Over two years ago a guy left me for a woman who was only interested in a purely monogamous relationship with him. In his defense, he didn’t know I had fallen for him because I didn’t either, I just thought I was really enjoying my new FWB relationship- that’s on me, I didn’t realize how much I cared for him until he was gone.

But, he also didn’t bother to ask about my feelings or if I’d be interested in being in a more romantic relationship with him, he just thought about it after her ultimatum and picked her. Other interesting but maybe not completely relevant pieces of information is that the third time we hung out together he told me that he was falling in love with me, and after he picked her he basically ghosted me, despite initially insisting we could stay platonic friends and still hang out.

Took me almost a year to heal from that, thought I resolved the abandonment issues, and recently met someone I felt really connected to- and had a breakdown crying in his bathroom, because I associated the NRE with the trauma of getting left during it, and that made me realize how afraid I am of that happening again.

Thankfully I have other supportive people to help me learn and grow through this, plus my therapist of course. Still it’s overwhelming, and even though I know it’s unlikely I’ll be in that same situation again, I’m still struggling with my subconscious apparently holding onto some of the raw pain of it despite me working through it and experiencing it lessening with time.

I think the most important take away from this is that I should only date already poly/ RA people who wouldn’t want a monogamous relationship even if presented with one, but I thought I’d share in case the more experienced/ greater poly/nonmonog/RA community on here has had similar experiences or other lessons that might help me in dealing with all this. Thanks 🥹❤️‍🩹