We have been over a year without poly and it has been great, my partner's last relationship didn't really go anywhere in the end and she felt it had been a mistake really to get into it in the first place. To be honest I was relieved, although I wished we hadn't had to go through such a big relationship upheaval at a time when we also had so many other things going on, but I guess that's life.
I thought we had put the idea of poly behind us - we had a great year last year traveling and spending a lot of quality time together but she is now wanting to get into it again, albeit on a more 'asexual' basis, wanting more 'affectionate deep friendship' type connections than sexual ones. I'm trying my best to manage my deep anxiety around this, I don't want her to feel I'm being restrictive of her needs or controlling or anything like that, I want her to be happy and love her deeply, but I am honestly scared things may develop further than she intends. Even with the best will in the world, realistically I know trying to uphold boundaries like that is probably rather foolish, and also that sometimes 'stuff happens'. I don't think I'm well suited to poly, it seems to be you need to be pretty secure in yourself to cope with it and to have good internalised self esteem, I don't have either of those things - at least not particularly solidly.
I can be adaptable and even resilient to an extent, as this thread shows, I have been able to deal with a lot of stresses often at the same time and juggle many conflicting things, but it doesn't make me feel good because often to do that I have to park my own needs and just get on with stuff. I know there are issues going back to childhood that make me this way, I had to be like a carer for both my parents at various points while they went through significant mental and physical health problems, including as a child as well as more recently with my father, but poly seems to expose all my weaknesses and fears and lay them out in front of me. I need to know how to cope with this.