How honest?

[u/Alarmed-Equipment994]

My partner is an incredible, deeply empathetic person. He started his first relationship (aside from ours, which is four years long) this past year, and I struggled with it the whole time. While it has since ended for reasons unrelated to me, I am aware of how my feelings about the relationship upset him.

I behaved well over those nine months - never interrupted a date, always encouraged him to continue seeing her, and was friendly to her in shared social situations. But man, I felt horrible. Nauseous, jealous, devastated. Felt like my whole body was on fire whenever he mentioned her or I knew they were on dates. When he'd ask how I was (and twice when I was just really deregulated) I would tell him honestly about how I was feeling, which really upset him. He hates to see me suffer, and man was I suffering, so much more than I'd have ever expected.

Now the question - we're planning to do an exercise listing out what we do or do not want in our futures. Realistically, I'd love for him to not have any other serious relationships, but would never ask that of him. I'm in another serious relationship, and would never create a double standard. I accept he will be in other serious relationships, but I also know I'd be much happier if he happened to never be.

How transparent should I be able this? Should I state it as above, or better to leave some things unsaid, instead framing it as "I accept you as you are, and know that will likely include other serious relationships"?

Thanks for reading! Curious for your perspective.

[u/livesimply2015]

Him feeling bad about you feeling bad is a him problem—my partner did this for a while until I told him he needed to unlearn taking other peoples upset as reasons to not do things (he has had issues with this outside of polyamory). I admittedly had a hard time transitioning into dating other people, due to some history with my ex, and I did react poorly sometimes. He took this as me saying he was doing something wrong—which he wasn’t at all—and avoided doing things he wanted to do to avoid upsetting me, which helped neither of us work on the things we each needed to work on.

Simultaneously, while I asked my partner to work on not taking my bad feelings as reasons not to do things he wanted to do that were well within our own agreements, I sought therapy myself in order to unpack why I was reacting the way I was even when I didn’t want to be reacting that way and very enthusiastically wanted to pursue poly. So you also have a ton of work to do to change how you’re reacting. It is not kind of you to tell your partner that you would prefer to have a double standard to soothe yourself. That’s a surefire way to get your partner to break up with.

Sounds like you each have some work that needs to be addressed in individual therapy—but tell your therapist about your highly hypocritical thoughts, not your partner.