Hi all,
Long time lurker here
This is my first post and it's not necessarily related to poly, but I thought this would be the best place to seek some advice, seeing as how everyone is so fantastic.
Some background:
Prince and I had been dating for just over a year when, in August, my severe depression caused us to break up. Not the only factor, but a major one. After that, I moved to a new city to stay with family for a while and come to terms with things. I am in a much better place now! Prince has begun messaging me again during this time, apologizing for things, and looking to re-connect.
He very much wanted to get back together! I was super happy, though we both agreed to take things slow. Now, he'd just started seeing another girl, Mini, shortly before our break-up. I knew about, her, liked her, approved, yadda yadda. With the depression looming over me things were definitely hard to accept but even then I knew the problems were not HER or POLY.
Fast Forward a few months and they start breaking up. It was an inevitable thing, as they always knew she was (probably permanently) leaving the country. She does not handle it well; with me gone poly became very much not real to her D:
Without going into details for personal reasons . . . something happened to me that caused massive upheaval for Prince and I. Feelings got hurt, boundaries were crossed left right and center. It put a massive damper on the re-connecting.
He started seeing Mini more seriously long-distance, stopped wanting to talk about seeing me, all that good stuff.
I was in our old city a few days ago to visit friends and after some long talks it was agreed that I would spend one night with him. I was cautious but excited. We had a lovely night, a bit of an awkward morning and then . . . he said he didn't want to back together. He wanted to just be friends who love each other.
As I write this I know I should have expected that. But even after The Event he would still talk about wanting to see me! It was only the last few days that the 190 occured. I'm at a bit of a loss.
Of course I still love him, always will, so I absolutely respect this decision. He has so many other things to focus on right now (job especially) and this relationship is a huge point of stress currently.
So I guess I'm asking . . . how do I do that? How can we be friends who love each other? Should I just treat it as a break-up again, do some massive self-care, and move the fuck on? Or do I try to support him, since I know better than anyone what he's going through?
Long time lurker here
This is my first post and it's not necessarily related to poly, but I thought this would be the best place to seek some advice, seeing as how everyone is so fantastic.Some background:
Prince and I had been dating for just over a year when, in August, my severe depression caused us to break up. Not the only factor, but a major one. After that, I moved to a new city to stay with family for a while and come to terms with things. I am in a much better place now! Prince has begun messaging me again during this time, apologizing for things, and looking to re-connect.
He very much wanted to get back together! I was super happy, though we both agreed to take things slow. Now, he'd just started seeing another girl, Mini, shortly before our break-up. I knew about, her, liked her, approved, yadda yadda. With the depression looming over me things were definitely hard to accept but even then I knew the problems were not HER or POLY.
Fast Forward a few months and they start breaking up. It was an inevitable thing, as they always knew she was (probably permanently) leaving the country. She does not handle it well; with me gone poly became very much not real to her D:
Without going into details for personal reasons . . . something happened to me that caused massive upheaval for Prince and I. Feelings got hurt, boundaries were crossed left right and center. It put a massive damper on the re-connecting.
He started seeing Mini more seriously long-distance, stopped wanting to talk about seeing me, all that good stuff.
I was in our old city a few days ago to visit friends and after some long talks it was agreed that I would spend one night with him. I was cautious but excited. We had a lovely night, a bit of an awkward morning and then . . . he said he didn't want to back together. He wanted to just be friends who love each other.
As I write this I know I should have expected that. But even after The Event he would still talk about wanting to see me! It was only the last few days that the 190 occured. I'm at a bit of a loss.
Of course I still love him, always will, so I absolutely respect this decision. He has so many other things to focus on right now (job especially) and this relationship is a huge point of stress currently.
So I guess I'm asking . . . how do I do that? How can we be friends who love each other? Should I just treat it as a break-up again, do some massive self-care, and move the fuck on? Or do I try to support him, since I know better than anyone what he's going through?