RowanBerry197
New member
Hi there. I'm looking for some insight or advice on my current situation with my partner, where things are shifting quite suddenly. This might be quite long. Apologies.
My partner and I have been in a long-distance relationship for almost 6 years. Prior to this, she had been in a long-term relationship with someone for 9 years, from the age of about 17. They had been primarily monogamous, with the exception of some exploration around her sexuality. (She is bisexual.) The relationship wasn't particularly healthy and there were a lot of problems. The restrictive container of their relationship and borderline controlling and emotionally manipulative behaviour from her ex did result in infidelity on her part a couple of times. He was resistant to couple's counseling and after trying to make it work, she broke it off, having been kind of over it for a long while.
We then met a few months later. We didn't rush the relationship, at first. My concerns were that she had just gotten out of a 9-year relationship that was restrictive, and I wanted her to be able to explore herself and other people outside of that relationship. We had quite a whirlwind casual situationship for a few months, and then we ended up proceeding into a committed relationship after about 8 months. We had met up during that time quite frequently for mini trips away. Our plan for a long time has been that she would move here to live with me once she had finished studying.
Our relationship has always been really strong, unrestrictive and independent, with good communication in many areas. We see each other in person at least 3-4 times a year, for at least 4 weeks at a time, the longest being 3 months a couple of times.
I'd mostly been in monogamous relationships previously, with one very serious relationship which lasted about 3 years. I had explored a poly relationship once, but it didn't last very long. (It didn't feel particularly ethical to me and I felt it wasn't worth pursuing further.) I've always been very chill in my relationships, prioritising personal freedom, with minimal expectations of my partners. I have very close relationships with my friends and I don't rely on a partner to be everything for me.
My partner is a very naturally flirtatious person with lots of poly friends, and has physical intimacy with a lot of her platonic friends. They all love being touchy feely. I've always embraced this aspect of her and her friendships. However, poly has always been something I've struggled to pursue because 1) I'm demisexual and I need to have a strong emotional connection with someone to pursue anything romantic and sexual, 2) it's quite rare for me to meet someone where having a strong emotional connection leads to sexual or romantic desire, 3) I'm not in any poly circles, 4) I have a disability which makes it hard for me to manage and show up for more than one relationship and look after myself, 5) I have trauma around sexual abuse and this can complicate how I navigate sex and intimacy.
I've never felt a desire to have multiple partners, because I feel I am equally happy with a relationship as I am without a relationship. I've spent a lot of time being single, and I've always enjoyed being single just as much as I have enjoyed being in a relationship. My partner has also always thought of themselves as being monogamous when it came to romantic relationships and expressed that openly to me.
Which brings me to the current situation. The area in which we have struggled in partnership is that my partner has a high sex drive, and with the combination of my disability and being long distance, this area of our relationship can be complicated. Then COVID happened and we didn't see each other physically for a year-and-a-half to 2 years. Aware of my partner's needs, I brought up the idea of opening up the relationship to casual sex. We drew up what that would look like for us, and put boundaries in place. One of those boundaries was that if she felt anything was deepening beyond sex it would be communicated and would need to be a separate conversation. Intimacy that was beyond her usual level of intimacy with her friends, and outside of her sexual encounters, was something neither of us were wanting. My partner is extremely busy. The other area of our relationship that is a struggle is making sure we spend quality time together both in person and virtually.
My concern with pursuing non-monogamy outside of casual sex was that juggling other relationships would be difficult, and prioritising our relationship would be even more of a challenge than it already is and did not feel necessarily do-able in the current container. Time balance would be a big problem. My partner has less time for our relationship than either of us would like already, which leads to concerns about both of our needs being met in our relationship and the imbalance that might create.
Jump to the situation now. My partner has been engaging in a more intimate relationship for a while now, outside of the casual-sex agreement we had originally drawn up. She hasn't communicated things well or at all about other areas of our agreement, either. I'd thought we were communicating well. I was content and happy with the agreement we had, but we have been operating under different conditions. We've realised that a pattern she has of wanting to protect someone and not hurt their feelings has led to poor communication around our agreement (something which is continuing to be in play and create obstacles in communication).
To me, it feels as though she has pursued something she was not getting in our relationship without actually communicating about it with me. As a result, our conversations around this have shined a spotlight on areas of our relationship that have not been working, but we'd been unaware of until now. Part of this has also led to me not having my needs met and feeling neglected in the relationship.
I had felt a change in the dynamic of our relationship for a while and had been unable to figure out why until I found out what has been going on in her life. I had unfortunately reflected that inwards, as I thought I might be the problem. Ultimately I feel hurt. There's an element of trust that has been shaken. Now we have a lot of work to do on our relationship.
The added complication is that my partner feels they have been operating with a deficit of certain things (intimacy, sex) for such a long time that they can't show up for our relationship properly to do the repair work, without having that in her life, as it's central to her well-being and mental health. So she is asking to continue to operate in some form of an open agreement whilst we work on our relationship (physical intimacy with her other relationships, cuddling, touching, holding hands, co-sleeping). I have been doing my best to accommodate her needs and find a way to make this work.
However, I am feeling non-prioritised, neglected, lost, hurt, and confused about our relationship. I'm struggling with big feelings around it. I thought we needed to focus on repairing our relationship first before opening up again. With the focus of our conversations being around facilitating her needs being met with other people, it has made me feel frustrated and a bit resentful. I feel boundaries have been crossed; and our relationship has shifted without me being a part of that process; and that I have to catch up to where she is at; whilst trying to repair the parts of our relationship that have been neglected.
She felt that she was only poly because this need was not being met in our relationship, but she hadn't realised it wasn't being met (hence the lack of communication). But after I asked her to think about that more, she has confirmed that she thinks she is poly. I feel like I have to reassess the whole relationship.
On paper, being poly and long distance often feels like a good pairing, but my concern is that there will be an imbalance in the relationship (which is already felt); our shared time will be even more limited than it already is; that there is not currently full trust; that I'm still not getting full honesty; and things will continue to shift and change in big ways; etc. It's feeling very overwhelming for me. I have lost stability and trust in our relationship.
There's also an imbalance in resources. My partner has support from a poly community, and a queer poly therapist. I don't really have any poly friends or anyone I can reach out to for support, who will have an understanding of this situation. My therapist is a regular psychologist who doesn't specialise in this area. I'm researching and reading books, but I just don't know what I'm doing.
I've read that you should focus on fixing things in your relationship first, before opening up or pursuing poly. I've read that it's not a healthy motivation to pursue poly to fill a need that is missing in your primary relationship, unless that's been agreed upon. But I know that a lot of motivation for poly is because one person can not be everything to someone.
Does anyone has more clarity on this? I'm seeking some advice and resources. I'm kind of floundering in the dark. I want to make sure that both of our needs are being met and we can repair the issues that have been under the surface in our relationship. I'd appreciate anything anyone has to offer.
This is a long post, but I tried to summarise the situation as briefly as possible.
My partner and I have been in a long-distance relationship for almost 6 years. Prior to this, she had been in a long-term relationship with someone for 9 years, from the age of about 17. They had been primarily monogamous, with the exception of some exploration around her sexuality. (She is bisexual.) The relationship wasn't particularly healthy and there were a lot of problems. The restrictive container of their relationship and borderline controlling and emotionally manipulative behaviour from her ex did result in infidelity on her part a couple of times. He was resistant to couple's counseling and after trying to make it work, she broke it off, having been kind of over it for a long while.
We then met a few months later. We didn't rush the relationship, at first. My concerns were that she had just gotten out of a 9-year relationship that was restrictive, and I wanted her to be able to explore herself and other people outside of that relationship. We had quite a whirlwind casual situationship for a few months, and then we ended up proceeding into a committed relationship after about 8 months. We had met up during that time quite frequently for mini trips away. Our plan for a long time has been that she would move here to live with me once she had finished studying.
Our relationship has always been really strong, unrestrictive and independent, with good communication in many areas. We see each other in person at least 3-4 times a year, for at least 4 weeks at a time, the longest being 3 months a couple of times.
I'd mostly been in monogamous relationships previously, with one very serious relationship which lasted about 3 years. I had explored a poly relationship once, but it didn't last very long. (It didn't feel particularly ethical to me and I felt it wasn't worth pursuing further.) I've always been very chill in my relationships, prioritising personal freedom, with minimal expectations of my partners. I have very close relationships with my friends and I don't rely on a partner to be everything for me.
My partner is a very naturally flirtatious person with lots of poly friends, and has physical intimacy with a lot of her platonic friends. They all love being touchy feely. I've always embraced this aspect of her and her friendships. However, poly has always been something I've struggled to pursue because 1) I'm demisexual and I need to have a strong emotional connection with someone to pursue anything romantic and sexual, 2) it's quite rare for me to meet someone where having a strong emotional connection leads to sexual or romantic desire, 3) I'm not in any poly circles, 4) I have a disability which makes it hard for me to manage and show up for more than one relationship and look after myself, 5) I have trauma around sexual abuse and this can complicate how I navigate sex and intimacy.
I've never felt a desire to have multiple partners, because I feel I am equally happy with a relationship as I am without a relationship. I've spent a lot of time being single, and I've always enjoyed being single just as much as I have enjoyed being in a relationship. My partner has also always thought of themselves as being monogamous when it came to romantic relationships and expressed that openly to me.
Which brings me to the current situation. The area in which we have struggled in partnership is that my partner has a high sex drive, and with the combination of my disability and being long distance, this area of our relationship can be complicated. Then COVID happened and we didn't see each other physically for a year-and-a-half to 2 years. Aware of my partner's needs, I brought up the idea of opening up the relationship to casual sex. We drew up what that would look like for us, and put boundaries in place. One of those boundaries was that if she felt anything was deepening beyond sex it would be communicated and would need to be a separate conversation. Intimacy that was beyond her usual level of intimacy with her friends, and outside of her sexual encounters, was something neither of us were wanting. My partner is extremely busy. The other area of our relationship that is a struggle is making sure we spend quality time together both in person and virtually.
My concern with pursuing non-monogamy outside of casual sex was that juggling other relationships would be difficult, and prioritising our relationship would be even more of a challenge than it already is and did not feel necessarily do-able in the current container. Time balance would be a big problem. My partner has less time for our relationship than either of us would like already, which leads to concerns about both of our needs being met in our relationship and the imbalance that might create.
Jump to the situation now. My partner has been engaging in a more intimate relationship for a while now, outside of the casual-sex agreement we had originally drawn up. She hasn't communicated things well or at all about other areas of our agreement, either. I'd thought we were communicating well. I was content and happy with the agreement we had, but we have been operating under different conditions. We've realised that a pattern she has of wanting to protect someone and not hurt their feelings has led to poor communication around our agreement (something which is continuing to be in play and create obstacles in communication).
To me, it feels as though she has pursued something she was not getting in our relationship without actually communicating about it with me. As a result, our conversations around this have shined a spotlight on areas of our relationship that have not been working, but we'd been unaware of until now. Part of this has also led to me not having my needs met and feeling neglected in the relationship.
I had felt a change in the dynamic of our relationship for a while and had been unable to figure out why until I found out what has been going on in her life. I had unfortunately reflected that inwards, as I thought I might be the problem. Ultimately I feel hurt. There's an element of trust that has been shaken. Now we have a lot of work to do on our relationship.
The added complication is that my partner feels they have been operating with a deficit of certain things (intimacy, sex) for such a long time that they can't show up for our relationship properly to do the repair work, without having that in her life, as it's central to her well-being and mental health. So she is asking to continue to operate in some form of an open agreement whilst we work on our relationship (physical intimacy with her other relationships, cuddling, touching, holding hands, co-sleeping). I have been doing my best to accommodate her needs and find a way to make this work.
However, I am feeling non-prioritised, neglected, lost, hurt, and confused about our relationship. I'm struggling with big feelings around it. I thought we needed to focus on repairing our relationship first before opening up again. With the focus of our conversations being around facilitating her needs being met with other people, it has made me feel frustrated and a bit resentful. I feel boundaries have been crossed; and our relationship has shifted without me being a part of that process; and that I have to catch up to where she is at; whilst trying to repair the parts of our relationship that have been neglected.
She felt that she was only poly because this need was not being met in our relationship, but she hadn't realised it wasn't being met (hence the lack of communication). But after I asked her to think about that more, she has confirmed that she thinks she is poly. I feel like I have to reassess the whole relationship.
On paper, being poly and long distance often feels like a good pairing, but my concern is that there will be an imbalance in the relationship (which is already felt); our shared time will be even more limited than it already is; that there is not currently full trust; that I'm still not getting full honesty; and things will continue to shift and change in big ways; etc. It's feeling very overwhelming for me. I have lost stability and trust in our relationship.
There's also an imbalance in resources. My partner has support from a poly community, and a queer poly therapist. I don't really have any poly friends or anyone I can reach out to for support, who will have an understanding of this situation. My therapist is a regular psychologist who doesn't specialise in this area. I'm researching and reading books, but I just don't know what I'm doing.
I've read that you should focus on fixing things in your relationship first, before opening up or pursuing poly. I've read that it's not a healthy motivation to pursue poly to fill a need that is missing in your primary relationship, unless that's been agreed upon. But I know that a lot of motivation for poly is because one person can not be everything to someone.
Does anyone has more clarity on this? I'm seeking some advice and resources. I'm kind of floundering in the dark. I want to make sure that both of our needs are being met and we can repair the issues that have been under the surface in our relationship. I'd appreciate anything anyone has to offer.
This is a long post, but I tried to summarise the situation as briefly as possible.
