Hi all,
I've been through a rough year. I've had to rebuild myself from ground up and now that I'm back and looking at what comes next, I'm feeling scared and uncertain. I could really use some kind words or to hear about the experiences of someone else who's gone through the same. I'd even welcome advice, if you feel like there's something I should know.
Here's a bit about me.
In the spring of last year, I was a husband and a dad 5 years into a fairly typical marriage. We had recently experienced a miscarriage and her mom had recently moved in with us due to a brain injury. Things were stressful.
My wife re-connected with an ex who lives far away and was at that time going through a divorce. They ended up engaging in long distance cheating. She told me that thing got out of hand and she assured me that she was putting an end to that, but she also made it clear that she dropping him as a friend wasn't an option. A few weeks later, she asked if we could talk about opening up our marriage.
I initially said no. I had a previous disastrous experience with adding people to a relationship. Based on that, I was of the opinion that on paper polyamory was a great idea (no one person can be 100% of what someone else needs) but in practice it's messy and incredibly difficult and that we weren't starting from a strong enough position to take on that emotional load. She agreed. And then a couple of weeks later brought it up again.
I was fully aware of the signs here. My options were: 1. End the relationship or 2: Keep the relationship closed and find out about her cheating at some point in the future or 3: Open up the relationship even though I felt uncertain about it. I took the third option. I hoped that with my experience from the past that I might be able to build this into a successful poly relationship. I didn't thinking highly of our odds, but if we ended up succeeding I would be happy with the result. Regardless, things were going to change. All I could do was hope for the best.
We did our best. Looking back on it now, it's laughable that we thought we had prepared enough, but we did the best we could at the time. I had decided I'd wait several months before I started being open to new relationships, to provide as much stability as I could at home. She went off to spend several days with him. On the day she left, she said "I won't let anything harm you or our relationship. If things get too difficult, let me know and I'll end things with him or at least take a break". Four very difficult weeks later, she told me that she wasn't going to keep working on our relationship and that we were over as a couple.
I've spent the last year recovering from that rejection and emotional turmoil. I took a major hit to my confidence and it took a very long time to get that back and feel like myself again. My ex-wife and I managed to maintain a strong co-parent relationship throughout. I have massive respect for her as a mother and she feels the same about me as a dad. We both want to spend every day with our child and would rather deal with the complexity of us living together than make things simple and live separately.
Now I'm living with my ex and our child and thinking about what comes next. I don't have to consider my next relationship from a ENM context, but I strongly identify with what I see as the core principles of ENM and I'd be happy to be in a relationship with someone who is identifies as poly. I'm not planning on living away from my child (and therefore my ex) any time soon; that kind of non-traditional lifestyle might be unacceptable by a large number of potential partners out there. So it seems like I'd be more likely to find an understanding person in the poly/ENM community.
But I have concerns. The poly community around me must be small compared to the general population. I have no idea how to effectively integrate into that community (I've been to some munches, which have been a lot of fun, but even at poly/ENM specific events there seems to be a focus on kink). I'm not as young as I used to be. I'm concerned that choosing a lifestyle that gives me the most time with my child is also going to prevent me from finding someone to build a meaningful relationship with. And if that's the case, so be it, I wouldn't change my decision.
I'm just looking for some words of support. I've learned recently how important it is to have a community instead of just one person that you rely on, so I'm reaching out to see what's here.