Thank you for more information. I do sympathize.
Grief is hard. You WILL feel like you are just "going through the motions" with a lot of things, at the beginning of the grieving process. Going emotionally numb or "feeling empty" is sometimes part of it too. You seem to understand you are feeling a lot of things, all up and down.
I encourage you to see a new counselor when you are able to do so. I hope you are also seeing someone for the ADHD stuff. Sometimes ADHD also comes with rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD). I don't know if you have that going on, affecting or amplifying things.
You remind me of one of my exes. When we broke up he was so determined not to accept it that he ruined any chance of us getting back together later, because he would NOT give me any space when I needed it and asked for it. He said he would do anything, but he would not do the think I asked-- give me some space. I felt suffocated. If he had LISTENED and taken a step back to work on himself and his issues, I would have been more more open to trying again with him. Instead, he wanted to latch onto me like I was his life raft. It was a huge turn-off.
I don't know if that is happening here. But if you want a shot at getting back together later on, don't do behaviors out of short-sightedness, anxiety or grief that take reconciliation off the table. Slow your roll.
That doesn't include the disregarding of the way I love someone who is important to me, more than important.
Love her all you want in your head and your heart, but figure out DIFFERENT ways to behave, as her ex. Listen to what your old counselor said.
My therapist's only decent advice on the matter is about behaving now in a way that future me could look back on and be proud of.
Tread with caution here. Hanging about and taking whatever scraps Apple offers is not dignified behavior and could be a turn-off to her. It could also hinder your ability to process your grief well. This can become a "domino effect" that makes getting back together impossible.
Besides our child, I see no real tangle that I wouldn't be willing to adjust, at any point and in any form of relationship.
Then maybe right now you could talk about not living together for a year. Still being roomies is an entanglement. You two may not be in a good place to be roomies right now.
If anyone has advice on reconciliation, I would love to hear it.
You are NOT in a poly network with Apple anymore. You two are broken up, and are just sorting out the divorce details. I see you hope to get back together again, even if not in a marriage shape. You can state that, over time, you would be open to getting back together romantically, but not deal in marriage any more. But don't keep harping on it. Once is enough. Don't hover or cling. That will just annoy her.
It is really hard for me to go into polyamory with my best friend and partner, when they start that whole journey by leaving me.
Did/do you have abandonment issues you need to work on with a counselor? If so, attend to this stuff. It will block you from getting back together later if you still haven't sorted it out. Don't let this carry into new romantic relationships either.
They have said it is nothing to do with polyamory, or my ADHD, but have only cited circumstances that honestly are related to those things.
Even if you both continue poly dating, you are no longer poly partners with each other. There is your (potential) poly network here, and her network over there, and that's it. The most she can offer right now is friendship, and she might not even be at the place to offer good friendship yet. This break-up JUST happened. She has her own grieving to do.
Because you live in this house and have to coparent, and Apple is grieving the break-up, and doesn't want to get sucked into your emotional stuff, she may be giving you "soft answers" because she doesn't know the future, and/or just wants to get you off her back for a bit. If you are hovering, and Apple is saying "right now," so it is both true AND "softens" the blow, that's what she's gonna do to try to get you to give her some EMOTIONAL SPACE, since she cannot have physical space away from you. Are you able to see that?
Even if the ultimate goal is cohabitation to make coparenting easier, you two might talk about a year of living apart, so you both get some space to heal from the break-up-- mental space, emotional space, and physical space, and so she can SEE that you are trying new things, trying to make changes, trying to stand on your own two feet more and need her less.
You could also reimagine what "living together" looks like. In the same duplex? In the same building, but different flats? You may not be ready to think about all of this because the split just happened. But don't take it off the table.
I'm simply trying to figure out how I'm going to process this transition, and what I can do to legitimately end up with her again as I would like to. I'm not suggesting I can, not it's also not impossible. She and I have not played this long because we handled our relationship like everyone else. If there's an exception here, we're capable of it.
Sometimes people divorce and remarry. I know two couples who did that, so I'm not going to say it's impossible. But these couples who got back together all spent some time living on their own first.
If you hope to have a shot at that, you have to stand on your own two feet more. You say she's your best friend... but how about leaning on OTHER friends for a bit, NOT on HER? Your soon-to-be-ex (STBX) is not the right person to lean on for help with break-up grief. They have their own grief to process.
You think some of this was your approach to poly and your misunderstanding of communication, honesty, and transparency. Possibly you overshared or overdid it. Well, work on that then. It can't hurt. And you are still poly-dating, so you need to improve your poly skills anyway.
You think some of it was your ADHD dx. It's new to you and you are trying to learn how to manage it. Well, work on that then. That won't hurt. Regardless of whom you are dating, you will have to learn to manage your ADHD stuff.
I'm becoming pretty aware that "right now" is not the window of opportunity for the future as it sounds.
All "right now" means is "at the present time." If you are hearing additional words in your head like, "But later on we can get back together," YOU are adding words that were not spoken, from your own wishful thinking.
That's not how I see it. It's more a desire to understand history so I don't repeat it. I learned the concept growing up and it became super important to me because of ADHD and finding myself in the position of having gone overboard and not noticing how I ruined things for everyone, when only moments ago I thought we were all having fun. I have some things I resent happening, but I'm happy to forgive everything. I just want to understand what I'm forgiving.
Some of the people with ADHD in my life have this issue. Overthinking something is part of their whole "going overboard" package-- the "original" going overboard, and then a second wave of going overboard by overthinking, in the quest to never repeat it again. It's a tall order to "never" do something. It's easier and kinder to yourself to think, "All right. I'm not going to do that again
on purpose, but if it does happen somehow, by mistake, I will cope by doing X."
ADHD often comes with some perfectionism and guilt/shame spiraling. If you have any of these exacerbating symptoms, you might reflect on what to do about them.
I hope things get better for you bit by bit. It's fine to want to be present for both Sunshine and Apple as a decent coparent. Just don't neglect showing up for your OWN self.
Really think about getting a counselor as soon as you can.
Galagirl
