I’m hoping to get some insights and perspectives on a situation I've currently been going through in my relationship, especially from those who have more experience with polyamory than I do. This is going to be a long-ass post cuz too much has happened and I don't know where to start or stop. There's a TL;DR at the end.

For some background, my partner (let’s call him John) and I have been together for more than a year and a half now, 2 years in 2 months. From the start, we both had some understanding of polyamory. I had previously been in a polyamorous relationship, but it was a pretty mediocre experience—not entirely bad, but definitely not good either. That said, I’m still not fully well-versed in navigating the intricacies of polyamory, though I’ve read quite a bit about it.

As for me, I’m transmasculine & autistic, and someone who struggles with bipolar (type 2) tendencies, borderline personality tendencies, persistent depression, and ADHD. All of this sometimes affects how I process emotions, especially when it comes to navigating complex relationship dynamics. I also identify as demiromantic and am somewhere on the asexual spectrum, which means for me, forming connections can be quite difficult.

For the past few months, John has been encouraging me to explore other relationships and date more, as he’s been going out on dates while I haven’t. I haven’t pursued anyone else because making a connection is really difficult for me. In fact, meeting John was a complete stroke of luck, considering how we met for a one-time thing.

Recently, John decided to go back on dating apps and met someone he really hit it off with (we’ll call her Patricia). I was told about Patricia, and here's where it gets started: I’ve known her for about a year as we are Instagram mutuals, and we even matched on a dating app in the past. However, we never really hit it off or moved forward. When John and Patricia's date went well, and it seemed like their relationship was progressing, I started to feel jealous—not because John was seeing someone else, but because he was seeing someone I had once been interested in.

I made my feelings known to John, admitting that while I never made a move, it still felt like I had missed an opportunity, and now I felt somewhat left out. It wasn’t about him dating someone else—it was more the fact that he was with someone I had once wanted to be with. John was understanding and didn’t make me feel bad about it, but that’s when things started to get complicated.

When John learned that I had a sort of crush on Patricia, he actually encouraged me to talk to her. Surprisingly, Patricia told John that she was also open to this because she has had a crush on me as well. So, we both started texting, and she expressed that she was interested in getting to know me better. She was open to the idea of all three of us being together in what I guess you could call a kitchen table poly situation...where John and I are together, Patricia and John are together, and Patricia and I are together. Things felt good at first.

Our initial few dates went well, and it felt like we were really connecting. John, Patricia, and I even hung out together, and I felt hopeful that things were moving in a good direction. However, things took a turn on my last date with Patricia. We kissed, spent some intimate time together, and I even stayed over at her place for a while. It was nice at the moment. But later, when I was leaving for home, she came with me to meet John for their date, and I started feeling uneasy.

Something about her spending time with me and then immediately going on a date with John made me feel insecure. I started feeling like maybe she would compare us and realize that she liked John more. It brought up a lot of old feelings of inferiority, particularly in relation to cisgender men. I began to spiral, feeling like she would choose John over me simply because he’s a cis man, and I’m not.

At one point during our time together, Patricia mentioned that I was the first person she’d kissed who was assigned female at birth. While it didn’t hit me in the moment, reflecting on it later made me feel uncomfortable. I realized I didn’t want to be someone’s “first trans experience.” It felt like a novelty to her, even if she didn’t mean it in a demeaning way, and I felt reduced to that identity rather than being seen fully for who I am. I wanted to be seen just as a man. Not as someone who used to be a woman, and I know she didn't mean to make me feel like that at all either.

Later that day, I reached out to Patricia for some clarity about where we stood. She told me she felt closer to John because they had spent more time together, but she reassured me that time is fluid and that as we spent more time together, she could grow closer to me too. She was honest in saying she couldn’t guarantee where things would go, but that she was open to seeing how things would develop. It felt like hope to me.

But then, when I shared this conversation with John, he told me something that shattered everything. He said that Patricia had confided in him that she saw me more as a friend and that she had initially pursued something with me because she wasn’t sure how things would go with John. She was seeking security with him through me, and in doing so, I felt completely used. It wasn’t about genuinely wanting to be with me, it was about trying to get closer to John.

I had asked her for clarity, and she gave me hope when all I wanted was honesty. If she had simply said she saw me as a friend, I could’ve accepted that. But instead, I was given mixed signals. This whole situation felt like a betrayal. It brought up years of past trauma where I’ve always felt like I’m being chosen over—whether it was partners choosing my best friend or simply abandoning me. It hurt deeply, and this time, it felt like it hit harder because I trusted Patricia to be honest with me.

At that moment, I had a terrible panic attack while talking to John. I was overwhelmed by rage, betrayal, and a deep sense of feeling used. I told John that if things didn’t work out with Patricia and me, I couldn’t see him continue being with her. I didn’t know how I would handle that. Later that night, Patricia asked John if he would stop seeing her if she didn’t pursue things with me anymore. He told her yes, and she spiraled into a breakdown, feeling hurt and used. She felt like both of us had manipulated her into being part of a triad she hadn’t fully consented to, and it caused immense pain for all three of us.

I felt incredibly guilty after seeing how hurt Patricia was. So, I told John to go ahead and be with her, that I would deal with my feelings somehow. But the following days were incredibly hard for all of us. We were all emotionally wrecked, feeling betrayed in different ways. I didn’t feel betrayed by John, and he didn’t feel betrayed by me, but Patricia felt betrayed by both of us.

Eventually, I tried to be the bigger person and let John go back to her, seeing how much he was hurting. He was completely heartbroken and depressed, and it was painful to watch. I thought maybe if I gave them space to mend their relationship, things would get better. But now, even a month later, I feel like I haven’t fully moved past it. I’m constantly reminded of everything that happened.

Some of my friends, who are mostly monogamous, have told me that John continuing to date Patricia despite my feelings is a sign that he stepped over my boundaries. Others have said it was unethical of me to ask John not to date her in the first place, that I was using a veto power in the relationship. I’m conflicted because I didn’t feel like I was being unethical. I thought polyamory is about mutual consent, and I wasn’t consenting to that dynamic.

John explained his side that it would’ve been unethical if Patricia and I had met first and I then asked her to stop seeing him. But because they met first and started seeing each other before I came into the picture, it wasn’t wrong for him to continue dating her. I don’t know how I feel about that explanation, and it’s been hard for me to process everything.

On top of all this, I did something that I know was wrong. I started reading John and Patricia's chats on his phone because she blocked me from contacting her, and it was the only way I could feel close to her after everything fell apart. I know it was a huge invasion of privacy, and it was a terrible decision. But I was desperate, and I missed her terribly.

Now, a couple of months have passed, and things have changed. John and Patricia have become serious, and both of us are equally important to him. This is new for me because for two years, I was sort of the only life partner he had. I’ve always known we’re polyamorous, but now, I’m questioning where I stand in all of this. Rationally, I know I’m polyamorous, but emotionally, after everything that happened between Patricia and me, I’ve started doubting myself.

One thing I know for sure now is that I will only pursue parallel polyamory going forward. I’ll never mix my dating life with John’s again because it’s caused me so much emotional pain. I don’t want my brain to constantly compare me to him, to someone else, or to what Patricia and John share. John is my life partner, but now he has two life partners, and that’s something new for me to process. I know hierarchies are unhealthy, I myself hate them. But my brain makes them up, and I hate that it keeps making up fake competitions and I have to keep battling with it. But for two years, I always felt like I was his primary partner. Now, we both are, and that’s hard for me to adjust to.

My borderline tendencies make me feel like I’m competing with Patricia, even though I don’t want to feel that way. I want to be fair, and I want to be sane, but it’s hard to navigate my own brain sometimes. I know I’ll have to share my life with Patricia in some way, at least indirectly, because John is planning a future with both of us. I don’t hate her. I genuinely don’t. But I hate what happened between us, and I hate how this situation has unfolded.

Patricia feels like she lost a really good friend in me, and I feel the same. As a demiromantic person, it’s rare for me to like someone, and I really liked her. It’s been hard for me to process this loss. One thing that really threw me off during this whole situation was that Patricia said “I love you” to John after only three weeks of knowing him. I take that phrase seriously, and maybe I’m overthinking it, but it stung when she said it so quickly. She told me that “you just know” when you want to spend your life with someone, and I don’t know how to process that, especially given everything that’s happened. Now, I’m left trying to figure out how to navigate sharing my life with someone I was once interested in, but with whom things have gone so horribly wrong and now I detest everything that happened. Maybe, with time, we can reconnect and find some sort of resolution or at least mutual peace. But for now, I feel incredibly disconnected, so does she. She gets into a panic attack at the mention of how things went down between us. And I get frustrated when something about her comes up.

Sometimes when I’m being intimate with John, I disassociate and start imagining how Patricia sees him. My brain starts playing tricks on me, comparing me to her, and it’s hard to stay present. It feels like my mind is constantly turning everything into a competition, and I just don’t know how to shut it off. It’s nothing, yet everything at the same time, and I don’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense and explains the gravity of my plight.

So, here I am, questioning my place in all of this, feeling emotionally exhausted, and not sure where to go from here. I want to move past this, but I don’t know how. One thing I know is that I love John. I cannot explain the things we've done for each other, we're literally each other's family atp. He stays with me and my parents and we're very tight. But he's afraid I might start hating our relationship because he is with Patricia. Now, I’m just trying to figure out where I stand. Was I unethical in how I handled this situation? How do I navigate the discomfort I still feel, and is there any way forward from here? How do you deal with feelings of betrayal or discomfort, even when no one is technically "at fault"? Any input or perspectives would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and for any input you might have.

TL;DR: My partner "John" and I have been together for almost 2 years in a polyamorous relationship. He started dating someone ("Patricia") who I had a crush on, and things got complicated when Patricia and I tried dating too. Patricia saw me as a friend, but I didn’t know that, and I ended up feeling used and betrayed. After an emotional breakdown, I told John I couldn’t handle seeing him with her, but later felt guilty and told him to be with her anyway. Now, John and Patricia are serious, and I’m struggling with feelings of jealousy, guilt, and discomfort, questioning where I stand in our polyamorous relationship. Wondering how to deal with these complex emotions and move forward.