I have a former partner who I love very much and is a lovely person - Harley. Harley has two other partners: Bo (nesting partner) and Mica (soulmate/primary partner).

Bo is/was a lovely person.

Mica was (probably still is) an absolutely horrible human being. Manipulative, backstabbing, controlling, absolutely disgusting, though incredibly good at hiding it. When getting to know Mica, the shitty behavior didn't start until after we'd been getting closer for nearly a year and a half.

Because Harley and Mica are so close, I ultimately realized that there was simply no way to have a relationship with Harley safely.

As I said, Mica is very controlling and shitty. One of Mica's trademark behaviors (Mica explicitly admitted to me that they do this) is to try to get information on people that Mica doesn't like, and then use it against them. Mice has done things like...say Mica doesn't like Joe. And Joe has insecurities about his weight. Well, Mica will (within Joe's earshot, but not directly to Joe) talk about their fabulous metabolism and how they can eat practically anything and stay skinny and talk about all the fabulous, fatty, amazing foods that they make for themself and indulge in.

I have seen Mica reduce people to tears when doing this, and then play innocent in front of other people/"but I wasn't even talking to him! how was I supposed to know he overheard and would get upset? I think he owes me an apology for being upset at my conversation!", and then later...Mica has gloated to me about how they both hurt Joe and managed to get other people disgruntled at Joe, if some people did think that Joe was being ridiculous.

But back to my situation...

About a year ago, after several years of barely talking, Harley and I started talking again. Among other things, Harley mentioned starting to realize that Mica really is not good peeps (and that Bo had had an incident with Mica that made them also realize Mica wasn't good), and was working through processing that. Honestly, I was overjoyed. I love Harley so much; and I really love Bo too. The idea of them both moving away from Mica and being able to be close to them again was so exciting.

So I was seeing Harley and Bo a lot more, and we were reestablishing our relationships together when an incident occurred that made it clear that Mica still has their claws firmly embedded into Harley and Bo. When that happened, it was like a door slammed in my heart; I just suddenly felt like "I am done with these people. I cannot trust them. So they're dead to me". Which doesn't mean I want to be mean to them or talk shit on them. I just simply cannot have them in my lives anymore (Another thing that Mica is good at is having 'crises' where they get everybody around them to drop everything else to help them. It especially happens when Mica's friends have made commitments to help other people or do things with other people. That is essentially the kind of incident that occurred).

I stopped talking to both of them. The last thing I said to them was basically "What you have just said to me is very different from what I have heard the last months from you. If that is the way you feel, then fine, that's totally a choice you can make. But I am not OK with it, and I need to go process it and see where I am from there". They both said "ok, sorry, we know this is surprising, but we this it's a good idea, and we know you'll be fine, we'll talk to you later".

Recently, Harley reached out to me. Their message was...honestly, if felt kinda shitty, but perfectly Harley-esque. It was a "I miss you, we need to spend more time together, I totally dropped the ball on communication with you and I'm sorry about that, now let's hang out!" message, which no acknowledgement of our prior conversation and that our last communication was me saying I was really upset. One of Harley's flaws is that they never EVER bring up conflict, not even to try to lay it to rest. I ended up deciding not to respond to their message and deciding for the time being to ignore any messages from Harley (there haven't been any others).

Eventually, I know that Harley and I are going to see each other somewhere, and Harley may bring up what happened to our relationship. I feel badly not being direct, but at the same time, I don't feel safe being direct.

If I were to be direct, I would want to tell Harley that I love them, but that Mica is so toxic to me that I simply cannot have a relationship with anybody who is close to Mica. And while I would love to have some kind of relationship with Harley, I've realized that I am going to want a closer relationship to Harley than I can have, and that gives me a lot of pain, so it's healthiest to me to have no relationship with Harley at all. So that's what I'm doing.

However, I am REALLY sure that Harley would tell Mica that I said this. And then I am quite sure that Mica would always do their level best to (within my earshot) talk about all the wonderful things they're doing with Harley, and how awesome their relationship is. I really don't want to hear that. Especially now; it's still too raw.

So, for now, my plan is - should Harley every ask - to say that I realized that Harley and I had really drifted apart (we had) and that I realized that I simply don't have the energy or time to keep up the level of relationship I'd like to with them, so I needed to let it go. And that I do wish them well, but this is going to work best for me, because I have a lot going on in my life, and still struggle to balance it all, even with them no longer in my life.

While that is all actually true, it's not The Truth. But it feels like the best I can do.

Thoughts/advice?