So I (34NB) live with my NP (32M) and we've been together for 4 years. Our ENM arrangement is best described as relationship anarchy with the caveat that living together is a sort of unavoidable hierarchy. NP is ace and I have a high libido/high desire to form bonds so in practice this results in me primarily being the one seeking out other people to connect with. This works for us, the only condition is that my NP doesn't want to hear about the sexual or romantic details of my relationships with these people. For example, he's cool with me going to spend the night with someone else, but he doesn't want to know the intimate stuff, which I think is fair.

Two months ago I had a really bad end to a relationship that's left me upside down. Not only did I love this person, but the way it ended touched a "core wound" that was highly triggering for me and flung me into a deep 2 week depression where I lost enough weight to become medically underweight, I was suicidal. I have a loooong history of depression but with ongoing therapy and medication I hadn't had a depressive episode like that in years. It had been so long that NP had never seen me like that before (despite knowing it could happen).

He was very supportive, he takes care of me very well, but as a person who has been the caretaker for a mentally unwell person before, I know how tiring and difficult it can be. Now it's been two months. I'm eating again and kind of going through the motions in life. I'm not happy, I don't feel like myself. I feel myself being cold toward NP, like I've retreated into myself. I know that he feels this because he's mentioned it to me too. It also doesn't rub him the right way that my romantic relationship with another person is bleeding so much into our relationship.

I'm trying to get over this as best as I can, I'm still in therapy, but I feel bad. I feel like I should be better at compartmentalizing my relationships. Has anyone gone through something similar? Has anyone been in NP's position and could give their perspective?

It may sound naive, but I just didn't see something like this happening to me because it just hadn't happened before since we've been ENM the whole of our relationship. I feel like a loser.