Estimated reading time: 15 minutes
Dear Dr. NerdLove: I’m a man in my early 30s, in a polyamorous marriage to a wonderful woman whom I live with. I know this is an odd thing to specify, but it’ll be relevant in a moment.
The problem I am having, which I still can’t get make sense of in my head, is that I was recently dumped by my girlfriend of 6 months and I’m not sure what to make of this.
For context, while my wife and I are polyamorous and are relatively open about it with friends, it’s not something that we make a big deal out of. We live in a medium-sized community that has a small-c conservative streak and live in a neighborhood with a very involved HOA, so while we’ll happily talk about the fact that we’re non-monogamous if it comes up, we don’t necessarily advertise the fact, if you see what I mean. As a result, the poly community in our area is very, very small, so many of the people we’ve dated or had relationships with have been long-distance to one degree or another. My wife currently has a partner in the nearby big city, where she has to travel regularly for work.
Recently, I met a woman, “Evangeline”, around my age, at a social event, and we hit it off. She, in fact, had been the one to initiate things and was making it very clear how attractive she found me. She knew I was married and wasn’t upset over things like how many of our early dates either ended at her place or hotels; my shared home is small and we have classic small-town neighbors/HOA members who get up in everyone’s business. The amount of problems they could cause outweighs the inconvenience of going elsewhere.
(In another time I would have questions about how to be poly when you can’t reliably host, but that’s for when I’m not dealing with the current fallout.)
Now, I had THOUGHT that I had explained everything about how my marriage worked to Evangeline. She wasn’t familiar with ethical non-monogamy or polyamory beyond cultural pieces about ‘this new relationship model’, so I tried to explain it all as best as I could without overloading her with jargon or community terms. I explained that we had an arrangement, that this was all above board, and so forth and so on.
I have to wonder if I should have done a better or more descriptive job, however, because of what happened a couple weeks ago.
As I said, most of our early dates were very hot and heavy; we were going out to get drinks or dinner and then ending up back at her place or some local motels. I started inviting her out to dates that were less about us having sex but having a relationship, but she seemed hesitant about these. She also seemed to get tense when I would bring up my wife – nothing significant, just the sort of casual conversational topics one has about one’s day. At the time, I attributed it to her not being used to being in a poly relationship and wanted to give her time to get comfortable with the possibility. In retrospect, I should have noticed the tone and tenseness that would come up if I mentioned my wife in a positive fashion, but as I said, I assumed it was because of some lingering sense of “is this really ok?” and I was trying to reassure her that yes, this is all fine.
Things blew up finally when I mentioned that my wife wanted to meet her and invited her to come join us for dinner – either a nice home-cooked dinner at our place, or a restaurant if that would feel more comfortable. This is when Evangeline let loose and how this was just wrong and she couldn’t keep doing it because I was… well if I’m being honest, I think she accused me of lying or tricking her, but it was hard to understand what she was saying. The gist that I got, finally, was that she thought I was cheating on my wife, and the fact that I wasn’t was the problem.
I actually had to ask her to repeat that because I was sure I misheard her. She was angry because I WASN’T cheating and that was bad. At which point she stormed out of the room, blocked my number and all my socials and more or less exited my life.
Doctor, I am incredibly confused. If I’m being honest, I’m not sure if I could have been or should have been clearer with Evangeline about what we were doing, and if this was my fault or not. This apparently isn’t an unknown thing in the poly community; some of the other people we know have had similar issues that it is actually easier to meet people who think that they’re cheating, rather than if they’re ethically non-monogamous.
Was there something I should have said or done that would have made it more clear that this was an entirely ethical and above-board relationship so that Evangeline would’ve passed this up? Why would it be “better” if I were a cheating asshole instead of someone who is capable of having more than one romantic relationship and with the full knowledge and consent of his wife?
Am I The Asshole For NOT Cheating?
So, before I get into this, I am going to reiterate my standard position on fake letters: seeing as most letters to an advice column are functionally “not real” to anyone but the person writing in, I don’t worry about “fake” letters or creative writing exercises if and when I feel that there’s a lesson that would be useful for other people.
With this in mind, however, I would be more tempted to question the reality of this letter, if this wasn’t a known issue that folks have encountered before: partners who were cool with things when the relationship was “illicit”, but far less so when it turned out that it wasn’t. Or when a relationship started one way but turned into something that they neither wanted, nor were ready for. And while this sort of behavior is the sort of thing that might be a little more expected in someone who’s younger… well, as you’ve seen, acting the fool knows no age limit.
So under the circumstances, I’m going to call you Neo for the way you dodged that bullet, AITAFNC. While there are ways that, theoretically, you could have avoided this, I think that, practically speaking, there really was no way that this would’ve ended well, regardless of what you did. The relationship ended and you should be glad that it did; everything else after that is really just flavor text.
The truth of the matter is that sometimes you can do everything “right”, but still end up in an untenable situation, because other people have agency and make their own decisions. Sometimes those decisions make little sense to us, but we can’t control for them; we can only roll with the punches as they come. And while examining what happened can be illuminating, I’m not sure that it’s going to be helpful, per se.
There’re a couple possibilities here for what was going on in Evangeline’s head. The first is that she’s the sort of person who gets off on being “the other woman” – that is, what she enjoys isn’t the sex or the relationship so much as the power of it. Some people – and this is true across the gender and sexuality spectrum – get off on being the tempter or temptress. They like being the person who is so alluring and so desirable, so seductive that they are able to sway someone away from their partner. It’s a power play, a way of saying “look at how much better/sexier/stronger than you” to the person being cuckolded. It serves as a form of malignant validation, where they get to demonstrate how they’re the Main Character of The World, even if the role they’re playing is functionally the villain.
It’s a fucked up way of looking at things, but as I’ve said: this knows no gender, nor sexuality. I’ve seen more than a few dudes who prefer going after women with boyfriends precisely because they like “proving” that they’re just that hot, and then dumping the woman if/when things go public.
In this scenario, the fact that she wasn’t, in fact, seducing you away from your hapless wife, that this wasn’t her tempting a good man into “sin” or any other scenario that validates her desirability kills the appeal. Now she’s no longer the jezebel or the succubus, she’s just someone having sex with a man. Yes, that man is married, but it’s neither a secret, illicit affair nor is she violating any serious taboos. It’s just… casual dating.
Another possibility is that she saw this as a “he’s going to leave his wife for me” situation. While she “knew” that your relationship was open and that you were allowed outside partners, she still saw this as being the first step towards a more “traditional” (read: monogamous) relationship with her. It’s entirely possible that she heard “we’re in an open relationship” as “this is the final stage before we give up and divorce”, and assumed that she could wait things out before you would eventually leave your wife for her.
This isn’t entirely without reason; opening the marriage as the last-ditch attempt to fix things before it all falls apart is almost a cliché – insert that Arrested Development “no, it never works, but it just might work for us” meme here. If she thought that this was a momentary delay on the path towards your leaving your wife and having a monogamous commitment to her, I could see how her realizing that you weren’t would cause a short-circuit. If she had any qualms – ethical or simply perceptual – of being “the other woman”, those could be justified under the heading of “Are You In Love Or Just An Asshole?” if it ended with your putting a ring on it.
Since that wasn’t going to happen – certainly not in the way that she expected – then now she’s just a cheating asshole. It doesn’t matter that there was no actual cheating or that you could’ve had an honest, emotionally-if-not-legally committed relationship with her. It meant that she misread the situation badly and lashed out at you in embarrassment, shame and misplaced anger.
The third possibility is similar, in as much as that she was ok with the affair and your being married because it meant that she basically got the “good parts” version of the relationship. She got to be the side-piece who got the fancy dates and hotel rooms and whatnot, but without needing to have all the actual “work” that comes with a relationship.
The fact that you weren’t going to leave your wife, in this scenario, is a bonus, not a drawback, because it would mean that your wife “had” to do all the emotional labor parts of the marriage. But once you were inviting her to be in an actual relationship, not just the piece on the side… well, that changes the equation. Rightly or wrongly, she may have seen this as a violation of the agreement that you didn’t know you were making.
But at the end of the day… honestly, it doesn’t matter whether it was any of these possibilities or something completely different, because the motivation doesn’t really change the outcome. This relationship wasn’t what she thought it was, and she blamed you for the dichotomy between what she expected and what she had.
It’s theoretically possible you could have explained things better, and if you’d checked in to see if she understood and was cool with it, you might have avoided the blow up. But the fact of the matter is that some people will hear only what they want to hear, no matter what words you use. As many women could tell you: you can read someone chapter and verse, in great detail, about what this relationship is or isn’t, and they’ll still only hear the version they wanted to hear. And if this is the first time you’ve had this issue with someone who wasn’t already in the poly community… well, that suggests the issue really is with her, not with you.
There’s not really much else to do here except thank your lucky stars that this ended early, and with less drama than it could have. The best thing to do going forward is to do your best to make sure that future partners understand what they’re signing up for and what it means. You can’t force people to understand or listen, but that’s ultimately their problem, not yours.
Good luck.
I have been with my significant other for five years and helped raise his daughter since she was a toddler. She is now 8, and her behavior—and his enabling—is pushing me to my breaking point.
She demands her father do everything for her, including bathing and dressing her, and he complies. She runs around the house in her underwear, which he excuses by saying she is “little enough.” Her desperate need to be the absolute center of attention extends to everyone; she constantly interrupts adult conversations, and if her father and I are hugging or sitting together, she physically throws herself between us. Furthermore, she throws two-hour tantrums to sleep in our primary bedroom, resulting in me sleeping in another room entirely.
He constantly caves to her demands, literally scolding her while giving her exactly what she wants. Because I maintain boundaries, she behaves well for me and my older children. With him, however, she genuinely believes she gets to dictate his actions, bossing him around endlessly and screaming “NO!” right in his face.
I dread coming home. My nerves are shot, and I frequently have to escape outside just to avoid the daily screaming. Am I wrong for feeling he is failing her by not teaching her basic independence and discipline? Am I the bad guy here?
In Loco Parentis
OK I just want to make sure that I understand the situation, ILP. If I’m reading this correctly, you have children from a previous relationship, you all live with your partner and you’ve been helping parent his daughter since she was 3. If she’s respectful to you and her not-quite-siblings, that does suggest the issue is in how her father’s dealing with this, rather than your being “the bad guy” in this case.
It sounds to me as though you are basically, if not her mother, at least a parental authority and mother figure, in fact if not in law. While the “rules”, such as they are, about who has authority in a household like yours are murky, the fact that this affects you (and, presumably, the other children in the house) means that it’s not something that can just be brushed off as being solely her father’s problem or responsibility. What, and to what degree you can intervene is a much thornier question and one that really needs to be brought up with your partner.
I do have to wonder if this is a discipline problem, an emotional problem or a developmental stage. The behavior you describe – her clinginess, putting herself physically between the two of you and wanting to be the center of attention suggests to me that there might be a feeling detached from her father or that she’s having to “compete” for his attention. Her acting out could be as much about trying to get any attention from him – positive or otherwise – and asking for reaffirmation that he cares for her. If she’s worried that he isn’t as invested in her or that he doesn’t love her as much, I could see this as being an unhealthy way of trying to express some unresolved anxieties or unmet needs. It could also be as much of her testing boundaries with her father as she gets older, trying to push herself into being more of a “grown up” that she currently is.
That having been said: not only is Dr. NerdLove emphatically not a real doctor, he’s also very much not a child psychologist or developmental specialist. I can speculate, but this is well beyond my paygrade as a mouthy asshole with an advice column. This sort of behavior is very much the sort of thing you should be bringing to a professional, especially if it’s causing issues for you at home and with your relationship with her father.
How much responsibility do you have for her, beyond living under the same roof? Are you a contact person for her school or other activities? Are you one of the people that teachers could or would contact if there were issues with her behavior in class, or if the school nurse or guidance counselor had concerns? Do you have legal responsibility for her that would also open up the option for asking if there’ve been concerns about her at school?
I wish you mentioned whether her biological mother was still in the picture and if she (or someone else) is co-parenting with your partner or not. If that’s the case, then that would be someone you could turn to, both for support and advice, but also for whether there are issues that you aren’t aware of. If she’s acting out at school or with her other parent (again, if they’re involved), that could provide more context and information as to what’s going on.
Now that having been said: while whether you have the “authority” to discipline her or not may be an open question, you definitely have the right to bring your concerns up to your partner. There are a number of issues to be discussed, and some that require a level of sensitivity for both the child and the circumstances you find yourself in. There are, for example, ways of bringing up issues with her running around in her underwear that aren’t going to push body shame or puritanical ideas about nudity, but can still make it clear that this isn’t appropriate behavior. Just as importantly though, is the fact that her behavior isn’t just frustrating, it’s materially affecting you, too. Her forcing herself into conversations or wedging herself between you is annoying. Her leaping into bed throwing tantrums that are making it impossible for you to sleep is beyond annoying and into “causing serious disruptions in your life”.
Whether this is an eight-year-old going through a developmental phase or there’s an emotional struggle going on, I think you need to have a conversation with your partner about this. Even if this is just a phase, it’s one that’s causing issues that aren’t going away and are affecting more than just him. There’s trying to ride out a phase and then there’s not addressing an actual problem. I think framing the conversation in terms of how her behavior is causing problems that go beyond inconvenience or annoyance is going to be key. And while I understand that his daughter’s behavior is incredibly disruptive and frustrating, I think coming to this from a position of concern – that there may be something she’s trying to express but doesn’t have the words for – is going to be more productive than “you need to discipline your wild child”. It’ll also have the benefit of not making you come across as a concerned parent, rather than some incarnation of The Wicked Stepmother trying to find an excuse to drop the inconvenient child off in the woods.
Talk to your partner about this and, if possible, see if she has other parental figures that you can loop in to the discussion. Having other people who have the knowledge, context and authority to raise and discipline her will make it easier to have this conversation if your partner doesn’t see this as a problem.
Good luck.
