– Soul Mate Avoids Choice Knowingly
You complain about being relegated to the back seat, SMACK, but it’s your husband whose existence only comes up in parenthetical asides. You also describe this relationship as a triad when there are four people involved (you, your lover, your lover’s wife, and your husband), which technically makes this a quad. And from the sound of things, only one member of this messy quad seems happy—your lover, the guy who refuses to make you a “priority” over his wife.
And while you’ve convinced yourself that your lover feels as strongly for you as you do for him—“we feel we are soul mates”—it kindasorta sounds to me like you may be projecting, SMACK. Because in addition to asking you to pick out Christmas gifts for his wife, your lover and alleged soul mate regards you as expendable and replaceable. And he’s told you as much: He intends to “find a new secondary partner” if you two part because his wife doesn’t “give him the soulful fulfillment he needs.” That’s not how people talk about their soul mates, and it’s certainly not something a guy says to someone he regards as his soul mate. Soul mates are typically told they’re special and irreplaceable, but your guy sees you as one of many potential seconds out there, and therefore utterly replaceable.
Here’s what you ought to do: You aren’t interested in being your lover’s secondary partner (nor are you much interested in being your husband’s wife), so you’ll have to call your lover’s bluff. And the only card you have to play—and it’s a weak hand (all hands with just one card are)—is to dump your lover unless he leaves his wife for you. Success rests on the outside chance your lover was bluffing when he said he’d replace you, but I suppose it’s possible he regards you as the irreplaceable one and only said those hurtful things to make you think he wouldn’t choose you when you are the one he would’ve chosen all along. If it turns out that this was the case, SMACK, you’ll wind up with your soul mate… who happens to be kindasorta cruel and manipulative.
Calling your lover’s bluff—ending a relationship that, in its current form, brings you no joy—is your only hope of having this guy to yourself. But the likelier outcome is that you’ll be left alone (with, um, your husband).
Q: My boyfriend and I met at a bondage party a year ago. He’s not into bondage (he tagged along with a kinky friend). We hit it off in the chill-out room and started seeing each other. He told me it was okay for me to keep going to bondage parties and seeing some guys I play with one-on-one. Then right after we moved in together, he said he doesn’t want me playing with anyone else because we are in love. Which means I can’t get tied up at all anymore because he has zero interest in bondage. He can’t see why I’m upset, and I’m not sure what to do.
– Boy In New Drama
So now that you’re in love, and now that you’ve signed a lease, and now that you’re trapped, BIND, now—NOW—your vanilla boyfriend yanks back the accommodation that convinced you to date him in the first place? There’s only one thing you can do: DTMFA.
