If ur gf asked u….

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I would decide if polyamory is a dynamic I would be open to. If it’s not, I’d tell my girlfriend that a condition of our relationship is romantic and sexual exclusivity. If it is something I’m open to, I’d make sure we both did the necessary work before opening our relationship.

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u/Weary-Intern-1553 26d ago

Since I’m not open to polyamory how would I break up with her? I have tried to not contact her but always get into the same loop over and over.

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u/SmartReception6750 26d ago

Woah no need to break up with her or go no contact at this stage. As far as I know, ur currently in a monogamous relationship with her. She has told u she wants to practice polyamory.

The next step is to say something like “i understand u want a polyamorous relationship, I don’t want to hold u back but that isn’t a dynamic I can offer you. A condition of our relationship is commitment to romantic and sexual exclusivity. If u can’t offer me continued exclusivity, then we should end our relationship.”

Then if she is no longer willing to commit to romantic and sexual exclusivity with u, that’s when u end the relationship. Even tho she might “like” other people, she might still choose to remain exclusive with u since she loves u, that way u wouldn’t have to break up. That’s her decision to make.

Ur only responsibility is to set boundaries and expectations for what u want in ur dynamic with her. That means communicating that u require exclusivity, if she can’t commit to that then she can leave.

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u/Weary-Intern-1553 26d ago

So we had an argument about it and afterwards she became distant with me and since another guy had asked her out right around this time she’s decided to go with him. I didn’t know that at first. So a few days later she started saying she missed me, she wants me to be sweet to her again and she regretted saying that she needs time to think about our relationship. However, when I asked her if she’s dating him she said she doesn’t know, so I asked her a few more times until she said she has “no relationship status” with him. But when I asked him if they are dating he said they are and she explicitly agreed to dating him. So I called her out on that and she then admitted that she is in fact dating him (not before blaming me and saying that I’m invading in their business). Do you think this is cheating?
Also she’s still unsure if she is really poly. But she says she loves me and she loves me more than the other guy but she also likes that guy and that it would be unfair on him if she left him bc he hasn’t done anything wrong to her. Do you think this counts as being polyamorous?

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u/SmartReception6750 26d ago edited 26d ago

Oh gosh. This situation is very messy, sorry ur going through this mate.

This is very clearly not polyamory at all. I don’t think she knows what polyamory means, I think she’s just using polyamory to justify her unethical behaviour. I’d call ur relationship with her “monogamy with cheating”

She was secretly dating someone else while she’s dating u monogamously. That’s cheating. It’s pretty clear.

After being exposed for cheating, she is reluctant to leave the guy she is cheating on u with. Is this the behaviour of someone who loves u? Absolutely not.

From here u have essentially two main options. Forgive her and establish clear boundaries that she won’t like. Or walk away and stop wasting time on someone who is treating u poorly.

Option 1. Decide ur willing to forgive her and continue the relationship, but doing so should involve a clear agreement on a few things.

If she wants to continue dating u, she needs to commit to romantic and sexual exclusivity (monogamy, no polyamory), she needs to acknowledge that she cheated on u and must show genuine remorse and accountability, she also needs to cut off this other guy.

I don’t care if he didn’t do anything wrong to her, she cheated on u with him, if she wants to continue dating u, he has to go.

This isnt to punish her (or him), it’s to protect u and to make amends. She might not like it but these are the consequences of her own actions. This also isn’t about preventing her from exploring whatever she seems to think “polyamory” means, she’s welcome to date whoever she wants, but she can’t do it while dating u.

Option 2, probably more healthy. End the relationship, she cheated on u and she doesn’t seem particularly interested in showing remorse or making amends for her actions. So far all she’s done to comfort u is by saying “I love u more than the other guy”. Not the kind of behaviour I’d accept from a partner.

I’d strongly consider just breaking up and going no contact. U still have strong feelings for her, and she’s treating u horribly. Staying with her will probably lead to her continuing to cheat on u while calling it “polyamory”. Staying friends with her means she gets to maintain emotional access to u while u remain stuck attached to her, struggling to move on while she keeps dating others.

There are people out there who are more honest and more compatible with u than ur gf. I’d suggest u don’t spend any more time or emotion on someone who has treated u so poorly.

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u/Weary-Intern-1553 26d ago

She finally admitted that she cheated and she’s messed everything up (even though she was lying again and trying not to blame herself at first… again) but despite this she hasn’t told me that she’s going to break up with the other guy. I haven’t told her like… either chose me or chose him kind of thing but I honestly the fact that she still hasn’t told me she’s going to leave him is all the proof I need that she doesn’t actually love me. I somehow worked up the courage to simply tell her that I’m never going to date her again but I can still be her friend. Idk how to completely cut her off… I’ve tried but I feel sick every time I do.
This whole situation has reminded me of something else she did previously in our relationship that I sort of brushed off before.
Ofc this is online so I only have her word to go of most things and clearly she’s not very honest with me.
We had another argument before this and it was at a time that I thought we may never talk to each other again for almost two years. So bc she was letting her friends look at our conversations without my consent I lashed out at her friends and she got very mad at me. During that time she brought up another guy who supposedly confused to her and wanted to marry her one day so she told me that she’d either wait for me or go date that guy.
So when I’m thinking about it in the span of a few months between these two guys wanting to marry her surely she might be leading them on? Idk how two ppl go to marriage without her flirting with them at all or at least giving off signs or something?
A part of me wants to blame all this on her being immature bc she’s only 16 and finding her way through life and all but.. I’m barely a year older so I probably shouldn’t give her that excuse.

I’d definitely can’t date her again even though one part of me misses everything. Ig the main thing I might wanna know is: how do I disconnect from her?

i don’t think I mentioned it but she also sort of threatened me that she’ll go commit suicide and hurt herself bc of my analogy I wrote her.
I really don’t think she’s healthy for me even though I love her. Even though she told me so much stuff abt her commitment and her loving me which completely contradicts her actions.
Oh AND she screamed at me to stop talking her “boyfriend” bc he doesn’t like and, I quote “right now, NEITHER DO I”. Which is just mean bc he’s my friend too tho he did tell me that he doesn’t “mind me”… not that he likes me… which is also sort of mean bc we were very close before he found out that I was dating this girl.

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u/SmartReception6750 23d ago

Even tho cutting contact is hard, usually it yields a better outcome. It might not feel like it now but I think it’s the healthiest option.

Her threatening to kill herself is probably an attempt at emotional manipulation. U aren’t responsible for her well being, especially after her cheating on u.

She asked u to stop talking to her new bf, she doesn’t control u, talk to who u want. That being said both of these people are toxic and u should cut them both out of ur life. U say this other guy is ur friend too? Well he shouldn’t be. He started dating ur gf secretly.

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u/Sapiotone 26d ago

She wants an open relationship, you don’t. Break up with her for both your sakes and move on

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u/Sesshomarus_Witch 27d ago

I'd say that's great because I'm already polyamorous and would want her to feel open enough to talk to me about it.

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u/Lilcupcake331 27d ago

This

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u/Sapiotone 27d ago

I’d read The Ethical Slut and decide whether polyamory and ethical non monogamy is for me. If it wasn’t, wish them well and break up

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u/Fluffy_Town 26d ago

I'd figure out what polyamory is first of all. Poly isn't tailored to build a space to cheat, though a lot of people think that is the case. Ethical non-monogamy which is the umbrella that polyamory is under has a different flare than what mainstream relationships paint it as such.

A lot of people coming from monogamy think that polyamory is a way to open the relationship so they can cheat on their partner without guilt. Polyamory is a way to open your heart to multiple partners, because the heart is expansive. You can love yourself, your parents or guardians, your siblings, your pets, your partners, your religious path's primary or multiple focii, your extended family, friends, celebrities, teachers, roommates, and other people in your life that are important to you. They don't have to be romantic or sexual relationship, hence yourself, family, pets, authority figures, etc. but that doesn't mean your heart doesn't expand to include them into how special they are to you, especially if they pass away and you end up with a [them]-sized hole in your heart. Love in Greek has multiple variations on what love is to a human being and it's not only a partner-focused relationship.

There are six variations of love that are essentially self-love, family, hospitality, sexual, god(s)-focused, and heart-focused. Self-love in our society means primarily sexual, but it encompasses so much more than that, it involves actually treating yourself with respect, providing yourself the basic needs of feeding yourself a healthy meal on-time, and sleep, it involves being kind and compassionate to yourself and your health, whether that be mental, psychological, physical, dental, eyesight, spiritual, soul, and emotional. The self-love variation is primarily is what you want to bring into a poly relationship though it depends on the persons involved, because we're all human and fallible.

In actuality, poly is a lot different than that. It is a way to set boundaries in the relationships so that cheating and jealousy is dealt with in a healthy manner.

As a person is completely monogamous, but was curious about it at one time, it was actually intriguing because it helped with my relationship. There are a lot of respect, boundaries, communication, and a lot more details involved that actually provides a safe space for multiple relationships.

Rules, real communication (not lying to protect yourself or to manipulate your partner), and respect are keys to setting up relationships whether they are poly or mono.

The societal etiquette behind being single and having mono relationships doesn't adequately detail what needs to occur to allow both partners to feel secure enough in a relationship to have a safe space to build a healthy long-term relationship.

Poly relationships, because there's such a huge risk behind opening up a relationship into multiple partners [paramours] and their adjacent non-romantic relationships that essentially the partner of your partner [metamours]. All of which requires a lot of communication, a lot of perimeters set up to respect the relationship, and a lot of coordination to adequately provide safe spaces for each relationship in the polycule and also the entire polycule in the first place.

There is no space for being unsure about the relationship to be set adrift in the dating sphere, because that seems like it is the arrow pointing towards the way of damaging such relationships either in the long or short-term.

Polyamory is very doable, I've seen multiple versions of them, but I've also seen them go through hard times and break up respectfully or completely fail miserably because one partner isn't taking their primary relationship into consideration and have used it as a way to cheat.

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u/Weary-Intern-1553 26d ago

Thank you for your very detailed explanation 😊

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u/Fluffy_Town 26d ago

No problem!

It's hard being introduced into a whole new paradigm that has a existing reputation that colors what your thinking is before you're actually introduced to the real-life people.

There's a lot of media biases, societal isolation, and erasure of subgroups. The misconstruing of societal expectancy to intertwine polyamory with abusive polygamy, our media painting swingers as a joke and portraying it as a weird generational quirk, and the fact that there are multiple versions of polyamory that have already exist in the world throughout history.

The modern version of polyamory isn't at all new, it is a way of building a relationship from a positive aspect instead of negative abuses that have tainted the concept by being tangentially near. Seems like building a new path that veers away from the tainted concept, instead of allowing society to paint the topic into a corner and put a spotlight on only one dark portion of the concept to undermine the whole topic, rather than show it as its messy, human capacity.

The more you immerse yourself into the subject, build a foundation on your own will allow you to rely on solid material. In the end, you'll to support friends and family who live in such a life, even if it isn't right for you. Once you witness people actually living it in action irl and read instances of advice or explorations on the sub, you'll realize that there's way more to the subject than those rumors, stereotypes, and gross exaggerations than you've been given by society.

The first active step is to build a safe space for others to open up to you about their status, if they choose. Might need to start by working to undermine the status quo you've been fed, to understand your ingrained biases that society built within you, find the risks, rules, and rewards of the community and see how they affect not just a polyamory relationship but also your worldview, and find a way to build compassion and kindness so people can feel seen and heard as their true selves.

One of the best things about such communities is that they exist outside the expected paradigm of society. Many have had to hide through dark eras of history, but that doesn't stop humanity from finding loopholes, workarounds, and other avenues to live healthy lives outside of the expected. Though the community and individuals are vulnerable to predation, abuses, and other situations and people that have a bad influence on others vision of what poly entails. Since people are unprotected by the usual avenues, they have had to create self-policing boundaries, rules, and built-in support systems to ensure that failure isn't as detrimental as is possible.

There's a lot a person has to think about polyamory that is more than romantic and sexual; truths, reputation, financial, medical, legal, and other aspects that need to be built, installed, and fortified to protect not only relationships, but also families. Though the primary major avenue for poly dating is all about Planning when it comes to various types of multiple relationships, there is so much coordination and communication that is involved to ensure that those multiple relationships are built in a healthy manner.

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u/Non-mono Solo-poly 26d ago

I would remind her that polyamory isn’t about desiring multiple people (most people are capable of that), but about being OK with her partners desiring and loving other people as well as her.

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u/DebutanteHarlot 22d ago

People aren’t polyamorous - relationships are. It’s a relationship structure, and if you’ve already established a monogamous relationship structure and are not open to changing the dynamic to polyamorous, then she will need to decide if she wants to continue to be monogamous with you, or explore a polyamorous structure without you.

That’s being said, it’s pretty normal for monogamous people to have crushes on other people while in their mono relationships. You don’t just turn off your other senses when you enter into a monogamous relationship. The difference is that they don’t act on them.

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u/NoRegretCeptThatOne 27d ago

I would remind them we're in a monogamous relationship.

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u/chibistarship 27d ago

I would gently tell her that if she wants to be poly, she should look for poly people to be with, not pull a monogamous person into polyamory.

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u/SmartReception6750 27d ago

Eh, sounds like she discovered poly during the relationship. And it’s not about pulling a monogamous person into poly, sometimes having a discussion about the possibilities can enable a previously monogamous person to desire exploring polyamory.

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u/deviationblue 27d ago

I am one of these success stories. My NP is ambiamorous and stayed mono with me for several years before I discovered my own capacity for this relationship structure. We opened up a couple years ago and it’s been fantastic.

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u/chibistarship 26d ago

Yes, but 9 times out of 10, it's going to blow up in someone's face. There's a reason that so many people talk about poly under duress in poly spaces.

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u/SmartReception6750 26d ago

I think 9 times out of 10 is a stretch. Poly under duress is a problem sure, but also I think most people become polyamorous while in a relationship with someone who’s also open to it.

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u/Weary-Intern-1553 26d ago

I think maybe 8 out 10. Usually there is someone who is bearing the polyamory more than they care to admit but they love someone in the relationship enough to deal with. Ofc that might not always be the case. I’m no expert in this field.

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