Advice – My BIL cheated. How can I support my sister?

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/WoodWizzy87 on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“BiL [31M] has been having emotional affair the last 3 months and turned physical the last month or so and he brought the woman back to their house every time. Sister [30F] has moved her stuff out of their house, had to go get std test, and they have started counseling. It sounds like he fell into the trap of attention from someone else and couldn’t stop. Hundreds of decisions where he could’ve said no and he couldn’t. My [31M] sister says she wants to try and work this out because she believes he’s still in love with her. I tend to be more cynical and protective and believe it’s the sunk cost fallacy and he may love her, but isn’t in love with her.

If she tries to make this work and he regains her trust that may work. I will support her decisions since that’s the “moral thing to do”, but how do I ever regain trust with somebody that literally ripped my sisters soul and heart out and just stomped all over it because of selfishness? I don’t even want to see the guy ever again.”

Dear Wood Wizzy 87,

There are two different issues at hand here. The first is in regards to the relationship you want to maintain with your sister. The second is in regard to the relationship you do not want to maintain with your brother-in-law. Before we talk about each of your relationships, let’s first talk about infidelity.

Your relationship with infidelity.

In her TED Talk, Esther Perel reframes infidelity as an act that is “universally forbidden, yet universally practiced.” According to this 2005 study from Blow & Hartnett, 25% of committed couples experience infidelity throughout the course of their relationships. That is per relationship. Considering that we have multiple partners throughout our lifetime (and some with multiple relationships at the same time), great majority of us have either personally dealt with infidelitous relationships or helped our loved ones deal with their infelicitous relationships. I also suspect that this figure could be a lot higher now that we define infidelities in all different ways. So it really does appear to be universally practiced. Now let’s think about why it is so universally forbidden.

In that TED Talk linked above, Esther Perel goes into more depth about why infidelity is so universally reviled. She hypothesizes that much of our aversion to infidelitous relationship is due to how much more important and focused on relationships have gotten in just the past couple decades alone. Cheating has become this greatest act of betrayal, a mistake in which we stake our entire identity upon. How many of us are marked forever as an Adulterer following one or two mistakes in a relationship? Our monogamous sanctity has become the crucible in which our best ideal selves reside, detached from realities of the every day life. Cheating has long preceded our monogamous agreements. So why are we so fixated on how wrong infidelity is?

Try your best to remove yourself from the societal conditioning on what makes infidelity feel so inherently bad. Outside of this situation with your sister and your BIL, consider why you are feeling so bad about his transgressions. Why does it personally affect you so?

Your relationship with your sister.

I really feel for your sister. She is clearly going through a lot in her own relationship, and is using her familial support to keep herself rooted and standing straight when the weight of her world feels heavy on her shoulder.

You had an interesting dichotomy at the end where you recognized that your sister wants to keep trying with her husband, while you remained cynical. Have you considered where that cynicism stems from? Do you think it could be because you aren’t in love with your BIL the same way your sister is?

That feeling of protectiveness you feel toward your sister, your sister can look out for that on her own. She too is an adult, capable of handling her own relationships.

You were also able to recognize that you want to support her. Do so. And continue to do so. Support in this form is altruistic and nonjudgmental. Be there for her. Talk her through what she has been experiencing. And try your best to not hold onto the pain she has been venting onto you. It is your responsibility to support your sister through this. She has decided that she wants to continue patching through and work on this relationship with her husband. So be supportive of that in whatever ways you think it means. That leads me to my next point.

Your relationship with your BIL.

You absolutely do not need to see your BIL if you do not want to. After experiencing second-hand what your sister has been experiencing, that would be an absolutely fair boundary to establish for yourself. If you need to make yourself scarce in these holiday times, do so for yourself. Your anger is justifiable in both logical and emotional sense. Your BIL did inflict some pretty intense pain on your sister and your family at large.

But he too is your family. Not one that you chose, but one your sister has chosen for herself and her family. And he too is human. We all make mistakes. If your sister decides a major part of recovering her relationship with her husband involves him recovering his relationship with her family at large, that also includes you. So embrace the pain and hurt you feel, but ultimately learn to let those feelings go and learn to forgive your BIL. He may not have yet earned your forgiveness, but allow him the space to do so. He owes you and your family a level of emotional debt, and he too should be allowed to reclaim and reforge his connections as well.

Good luck.

Tea Time with Tomato is an informative relationship and sex advice column for both monogamous and polyamorous folks. By submitting your post, you agree to let me use your story in part or in full. You also agree to let me edit or elaborate for clarity.

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Advice – His girlfriend caught us.

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/ThrowRA538362 on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“I [23M] was over at my best friend’s [22M] house. Him and his girlfriend [20F] live together and she wasn’t home because she had gone out with some of her friends.

It was just me and him in the living room, we were just sitting on the sofa, watching whatever tv show was on at the moment, and I just had this weird feeling. Me and him have a sexual history. We had experimented back when we were about 18/19, just some fooling around, nothing much. We had stopped when he got a girlfriend. But on that day I was just feeling something. A feeling that I wanted to try that again.

I sort of just got closer to him and kissed him, I just told him that I wanted to try that again and asked him if he was okay with it. He had told me he was okay with it and well, it progressed from there.

Now his girlfriend came home. We weren’t expecting her to be back at this time but she came home and as soon as she opened the door she saw us. As expected there was a huge fight and I just went home to avoid being in the middle of it.

I haven’t spoken to my friend in a few days, and I think him and his girlfriend are taking a break. I know it is my fault, but I also think he’s in the wrong, he was the one who agreed to it anyway. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know if I should try talk to them or just take the blame, I feel as if he should be shamed too, since he agreed but I don’t know how to act about this.”

Dear ThrowRA538362,

Part of responsible adulting is in establishing proper and self-enforceable boundaries that allow you to lead a healthy and impeccable life for yourself and others. You are responsible for approaching your best friend knowing that this was going to be unethical to do so. The moment you realized you wanted to try more with your best friend, you should have recognized that it was going to be wrong to approach your best friend while he was in a monogamous relationship with his girlfriend. You should have acknowledged its awkwardness and stepped away if necessary. You did it anyway, knowing doing so will hurt someone else. You are responsible for their pain as well as your own. You are also responsible for the possible dissolution of the friendship between you and your best friend.

Your best friend also made a big mistake in fostering and consenting to these acts of infidelity with you. Once he recognized that engaging with you will hurt his girlfriend, he should have had the presence of mind to halt it from escalating and step away if necessary. It was his responsibility to recognize that this would have hurt his respective connections with both you and his girlfriend. He did it anyway, knowing doing so will hurt someone else. He is responsible for their pain as well as your own.

What I am more surprised by is in a distinct lack of responsibility in your post. The way your retelling of that night unfolded, it was a very dry retelling of events. You are both in the wrong. You have both made really big mistakes. It ultimately doesn’t matter if he agreed to it because you initiated it and followed through after his consent. The way you are offloading your own responsibility in the pain you have directly caused your friend and his girlfriend is not healthy. Learn to sit in that discomfort, take responsibility for what you have done, and commit to doing better next time. Give your friend and his partner time to recover and heal after this. If there is a friendship to recover after this, it’ll take both of you to set some proper boundaries with clearer intentions. Both. Of. You.

We all humans, and all humans make mistakes. It doesn’t matter who has had a bigger slice of shit-pie. You still had a slice of that shit-pie.

Good luck.

Advice – My best friend might be falling in love with someone else.

November 21, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/Amaril48 on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“My [24F] best friend and roommate, Meghan [22F], is currently dating Sam. They just celebrated their two year anniversary. They’ve always gotten along great.

For the past two weeks Megan’s been hanging out with a guy from her work, Leonard, upper twenties or lower thirties. It started with her not coming home until 11pm, then 2am, 5am, and finally not at all. Then she spent the weekend with Sam like normal.

This past week she hasn’t been home before 5am once. I asked her if she was cheating on Sam and she said no, her and Leonard were just friends, they were just talking and that Sam “knows about him”.

I believe she hasn’t had sex with Leonard, but she’s falling for him hard and I think she’s being too selfish to see it. On one hand I want to ask her if Sam knows she doesn’t come home until early morning, and one night didn’t come home at all. I know Sam well enough to believe he doesn’t, and well enough to believe he’d be crushed if he did. On the other hand, I’ve never seen her so fired up over anything, and I wonder if it’s really so bad to fall in love with someone else. I’d still feel terrible for Sam, but as long as she doesn’t cheat on him would it be so bad if she found out Leonard was a better fit? I’m not sure if it’s my place to intervene, I don’t want it to be, but if I were to offer a friend who has talked me off many a ledge some unsolicited advice in this situation what should it be?”

Dear Amaril 48,

Let’s flesh out three different scenarios here and then work our way back.

Scenario One: Meghan and Leonard really are great platonic friends who get along really well.

Let’s take Meghan’s words at its face value, and trust her completely when she says that she is just developing a really great friendship with Leonard. And Sam knows about all of this and is totally on board with its intensity.

When was the last time you made a friend (regardless of gender) with whom you stayed out with past five AM for several consecutive nights? Even if this was a purely platonic connection, it is deeply peculiar that Meghan dedicates this kind of time and energy to a platonic connection. In some odd way, you have also been losing time and space to celebrate and strengthen your friendship with Meghan as well (if we are still operating under the assumption that her connection with Leonard is platonic).

Scenario B: Meghan is cheating on Sam, and is being dishonest with you about her affair.

Different people define affairs and adultery differently. Each relationship has its own set of agreements and rules depending on how comfortable everyone is. One person might be totally okay with their partners going out every Friday night with their friends, but others might get really jealous. And definitions of what constitutes an adulterous behavior changes all the time. But a study has revelaed that about quarter of the couples have experienced some form of infidelity at some point in the duration of their relationship during the entire lifetime of their relationship.

Generally speaking, developing crushes and feelings in a monogamous relationship is not an adulterous behavior by itself. Sex is generally a definitive indicator of infidelity. But it is also the lying, the sneaking around, and the active nurturing of those crushes are what makes emotional affairs so devastating. You say that you know Sam well enough to know that he probably doesn’t know, and would be crushed if he did. I wonder how much of that comes from your own projection about what constitutes an adultery in your own relationships, and how much of it comes from your own experience and friendship with Sam.

Another wrinkle here is that Meghan is not being honest with her best friend about developing and nurturing these feelings she has towards Leonard. I do think it would be naive for her to think that this is normal on a blank sheet of paper. You might need to consider in what different conversation you can address that disconnect between what you are seeing and what she is saying.

Option 3: Meghan is in an open relationship with Sam that you did not know about.

There is a distinct possibility that Meghan and Sam might be in an open relationship that they’re not out of the closet about. We live in a day and age where polyamorous/ethically non-monogamous relationships have walked the fringes of discussion regarding modern dating. But one in five couples have experimented with some form of ethical non-monogamy at some point in their relationships.

This all leads us to consider what your next steps should be.

I do think that your identity is culmination of your experiences and surrounding. While you cannot fully control with whom you fall in love with, you can definitely establish and respect those personal boundaries not to develop or nurture those feelings that are unethical or inappropriate. As such, I think your action points come down to the question of “How much do you value your friendship with Meghan?”

I get the feeling that you are much closer to Meghan than Sam. So all of your action points come down to having an open discussion with Meghan first, but the directions are different based on what you consider to be the strongest possibility.

One: If you believe that Meghan is really just good friends with Leonard, maybe you can ask Meghan more about who this person she is spending so much time with. Communicate how you feel about having less time and space for your friendship with Meghan in this recent friendship blossoming between Meghan and Leonard.

B: If you believe that Meghan is cheating on Sam, ask Meghan in more detail about how Sam feels about her staying out so late with her coworker. Even if she is not sleeping with Leonard, her current actions still constitute emotional infidelity in most monogamous relationships. If she continues to reject your sense of reality, reassert what you’ve been seeing in her recent changes of behavior and ask to re-clarify what that means for her relationship with Sam. It isn’t your responsibility to call her out and dictate whether or not she is cheating, but you are at least owed an ironclad explanation as her best friend.

3: If you believe that Meghan & Sam are in an open relationship, you can use that “one in five” statistic to spring off a discussion about how more modern couples practice ethically non-monogamous relationships. Then segue that conversation into whether or not Meghan & Sam have ever considered having an open relationship (especially since their relationship feels so strong after just passing the two year mark together). You will probably be able to gauge if your assumption is correct based on her immediate reaction.

Good luck!

Advice – My best friend kissed my husband.

November 14, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/ThrowRAassholefriend on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“My [44F] best friend’s [45F] name is Rachel. We have been best friends since we were 14. We supported each other through difficult times and I can’t imagine my life without her. She is the one that introduced me to my now husband [45M] 23 years ago . We married 3 years later and we have 3 beautiful kids.

3 months ago she found out that her husband was cheating on her. She tried to forgive him but eventually she divorced him. Me and my husband helped her through the divorce, especially with her 2 kids. She was very depressed and moved in with us until her husband moved out of their house.

Last night me, my husband and Rachel went to a wedding last night. Her ex-husband came too (both of them were invited before she found out about the cheating) . The asshole came with his new girlfriend. Then Rachel started to drink too much.

At some point she and my husband were dancing and she went and kissed him. My husband pushed her away very shocked and came to me. She came too and she was visibly very drunk and tried to apologize for what she has done but she was barely able to talk. I was very angry but I didn’t want to cause a scene there. Me and my husband took her home.

This morning she came to my door and apologized for kissing my husband and begged me to forgive her. I told her that I will think about it.

What should I do now? We have been good friends for 30 years and I don’t want to throw away this friendship like this.”

Dear ThrowRAassholefriend,

I really feel for Rachel.

In between discovery of her cheating spouse, subsequent separation/divorce, and moving in with you while still maintaining her role as a mother… Rachel is trooper. And when she was faced with the hard difficulty of her exhusband waving her new fling around right in front of her eyes, she instead turned towards alcohol to dull the pain. And that’s the thing about alcohol. It desensitizes you to the pain, but it doesn’t make the suffering beneath go away. It often exacerbates the source. In this case, it sounds like she clamped hard onto her closest male connection – your husband.

Let’s consider three different points here. Your relationship with your husband. Your relationship with Rachel. And Rachel’s relationship with alcohol.

Your relationship with your husband should not be affected here. It sounds like he was just as surprised about the kiss as both Rachel and you have been. It was a momentary lapse in judgment that was just made worse by lowered inhibition that came with alcohol. Since he came straight to you instead of hiding or downplaying it, your husband gets tons of brownie points.

Your relationship with Rachel should also survive this. It was one singular kiss on the lips. Your friend has been there for two thirds of your life so far. She has been there for you in some of your hardest moments. And you have been there for you in some of her her hardest moments. She is going through one of her hardest moments. There is nothing here about your relationship with Rachel that tells me this has been an ongoing pattern, and is a mistake she deeply regrets. She is not an asshole. Please sit with some of your feelings to understand that your pain is legitimate, but it has been greatly misplaced.

Then there is Rachel’s relationship with alcohol. It sounds like this wedding certainly aggravated her already vulnerable emotional state. Going forward, she might need to establish some firmer boundaries regarding being around her ex-husband or being in situations where she cannot mindfully indulge in alcohol. This should be easiest part to accept if she has never displayed any previous issues with alcohol.

We in this western culture vilify and intensify the act of infidelity as this incredible act of betrayal. We need to remember that we are all humans and we all are capable of making mistakes often. I don’t think you would return your car to the dealership the first time the tires slip on ice, would you? Choose to be a more mindful and loving person by forgiving your friend for a brief moment of lapse in judgment. She has earned so much trust so far in your connection with her. Choose to rely on some of that incredible history you’ve built together. She deserves a break. And so do you.

Good luck!

Advice – My girlfriend kissed other people.

November 13, 2019November 13, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/throwawayioou on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“A little over a week ago I [22M] couldn’t resist the temptation to check her [21F] phone because I could just sense that something weird was going on. When I looked I saw that she had been occasionally texting at least 2 guys that go to the same uni as us. I was pretty blown away because I had a lot of faith in this girl and was pretty confident of myself in the relationship. The next day we went on a long car ride and she broke down and cried. When I asked if she slept with either one she said that a kiss was the extent of it and that the dude wanted to take it further but she said that they would have to be in a relationship first. This is the first time she’s betrayed my trust and it cut me pretty deep. I still question if she’s telling the truth or is just too afraid to tell me anything else. I’ve asked again but she hasn’t changed her stance.

While I won’t take responsibility for her actions, I do think that with us being together for so long and being so young, I had begun to take her for granted and I could have been a better man for her. On top of that, we live together and since we don’t do much outside of college we see each other ALL of the time. I do think I neglected her needs and if a kiss was all that happened, I could forgive her. So we’ve been working on repairing our relationship and everything has been pretty good so far. I’ve really stepped up my game for her and have started to show her more affection privately and in public (an area I was lacking in before). We also had a really romantic night a couple of nights ago, and the sex has been phenomenal tbh (where it had been pretty stale before).

To focus on myself I’ve started lifting again which also gives us some time apart. But even with everything that I’ve done I still feel like I’m being taken for granted at this point. A few years ago when she wanted to break up over something dumb I was able to call her bluff and say fine and just leave; a few hours later she called back begging for me and apologizing. In this situation, I don’t feel like I have that power because we live in the same apartment and home for me is a few hours away. I really love this girl and would like an outside opinion on how to go about saving this relationship. How can I be a better and more attentive man for her while also not becoming a doormat? I’ve been expressing more dominant behavior which she does seem to appreciate, but I also don’t want to be controlling and push her away more.

Photo by Владимир Кондратьев on Pexels.com

Dear Throwaway Ioou,

What is a relationship but people agreeing that the connection is worth the effort you put in to stay together? In Korean, we call that word 정 (pronounced jung). It is used to indicate the connection we feel with our partners, the “stickiness” that develop between long-term friends or lovers who continue to put in the effort to remain connected.

Five years is a long time in any relationship. You were seventeen and her sixteen when you two got together for the first time. Both you and your partner have grown and changed a lot in that time. And as such, you two have certainly grown apart from each other. Consider that you have been inputting a lot of effort and energy into maintaining this relationship with your partner. Also consider that she too has been putting a lot of effort and energy into maintaining this relationship with you. But you two speak slightly different languages, and some of that effort is lost in translation. For whatever reason, you two have let that disconnect grow and grow.

It is evident in your language that you’ve also been turning more inwardly (focusing more on working out) but also refocusing some of that energy into your relationship as well by going on dates and taking on new sexual adventures together. That is all really great to see. My question is, do you have to call those efforts out for yourself or does your partner independently recognize the efforts that you’ve been putting in? Does your partner have to call her own efforts out for herself or do you independently recognize the efforts she too have been putting in?

There is no magical recipe to save or cure your relationship. Those texting and kissing were very visible symptoms of the underlying sinkhole that has been growing and growing beneath your relationship. So recognize that your trust has been broken, grieve over what has been lost, and focus on mindfully reconnecting with your partner. It sounds like you are well on your way to recovery, and you’ve been doing a great job so far. You two are different people now. So learn to fall in love with her again. And help her learn to fall in love with you again. It’ll be fun. I promise.

Good luck!

Advice – I started messaging others.

November 9, 2019November 8, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/nebstheunicorn_ on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“I [31F] and my bf [35M] have been together a year’s. Very happy in every department but sex, I’m extremely unsatisfied and I’ve told him this many times and there’s been minimal effort put in on his part. So I was bored in the hospital for 2 weeks and got on Kik to talk to randoms… I really hit it off with J and it quickly became sexual. With sexually explicit conversations exchanging of videos and pic etc. So my bf went on my phone to check out football scores on my phone. He texted me one morning saying I’ve given you a week to tell me and you have not. Now he’s straight up is ignoring me. We live together. I keep asking him to talk. Last night he said he wasn’t in the mood and today hes ignoring me. I told him I cut things off with J. I’m fucking lost here. Just floating because he won’t talk to me. I don’t know wtf to do.”

Dear Nebs the Unicorn,

So you cheated.

Since you are here asking for honest advice, I will give you an honest feedback. I will assume that you do want to work through this with your partner since you’re asking for advice. I am also going to assume here that you have no motivation to lie or fabricate parts of your story.

I’m not sure in what different ways you’ve communicated your needs with your partner, and whether or not there was a concerted effort on your partner’s part to listen to and follow up on your unmet needs. I also do not know if you would have ever come clean about your emotional/sexual affair with J on your own timing, if your partner never found out. Those are questions only you and your partner can answer. It might already be too late if your partner refuses to communicate with and remain adamant against repairing this relationship with you. If so, all you can do is damage control in hopes that your betrayal of his trust will eventually be placated over time. That in itself is your price of admission to remain in this relationship, again, which I am assuming you are willing to pay here since you are here.

I don’t think the core problem here is in the infidelity, believe it or not. I think the core issue here is you not thoroughly communicating your needs and his not closely listening to your needs when they were communicated. Focus on that feeling and try your best. And accept that your best might still not be enough.

Good luck.

Advice – My boyfriend wants to try out polyamory with his wife.

November 5, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/TomorrowsUnsure on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“Long story, my boyfriend is married to his wife of 10+ years and they have been in an unhappy marriage for a long time. Cue about 4 years ago we met online and started off friends and ended up liking each other a lot. We decided to pursue a relationship despite his marriage because we really enjoyed each other emotionally, mentally, sexually and were experiencing unhappy relationships on both our ends.

We have a long distance relationship while he stayed married to his wife. She knows about me. She doesn’t like me for obvious reasons. I don’t hate her, and in fact like her. I like her because for the past 2 yrs or so she has tried to make it work with him and is overall an amazing and very kind person. I feel horrible for intruding in her relationship, but I’m now extremely attached to her husband (my boyfriend) and am unwilling to just walk away.

While he was building it our relationship, he neglected theirs and it finally came to a head just a week or so ago. She pretty much said that she is depressed from his neglect and he needs to either pick her or me.

My boyfriend is a deeply caring person and he still cares a lot about his wife but doesn’t want to lose me either. After seeking advice, he has tried to suggest a polyamorous relationship for us all.

She is completely against it, but said there is a tiny chance she may be willing to try it a long way down the road. I am supportive of it because I really love this man and do not want to lose him. He is the only person I’ve ever clicked with who has made me feel so empowered, so safe and not alone. My family and friends are all closed minded and emotionally driven people while my bf and myself are very logically inclined and more highly educated.

That being said. I’m also scared to try this. I live hours away from my bf and he is mentioning that he wants to try to work things out with his wife while maintaining our relationship. This will eventually involve intimacy which is the most frightening thing to me because it is not something I can easily have with him.

I just need some guidance of some kind. I’m scared. I’ve never done this before but I want to try to figure it out because I love this man and want to be with him somehow.

I don’t need any criticism please. I know this is not a good spot to have gotten in, but I’m here and I want to work it out.”

Dear Tomorrows Unsure,

Before I give you my advice, I want to start by discussing a bit about my column.

When I first started writing this column, I have made a promise to myself to not discredit other’s experiences, to not gatekeep what is and isn’t polyamory, and to be faithful to the realities of the advice seekers. It is my core belief that different people love differently. While other versions of love might not be compatible with my own personal worldview, it does not mean that their respective forms of love are not just as valid as the loves I experience. And thus, I decided not to police what boundaries define polyamorous relationships and whether or not one way of practicing polyamorous relationship was any more or less valid than another.

But I do think it is important to first and foremost define polyamory as a subset of the larger consensual and ethical non-monogamy. Polyamory cannot happen without each people knowingly consenting to and agreeing to having a non-monogamous relationship. I do not believe that your current model of relationship is largely ethical or consensual in how each participant is reacting to and making decisions in your relationships. Your boyfriend’s wife has not consented to having an open relationship. Your boyfriend has not done his emotional labor to make sure everything is above board. And from what you said (“[W]e … were experiencing unhappy relationships on both our ends”) it does not sound very ethical from your side of this relationship either. I strongly urge you to understand and accept that what you and your boyfriend have accomplished is largely unethical.

Instead of continuing to talk about what you’ve done wrong, let’s try to focus a bit more on what you can do right going forward.

The best thing you can do here is to acknowledge that everyone involved here is human, and that each of them are subject to their own sense of agency. That means you, your boyfriend, and his wife all need to be on the same page for this potential polyamorous relationship to work. You’ve outlined that your metamour does not like you. That relationship will need to heal. And the best way it can heal is by giving her space to process and work through this form of polyamory with her husband. This polyamorous relationship will not succeed if your boyfriend’s wife cannot accept and respect his relationship with you.

Your boyfriend also needs to do a lot of emotional work to make sure he can be ethically practicing polyamorous relationships going forward. A lot of that has to do with rebuilding his trust with his wife. But a lot of that also has to do with recognizing his mistakes here, doing a lot of emotional labor to fix his wrongs, and approaching his new relationships with you and his wife in a more mindful way.

Then there is the work you also need to do. You need to understand that while you may be capable of having polyamorous relationships, polyamorous relationships require an extreme form of consent and understanding. It also need to come from a place of trust that you might have in your boyfriend. You might benefit from reading up about polyamorous relationships in your own time and determine if this is a model that really works for you going forward.

Good luck!

Advice – My long distance girlfriend (sort of) cheated on me.

October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 / teatimewithtomato / Leave a comment

/u/SockLee on /r/relationship_advice writes…

“For some background, we’ve been together for about a year and a half, we’ve recently graduated college and got jobs in different cities. While I’m in, let’s say Chicago, she’s in let’s say New York, we have tried to make a long distance relationship work.

About 6 weeks ago, I made plans to buy a plane ticket to fly out and see her and we were planning on what to do during the weekend I was there. We regularly talked on the phone and communicated, etc. about our days and how we’re adjusting to new work environments. About a week before my flight, she texts me saying “I think we should break up, long distance is hard.” Unfortunately, she has done this type of thing before to either illicit a reaction out of me or to try and get me to communicate my feelings better, and I decided to call her on her bluff and not respond. The next day she calls and asks why I didn’t respond and I gave my reasons and added that that kind of is unacceptable and I would no longer play mind games. She was surprisingly agreeable about it and agreed it was childish and I thought it was the end of it.

When I finally arrived to her apartment on a Friday evening, it was very late (especially due to time zone difference), we chatted a little bit and went straight to bed. Things seemed fine. The next morning while she was in the shower, I saw a condom next to her bed that was not mine. When I looked under her bed, I saw an open condom wrapper and felt, as you can imagine, a serious whirlwind of emotions, especially considering we did nothing sexual the previous night. I immediately confronted her about it after she go out of the shower and I saw the guilt on her face as she explained this happened when we were “broken up.” After some yelling, I felt that we should break up. During the whole exchange she made it very clear she felt guilty and she felt terrible about her mistake. However, I felt that she was more concerned about the possibility of losing me than how she had truly hurt me to my core. She had even said “I would never do this again, I would never want to feel this way again” instead of “I would never hurt you like this again.”

Unfortunately, I was there for another day and didn’t have a hotel, so I said “we can spend the day together like we planned, but don’t get your hopes up about me changing my mind.”

After that, all things considered, we had a nice day together. Later that evening, she tells me she didn’t actually sleep with him. She then gave her side of the story (8-10 hours after I had found out for some reason, which is very fishy to me)

Her story: She was out with a group of work friends and their friends, and after having a little bit to drink she decided to go home. One of the male friends of friends offered to walk her home. She agreed, and this was the day she was waiting for a response from me about wanting to break up, so she spent the walk home venting to this guy about me and how long distance is hard. He walks her to her apartment building, to her elevator, to the entrance of her apartment, and finally, to the inside of her apartment. She offers him something to drink and he makes a move on her by kissing her. She says she kissed back and he tried pushing her to bedroom. She was pushing back, though not saying no yet. As soon as they entered the bedroom she says she started to say no. The man started taking off her pants and attempted to perform oral sex, and she pushed him away firmly and he left. Luckily, this man was only 99% total piece of shit. She says that she did not know when the condom was opened and that she has blocked him and not spoken to him since.

My immediate response was, in a terrified voice “Was this rape?” She responded no, but it could’ve very easily been. My second response was “Why wait so long to tell me this? I had been under the impression since I found out that you had actually had sex with him.” She responded that it would not have helped initially because I was angry, and that she still cheated, though to a smaller degree than I had expected, and I would not have been less angry. I still find this reasoning to be ridiculous, and because of the time it took to tell me, I can’t rule out the possibility that she spent the day making up her story, especially considering how guilty she looked and acted when initially confronted.

Before my flight back, I told her I would take a while to come to a final decision, because I need to let my emotions cool down a bit. I also told her we will most likely break up.

Ultimately I do believe her story; she has been honest every other time in our relationship, yet I am still leaning towards breaking up with her. After all, we’d be returning to a long distance relationship, but now with much greater trust issues. In some phone calls we’ve had since she has urged me to “move on” and work with her. I told her that I’ve forgiven her, but I don’t necessarily want to get back together with her. Am I right in thinking that breaking up is the best option, or is that kind of heartless considering her story?”

Dear SockLee,

I really feel for you.

Long distance relationships are incredibly difficult. LDRs force us to explore and develop an entirely different set of skills, completely different from the ones we are already accustomed to using in close proximity relationships. It also requires an extensive overhaul of communication skills and puts each participant to a test on sanity on what you’d endure for the sake of love. The best kind of relationships thrive on fertile soils of embedded trust and warm sunshine of open communication. Long distance relationships require heavier doses of each due to lack of physical presence.

Let’s set the technicalities aside here. We are not here to discuss whether you two were broken up for that one night. We are also not here to discuss the actual events as she recalled it. And lastly, we are not here to discuss whether that act of indiscretion was consensual.

What we should discuss is your fundamental incompatibilities and mischemistry with your partner. Here are some points that I saw in your post that showed me how disconnected and ill-fitted your match seems to be:

She randomly broke up with you a week before you were to fly to her place. And she does this regularly to elicit a reaction from you. (Emotional manipulation)
Your response to such immature behavior was to ignore it and address it the day after. (Responsive immaturity)
She admitted it was a mistake and felt guilty about her encounter. But she did not timely or sensitively approach you after such event. (Failure to disclose sexual risk profile changes)
When she did admit to her indiscretion, she was more concerned about maintaining her relationship with you rather than coming from a compassionate angle to make sure you were okay. (Selfishness)
I am not understanding how she brought one of her male friend of friend home inebriated and naively disregard the sexual overtones for her convenience. (Emotional immaturity or lying)
I am also not understanding how he took a condom out of his wrapper, put it on, then took it all off while he was giving her oral. (Probable lying)
After you got back home, she wants you to move on with it right away. (Emotional immaturity)

The act of infidelity was a surefire sign of your obvious mischemistry. But the warning signs were always there. Why would you ever want to date someone who pulls you along and stands on technicality instead of compassionately approaching this problem with you without trying to “sweep the issue under the rug?” I also strongly doubt her level of honesty with you. She’s only been honest up to the next time you catch her in a lie. She is just not a good fit for who you are, and your jar of marbles have run out. You shouldn’t break up with her because she cheated. You should break up with her because she is just not a good fit for you.

Good luck.