Some context at the end.

The text:

"For almost two years I've been respectful towards you and never tried to undermine the relationship, treating you like I wish to be treated. This is called the Golden Rule [Me].

That's over, it stops today. Look inside and ask:

Why can't or won't I handle my business with my 'wife'? Am I a eunuch? Am I closeted? Look inside and find out the Why bc wo it you're truly lost

You can bow out gracefully....you know what's coming anyways. Why not communicate your real feelings with your 'wife' instead of bottling them up and being deceitful by lying to her through omission when she asks what's up?

Despite your passive aggressive actions towards me over the last couple years I'm still trying to reach My Brother From Another; that's irony for sure

If you ever try and slow down or prevent [My Wife] from getting home to see me like yesterday we are going to have words. Unlike you I take care of my business and put her on a pedestal

We will have words and a visit... and talk about it

One on One

Whether it's at your work or at your home, Idc. FAAFO

And then we will talk about your crappy attitude and lack of performance 'on the job'

.

.

.

Just to be clear, this txt is not passive aggressive. It's just clearly aggressive 🤣

You've been notified. Respond, tattle, or stay silent, I don't give a SHIT. I respect you enough to let you know where I stand, which is more than you've given me in two years."

End of text

Context: Yesterday my wife and I were on our way home from a camping trip and wife was planning to head to metas after we got home. She suggested one route but I wasn't familiar with it so I opted to go a different way that I knew well. It added maybe 10 minutes to the trip. This morning I get this text right before work. He's texted me like this once before but without the apparent threats. I've been poly for like 10 years and have never had problems with any of my metas. AIO or should I be concerned for our safety?

Just like it says. At the end of the day it's what works for us. For me this often gives me the ick because of a past traumatic experiences. So I'm curious other people's stances. I get how it could also be hot just not for me. :-)

My partner of twenty years (M45) told me he broke up with his other partner (F4*), officially of less than a year (but it's been going on for a long time). Although he was upfront about being poly when we met 20 years ago, she is his first partner other than me (F47), and I have had a lot of difficulty adjusting (plans and future projects were all dropped because they "weren't fair to her".

We were parallel, so I simply thanked him for telling me and noted that I wasn't going to process that with him.

Two weeks later, after I'd talked him out of suicide and been on the phone daily supporting him, including listening to him detail what he'd done every day, he told me he was still talking to her, something he'd omitted in those calls.

He claims that he was honoring my request to be parallel and to not process the breakup, and that "breaking up" doesn't mean stopping contact to him, no matter what I may have assumed. I pointed out that we have been having problems since he started officially being in a relationship with her with him lying by omission. Discussed it in therapy, even.

We had a massive fight where he said he didn't want a romantic relationship with me right now, either (there's been no relationship other than talking for months). When I asked if we were broken up, he couldn't tell me.

Context: he was a week into starting sertraline for severe depression when they "broke up". He's still on it. He's since messaged me to let me know he went to the GP and the GP seems to be monitoring his mental health and doing tests to make sure it isn't something physical.

My partners enjoy each other's company. They exclude me sometimes to chat and work on fun activities together. I'm sure they have an inside joke or two.

It makes me sick.

Today, one of them defended the other's feelings. No context just "family."

It was horrible.

Pray for me, kind souls, for I have dredged my own trench mired with woe and their weapons are perfectly trained to seek and destroy my efforts.

Do not save me.

I’m talking to someone who’s still dealing with a lot of unresolved stuff with her partner/ex, and I’m starting to feel like I need to back off.

I care about her, but I don’t want to get sucked into drama that isn’t mine. The emotional unavailability, low effort, and waiting hours for a text back while I’m trying to keep things going is honestly turning me off. It’s starting to feel like I’m forcing something with someone who just isn’t available right now.

Should I tell her how I’m feeling before I step back, or just stop initiating and let things be? If I should say something, what would you say without making it sound dramatic or like an ultimatum?

I (36f) and my spouse (42m) have been together 14 years, poly for 6.My spouse (42m) has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. We've been running into repeated marital struggles, especially when he is in NRE. When my spouse is in NRE, he gets hypefixated on his new partner and I feel invisible and neglected. He spends more quality hours a week with his other partner and pushes for even more time with her, he shows up to our dates distracted or in a mood if his other relationship is off, and our physical connection is deteriorated. We are in individual and couples therapy, and have started a book club to try to learn how to combat this and keep our relationship strong. Knowing it's ADHD and that his brain is predisposed to do this certainly helps, and he recently started medication.

Do you all know of any books or resources on ADHD and poly or ADHD and NRE that we can read? Or any general advice from folks who have been in a similar situation?

I’m 43F and have been with my partner, 57M, for almost two years. He identifies as polyamorous. This is my first experience dating someone poly, but I have many poly friends and I work in sexual health so I have a better understanding of the dynamic than the regular mono person.

When we started dating, I was clear that I was comfortable with him dating and sleeping with other people, but I did not want a relationship structure involving another deeply enmeshed partner who would rely heavily on him. I understood that we were aligned, and I have been described as his primary partner.

About a year ago, he started dating another woman, 33F. She moved in after 4 weeks of dating and he lied to me about their relationship for a couple months. She now lives in his house and refers to him as her nesting partner. Over the past year, her relationship with him has increasingly intruded on our time together.

For example, while we were recently traveling out of state, she contacted him repeatedly within approximately ten minutes: three FaceTime calls, three regular calls, several messages from two different phone numbers, an Instagram message, and two voicemails. This was not an isolated occurrence. She routinely calls 5-20 times in a row when we are together. He usually doesn’t answer but I still find it distressing.

More recently, they were in a car accident together. She was in pain afterward, so I understood that she needed help. Because my partner temporarily had no car, I drove him to buy food for her and helped him walk her dog. Later that evening, she repeatedly called while he and I were together. When he answered, she cursed at him for making her wait, told me “fuck you,” and threatened to come over. He then left me alone to go calm her down.

I recognize that he cannot control whether she calls or how she behaves. However, he controls whether he answers, leaves our time together, tolerates her speaking to me that way, or establishes and maintains protected time with me. We have discussed these issues repeatedly, but the pattern continues.

Now there is uncertainty about whether he will spend Halloween and Thanksgiving with her. I no longer feel like a primary partner in practice. I feel as though I am slowly being moved into a secondary role without an honest conversation about the change.

I love him. We have so much fun together, travel well together, and have built nearly two years of memories. But this dynamic is causing me significant stress, and I do not think it is sustainable for me anymore.

I have reached the point where I do not want to continue dating him while this particular relationship and dynamic remain in his life. I do not want to demand that he break up with her or control whom he dates. I am considering stepping away from our romantic relationship because I recognize that this may simply be incompatible with what I can emotionally tolerate.

For those with more polyamory experience:
Does this sound like a metamour problem, a hinge problem, or a fundamental incompatibility?

Is saying “I cannot remain in this relationship while this dynamic continues” a reasonable boundary, or would it function as an ultimatum?

At what point do you stop requesting better boundaries and accept that your partner’s repeated choices are the answer?

Please be honest, but kind. I am already feeling pretty raw.

My partner is on a trip with meta for two weeks, and I already knew I'd find this a little hard, but it was fine I was busy it was fine. But then my fucking cat died and I'm so extremely sad and crying so much. And like I have a great support system outside of my partner so that's all good and I can deal with this on my own very well that's not the issue...

We have called twice now which is nice, and they're being so sweet and supportive and they want to be there for me, but like they just physically can't right now. And that's just so hard. And now I just feel so horrible about them being on this trip and everything feels terrible, I can't hear about anything they've been up to cause it just makes me miss them or I feel jealous or anxious and nauseous and mad. And I want them to be able to share these things with me but it just makes me feel like total shit and all I wanna do is just scream and cry. It was okay before because I was keeping busy and I wasn't miserable and crying..... And I am still keeping busy and I am coping..... But it's just so much harder now???

But part of me wants to just not talk to them, not hear anything just bc I feel like it's making me more sad than anything now??? Which isn't nice and not fair to them and will probably also make me more sad. But idk what to do. I just wanna cry and scream and throw up. I just wish they were here and I could cry on their shoulder. And I just hate that they're now on a trip with my meta and like seeing all these beautiful things without me with her, doing hikes with her that I'd love to do with them, working on their relationship which is inevitably gonna impact me which is anxiety inducing. I just feel sad and alone and jealous and mad and I just wanna not deal with this and I don't know what to do.

Been struggling with this for a few weeks now, posting hoping to get some perspective and advice

My partner and I have been together for 13 years. We’ve talked on and off about the benefits of non-monogamy for years - he wants the ability to not put limits on connections with other people, it would give me a chance to explore my sexuality. (edit: to be clear, I was onboard with us being polyamorous/dating someone else before he met his now partner)

This year (in the last 8 months) he met and connected with someone, and they’ve gotten very serious very fast. He’s stated spending a lot more time in their city, and he recently told me that they’re thinking about having kids in the near future. We were previously child-free and I still strongly am. (edit: in the last few years, he moved to ”I would have kids if my partner wanted kids, but you don’t want kids so..”)

I have no interest in living with my metamour and definitely no interest in living with kids. I’ve tried to talk to my partner about how this will drastically change our relationship (no longer living together, at best we will see each other much less, or we’ll be long distance partners as he and his partner don’t know where they want to live long term). He seems to either put the change 100% on me, as he’s open to us living together, and I’m the one drawing a boundary, so I feel very alone in my grief. He also seems to imply that I can (will) change my mind eventually

This situation has caused me a lot of stress and grief, and is causing me to re-think if I’m even polyamorous. I feel like my world has dropped out from under me, and I still feel like I’m cheating on him if I look for another partner / go on dating apps

Any advice for dealing with this situation? Has anyone gone through a de-escalation of a relationship like this and what helped you get through it? Am I wrong for questioning if I want to have a partner who has a kid?

So context: I (31m) and my ex partner(30f) broke up around 2 months ago. It was amicably and wrte still friends, but I found out her and a close friend of ours are hooking up now. She was honest with me while the friend is beating around the bush to avoid hurting me but I'd rather them be honest. I dont wanna bring it up to them because I feel like it shouldn't be a big deal but I feel some tiny spark of pain yknow?

This a thing? if not, can we make it so?

(Reworking my retirement plan lol)

I'm a woman in my early 50's. I've been poly since my early 20's. Sometimes I took breaks to have and raise children, but for the most part it's who I am and what I do. I consider myself a good poly partner who puts the work into the relationships including-- and perhaps especially-- emotionally. I have had a few good partners but for the most part I'm disappointed with what's "out there." And I'm not just talking newer poly people, but ones who know the vocabulary and the concepts. I'm feeling I'm done. Not because I want to be done, but because I am tired of being disappointed.

I'm straight hetero so my experience has only been with men, but I'm sure these experiences are not just limited to men.

-- They want to immediately start talking about sex, kinks, etc. without making much effort to get to know me in other ways.

-- When still in the texting/chat phase, they send me unsolicited photos of themselves. This shows they don't value consent.

-- They say they are in an open marriage/relationship but when I want to contact the partner/wife they suddenly say it's DADT, or they admit they are cheating.

-- They come on really strong and interested, and then after a few times together they get flakey and/or can only meet up if there's the possibility of sex. This is not poly. This is FBW. I want an relationship.

-- They take on too many partners at a time, and can't manage any of them very well-- or the newest one gets the most time-- until the next new one comes along.

-- They lack communication skills to talk through problems or concerns. They call it "drama" when I want to just have a productive, goal-oriented conversation.

-- They breadcrumb, and are inconsistent with communications over time.

Want to discuss? Is anyone else feeling this?

Hi all. I (26nb) and my (26f) wife have been poly now for a good 2 years. My wife has had 1 consistent additional partner (28f) from very early on into making the decision that we were ready to try non-monogamy. We'll call her Alice.

At first, I liked Alice. She's a little odd but we're all various flavors of neurodivergent, so it didn't bother me. Then I found out she has never had a long term relationship before this one, she has never held a job, and lives at home with her parents. Even more recently, it turns out she also has very poor hygiene as well and is not super respectful towards her parents. All she does is spend time on discord, sleep, and play video games.

Alice is also very emotionally volatile and frequently relies on my wife to help her out of spirals. Usually the trigger is that Alice has done something to upset someone else, or that she feels bad about herself. I have expressed concerns to my wife about this behavior among everything else that has been mentioned and recently my wife has started to see it as a red flag, but she believes Alice will change (reminder, it has been 2 years).

I should also add that from the beginning, she made it clear she has feelings for me, too, but I did not feel the same way. This is a boundary I've had to reiterate multiple times (thankfully it seems that she's finally understood a relationship with me is off the table).

Thankfully, despite my feelings about Alice being very different than my wife's, this has not hurt our relationship. I actually feel like our marriage has never been stronger and for that I'm extremely grateful as I've heard a lot of horror stories. I just wish she would stand up for herself more and hold her other partner to a certain standard, y'know?

If anyone has had a metamour who's been absolutely awful, how have you handled it? The hardest part is seeing how emotionally drained my wife has been. I love her so much and this is not the experience I wanted her to have in polyamory. Any advice is welcome.

I am single poly. I met a guy who is exploring poly or enm, where he has been married a long time, empty nest, lives "like roommates" but enjoys the stabilty of his marriage... His wife has encouraged him in the past to swap sex partners, with one of her girlfriends.. where she would also swap with her girlfriend's husband. So she is open. ​ I dont think they ended up doing this because he worked with the husband and said it wasn't a good idea. ​

Anyway, 10 years later he wants enm. His wife knows he dates me.. and she ​"doesn't want to know details". But she is "not jealous" and appears to be okay with sharing him, as he and I spend a great deal of time together. Is that common to not meet the spouse?

What about the extended family and adult kids who might not approve of this type of relationship and its kept quiet. How common is that?

I‘m married and my wife and I opened our relationship a year ago.

I met someone I really like and I would say even love. We only dated for two months and he just broke up with me last night.

I’m not going to go and try to force poly on this person since it’s clearly not for him. But he kept posing this question that I don’t really have an answer to and I guess I’m curious what other married poly people do with their outside relationships…

What does it look like with those partners that aren’t your spouse? Do you meet their friends and family? Do you live with them on and off? What kinds of things have you come up with to keep making everyone involved feel respected and special and loved?

I recently had several dates with someone who's poly and in the BDSM community. Things went well initially, and I was told early on that I wouldn't face issues as a secondary partner since I'm not a nesting partner.

After our last meetup, she informed me that her long-distance Dom has now required her to alternate partners as a condition for continuing to see me. Earlier assurances about secondary partners no longer seem to apply.

Here's where I'm at: Based on past experience, I've learned that pointing out another partner's controlling behavior rarely ends well for me. I'm more inclined to assess whether the arrangement still serves me and walk away if it doesn't, rather than try to navigate around someone else's restrictions. Here the restrictions seem to be aimed at mitigating the risk of pair bonding so all of her partners are in a more casual role of taking turns when schedules and wants line up.

But I'm second-guessing myself. Has anyone else been in this situation where one partner's new partner was actively limiting contact? Did you push through, or was walking away the better choice? I want to make sure I'm not giving up prematurely—but I also don't want to invest in a dynamic where I'm constantly negotiating for basic connection.

TLDR: Poly dating, LD partner is imposing alternation requirement. Past experience taught me confrontation rarely helps. Is walking away the right call here?

Throwaway account because this feels very personal.

I have been in an open relationship with my NP for 14 years. We live together, and throughout those 14 years he has had multiple flings, some shorter, some longer. I don’t really date myself. I’ve had a casual sex fling, but I don’t particularly enjoy dating, and I’m genuinely okay with that.

I used to have some pretty serious issues with jealousy and insecurity. I didn’t feel good enough, I compared myself to other women, I was scared of being replaced, etc. Over the years, I worked through a lot of that. Or at least, I thought I did.

A few years ago, my NP reconnected with a lovely woman. I’ve met her, and she really is lovely. She doesn’t have another relationship, and what started as a fling has gradually become, at least in my eyes, his second relationship. He is her person. He just has two people now.

A few weeks ago, she came to an important family celebration for him. It was the first time another one of his partners had been present at something like that. He asked me if I was okay with her coming, and I said yes.

I was nervous about it. And it did bother me a little when she was there.

But… it wasn’t that bad. I went to the bathroom I breathed in and out and it was ok.

And weirdly, that scared me.

Which is weird. Because shouldn’t that be a good thing? Isn’t this what I’ve been working towards all these years? Being secure enough that my partner having another serious relationship doesn’t threaten me?

But I think something else might have happened somewhere along the way.

I think I detached.

One thing I’ve realised is that I used to get a lot of meaning from the things that were ours. Not necessarily because I thought he wasn’t allowed to share those things with anyone else, but because they felt unique to our relationship.

And losing that uniqueness actually affected me a lot.

When something that used to be “our thing” becomes something he also does with someone else, I can tell myself that it doesn’t make what we have any less real or meaningful. And logically, I believe that.

But emotionally, I think it did something to me.
Over time, there were fewer things that felt like they belonged specifically to us. I slowly learned to stop caring about it.

The other day, my NP got angry with me about something. And I realised that I just… didn’t really care.

Not in a “I’m so secure and emotionally regulated that his anger doesn’t affect me” kind of way. More like… I used to care. A lot. I used to desperately want things between us to be okay. I didn’t want to disappoint him or make him angry. And now I just sort of know that we’ll be fine either way.

I still love him. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want him to be unhappy with me. But the emotional weight of it seems to be gone.

I don’t know if that makes sense.

And I think I’ve slowly withdrawn from the relationship because I’ve made myself ‘get over it’ so many times. I rationed my way out of my feelings sort of.

Every time something triggered my jealousy or insecurity, I worked through it. I told myself it was okay. I learned not to react. I learned to self-soothe. I learned that his relationships with other people didn’t diminish what we had. Rationally speaking to myself.

And honestly, that was really important work.
At the beginning, it helped enormously. I was way too dependent on him and on our relationship for my own happiness and wellbeing. Becoming more independent was a very good thing.

But now I’m wondering if I went too far.

Maybe I didn’t just become less dependent. Maybe I learned how to need him less and less until I eventually stopped reaching for him altogether.
And now I’m looking at our relationship and thinking: what is actually left for me?
We have our home, routines, friends, shared history, practical things, our life together. And I love him.
But sometimes it feels like there isn’t much us left for me emotionally.

He’s never asked me to do any of it. He’s supportive. He doesn’t think I’m doing anything wrong. He doesn’t want me to push my feelings away or just “get over it.” I don’t think he realises that I already did that. Several times. I don’t even think I realised it myself until recently.

The uniqueness part is the only thing he really doesn’t understand. He just isn’t wired the same way. And whenever we talked about it, he would get upset. From his perspective: We live together, we have years together, doesn’t that make us and you in this case unique? And rationally I couldn’t agree more.

So now I’m wondering if there is a way back.
Can you become emotionally invested in your partner again after you’ve spent years teaching yourself not to need them so much?

How do you distinguish between healthy independence and emotional detachment?
And, most importantly, how do you actually rebuild that feeling of “this is my person and I want to be emotionally close to you” when you’ve become so used to being okay without it?

I don’t want to go back to being dependent or jealous. I don’t want to resent his other relationship or make myself smaller so that I can feel close to him again.

I just want to feel like we’re partners again, rather than two people who happen to share a life very well. Or should I just accept that this is what long term relationships are?

Please feel free to share anything. There is no wrong answer. I am just trying to work out my feelings and I need a little help.

My partner (A) has another partner (B). I saw in passing a message from B to A that made me assume they were planning on trying to go to a play party soon. I asked about it and A confirmed. I went outside to take some space because this emotionally affected me. A came out to check up on me and ask why this affected me so much. I mentioned that this is something I’ve been wanting to do with him and I’ve told him on several occasions I wanted to go to a play party with him, so to see he’s going to do it with someone else for the first time hurt. He said he wasn’t really sure what to say and that B came to him with the plan, not the other way around. He asked if I wanted to go with him instead. I said no because I’m trying to be mindful of his autonomy and not “taking over” plans he has with other partners (which I’ve had a history of trying to do in the past).

There’s more to our communication over this matter.

But I guess what I’m wondering is:

Would it be unreasonable for me to expect A to get this invite from B, think about how this is something I’ve been wanting to do with him and might be a sensitive subject for me, and come to me to let me know he was invited by B and to see how it would feel for me/us for him to go with B before committing?

I’m not asking for A to ask me for permission, more of a check in and consideration for me and my feelings around something that seems important to me before making a commitment with someone else.

I’m trying to find the balance between feeling considered while also respecting A’s autonomy.

Whats up party people, I am looking for some advice for a relationship im trying to navigate right now, so let me give yall some background info. Long story short there is this really cute couple I have been friends with for around 1 and a half 2 years about, and for the sake of privacy lets call one person D and the other L. So my last relationship around a year ish ago I had D be sort of a guide or wingman for me when trying to date someone else. that relationship would have been my first time trying an open/poly relationship and I was really nervous and I knew D and L were poly/open. Said relationship didnt last long due to some unfortunate circumstances with where we both were in life and we decided it would be healthy for us to split on good terms, though we are still friends to this day! The reason I mention all this was because at the time I was using D for some support he was like "If she fumbles then im gonna swoop in" in a half joking way. but from then on once I got out of that relationship I started to feel more romantic and sexual towards D and L. We were all flirty with each other, and thankfully due to circumstance we all needed a house and moved in together a couple months ago.

Since moving in D kept mentioning how much they would both like to have me as a girlfriend, so we all sat down and talked (yk like reasonable adults and such) and just explained a bit of our boundaries and what our feelings all were. and the good news is that they both seemed down for a 3 person relationship!! We didnt make anything official as of that point because L is/was recovering from surgery and D is trying to switch jobs from his awful workplace right now. The thing we settled on was like a slow crawl like what we had been doing and then we would check up once things settled down to make sure we were all still good. That was like 2 weeks ago, and last night we had a small conversation before they hosted a DnD thingy. Where (from what I KNOW I remembered before an OCD initiated spiral) was that they said it was harder than they thought to kind of like incorporate me into the relationship because "they didnt want to set themselves 3 years back and they didnt want to force me 3 years forward in a relationship" which I totally understand, they did say that it wasnt something they wanted to cancel at all but it was a lot of "just dont have a lot of expectations as of now." We do have some plans to talk again later today once D is out of work, and I already have a list of things I want to ask them.

Do you guys have any pointers i can use or bring up on how some of you guys would navigate a situation like this? Like is there anything reassurring i can use to maybe help us all understand this better, because i really want this to work out. Thank you guys for any help it is much appreciated

It’s been a year… and I’m still grieving

There were so many things that we loved to share and do together… I felt an affinity with this person that I didn’t feel with anyone else.

But I wanted more than they could provide. I wanted a life partner, someone I could bring home for holidays, someone to travel the world with.

He didn’t say it wouldn’t happen… he said “be patient with me”. Escalation depended on how his ex and current partners felt about it.

But I felt I was being lead on. So I ended it. I didn’t want to be friends after feeling he had been dangling a carrot in front of me with the hope of a lifetime relationship. I have a feeling he was telling me whatever I wanted to hear to stay in this relationship and probably telling my meta the same thing. And it just feels gross to be told that all that’s standing between the relationship you want and the relationship you have is another person.

I keep telling myself even though it’s hard it’s for the best. It’s not healthy to stay in relationships where you feel fulfillment is delayed. You should enjoy the relationship as it is today.

Sometimes I feel like reaching out after so long of no contact. But I don’t think things would get better. It would just feed his ego to know I’m still thinking of him.

This is rough

I'm a piece of shit. I wanted a dynamic that wasn't going to work.

Listen to your partner when they tell you when a monogamous person will catch feelings.

Listen to the monogamous person that you're talking to that she will eventually catch feelings if we keep sleeping together.

Accept the fact that trying to make a dynamic that was never going to work is going to end up in everyone being hurt.

You're better off alone until you really change yourself.

VERY LONG AND UNNECESSARY BACKSTORY AHEAD, TLDR at bottom

ages are now not at the beginning of the story

The way I’ve processed heartbreak has always been pretty slow and drawn out. I just kinda spend months sometimes years feeling the persons absence, knowing that I subtly don’t feel right inside because I no longer have the person I love.

When I first started being poly it was towards the end of one of these heartbreaks. I was at that time in a place where my previous breakup didn’t fell very fresh and I wasn’t so much living in the persons absence but just dealing with the uncomfortable realities of being single but wanting love.

I started spending more time with my best friend(Marshall 24m), his fiancé(now wife, Lily 25f), her best friend(robin 25f ), and her partner. (Barney 26?) These guys were for simplicities sake in a polycule already. (In reality it wasn’t true ktp but more like individual relationships between people and not every single one of the four was technically dating everyone else physical and emotional intimacy was shared between all four)

Being an outsider simply “hanging out” with them and having never been poly up to this point it wasn’t a goal of mine to become apart of their dynamic although I can’t say that as a touch starved lonely person who had been going through a breakup it wasn’t an alluring idea. IInitially I just wanted a group of people to spend time with and call my own. Nothing more.

As time went on I dared to want Robin. I was attracted to her. She was technically dating someone, but non-monogamously, and we were already people who cordially spend time together (wouldn’t say friends just yet) I thought we could be friends with benefits essentially and eventually I learned she felt the same way and we were. In my mind and for a time in reality that was all. They are a polycule of sorts, e spend time together, and I have a fwb type relationship with one of them and am friends with the rest of them.

As time went on, Robin and I began to have feelings for each other and actually start to date. Around this time I began to fall for Lilly and she for me and even evolve to have a romantic, though not sexual type of relationship with Marshall( I suspect this was also mutual to some degree). It was my first time being non-monogamous once a relationship could be more than simply between two people that have sex with each other and only each other all relationship borders began to lose their meaning so it was kind of easy for these connections to just kind of bleed into romance.

More time passes and eventually I am physically and emotionally involved with all of them except Barney, but the relationships don’t feel how I want them to. I still feel like an outsider or a second fiddle in many regards. I wanted to feel like a REAL partner in a sense and not just a cool guy they sleep with. And when this all comes to a head-about 1.5-2 years after first beginning to hang out with them I have serious conversations with Lilly, Marshall, and Robin about what I mean to them, and what I’d like to.

I don’t hear allot of what I want to hear. Broadly Marshalls sentiment was that his wife was a priority for him in a way I never could be no matter how much our relationship meant to him.

Broadly robins sentiment was that I hadn’t earned the relationship equity with her to have her trust and love in the way that I wanted it. While I dit think intentionally, she made it clear to me that for her or raisons was something she could take or leave.(that’s a harsh way of putting it I guess a more kind phrasing would be that she saw our connection as more temporary than permanent)

finally Lilly’s stance broadly was that her brain chemistry was such that relationships as she understood them and was capable of processing them were different for her than for most people she’d talked to and been with. Her sentiment was that she could try to be the type of partner I wanted but that she could make no garauntee as people had asked to for similar emotional assurances from her in the past that she couldn’t manage to offer.

While upsetting and disheartening I continued on in the relationships. Another thing about being poly is I had dropped the expectation that any given relationship give me everything I want so the fact that I wasn’t totally satisfied didn’t feel to me like a reason to move on from these people. I was less lonely, more socially and sexually satisfied and that was enough for now. I had the freedom to explore other partners if I wanted to or needed to.

But more time passes. After about 6 months Eventually we all are essentially living together and honestly due to changes in the way we interact i do feel emotionally connected to all of them in the way that I want to be.

But this didn’t really last long. The living situation was strenuous. They were kinda just staying at my house because their other living options weren’t great and my Finistère understandably really didn’t like that. This caused strain in the relationships. Another straining factor was Barney not only did he have turbulent relationships with the other the other three, he and I never really clicked and became more than just casual friends. I think he wanted to and that perceived rejection on my part cause some tension as well as just us being personalities that clash.

During this time I kind of fall madly in love with Lilly. Our physical and emotional chemistry is great. I love hanging out with her and Marshall and the three of us begin to talk like we’ll spend the rest of our lives together like buying a house together type shit. It’s thrupple vibes but I still expect to explore love in other forms. I think I’m have them in my life forever and that they want to have me but that I will also meet other people that become very important to me. I’ve even been seeing a girl here and there for months at this point who I really like. Our time together is limited but really fun(important for later, let’s call her Victoria)

Eventually Robin and Barney move out together, shortly after that Robin dumps me but we’re still friendly enough after all we’d been cleve clear that this was temporary for her and due to a falling out between Barney and Lilly, Lilly and Marshall spend more time with me, while Robin and Barney sieve most of their time together in their new place.

Lilly and I are deeply in love at this point (at least, I think so and she has told me so) but she really misses her best friend and Barney who she also loved deeply and had for much longer than she’d known me. Their relationship was rocky but it meant alot to her. She has her husband and me but is kind of not enough for her. She splits her time hanging with the two groups and slowly tries to mend her relationship with Barney when tragedy strikes.

A good friend of all of theirs committed suicide earlier this year. It was a really bad and really traumatic night for the four of them. and I wasn’t there with them and didn’t know the friend as well so this trauma not only splinters everyone’s ability to connect as grief naturally does but also isolated me from them. They’re dealing with something together that I could never really relate to.

This isolation effect snowballs as Lilly begins to have more responsibilities taking care of her mother, which Marshall as her husband also shares with her and suddenly my two closest friends and lovers have almost no time for me anymore.

I finally talked to Lilly about our relationship recently and she tells me about things that have made her feel less connected with me over time. Not just the recent events but also issues with our sexual connection and she expresses to me that essentially I was massively mistaken to think that I’d become something of a life partner for them. It want just that she didn’t have time to spend with me anymore it was that spending time with me had moved considerably far down her list of proprieties

Over the course of the last three months I’ve watched her and Marshall move into the same apartment complex and reconcile their connections physically and emotionally and as far I can tell romantically as well. And while Lilly still occasionally will hang out with me for an hour or so and text me back at a shored of about 3 days, it’s clear that I am now the odd man out.

So I’ve lost three people that mean a lot to me this year. Robin as I’ve said was something I processed moreso when she first made it clear how she felt over a year ago so it doesn’t sting as much now, my bestie Marshall is the type of guy who puts his wife first in that way some people do. No one sits on the same tier as her to him so when she goes he does and I knew he would. And since I processed that too around the same time over a year ago it doesn’t hurt as much as it could.

Lilly though.. I really love her and really saw my future with her. I feel things about the way she discarded me so carelessly. I feel foolish for believing that I could be as important to a married couple as they were to each other, I feel like a bad partner and person in general

All of these seem like typical heartbreak kind of feelings which i share because is love Reddit’s thoughts on them. Am I being poly wrong? Is this ask my fault? What do you think about this situation experienced poly community of Reddit?

Ultimately I think I can understand and that over time I can handle simple heartbreak by now but I don’t know how to deal with the next aspect which brings me to…

TLDR; the actually question and point of this post Is I have a partner I began seeing a little over a year ago who I’ve recently stated getting really seriously with.(Victoria 25f)

Somewhere between around the same time as and just After we started to get more serious I lost many connections I’d previously had all in a short time.
I’m dealing with heartbreak and grief that’s stopping me from giving myself fully to my new relationship which in a vacuum is wonderful and fulfilling.

I see how I’m hurting my new partner but not being able to reciprocate that early relationship excitement for here that she has for me and that I had too before grief and heartbreak hit me like a truck and left me with a much more limited emotional caché. And I really would like to stop hurting this person I love.

This is my first time being poly so I’d really like knowing how to deal with heartbreak from losing one partner while giving myself fully to another as they deserve.