I have posted here a few times, tho I don't know that those posts are relevant to this particular issue. I tried posting in the polyam sub and didn't get much feedback, so I'm doing a bit of a rewrite and trying again. I'm wondering if there might be more long-term ENM folx here who have navigated this experience.

Me (late 40s F) & my partner Marc (mid 40s M) are both very experienced in polyamory, together over 15 years, him polyam over 20 years me polyam nearly 20 years. His partner Alize (mid 30s F) is the least experienced, about 7 years.

There has always been something that I couldn't quite put my finger on, that I felt was an issue. It's been elusive and seemed polyamory-related, but it wasn't until seeing a recent spate of posts on here that I realized that the problem is my partner is absolutely awful as a hinge.

I am currently reading the "How to Hinge - beginner's guide" post from the polyamory subreddit for my own education.

We have a couples therapist, but she's on haitus for about 2 more months due to giving birth. Right now, I feel comfortable waiting until she's back, if that's the best idea. I currently plan on tackling specific issues if/when they come up, but I would also like to flat-out let him know he's been a horrible hinge, and that he needs to read up and rework his hinge game substantially because his sloppy hinging has hurt me a number of times (of course I will be a lot more tactful than "you're a horrible hinge").

A couple of examples of his bad hinging:

• The first one is the most basic one that I've read a lot of about: he very rarely phrases things as requests from *him*, it's always coming from my meta. It has bothered me for years, even though I know that he has issues with figuring out what he wants for himself (something we've talked about between ourselves many times, and something that he continues to work with his therapist on). But my general feeling is that if it's important enough for him to ASK ME, then he needs to own it as something that HE WANTS.

• He's really bad at making sure he consistently brings good energy to our dates when Alize is around. When she's lived with us for 2 months previously, he was bad at it. She likes to do much more physical things than I do, and he regularly tires himself out enough on their date that he's just up for laying around relaxing on ours and is low energy. He has (pretty rarely, but still, more than zero) asked us to cancel plans and stay in and chill, because of how tired he is. I have talked to him about this several times (each as a discreet instance, not as a trend), and one of the things that I want to address with him specifically is that he needs to be mindful of how our plans all interact, and either get better about conserving his energy so he has it for our dates too OR he needs to have a buffer day or two of his alone time between her dates and our dates.

• Last example: We're still working our way toward Alize moving in with us. Due to a bunch of logistics, it seems like it can't happen for at least a year, possibly more. In our discussions about it, I have said that I'm totally happy to completely redecorate/repaint/move around or get rid of furniture so that it feel's like Alize's home too. I have said this directly to Alize multiple times. After Alize's most recent visit, Marc seemed extra glum and almost anxious. I asked him if something was going on past the usual sadness of Alize leaving. He told me that Alize was "having some feelings" about some new decorating I did with stencils & decals. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm jumping to conclusions about those feelings being negative, based on Marc's behavior. There's zero fucking reason for me to know this as far as I'm concerned. None. I've already told her repeatedly that anything and everything can change. From visiting her home, I was under the impression that we have similar decorating styles, so I also genuinely have no idea why she'd be having strong enough feelings about this that they'd stress Marc out. But I shouldn't be thinking about this at all! And of course, now it's going to be on my mind, and I'm trying to reframe it as an exercise in letting go, because I don't want to know, and it shouldn't be my thing to know about anyways.

I want to hear from people who have tackled this issue with a partner, especially with someone who has been polyamorous a loooooooong time, and probably believes very solidly that they're "doing it right". Are there any particular pitfalls? Any advice on how to bring it up? Ways to share info?

Would love to hear any advice from those who have been in similar situations!