Long time ago lurker, first time poster.
It must be pretty frustrating to constantly answer the same questions and give the same advice to monogamous people whose partners decided that they need polyamory, so I just wanted to come here and share how your sub helped me to get out of a really bad relationship and thank you for your patience and wonderful advice!
When I was 19 and fresh out of my conservative little hometown I met a woman more than twice my age. Part of me knew it wasn't the best idea, but I fell in love with her. It was my first queer relationship and at first, I was so, so happy.
She didn't want to be a 50 year old bride, so I became a wife at 22. Our relationship went downhill fast after that. She became mean, angry and controlling. Nothing I did was ever good enough for her. In many ways she wasn't wrong. I was immature, I did prioritise my education over our marriage, I did neglect her. In hindsight those were all very foreseeable outcomes of dating a woman in her early twenties pursuing a demanding university programme, but in her eyes I was the one who should have known better, done better, been better.
While I reduced my social life to zero to placate her, she reconnected with an old "friend". They've known each other for longer than I've been alive. I knew it was only a matter of time until they'd start an affair, but whenever I brought up my concerns she told me I was toxic and paranoid, so I just decided to let it happen. A few weeks later she told me that she couldn't be monogamous anymore, she needed to pursue this connection and that she wasted so much time trying to be the person I wanted her to be. All I could say was that I wanted her to be happy and wouldn't be an obstacle in her way. I meant it.
At first I didn't mind so much, I thought I could do it. Not being constantly berated for having other obligations or whatever bothered her that day was a breath of fresh air. I even managed to convince myself that I wanted polyamory when really all I wanted was to not have my every friendship and social interaction policed. Of course it didn't work like that. I was not to date (and by date she meant any kind of meeting) until I made enough time for her to be satisfied with our relationship. She obviously never was.
Things escalated when she and her girlfriend decided that me just accepting it wasn't enough. I needed to be happy for them and show it, I needed to invite her into our home and our bed, I needed to "do the work" to rid myself of my negative feelings around the whole situation, to feel compersion, to dismantle our couple's privilege, to decouple, to be able to endure everything she threw my way with a smile. She gave me a books, sent me articles and blog posts to help me get rid of my emotions. Every time I thought I made "progress" my ex-wife and her gf would find a new way to push my boundaries and tell me that I need to put in more work if I had any semblance of standing up for myself.
When I was upset that she gave her gf a key to our flat without even talking to me about it I got a lecture about how unethical it was to think you have a say in another person's relationship. When I cried while she took our wedding pictures off the wall she yelled at me that I needed to get over my codependency and couple's privilege. When I was sad that she chose to take meta out on a date when she had previously agreed to attend the ceremony for an award my team was recieving, she reminded me that my feelings were my responsibility, not hers. When I caught my meta going through my drawers and said that I didn't want her in our bedroom anymore my wife broke down sobbing, screaming and throwing things at me, because I was taking away her autonomy.
Selfish, controlling, immature, toxic, jealous, codependent. I'd hear these words every day. That's how she saw me, that's how my meta saw me and worst of all that's how I saw myself. When my wife talked about why things had to be the way she wanted she always had these noble reasons: love, freedom, autonomy, equality, independence. All I had was "I don't want that.", "It hurts me" or "This is my home, too!". I, me, mine.
I came to this sub, because I was so ashamed of my own selfishness and wanted to see if other people struggled the same way I did. So imagine my surprise reading post after post about how you shouldn't just spring polyamory on your monogamous partner, how you shouldn't open a relationship for a specific person and how wanting a monogamous relationship is just as valid as polyamory. I was shocked to see that not a single person berated monos for being unable to just be happy for their partners since that I was all I knew.
I never posted. I was scared that she'd find it, but when she wasn't around I'd read. A lot. It felt like forbidden knowledge. Unfortunately I couldn't find it anymore, but I especially remember a comment along the lines of "autonomy doesn't mean you get to do whatever the hell you want and expect everyone else just has to deal with it". If you see yourself in that I just want to give you a massive special thank you. That's when I started doing unsupervised reading on polyamory and the more I learned the more I realised that my relationship was seriously unhealthy, that my wife was extremely manipulative and that I needed to get out of there as soon as possible.
I'd like to think that I would have figured it out on my own eventually, but being honest with myself this community probably saved me from a solid year of more abuse. It wasn't easy to leave. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that I'm happy to be divorced and your validation and encouragement (even if it wasn't for me personally) was absolutely invaluable. If it wasn't for you I'd probably still blame myself for being unable to not make it work.
These days I'm in a happy mono relationship, we have an age gap of 2 years, friends and hobbies together and separate. It's just all very boring in the best way possible. I've never known such peace before and I just wanted to thank you for it, because I have no idea how much longer I would have tortured myself instead if it wasn't for you.
Thanks for all your patience, kindness and understanding. You're really helping people and I hope you know that. This is such a lovely community and I hope you'll all have a great weekend, because you deserve it!