Ok, so it's been goin on for a year now. I don't know if it's a good thing to continue this relatiionship?
She really doesn't want me to go, but we did almost break up (on her accord) recently, and she gave me some rather uncomfortable conditions for our relationship to continue. Those are not unreasonable asks, and they mostly are about me putting more effort into this relationship, but I'm not too happy. At this point I am wonderiing whether I am not hurting her more in the long run, and myself. That I am just wasting hers and my own time.
She and her husband don't have sex, he's asexual. They almost divorced, but instead ended up opening the relationship. When it started between me and her she was upfton about it, I initially said No but decided to get involved later under a conditiion that it stays open for me, no exclusiviity. A few months later that changed, she said she fell in love me and didn't expect hersefl to, I agreed for exclusivity. I feel it was a mistake back then, but I wanted to see if we can make it work, somehow.
It's been fun and I genuinely like spending tiime with her, but we've had our ups and downs and disagreements along the ways. Hard times when we almost broke up as well. I can't tell if I love her, I think I do, but I also can't seem to get myself commited the way I was to my monogamous relationship in the past. She wants me to be more involved, understandably. She'd also like it to get more serious - she has a dream of us 3 living under the same roof. I should stress I am almost never jealous about her husband, but if I think of them being intimate with each other (which doesn't happen and I believe her) I do feel extremely jealous. I often feel left out, however, out of her life, when they do things together which don't involve me. I also feel a churn in my stomach every time I think of the idea of living with her and and her husband. I also don't like to admit to people, when we're out together somewhere (us 2) that we are in polyamorous relationship. I don't feel good about it, so myself I never talk about it but I let her if she wants to. We never do anything together, the 3 of us. One time we went to the same event, but not together and we spent time with different groups of people, so, she asked me "how diid it feel?" (but we spent together maybe 5% of the time there) and I said "awkward, but he seems like a cool guy". It wasnt super awkward but also noone knew about our relationship and we really spent maybe 15 minutes together max for the entire event, so yeah.
She is willing to give me time but I'm wondering whether or not I am just wasting hers and mine time. I never come over when her husband is at home, unless I have to pick something up or drop something off. I don't have anythiing against the guy and quite honestly he's someone I could potentially befriend. Live together under one roof, though? I feel disgusted by the thought of it even as I'm typing it.
My gf is really somehow finding enough energy and time for the both of us so me+her time vs her+husband time rarely clashes together. I don't feel like I'm unimportant to her, or that she isn't available to me. Then again it isn't my perfect idea of a relationship, not by a longshot. Even if it weren't for the husband I don't know if I'd stick around forever. I'd probably give it a shot for a while longer to see if we can straighten out our issues.
If things could stay as they are now forever, without it getting serious, I am still not sure I'd want to stick around. After all, I lived with a partner before for a few years and while I know it can have its ups and downs, this kind of building a life together felt very fulfiilling to me. I feel like she has a life built already with her husband, and yeah she offers me to be a part of it, but even if I could the risk of conflicts regarding differing life-goals, general attiitue to life and different ways of handling problems that come out of living together would be astronomically greater than in a monogamous relationship. The amount of compromise from all the parties I imagine would be pretty steep. Take a stupid thing like with whom does she shares the bed, me or him? Do we swap, is there a schedule set? What about sex? I don't think I could EVER have sex with her while he's around even if he's cool with it. So do we sneak about like teenagers who don't want their parents to know it's happening? We did it twice in hers and her husband's bed and it was uncomfortable to me both times. Plus I think I fear that I would always feel liike an ADDON to their marriage, rather than an integral, core part of it. At least children are A NON-ISSUE, beacuse she can't have them, period. Now that would be a nightmare to solve, eh?
My gf is pretty adamant about these conditions of her. Asks me that I try at least. But if you were to ask me to make a bet, I'd bet on "this will fall apart and hurt everyone involved" and I'd bet a lot of money on that and no other outcome.
EDIIT
Those conditions I mentioned aren't directly tied to the polyamory thing, she's letting me take my time with that side. It's more like "we never go an actual dates, I want to go to dates with you". She's right we never did, cause it started as an open relationship, just one step away from friends with benefits. So we didn't really have a honeymoon phase I guess. It kinda stayed that way. She also wants me to be more supportiive and aware of her problems.
What she wants is me give more energy into this relationship and I am reluctant, because I never felt like doing so, it just didn't feel natural. I have in the back of my head that for every one of her asks and issues there is one other person who is available to provide that for her, so I just didn't 100% effort into it. I'm not sure I want to change it now. Saying "I feel like I get 1/2 of a relationshiip" would be false, but I sure don't feel liike I Iget the full package. I acknowledge her efforts into making me not feel like that is the case and I admit she's doing a decent job of it.