It's definitely a very different kind of lifestyle. That's why there are a lot of newbies on the forums looking for advice from the veterans on polyamory.com.
Married 15 years, D5 x 2 W had EA and PA 10/2010 MC for a year improved things Alternate lifestyle, started 01/2012 has turned into a mess
No I've actually seen people on there who have been at it for awhile but then get jealous when one person gets more attention than another. I even went through several blogs and workshop links. You're just fighting something that's human nature.
For the sake of your kids though I hope you don't show them this side. It's going to mess them up when they start dating. They could end up hurting alot of people.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Looking forward to our first counselling session Tuesday evening. We found a poly-friendly counsellor, and will conduct the session via Skype. I hope in this first session we'll cover our history, then move on to discussing how to get intimacy back in our relationship, as well as cover some of the issues we're having with scheduling and communication.
Married 15 years, D5 x 2 W had EA and PA 10/2010 MC for a year improved things Alternate lifestyle, started 01/2012 has turned into a mess
For the sake of your kids though I hope you don't show them this side. It's going to mess them up when they start dating. They could end up hurting alot of people.
Oh believe me, we're hiding this poly stuff from our kids and almost all our friends and neighbors. We live in a very socially conservative area, and most wouldn't appreciate our lifestyle choices. When W goes out she usually waits until the kids are asleep. Occasionally, if she leaves before then, it's something like "Mommy is going to work" or "Mommy is going to see some friends". Very vague stuff like that.
There's a lot of variance out there in the poly world regarding when/if to tell your children of your lifestyle. Some start telling their kids right away (especially if the partners live in your home!). Others wait until they're adolescents. Still others wait until their children are adults.
Married 15 years, D5 x 2 W had EA and PA 10/2010 MC for a year improved things Alternate lifestyle, started 01/2012 has turned into a mess
I think she is beginning to see my value and beginning to see the mistake she has made withdrawing from my initially.
Well I hope that's true, but don't forget, DB'ing is not about sitting around waiting for your spouse to change their mind because that almost never happens. It's about working on yourself. Detaching, GALing, making yourself the spouse only a fool would leave, doing 180's on your faults. A lot of people start to DB and then when they see some positive reaction from their spouse they quit because they think their spouse has "finally seen the light". So they go back to old habits and their spouse pushes away again, but this time it's much harder to draw them back. Why? Because they're thinking "oh, he hasn't changed at all, now I see he was just doing that as a trick to get me back and if I go back he just becomes that same old person I don't like."
Thanks for keeping me focused, AnotherStander. For the most part, I am continuing the 180 by getting out, working out at the gym, pursuing hobbies (like learning to fly), and giving her her space to come and go as she pleases. I did have a recent hiccup where I texted a friend that I thought she was spending excessive time with her guy. This is a friend that is a swinger and probably the only person I know that I could ever talk to about this kind of stuff. Unfortunately, W read my text to him and went ballistic on me, because he is not a fan of her current behavior. Her response was basically: "The only people you should be talking to about this is me and guy."
Not sure how to deal with the fact that she thinks it's OK to go through my phone's texts, but carefully password protects all her thousands of texts with guy.
Married 15 years, D5 x 2 W had EA and PA 10/2010 MC for a year improved things Alternate lifestyle, started 01/2012 has turned into a mess
A strangely positive sign: Yesterday when she returned from a 24-hour day with her guy, she was reading a copy of "Love and Respect", which apparently is a popular Christian-based novel about working on marriages. I must admit I did some smiling on the inside, because that's one of the few signs I've seen from her that she wants to work on our marriage.
Married 15 years, D5 x 2 W had EA and PA 10/2010 MC for a year improved things Alternate lifestyle, started 01/2012 has turned into a mess
For the most part, I am continuing the 180 by getting out, working out at the gym, pursuing hobbies (like learning to fly)
Those are all great things and they may be 180's for you, but they really fall under "GAL" rather than 180's. When we say 180's we're specifically talking about searching to discover what you may have done wrong in the M and doing 180's on those things.
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and giving her her space to come and go as she pleases.
If you were smothering her before then this would be more along the lines of the 180's we're talking about.
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I did have a recent hiccup where I texted a friend that I thought she was spending excessive time with her guy. This is a friend that is a swinger and probably the only person I know that I could ever talk to about this kind of stuff. Unfortunately, W read my text to him and went ballistic on me, because he is not a fan of her current behavior. Her response was basically: "The only people you should be talking to about this is me and guy."
Not sure how to deal with the fact that she thinks it's OK to go through my phone's texts, but carefully password protects all her thousands of texts with guy.
I totally understand what you're saying about the double standard and in a healthy marriage this is something that would need to be addressed. But for now your M is not healthy, so you've got to put up with a lot of stuff from W and work only on your half of the M. You do need a support person or group, and what is talked about between you and this person/ people is not your W's business. So either password protect your phone or limit your conversations to your support people to phone calls or in-person convos. How did you respond to your W when she went "ballistic" on you over this? If we can get some insight into how your fights go down we might be able to give you some pointers.
