I am so happy to say that my dear friend, Marla, is back to write a two part blog post about her experience in her non-monogamous relationship. Like all relationships, non-monogamous relationships have some challenges that you have to overcome. Marla opens up about some of her struggles and how she and her polycule have maneuvered through them.
WHEN Things Go Wrong
Hi there! Me again, Steph’s friendly nurse by day, sexual wellness educator by night contributor! I want to thank Steph for allowing me to contribute again and share some of my growth based on personal experiences. I know her information has been extremely helpful to me and I love being able to share my own experiences.
I want you to take note of the embolden word in the title of this particular blog – WHEN. I chose this word because in an ENM (ethical non-monogamous) relationship, it’s not a matter of if, but when, something WILL go wrong. Things go wrong in monogamous relationships as well. Why…because we’re human! We all make mistakes, we are notoriously egocentric where we want what’s best for ourselves and we don’t always think about how it affects the other person or people in our lives. In the case of ENM, we don’t really know what we’re doing wrong, at least in the beginning. All of these are perfectly normal reasons things that go wrong in any relationship style, but in an ENM relationship, the effects are multiplied – infinitely, it seems, at times.
A little background on our relationship make up…Tom and I have been together since November 2004. We moved from Virginia to Colorado in October 2006. We were married in May 2008. We toyed with the idea of opening up our marriage sexually a couple times but never acted on it. 2019 we revisited opening our marriage sexually and he met his now girlfriend in 2019. She and I are great friends, we refer to ourselves as “sister wives”. I met my long-distance boyfriend online sometime in the spring of 2020…truly we can’t remember when we first started talking! It was after the initial pandemic shut down of New York City but before we started working night shifts the months of June and July. We met in person for the first time on September 11, 2020. One of us travels cross country about every 6-8 weeks, sometimes more frequently. Occasionally we’ll meet somewhere in the middle. At this point, we are a fairly strong functioning polycule. We are closer to “Kitchen Table Poly” than any other polyamorous relationship style, besides the fact that we don’t share living spaces and finances.
Issues Within Your Control
When my husband and I first opened our relationship and he was started dating his girlfriend in 2019, oh boy did we make mistakes! One of the things I had a hard time adjusting to was him leaving to go on a date or spend the night at her house. I was used to him being gone, between work and his previous obsession with hunting (that can be addressed another time!). I thought because I was used to him being away from our house in general, it would be fine! I’m FINE, everything was FINE! I did my best to hide my emotions from him and he continued to want to check on me and make sure I was ok. Between me wanting to hide how I was feeling and his continued attempts to check on me and make sure I was ok, I got frustrated as did his girlfriend. She was bordering on just plain pissed off. Which is completely understandable! I would be so annoyed/frustrated/mad if the person I was spending time with spent all their time together focus on someone else.
There was one instance where I was supposed to go see a friend one weekend and for reasons I still don’t know to this day, that friend stopped contacting me about a week and a half prior to the trip. I didn’t know anyone else in the area I was going to, so of course I cancelled my trip. Of course, Tom and his girlfriend had made plans based on the fact that I was going out of town. We had grown a little at this point and talked about times to check in, good morning or goodnight phone calls, is texting ok. Now, my trip is cancelled and I told his girlfriend I by no means expected anything to change for them based on the fact that I was now in town. I reached out to a couple girlfriends and made plans with them. However, I STILL tried to hide my disappointment in my trip getting cancelled from him and he still needed to make sure I was ok when I wasn’t doing anything, maybe just hanging out at our house. My inability to communicate just plain disappointment came out in a very poor manner, with me lashing out at his girlfriend. This ultimately pissed her off to the point where she told him just to go home. We took some time to decompress around the whole scenario and come back together and actually start to address the issues, which were my lack of communication and his continued focus on me.
The last event that damn near caused my husband’s girlfriend to end their relationship altogether happened in the spring of 2020, during the initial phase of the entire country being shut down. We had to put our last dog down a few weeks earlier and true to form, I did not recognize how much it was affecting me. Heidi was the last thing around our house that was left from a period in our marriage where we tried to have kids. Due to multiple ectopic pregnancies, we suffered 3 losses very early in pregnancy. This was back in 2012. Neither of us had really addressed the feelings we had behind those losses. I had gone to a couple of therapy sessions after it first happened but didn’t really connect with that therapist, so I didn’t continue. And I continued to ignore the feelings. FOR YEARS.
Between having to put Heidi down and the worldwide pandemic instilling fear of a healthcare system collapse and also me never being able to see my parents again, as they live on the other side of the country, I suffered somewhat of a break down. I lashed out at my husband’s girlfriend, stating a fear that she was trying to take him from me. I realize shortly thereafter this was not rational, but are emotions EVER rational? It was recommended by my husband and his girlfriend I start seeing a therapist (SOON….like the next day if possible) and I did. I learned to open up more, communicate better and continue to see her once a month.
There’s been other issues that have arisen over the last 3 years but these were probably the biggest learning experience for me. You have to communicate with your partners. You also have to value each individual relationship and person. A partner is not something you possess. Realistically, you’re not going to know how you’re going to feel on a partners first date or overnight until it happens. One of the best things I’ve learned (unfortunately not before we were in a multiamorous relationship) is to address that before it happens by “dating yourself”. Thanks to Tom’s girlfriend, I learned that we entered this polyamorous relationship at hyperspeed, which is probably not the best way to do things.
Go out by yourself, spend time with friends without your partner or find something you enjoy independent of them. That’s the best way to get ahead of it. Allow yourself some grace, because it will FEEL different. When your partner returns, TALK about how you felt while they were out. Address the issue almost immediately. Steph’s last blog (Monthly Check-In Questions) mentioned monthly check ins with partners. This is a great maintenance tool but when an issue arises, it should be addressed fairly quickly. If its not addressed, it will likely be repeated with an increased emotional response that could have detrimental ramifications. The lesson here is that its ok to have a heightened emotional response to a situation but its how you manage that and how it’s managed if it happens again. Let’s try not to repeat our mistakes but learn from them.
Wow! Thanks for sharing all that Marla! There were parts of your story that really resonated with me, did it with any one else? We would love to hear about your experiences. Drop me a line on social media or send me an email at Steph@KoruLifeCoaching.com
