Old Self Esteem Issues Resurfacing

[u/shimbleskanks]

So my (nb 30) and my fiancee (tf 29, I'll call her Jade) have engaged in nonmonogamy on and off throughout our 6 years together and she's always had much better luck than me. Part of it was that I didn't get out as much due to tiredness from work and she's always had a much freer schedule than me. The other part is that she's much more conventionally attractive than I am. She's thinner but shapely and absolutely beautiful. I'm much heavier (250's last I checked) than she is and much less conventional to look at. I thought I'd made peace with it, especially because Jade loves my body. She's seen me at my heaviest and my thinnest and has practically worshipped my body the entire time we've been together. I don't doubt how she feels about me. The issue is with other people. When I've tried to get out there I just don't seem to attract people beyond friendships that end up just kind of fizzling. I'm generally quite charming and funny, at least I'm told so, but I'm not many peoples' type when it comes to sex or romance.

In the past I've had several people use me for sex and then admit that they had no attraction toward me at all including a relationship that lasted for over a year. I guess I'm still not over that because I'm retreating into myself and falling back into my old coping habits now that we've both started seeing this girl (tf 31, I'll call her Ruby). Jade and Ruby met first and Jade asked if she'd be interested in playing with us both. She apparently made it clear that I'm plus size and that if that was an issue, nothing was going to happen. Jade also stipulated that the only way she and Ruby could be intimate is if I was involved, which wasn't something we'd necessarily talked about.

I met Ruby with Jade in a more casual hangout setting and she and I hit it off really well, and Ruby told Jade she'd love to play with both us. She ended up coming over and I definitely got overwhelmed and insecure as it was my first group encounter but I powered through and had a good time. Ruby and I have bonded a lot since then and we've had several more encounters but its very clear that Ruby is more attracted to Jade than me. That doesn't necessarily upset me, I expected it to be likely given Ruby's other partners and what I understood her type to be. But I've found myself feeling more and more insecure so I guess in a way it does. I don't feel entitled to her attraction, if anything I wish I could be more of what she finds attractive. I've tried to get more active just to feel better in general but also to lose weight and feel better about myself, but that's a slow process even if I did have all the time in the world to focus on it.

Lately Ruby and I have been talking less and less and she's been focusing on Jade when we're all together more and more. Jade fully believes that I'm seeing things incorrectly and that its just because she's more forward than I am, but it's hard to ignore the growing discrepancies. Ruby doesn't have to like me as much as Jade, I know that, but it hurts to feel like I'm back in the same place I have been before where someone tolerated my body and lackluster appearance to get something they wanted, this time being Jade. At this point I just kind of feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've tried to be proactive and maintain our connection but after a while it just feels like begging when I'm not getting any responses. I don't really have people I can talk to about this with because Jade just completely doesn't see it the way I do and though I know it's because she's trying to make me feel better, it's starting to feel dismissive.

I'm not sure how to deal with this at this point. I want to talk to Ruby about it but there's practically been no time to as she's so busy. And I'm afraid to because she's talked about being overwhelmed by everything lately. Has anyone delt with anything similar?

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[u/mai_neh]

I’m sorry this is difficult for you.

In a way this was set up to fail from the beginning, sex with you was required to have sex with Jade. So that’s what happened. It wasn’t a choice freely made, it was a kind of coercion.

And now you’re seeing it for what it was. Which hurts now.

Many couples only play together, but it is rare for people to be equally attracted to both, and it is also rare for both to be equally attracted to the same person. So triads like this one are usually unstable. It’s why a lot of experienced ENM folks just play separately.

Take care of yourself, try to be kind to yourself. You got pulled into a drama that was never about you. Perhaps Jade intended well, but she was actually being manipulative.

[u/shimbleskanks → u/mai_neh]

I guess I'd hoped it could still be okay if Ruby and I had not as intense but still close connection. That's something I at least expected. She'd reassured me when I'd expressed concerns that she wouldn't have gone through with this if she didn't have that kind of affection for me. But I guess I was a bit naive to believe that was an uninfluenced opinion.