thestrugglebus
New member
Hi everyone. I'm sorry if this is long. I've put a tl;dr at the bottom.
I'm in a very tough spot, emotionally and logistically. I just joined out of desperation for perspective from people who are neutral, but also not temperamentally anti-poly.
I am not poly, and if I'm being completely honest, I now have a lot of qualms with polyamory. Some of which are coming from trauma, but I think some of which are just genuine philosophical differences.
My partner and I, after 18 years together, have had a rupture. We had been dabbling in ENM for a couple years, but only ever together. We had obviously come into contact with the Poly world through these adventures and had some (what I thought were) casual conversations about it. I mentioned that I was very disinterested in polyamory. I like the fun of exploring sexually together, but I was happy monogomous too. If I had to choose between strict monogamy or polyamory, I'd choose monogamy. But being able to have sexual play, and play friends was a fun perk that I appreciated. My partner had offhandedly said in response "I think I could be poly if that were something you were interested in." This was, in hindsight, very important.
What I heard was: "Polyamory is a relationship structure, and it is one that I think I would be able to function within if that were something you were interested in, though you just said explicitly that you were not."
What I now know she meant was: "Polyamory is an identity, like being gay or trans, and I think I may be that."
So I knew there was an openness to polyamory on her end. But I didn't take it as some sort of pressing issue.
Months later she had been consistently saying that she regretted that because we met so young that she had no 1-on-1 sexual encounters without me. And that group sex was fun, but the "vibe is different" and she wants to expand. Up to this point our rule was always that we never do anything physical without the other person present. She had interest in threesomes, and was way more interested in mfm than fmf, despite her pansexuality. So I participated in 3 different mfm threesomes. But she said she was always anxious about me the whole time and couldn't lose herself.
So eventually I agreed to a one-off sexual encounter with someone we do not know. The plan was to meet through an app. Go on a one or two dates to determine comfort. Then hook up, and leave it at that. I made very clear that I was incredibly uncomfortable with this. But I was willing to stretch my comfort levels for her exploration, and investigate my feelings to see how I feel about it all. But the only sure thing was that it would be a one-off, and she and this person could not remain seriously in each other's lives, though they could add each other on social media.
I explained, multiple times (not just in preparation for this encounter), that I was very uncomfortable with relationships where there is an intersection of Intimacy/Romance, exclusivity (from me), and sexual interaction. You can have sex and intimacy if I'm involved, you can have sex and exclusivity if it's a purely sexual one-night-stand thing, but I'm incredibly uneasy with the point where it starts to feel like another romantic/sexual partnership.
It went poorly. We agreed that she would communicate if they went back to his place. She only communicated to tell me that they weren't going to his place and she was coming home. Then she came home and told me they had been making out and touching each other in public in the corner bar that I liked to go to in front of people. I was incredibly hurt... but I also recognize that a boundary wasn't crossed. I had expected a text saying "we're leaving the bar to go____" if something physical was going to happen. But that expectation was not literally what we agreed on. She didn't do anything wrong, but I had a bad reaction. Panic attacks, feelings of worthlessness, etc. It became pretty clear that this was not something I was actually comfortable with. She said she was going to pause the initial plan and not move forward with anything romantic or sexual.
Then for the next couple weeks it seemed like she was always disappearing into her phone. She was waking up early to text. And staying up late. Long car rides she wouldn't hear anything I was saying because she'd just be messaging.
Then I caught her sexting him one night. I asked what she was doing, and she said that she was just slowly getting ready for bed. I asked if she was sexting this guy, and she said "no." Then I said I had seen a message pop up on her home screen when she left it on the table near me for a minute, and she finally admitted it.
She said she thought that sexting him was ok, and that she hadn't sent nudes. I asked if I could read their conversations, and she had sent nudes (covered nipples, but otherwise fully nude). And they had been sending dozens/hundreds of messages back and forth each day. She got a "good morning, beautiful" text from him every morning. And a "Good night, can't wait to chat more tomorrow" every evening. She said she didn't inform me how intense their connection was because she knew I was stressed and didn't want to hurt me.
But I felt this crossed a line. But then she said: "He's very important to me, and I need to have him in my life. I agree to cut off sexual interactions. But I insist on maintaining him as a friend, because he means a lot, and we both want to have each other in our lives."
Then she said: "He helped me realize that I'm poly, and I need this. This is just going to happen again, and so we're going to have to figure out how you can learn to accept this."
So the past year has been a blur of us trying to heal and make things work. Largely because the introduction of Polyamory as her identity, that she will feel unfulfilled without getting to take action upon has been tied to my feelings of hurt and betrayal. This has all been compounded by the fact that there is a relationship that, to me, feels like an affair. For a year, she kept cutting down contact with him for me. But periodically he'd still message her random "I miss you and value you and wish we could see each other more," and I'd spiral.
After nearly a year, she agreed to finally stop following him on social media (for a limited period of time). But she says "a partner vetoing someone from your life is wrong," and she's telling me it's going to be impossible not to resent me for this.
I generally agree that there's trouble with someone telling you that you can't be friends with someone else. But in an affair, cutting contact with the affair partner is most often understood as the first step towards healing. And it's the step preventing me from healing so that I can even process the whole "I need to be poly, and if you can't support that, I might not be willing to stay with you" thing. To me, cutting contact is the necessary step for us to work on how to proceed.
She doesn't agree that this was a cheating dynamic. I don't agree that the situation can only be viewed through the lens of what's "ok in a poly dynamic" since we were distinctly not in a poly dynamic when this started. (Well, she was, but hadn't communicated it effectively to me.)
So there's a lot of ambiguity. We weren't completely monogamous. There's lots of gray area. Maybe my feelings of betrayal and trauma are over the top. But I need to know if I have crossed a threshold of controlling behavior or abuse by asking her to cut ties with this person. I don't know up from down anymore. How do I navigate these gray areas, drastically opposing perspectives on what has happened, and actually move towards healing from the trauma that has been caused in a way that can be respectful of what she's going through?
I'm hurt that she can't see this as a necessary step towards working on things together. She's hurt that I can't just be happy for her to have a platonic friendship that has clearly communicated sexual interest as long as they don't act on it (again... yet?) I feel like anything that happened has to be perceived under the agreed-upon boundaries of the relationship before the announcement of poly as an identity, and in that context, that this was cheating, and needing a separation to heal before being able to even properly engage with the idea of polyamory is reasonable. But she's hurting, and I feel guilty for needing that. I'm in a catch-22 where everything hurts, nothing as much as the thought of losing her. I also feel I'm being invalidated. Told that I shouldn't feel such trauma. This wasn't that bad. This is all just because of some deeper insecurity that I have to work on to allow her to be herself, etc. I'm trying to be open minded, but I'm so disoriented it's hard to know how to even begin to engage.
TL;DR
My partner of almost 2 decades turned a mutually agreed-upon one-night-stand into a deep romantic poly relationship situation without fully realizing that she was doing so until it was too late. She then "came out" as poly to me when I discovered what had happened. I asked her to cut ties with the person because this was a violation of my boundaries, and she believes I am rejecting her new poly identity, and being controlling by exercising a "veto" that I have no right to ask for. I am not poly, and I don't know what way is up anymore. I love her more than anything, and I don't want to harm her through unreasonable behavior, but I feel after a betrayal that asking for a cessation of contact with the other party is reasonable, regardless of whether she individually identifies as poly or not.
Thanks in advance for any guidance or perspective on this.
I'm in a very tough spot, emotionally and logistically. I just joined out of desperation for perspective from people who are neutral, but also not temperamentally anti-poly.
I am not poly, and if I'm being completely honest, I now have a lot of qualms with polyamory. Some of which are coming from trauma, but I think some of which are just genuine philosophical differences.
My partner and I, after 18 years together, have had a rupture. We had been dabbling in ENM for a couple years, but only ever together. We had obviously come into contact with the Poly world through these adventures and had some (what I thought were) casual conversations about it. I mentioned that I was very disinterested in polyamory. I like the fun of exploring sexually together, but I was happy monogomous too. If I had to choose between strict monogamy or polyamory, I'd choose monogamy. But being able to have sexual play, and play friends was a fun perk that I appreciated. My partner had offhandedly said in response "I think I could be poly if that were something you were interested in." This was, in hindsight, very important.
What I heard was: "Polyamory is a relationship structure, and it is one that I think I would be able to function within if that were something you were interested in, though you just said explicitly that you were not."
What I now know she meant was: "Polyamory is an identity, like being gay or trans, and I think I may be that."
So I knew there was an openness to polyamory on her end. But I didn't take it as some sort of pressing issue.
Months later she had been consistently saying that she regretted that because we met so young that she had no 1-on-1 sexual encounters without me. And that group sex was fun, but the "vibe is different" and she wants to expand. Up to this point our rule was always that we never do anything physical without the other person present. She had interest in threesomes, and was way more interested in mfm than fmf, despite her pansexuality. So I participated in 3 different mfm threesomes. But she said she was always anxious about me the whole time and couldn't lose herself.
So eventually I agreed to a one-off sexual encounter with someone we do not know. The plan was to meet through an app. Go on a one or two dates to determine comfort. Then hook up, and leave it at that. I made very clear that I was incredibly uncomfortable with this. But I was willing to stretch my comfort levels for her exploration, and investigate my feelings to see how I feel about it all. But the only sure thing was that it would be a one-off, and she and this person could not remain seriously in each other's lives, though they could add each other on social media.
I explained, multiple times (not just in preparation for this encounter), that I was very uncomfortable with relationships where there is an intersection of Intimacy/Romance, exclusivity (from me), and sexual interaction. You can have sex and intimacy if I'm involved, you can have sex and exclusivity if it's a purely sexual one-night-stand thing, but I'm incredibly uneasy with the point where it starts to feel like another romantic/sexual partnership.
It went poorly. We agreed that she would communicate if they went back to his place. She only communicated to tell me that they weren't going to his place and she was coming home. Then she came home and told me they had been making out and touching each other in public in the corner bar that I liked to go to in front of people. I was incredibly hurt... but I also recognize that a boundary wasn't crossed. I had expected a text saying "we're leaving the bar to go____" if something physical was going to happen. But that expectation was not literally what we agreed on. She didn't do anything wrong, but I had a bad reaction. Panic attacks, feelings of worthlessness, etc. It became pretty clear that this was not something I was actually comfortable with. She said she was going to pause the initial plan and not move forward with anything romantic or sexual.
Then for the next couple weeks it seemed like she was always disappearing into her phone. She was waking up early to text. And staying up late. Long car rides she wouldn't hear anything I was saying because she'd just be messaging.
Then I caught her sexting him one night. I asked what she was doing, and she said that she was just slowly getting ready for bed. I asked if she was sexting this guy, and she said "no." Then I said I had seen a message pop up on her home screen when she left it on the table near me for a minute, and she finally admitted it.
She said she thought that sexting him was ok, and that she hadn't sent nudes. I asked if I could read their conversations, and she had sent nudes (covered nipples, but otherwise fully nude). And they had been sending dozens/hundreds of messages back and forth each day. She got a "good morning, beautiful" text from him every morning. And a "Good night, can't wait to chat more tomorrow" every evening. She said she didn't inform me how intense their connection was because she knew I was stressed and didn't want to hurt me.
But I felt this crossed a line. But then she said: "He's very important to me, and I need to have him in my life. I agree to cut off sexual interactions. But I insist on maintaining him as a friend, because he means a lot, and we both want to have each other in our lives."
Then she said: "He helped me realize that I'm poly, and I need this. This is just going to happen again, and so we're going to have to figure out how you can learn to accept this."
So the past year has been a blur of us trying to heal and make things work. Largely because the introduction of Polyamory as her identity, that she will feel unfulfilled without getting to take action upon has been tied to my feelings of hurt and betrayal. This has all been compounded by the fact that there is a relationship that, to me, feels like an affair. For a year, she kept cutting down contact with him for me. But periodically he'd still message her random "I miss you and value you and wish we could see each other more," and I'd spiral.
After nearly a year, she agreed to finally stop following him on social media (for a limited period of time). But she says "a partner vetoing someone from your life is wrong," and she's telling me it's going to be impossible not to resent me for this.
I generally agree that there's trouble with someone telling you that you can't be friends with someone else. But in an affair, cutting contact with the affair partner is most often understood as the first step towards healing. And it's the step preventing me from healing so that I can even process the whole "I need to be poly, and if you can't support that, I might not be willing to stay with you" thing. To me, cutting contact is the necessary step for us to work on how to proceed.
She doesn't agree that this was a cheating dynamic. I don't agree that the situation can only be viewed through the lens of what's "ok in a poly dynamic" since we were distinctly not in a poly dynamic when this started. (Well, she was, but hadn't communicated it effectively to me.)
So there's a lot of ambiguity. We weren't completely monogamous. There's lots of gray area. Maybe my feelings of betrayal and trauma are over the top. But I need to know if I have crossed a threshold of controlling behavior or abuse by asking her to cut ties with this person. I don't know up from down anymore. How do I navigate these gray areas, drastically opposing perspectives on what has happened, and actually move towards healing from the trauma that has been caused in a way that can be respectful of what she's going through?
I'm hurt that she can't see this as a necessary step towards working on things together. She's hurt that I can't just be happy for her to have a platonic friendship that has clearly communicated sexual interest as long as they don't act on it (again... yet?) I feel like anything that happened has to be perceived under the agreed-upon boundaries of the relationship before the announcement of poly as an identity, and in that context, that this was cheating, and needing a separation to heal before being able to even properly engage with the idea of polyamory is reasonable. But she's hurting, and I feel guilty for needing that. I'm in a catch-22 where everything hurts, nothing as much as the thought of losing her. I also feel I'm being invalidated. Told that I shouldn't feel such trauma. This wasn't that bad. This is all just because of some deeper insecurity that I have to work on to allow her to be herself, etc. I'm trying to be open minded, but I'm so disoriented it's hard to know how to even begin to engage.
TL;DR
My partner of almost 2 decades turned a mutually agreed-upon one-night-stand into a deep romantic poly relationship situation without fully realizing that she was doing so until it was too late. She then "came out" as poly to me when I discovered what had happened. I asked her to cut ties with the person because this was a violation of my boundaries, and she believes I am rejecting her new poly identity, and being controlling by exercising a "veto" that I have no right to ask for. I am not poly, and I don't know what way is up anymore. I love her more than anything, and I don't want to harm her through unreasonable behavior, but I feel after a betrayal that asking for a cessation of contact with the other party is reasonable, regardless of whether she individually identifies as poly or not.
Thanks in advance for any guidance or perspective on this.
I'm sorry again.
