Hey there ♥️

Long story short, I (32M) have been in a relationship for 1,5 years with someone (34F, let's call her Diana) who is herself in a relationship with her NP (35M - mono people would say it's a platonic relationship). After 10 months of her being my only partner, we have decided to de-escalate and truly consider our relationship as secondary.

'Secondary' to her main (16-year-long) relationship with her NP, and on my side of things, to an hypothetical future relationship.

I'm posting here because I'd like some insight from other SoPo folk who might be in similar situations or simply have an advice to give, on how I should approach things.

(My main reddit account is too obviously linked to my other socials, and Diana her NP's poly relationship isn't out to everyone, so this I post this from a newly created anonymous account for their sake)

For reasons a bit too long to explain here, after my last breakup, Diana and I decided to keep our relationship exclusive, to find a form of reassurance after some rough times. For a good while, it felt great to have her as my only partner because I felt that my needs were filled. Time went on, she started working more, valued time with her NP a bit more (I'd say that the NRE had passed, on her side) and found herself asking me for space more and more. I respect that, and gave her that space, but we went from seeing each other 3 times a week to as low as once a week of once every two weeks (proper quality time I mean).

(Oh : when things go south, my attachement style is anxious and hers is avoidant 🙃 so... they have went south a few times ahem. When it works though, it's beautiful and so powerful ❤️‍🔥)

I voiced that it was becoming too painful, too often — and last week we ended up agreeing on a few things : - There has been a unbalance in the fact that she lives with another partner and I can't develop another relationship - we might be a bit too incompatible for everyday ups and downs, and we tend to go to extremes (high highs, low lows...) - She needs space (and some love to share with me), I need affection and stability (and some space from time to time) - She can't fill all my needs, especially as she is nested and, uh, a human being - Her relationship with her nesting partner is her primary relationship, it was a bit foolish to envision our relationship as another 'almost-primary' for her, and the only relationship for me - We can grieve the past state of our relationship, but we really don't want to say farewell and move on separately - It will be way better if I have some freedom again, if I'm able to find stability with another partner that would become my primary

So that brings us to my problem. I just talked to my therapist and they seem to find weird that I would like to fill the needs (that Diana couldn't fill) with a future partner (because in their way of seeing things, I was trying to replace something that I had or didn't have with Diana ...?); and they asked me what makes a "primary" relationship (ie : not the intensity of feelings?).

As right now I'm on the path of living with a bit more freedom in mind, taking things slow to rebuild my relationship with Diana while preparing for a possible future relationship, I am a bit confounded by the question. Obviously I do not view Diana's way of having a NP as my rules for "being a primary relationship". I do consider myself Solo Poly, living by myself, glad to share my space for quality time, totally fine with her having a long-term partner (beautiful compersion moments), but obviously I don't want to just throw all that away and move in with someone etc.

What comes to mind is : - the regularity of seeing each other / exchanging texts / calling - day to day emotional support - being able to rely on each other - being able to plan things way ahead of time

But again some of these things I could totally envision happening in my current relationship even with its de-escalated status.

Is there a world where a Solo Poly person isn't in a non-hierarchical setup? What would you say makes a relationship "primary" to a secondary one? Which boundaries would make sense in all of this?

tl;dr: Overthinker 32 y.o. guy is trying to figure out what a primary relationship looks like in Solo Poly lifestyle