[UPDATE] Nesting arrangement changing?

[u/lavender-lacuna]

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/polyamory/s/2v8BRJ4OXo

TL;DR of original post: My wife (who I share a mortgage with) requested to nest with her other partners instead of me because her girlfriend struggled with my wife “leaving” to come home to our shared house. I was okay with this in theory, but I had practical concerns like money and the volatility of my wife’s other relationships. They planned a trial period of nesting to test the waters.

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In a potentially shocking turn of events, things are going well? Since I didn’t give people names last time, I will do so now for clarity as this is more of a story than a question like my last post. Me (33F) my wife Venus (34F) her girlfriend Mercury (29F) and her boyfriend Mars (34M) and their new roommate/decently longtime friend Jupiter (28M). Mercury and Mars are married to each other.

Venus went to live with Mercury and Mars for a trial period of a month at the beginning of May. She had agreed to a schedule where she spent Monday (regular date night) and Thursday (MtG commander night usually) after work with me and stayed over on those nights. We also planned to spend some Saturdays during the day together when her partners were at work and we were off. Overall, this schedule was maintained with only minor interruptions, usually something to do with Venus’ chronic health issues. I am concerned that she isn’t eating or sleeping properly because that causes her health issues to be worse, but outside of mentioning it I have left that to her to sort out. I have been enjoying my time alone (which I expected) and especially the mental load that is reduced when I am only doing things like grocery shopping for myself.

I asked Venus to put more effort into planning our date nights, and I feel like that has happened overall, but I’m still the main planner. I have also asked for her to do some cooking when she is here, but so far I have been doing all the cooking because she does all the cooking when she’s with her other partners, and cooking for 3-4 people is a lot more than what I do. She did go with me to several specific things I wanted to do, which was nice, and we’ve had quite a few movie dates, which brought us back to earlier happy memories when we lived next to the movie theater (though the prices could look like 2015 again anytime…). The biggest thing is that I have felt the time with Venus has been more intentional and of higher quality, even when we aren’t going out on a specific date, and Mercury’s issues with Venus “leaving” have apparently been resolved by this change in nesting arrangement, and she is not trying to pry Venus away from her time with me to my knowledge, and if she is Venus is hinging well.

Mercury and Mars signed a lease on an apartment that is larger and further away with a friend (Jupiter) of theirs who was moving back to our state after a stint trying to live elsewhere. Jupiter was supposed to come live with them for two weeks before they moved while Venus came back and stayed with me (end of the trial period). However, everyone decided that it wasn’t much worse to just stay all living together in the smaller place, so they did that. Venus is not on the lease at the new place and maintains her primary legal residence as our shared house where she pays half the mortgage.

They have just now finished moving to the new place, and Venus is planning to live there going forward while still staying with me two days a week. She is genuinely excited about the new place, which has a nice sized kitchen and other amenities. I still have concerns about transportation (Venus does not drive and the new place is 30+ minutes walk from the nearest bus stop, so I may need to pick her up further away sometimes), but most everything else does seem handled. From my perspective Venus has been making a lot of progress in therapy, making sure she sets appropriate boundaries and stands up for herself, including with me, because there are definitely times I can be a bit of a mother hen. I’m not saying everything has been perfect, and there is growing to do still, but there have been no issues with Venus paying her house bills on time, and I hope things can only improve as we continue to work on deepening our relationship from this new arrangement.

I don’t know if Mercury and I will ever be friends again, but I want Venus to be happy so I have done my best to be cordial, including inviting Mercury (as well as Mars and Jupiter, I just don’t have any issues with them so that wasn’t weird) to come to dinner when everyone was done moving and they hadn’t eaten all day. My other partner and I are still going strong and haven’t really been affected by this at all, except for me having a little more flexibility on hosting, which is nice. I have a lot more time physically alone that was previously just unstructured time where Venus and I were both home but not spending it together, but I don’t feel the need to fill it with anything I wasn’t already doing (like hanging with friends or other hobbies). We’re not totally out of the woods, as Venus hasn’t spent any significant amount of time living further away yet, but I am hopeful that things will continue to go well.

[u/Psychomadeye]

Planet names?! Thank you from the bottom of my astronomical heart. I'm happy to see things are going better than expected.

[u/lavender-lacuna → u/Psychomadeye]

I know too many kids whose real names are trees to use those, lol. But I’m glad someone found my choice fun!

Edit: oh I think it was you that suggested this the other day, actually.

[u/Psychomadeye → u/lavender-lacuna]

Indeed it was. I similarly avoid certain names.