My partner who is 35M and I who is 35F have been together for almost seven years now. We met on tinder while I was traveling to the UK (where he’s from) and we hit it off right away. He was in an open relationship then so it was mainly just us having fun together. We were into a lot of the same things and shared a weird and dark sense of humor. And the sex? Well, it was amazing. I left for Australia shortly after meeting him but we kept in contact. We texted regularly and FaceTimed every week. I was falling in love and so was he. A few months after I moved to Australia, he told me that he and his girlfriend decided to be polyamorous which meant that he and I could be in a relationship.

At first, everything was great. It was tough being long distance but we made it work. Things were intense with us. I’d never known anyone like him before. He made me feel safe and was extremely understanding of my issues and supported me no matter what. I didn’t have to advocate very hard for myself with him which was refreshing. I don’t consider myself poly necessarily but I’m not monogamous by any means so the open aspect of the relationship was great-especially with us being long distance and especially with me being newly de-converted from conservative Christianity. I could explore my sexuality and still have a loving stable relationship. After my visa was up in Australia I decided to try to be closer to my partner geographically. I moved to France as a nanny and we saw each other way more often.

Here’s where things kind of hit the fan. His other partner who is 35F has issues. Like multiple diagnoses that are pretty unfortunate when you combine them all. She wasn’t diagnosed back then and wasn’t receiving any kind of treatment. Basically, she started freaking out on my partner about how close we were getting. Not because we were breaking any rules (it was an equal poly situation where no relationship was allowed to be put above another or limited in any way) but because she was being insecure and jealous. I have a history of childhood trauma and seeing him break down over the whole thing basically triggered me so hard a had a full blown menty-b. And because he didn’t leave her even though she was constantly causing issues, the trauma trigger persisted. I know I probably should have ended things then but I was not in a good place and despite him being with her, he was still a really good partner and we still found a way to make things work. I’m quite certain he’s blocked out a lot of those years (yes it was years) but unfortunately I didn’t. Finally she was able to get a diagnosis and start medication and things got better. She’s never totally made things right with me but I’m ok with that as the last time we tried to work things out, it went very badly. I kind of settled into just pretending she didn’t exist and moving on with my life.

During the pandemic, I moved back to the US to hopefully be able to work and save up so my partner and I could get married and I could move to the UK full time. His other partner was initially not ok with this but she’s since come around so that really didn’t pose a problem. The main issues have been my own mental health issues and his. It took me a while to get a stable job because I was so heavily disregulated and struggling hard. It was also lonely being in a new city during the time pandemic. When I finally got some help and on medication for my depression and adhd among other things, I was able to get a job and things have been pretty good in the years since.

Now that everything has stabilized a bit, we’re planning on getting married. He’s asked if he could propose and said that once he has had the chance to get therapy of his own, he will propose. I’m ok with that as he’s definitely been through a lot and definitely needs help. I was a bit frustrated a year ago as things were good and it made sense to get married and get the paperwork side of things rolling but he was hesitant. But some then things have changed and I’ve done a lot of growing and overcoming. The big thing I realized was that I wasn’t ok with a part time relationship which essentially is what I have right now. He spits his time equally between me and the other partner and while I enjoyed my independence for a while, I don’t want that kind of relationship forever. It was a tricky subject to breech but in the end he was open to the idea of making the relationship just us without the polyamory. Turns out, he doesn’t really consider himself poly either and has just been “going with the flow”.

All that to say, on paper everything is on the up for us. So why am I even writing this?

Well, for the past few months, I’ve been really struggling with feeling like I love him romantically. It comes and goes but it’s been going more than coming lately. I just don’t feel attracted to him. We get on great and our relationship is solid and I consider him my best friend. But the romantic side just isn’t there for me. I like the idea of getting married and all my friends are getting married or have just gotten married so there’s the fomo of it all but I don’t really love the idea of this being it. Nothing against him personally.

Some things I’ve been considering in all of this:

1. He’s the first serious relationship I’ve had since leaving Christianity and even then I had never really been in any serious relationships as it was kind of either date to get married or don’t date at all so I haven’t had a lot of experience in just dating.
2. We didn’t really have a dating period of our relationship. We went out a couple times but mainly we just spent time together in person or online and my mindset for the first few months was that we were friends with benefits and I kinda liked him. But I never really allowed myself to get caught up in some big romance and we never had a romance. Once we were in a relationship things got pretty serious pretty fast because we got on so well and wanted to spend as much time together as possible.
3. I have trauma around getting close to people. I had a situationship early on in my 20s with a guy from my church and he used me and treated me like shit. He was always treating me like there was something wrong with me for having feelings for him but also never really let me move on when he’d reject me. It was a vicious cycle of rejection and love bombing and that mixed with the conditional love of my parents kind of messed me up for letting people get close to me or even letting myself need other people. For a while I needed my partner because I was in a bad place mentally but after getting some therapy and getting on meds, I don’t need him anymore. I like spending time with him but I don’t need him. And tbh the idea of needing anyone scares me.
4. I started going out with a younger man (20M) just before Christmas and it’s been a lot of fun. I don’t intend to fall in love with him and that’s not what it’s about. But it’s fun to go on cute dates and have good sex and just not take things too seriously. I feel like I missed out on that with my partner. Like we did a couple cute dates before I moved to Oz and then it was kind of serious after that. Especially because of his other partner freaking out. It became kind of a get serious or get lost situation. I’m realizing what I missed out on and that’s making me wonder if maybe I wouldn’t be feeling like this if we hadn’t been forced to be so serious so fast.
5. When I moved back to the States, I moved to NYC and hitch I’ve loved living in. I’d always wanted to live in New York but now that I’ve had the chance, it’s been amazing. I don’t love the idea of leaving once we get the visas sorted out but I also don’t really want to live in the US with a certain incoming government that makes me extremely nervous. Plus my partner really doesn’t love being in NYC. It’s too overwhelming for him. To his credit he had tried but at the end of the day, it’s too big of a change for him (he’s autistic so he needs familiarity to be comfortable). So yeah, that’s my situation. Idk if it makes any sense to anyone but what’s your advice?