife, not [me].” She started making demands and requests that my partner (sadly) has accommodated, thinking it would make this woman happy and feel secure. Requests such as I stop picking up my partner from work, that I not send flowers, that I not call her when they are together – all of which has created two years of arguing hurt and resentment (Issue 3).

Now I want to make something clear: when my partner told me she loved this new girl and I offered to leave, I was devastated. I thought it was over. When she told me that she wanted me to stay  because she was still in love me, and loved us all, I thought OK, I could probably do this because I am pretty much doing it already. I was open to everything. I even extended an olive branch and us three did a lunch (which backfired).

Now things are bad with me and the new girl. She has placed crazy boundaries that limit my interactions with my partner, and my partner accommodates all of them. I don’t understand this. When they fight, the new girl tells my partner she is monogamous and that she can’t split her time with my partner three ways, that she doesn’t want to share. Right now I have one set night a week for a date; they work together so they have 60-70 hours a week. they are intimate every day/night and when they go out, my partner makes arrangements to be out late. This does not happen with me. We get home early because she  has to get home.

The worst thing that happened this week was Monday and Tuesday I made plans to meet my partner on train platforms to travel to our neighborhood together – not on their date night. She can’t tell this new woman because she flips out – cries, screams, tells my partner she can’t stand that she is with her all day and then ends the night with me. Mind you, I am only traveling home – not on a date! So what my partner does is she leaves me waiting on the Union Square train platform. She can’t text me because the woman would flip out. On Tuesday she told me to meet her at 42nd Street and that she was only going to walk with the woman to Brooklyn Bridge and take the train to meet me. Well, the other woman decided to travel with her to 125th. My partner said nothing about me waiting for her or us having plans to meet. She literally leaves me there at 42nd Street and she passes by. Calls me when she gets to 125th, where I guess the woman parted ways with her, and tells me where to meet her. I felt and feel destroyed. Disrespected.

Am I wrong? This is all a slow death of my relationship and this is my partner’s way of breaking up with me. Right? Because at this point, my hatred for this new woman is off the charts. I want her gone.

Signed,
Lady Kept Waiting

Dear Kept Lady,

Usually when poly people (or those acting poly) are having problems, it can be traced back to a communication problem. In your case, it’s not so much a problem with communication as a lack of basic human respect on the part of your married partner.

No matter how much it aggravates her new girlfriend, to leave you stranded waiting for her due to changed plans is inexcusable. Where are her manners? This is beyond the bounds of common decency. I wouldn’t do that to someone I’d just met, let alone someone I’ve been with for 10 FREAKIN’ YEARS! I’m sorry, but there is no justification for anyone to be controlled to the extent that they cannot tell someone they are running late or have to reschedule – especially in New York!

If your partner says she wants you to stay, then you should ask her to show you the basic courtesy and respect that you deserve. While you generally don’t get to dictate how she handles her relationships with other people, you can and should demand that she treat you the way you want to be treated. If the new girlfriend can’t handle her treating you like a human being, that is for your partner to work out with her. But no one deserves to be treated that way by someone who claims to love them.

Leon, over to you!

She’s not trying to break up with you. She’s trying to accommodate the wishes of someone else she loves – that squeaky wheel is taking up a TON of oil here. This monogamous woman doesn’t care about anyone other than your mutual partner and herself, and she makes no bones about it. Your partner is bending over backwards to accommodate more and more of this woman’s demands because she’s trying to “hold it all together” – but it’s obviously taken its toll on the rest of the people in this scenario.  

You can’t have any sort of healthy relationship with this needy monogamous woman involved to such an extent that it’s pushing you out, and I’m betting you’re much more passive than aggressive. You’re going to have to start asserting your needs with your partner and make clear what you want and expect out of your relationship – including picking her up at work, spending time together, telling the monogamous woman off to her face, whatever you feel you need to get back on track again – or ending the relationship to save your sanity.

Out of morbid curiosity, how can the wife not know there’s something going on? I wonder whether she does and is ignoring it all, or whether she herself has a lover or two? I’d love to pick her brain.  

New girlfriend rattles nervous wife

Hello,

My husband and I just started our open marriage. We’ve been discussing an open relationship for awhile now. Well, husband met a girl in a show they were in together, and he fell for her. He was hiding it from me for a bit, but finally opened up to me. They scheduled a date after he and I decided to open our relationship, but she didn’t know that then. He told her last night, and they are meeting tonight.

I’m very nervous. We have had a threesome before with another woman, and I was fine. This is a little different. Maybe it’s just because it’s new.

She also wanted to add a rule, but I don’t know how I feel about it. She didn’t want sex to happen every night because she doesn’t want to feel cheap. I don’t know how I feel about limiting my sex-life with my husband, but I also want her to feel respected in our relationship. What do I do? And how do I get through the nerves??

Nervous Newbie

Dear Newbie,

First of all, let me start by apologizing that we couldn’t respond the day you wrote in time to address your nerves. I hope you managed to get through your husband’s date without any undue fuss.

It’s not unusual to be nervous about a new situation in your relationship. I think the best way to deal with nerves is to acknowledge to your partner that you are feeling apprehensive or concerned, and share the source of your concerns to give them a chance to assuage them. Probably the worst thing you can do is to keep it all bottled up inside and let that fester into resentment or worse. I find that the more you talk out an issue, the less threatening it becomes. 

Successful poly relationships require communication. You and your partner are in this together, and you both have to be equally committed to the idea of an open relationship in order for it to work. So when feelings are at risk, someone needs to speak up, check in, and talk it out. It might feel very uncomfortable at first, but given time and experience, it gets easier and better, and you’ll find out a lot about who your partner really is. And isn’t that why you’re in the relationship in the first place?

Second, about that rule. There’s a general consensus in the poly community that rules should not be enforced on people who didn’t have a say in them. So it sounds like the three of you need to discuss the proposed rule before it goes into effect. It’s important to approach this discussion with an open mind and be willing to talk about different options. 

Try to get to the heart of everyone’s wants and needs. What is the relationship between sex and her self-esteem? What other ways could she feel valued, legitimized and safe in the relationship that doesn’t involve limitations on sex? If you and your husband skip sex one night a week, how would that affect everybody? Who decides what nights?

These kind of conversations seem strange because we live in a monogamy-dominated society, but they should really be pretty straightforward if everyone can be comfortable talking about their relationship wants and needs in an egalitarian spirit. Since your husband is the point of the “V” (he’s the person with the relationship with both you and his other partner, your “metamour”) he should be taking the lead on facilitating this discussion. It sounds like you just need to get him to start that ball rolling.

Over to you, Leon!

Hi Newbie! Glad you and your partner trust each other enough to open up your relationship responsibly!  

I’m a little concerned that some of it was apparently started without your knowledge and consent, but that’s a common faux pas among newly opened partners. It can take a while to learn how to find the most mutually satisfying balance between completely open honesty, and the instinct to protect our partners from hearing what we think they’ll take as bad news. As long as you and your partner’s underlying relationship satisfaction stays a mutual priority (with your needs being met as well as his), I think new metamour relationships can create a lot of fun and compersion for all three of you. 

Nerves are usually due to suspense: not knowing how things will work out and being worried about the outcome. You’ll probably notice that nervous feeling fading, or transitioning positively into excitement or comfort, as you gain more experience with the scenario. Make sure you stay in touch with your own needs during this time, and make sure you’re communicating them in ways they’ll each understand.

Generally, when someone wants to impose a rule that NOT everyone agrees with, I suggest finding out the underlying need or desire it’s designed to protect. You suggest that the new partner doesn’t want sex to happen every date night because she doesn’t want to feel cheap – did she mean she wouldn’t want to have sex with your partner on each of their dates (my interpretation), or that she didn’t want you and your partner to? If the former, that sounds like a reasonable safety rule for herself and her own comfort levels, but I’m not quite sure how the other interpretation makes sense, and agree with Mischa that agreements should be negotiated by all parties to whom it will apply, rather than imposed as a rule. 

Regardless, my instinct is to focus less on her actual rule and more on the motivation behind it. Why would any of those scenarios trigger her to feel cheap? Very often people fight hard for “their rule” without realizing there are other ways to get what they actually want, perhaps less restrictively and/or in ways that incorporate others’ needs as well.

Good luck to all, and let us know how it turns out.