CW: mention of kink

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I hit off with this guy over the summer and we started seeing each other almost immediately. I was friends with his primary, dog sat for them, the whole shebang. A bunch of our BDSM interests lined up, except for one: I won't do impact, as I have a trauma history. This is a pretty emotional and soft spot for me, especially as people in the community tend to be dismissive of me for it. I opened up to him about it and he was very understanding. I would check back in with him periodically to make sure that he was still OK with that limitation and everything was always good. Lots of reassurance and validation that I didn't need to do that kind of thing for him.

Towards the end of November, his life got messy. Issues with work, his primary going through a hard time in one of her other relationships. We agreed to hit pause while things sorted out. I made it very clear I was ready when he was. Since then we'd kept in fairly regular contact.

About 2 weeks ago he randomly sent me a snapchat of him in bed...with a new partner. And a wall of text about how excited he is to be with her, how great she is, and how he finally has another partner to do impact with.

The first lesson of poly is that people aren't interchangeable, replaceable, or need fulfillment machines. But it feels like I was pushed away to make room for someone better, someone less limited than me, and it really, really hurts. It's wrecked my already fragile self esteem, and now I'm terrified the same thing is going to happen in my other relationship. That fear comes from a dark, bitter, hopeless place and I'm scared to talk about it with him, because it's not a fair thing and I don't want to hurt him. And I try very hard not to let problems spill over from one relationship to another.

Telling ex how I feel will only serve to make him feel shitty and he will apologize, but it won't change anything. Therapist encouraged more self validation exercises. I don't know what I need to feel better.

Hugs?