That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

My partner (M, 40) and I (F, 40) have been dating for 7 months. We both have separate nesting partners and young kids and live 2.5 hrs away, although we manage to see each other about a night every 10 days.

We were both in open sexual relationships before but not polyamorous and it feels like we’ve had to manage a lot of philosophical adjustments with our respective (supportive) partners on top of our own NRE.

We were both surprised by the strength of our feelings and both feel we have « gold » on our hands but now NRE is starting to fade, cracks are showing.

Time management is a big thing: how far in advance should we get organised, how long should we spend together away from our NPs who struggle with managing kids alone. Right now, I feel like I’m not prioritised and panic when we don’t have a clear calendar beyond 2-3 weeks. I don’t want to travel this much for just an evening anymore. I think I would like to have set days and set phone dates but I’m not really sure it would help.

He feels like he has no time for himself and my planning in advance is hard to maintain because he has trouble setting priorities. We’ve started seeing each others with kids to be able to have more physical time and give our partners a break but it’s a patch not a solution and intimacy isn’t the same.

Although we’ve got a polycule group text and have done an event all together, it’s hard to find the right posture, he feels guilty towards his NP and I feel torn by the lack of connection when we’re in this setup.

Communication is another hard topic: when should we message, how to keep the connection going, how to show care outside of our moments together. Right now I feel like I have to piece information together to get his full emotional picture, that he’s not a good hinge by not setting time boundaries and just disappearing.

We’ve set up anchors like hello and good night but it feels artificial. He admits he might be in post autism diagnosis regression and I admit I might try to reach for perfect Instagram relationship coach scripts (I’m autistic too…) but he’s so far off I have trouble getting secure.

Where are going is also hard to discuss. He says he doesn’t know and just wants something « simple ». I need to feel some kind of agency and not so dependent on him clearing things, or just processing his feelings with his partner. I want to be able to dream of what we could be, dream of things we could do with each other. We can’t be everything to each other but how can we make it significant?

It feels much harder than it should be, harder than any mono relationship. We’re concerned we’re falling into a persecutor / victim dynamics where I explain what I need and he says he’ll do better but we end up arguing, I cry and he feels like shit. It can’t go on like this and we have entered a trial period where we want to redefine ourselves. I’m wondering what kind of tools we can use, what basic conversations we should be having, what we can we set up to make it work… or maybe it was just the NRE talking?

Again thank you so much for your advice it is very much appreciated.

Response

I feel like I might be being a little bit harsh with your partner, but I see…and maybe this is a projection of my own situation, where I've been in this situation a lot. I've been in enough situations for me to kind of feel like I'm seeing a pattern here that's particularly frustrating for me, because I've been in that pattern, and I know what that's like.

You're doing so much to analyse the situation and try to solve the situation and suggesting things. And I'm sorry, but, and please, if anyone would like to write in and correct me, I don't have children, I could be wrong here, I really think that a 40-year-old that has children absolutely does fucking know how to prioritise.

I'm sorry… if you have children, either he doesn't prioritize or his nesting partner is carrying the emotional weight of him and managing the entire household, but he absolutely does know how to fucking prioritise if you have children, unless you're the absolute worst parent. And I mean, I won't say anything. You know how to prioritise. If you have a job, you know how to prioritise.

And yeah, this may be taxing. It may be taxing. Maybe he doesn't have the mental energy to be a parent, have another partner, and have a nesting partner. Maybe he's not up to it. Maybe he's not able to do that.

And if he isn't, he should say so, instead of just allowing you to take all of the responsibility of managing—there's this thing, I can't remember what it's called, but it's this phenomenon that happens — and partially this was my fault, and this may be something that you're also doing, but it's like you pick up the slack from other people in relationships—the mental slack of managing, project managing the fucking relationship, project managing the situation.

Project managing relationships

And I've done it even when I'm living with people who I'm not in a relationship with. When I joined group households, I would almost inevitably be the one who ended up managing the household finances, managing the bills, making sure the bills got paid, making sure the landlord got paid, being the liaison between the landlord and the household.

And partially that was my fucking fault. Partially it was me seeing—when there's a leadership vacuum, I automatically step into it because I don't think that anyone else will. Because I think, "Oh, I've got to do this. I just have to be the one that's in charge, because nobody else is going to do it" because of my own anxiety, because of my own inability to trust other people to do the right thing.

And sometimes people don't do the right thing. Sometimes you have to take responsibility because someone else won't. It is exhausting, but having to be the project manager of relationships is fucking tiring, and you shouldn't have to do that.

And that's what I see here. I see you project managing this relationship. You're trying to figure out how you can enact this plan, and there isn't anything wrong with not wanting to have a plan, but you don't live lives which are conducive to that.

You know, if you were both 20-year-olds in university, and you didn't have any children, and the only responsibility you had was going to school, maybe you could live a life where you hooked up every other week, or you occasionally went to Europe, or whatever rich people do. You don't live that type of life that is conducive to spontaneity.

And I get the idea—we've all kind of been fed the idea of romantic spontaneity through media, and that everything should be whisked away—but shit has to be planned, and people have to put in the work. This is the side of relationships that is not fun, that has to happen if things are going to happen.

It's all well and good for everyone to be like, "Oh, we love each other. NRE"—like you said, that's all well and good, and that's very fun. But there is an aspect to relationships and building relationships and building community—and this isn't even only in romantic relationships, this is within all relationships—there is an aspect that involves fucking work. It involves organization and planning, and it has to be fucking reciprocal.

Relationships require planning

I'm getting mad because I'm getting mad for your sake, and because I've been in so many freaking situations like this, not even just romantic. I mean, it's been something that I've seen—actually, some posts acknowledge this about community, and acknowledge this about people's unwillingness to show the fuck up.

It's exhausting when you are one of the people that is willing to do the work. When you're one of the people that's willing to plan, to figure all this out mentally, to carry the mental load of managing the situations. And that's what you're doing here.

All you want is for some concrete consistency, which, you know, I'm autistic too. I feel like having a routine and having a schedule is usually what we fucking like. I have very little sympathy for this guy. I'm sorry. He's 40 fucking years old. He has children. It'd be one thing if he was 20 and didn't really know what he wanted in life. He has fucking children.

Come on, dude. You're just asking for a plan, and you got to be the one to make the plan. You got to be the one organizing everything. You got… oh, I'm exhausted on your behalf. Why do you have to be the one to do this all the fucking time? You shouldn't.

Yeah, he wants something simple. What he wants is someone else to take the mental and all of the psychological baring of managing the relationship so he doesn't have to fucking do anything. And I'm sorry, yeah, he might be exhausted. Maybe he's not cut out for having multiple adult relationships. Maybe he doesn't have the mental energy for that. Maybe he doesn't have the ability to support more than one relationship, and that's fine. And then just say that, instead of putting the burden all on you.

He feels guilty about his nesting partner, he doesn't…. and maybe he's conflict-avoiding his shit. He doesn't want to deal with the feelings. And I see this, and all due respect, I see this a lot with men. I'm sorry, but this is what I see a lot.

The third shift

And there's a phenomenon of this. You talk about the second shift of women having to do fucking childcare and the cleaning when they get home after they've already worked. What about the third fucking shift of having to do the mental fucking project managing of relationships, of communities? This happens all the fucking time. You always end up having to be the one to manage this.

And I think Jimmy on Relationships has talked about this. It's not that men are unwilling to help, but it's like men show up and they're like, "What do you want me to do?" And they don't fucking realize that just the very task of you showing up and going, "What do you want me to do?" puts me in fucking charge. I'm still the manager. I don't want to be the project manager of this shit.

Oh, I'm exhausted on your behalf, but genuinely, you're trying to project manage this situation, and what you need is for him to step the fuck up. Step up and do things, be the one to actually reciprocate, organise things yourself, without me having to be the one sitting there and planning everything.

I'm sorry, if you don't want to plan stuff, you're not… get good at prioritising then, because you have more than one romantic relationship and children and a job. If you don't want to have to project manage your own freaking life, then honestly, then maybe it's not for him. Maybe he likes all the fun aspects of relationships, where he gets laid and gets attention, but doesn't like to have to deal with the actual fucking mental part of it, which is planning, which is reciprocation, which is coming up with ideas of things you want, which is figuring out where you're going. That's part of it.

And if he doesn't want to do that, that's fine. Genuinely, people are fucking tired out here. I know people who have chosen monogamy, not because they have a problem with their partner being attracted to others, not because they even necessarily want exclusivity, but because they're fucking tired. That's why. It takes a lot of mental energy sometimes, but you know what? It takes more mental energy to be the only one that's doing this in a goddamn relationship, and it always ends up having to fall on the shoulders, sometimes, of women, and it's very frustrating to see.

And I mean, I'm not even a woman, I'm non-binary, and that's why it made me even more mad, because I'm like, "Damn it, this is a gender role I didn't ask for"—not that any woman should have to do it. But you know what I'm saying? Fuck's sake, man.

Balancing kids and polyamory

I just think it's such a crappy excuse. I'm sorry, and I get that you really like him, and that's maybe what's preventing you from kind of seeing this for what it is. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to have kids. It's hard to have a nesting partner. That's why I don't want kids, because I don't want to deal with the mental energy of having to manage that. I don't want that. That's why.

But he has kids now. He has kids. He has a partner. He's 40 years old. He has a job. Presumably, he is good at prioritising, or he is at least good enough. Or maybe he puts the management of his life on his partner. There are many men who do, but that's not good enough.

I'm sorry he has trouble setting priorities. What he can do then is take initiative to get better at it. He can take initiative to get a carer if he needs a carer. Get a therapist if he needs a therapist. He can take initiative to getting therapy if he needs help. He can get some life coaching. There is a plethora of opportunities and options he can take to get better at these things. It's not all—and I'm sorry, there's also, if childcare is an issue, you have a whole polycule. You have a group chat.

There's lots of ways which he could volunteer without you having to be the one to fucking organise it. And be like, "Hey, how about our nesting partners?" I don't know if both of your partners get along enough for you to have—you know, you two watch the kids while the nesting partners that you have go off and have a fun time with their friends or whatnot. And then your two nesting partners stay together, watch the kids, while you two have some private time. There's so many options here.

I say it takes a village to raise a child, and that's because, actually, in my opinion, the whole two-parent household is not very helpful. I think you need more people to help raise children, because children are a lot of fucking work. That's why a lot of poorer people end up with aunties and grandmas and grandpas that live with them, because it takes a lot of work, and there are lots of other options.

And you shouldn't have to be the one that's organising all of these fucking options. You shouldn't have to be the project manager. He should want to speak to you. You shouldn't—I totally get what you mean by it feeling artificial, and you having to take that interest and piece together his emotional picture.

Maybe he's in post-autism diagnosis regression. He can get help for that. He is not some poor little victim who… He's not this sad person who can't do anything for himself. I'm sorry, I just would not feel satisfied with these answers.

When a partner has to step up

And maybe the good aspects of your relationship have been NRE, because it's fun to do all the sparkly things and hook up and for everything to be new and shiny. But at the end of the day, the new and shininess fades. The new and shininess comes to an end. And then what's left is: Is that person willing to put in the work?

So yeah, I mean, I think that it's frustrating because you are the one who is driving all the change here. You can't drive a relationship—a relationship is a two-way street, and you can't project manage him into being a better person. He has to step up.

And I know how hard this is. I've been in so many relationships, and this is kind of why, personally, I'm very hesitant to get into another one for a very long time, because being the project manager is so fucking exhausting. Being the… it's so lonely as well. Honestly, the deepest loneliness that I've ever felt has not been when I was single. It's been when I've been in a relationship and I felt like I was the only one that gave a shit about the relationship.

So he says he'll do better. If he's not taking concrete steps to do better, then I think that you should nope out of this situation. Nope out of being the project manager. I'm partially tempted to tell you to do a little experiment: Don't be the first one to initiate contact. See if he initiates contact. It's so exhausting.

And there also may be somewhat of a mismatch of needs here. Maybe he is fine…you know, I've had friends, and all due respect to them, and I mean no offense when I say this… but I've had friends who have been terrible at getting in touch with me, and it's been frustrating. And they post this thing of like, "Oh, I can have these friends where we don't talk to each other for five months, and then when we talk to each other again, we pick up right back where we were."

I'm not fucking like that, and that kind of stuff drives me absolutely insane. If that's fine for you, that's fine for you. I'm not like that. I don't want someone to not speak to me for six months and then talk to me as if nothing happened. That drives me insane. I don't fucking like that.

I have accepted at this point in time, because this used to absolutely crush me, but I've accepted. I've realised, and this might be beneficial for you to realise: There are certain people who are not going to, for whatever reason—it's not my fault, it's not their fault, there is no blame—but for whatever reason they aren't communicative. They just aren't. They're not going to reach out to me, they're not going to talk to me, or they will talk to me, but they'll only talk to me once a month, and that's the level of communication.

What I've really had to learn in this life, and it has been hard, fucking hard, to learn this, is to accept people where they're at and just stop expecting any more from them. And that is really fucking hard, because I've almost ended friendships with people because I wanted them to communicate with me. I wanted there to be reciprocation in our relationship. I wanted them to reach out to me. This isn't even romantic relationships. This is friendships.

And I did kind of partially have to realise that it was my own expectations that I was putting on them that they never agreed to, and that's fine. But now I am—instead of wasting my time expecting people who don't communicate to communicate more, I simply go, "All right, that person is going to communicate to me this much, I accept that. I'm going to actually just turn my attention away from them and I'm going to find the people who do communicate with me, who do communicate with me in the ways and with the frequency that I want."

And the result of that has been very, very good. I have found people who communicate with me at the frequency that I want. I have found people who are better friends than any other friends that I have met, and that is because I haven't wasted my time expecting people who don't fucking communicate enough for me to communicate enough for me.

Meeting others where they’re at

If you're the type of person that you can go five to ten months without ever speaking to somebody, and then you can talk to them again, and everything's peachy keen, that's great. That is absolutely fine. And I do have those friends now, and it's because I don't expect any more from them, because I'm not sitting there waiting, building resentment, having that grow.

I just go, "Okay, that person is not going to be able to communicate with me the way that I want them to." I let it go, and I instead find people that can actually give me what I want, and that has been much, much better for me, by leaps and bounds, than just sitting there and hoping and building resentment.

Because that's what this is. I feel like you can give it one more shot. And this isn't about persecutor-victim dynamics. This is about "I need you to step the fuck up." I need you to—and you don't have to say "step the fuck up."

You can say, "Listen, I feel like I'm project managing this relationship, and I'm not happy with that. I would like us to have a schedule. I would like us to have set dedicated time that we spend. So I'm going to give you two weeks to talk with your nesting partner, and I would like to meet again in two weeks, and I would like for you to come up with times in your schedule where you can fit me in, and I will come to you with times in my schedule where I can fit you in, and we will negotiate on a time that fits for us both."

And I would do that. He has to bring something to the table.

And if he can't, and if he won't—don't accept, "Oh, I find it hard." If you find it hard, then you need to find a therapist. Then the next thing for you will be to find a therapist who can help you prioritise. But I guarantee you he is not leaving his kids at daycare or school or whatever because he can't prioritise. He can fucking—again, maybe I'm being harsh on him, but I'm sorry, if you have children, if you can't prioritise, then you will be in jail for neglect. You can prioritise.

And I mean, I don't know what kind of—I'm not going to judge someone, I'm not trying to do that—but you know what I mean, right? He can prioritise. He may be exhausted from prioritising everything else, and then he just feels like he can just not—he wants a relationship where the other person doesn't expect anything from him, and that's fine.

He could hire a sex worker if he wants to have sex outside of his relationship, and he wants someone who will have sex with him and pay attention to him without having to schedule his life, or someone he can call up and get some time with without having to plan it weeks in advance. He can hire a sex worker. He can talk to a sex worker, become a regular client, if that's legal where you are, and he can create a sort of relationship with them where he can just call them up if they don't have any other bookings. That's what he can do. And that's not an insult in any way. I genuinely mean that.

But if he wants to be in a relationship with you, he needs to learn how to prioritise. If he wants multiple adult relationships, he has to learn how to prioritise. He has to learn how to say no. He has to learn how to assert what he wants, and he can't allow that to fall to his partners. That's not fair.

Don’t accept “I’m bad at this”

So I would be really, really more direct about this and asking for what you want, and I would stop accepting the excuses of, "Oh, I'm bad at this." Then get better at it.

Would you feel the same if you were expected to cook every single meal or plan—I say this, like, I haven't done it—or plan all the groceries or buy takeaway, if he was just like, "Well, I'm not good at cooking." And instead of saying something like, "I'm not so good at cooking, but why don't I get the takeaway? I'll figure out the takeaway for tonight."

You can be not good at cooking. This is a great example. In a household with somebody, where you're in a relationship together, you don't have to become a chef. Maybe you don't want to learn how to cook, maybe you fucking hate cooking. You can still take the mental load of buying groceries. You can still take the management of figuring out what you're going to have for dinner together for a couple nights a week, instead of that falling all on one person. Do you know what I mean?

You can still take responsibility. You can still step in. It can still be reciprocal. Just because you don't know how to cook doesn't mean that everything—"Oh well, I'm just—I don't know how to cook, I'm just going to lay on the floor here like a slab of meat and then just expect to be fed because someone else is willing to take the responsibility for that." No, no. Stop accepting that.

I'm sorry if me being mad on your behalf is off-putting. I'm really not trying to be off-putting, but I've just been in this situation so many times cause I don’t wanna have to deal with this. Even amongst friends, I need reciprocal people, and that has been a very hard thing to learn.

But yeah, I think that you need to ask for this, see if this is going to happen with him. And you know what's going to… I've been in this situation. So I'm like, I see what might happen if he goes, "Oh, I will, I promise. I'll do better. Blah, blah, blah," and then things don't change again, that cycle… I've been in that cycle. Someone says that things will be different, or they go, "Maybe," instead of just saying no to you, and that's the thing that's hard about situations like this.

Instead of somebody who just looks you straight up and be like, "I'm never going to do this," it's like, "Okay, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe." And then you just end up waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. And just don't do that.

Don't take another maybe. Ask for something basic. Give me— we'll meet again in two weeks. Show me—figure out times that work for you. And then we will negotiate together, but I'm not spoon-feeding this anymore. Stop the spoon-feeding, please.

Oh yeah, I hope that helps, and good luck.