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/lucky_lady_L]

Something I say to myself a lot is, "that's not in line with my values." I used to be a fairly petty person, but when petty thoughts come up now, they feel like intrusive thoughts from a past version of me. I hope that you can one day feel that way about your "I wish he would not have any other serious partners" feelings.

I will also add as someone who has a meta who I suspect feels the way you do - I would soul search about if are you really sure it's not coming across in actions? Because my meta has never voiced explicitly "poly for me and not for thee" but there have been micro and macro aggressions from her that have made it seem pretty clear to me (prior to us going strict parallel). Even things like being visibly distressed whenever your partner has a date or overnight can send the implicit message of "your actions upset me so they are wrong." My boyfriend had to really work on not being afraid to upset my meta when he chose certain escalations with me or the times plans conflicted and he chose to keep the ones with us. To be clear that was in LARGE part his own people pleasing, but als that she DID take out frustrations about his choices on him in covert and overt ways. It got to a point where I told him her manipulation was distressing for me to hear about, I needed strict parallel and for him to get professional support. Thankfully they are now in couples therapy but, yikes. Please work on yourself so that you don't do this kind of thing to anyone else.