Made a reddit to vent bc my IRL poly individual circle is pretty small. My partner (26 M) and I (25F) have been together 6 years and poly/ENM for about 3. Garden party poly, He has a few consistent FWBs and a partner of about a year. Ever since opening up I've had my own slew of FWBs, potential partners, people that basically were partners but refused to acknowledge that they were... all that. I'm ok with things having been so loose and fluid in our poly life but I wish I had the stability my partner has been able to find with his other person. Obviously I'm so happy he's got that support and he's unbelievably amazing at supporting my dating and helping me see when people aren't treating me properly. We get stronger each day :)

Here's the breakup part: I met N (29M) a few months ago on the apps. We hit it off almost immediately- funny, cute, charming etc. Dude came at me with tons of specialized attention and we developed a language for our friendship/partnership/relationship within a matter of days. After repeated failed connections I'm pretty gentle with myself, I tell him I cant handle the jerking around and if this is for funsies just let me know. He tells me he wants to be in my life consistently and lovingly- "you're safe" is a repeated affirmation to me. I can now recognize all of his special behavior towards me as lovebombing, chasing the NRE and excited to let this part of himself breathe (he's very new to ENM- his nesting partner is out of the country for a few months). He calls our situation a 'relationship' and gives me girlfriend treatment, but when I ask where we're at he's suddenly avoidant. And as anyone could predict, the energy starts to slack off. He's giving me 'K' responses and canceling on me. Basically, 'No longer interested' is written across his forehead. I bring this to his attention, try to improve our communication, ask what I can do better- nothing really changes.

Last week I ended it because he was clearly just done. I'm heart broken, sent home from work for open-mouth sobbing kind of heart broken. I want to talk to him every moment of the day. When we left things off he was nice, told me he respected me and he'll miss me. My friends are so proud of me. I cant find that feeling for myself, I don't need self respect- I need him :/

I'm exaggerating and going through the mellow drama of a breakup- but with the poly dynamic. I'm confused with how I handle my healing? I wonder if its too soon to just try a fun date? I don't know if I'm even asking a particular question- just some support would be nice. IDK, thanks for reading if you did : )