Hello everyone. I’ve come here in need of some support and advice as I have found myself in this world of polyamory suddenly and without a life vest. I’ve done a fair bit of research, including reading countless posts on here to help me understand what I’m experiencing, but of course every situation is different so I thought I’d reach out on my own for help. Excuse the long post.
So…I am a mono girl who just started dating a poly guy. From the very first meeting he was upfront about having a girlfriend (bisexual poly chick he’s been dating for 3 months) and I didn’t get up and run away (although now I’m kind of wishing I had.) Beyond talking about his poly situation, our first date consisted of us talking and getting along really well, which led to us continuing to hang out at his, which inevitably led us to being intimate. As the natural progression of things go, we continued seeing each other for about a month with us having a great time being together and never having any sort of dissonance unless certain poly things came into the conversation.
From the beginning, as I mentioned before, I knew he had a girlfriend and I was seemingly fine with it and understood/understand that he would spend time with her and be intimate with her and everything that comes with dating someone. I started to feel really uncomfortable with the situation when he started bringing up the fact that I would have to meet her. The topic would get brought up every date we would have and every time I found myself terribly uncomfortable with the idea of having to meet her and couldn’t understand why me not knowing and accepting of the fact that he has a girlfriend wasn’t good enough. (Knowing and accepting him having a girlfriend is a bit of a mind fuck for a mono as it is. I also have had a lot of bad experiences with guys cheating on their gfs with me.) He explained to me that this is a rule that him and his gf have established so as to make sure other people involved in the situation are fully aware of the ENTIRE situation and so that people like me can’t ignorantly pretend that they are in a mono relationship.
His girlfriend also apparently wants to meet me because she is having her own hard time with jealousy and intimidation, where I never felt any of that. I also came to the realization that part of why the idea of meeting her makes me feel bad is that I think that making her a more tangent part of my life will only make me feel jealous and intimidated……and I was right.
I need to backtrack a bit to make this understandable:
Last week, he had invited me to this party where his girlfriend would also be, so we could meet. I couldn’t make it because of other plans, so he then changed our upcoming planned 1 on 1 date to a 3 person date including his girlfriend. (He was more so asking if she could join.) I was annoyed because it felt like he was trying any way possible to fit her into our time together, just so we could meet.
Fast forward to the day of our supposed date and instead I asked to meet up with him so we could talk some things through because I was feeling very conflicted with everything. After talking for a bit, we somehow found ourselves breaking up which was really upsetting for both of us. Not 10 minutes later we decided to not break up because we genuinely enjoy being together and have no issues other than this one poly issue of meeting his gf. I ended of working my plans around being able to stop by this party even if for a half hour just so I could meet her so everything could keep moving forward. The next day (day of the party) he texted me saying that he didn’t think I should come because he didn’t have enough time to give his gf notice and was generally feeling bad about everything and thought it would be better for us to meet once everyone wasn’t so stressed. I was a little annoyed seeing as I had built myself up to meet her, but understood the situation and let it go.
Here’s where I connect the bit about me thinking that actually getting to know more about her would make me feel jealous and intimidated. The night of the party, I saw pictures he had posted on Facebook of her at the party being chummy with his brother (who I have come to know and like) and it really triggered something in me. I stupidly continued on to check out her facebook page to get a better feel for her and it made me feel absolutely awful. The bad feelings continued on into the next day, where I felt about 10 times worse and could only think about breaking it off with him. (I should mention that I have self diagnosed myself with Borderline Personality Disorder which means that I suffer from fear of abandonment and unstable emotions and ironically enough she is actually diagnosed with BPD.)
What hurt the most was seeing just how much in common they have and how comfortable she is with being poly and such and it made me feel very insecure with my relationship with him and started making me think thoughts such as “why would he choose to be with me when he could be with other great chicks who are more comfortable with polyamory?” etc.
Bring this to present day and I still feel very unsure about everything and it doesn’t help that I haven’t seen him in almost a week and we have no current plans to meet up anytime soon. I feel a bit neglected especially after seeing him post more photos/videos of his time with her and also knowing that he’s been with her at least twice within the last few days, where he hasn’t seen me at all and has made no plans to.
I’m very aware that I might be overthinking/overreacting to this (a result of BPD) but I can’t shake these bad feelings and am currently trying to decide if I should continue on with this relationship or just give up. I don’t want to stop dating him but I don’t know if it will be beneficial or damaging to my emotional health to keep diving deeper. I should note that I see a lot of the beneficial aspects to polyamory and have already come to love the open honesty and communication...just not sure if I can handle all of it.
This is where you come in. Do you think I should keep moving forward and make plans to meet her or just remove myself from the situation and more potential heartbreak?
Thanks for your support,
Confused and conflicted mono girl
So…I am a mono girl who just started dating a poly guy. From the very first meeting he was upfront about having a girlfriend (bisexual poly chick he’s been dating for 3 months) and I didn’t get up and run away (although now I’m kind of wishing I had.) Beyond talking about his poly situation, our first date consisted of us talking and getting along really well, which led to us continuing to hang out at his, which inevitably led us to being intimate. As the natural progression of things go, we continued seeing each other for about a month with us having a great time being together and never having any sort of dissonance unless certain poly things came into the conversation.
From the beginning, as I mentioned before, I knew he had a girlfriend and I was seemingly fine with it and understood/understand that he would spend time with her and be intimate with her and everything that comes with dating someone. I started to feel really uncomfortable with the situation when he started bringing up the fact that I would have to meet her. The topic would get brought up every date we would have and every time I found myself terribly uncomfortable with the idea of having to meet her and couldn’t understand why me not knowing and accepting of the fact that he has a girlfriend wasn’t good enough. (Knowing and accepting him having a girlfriend is a bit of a mind fuck for a mono as it is. I also have had a lot of bad experiences with guys cheating on their gfs with me.) He explained to me that this is a rule that him and his gf have established so as to make sure other people involved in the situation are fully aware of the ENTIRE situation and so that people like me can’t ignorantly pretend that they are in a mono relationship.
His girlfriend also apparently wants to meet me because she is having her own hard time with jealousy and intimidation, where I never felt any of that. I also came to the realization that part of why the idea of meeting her makes me feel bad is that I think that making her a more tangent part of my life will only make me feel jealous and intimidated……and I was right.
I need to backtrack a bit to make this understandable:
Last week, he had invited me to this party where his girlfriend would also be, so we could meet. I couldn’t make it because of other plans, so he then changed our upcoming planned 1 on 1 date to a 3 person date including his girlfriend. (He was more so asking if she could join.) I was annoyed because it felt like he was trying any way possible to fit her into our time together, just so we could meet.
Fast forward to the day of our supposed date and instead I asked to meet up with him so we could talk some things through because I was feeling very conflicted with everything. After talking for a bit, we somehow found ourselves breaking up which was really upsetting for both of us. Not 10 minutes later we decided to not break up because we genuinely enjoy being together and have no issues other than this one poly issue of meeting his gf. I ended of working my plans around being able to stop by this party even if for a half hour just so I could meet her so everything could keep moving forward. The next day (day of the party) he texted me saying that he didn’t think I should come because he didn’t have enough time to give his gf notice and was generally feeling bad about everything and thought it would be better for us to meet once everyone wasn’t so stressed. I was a little annoyed seeing as I had built myself up to meet her, but understood the situation and let it go.
Here’s where I connect the bit about me thinking that actually getting to know more about her would make me feel jealous and intimidated. The night of the party, I saw pictures he had posted on Facebook of her at the party being chummy with his brother (who I have come to know and like) and it really triggered something in me. I stupidly continued on to check out her facebook page to get a better feel for her and it made me feel absolutely awful. The bad feelings continued on into the next day, where I felt about 10 times worse and could only think about breaking it off with him. (I should mention that I have self diagnosed myself with Borderline Personality Disorder which means that I suffer from fear of abandonment and unstable emotions and ironically enough she is actually diagnosed with BPD.)
What hurt the most was seeing just how much in common they have and how comfortable she is with being poly and such and it made me feel very insecure with my relationship with him and started making me think thoughts such as “why would he choose to be with me when he could be with other great chicks who are more comfortable with polyamory?” etc.
Bring this to present day and I still feel very unsure about everything and it doesn’t help that I haven’t seen him in almost a week and we have no current plans to meet up anytime soon. I feel a bit neglected especially after seeing him post more photos/videos of his time with her and also knowing that he’s been with her at least twice within the last few days, where he hasn’t seen me at all and has made no plans to.
I’m very aware that I might be overthinking/overreacting to this (a result of BPD) but I can’t shake these bad feelings and am currently trying to decide if I should continue on with this relationship or just give up. I don’t want to stop dating him but I don’t know if it will be beneficial or damaging to my emotional health to keep diving deeper. I should note that I see a lot of the beneficial aspects to polyamory and have already come to love the open honesty and communication...just not sure if I can handle all of it.
This is where you come in. Do you think I should keep moving forward and make plans to meet her or just remove myself from the situation and more potential heartbreak?
Thanks for your support,
Confused and conflicted mono girl