we have an ktp style relationship. hinge and I have been together for close to 7 years, living together for 6,5. it‘s been pretty much all of our adult lives.

he and meta have been together for 9ish months. before entering this relationship, it wae very important for him that meta and I get along. we do, we‘ve built a friendship over time and while were not really super close, we genuinely enjoy spending time with each other and talking about the gods and the universe.

in the past two months, things have gotten a bit more difficult though. the rose tinted glasses have worn off and - while I don‘t know any off the details - it‘s sometimes been hard between the two of them. apparently they have very different styles of communication and it‘s a lot of work to find a common ground and learn to understand each other. that‘s all I know and want to know. we have the agreement that hinge communicates to the univolved partner when things are currently difficult between him and his other partner, but none of the details. it‘s important to know that it is because we‘ve found that this makes things a bit easier.

the ktp style relationship turned out to be challenging in ways I haven‘t expected. especially since meta‘s and hinge‘s relationship are vastly different from hinge‘s and mine. they have very different foundations and circumstances, and while meta and I are quite similar in some ways, we are polar opposites in others.

I feel like the time to have a serious conversation about feelings and boundaries has finally come. there have been some situations where I felt quite hurt by hinge‘s actions that involved meta. I don‘t see any fault on her side, she most likely just assumed I was fine with it since I never communicated my needs and boundaries to her. so far we‘ve viewed making sure that needs are met and boundaries upheld as hinge‘s responsibility since he‘s, well, the hinge.

but after talking to my best friend about everything I think meta and I need to take up part of that responsibility as well, since the three of us regularly spend time together and as much as we‘d lime to view both of hinge‘s relationships as seperate from each other, they are intertwined and there are three people involved, not two times two. and if the three of us keep spending time together, either by ourselves or as part of a larger group (where a notable part of the hurtful situations happened), we all need to be aware of everyone‘s boundaries and relevant needs.

and here‘s the thing: I‘m scared shitless of having this conversation. I have trust issues that make it extremely hard to communicate my feelings and boundaries. my partner, my best friend and my therapist are the only people I can openly talk to about these things and - especially in my partner‘s case - it‘s been lots of hard work. he helped my lay the foundation to build trust to both my therapist of two years and my best friend of 3 years. they‘re easy people to trust though, since the further is literally trained to be kind and understanding towards her clients and the latter has many similar struggles to me and we just vibe with each other in a way I‘ve never experienced with anyone else. also, partner has adhd, best friend is autistic and I‘m most likely autistic as well, so all three of these trusted people understand neurodivergent struggles and they take what I say at face value.

meta on the other hand is neurotypical according to hinge. she communicates very different to him and that has lead to occasions of her interpreting nonexistent subtext into things my partner said. she seems to struggle a lot with taking something at face value. (she‘s also told me about a past abusive relationship with a very jealous person that probably feeds into this.) this adds to my fear of having this conversation. not only have we not built that kind of intimate friendship that is necessary for me to be able to openly and freely communicate my needs and boundaries, but we also have vastly different communication styles. this makes me worry that, no matter how (imo) clearly I communicate that I don‘t see any ill will or wrongdoings on her side because she most likely simply wasn‘t/isn‘t aware of my needs and boundaries, she might read subtext into it that just isn‘t there. I‘m worried that she might take the blame for something she didn‘t do wrong. I‘m also worried that I might drive a wedge between her and hinge, or to cause conflict because he didn‘t uphold my boundaries or didn‘t communicate them to her.

friendly reminder: this is mostly my anxiety speaking. it‘s all our first poly relationship and we‘re figuring things out as we go. we‘re all humans, and it‘s the most human thing to make mistakes, but we‘re constantly working on learning how to avoid them.

anyway, I need to somehow communicate my needs and boundaries to a person who isn‘t „safe“ to my emotional and traumatized side (even though rationally she is!) and I am fucking scared of it. I want to do it in a way she understands but I don‘t know her well enough to understand her communication style, and nt communication is generally hard for me. I feel like I need to go into lots of detail to properly explain myself, but I‘m worried that a) too much detail might lead to confusion or her being more inclined to interpeting nonexistent subtext into it and b) overstepping hinge‘s boundaries by sharing stuff with her that he‘d rather tell her himself or views as something exclusively between him and me and doesn‘t want to share with her at all.

the alternative to that is having another talk with my partner and if these problematic instances keep happening I‘ll remove myself from the situaions in which they usually occur and not be part of larger groups if meta is present as well anymore. spending time with just hinge and meta is different, so I‘d need to just see how it goes.

breaking up with hinge is not an option. neither is asking him to break up with meta (god I couldn‘t possibly do this to him and them). but putting an end to at least part of the kt aspect of this polycule is becoming more and more of an option. which would be really sad because I genuinely like meta and enjoy being friends with her.

so I guess having this conversation isn‘t avoidable if I want to keep this friendship, is it?