Poly break ups/transitions

G

GreenMom

New member
Recently, my gf told me she'd be more comfortable as friends with occasional benefits, as she realized i was not the "exception", she isn't romantically interested in women. Also recently, my bf told me he wasn't feeling comfortable calling what we had a relationship since we could only see each other twice a month or so and live a couple hours apart, so we're now calling each other friends with benefits.

Other than semantics, little seems changed. A little less time talking and spent together. I'm having trouble figuring out how I should behave and interact with them since in my previous (monogamous) world, a break up meant a lot less affection, certainly didn't mean continuing to sleep together, etc.

Can anyone share experiences on break ups/relationship transitions where you just alter the dynamic but don't really "break up" all the way?
 
My late wife and I had a rather unusual situation in which she came down with dementia (probably Alzheimer's), and as she proceeded to slide deeper and deeper into the disease, I became less and less of a husband and more and more of a caregiver. Ugh. Not fun for either of us. We managed to end up as something more like really good friends, before she lost the last of her ability to communicate or even recognize me. :( She passed away about a year ago. If I had a genie my first wish would be to bring her back with her memory restored. Sigh ...

I know that's not much of anything like the transitions you've recently experienced, but what you described brought that to my mind right away. Who knows what all can alter a relationship in this life, eh?
 
I have really only had one relationship successfully transition. I dated Boy for over 6 months when I realized we were in vastly different places, which would eventually lead to heartbreak if I continued that path. I had to take a month or so with no contact to adjust/dismantle the expectations I had built. After a bit of time, I had information I thought he needed and contacted. It was awkward for about 5 seconds before the underlying friendship that we'd built before dating picked right back up. We're very close now - spend as much time together as we did when "in a relationship" and do pretty much the same activities (actually, more since we went on a trip).

It looks the same from the outside, but internally the way I relate to Boy is very different now. I don't NEED him. I enjoy his company, but if he's distracted and I don't hear from him for days I don't sweat it. It doesn't feel like he doesn't care about me or anything like it did when I had expectations of him to "act like a boyfriend." It's actually pretty great.
 
I've had a couple of "boyfriends" transition down to friends. We'd continue sleeping together until we felt weird about it. We have remained very good, close friends, without the romantic element.

I think my own success came from the fact that just because the label changed ("boyfriend" to "ex-boyfriend" to "friend") didn't mean that I stopped respecting them and loving them. I continued to be myself around them. The dynamics were different but dynamics change all the time. I had these experiences before I knew about poly.

I'd say if you're continuing to be honest with yourself and your friends, that's all you need. There's no proscribed way to act towards anyone, so just do what is right for you and change it as issues come up.
 
AlbertaRaven - I'm trying very hard to do just that - just to act how I act, feel how I feel, and not get as caught up in the semantics of it all. I know the semantics label important differences for the bf-turned-fwb, so I'm creating some distance and seeing how things proceed. I know that I don't want to lose him (or my gf-turned-fwb) from my life. The break-ups sting, but, I am hoping over some more time that sting will fade and I can continue to just enjoy what we can have together for what it is, not what it can't be.
 
I'm trying to do the same right now (see my blog), not entirely successfully. I think we've swung the pendulum to friends, but more than that is... not happening soon. I've been told by other friends who did manage to make something like that work that the trick is fact time; that does seem to be helping some but not as much as I'd like.
 
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