AnonymousChris
New member
Hi, I'm new on this site and I'm looking for some advice/support/something. Please bare with me as don't have much experience of the poly lifestyle, or the the lingo etc that you use on here. This is a long post because I want to give some background before asking my questions. Thanks in advance for reading.
Polly and I have been dating or together or something since around last October, and the subject of polyamory has come up a lot in that time. Around late Feb of this year we had a blip and stopped seeing each other briefly, and when we got back together it was on the condition we would give polyamory a go. This was mostly something that was important for me, but we had open and honest discussions about it. She expressed that it was something she was going to find difficult, but we agreed to give it a go. It's both of our first time attemping to navigate poly relationships. And then Covid hit, so that obviously had to go on pause for a while.
During Covid things have been difficult in a lot of ways - neither of our mental health has been great but hers has gone particularly downhill. Covid has cut her off from a lot of her friends so I have been a large part of her support system. Simultaneously, our relationship has sort of gone stale - it's been a long time since we've shared sex or any real intimacy. We've been very supportive of each other and I care about her deeply but our relationship has begun to feel more like a strong friendship. This is something we talked about a lot, and the idea of shifting to a friendship was raised but we never reached a proper conclusion, so things stayed the way they were.
As lockdown lifted, we began to talk about polyamory again. I asked Polly if I could get tinder and start dating, and it was quite a difficult discussion. She expressed her doubts and fears, and we even spoke about breaking up (again with no real conclusion), but she did say it was okay for me to download tinder.
At the same time, a good friend of mine (I'll call her Erin) was over for a short period. Erin and I have a sexual history and she has been very much involved in my previous discussions with Polly about polyamory. A previous time a few months back (I'm not entirely sure when this was but I think early 2020 some time), Polly had agreed that Erin and I could get together on a night out, but it didn't end up happening because Polly got stressed out and so I stayed with her.
Back to now: I arranged to go and see Erin, and told Polly about this. I said I was unsure whether I would stay over. I made the false assumption that Polly and I were on the same page, and that if I stayed over that meant Erin and I would be intimate. Obviously, with hindsight, I should have been more clear about this and opened up a proper conversation about it.
I did stay the night with Erin and we shared sex. On returning from seeing Erin, I revealed to Polly that this had happened and found that she was absolutely enraged. She called me a liar and a cheater (alongside some other choice words) and essentially told me to get out of her life. She felt that I knew exactly what I was doing and had consciously made the decision to cheat on her, showing that I didn't give a damn about her or her feelings. She felt that I had betrayed her trust.
I fully accept that I messed up and I feel horrific because I have caused Polly so much hurt. I think our relationship is probably over but I hate that it's ended like this and I really want to make amends. I don't really know how to start healing things with her - should I be patient and wait for her to be ready to talk to me more? Have I got it so wrong that there's no going back?
Do I deserve the assessment that Polly has made of me? I messed up big time and I am willing to own that and have been thinking a lot about how it ended up like that. But it wasn't intentional and it wasn't malicious. Maybe I was kidding myself that it was okay and I knew it wasn't. Am I a horrible liar and a cheater?
Polly and I have been dating or together or something since around last October, and the subject of polyamory has come up a lot in that time. Around late Feb of this year we had a blip and stopped seeing each other briefly, and when we got back together it was on the condition we would give polyamory a go. This was mostly something that was important for me, but we had open and honest discussions about it. She expressed that it was something she was going to find difficult, but we agreed to give it a go. It's both of our first time attemping to navigate poly relationships. And then Covid hit, so that obviously had to go on pause for a while.
During Covid things have been difficult in a lot of ways - neither of our mental health has been great but hers has gone particularly downhill. Covid has cut her off from a lot of her friends so I have been a large part of her support system. Simultaneously, our relationship has sort of gone stale - it's been a long time since we've shared sex or any real intimacy. We've been very supportive of each other and I care about her deeply but our relationship has begun to feel more like a strong friendship. This is something we talked about a lot, and the idea of shifting to a friendship was raised but we never reached a proper conclusion, so things stayed the way they were.
As lockdown lifted, we began to talk about polyamory again. I asked Polly if I could get tinder and start dating, and it was quite a difficult discussion. She expressed her doubts and fears, and we even spoke about breaking up (again with no real conclusion), but she did say it was okay for me to download tinder.
At the same time, a good friend of mine (I'll call her Erin) was over for a short period. Erin and I have a sexual history and she has been very much involved in my previous discussions with Polly about polyamory. A previous time a few months back (I'm not entirely sure when this was but I think early 2020 some time), Polly had agreed that Erin and I could get together on a night out, but it didn't end up happening because Polly got stressed out and so I stayed with her.
Back to now: I arranged to go and see Erin, and told Polly about this. I said I was unsure whether I would stay over. I made the false assumption that Polly and I were on the same page, and that if I stayed over that meant Erin and I would be intimate. Obviously, with hindsight, I should have been more clear about this and opened up a proper conversation about it.
I did stay the night with Erin and we shared sex. On returning from seeing Erin, I revealed to Polly that this had happened and found that she was absolutely enraged. She called me a liar and a cheater (alongside some other choice words) and essentially told me to get out of her life. She felt that I knew exactly what I was doing and had consciously made the decision to cheat on her, showing that I didn't give a damn about her or her feelings. She felt that I had betrayed her trust.
I fully accept that I messed up and I feel horrific because I have caused Polly so much hurt. I think our relationship is probably over but I hate that it's ended like this and I really want to make amends. I don't really know how to start healing things with her - should I be patient and wait for her to be ready to talk to me more? Have I got it so wrong that there's no going back?
Do I deserve the assessment that Polly has made of me? I messed up big time and I am willing to own that and have been thinking a lot about how it ended up like that. But it wasn't intentional and it wasn't malicious. Maybe I was kidding myself that it was okay and I knew it wasn't. Am I a horrible liar and a cheater?
