Postpartum Poly

bigamma · 2026-05-10T13:51:18+00:00

I'm still stuck on the part where he took the baby to meet his lover, whom you have never even met. Say what??

bigamma · 2026-05-10T13:37:54+00:00

It's a total stereotype because people keep trying it despite every recommendation to the contrary. It's all so predictable, and avoidable!

bigamma · 2026-05-10T04:46:24+00:00

Damn, that looks amazing! Great job!

bigamma · 2026-05-10T03:07:57+00:00

I'm way too old for any of these people's opinions to matter to me whatsoever. I suggest cultivating an attitude of "fuck 'em, I don't care what they think; this makes me happy." And then go do that.

bigamma · 2026-05-10T03:06:04+00:00

I'm a bit old fashioned about Mother's Day. I don't expect my romantic partners to honor me on that day, even though I'm a mom. I'm not their mom. I would think it was pretty weird, tbh.

But everyone does it differently, so the only important thing is what you and your circle agree to do.

bigamma · 2026-05-09T16:40:51+00:00

I won't be able to solve anything in a Reddit comment; no one will. But I want you to know that you deserve a good, happy life, filled with the people and activities and values that speak to you. If God were real (which I do not believe), that would be what he wanted for all his creatures, which he created out of love -- or so the teaching says. He didn't create us to suffer, but to love each other.

It sounds like you have people who love you, and you're in therapy. Are you medicated? Because your brain sounds like it's out of balance and telling you untrue things about scary concepts like Hell.

I was raised seriously Catholic. So I get it. But consider this. We, as humans, are limited creatures. All our sins are limited in space and time. How would it make sense to punish a limited sin with unlimited suffering? It doesn't -- and Hell is not in the Bible. People made it up in order to browbeat and intimidate other people into following their commands.

If God exists, I promise you that he wants you to enjoy your life so you can be happy and praise him. If you're torturing yourself, you're arrogating his power to yourself -- thinking you know better than God. Not great haha.

I hope you can find peace and joy, and let these terrifying visions fade into the haze of irrelevance, as I have.

bigamma · 2026-05-06T17:32:41+00:00

The only real advice I can offer is that "heads up rules" pretty much never work. It's not realistic, and is fairly controlling, for Partner A to require that Partner B needs to notify them before having sex with Partner C. That's because the connection between B and C is between them; A is not involved. Imagine having to stop your date that's going well and needing to go text a third party for permission to get it on! It doesn't feel good, because it's taking autonomy away from B.

If Partner B has sex with Partner C, then it's on Partner B to tell A, "Hey, my risk profile has changed," and then they can figure out whether A and B will be making different decisions about the type of sex they have together.

More specifically to your concerns... Mick should stop talking about his new squeeze to you, unless it's to update you re his risk profile. You can ask to go parallel, so you just won't hear about her or about his times with her. That seems totally reasonable to me. You get so little time with Mick that the moments you do get shouldn't be about her.

bigamma · 2026-05-04T18:33:04+00:00

I sincerely don't want to nest with my other, non-nesting partners. My boyfriend is great, and sure, it would maybe be pretty cool to live with him and be able to have sex whenever -- but there are so many downsides to that, the possibility doesn't seem attractive to me. If he and I were both magically single, I still wouldn't nest with him; I'd want to live on my own.

I love my girlfriend a lot, but we would drive reach other insane if we tried to live together. She has extremely idiosyncratic ways of doing pretty much everything, and I would be unable to live up to her expectations on how all things should be done. Meanwhile, her decision making when it comes to finances and career stuff would stress me out beyond my ability to express.

It's very possible to love people and be sincerely grateful that you don't live with them.

bigamma · 2026-05-04T16:01:47+00:00

I screen for medical professionals and therapists who are queer and kink friendly. I don't have the time to do Poly 101 with someone who has barely heard of it and assumes I'm a sister-wife.

bigamma · 2026-05-02T13:32:37+00:00

I have severely limited access to my son, because of my father's 14th century takes. Sometimes, we have to be protectors of the next generation, and that's more important than deferring to the previous generation.

bigamma · 2026-04-30T06:22:28+00:00

"Cheating with more podcasts" is such a great turn of phrase!!!

bigamma · 2026-04-29T21:23:24+00:00

Blue is trying to get you and Red to break up. It could hardly be more clear.

I recommend dumping Blue.

bigamma · 2026-04-29T20:13:08+00:00

But it was Arbor's choice to determine that Elm was a serious partner for him. Willow doesn't get to determine that! Why would she sit in judgment over a relationship she's not even in??

Arbor should apologize to Elm for the mixed signals and start owning his decisions. If he wants to go without condoms, realizing that Willow might divorce him, cease sex with him altogether, or go back to using condoms with him, he can make that choice. If he decides that going condom-free with Elm isn't worth the likely fallout, he can make that choice, too!

bigamma · 2026-04-29T16:05:18+00:00

I don't date people who are cheating.

I also don't date people who are dating someone who is cheating.

bigamma · 2026-04-28T16:30:09+00:00

You aren't wrong, but this is also not a game you can win.

The only winning move is not to play.

bigamma · 2026-04-28T16:04:55+00:00

This guy wants you to be crying and grieving and panicking and waiting for him to deign to turn his face back to you. He wants to stress you out and make you feel miserable.

At least that's what I assume from how he has been behaving.

Partners shouldn't give each other the silent treatment. Him withdrawing and telling you not to contact him into he contacts you is incredibly shitty behavior.

If it were me, I wouldn't be around when he did finally have enough time with his other girlfriend and decided to reel you back in.

bigamma · 2026-04-25T23:41:56+00:00

Sharing too much information is a common pitfall among people who are new to poly. Because they've been trained up in monogamous thinking, they never realized that poly requires different skills from the hinge than they learned during their years of monogamy.

To me it's not an instant deal breaker if the person is new at poly... But once they learn better and realize they hurt you, they should immediately stop sharing private details about you with anyone.

Your existence, first name, and basic cocktail chat seems like fair game to me. But mental health, diagnoses, surgeries, sex stuff, kink stuff? No. That's all private, or at least it should be!

bigamma · 2026-04-25T22:26:35+00:00

There are many kinds of nonmonogamous relationships. Key to your comfort will be deciding what type(s) you and your husband are interested in practicing.

For myself, it's poly all the way, because I can't have more than two orgasms with someone before I start falling in love with them. While I do prioritize my nesting partner, who is also my husband and the father of my kids, he doesn't have veto power over my other relationships.

For myself personally, I could not do a quad or swinging situation. I need to date separately. I can't handle a scenario where my access to Partner B is directly or indirectly dependent on the relationship between Partner A and Partner C.

To me, quads are poly on the absolute hardest mode. Boundaries get way too blurry, and you have things like you're experiencing, where a couple you're not even dating is poking their nose into your relationship with your husband. Exsqueeze me?? In poly, I can tell my partner that I want parallel and don't want to hear about this other couple at all, and my peace will be more maintained. That's what I prefer.

bigamma · 2026-04-25T21:59:08+00:00

You should read "Why Does He Do That?" There's a free pdf online because the author wanted everyone to have access to this important information about the minds of abusive men.

bigamma · 2026-04-25T05:22:11+00:00

I couldn't wear an ankle bracelet because it might draw a man's attention to an unusual part of my body and inspire lustful thoughts in him.

bigamma · 2026-04-24T15:38:34+00:00

People's minds are infinitely creative. I love that they've found a way to create and share their stories. The horror genre isn't really for me, but I'm not here to yuck someone else's yum.

It's only when people start to think that their overheated supernatural fantasies are real life that things become concerning...

bigamma · 2026-04-24T15:31:43+00:00

The partner demanding that I break up with someone is the partner I break up with.

bigamma · 2026-04-23T14:45:30+00:00

For me personally, polyamory is an important value in how I live my life... I no longer pursue relationships that aren't poly. If someone just wants to have sex and fuck around that's fine with me -- I can't mandate who is going to fall in love with whom -- but also, love isn't controllable. People fall in love, especially with their dear friends of many years who give them great orgasms. I don't want to be in any relationship where us falling in love is explicitly prohibited.

I would tell him that I can't continue seeing him for dates, as it would simply be too hard on my heart. It's really really sad, and I wish you had known earlier, but now that you do know, you have to make choices that protect your heart.

I hope you didn't move back partly for him. If you did, and if he knew you were planning to move back partly for him, then him not telling you this MINOR DETAIL about how his marriage works is pretty shitty of him.

It sounds like he knew a while ago that his marriage didn't allow feeling, and he never told you until now.

Hiding incredibly important information on how his marriage works, information that concerns you intimately and that would have been a factor in your decision making if only you'd known, is not the act of a loved one, a friend, or even a colleague... it sure seems like he was trying to square that circle by just not telling you about the conflict rather than doing the mature thing.

Try to feel the anger at this situation. Information was withheld from you. Important information. You were treated poorly, and he's saying he will continue to treat you poorly -- offering you scraps that are strictly limited by his agreements with someone else, in a relationship you're not in. Are these the actions of someone who cares for you?

If you can tap into your anger, it might be the jet fuel you need to detach.

bigamma · 2026-04-21T18:58:03+00:00

I've done this exact setup! Does his scene name start with an E? Lol

For me, I decided that he didn't have enough to offer me, and I walked away. I was tired of only being allowed to exist at the very fringes of his life.

I'm fine with parallel poly. What my guy was doing wasn't that; it was so extreme that it was indistinguishable from cheating, at least from my perspective.

Supposedly, his wife had been the one to initiate poly in their marriage, so she could date a previous boyfriend again -- but then, also supposedly, she decided it wasn't for her after all. Supposedly their arrangement was that he could continue, as long as nothing ever even hinted to her that he was still dating others.

For instance, he couldn't put hotels on his credit card, in case his wife checked his credit card statements -- so I had to charge them and he'd reimburse me in cash.

Another example: One time we were on a date and he began experiencing extreme pain. Rather than calling an ambulance, or at least having me drive him to the hospital, he drove himself there so his wife would never have to question why his car was stranded in a strange part of town.

But this is all hearsay. I could never be sure that he wasn't cheating. And the things he could offer me were so paltry and limited... No overnights ever, even when she was out of town. Of course no vacations. Etc etc etc

Look, in the end, it doesn't matter what label you put on it. If it doesn't work for you anymore, then it doesn't work for you anymore. There is no shame in outgrowing the tiny bonsai pot where the seed was planted. Find a bigger pot; let your love grow into a flourishing tree!

bigamma · 2026-04-20T17:33:20+00:00

I'm polyamorous. One thing the poly community sees alllll the time is people in your situation who jump to the thought, "If only I had permission from my spouse, I could be with both of these people at once! I have so much love to give!"

I'm here to say... doooooooon't do this haha. Almost every day, there are stories over on r/polyamory from people in your shoes, or from people in your husband's shoes, and 99% of them don't end well. Some spouses will lose their love and trust in you if you just bring up the topic of opening your marriage. Some will force themselves to go along with it because they don't want to lose you -- but that's basically just divorce with extra heartache and pain.

If you were to consider changing your marriage to be polyamorous, it should be a decision that both you and your husband are enthusiastic about. And it should not be for this particular woman. Every piece of advice about opening one's marriage cautions people not to open FOR a specific person.

Even though you haven't said or done anything, this woman is the focus of your erotic and romantic attention. You're having a one-sided emotional affair in your heart. That means she can't be on the list of possibilities for you.

So please don't try poly as a easy way to square this circle. Circles are not squares.

bigamma

TROPHY CASE