Hey everyone. I’m looking for some support during a time where I’ve been recently broken up with and am feeling very distraught and confused. This is a long one—so apologies for that. I feel like sometimes people post on Reddit with incomplete info, and I’m trying to give the full picture for those reading.

Some context of the relationship and backstory: Myself (29 F) and my partner (24 F) started dating almost immediately after we broke up with our individual exes. I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do at the time because I wasn’t allowing myself to properly grieve, but my emotions got the best of me and I chose the easier option. I ended up grieving that original ex partner for a very long time, so it was clear to me that I wish I went about things differently, even being happy with my partner. My partner never really felt sad about her ex or phased by the breakup (she told me she loved me about 1 week after she broke up with her ex), so we were coming from a different place. I just assumed it was differences in how our two prior relationships were. We started dating on monogamous grounds, though I had wanted to explore ENM with my prior partner and were not willing to try. After about 1 year, I came to the realization that I was polyamorous after a threesome with my partner and another woman. My partner ended up feeling like she wasn’t on equal playing ground with this person, so we decided I would just casually date her on my own. That time was incredibly difficult, as my partner suffered immensely from jealously and insecurity during that time. I really only saw this person a handful of times, one of them being a planned and approved of date and sleepover. Looking back, I probably should have known better to jump into a sleepover when my primary partner was feeling so insecure. I wasn’t educated enough on polyamory, but I trusted my partner in saying she wanted me to pursue this and explore my polyamory. I appreciated that she was willing despite feeling more mono. After some time, that person I saw for a couple months ended up being a pretty narcissistic personality that I got away from. I saw how my relationship with my primary partner became strained and she was suffering. After a lot of back and forth, we decided to slow things down, focus on strengthening our relationship and becoming more educated on how to ethically practice polyamory.

Fast forward, my partner decides to try hooking up with someone on a trip who she had met at a bar and I was supportive, but just asked her to communicate to know she was safe. Her phone ended up dying and I didn’t hear from her for hours and was genuinely worried something horrible happened to her. She could’ve charged her phone but I think she got carried away in the hookup and forgot to communicate with me. I was a bit bummed because I had tried very hard to be over-communicative and respectful of my partner’s wishes while I was originally seeing someone briefly.

To skip through and spare you all of the play by plays, my partner and I bounced between the idea of polyamory and were both open to exploring new connections, but for several months without either of us pursuing anything. It seemed like she wanted to explore polyamory more and I wanted that to come on naturally. About 6 months later, I started feeling like I was connecting again with the ex I had separated with before I started dating my partner. This ex was across the country, so this was totally long distance re-connection. This caused a ton of issues - she started to make boundary lists that consisted of rules vs boundaries, one of them being that we aren’t allowed to date exes. I felt like a lot of her rules were leaning towards controlling and was uncomfortable by this. The best part of this is that I agreed with her to again take a step back and focus on us monogamously versus trying to comply to rules we could not agree with. I wanted to focus on us being secure again. We moved in together and were just continuing to work on strengthening us.

Our relationship seemed great and a lot more stable, but I still felt like I was missing out on part of me. I just didn’t want to lose her or cause her to feel abandoned, and I figured things would get easier with time. Funny thing is that this ex visited on a trip out to the area we lived in and we all hung out. The two of them proceeded to hookup with no prior communication, I was invited to join and I reluctantly did, and it was really weird. My partner was acting super clingy to my ex and wouldn’t let me touch them during the threesome or even lay next to them. Dysfunctional situation that I did not like, and we decided the next day that the dynamic there was not good and as decided before, my partner and I would just be monogamous for the time being. Ex and my partner ended up having a very short fling (like a week after that lol) and had phone sex, again without my partner communicating things. I was again bummed and the seeming hypocrisy.

This trend kind of continued, although I didn’t have any new partners and she ended up having more of a long term partnership after I moved out of state for medical residency. She was planning to come with for graduate school, but had to finish out her job that summer. Her new relationship was hot and heavy and filled with tons of miscommunication/lack thereof. I was again resentful at this, along with the fact that I found us an apartment, moved our stuff completely on my own, and started residency while she wasn’t there to help. She could have helped in various ways from afar or flown in on an off weekend from work, but was so enthralled by this new person that I feel like I was not being supported in this huge transition. They ended up dating for like 6 months and breaking it off after my partner eventually lived with me in new city. This girl visited a few times and I really liked her and was genuinely so happy for my partner. She is more on the sex-obsessed spectrum, so there were some issues with not respecting my own boundaries of feeling uncomfortable being in the apartment while they had sex. But overall nothing make or break—they broke up because my partner wasn’t as into her as the girl was into my partner. During that time me and ex had started casually dating. The ex was ironically doing solo polyamory and I was just one of their partners. I was under a lot of stress as an intern, going through a lot of mental struggles (something I deal with baseline and was worsening with the stress of intense residency), and so my relationship with ex was super casual. We only hungout every couple of weeks and had 1-2 sleepovers total. It felt like we were just best friends with super occasional sex and I was cool with that. After my partner broke up with her girlfriend, she became super anxious/jealous/insecure about my relationship with my ex. She would have frequent panic attacks about it and felt very insecure. I didn’t want to just drop this person because I had done that many times before for my partner. So I didn’t and we agreed to work through it.

We started couples therapy and it was honestly awful. I felt like a wallflower during sessions and she would just air out her insecurities and how I worsen things when in reality, I was super casually dating my ex and was barely able to have much a life outside of spending time with my partner due to my busy work schedule of at least 80 hours per week. I started having a crush on a coworker that became more intense, but nothing came of it despite feelings being mutual. Again, my partner would get very anxious just by seeing this coworker’s name pop up on my phone. It caused a ton of issues—I felt like I was constantly battling choosing myself as polyamorous or the relationship with my partner and making her feel secure in us. It sucked a lot and caused a lot of conflict. I admittedly became avoidant (I’m like this baseline from some trauma), and she was very anxious attachment style, needing to have hard conversations all the time whenever she wanted, even if it was late at night when I had to be up at 4:30am. Given my avoidance and feeling of being trapped, I asked to take a break a couple times because I felt so distraught, couldn’t focus at work, and was exhausted. Those breaks always ended up with us back together with some type of resolution. The other thing that impacted our relationship was that her sex drive was incredibly high, and mine low, especially given physical/mental exhaustion, battling depression, and medication side effects. I often felt guilty for saying no to sex because she would get so obsessed when I kindly declined or go into raging panic attacks. I felt bad but was running on empty and had not even had sex with ex partner for a couple months.

Our conflict went on and on until my partner decided she could no longer handle it, the up and down and conflict of our relationship and the obvious incompatibility/her uncertainty if she could handle polyamory or even if she was. Unfortunate timing for me, but I was dealing with a friend loss right at that time and ex partner had broken up with me given a lack of time and physical intimacy I was able to give. I felt pretty rejected all across the board and also very depressed. I felt like I worked for my partner and my relationship for the past 3 years, went through so much conflict, just for her to call it quits. I was devastated, especially because we lived together and built this life together with our dog and had a beautiful apartment. A week later, she presented me with a monologue about how she made a huge mistake and asked for me back. I knew it was risky, but I wanted to be with her so bad, so I said yes with the agreement that we would find a new couples therapist, work on better conflict resolution between us given our differing attachment styles, and I would work on my mental health since it was still not the best. I even started taking libido pills so that I could try to match her energy a little more and fill her needs. It felt like a fresh start for us and I was excited.

That week, my partner met a girl who she had a friend date with. The day after they admitted feelings for one another. This girl had a fiance for 5 years and wanted to explore polyamory, but her fiance was not comfortable and wanted to take things very slow. The following week, they hooked up despite the girl’s fiance’s boundaries and their rules (they said it was okay because they weren’t truly kissing and made each other orgasm over clothes?). I was pretty uncomfortable by that given that it seemed pretty unethical. My partner seemed so stoked with this new girl and how much they had in common, and given my low sex drive, this would be good to fill that need. Things progressed so fast…they were almost obsessed with each other, like over the top NRE. My partner would be sexting her while we were spending quality time, she would lie to me and go see her, and she would leave when I was needing support (I had just pronounced one of my young patients who I was very close with dead and was still not in a good mental place). I never had issues with trust with her our entire 3ish years prior, but I kept catching her in blatant lies. I was super sick with the stomach flu one day and stayed home, which I never do. I was sick as a dog and needed some support when she came home. She helped in some ways, but then suddenly told me the new girl needed a ride home from work and she asked if it was okay to go do that. I was kind of like..okay? Why can’t her fiance do it or can she not get an Uber or take the bus? I never ever want to tell my partner she can or cannot do something, so I told her it was up to her but it personally made me feel kind of shitty and not prioritized in light of everything. She went anyway, said she would be gone for 30 min, came back 2 hours later. I was super upset and felt so sick. I have never once asked to read her messages, but I didn’t trust her for the first time, and of course when she agreed to show me their texts, my partner texted while with me “Baby I need to come pick you up. I just need to fuck you in the back seat so bad.” A lot of lies like that continued, especially as the girl and her fiancé’s rules seemed to become more lenient and actual sex was allowed. Looking back, I could feel my partner slipping away. This feeling of distrust and not being prioritized when I was in a shit mental place AND she agreed to work on us after she asked for me back…it really put in into an even lower mental state. I had SI earlier that year which got better, but it started happening again. This emotional dysregulation is something I am aware of and trying to improve with my own therapy. I just think I was absolutely spent… with residency, the multiple losses just the month prior, my worsening depression, and now my partner who was blatantly disrespecting me after asking for me back with promises of mutual improvement. Despite this, I tried to stay supportive, state my needs, and even had the girl over to hang and have drinks. I was trying so hard to be supportive. My partner felt very uncomfortable with me interacting with the girl-she said she felt too on edge. I was bummed by this because I already have so little time with work, and plus I had expressed that I was needing to be around people more often to have a sense of normalcy and community. So I didn’t end up seeing this girl much unless I walked in on an obvious couch hookup lol.

There was in instance where my partner asked me to come to a party to meet some of her school friends. I had a commitment with a coworker but came after. I got there and the girl was there, which I didn’t care about. What my issue was is the at my partner and her went off to have a serious talk for about an hour and I was just left there with people I didn’t know. I didn’t feel comfortable going into the party without her since I didn’t know anyone. She came back finally and told me this girl was super upset I was there and was going to leave. I guess my partner had not communicated that I was coming to her. I personally do not vibe with that type of parallel polyamory. I would define myself as more garden party if anything—I don’t want to all date or be best friends, but I surely want to be together in the same space without someone needing to dramatically exit. I also didn’t want to feel like my time from my partner was getting slowly and surely more stripped away and that everything seemed so private and secretive. I was already feeling very insecure about us given everything above, and I think this combined with the lying and being inconsiderate made me continue to spiral. I would try to talk to my partner and she would clap back that this was her ultimate boundary—parallel polyamory that is. I told her I was struggling with the dynamic of her new relationship and our very fragile primary partnership. I asked if she could take a step back—like I did many times—and she said she couldn’t.

She ended up breaking up with me about a week after, about 6 weeks after she originally broke up with me. Other girl also broke up her engagement… I also forgot to mention they are both becoming therapists…. I was so heartbroken and still am. I love her so much and tried so hard to make things work. I put her first and sacrificed my own polyamorous wants at times to help make her and us feel more secure. I was honest and so communicative in the past with any other connections. I was taking libido pills so that I could match her needs more. She was questioning a month prior if she was able able to be poly with me. I felt like she dragged me through the mud for an extra month with empty promises and treated me like shit. It felt so insanely hypocritical given how she has made my life being ENM in our relationship very difficult with anxiety and panic attacks and so much conflict. I felt so discarded. My mental health was shit, I felt even more depressed, and now I was dumped by this person I loved and had tried so hard to work for.

I ended up taking a leave of absence from residency to collect myself, get some more intensive depression and trauma treatment, and overall better my mental wellbeing. It has been such a struggle yall. I have cried every fay for the last 2 weeks. I feel so broken and discouraged from polyamory. It caused so much distress and ultimately blew up in my face. My partner (I guess I can say ex partner as of late) said she loves me like family and wants to be my support person. I am someone who has a lot of compersion, but I this insane and mindset, I felt like every time the girl would come by or she’d be laughing with her on the phone, it caused this tightness in my chest I couldn’t bear. I feel so betrayed. After telling me that she deserves to stay in our place for the last 2 weeks and not listening to the fact that it’s impossible to feel stable and healthy while being around her/sharing a space with her while she actively dates this person she left me for, she finally agreed to leave and find her own place.

I guess if you got to the end of this, thank you for reading. I’m looking for support more than anything. I am aware of my own flaws and am in treatment to help better my own relationship with my mind. I just feel like on top of that intense therapy and my deep feelings of hopelessness, there is now an added bit of anger, resentment, and betrayal. I looked back to how our relationship began and saw that this was pretty damn close. She always said she broke up with her original ex because it wasn’t working. She told me that too, that it wasn’t healthy for her anymore. I just think she kept me around until someone better came, someone who would provide a soft landing ground to settle into instead of the pain of grieving a long term partnership. She continues to disagree with me. I just can’t believe it. If you’ve gone through this or have any words of wisdom or kindness, I could really use them right now. Thank you for your kindness and support ❤️