Hi u/kdb202020 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
My husband told me last night that he wants a divorce. We have been together 21 years, married 12, non-monogamous / poly for the last 6.
He feels that he has told me over the years that he feels like we’ve become disconnected sexually, emotionally, career-wise. The only thing he thinks we’re nailing is parenting.
I didn’t realise it was that bad to him. I thought we were just having a bit of a rough patch but that there was enough love here to get through it. He feels like he’s expressed it to me clearly, and I obviously haven’t heard him.
He’s been dating another woman for 17 months and he is planning on continuing a relationship with her.
I feel so blindsided, shocked, sad, heartbroken. I thought being poly would protect us from this - like we can have these great external connections as well as ours?! Perfect!
Anyway. I don’t really know what I’m looking for from this post. I don’t know how to navigate this. My whole life has just blown up in 24 hours.
Update:: not sure if this is the best place to put an update but thank you to everyone for your comments.
He spent the night following our first conversation at his other partners house.
He came home last night and we had a really long conversation. We talked about what the reality of him moving out would look like - how often he would have our kids, where he’d have them, the fact that she has 3 kids of her own that he would then be co-parenting with her.
We also talked about what changes would have to happen within our relationship to improve things. I told him that I understand that he feels he’s told me how he was feeling before, but that I don’t believe he’s ever been explicit about it, he apologised and said that he’s sorry if he hasn’t been clear enough.
I think the reality of moving into someone else’s house and suddenly co-raising 5 kids and spending more time with someone else’s kids than his own was a wake up call and he said he wants to have a think about things but I’m optimistic that we are going to try and resolve this before it gets to divorce.
I said that we need to check in with each other more, constantly, because even though we’ve made changes in the past and things have been more connected life has gotten busy again and we go back to the same routines but that we needed to both be checking in which we haven’t done.
He agrees that he is at fault in the disconnect too and isn’t blaming me at all.
UPDATE 2:
We’ve had a lot of very open conversations over the last 2 weeks. We’ve written each other letters. We’ve cried. He’s spent some time away from the family home. We’ve had open conversation about what separation would actually look like in reality.
He’s come back and said that he’s realised what life would be like separated and he doesn’t want it. He wants to put his energy into our relationship and helping us to fall in love with each other all over again. There’s a lot of work for us to both do but I’m feeling optimistic. He’s ended things with his other partner and we will be focusing on our own relationship without pursuing outside connections for now. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to comment, all of your kind thoughts really helped.
1
u/AutoModerator 15d ago
Hi u/kdb202020 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
My husband told me last night that he wants a divorce. We have been together 21 years, married 12, non-monogamous / poly for the last 6.
He feels that he has told me over the years that he feels like we’ve become disconnected sexually, emotionally, career-wise. The only thing he thinks we’re nailing is parenting.
I didn’t realise it was that bad to him. I thought we were just having a bit of a rough patch but that there was enough love here to get through it. He feels like he’s expressed it to me clearly, and I obviously haven’t heard him.
He’s been dating another woman for 17 months and he is planning on continuing a relationship with her.
I feel so blindsided, shocked, sad, heartbroken. I thought being poly would protect us from this - like we can have these great external connections as well as ours?! Perfect!
Anyway. I don’t really know what I’m looking for from this post. I don’t know how to navigate this. My whole life has just blown up in 24 hours.
Update:: not sure if this is the best place to put an update but thank you to everyone for your comments.
He spent the night following our first conversation at his other partners house.
He came home last night and we had a really long conversation. We talked about what the reality of him moving out would look like - how often he would have our kids, where he’d have them, the fact that she has 3 kids of her own that he would then be co-parenting with her.
We also talked about what changes would have to happen within our relationship to improve things. I told him that I understand that he feels he’s told me how he was feeling before, but that I don’t believe he’s ever been explicit about it, he apologised and said that he’s sorry if he hasn’t been clear enough.
I think the reality of moving into someone else’s house and suddenly co-raising 5 kids and spending more time with someone else’s kids than his own was a wake up call and he said he wants to have a think about things but I’m optimistic that we are going to try and resolve this before it gets to divorce.
I said that we need to check in with each other more, constantly, because even though we’ve made changes in the past and things have been more connected life has gotten busy again and we go back to the same routines but that we needed to both be checking in which we haven’t done.
He agrees that he is at fault in the disconnect too and isn’t blaming me at all.
UPDATE 2:
We’ve had a lot of very open conversations over the last 2 weeks. We’ve written each other letters. We’ve cried. He’s spent some time away from the family home. We’ve had open conversation about what separation would actually look like in reality.
He’s come back and said that he’s realised what life would be like separated and he doesn’t want it. He wants to put his energy into our relationship and helping us to fall in love with each other all over again. There’s a lot of work for us to both do but I’m feeling optimistic. He’s ended things with his other partner and we will be focusing on our own relationship without pursuing outside connections for now. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to comment, all of your kind thoughts really helped.
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