What happened?
Well in June of 98 Nicole and I decided that our relationship was not working. So we made the decision to separate and get a divorce. The decision was remarkably easy and came from both sides at about the same time. Nicole and I had been formally married for about 4 years and together for about 10. This left a lot of details.

Our divorce was finial in the early part of Jan 99. She got the car and a large cash settlement. I got the house, the bills, and a brand new set of debts. I sold the house to pay the debts and purchased a small fixer-upper in down town. Was Poly an Issue in the Breakup?
No, at least not on my side. At the time of the break up we were involved in a V style poly with Matt. Nicole was at the base of this V and had been for about 2 years. None of the issues that lead to the divorce had anything to do with Matt. A few of them may or may not have had anything to do with Nicole having a relationship with Matt, but most of them probably would have been present without the poly relationship.

Give us more details - What triggered the breakup?
Remember all of this is from my perspective. In December of 97, Nicole, Matt and I meet a young lady named Aris and started dating her. My relationship with Aris developed very rapidly compared with the others in our agreement. Our agreement required a waiting period and a bunch of discussion with everybody agreeing. This happened and everybody seemed happy.

Then some problems started occurring between Aris and Nicole. What they were is unimportant, but the net result was that Aris showed Nicole and I that we were not really communicating. We started to work on it, with Aris trying to help. The problems seemed to be working out. Then Nicole went kablewy. On Valentines day yet. Much screaming and yelling.

So to save my relationship with Nicole I broke up with Aris. Probably a big mistake in retrospect but the only choice I could make at the time. Aris had brought things to my life that I discovered were very much missing. I started to examine my life, and who I was. I discovered I did not like it. Many of the things were my fault. Some of them weren't. A lot of bad habits had developed between Nicole and I that needed to change for me to be happy.

So I sat down with Nicole and talked about all of these issues. I started working towards having a lot more life that just the things I did with her. A couple of months passed. Aris and Sandi (a friend) constantly held up a mirror so that I could see myself. I had started to make the changes I wanted to make my life better, but progress was slow.

Nicole and I sat down and had another big talk. I was not seeing the changes from her that I had asked for and she had agreed to. She again promised. Part of my self-examination had shown that our relationship was not a partnership. I seemed to be doing most of the work towards maintaining our relationship (though Nicole will very much disagree). I was definitely doing almost all of the physical work.

By this time I had started to get invited to a lot of functions of various sorts. I was also starting to consider that maybe there was so much bad history between Nicole and I that we might not be able to recover. That was hard, because I had made an oath. Aris and Sandi, mirrors tight in hand, had allowed me to see that such oaths must be kept on both sides. I tried a bunch of things to overcome this but none of them seemed to work. The balance was not there.

I got an invitation to something that Nicole and I had been doing together for awhile. She was not invited, because she had not been attending. She decided that that was enough and asked if that meant divorce. By that time I was tired and pretty sure it would never work again, so I said yeah.

Friends
Something like this is seldom done in a vacuum. Many people have helped me reach this point. Aris and Sandi chief among them. To them I say Thank You. As these people read this some of them are going to curse, and others to sigh. Their chief complaint being that I have given no indication how ugly it really was/is. That's ok. I am not going to.


Last Updated 4-19-99, Reformated on 7-7-99