Hi all, I recently broke up with a partner, Donna, of 3 years. Our major incompatibility was our conflict in relationship styles. Donna wanted something more monogamous looking: primary partnership that centered us as the couple and very cautiously introduced anyone else to the relationship (she had no prior poly experience). I wanted something more autonomous and something akin to relationship anarchy.
Donna did not feel secure in the relationship style I wanted, so I made major compromises, including stopping dating certain people she felt uncomfortable with, or agreeing to keep other connections separate and not introducing metamours until it was "serious" (apparently after at least 3 months of dating in her view). I restricted myself a great amount and often had trouble saying what I really wanted our of fear of losing her, as well as her often very potent emotional reactions.
As you can imagine, we had many communication issues, although we made a lot of progress in couples therapy and long processing sessions. Ultimately Donna broke things off after a covid miscommunication. I had thought we'd agreed that I could go on a date using same-day rapid tests for both parties, and that I'd be free to do as I pleased without pandemic restrictions. She was shocked to find out that I thought that and said she never agreed to that. I didn't argue with her, and said I guess it was an honest miscommunication, but she decided it was straight up manipulation (even though we had the convo before the date, and I never got to have the thing she was claiming I was trying to manipulate happening).
So Donna broke up with me due to not feeling safe around communication in our relationship. I felt good about the choice because I quickly realized all the ways I'd been compromising myself in the relationship, and I was excited about making better choices with future partners and being poly the way I wanted to. We had a loving but hard breakup and agreed that maybe someday we can revisit things and see if some kind of arrangement could work for us. We decided (well, she decided) that space was important and that we'd check in before events so we didn't see each other for a while. When we chose to communicate again, we'd do so in couple's therapy at first.
Flash forward 3 months and very little communication, I decided I was done checking in before going to events, as Donna had been incommunicado for a long time, and I also had an issue with a friend that was restricting my involvement in group/community spaces -- so I wanted to make my own choices for my mental health/social needs. I sent her a text telling her I'm giving a few more weeks, but after that no more checking in. I said we could talk about this in whatever way she needs (therapy, mediation, etc.).
No response. Two weeks later, I hear from a close friend that I am being accused of "emotional abuse" by Donna. She had gone to our shared circle of friends, apparently very scared she may have to see me again in social space without being ready for it, and rallied their support to keep that from happening. The "abuse" charge made them very sympathetic to that. This created a splinter in my friend circle, as some supported me and didn't think I should accommodate this demand to give Donna control over how I showed up in my friend circle, while others thought I was an "abuser" and should be removed and held accountable.
This created a huge debacle and eventually landed in the laps of the admin team of a Facebook poly group I helped create many years ago. I also am an admin in this group. They immediately asked me to step down as an admin without any effort to relay the accusations to me (I still didn't know exactly what the specifics were at this point). I had to strongly advocate for myself and set up a meeting where I could be heard, as well as understand the accusations. The accusations were "love bombing," gaslighting, and manipulating (pretty much all this revolved around our differing needs in relationship and communication styles). Donna also said I'm "charming" and would manipulate her if I talked to her, so she refused to do so because she felt "unsafe" and would be manipulated into agreeing with me.
So I've been going through this "process" of transformative justice with the poly admins, and it's almost complete, I hope. Honestly it's felt like one-sided couple's therapy, and not really productive. Many of the things relayed to me were things Donna expressed in couple's therapy many months ago and I was already aware of and working on. Never did I indicate I had an unwillingness to receive feedback and work on things. But Donna chose to go straight to the community and accuse me and make it into a victim/abuser narrative.
This all really hurts, especially with all of the mutual effort we put into understanding each other during our relationship. Now I'm an "abuser" and she is a "survivor." Not all my friends and community see it that way, and most have good perspective, luckily, but it has caused me a lot of stress and, in my view, led to very unnecessary energy expenditures from my community over something that could have been resolved in other less dramatic ways. And, while I appreciate any and all feedback about my behavior, it has been endlessly frustrating to only explore my side of a two-way dynamic. Donna has certainly not been a perfect innocent victim in our relationship, and in the end we were both choosing something that worked for neither of us, hurting each other along the way.
Anyway, thanks for reading if you got this far. I'd love to hear any thoughts you all have.
Donna did not feel secure in the relationship style I wanted, so I made major compromises, including stopping dating certain people she felt uncomfortable with, or agreeing to keep other connections separate and not introducing metamours until it was "serious" (apparently after at least 3 months of dating in her view). I restricted myself a great amount and often had trouble saying what I really wanted our of fear of losing her, as well as her often very potent emotional reactions.
As you can imagine, we had many communication issues, although we made a lot of progress in couples therapy and long processing sessions. Ultimately Donna broke things off after a covid miscommunication. I had thought we'd agreed that I could go on a date using same-day rapid tests for both parties, and that I'd be free to do as I pleased without pandemic restrictions. She was shocked to find out that I thought that and said she never agreed to that. I didn't argue with her, and said I guess it was an honest miscommunication, but she decided it was straight up manipulation (even though we had the convo before the date, and I never got to have the thing she was claiming I was trying to manipulate happening).
So Donna broke up with me due to not feeling safe around communication in our relationship. I felt good about the choice because I quickly realized all the ways I'd been compromising myself in the relationship, and I was excited about making better choices with future partners and being poly the way I wanted to. We had a loving but hard breakup and agreed that maybe someday we can revisit things and see if some kind of arrangement could work for us. We decided (well, she decided) that space was important and that we'd check in before events so we didn't see each other for a while. When we chose to communicate again, we'd do so in couple's therapy at first.
Flash forward 3 months and very little communication, I decided I was done checking in before going to events, as Donna had been incommunicado for a long time, and I also had an issue with a friend that was restricting my involvement in group/community spaces -- so I wanted to make my own choices for my mental health/social needs. I sent her a text telling her I'm giving a few more weeks, but after that no more checking in. I said we could talk about this in whatever way she needs (therapy, mediation, etc.).
No response. Two weeks later, I hear from a close friend that I am being accused of "emotional abuse" by Donna. She had gone to our shared circle of friends, apparently very scared she may have to see me again in social space without being ready for it, and rallied their support to keep that from happening. The "abuse" charge made them very sympathetic to that. This created a splinter in my friend circle, as some supported me and didn't think I should accommodate this demand to give Donna control over how I showed up in my friend circle, while others thought I was an "abuser" and should be removed and held accountable.
This created a huge debacle and eventually landed in the laps of the admin team of a Facebook poly group I helped create many years ago. I also am an admin in this group. They immediately asked me to step down as an admin without any effort to relay the accusations to me (I still didn't know exactly what the specifics were at this point). I had to strongly advocate for myself and set up a meeting where I could be heard, as well as understand the accusations. The accusations were "love bombing," gaslighting, and manipulating (pretty much all this revolved around our differing needs in relationship and communication styles). Donna also said I'm "charming" and would manipulate her if I talked to her, so she refused to do so because she felt "unsafe" and would be manipulated into agreeing with me.
So I've been going through this "process" of transformative justice with the poly admins, and it's almost complete, I hope. Honestly it's felt like one-sided couple's therapy, and not really productive. Many of the things relayed to me were things Donna expressed in couple's therapy many months ago and I was already aware of and working on. Never did I indicate I had an unwillingness to receive feedback and work on things. But Donna chose to go straight to the community and accuse me and make it into a victim/abuser narrative.
This all really hurts, especially with all of the mutual effort we put into understanding each other during our relationship. Now I'm an "abuser" and she is a "survivor." Not all my friends and community see it that way, and most have good perspective, luckily, but it has caused me a lot of stress and, in my view, led to very unnecessary energy expenditures from my community over something that could have been resolved in other less dramatic ways. And, while I appreciate any and all feedback about my behavior, it has been endlessly frustrating to only explore my side of a two-way dynamic. Donna has certainly not been a perfect innocent victim in our relationship, and in the end we were both choosing something that worked for neither of us, hurting each other along the way.
Anyway, thanks for reading if you got this far. I'd love to hear any thoughts you all have.
