This is a reflection, a confused post to get a wider idea of what went wrong and to see if I am being unreasonable here. None of my friends are poly. It is incredibly difficult having to explain the intricacies of what happened and how I felt in this relationship with people who do not accept the idea of polyamory. It would be really helpful to get opinions from other polys about this.
I am a bisexual androgynous AFAB in my 30s. This is the story of my first poly relationship that did not go very well.
Two years ago I started dating this guy who is also bi. I knew that he'd just broken up with his gf with whom he'd had an open relationship. They were primary partners and everyone else that they'd see was just for sex, with no emotional involvement. They could only have sex with their same sex.
So, a lot of rules there. It sounded a bit controlling to me, and like the girlfriend agreed on having an open relationship only because she really liked the guy.
Anyway, we start dating. His intentions were not immediately clear; it was important to him to keep things 'magical.' He said sharing information about other people he was seeing could take a toll on the 'magic.' I thought that not knowing would suit me okay, and I went with it, not knowing that this would have bigger consequences later on..
After a few months of dating, I managed to make him comfortable enough to share information about his other partners, saying that it was important for me to know, as it was part of his life, after all, and because it was important for me to understand where my place was in all of this, and whether I wanted to keep seeing him. This felt really scary, as we were already emotionally involved, and the sex was amazing and we had a lot of things in common. Things felt really exciting.
He opened up a bit, sharing that he had a number of sexual partners, and two other partners that he had emotional bonds with. He disclosed what these partners did, their names, etc. Nothing too intimate. It was enough information for me and he asked whether this was all okay with me and if we could keep seeing each other. I agreed to keep seeing him, as it sounded like he was being open and honest, even if I felt that there was still a little bit of anxiety in sharing, worrying that things wouldn't work out, or that he would be asked more. His previous relationship didn't work because his previous gf started to be controlling and asked and shared a lot of details, and this eventually made them both upset and paranoid.
I was also seeing other people at the time. I have dated other people while seeing him, but I never had the same emotional intensity with them. But I thought it didn't matter and that every relationship looked and felt different.
Half a year goes by like this and it's all fine. Sometimes I get upset if he disappears for a few days without getting in touch, without giving explanations and it was me having to figure out that he must have been busy with someone else. In the meantime, he has a big break-up with one of the partners with whom he has an emotional bond. That is because this person started to feel very jealous of me and of the time we spent together, especially because while he is with me, he disappears and does not text them back for days.
Another few months follow, and he meets another person, with whom he initially says that he doesn't have an emotional bond. But after a few months, he tells me that this partner said they loved him, and he said it back. This new person becomes the other person that he sees the most, apart from me. He splits his time between the two of us, and now and then he spends time with the other occasional sexual partners and ONS. I stopped being referred to as 'my favourite partner,' which always made me cringe anyway, as my guts knew that this could change. I am not given priority. I have to face more weekends of him vanishing, knowing that he is spending time with this other partner. I kept myself busy, but the crippling feeling of being forgotten and the lack of checking in makes me spiral and I stop feeling secure.
After a few months in, there is talk about meeting as he wants to have a threesome with us. The meeting does not go well, there is a no PDA veto placed from his other partner, and things feel pretty tense. I feel observed and scrutinised. The place and circumstance chosen to meet are not great, chosen a bit clumsily and I think this had a huge effect on how things went.
This is when it all started to feel on edge. The general tension between this weird V makes me feel like I am missing important pieces of information and from this point on, everything starts to feel on his terms and it goes more and more towards this: 'I can give you just this amount of time. I am spending my birthday away with my friends, I am going on holiday with this other partner,' which could be a normal reinforcement of boundaries perhaps, but it felt imbalanced. Maybe because I never reinforced mine? But I wanted to spend time with him whenever it was possible, as we were long distance and because I liked our time together! If I knew I had some time to go on holiday, I wanted to go on holiday with him, spend my b'day with him, go see my family with him.
I communicated my feelings of insecurity and asked whether it was possible to be a little bit more communicative and whether I could know a little bit more about the nature of his new relationships, whether I could meet my metamours (either 1-1 or with him present) and spend some time altogether. But the responses I'd get would always be surrounded by a huge sense of anxiety and of wanting to keep things as they were; alternating weekends and dividing holidays and knowing very little about the other partners.
I decided to end things as it all started to feel one-sided, but I wonder whether I could have done anything differently. He feels like it was a very abrupt break-up, and he is really sad about it. But he is also not doing anything to mend it or to propose a different solution, a different way to spend his time or disclose information, which makes me feel even more rejected and taken for granted.
This is also making me wonder whether I am poly or not, or whether I have just had a really difficult first experience with someone anxious and avoidant.
I know that this does not really goes into much detail, and that I have missed a lot of hues, but I would appreciate any outside perspective on this, any advice or comments. I'm happy to respond to questions, if any of you has got any.
Thank you!
I am a bisexual androgynous AFAB in my 30s. This is the story of my first poly relationship that did not go very well.
Two years ago I started dating this guy who is also bi. I knew that he'd just broken up with his gf with whom he'd had an open relationship. They were primary partners and everyone else that they'd see was just for sex, with no emotional involvement. They could only have sex with their same sex.
So, a lot of rules there. It sounded a bit controlling to me, and like the girlfriend agreed on having an open relationship only because she really liked the guy.
Anyway, we start dating. His intentions were not immediately clear; it was important to him to keep things 'magical.' He said sharing information about other people he was seeing could take a toll on the 'magic.' I thought that not knowing would suit me okay, and I went with it, not knowing that this would have bigger consequences later on..
After a few months of dating, I managed to make him comfortable enough to share information about his other partners, saying that it was important for me to know, as it was part of his life, after all, and because it was important for me to understand where my place was in all of this, and whether I wanted to keep seeing him. This felt really scary, as we were already emotionally involved, and the sex was amazing and we had a lot of things in common. Things felt really exciting.
He opened up a bit, sharing that he had a number of sexual partners, and two other partners that he had emotional bonds with. He disclosed what these partners did, their names, etc. Nothing too intimate. It was enough information for me and he asked whether this was all okay with me and if we could keep seeing each other. I agreed to keep seeing him, as it sounded like he was being open and honest, even if I felt that there was still a little bit of anxiety in sharing, worrying that things wouldn't work out, or that he would be asked more. His previous relationship didn't work because his previous gf started to be controlling and asked and shared a lot of details, and this eventually made them both upset and paranoid.
I was also seeing other people at the time. I have dated other people while seeing him, but I never had the same emotional intensity with them. But I thought it didn't matter and that every relationship looked and felt different.
Half a year goes by like this and it's all fine. Sometimes I get upset if he disappears for a few days without getting in touch, without giving explanations and it was me having to figure out that he must have been busy with someone else. In the meantime, he has a big break-up with one of the partners with whom he has an emotional bond. That is because this person started to feel very jealous of me and of the time we spent together, especially because while he is with me, he disappears and does not text them back for days.
Another few months follow, and he meets another person, with whom he initially says that he doesn't have an emotional bond. But after a few months, he tells me that this partner said they loved him, and he said it back. This new person becomes the other person that he sees the most, apart from me. He splits his time between the two of us, and now and then he spends time with the other occasional sexual partners and ONS. I stopped being referred to as 'my favourite partner,' which always made me cringe anyway, as my guts knew that this could change. I am not given priority. I have to face more weekends of him vanishing, knowing that he is spending time with this other partner. I kept myself busy, but the crippling feeling of being forgotten and the lack of checking in makes me spiral and I stop feeling secure.
After a few months in, there is talk about meeting as he wants to have a threesome with us. The meeting does not go well, there is a no PDA veto placed from his other partner, and things feel pretty tense. I feel observed and scrutinised. The place and circumstance chosen to meet are not great, chosen a bit clumsily and I think this had a huge effect on how things went.
This is when it all started to feel on edge. The general tension between this weird V makes me feel like I am missing important pieces of information and from this point on, everything starts to feel on his terms and it goes more and more towards this: 'I can give you just this amount of time. I am spending my birthday away with my friends, I am going on holiday with this other partner,' which could be a normal reinforcement of boundaries perhaps, but it felt imbalanced. Maybe because I never reinforced mine? But I wanted to spend time with him whenever it was possible, as we were long distance and because I liked our time together! If I knew I had some time to go on holiday, I wanted to go on holiday with him, spend my b'day with him, go see my family with him.
I communicated my feelings of insecurity and asked whether it was possible to be a little bit more communicative and whether I could know a little bit more about the nature of his new relationships, whether I could meet my metamours (either 1-1 or with him present) and spend some time altogether. But the responses I'd get would always be surrounded by a huge sense of anxiety and of wanting to keep things as they were; alternating weekends and dividing holidays and knowing very little about the other partners.
I decided to end things as it all started to feel one-sided, but I wonder whether I could have done anything differently. He feels like it was a very abrupt break-up, and he is really sad about it. But he is also not doing anything to mend it or to propose a different solution, a different way to spend his time or disclose information, which makes me feel even more rejected and taken for granted.
This is also making me wonder whether I am poly or not, or whether I have just had a really difficult first experience with someone anxious and avoidant.
I know that this does not really goes into much detail, and that I have missed a lot of hues, but I would appreciate any outside perspective on this, any advice or comments. I'm happy to respond to questions, if any of you has got any.
Thank you!
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