I need advice.
My girl and I began exploring the “lifestyle” about 2 years ago. At some point mid way, I discovered that I was having nervousness block my performance, in my opinion because many encounters seemed rushed. I talked with my partner about doing solo dates, and she was very much against it. So I let go of it.
Meanwhile, my partner gets involved (solo) with a popular social club, and from her explanation it has really helped her in areas of being social, something she had been struggling with. She attended a larger event, held at a campground, and calls me to say she drank too much, and had been offered a spot to spend the night. She was approached by a male member of the group sexually, somehow he gets the opportunity to explain to her the group is full of swingers, and apparently sparks fly between the two of them. She asks me if she could have my blessing to have sex with him, and I agree to it.
I attend their next event to meet this gentleman, nice guy, apparently the woman seem to love him, and all of the sudden I start noticing that he and my girl are doing things like hugging/light kissing/and at one point hand-holding. That night she tells me they are going to sneak out into the woods, and tell her to have fun. After several hours they got back, and my mind had started getting restless.
Somehow I overlooked the fact this person had the potential of being a very frequent potential dating partner for her, so the next day I kindly explained how I felt to her, and that turned very nasty very fast, and she began threatening to end the relationship, but we reach some sort of simple agreement to lay it to rest until we are clear enough to deal with it in the future. Now I have not ever had a solo playmate, and I am not sure that it’s in my genes to be able to eventually achieve this.
I am starting to feel anxiety from this situation, I fear it’s going to spin out of control, will be left with over-exaggerated tokens of affection from her, and much less of her time, while feeling inadequate because I don’t believe I have what it takes to even find someone who would be interested in doing the same with me. I tried explaining this to her, but the results we the same. She feels I should have no problems what so ever, but I am just not in that space right now, and confusion had taken over in this relationship.
Thanks for reading, any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.
Shouldn’t have a problem, huh? Well, maybe it’d be better all around for everyone if you didn’t, but let’s accept for the moment that you do. Problems can be solved, so this is hardly a hopeless situation, but don’t let “should” get in the way for now. Don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel either.
It does sound like you’re feeling pretty insecure about your own attractiveness. That sucks. It’s beyond the scope of a single blog post to give you really useful, solid advice about how to overcome insecurity about oneself or one’s attractiveness, but I will give you a tiny, minor piece of advice that might be useful:
Be yourself just as hard as you can.
As a unique human being, what you really have to bring to the table in terms of a relationship is the unique human being that you are. Be that to the hilt.
You did not give a lot of detail about the conversation between the two of you “getting nasty fast” and your girlfriend threatening to leave the relationship, so unfortunately I can’t give much clear advice about that. I can think of a dozen reasons why it might have, but without more facts on hand, I can only give you some general advice.
- Always tell the truth about how you feel
- Don’t put up with emotional blackmail
- Never agree to what you don’t want, but understand that sometimes these things can be dealbreakers. Ideally, it’s best to accept that outright.
- You are allowed your feelings, but clinging to insecurity isn’t really helpful. If you feel insecure, work on that. (You might want to start with Franklin Veaux’s excellent article Becoming Secure.)
- You don’t have to accept inequitable agreements.
- Be your own primary.
I really do think that in your specific case, working on valuing yourself is really the key log that’ll unblock a lot of problems.
Good Luck. I bet you’ll do great.
Update to my post:
First, thank you for the reply. I appreciate you taking the time to read, and respond.
I acknowledge the core issues within me this situation brings up, yes I have some work to do there. I also believe I see some cracks in our (newly rebuilt) foundation that is hard for me to observe because our lack in (poly) experiences. I am open, but cautious because as a holistic person, I use the balance of our combined rhythmics, and energies as collaboration for our growth, and well being with each other, this becomes unbalanced when she is receiving “love” from another, tyeing that overall emotion with what she gives me. Their has been trust issues on her end, and targeting this with my intuition has been my only way to get a sense of where she is at emotionally. My only tool for laying the space for honesty, has been to allow and promote freedom from every perspective, and to offer honesty, commitment and a well balanced home.
For me, I need for my choice to participate (with poly) to come from the right place within, and not just from the place to do it because she has decided to do it, and is doing it (despite being previously against it), that to me feels like it leads down a path that ends up feeling more like competition, and less like healing and growth through deep experiences of love and passion with others.
I am thinking people on here may have had experience with this. Currently we stand without rules, or any framework, and we need work to build our trust level, and need to have have a method for dispute resolution. I know the trust piece must come first, but right now, her poly opportunity is red hot (as they usually are), and inevitably will exude influence on her participation with any process used to clear that path for herself to explore and have this.
Again, thank you very much for your time, and much appreciated good advice.