I Thought We Were Monogamous. She Thought We Were Polyamorous.

I am heartened that you wrote in. It’s good that younger folk with shorter relationships are learning to see cheating – lying, manipulation and disrespect etc- as an issue. You can get out and seek a better fit now. Hugs!!

I really think you need something so much more than, “good morning, good night, and being asked how your’e doing”.

You deserve RESPECT. It’s missing in the overall relationship.

I am going threw a situation right now that is different from OPs.

I have already moved on from my Fuckwit after a DDAy that endangered our child about a year after separation. I learned about Betrayal Trauma. This lead to a deep dive over the past few years into who I am and reevaluating my other relationships. Shit happens different types of epiphanies after different DDays from other relationships, not necessarily cheating but knowing that you are being Chumped and when asserting yourself and your boundaries leads to mindfuckery by a Fuckwit you learn quicker how to handle it.

There is something about chump nation that makes you feel aren’t alone in the world and you are all trying to get threw it. It’s not a one person vs the world mentality (that would be crazy) it’s a one person vs the type of people they allow to be in their world.

Vixenière, she’s not polyamorous. She’s just a cheater. The norm in polyamory, LGBT or otherwise, is that you are clear with that up front (because most people assume monogamy) and that you are honest about your status with other people (because it’s dishonest to pretend that a lover is a friend, and polyamory lives and dies by honesty). The old “oh, are we monogamous? Gee I didn’t know that” retconning is a very old and common cheater’s excuse.

If you had agreed to that open relationship, I predict that any time YOU showed interest in someone else, she would shut that down hard. Oh, it’s not that she minds you seeing other people, it’s just that this particular woman triggers her anxiety. Or it’s just not the right time, she doesn’t have the spoons, because her dad is sick / work is really stressful right now / etc. (and meanwhile, the other person drifts off because they understandably don’t want to wait). But sure, you can see other people, just not this time! Or the next. Or the time after that. (Meanwhile, you aren’t allowed to have boundaries about her sleeping around because You Agreed To This.)

Also, please be on alert for her trying to weaponize you being LGBTQ+. The rage mindfuck channel broadcast is often “you have to put up with me because there aren’t many of us so you won’t find someone else, and you’ll damage your friend network if you leave.”

V, this FW of yours seems to have a very short attention span. You’ve been partners for 5 months? This isn’t going to get better, and if you stay with her, you will spend your time being the partner police. Is that what you want in a relationship? Is this acceptable to you?

I know several gay couples who certainly appear to have had long-lasting, loving, monogamous relationships. The “Til Death Do Us Part” relationships. I’ve been at two funerals for partners, one of which had a 45 year-long relationship.

At this point in your life, try to understand why you chose the FW, and go about fixing your picker. Don’t waste any more time with her. What I hear screaming through your letter is your desire for a monogamous partner who treats you with kindness and respect. You aren’t going to get any of those thing from the FW.

Vix, if you agree with her conditions and stay with this person, she will forever see you as a burden. A thorn in her side she has to live with, an annoying little tagalong she has to assuage. Even in the “good” times she will see you as the person whose “unreasonable insecurities” she has to worry about. The person getting in the way of “fun.” Do you always want to be treated as a second thought, an annoyance, and a burden? You are worth so much more than that. You deserve someone who treats you as a joy in their life and a gem.

The way to personal peace is to get away from her. The nightmares and panic attacks will start to become less as your body finishes processing the trauma. As long as you stay in contact with her, it can never finish because you’re constantly in the path of more gaslighting and existential danger.

Best wishes to you. I promise getting away from her will be the best thing you can do for yourself. She doesn’t care about you and you’ve been devalued for a long time. Time for *you* to show care for yourself so your psyche can rest and heal.

I’m sorry you were chumped. Now you know what she is: a liar and abuser. Nothing to work with. Go no contact and you’ll feel better soon and thank your lucky stars you got away from her.

Genuine honesty is a must in all relationships. Setting weird parameters to a relationship is manipulation.

Move on. This is crazy.

Hugs vix, your Sexual orientation is irrelevant to an authentic healthy relationship. Run!

Vix,Don’t be so hard on yourself. Sure, you did something shortly after discovering that you had been betrayed that you regret now but it is okay. I am sure most of us harbor something like that. I know I do. Once I had it used against me, I went strictly no contact with FW. He has no opportunity to hang something on me. My side of the street is like Velvet Hammer’s – nice and clean. FW side of the road, well, let’s just say there is litter everywhere and it is a shambles. Thankfully, I have so much that is being used against him that the settlement is very nice.
Vix, be happy she showed herself before you spent years in the relationship. You have the best chance to get out and stay out. Her breadcrumbs are not worth your time and effort. There will be someone else who will respect, value and love you. Find that person or let them find you. Of course it hurts, you were invested in a relationship and she was not. It is good that you know now. Stay No Contact, heal and know that there are better days ahead.

I’m married to a wonderful woman now. But I was cheated on in the past and the woman who did that actually tried to use the fact that I had been in a polyamorous arrangement in the past as a reason why I shouldn’t care.
I do know more polyamorous people than most having lived in the SF Bay Area and as Chump Lady says, there are always agreements. I knew a woman who got mad when a guy she liked who was in a polyamorous marriage turned her down for sex because he and his wife were taking no risks during the wife’s pregnancy. The upset woman was not held in high esteem in that social circle, but there are plenty of jerks out there who I’m sure told her she was in the right.
You stay NO CONTACT with this ex and work on yourself.

Dear Vixenière,

You wouldn’t know it from a lot of the mainstream corporate media spin that seems to be beatifying affairs and cheating (loud promotions of Esther Perel, Suleika Dawson’s sappy memoir of affair with spy-cum-novelist John Le Carre, etc., etc., etc.), but there’s scientific evidence that humans evolved to be mostly monogamous or at least to *expect* monogamy from a partner. Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham– who caused a stir with his first book, “Demonic Males: Apes and the Evolution of Human Violence” and got himself branded a radical feminist– compellingly argues that the development of speech in early humans first evolved from a driving territorial need to keep tabs on mates’ sexual activity through gossip which suggests humans– since the time we branched off from ape ancestors– have progressively evolved towards monogamy.

That doesn’t mean that all are equally wired for monogamy– vive la difference– but does suggests it may be the overall species’ norm. It may be the norm even without religious or authoritarian prohibitions or levels of individual political grooviness. Where sexual violence, inequality and injustice come into the picture is when some individuals or societies attempt to institute double standards in terms of monogamy. Traditionally the standard was more freedom for men and none for women. As some societies begin to at least give lip service to equality, the criminalization of and violent punishments for infidelity have faded while social objections to infidelity– again, at least in lip service– are more evenly applied. But those objections don’t go away with progress. A 2013 Gallup poll which was repeated more recently found that of 19 top controversies in the US, adultery was consistently viewed as the least acceptable even as the same people polled were reporting more acceptance of gay relationships and even abortion than in past polls. If something were merely a moral construct and not a hard wired human tendency, then acceptance of it would wax and wane in keeping with other constructs (such as prohibition of gay marriage).

This isn’t to argue that all “norms” have to be enforced but just to say that even those who opt for forms of ethical non-monogamy would likely be lying if they said it took no effort to combat their own territorial instincts if they form an intimate attachment. Maybe some don’t have any territorial instincts but I imagine that’s pretty rare or might be a red flag for severe attachment disorder. As CL reminds us, that’s why there are rules even within ethical open relationships and why there can still be “cheating” within those dynamics. It’s not an easy thing to pull off and would require a lot of discipline and constant, careful communication. But of the people who expect or would prefer monogamy from a partner, some apply the golden rule and act in kind while others deceive, trick and coerce in order to exact double standards, meaning they demand sexual freedom for themselves while engineering it so that partners have less or none. That way the double-standard-bearers don’t have to bother being disciplined about their own territorial instincts in the spirit of fairness.

To me, the latter is the definition of intimate partner abuse. As a former advocate for survivors of domestic violence, I developed a theory that enforced sexual double standards define battering in a nutshell, that it’s the central MO behind domestic violence. It’s protracted rape in which a perpetrator systematically robs a victim of sexual consent and agency while demanding total freedom for themselves. It may start incrementally with the abuser, say, expecting the victim to pick up the abuser’s dirty laundry or other “shit tests” but this is all training and frog-boiling in service of the main MO. For one I never met a survivor who’s batterer didn’t also cheat. Most survivors don’t talk about it because of the tendency of negative bystanders to willfully mistake this as evidence the victim had a “jealousy motive” to fabricate stories of abuse. So it’s grossly under-documented but the view that cheating is one of the weapons in the typical battering arsenal is becoming progressively more common in DV research and advocacy (https://www.joplinlawyers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/FINAL-COPY-Infidelity-as-a-Consideration-in-Domestic-Abuse-and-Coercive-Control.pdf).

Personally I think the game your STBX played by first wounding you through gaslighting and deception and only THEN “offering” you the supposed freedom to act sexually outside the relationship is a typical tactic in covert abuse. If someone wants to maintain the image of a groovy social justice type, they’re unlikely to come right out and demand double standards: “Here’s the deal, bitch. I fuck randos and you stay in your damned box and don’t even think about straying.” That wouldn’t look so groovy. In fact, that looks downright patriarchal and retrograde.

Within feminism there are discussions of women or minorities who “internalize” the value system of the dominant paradigm but very often this internalization of patriarchal standards would be called out within minority circles. So one way to get around this is for abusers who like to maintain groovy public and self images to play dumb about or “forget” agreements regarding equitable relationships. That’s why it irks me that others in your social context are encouraging you to berate yourself for not being “clear” enough about your boundaries. If you’re talking to a reasonable and fair person, you would only need to set a boundary like this once to have it understood. Why would someone have to repeatedly say to a partner, “Don’t call me names/raise your voice to me in rage/stomp on my toes, dump your dirty laundry on the floor” unless the partner was prone to do all of the latter?

Maybe if something were not a common norm– like asking a partner to do back flips dressed as a zebra– you might have to explain and repeat yourself a bit more as you make the request. But the point of illustrating how monogamy may be a social norm is by way of saying that for common sense issues, it should not be necessary to repeat and explain and clarify until your throat goes dry. Because we live in such a victim-blaming society, many survivors fall into the “JADE” trap of thinking they have to “justify, argue, debate and explain” basic human decency to others as if these things are so hard to grasp. Nope. You should only have to say some things once and calmly to have them heard. If someone didn’t openly object, it means they agreed to the terms. Pretending they didn’t understand later is gaslighting. Gaslighting is abuse. One stage darker is the common “DARVO” tactic of pretending the victim did something terrible to “make” the abuser break the agreement, but selective hearing and playing dumb are still categorical gaslighting. I remember one common slogan on Reddit’s Female Dating Strategy was that “It’s not that s/he doesn’t understand, it’s that s/he doesn’t care.”

In short, I think the unstated agenda of this FW was to injure you so that this abusive partner could enjoy sexual freedom while remaining confident you would not. And she wasn’t just leaving it to chance and entirely trusting that you’re just not wired to play around. She hedged her bets by damaging your self esteem to keep you in your box. By gaslighting someone, you hobble their ability to “move on” to form other attachments, thus assuring that the victim is less likely to avail themselves of other romantic options while the abuser can continue to “explore.” Most battering victims describe coercive control– the emotional manipulation, abuse and coercion typically involved in DV– to be the most paralyzing aspects of domestic abuse. Cheating checks many of the boxes of “coercive control.” It’s pretty universally devastating. Some abusers become MORE sexually active with randos while in committed relationships than they were when single which suggests that betrayal is the abuser’s way of “diluting” their uncomfortable dependency on a primary partner which in turn smacks of super fucked up attachment disorder (which, btw, all batterers “suffer” from).

Personally I also think the current corporate media campaign to normalize cheating is really just covert backlash against #MeToo and the lesser publicized movement to add coercive control laws to domestic violence statutes. (https://www.theacecc.com/post/not-all-bills-are-created-equal-a-review-of-coercive-control-legislation). It wouldn’t be the first time the media has done this– sought to undermine progressive advancements that either threatened the corporate bottom line or threatened the values and personal agendas of the types of people who tend to run global corporations. If you haven’t already, read Susan Faludi’s “Backlash” for past examples of this. Faludi’s documentation is stellar.

Back in the 1980s the backlash seemed to mostly involve media campaigns convincing women that if they didn’t marry and breed in their twenties, their ovaries would dry up and they had more chance of being hit in a terrorist strike than of marrying beyond age thirty. This was because baby and housewares producers were angered at losing money as women deferred marriage and having children in favor of getting advance degrees or working on careers. But today the stakes have changed as survivor narratives of rape, DV and workplace harassment are– in never-before-seen ways– felling titans of society. This also puts media under the gun of at least feigning allegiance for victims. Like your STBX having to mask her double standards, I suspect that normalizing cheating could arguably be an oblique way to blur the lines of what constitutes consent in sexuality. Again, cheating, like battering, is primarily about robbing consent from an intimate partner. Blurring what constitutes consent– particularly if you can get groovy progressive groups to wave that banner– could conceivably undermine the movement of calling perpetrators to account. There was a recent study finding an association between “rape myth acceptance” and “infidelity tolerance.” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188691730404X

In other words, eroding objections to the one can erode objections to the other. And because cheating is rarely “just cheating” and also typically involves progressive emotional abuse and control, I suspect the status quo or Batterers United or the League of Workplace Harassers or Guild of Those Who Internalize Patriarchal Values While Pretending to be Groovy Social Justice Warriors or whatever are concerned that coercive control laws may spread and, even if these don’t specifically outlaw cheating, those laws may outlaw the behaviors which most cheaters rely on to enforce double standards.

At some point I’ll be able to make a better argument for the above but on a gut level I smell wag-the-dog media influence to erode concepts of consent and I think the younger generations are the main target of the spin. At the very least, it’s a huge distraction for other sex-related issues like the gender pay gap, the fact that 5-15% of college students– mostly women– have to engage in prostitution to pay college fees and debt and the increase in sex trafficking in the age of streaming porn just for a few examples of more pressing concerns than whether Americans slut shame cheaters.

This was just mentioned at the zoom meeting I was in (AA) and I share it here because FORGIVENESS is a topic that gets kicked around after DDay, with lectures from others about it and definitions shoved down our throats.

Forgiveness means I forgo getting even with you. That’s my understanding of it and I’m sticking to it. In that regard, yes I have forgiven.

Or my bank analogy….if a bank forgives a loan, they don’t pursue collecting the money from you. And they end their relationship with you.

Just this afternoon I got a text from a long-term acquaintance telling me I “need to get to neutral” and advising me to forgive (I guess according to her definition.) I said the forgiveness is that I did not harm them after what they did.

Just because you still have strong feelings and pain around what happened doesn’t mean you aren’t processing what happened.

My ears go waaaaaay back when I feel others imposing their recovery time line on me. 🤬

I know it’s hard to give up a relationship when your mindset was that you were in it and it’s a thing that you’re supposed to fight to preserve, but in this case it turns out that you weren’t in it, or at least you weren’t in the relationship that you thought you were in, and there’s nothing here to save. Cut bait and let this one go.

I’m not poly but I have friends who are and, yes, seeing other people without making it very clear between you and all partners involved that a) this is going on and b) we’re all OK with it, is still cheating. The rules of consent still apply, and they have to be agreed on by everyone involved.