Has this ever happened to you?

[SilentSaturn91]

Hi there! Before I continue with my post, I'm SilentSaturn91. Pleased to meet you! 3nodding BTW a warning, this may be lengthy OO;

So back in february I met this rather charming 'poly' fella (I'll explain why Poly is in quotations later on) on Okcupid.com and we hit it off pretty well. We were chatting every day via pm and we were starting to get to the point where we wanted to meet up in real life. Now I'm going to use fake names for privacy purposes. I'll refer to him has Kevin and her as Melissa. Kevin had been in a few previous poly relationships before so I felt comfortable with that because he had some experience under his belt. I've been poly for over 2 years now 3nodding So Kevin asked me if I could send his gf Melissa a message online just to say hello because she was feeling rather insecure about some random girl talking to her boyfriend, so I did.

In the very Beginning, Melissa and I seemed to be hitting it off very well. I tried my best to do what I could within my power to make her feel like an equal, not to intimidate her, give her the reassurance she needed and over all just try to be friends with her. Sadly Melissa Had been through several rather damaging relationships, one in particular where she was tossed off to the side if she didn't please her man hard enough (I still wanna rip this guys head off for that) and that left her extremely frightened of any woman who even so much as smiled in the direction of her boyfriend.

After about 2 weeks, Melissa stopped talking to me altogether and started throwing LOTS of hissy fits. It had gotten so bad that Kevin was having to spend every spare waking moment he had outside of work just to try and calm her down. He was even beginning to loose sleep and I have no idea if he was eating at all. It wasn't until she said she doesn't want her boyfriend "Sleeping with girls who think they are better than her" did I decide to back off and when I did, That's when Kevin's real intentions became clear.

Turns out all he wanted was just sex from me, not a long term relationship. To this day I'm still hurt by all of this. I fought so hard, used all my knowledge on poly, ethics, boundaries etc and in the end it still fell apart. I put poly in quotations because these two are clearly not poly. they are swingers. Not once did either one of them take a moment to ask me how I felt about all of this and how all of this was affecting me. I was always about her.

Has this ever happened to you before and if so, comments, advice? This is a very brief version of the story but I can give more details if you ask biggrin  

[fizznomore]

Sounds like they needed to work out a whole bunch of things before opening their relationship. confused Sorry you got the bum end of it.

I think couples sometimes forget that "secondary" partners are people. (That's one of the issues that comes with hierarchies in relationships, though I know they can be hard to avoid.) Earlier in my poly adventures, I was guilty of talking things out with my live-in partner and then forgetting to pass on updates to my boyfriend. I just presumed he'd get the updates via osmosis. Silly me. (We've fixed that now.)  

[SilentSaturn91]

Fizzlesticks

Sounds like they needed to work out a whole bunch of things before opening their relationship. confused Sorry you got the bum end of it.

I think couples sometimes forget that "secondary" partners are people. (That's one of the issues that comes with hierarchies in relationships, though I know they can be hard to avoid.) Earlier in my poly adventures, I was guilty of talking things out with my live-in partner and then forgetting to pass on updates to my boyfriend. I just presumed he'd get the updates via osmosis. Silly me. (We've fixed that now.)

What I mentioned above is one of the main reason why I don't like the concept of primary and secondary partners. To me all my partners are primary, They are equal. Secondary makes the person in question sound less important which is not fair, in my opinion anyways. neutral  

[fizznomore]

SilentSaturn91

What I mentioned above is one of the main reason why I don't like the concept of primary and secondary partners. To me all my partners are primary, They are equal. Secondary makes the person in question sound less important which is not fair, in my opinion anyways. neutral

Ditto. I understand that relationships must be at different stages. The person you've been living with for a decade has a different kind of relationship from the person you went on two dates with last week. Naturally—but I just don't like calling someone "secondary."

I think my non-live-in boyfriend thinks of himself as secondary to my live-in relationship, but that's what works for him. (We only get to see each other about once a week.) But my live-in boy (F) and I think of my other significant other (W) as equal. I love them both very much.  

[SilentSaturn91]

Here are some more details that just resurfaced. I figure I would share them before I forgot them again sweatdrop

Melissa had this rather annoying habit of trying to control my relationship with Kevin before anything ever happened OO; All 3 of us are into BDSM and she was trying to set hard limits (basically a hard limit, for those who don't know, is a boundary that must not be crossed what so ever. It implies that this person will not do whatever is being asked of them under any circumstances (ex blood play)) on Things such as kissing and holding hands. Eventually she saw this as irrational and said that She would prefer if he and I only had a BDSM relationship. He and I got really ticked off about that really quick.

When Kevin and I met for the first time in person, Melissa asked if she could join too and I said yes. I felt like I was walking on egg shells the entire time. We went to the arcade at the mall. She would get really depressed and mopey if kevin and I went off to play a game in a spot where she couldn't see us. Trust me I was fighting back every instinct I had to start flirting with him and it was really hard. Oh did I mention she just turned 20 and looks like she's only 16? OO;

What hurts the most about all of this in the end was how ethical kevin was the entire time and i still didn't find out that all he wanted was just sex and nothing more.  

[SilentSaturn91]

Fizzlesticks

SilentSaturn91

What I mentioned above is one of the main reason why I don't like the concept of primary and secondary partners. To me all my partners are primary, They are equal. Secondary makes the person in question sound less important which is not fair, in my opinion anyways. neutral

Ditto. I understand that relationships must be at different stages. The person you've been living with for a decade has a different kind of relationship from the person you went on two dates with last week. Naturally—but I just don't like calling someone "secondary."

I think my non-live-in boyfriend thinks of himself as secondary to my live-in relationship, but that's what works for him. (We only get to see each other about once a week.) But my live-in boy (F) and I think of my other significant other (W) as equal. I love them both very much.

aww that's very sweet ^_^ sadly I'm single OO; first time in 2 years and it feels REALLY weird. I keep trying to find poly people to hang out with and go on dates with but sadly all the people I find have mono....gamy xD yes i refer to monogamus people as having mono razz  

[Blackrose_Knight]

Not to the point you have, but kinda opposite. My husband and I's okcupid's are very very upfront about that we are married, we are poly, and our marriage is open. (Seriously, its the first ********' sentence in both of ours.) My hubby went out on a date with Girl and came back happy. Second date Girl was all like "So... are you gonna leave your wife...." *facepalm* emotion_facepalm  

[Esiris]

My first poly relationship had a girl I was in love with dating me to get my partner away from me- they pushed me out of bed and that was when I knew it was over. I can be such an idiot sometimes.

I also had a guy say he was poly and that he loved me. He exposed me to unsafe sex without me knowing and really abused my friendship.  

[Ace of Hunters]

okay, first, Hi everyone ^_^ I am new, but i have been in a few commited poly relationships, and a few bad ones.

In response to if that has ever happened to me, yea, it has, I'm also guilty of it *shame on me to the max* But sometimes its hard to fulfill physical desires, and Sometimes, You make mistakes. To me, as I am going to use fake names. Mike, my best poly friend in the world, introduced me to one of his partners, and we hit it off really nicely, Lets use, Jessie for her name. Jessie, was possible one of the nicest girls on the planet, and she understood polyamory, which is amazing, cause what, one in 500 people understand it, if not less. So, we ended up in a relationship, but Mike, had a problem with how much time we spent together. I didn't mind it much when they hung out, because jessie spent equal time with both of us, sometimes have a date with both of us, sometimes having alone time. But it ended up ending because of jealousy pushing Jessie away. andwhen i talked to Mike, appearently, he ended up just being a booty call for her, and i will admit, i was to, but i never really minded it, until i figured it out.  

[Chieftain Twilight]

I have to say, I think I've seen this too often.

I will say first, that sometimes trying to make an already established person "feel equal" is kind of self-defeating; in a way, it's like saying you DO think you are or seem better than that person. I mean, how would you feel if someone new showed up and was all "oh, but don't worry, you're every bit as desirable to him as I am."?

not trying to say yo did anything wrong, just pointing out that good intentions can sometimes overlook important little details.

but also, there was definitely alot wrong to begin with in their relationship...

I can't stand people who take their jealousies out on "the other girl" instead of confronting the abuser or cheater. kevin wasn't treating melissa nicely or fairly; she was clearly abused. he did nothing to make her feel better about herself after all the damage she'd been through before he came along. he wanted a broken girl to take advantage of. same way he wanted to take advantage of you.

and she was angry at YOU for what HE was doing to her! despicable!

and she was controlling and unfair. first of all, if a relationship or romance is being pursued at all, flirting is NORMAL, and actually HEALTHY. without it, there wouldn't even be any point in trying.

myself, I don't see anything wrong with consentual swinging. I'd be a Swinger just as fast as a Polygamist, if not faster. but to not be clear about his intentions, is manipulative and underhanded. he was using you.

I hate people like him, and I certainly don't like people like her. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. it isn't any easy thing to cope with.

reminds me of way too many stories...  

[Digital Fiend]

Just, wow.

I think Eevs feels like she's at a disadvantage sometimes, since James and I were dating for years, and she's only been with him for a year. There's been a lot of mistakes and a lot of learning.

But unless I'm plain exhausted, I do try to think about her as much as possible in a situation. Just like I know she thinks about my feelings. {She was upset with James because he told me the lunches she made him were really good. She was afraid of making me mad because I wasn't making him lunch. I kind of chuckled at her, she has every right to make him lunch if she wants to}

I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is that it seems like she didn't try to appease you at all.

I hope she gets the help she needs for her own insecurities.  

[Esiris]

SilentSaturn91

What I mentioned above is one of the main reason why I don't like the concept of primary and secondary partners. To me all my partners are primary, They are equal. Secondary makes the person in question sound less important which is not fair, in my opinion anyways. neutral

Just as a heads up- some people need the primary/secondary relationship structure, it's not all bad.  

[SilentSaturn91]

Wow!! OO;

Thank you all for your replies to my thread! ^_^ You've all given me stuff to think on and chew over!

On a bit of a related note: This past thursday I attended my first Vancouver poly 101 meet up and the topic of the night was in fact jealousy. I managed to bring up a good point/question in regards to how jealousy affects the bigger picture, not just you or your immediate partner(s). I called it the ripple effect because I have noticed that if you lash out from your jealousy it spreads like a ripple in a pond from one person to another and so on. I can remember melissa's jealousy affecting me then I would tell my parents about it (who have been happily poly for 14+ years now) then they would start feeling the pain and crap and it started affecting their other other relationships and so on.


Now, onto a more silly note razz

So if my partner's partner is my metamour, does that make my partner's partners' pet a 'petamour'? razz