#nesting partners

I'm lost in my connections atm. My current partner and I have a nesting relationship with his wife and two kids. This situation has lasted for over 2 years. I have two ldr partners as well. My nesting situation has been filled with empty promises, lack of commitment, and metamour jealousy. My nesting partner tells me I'm the only reason he has pulled through the last two years, but I feel like I'm slowly trapping myself and I don't know if it's just anxiety. The kids see me as a second mom and I'm the main pet provider too. An ldr has wanted me to move in for over a year and I feel like the kids, pets, and my job are the only reason I haven't. Am I wrong for feeling lost and kind of tired living this way? I don't want to lose my nesting but I feel like we shouldn't be nesting partners anymore.

You are absolutely not wrong for feeling lost and tired! Think about this like a big information gathering experience. You moved in with your current partner, his wife, and their two kids. You learned that you are great with the kids and the pets, and that there are things you like about this nesting situation.

But you also learned that there are things that don’t work for you, and that a relationship with your partner and/or his wife will include broken promises and jealousy and other things that you do not want in your relationship.

It is now okay to act on that information! You are not obligated to stay in a situation even if parts of it are working, or if other people are relying on you. The fact that you like some parts of the arrangement doesn’t mean you need to put up with the rest. Leaving will be hard and painful, but something being difficult doesn’t mean it’s the wrong thing to do.

I think I really need to talk to W about his partner (J) and the division of time. Me and W are casual day-to-day partners. We live together in a apartment that we split costs for, we sometimes hang out but the way our work schedules ended up we don't have a lot of overlapping free time. I honestly don't mind that we spend a lot of time apart, it's something I really like. I don't like that W's other partner J is in the apartment so much.

J lives in a different town about 1.5 hours away, but he comes down and stays with W during the weekend, usually saturday & sunday but sometimes friday too. They spend basically that entire time together doing Couple Things. (I honestly don't know much about the specifics but I know they try to maximize their time.)

It's just frustrating. I barely see W, and usually just in passing. And then J is in our apartment the only days W has off and I never know when they're here/leaving/coming back and it makes it super hard to relax or do much of anything. I've brought it up before that I was ok with J bring there sometimes but honestly me & J aren't very close and he makes me very uncomfortable with some of the personal questions/comments he'll sometimes (accidentally) say. W is aware of this.

I just feel very... sidelined. W has said that he doesn't think our relationship is less important but I don't think he's treating me as an equal. J takes up basically all of W's free time and I barely even see W even though we literally live together. I know J is trying to be friendly, and I'm making an effort too, but most situations end up excruciating awkward if it's just the two of us. And I wouldn't be mad if J wasn't spending 2-3 days a week in my home. I don't want to cause drama but I end up just trying to stay out of their way (because they're almost always together during this time). I know it's W's home too but I still wish things could be handled differently. do you have any advice on how to handle this, or how to deal with the situation better while I'm thinking about how to bring it up? I don't want anyone to get hurt but it's seriously starting to stress me out. Thank you for reading and anything you might be able to think of.

(also sorry for the novel length ask)

(qpr = queer platonic relationship)

My apologies for taking so long to reply. I hope the situation has resolved itself, but if it hasn't:

You say "it's W's home too". I would like to flip the framing and say "it's your home too". It's important that you can feel at ease at home. That sentiment is completely separate from the question of your relationship.

Now of course you DO have a relationship with W and you have already brought up with W that you feel neglected. It might help you to agree on specific and measurable goals.

(Specific: not a vague promise of "we will spend more time together", but also "...and here is when we will do it and how we will spend it".

Measurable: you can actually measure these goals in a way that you can look back later and say "yeah, the numbers check out." Such things may be "we will spend at least one weekend per month together" or "we will have at least 10 hours of one on one time per week".)

These agreements should cover a) how much time or what activities W is going to spend with you, b) how often J is invited to your home (surely W can sometimes spend time over there?), c) how you will be notified about it and d) any additional things you wish to bring up regarding J being there.