This is going to be a long post, but I’m super confused about the current situation I’m in. I’ve been seeing this guy, let’s call him “Harry”, for almost 4 months and am completely enamored with him. For context, I’m a (probably gay) man in my early twenties and he’s bisexual, in his mid-thirties. When we initially began seeing each other, I was in a brief relationship that was open and wasn’t looking for anything romantic. Harry and I met online on a gay dating app, on which I expressed the aforementioned on my profile, and he reached out to me first. We ended up hooking up that same night, had a lot of chemistry and exchanged phone numbers.

Very quickly, this became a super regular thing. I was finding myself staying at his place for 8 hours at a time 3-4 times a week, which then graduated into spending the entire night and morning there each time I’d come over. I eventually ended my open relationship with the person I was seeing because I realized I was developing strong feelings for Harry, and the agreement for our being open was strictly NSA situations. Not only is Harry very handsome and are we extremely sexually compatible, but as he’s so kind, caring, and sweet towards me in a way I’ve never been treated before, I was falling for him hard and realized I wanted to pursue this relationship more.

About a week after I ended the other relationship I was in, it definitely wasn’t feeling like just a hookup/FWB situation anymore. I was now there almost every day of the week. I started getting full body massages from him, he started showering with me each time I saw him and taking his time washing my body like I was this super precious thing, he started cuddling with me and would hold me all night. He’d also started kissing me in ways that weren’t really sexual, more romantic and sweet/chaste, and giving me hugs. He’ll frequently shower me with praise and compliments. He also began taking me on dates, buying me breakfast and dinners, and taking me out for rides on his motorcycle. We’d go on walks in the park together, smoke together, and we even went grocery shopping together on a couple of occasions. Each time we go on one of these excursions, he’ll do all of the classic PDA/boyfriend things with me. Hold my hand, kiss me, pull me close to his side, open the car door for me, pull out chairs for me, etc. regardless of who is around. Everything felt like it was perfect.

Then came the first curveball, which leads to my first “real” foray into non-monogamy, since my relationship prior to this one was only about a month long. Due to the frequency with which I was meeting up with him and how it seemed like he had complete, open availability to see me, I assumed for about 1.5 months into our relationship that I was the only person that Harry was dating. He also never mentioned anyone when I’d ask about how his day/week was, or his plans. However, I began to notice a few things. One day, I absentmindedly looked over at his phone and realized that his lockscreen photo was of a woman that looked to be around his age. At first, I thought it may have been a friend as he had mentioned having a super close female friend, but this was disproven pretty quickly.

My suspicions were confirmed one day when Harry picked me up straight after working late one night and hadn’t gotten a chance to “prep” his place for our time together. He usually likes things to be a certain way when I come over, and I noticed that it wasn’t how it usually is. The thing I noticed the most, however, is as follows: there was a sexual mirror photo of who appeared to be the same woman in the lockscreen pic above his bed, and on his wall where a small tapestry typically hangs, there were 4-5 pictures of him with the same woman, definitely romantic in nature. There was also what looked to be an anniversary or birthday card hung next to them. Harry never mentioned being in a relationship, so this was pretty surprising to me. Throughout the night, the pictures stayed uncovered, but when I briefly went to use the bathroom at one point, I came back to find he’d pinned the tapestry back up over them and had taken the other mirror photo off of the wall above his bed. He never said anything and I didn’t ask.

This kept lingering in the back of my mind, especially as the weeks went on and as I noticed a few other things. He was dogsitting for a “friend” for a few days and I helped walk them and played with them, and the way he interacted with the dogs really had me thinking he had done this several times before. He even showed me toys which he said he’d bought them a while ago. When he dropped them back off, I stayed in his car and didn’t go into the apartment with him, which I could maybe understand but thought it was a bit odd.

I tried not to fixate on this too much, as I assumed at this point that Harry is polyamorous/non-monogamous and probably just trying to keep that part of his life separate from me. I began to do some research into polyamory because I decided I like Harry enough that I wouldn’t mind if he was seeing other partners, and I wanted to better understand his mindset without prying as he was obviously deliberately keeping this part of his life private from me. Things went relatively back to normal, and in a major moment for our relationship, Harry told me that he loved me. I told him that I loved him, too, and he seemed really happy.

However, my suspicions all sort of resurfaced with a second huge curveball, about two weeks ago, that’s had me dumbfounded. First, I noticed the name on a TV streaming service he was using didn’t match the name he’d given me. He told me his name was “Harry” but this name was “James”, a completely different name. I initially didn’t think much of it, until a few days later when he cast his phone to the TV to stream a movie, and the same name appeared: “James’ iPhone”. I noticed his WiFi had the same name, and eventually even noticed his Spotify did, too. This was confusing to me as I had always been honest with him about my name. At this point, we are 4 months into the relationship, he had quite literally told me he loved me multiple times, and I felt like I knew a lot about him (aside from the mysterious woman), but I realized with distress that I likely hadn’t even known his real name until now.

I confronted him about it a few days ago in a very casual way because it was beginning to weigh on me. I simply asked him if his name was James, rather than Harry, and mentioned I had seen it on a few things. He confirmed, very anticlimactically, that his name is indeed James. He did not offer an explanation. I told him I just wanted to ensure I was calling him by the right thing. He told me, “I like when you call me Harry” and kissed me. I dropped the subject.

I couldn’t, and still can’t, stop thinking about it. This is a man I’ve spent 4 months with nearly daily, who told me he loved me unprompted, and he doesn’t want me to use his real name when referring to him. There was one other time the photos/card on the wall were uncovered, and I took a closer look when he was out of the room and discovered that this woman he’s seeing does indeed call him “James” (his real name) instead of “Harry”. I can’t help but feel like I’m getting tons of mixed signals.

Is it normal for people to do these things in non-monogamous or polyamorous relationships? Both to use a sort of “alias” for other relationships and be secretive about their primary relationship? Before I broke up with my previous partner, I regularly talked to Harry/James about them, so he had plenty of opportunities to bring it up if he wanted. Just feeling confused and a bit hurt, as if I’m secondary/inferior to this other relationship, and deep down I know I probably am. This has made me extremely depressed because I felt like he was the perfect man before all of this, and I want to believe that he’s serious about me the way I am about him. I read that in healthy polyamory there’s supposed to be regular communication, so this kind of secrecy/vagueness does set off some alarm bells for me.

For anyone who’s taken the time to read this, what is your kneejerk/gut reaction to everything? I’m honestly stumped.

TLDR; guy I’ve been seeing and getting quite serious with, who recently told me he loves me, appears to be possibly polyamorous/dating someone else whom he’s never mentioned. He’s also given me a fake name, and when confronted, insisted I continue to call him by that name.