Good morning! 😃

It will be 2 years soon that my nesting partner and I started our polyamory journey. I was never in a serious relationship with anyone until I met my np of 8 years, let’s call her Birch. I still have a lot to learn about both relationships and polyamory and I’m actively trying to learn every day.

When we first opened up, I met a person and we quickly began dating, but after 1 year we decided to end things. In the mean time, Birch started dating Cypress,who she used to date back in the day. Cypress and I have a strong friendship and I even ask him for advice on different topics.

Last March I met Maple. She is older and has much more experience with dating and polyamory.

I made a whole bunch of mistakes while dating Maple and Birch together. I was way too caught up in NRE for Maple, but I was also trying to treat both relationships the same way, neglecting Maple’s wants and needs for the sake of treating both relationships the same way.

In August Maple broke up with me, citing incompatibility in relationship styles.

Around that time Birch’s mom passed away. So, I was dealing with an incredibly sad brakeup and an incredibly sad and depressed Birch. Between August and now many more bad things happened- loss of job, loss of house, having to relocate, Birch being sad all the time about her mom. Again, I didn’t handle it well. Though I go to therapy, I was refusing to deal with my sadness from breaking up with Maple.

Birch, after the breakup with Maple, asked if we can pause talking to other people for a while. I agreed to this, even though I didn’t like it. Despite this agreement, and probably driven by breakup sadness, I started talking to other people without Birch knowing. She eventually found out (of course) and we had many arguments and discussions.

I came to realize that I was still in love with Maple. The two of us reconnected and are going to try dating again.

I confessed to Birch that Maple and I want to be together again. That didn’t go very well. Birch is very iffy about Maple. She is worried I’m going to get hurt again, or that I’m going to ruin my relationship with Birch because of Maple. Maple is very conscious about Birch’s feelings and always reminds me to put Birch first, as she’s my primary.

After some long arguments, Birch texted me that she is ok with whatever I want to do. She doesn’t think I get where she’s coming from, but she also wants me to be happy, so she gave me a card blanch to do what I want.

What I want is to have a stable relationship with both women. I want to make both of them happy.

I need advice on how to handle this, because it feels very fragile.