DarkSavant
New member
Hello everyone,
I am in a crossroads in my life and was hoping to get some insight from others with poly experience.
I will describe my two partners as Red and Blue, who are both male. The first part will describe my relationship with Red and give some background. The latter part will describe my current situation. There is a lot to unpack, so here’s a brief summary of my situation:
TLDR summary:
Blue believes I have been in an unhealthy relationship with Red, who has been brainwashing me for years, and wants me to leave that relationship. Red believes Blue is a toxic homewrecker, who has been brainwashing me. I have an 11 year history with Red, and my future career as well as shared dreams/life goals are closely tied to Red. (Red and I started a company together with some friends, and if we break up, I will most likely need to leave that company). I have dated Blue about 1.5 years, and feel a strong, healthy connection to him. I feel like Blue treats me really well. Red wants to be the only primary relationship, while Blue would also like to be treated as a primary. I am at the point where I have to pick between Red and Blue.
Part I : Red
I am a gay male who has been in a relationship with Red for about 11 years. Red was my first relationship. We met each other online, emailed each other for a few months, finally met in real life and hit it off. We became officially boyfriends after 2 weeks of meeting each other, and moved in together after about 5 months. We started out as an exclusive, monogamous couple, but maybe about 2-3 years into our relationship Red had cheated on me with one of his best friend’s boyfriends. (I will refer to the best friend as N.) This resulted in a falling out between N and Red for a while. Eventually N got over it and they are still friends with Red today. I probably should have been more angry at Red for what happened, but I also forgave him.
Once, Red and I went to a convention for gay gamers (video gamers). Anyone was welcome of course, but it was geared towards the LGBTQ community. A few days later, I took a train in order to attend a funeral for the father of one of my childhood friends. Red had called me while I was on the train and somehow our conversation led to him asking me if I found anyone cute or attractive at the convention. I said, “Yes,” and Red told me that he thought our relationship wouldn’t be able to work out and proceeded to break up with me. I don’t remember how much time passed but at some point later he took it back. I don’t remember if he apologized, but I would like to assume so.
For the first 6-7 years of my relationship with Red, somehow it was okay for him to sleep with / date other men, but it wasn’t for me. Some of his reasoning for this was that I was/am naive, and that getting involved with another man would change me and change our relationship. There would be several instances over these first 6-7 years of similarly themed variations of Red being unfair and wielding most of the power in the relationship (At least, I think most would agree on this.). I probably don’t have time to get into every instance, but I might add later if I have time. But the point is that there was an imbalance in the relationship.
About 7 years into the relationship (in 2015) Red introduced me to some people, and I ended up feeling very physically attracted to one of them. We’ll call him C. I think Red could tell that I was attracted to C, because he asked me if I was indeed attracted to C, and I told him “Yes.” Red responded with anger and jealousy. At some point I told Red that I wanted to have sex with C if he was open to it. Of course the answer was “No.” Red primary reasoning was that C was a bad person, that he was racist because he used the N-word. (C was Caucasian). My perspective on this was that C was only using the N-word in a joking manner with an “-a” and not a hard “-er”, not that it justifies it or is appropriate, but his intentions with using the word weren’t malicious in nature. I think C was one of those people who wanted to act like he was from the “hood” in order to be funny. In any case, Red did not approve, and when I asked C how he felt about me, he said he was also attracted to me, but that Red told him that I was not interested in C.
I thought this was strange, and I felt it was hypocritical of Red to not allow me the same privileges and freedoms that I had given him over the years. Eventually I decided to cheat on Red with C. I admitted to Red about the cheating on the same day it happened. The result was not pretty. One could only really describe it as seeing someone transform into a monster.
He told me it was the first time anyone had ever cheated on him. I cried and I felt a lot of guilt and shame over hurting Red. Red wanted to break up, kick me out, and stop supporting me in any financial way. (At this point I was financially dependent on Red because we had moved and I no longer was working full-time as I did before.) I tried to sleep in another room that night but the door had no lock. I did not feel safe, even though Red had never threatened me with physical violence before. Later that night, Red told me to perform oral sex on him while he recorded me with his phone. I complied and he said that if I ever fucked up again that he would put it on the internet.
Eventually, Red slowly forgave me, citing that his primary reason for giving me another chance was because his parents had told him how lucky he was to have me. Red did some more sleeping around in the following months, perhaps to get back at me. When my younger brother came to visit me, Red made sexual advances towards my brother. They were both extremely inebriated and high from weed. Red immediately told me and apologized to both of us. I was angry, but I forgave Red. I ended up cheating on Red some more times with C until I got caught. This time Red’s reaction was rather tame in comparison. He was more disappointed than angry, and he didn’t make any threats. I think at this point Red may have decided that he wanted to work on his jealousy and treating me more fairly. This was when we started to think about becoming poly.
I am in a crossroads in my life and was hoping to get some insight from others with poly experience.
I will describe my two partners as Red and Blue, who are both male. The first part will describe my relationship with Red and give some background. The latter part will describe my current situation. There is a lot to unpack, so here’s a brief summary of my situation:
TLDR summary:
Blue believes I have been in an unhealthy relationship with Red, who has been brainwashing me for years, and wants me to leave that relationship. Red believes Blue is a toxic homewrecker, who has been brainwashing me. I have an 11 year history with Red, and my future career as well as shared dreams/life goals are closely tied to Red. (Red and I started a company together with some friends, and if we break up, I will most likely need to leave that company). I have dated Blue about 1.5 years, and feel a strong, healthy connection to him. I feel like Blue treats me really well. Red wants to be the only primary relationship, while Blue would also like to be treated as a primary. I am at the point where I have to pick between Red and Blue.
Part I : Red
I am a gay male who has been in a relationship with Red for about 11 years. Red was my first relationship. We met each other online, emailed each other for a few months, finally met in real life and hit it off. We became officially boyfriends after 2 weeks of meeting each other, and moved in together after about 5 months. We started out as an exclusive, monogamous couple, but maybe about 2-3 years into our relationship Red had cheated on me with one of his best friend’s boyfriends. (I will refer to the best friend as N.) This resulted in a falling out between N and Red for a while. Eventually N got over it and they are still friends with Red today. I probably should have been more angry at Red for what happened, but I also forgave him.
Once, Red and I went to a convention for gay gamers (video gamers). Anyone was welcome of course, but it was geared towards the LGBTQ community. A few days later, I took a train in order to attend a funeral for the father of one of my childhood friends. Red had called me while I was on the train and somehow our conversation led to him asking me if I found anyone cute or attractive at the convention. I said, “Yes,” and Red told me that he thought our relationship wouldn’t be able to work out and proceeded to break up with me. I don’t remember how much time passed but at some point later he took it back. I don’t remember if he apologized, but I would like to assume so.
For the first 6-7 years of my relationship with Red, somehow it was okay for him to sleep with / date other men, but it wasn’t for me. Some of his reasoning for this was that I was/am naive, and that getting involved with another man would change me and change our relationship. There would be several instances over these first 6-7 years of similarly themed variations of Red being unfair and wielding most of the power in the relationship (At least, I think most would agree on this.). I probably don’t have time to get into every instance, but I might add later if I have time. But the point is that there was an imbalance in the relationship.
About 7 years into the relationship (in 2015) Red introduced me to some people, and I ended up feeling very physically attracted to one of them. We’ll call him C. I think Red could tell that I was attracted to C, because he asked me if I was indeed attracted to C, and I told him “Yes.” Red responded with anger and jealousy. At some point I told Red that I wanted to have sex with C if he was open to it. Of course the answer was “No.” Red primary reasoning was that C was a bad person, that he was racist because he used the N-word. (C was Caucasian). My perspective on this was that C was only using the N-word in a joking manner with an “-a” and not a hard “-er”, not that it justifies it or is appropriate, but his intentions with using the word weren’t malicious in nature. I think C was one of those people who wanted to act like he was from the “hood” in order to be funny. In any case, Red did not approve, and when I asked C how he felt about me, he said he was also attracted to me, but that Red told him that I was not interested in C.
I thought this was strange, and I felt it was hypocritical of Red to not allow me the same privileges and freedoms that I had given him over the years. Eventually I decided to cheat on Red with C. I admitted to Red about the cheating on the same day it happened. The result was not pretty. One could only really describe it as seeing someone transform into a monster.
He told me it was the first time anyone had ever cheated on him. I cried and I felt a lot of guilt and shame over hurting Red. Red wanted to break up, kick me out, and stop supporting me in any financial way. (At this point I was financially dependent on Red because we had moved and I no longer was working full-time as I did before.) I tried to sleep in another room that night but the door had no lock. I did not feel safe, even though Red had never threatened me with physical violence before. Later that night, Red told me to perform oral sex on him while he recorded me with his phone. I complied and he said that if I ever fucked up again that he would put it on the internet.
Eventually, Red slowly forgave me, citing that his primary reason for giving me another chance was because his parents had told him how lucky he was to have me. Red did some more sleeping around in the following months, perhaps to get back at me. When my younger brother came to visit me, Red made sexual advances towards my brother. They were both extremely inebriated and high from weed. Red immediately told me and apologized to both of us. I was angry, but I forgave Red. I ended up cheating on Red some more times with C until I got caught. This time Red’s reaction was rather tame in comparison. He was more disappointed than angry, and he didn’t make any threats. I think at this point Red may have decided that he wanted to work on his jealousy and treating me more fairly. This was when we started to think about becoming poly.