SwitchLife
New member
I am in a hierarchical poly structure. I have been in a relationship with my primary (house, kids, ring, etc.) for 20 years, have partner A, and partner B. This is a mono-poly relationship and my primary doesn't have any other partners.
Partner A and I have been working to rebuild after I fucked up a few months ago and lied about the activity with a FWB during a period of deep personal mental health issues/spin-out. I sought out mental health treatment and have been doing that work for the last (almost five) months. Those events led to understandable trust issues with them and we are working to rebuild. We are past the crisis stage and working on being a more communicative and functional partnership. We had issues before this that we are working on, as well as supporting growth in areas that were not well-nurtured before.
Partner B is a LDR (almost a year now) which was not negatively impacted in the long run by my mental health crisis earlier in the year. They have been endlessly supportive to me and in many ways in opposition towards the poly style of A.
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What I would like to get some feedback on is how you might approach this scenario:
I am afraid that I could be committing myself to something I don't want in the long term, and am having a hard time seeing where the line between recovery from a trust-breaking event lays as opposed to an ongoing commitment to something I don't love doing and doesn't bring me any particular joy.
I wonder what your thoughts are, and what you would advise if I you were in my shoes.
Partner A and I have been working to rebuild after I fucked up a few months ago and lied about the activity with a FWB during a period of deep personal mental health issues/spin-out. I sought out mental health treatment and have been doing that work for the last (almost five) months. Those events led to understandable trust issues with them and we are working to rebuild. We are past the crisis stage and working on being a more communicative and functional partnership. We had issues before this that we are working on, as well as supporting growth in areas that were not well-nurtured before.
Partner B is a LDR (almost a year now) which was not negatively impacted in the long run by my mental health crisis earlier in the year. They have been endlessly supportive to me and in many ways in opposition towards the poly style of A.
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What I would like to get some feedback on is how you might approach this scenario:
- I am most comfortable with parallel poly, it is how I operate by default
- I will participate in kitchen table poly, but do not subscribe to that approach myself (I can come to your table and participate as an individual, but I don't host a table of my own)
- A is a kitchen-table poly person and they, with their primary, embrace it deeply.
- When I spend time with B (or others), and if I don't offer a debrief of the time we spend together, it is sometimes perceived as hiding something, by A
- A has indicated that it hurts them if I don't offer any debrief, or if it is too high-level.
- A has also indicated that having those debriefs helps them process and feel compersion.
I am afraid that I could be committing myself to something I don't want in the long term, and am having a hard time seeing where the line between recovery from a trust-breaking event lays as opposed to an ongoing commitment to something I don't love doing and doesn't bring me any particular joy.
I wonder what your thoughts are, and what you would advise if I you were in my shoes.