Source
r/polyamory•
PartBanyanTree

jeleous of my partner's life/success

I'm solo poly and i've got 50/50 custody of 3 kids and a full time job and so many todos I drown in them, still working my way through mental health and addiction issues. I've got a full plate, I know.

An when my girlfriend - who I'm taking to dinner - shows me a very nice fan who she got from "a friend", and when I ask "what friend?" and she says a name I don't recognize, like, fuuuuck. it just hit me like a tonne of bricks.

she told me about two of her partners hitting it off at a social event I didn't even know about and couldn't have even attended if I wanted to.. I'm with my kids, prioritizing being a mom, living my best life.

And I just wish I had another partner. I feel hopless and unwanted and I spent the first six months of the year trying and failing to make connections, so I took a break and focused on personal health and improving my friendship connections.

I just feel like the life I want - friends, multiple partners, people I connect with - is so much work, so out of reach, too much to ask for. I used to think I was jeleous of my girlfriend's relationships but over the past while I've come to realize that yes, sure, there's some of that, but mostly i'm jeleous of her life, her freedom, her time, her success.

it all feels so out of reach and I know I "should" be worrying about how to handle my todo-list and work-life and not fucking up life so regularly. Is life-on-lifes-terms / god / reality just showing me that my appetite's bigger than what is possible

idk, I just need to type this somewhere. if it wasn't for being poly I wouldn't even have my amazing girlfriend. but somethings not right about my life because of this disatisfaction i've got and i just dont knwo where to go with it or how to turn it into an actionable item. guess I just sit in it and feel awful for a while

Posted Jul 29, 2022, 5:22 AM UTC

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PartBanyanTreeOP•

thank you, that's a helpful phrasing. I think it is important to remember that those, too, are choices, even though they don't often feel like choices because anything else seems unimaginable.

But remembering it's a choice feels helpful so as to reduce some of the resentment. I can so easily take for granted the perks I have seeing greener grass.

8
blooangl✨ Sparkle Princess ✨•

Hey friend!

Sopo single mom here.

So, while it’s tempting to to focus on the many partners aspect of polyam, the piece that needed to fall into place for me, was community.

Once I found my people (other moms who are solo, maybe polyam, maybe not) things got a lot easier.

And I didn’t really hit my stride until a couple of years into post couplehood.

The best advice that I got was “build the kind of life you want, and the right people will find you”

It can’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen until you have your ducks in a row, but it will happen.

You’re just starting out. It’s hard and sometimes it feels unfair and lonely. You’ll get there.

18
PartBanyanTreeOP•

Thank you for that thought. I've been making small strides in finding other moms. After the divorce and such, well, I'm rebuilding from zero. I've recently reconnected with another mom I knew before covid and our kids are the same age.

It'd be lovely to connect with some poly people in any capacity, actually.

I think you're right about community. I don't have much for community but I'm also doing better in that regard than a year ago. Progress at least

1
blooangl✨ Sparkle Princess ✨•

It’s NOT easy those first couple of years. But I promise, if you lay the groundwork now? It’s pretty amazing.

Emergency kid care, and peeps who will pretend that they are taking the kids for a sleep over or a play date instead of being all weird and shitty because you have a date? Invaluable.

Women who are also dating solo make excellent safety check in partners, and mom’s doubly so.

Also, don’t rush it. There’s no need to. Spend some time figuring out what you want and need. That way just because someone was nice to you, you won’t swear everlasting love to them even though you have nothing in common and he’s actually kind of a douche.

Give yourself a life where you can be picky.

1
emeraldead•

I know this may feel like more work, but how about making a time budget? Are there chores you can outsource? What long term planning can you make to shift your priorities? Obviously kid intense focus will change over the decades.

Also remember the comparison monster is nasty because it does exactly what it did here- it completely erased the awesome relationship you DO have with your partner. It completely erased all the reasons you are where you are now. You have to learn to feel the comparison monster and then shut it down fast.

8
PartBanyanTreeOP•

beginning of the year i started getting someone to help clean once a month. I realized my good months were ones where I managed to clean the toilet, and then realized I could outsource that. I keep teetering on engaging someone for snow removal and lawn maintenance. I think I should try it for a while and see how it goes, as the house cleaning has been wonderful for mental health, and allowed me to focus time on slightly bigger goals

I've been actively thinking about how to shift my priorities or days around, so I can schedule things better, I think I want to work on better time-blocking or theme-days. Like "paperwork on tuesdays" so that bills and budgetting and bullshit all goes on one day but other days it can wait. And shuffle about my work to try working more hours some days and less others. -- But would welcome any ideas you've got in that area?

and yeah comparison monster is aweful, it's true

1
baconstreet•

I feel hopless and unwanted and I spent the first six months of the year trying and failing to make connections

I dated a single mother for three years, which meant I was always with her kiddo as well - I was totally OK with it, I love the not so little bastard :P

There are people out there, but finding them can be difficult.

Much <3 and hugs

5
tjilde•

Having kids is hard. Being a single parent needs superpowers. Society is not set up for this - you're bound to seemingly not have enough time for anything. This is not your fault! You're not a failure or anything like that. This stuff is just hard. But there will also be better times. And I am sure that many people are jealous of you, as well. I can imagine that you're doing great on many levels! You figured out important things about yourself, and by all means, it sounds like at least some parts of your life are lovely.

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PartBanyanTreeOP•

thank you 😭🥰💖

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Harkana•

Time to ship off the kiddos to boarding school 🤣🤣🤣. Jk ofc, i mean having kids is a blessing in itself even if its time consuming and extremely hard. Just remember, you will be seeing them grow into amazing people and all that will be because of you!!

0
Magick_Matt•

I mean. You kinda did this to yourself by having kids. Everyone thinks it sounds great till they realize their social life dies.

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No_Sort1503•

She’s only venting it’s totally ok for her to feel that way

13
PartBanyanTreeOP•

thank you, this redditor was the first reply I got to my thread and when that's the only thing I'm reading it definitely got in my head.

I do so much for my kids and with my kids. But there's another side of me I want to nourish as well. I've spent the last four years rebuilding our lives after the divorce and I've finally got some bandwidth to look after me.

Thank you for being friendly

2
No_Sort1503•

I totally didn’t tear up at your reply just then 🥲

I’m in a similar place to you and while I do always put my kids first over partners and doing fun stuff with adults, sometimes I just feel kinda sad.

It’s probably the same as when we don’t have enough money to do things, it sucks and we feel sad but no one goes ‘well you should have thought of that before not becoming a CEO’ or something

And I’ll take a fair bet that although you have 50:50 custody, there are some things that fall to you as mom that increase your share of the labour required to raise your children

Good luck with your own personal issues you’re working through on top of that

Lots of love

1
Magick_Matt•

Sure it’s okay. But she better get some therapy and sort out how to not resent her kid cuz if she doesn’t already she’s probably going to start pretty soon from what I read.

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masokissed007•

What a shitty and unkind thing to say.

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Magick_Matt•

Not really. I love kids. I’m just aware enough to know being a parent is too much work for me. I work with children who have severe behavior issues. 95 percent of the time it’s cuz people who didn’t want, weren’t prepared, or didn’t think through how much work it would be had children and then became resentful, neglectful, overly permissive cuz they don’t wanna deal with it or abusive and just… decided to stop parenting cuz it was hard.

I don’t give those parents a pass. Because once you have a kid you have a responsibility to actually be a fucking parent, and not let your kid do whatever they want, give them love and affection and not resent them.

And yea, you absolutely can tell the difference after enough experience between a child who is fucked up because the parents did the best they could but the child got traumatized anyway, and a child whose parent didn’t want them but felt obligated to have and raise them and now are fucking up their kid. And that is 95% of the kids that get sent to my school (which is the school elementary and middle school children get sent to when they’ve been expelled from every other school for their behavior issues being too severe).

You know what happens to those kids? They have to pay ME to fucking parent them for 7 hours and hope it sticks. It doesn’t usually once they get into high school. 50% or more of MY kids end up in prison or dead. Because we couldn’t get their PARENTS involved and on board with the changes that needed to happen.

So you can fuck right off with your ‘unkind thing to say’ you know what’s also ‘unkind’ and shitty? Watching my kids die and go to jail because their parents weren’t prepared for them.

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masokissed007•

Dude You also have zeroooo idea of how I do or what I do so whatever, go on with your lengthy justification about how being an asshole to someone who’s literally asking for support is fine. Everyone has their own story. It’s nice to know you’re so passionate about caring for kids who might not otherwise receive that life altering connection.

However, that’s a lot to read into a comment where someone (a tired solo parent of 3) is saying wow, I’m fucking tired, this is hard, sometimes I wish it was different. The kind of ‘gotcha, sorry you’re so irresponsible, you made your bed now lie in it and don’t complain’ that you offered doesn’t change the fact that your response is still shitty and unkind.

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1
Nymarion•

Comments like this are why I generally tell people to avoid this subreddit, saying this is fucked up on multiple levels

-1†
Equal_Trash9742 Ambiamorous•

You do realize shit like this gets said on most subreddits where kids come up, right? Not just this one? Not really a good reason to tell people not to come here.

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Magick_Matt•

I mean. Not really. You can absolutely love kids and never want them. You can also absolutely realize that kids are a great idea when you have a two or more parent household, but shit happens.

It’s not a judgement, just a fact. Most people don’t consider divorce or death and becoming a single parent when they have kids. They also don’t usually realize how much fucking work kids are until they have kids.

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baldrickety•

"It's not a judgement?" Bullshit. Right at the top, you said you're aware enough to know how much work kids are, that OP wasn't, and that therefore OP was reaping what she sowed by having them. That's either judgement or just plain meanness and bitterness.

If you come here and talk about a struggling relationship, should we tell you that relationships are hard and often suck, and it's your own fault for not understanding that you signed up to be overwhelmed and miserable when you started dating, and that smart people never fuck anyone or fall in love because they're aware of how much work it will be?

2
Magick_Matt•

I mean… first of all I did come here for relationship advice and get basically that response before, so 🤷🏼‍♂️.

And your reading tone into my words that just isn’t there. To me, this is not a judgmental statement, it’s just a fact, most people don’t think about those things when having kids, and it causes all kinds of misery. That doesn’t mean they don’t love their kids (at least most of the time). It just means they did not prepare themselves for the eventuality of divorce or death.

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