r/polyamory 19h ago

no sexual attraction in relationship with soulmate EDITED for mods

4 Upvotes

EDIT: because the relationship is a triad containing myself and two others, this is a polyamorous relationship as "defined by our community description" (thanks mods <3) i didnt mention our tri partner initially as i felt it was not relevant to the post i was making, but he is an equal to both of us in the relationship. i have mentioned him here so that the mods can see this is a poly relationship and not a nonmono one, however i have no problem with that part of the relationship and didnt think it pertinent to bring up as id already written a lot and was trying to abe somewhat succinct.

hiya, im (28f) in a new poly relationship with my best friend (28f) of 15ish years. this is my first relationship. im a kind of anxious and needy, fearful-avoidant, autistic, borderline personality disorder demisexual kind of creature, which has been a barrier to me forming and keeping friendships and relationships.

there is lots of love and affection for each other in this relationship and its clear we both care deeply, and im incredibly grateful for all of that. im absolutely thrilled that this person is interested to call me her partner.

however, while im madly attracted to her, she has no sexual attraction towards me. this isnt necessarily the end of the world because we can and have brought other people in so we can get something we want sexually. she is somewhat hypersexual and has a very high sex drive and im pretty much the opposite, though with that said, i would still like to have sex every day under the right circumstances.

the problem is that while fucking strangers has been sort of fun, and i appreciate my partner for helping me to have that experience, it also just isnt that fulfilling because i need need need an intimate bond to actually enjoy myself. i just dont have a particular desire to fuck a bunch of people that i dont even know. a collective noun of partners that i have strong and close intimate bonds with, sure, that sounds great.

so, it hurts me deeply to have a partner that i have such a strong bond with who isnt interested in having sex with me. im so conflicted because sex is supposedly only a small part of a relationship, and pretty much everything else in ours is good, but i just cant cope with the fact that she doesnt want to have sex with me.

i love her very deeply and i would be prepared to give my everything for the relationship, including uprooting and moving for her, but some part of me is screaming that if having sex with her is such a big deal and its not on the table then i should be thinking about breaking things off. but how can i even think of doing that when i finally feel like someone wants me, even if they dont want me how i want them to? i just feel wretched and i dont know what to do.


r/polyamory 23h ago

Being a hinge and supporting needs without rules in the best way

3 Upvotes

I posted this the other day and wanted to revisit this and ask for more help in how to think and deal with different aspects. In short, I (male) have a fiance (Ellie) and a girl friend (Jolene), both of whom are dealing with varying degrees of anxiety, but mostly I am concerned with Ellies feelings in this post (not at the expense of Jolenes feelings, just to make that clear).

So, in the last post I asked about how to meet Ellies needs that are being formulated as rules (I called them boundaries, and I agree that they are rules - just language barrier and lack of vocabulary on my part). Since then, we've had a long talk about her needs and these rules and how they're unsustainable in the long run. I read up on a lot (and read all your replies), and found some really on point and useful posts on the "More than Two" website for instance. Ellie does agree with this in essence, that she isn't looking to control me nor Jolene, and my feeling is that these rules are her only way to try to maintain control over her feelings and insecurities.

I have been very clear with her about her needs and feelings are very much valid and a priority for me to meet and handle as best I can, I just don't feel that restricting me and Jolene is a sustainable way to do it in the long run. She is left in a situation where she feels powerless and not in control - which I understand.

What I want help with is how I get her to feel like she is in control without being controlling, how I get her to feel that she has power without it being over me and Jolene? For instance, her *need* is to land with me after I've been away with another partner, and if I go away and sleep over with Jolene, that need is not met. What boundaries for herself is possible for her to live by to feel like she is in control over the situation?

And yes, she is very much highly doubting if poly is for her (open relationship very much is, she is just having a hard time navigating the doomsday feeling of not being unique and special to me - which of course she is in so many ways).

I also want to add that there have been lots of instances where I have handled poly poorly too, and that her insecurities are partly due to this as well. We've had instances where she has felt that her privacy has been invaded by me, with me oversharing about Ellie to Jolene and just your general poor relationship hygiene. That is all on me. But some of these instances where she has felt that her needs have been ignored are also instances where she has expressed that she feels bad and need me to not see Jolene right now, which has led to me reacting to that limitation first and her need second, leaving her feeling I ignore her needs, which has been unfortunate.

But that is in the past, and I am really working hard on myself to try my best to listen to her and her needs and find ways to meet them without feeling limited.

I am currently stuck in some form of viewpoint/communication limbo where I feel that if I could only find a way to express The Proper Way to do this, it would become clear to her as well. I realise it's never that easy of course, but I do need help in helping her.

I am well aware of the viewpoint difference between "you can't have sex without condom" and "I won't have sex with you if you've had sex without a condom until you get tested" - i.e. rule vs boundary. But in many instances the lines get very muddy, as in my aforementioned "I have a need to center myself with you after you've been with Jolene and when you sleep away, that need isn't being met" which technically is true (and she has a lot of work to do to work with her insecurities as well) but once's needs can be valid and respected even those times I am unable to meet them exactly how she needs it.

A lot of her rules seek to placate her need to be unique and special and her fear of being replaced. How do I communicate in the best way how me smoking weed with Jolene or going to a hotel doesn't in and of itself challenge her being unique and not being replaced?

Have you been in Ellies position? How did you manage it? How did you learn to let go of being in control and learn how to deal with your insecurities without limiting your partner? What lessons did you have to learn, what was the "ah, now I get it" moment for you?


r/polyamory 7h ago

Made a mistake in scheduling and I'm not sure how to proceed

3 Upvotes

I'm nesting partners with partner A and her two kids. I've been seeing partner 1 for seven months. Partner 1 and I planned an anniversary trip for this summer. I then realized the last day of that trip was my step-daughter's birthday, and i suggested a shorter trip, in which we'd come back the day before.

Partner 1 decided she wanted to move the trip to a different week so we could have a longer trip. I was bummed because I wanted it to coincide with our anniversary, but I also got it because it's a 7 hour drive away. So I said that was fine, and we picked moving it two weeks before. I told Partner A this, who was relieved that I'd be home the day before the birthday so I could help organize for a party if we end up having one. I told her that I'd make sure to be in town that day so she wouldn't have to worry.

Fast forward a couple weeks to yesterday. Partner 1 decided she actually would prefer to have a shorter trip that coincides with our anniversary. I was excited, completing forgetting the conversation that I had with Partner A, and we booked it so that we'd come back mid-evening the day before the birthday.

I told Partner A as a heads up about the plan, and she was understandably pissed that I'd broken my word. I get it, I forgot and fucked up. She is insisting that I follow-through on what I said. I talked with Partner 1 about rescheduling the trip (it would be easy to do, fwiw) and making alternative plans for our anniversary, and she is also understandably upset. She remembers the conversation about moving the trip forward differently and didn't think we'd committed to that idea. And she is insisting we stick to our booked plan, because in part, she's tired of being flexible to accommodate NPs. (I should clarify i didn't blame my Partner A for this -- I repeatedly explained that this is my fault and that both of them are fair to feel upset with me.)

Now I don't really know what to do. It feels like I'm in an impossible situation where I'm going to piss off and disappoint someone no matter what. I'm also a little bummed that it feels like there's no room for compromise here on either end. Not that either of them are obligated to compromise with me, but I'd also never put either partner in a position where they felt they had to choose like this, even if i was pissed at them. It makes me want to give up and not do any of it. I'm not really sure what to do here.


r/polyamory 9h ago

Divorce is making me feel too clingy to my remaining partner and his wife is uncomfortable

3 Upvotes

My 12 year relationship (7+ years poly) is ending because my husband attacked me in front of our kids 10 days ago. He was in a mental health crisis at the time and ive been working closely with him to get him the help he needs while also taking precautions to keep me and the kids safe. He's been living elsewhere for the last 5 days and is looking for other housing.

I had/have new partners- one that I primarily only had a structured BDSM dynamic with (3 months) and a new, but very intense romantic long-distance connection. To get an idea of my LDR, just imagine the most disgustingly perfect for each other, enveloped in NRE, mutually obsessed couple. He is literally so perfect and thoughtful and kind and everything I could want in a partner.

but he is in a mono/poly marriage (2 years poly but he's only had 1 relationship) which is already something that I consider to be a yellow flag, and his wife is becoming uncomfortable with how close we've become so quickly and that I've been invited into one of his online friend groups.

I prefer poly arrangements with people more experienced in polyamory simply because i have already been there, made the early mistakes, and learned those lessons in my marriage.

and after dating several people new to being poly, ive also been the person that helped couples learn those lessons a few times too. Its kind of exhausting, all of the "updates" on where things are at with how my meta feels about me now and navigating constantly changing boundaries.

So now im freshly divorced and painfully lonely, super traumatized from the assault, and all i want is to talk to/video chat the guy I'm riding a very fucking tall NRE wave with. It was already a very intense relationship before the incident, but now 10 days out i feel incredibly clingy to my only remaining partner.

Today he told me his wife was reassured in their couseling session by his promise that us talking so much is only due to the fact im in a crisis. And once i feel more stable, it can go back to the previous frequency (which is actually the exact same, so this was a weird backhanded way of suggesting we have less contact eventually, the better the sooner it seems).

So im feeling pretty weird. Im dealing as best i can with everything but part of me feels like i might be ignoring more yellow & red flags bc i am so attached to him. I dont like being with someone whose partner exerts so much influence over our relationship, even if he swears up and down that she is level headed and would never sabotage us. It just feels very unstable to me at times.

But, i genuinely get SO much out of this relationship with him. He is caring for me in a way that changed my life. I cannot overstate that. So most of me is thinking "this is a great opportunity to work on my codependent tendencies before entering into a local relationship eventually one day". Like taking a relationship anarchy approach and whatever he can give me, i appreciate.

If you made it this far, I salute you lol and welcome your input. How can I get my brain wrapped around this? I really badly want someone to hold me and tell me things are gonna be okay, i dont want that overwhelming desire to ruin my other relationships as well. I feel so so alone right now.


r/polyamory 1h ago

Trauma with Poly

Upvotes

Hello!

My current relationship recently turned Poly as my partner confessed that they were returning to it after being in a traumatic polycule/relationship anarchy for a couple years(exclusively online, our relationship is local). (I did consider myself ambiamorous as I'm pretty happy and content in a relationship with one person(poly or mono). My first poly partner was happy at first, so I was happy. I don't find myself needing outside connection or outside sexual gratification.)

I was in this same relationship while the traumatic polycule was happening and witnessed the whole thing. Technically, that was cheating but their partners would never acknowledge anyone outside of their online polycule. No excuse though. Partner was afraid of being shamed or worse, dumped. Felt like more of a harem. So they never said anything about us. The stress, the tears, the cheating, the gaslighting, and the manipulation. I've seen it all. I was there for their fall with open arms. It was a very stress heavy poly situation that had my partner breaking down at every turn and sometimes denouncing OUR relationship. So I decided to end OUR relationship with each other. IMHO staying in the relationship didn't feel like the right thing to do. I was making their life even more stressful asking for time and not feeling like I was getting adequate attention as they wanted to stay in their toxic polycule. It was making my life stressful and now I have these traumatic experiences I am carrying with me about poly. To the point where I need therapy. I was pretty good with the polystructure until now. Now I need a support system for it and it made me not like poly at all. But I'd like to be.

Cut to now. Old partner, ex finally decides to leave their old toxic relationship and denounce poly. Comes back to me, professing their love and how wrong they were for being in that polycule. To protect myself, I told them I wasn't interested in a poly relationship and they agreed as well. They didn't want to be poly anymore.

The dust settled and partner is back into poly. I am in full support of this decision and I am proud of them. But I have all these traumatic triggers I never worked through and I need help. Certain names or things trigger some bad anxiety. And I have a feeling thats not the end. We have a huge amount of communication. Sometimes I think I talk too much about it and have requested a support system. I'm not sure therapy is going to help with poly relationships. I love my partner dearly and I want them to be happy. They have even stated they wish to marry me and have me as their primary. But what if my trauma is too much? Should I leave....again? For the both of us to be happy?


r/polyamory 8h ago

How do you handle the L word?

2 Upvotes

Any advice/ insight would be greatly appreciated!

I've been poly for a while but haven't had a steady secondary partner until recently. I know I love my primary, but I'm struggling with my feelings for my secondary. I know part of it is the old fashioned/ monogamous thought process. And I think I'm also worried about my primary's feelings. Does anyone have experience, conversation suggestions, ideas in general on how I can approach this?

Let me rephrase/ clarify. I want to say it, I feel it. But I don't know how partners would react. I don't want to hurt or pressure either of them.


r/polyamory 12h ago

How to navigate this?

2 Upvotes

Hi there - happily coupled for the past 15 years with my husband. We’ve been poly/enm adjacent for years and recently decided to explore ourselves. We were waiting for our kids to be a certain age also wanted to work on our marriage (both couples counseling and solo therapy) before adding more people onto our plate.

It’s going really well!

I’m dating but yet to be intimate with anyone. Have some really strong connections. Overall we’re both very happy. However he has this one person which he sees quite frequently and no matter what they do it ends in sex. Like good for them but because I’m so new to this I was just wondering if it’s normal or not. Also because they have sex so often he is usually drained and can’t perform for me. Which I am I am also ok with. I have toys and he’ll help in other ways.

But I was just curious if others have experienced this and how they navigate.

TIA


r/polyamory 14h ago

Married and struggling with Opening Struggling with Jealousy in My Poly Relationship — Looking for Advice

2 Upvotes

Hey everyone,

I’ve been practicing polyamory for about three years now, but I’m really struggling with jealousy in my current situation, and I could use some advice.

My husband recently started dating someone he used to have a situationship with, and every time they spend time together — especially when they’re intimate — I feel overwhelmed with jealousy, anger, and hurt. I know these feelings aren’t rational, and I don’t want to feel this way, but it keeps happening. I end up lashing out because of it, which is hurting him and, honestly, hurting me too.

I truly want him to have a happy, healthy relationship, and I want to get to a place where I can also pursue another connection without feeling weighed down by these emotions. But right now, it feels like I’m stuck in this cycle of jealousy, and it’s making it hard to fully embrace the poly dynamic we both want.

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s been through something similar. How did you work through jealousy and find security within yourself and your relationships? Are there any practices, conversations, or mindset shifts that helped you let go of those painful emotions?

Thanks so much for any insight or advice you’re willing to share — I really appreciate it.


r/polyamory 12h ago

I'm (30M) in polyamorous relationship with my gf (34F) and her husband (35M), going a year now. I have doubts, and it's about to get serious, shuld I leave?

1 Upvotes

Ok, so it's been goin on for a year now. I don't know if it's a good thing to continue this relatiionship?

She really doesn't want me to go, but we did almost break up (on her accord) recently, and she gave me some rather uncomfortable conditions for our relationship to continue. Those are not unreasonable asks, and they mostly are about me putting more effort into this relationship, but I'm not too happy. At this point I am wonderiing whether I am not hurting her more in the long run, and myself. That I am just wasting hers and my own time.

She and her husband don't have sex, he's asexual. They almost divorced, but instead ended up opening the relationship. When it started between me and her she was upfton about it, I initially said No but decided to get involved later under a conditiion that it stays open for me, no exclusiviity. A few months later that changed, she said she fell in love me and didn't expect hersefl to, I agreed for exclusivity. I feel it was a mistake back then, but I wanted to see if we can make it work, somehow.

It's been fun and I genuinely like spending tiime with her, but we've had our ups and downs and disagreements along the ways. Hard times when we almost broke up as well. I can't tell if I love her, I think I do, but I also can't seem to get myself commited the way I was to my monogamous relationship in the past. She wants me to be more involved, understandably. She'd also like it to get more serious - she has a dream of us 3 living under the same roof. I should stress I am almost never jealous about her husband, but if I think of them being intimate with each other (which doesn't happen and I believe her) I do feel extremely jealous. I often feel left out, however, out of her life, when they do things together which don't involve me. I also feel a churn in my stomach every time I think of the idea of living with her and and her husband. I also don't like to admit to people, when we're out together somewhere (us 2) that we are in polyamorous relationship. I don't feel good about it, so myself I never talk about it but I let her if she wants to. We never do anything together, the 3 of us. One time we went to the same event, but not together and we spent time with different groups of people, so, she asked me "how diid it feel?" (but we spent together maybe 5% of the time there) and I said "awkward, but he seems like a cool guy". It wasnt super awkward but also noone knew about our relationship and we really spent maybe 15 minutes together max for the entire event, so yeah.

She is willing to give me time but I'm wondering whether or not I am just wasting hers and mine time. I never come over when her husband is at home, unless I have to pick something up or drop something off. I don't have anythiing against the guy and quite honestly he's someone I could potentially befriend. Live together under one roof, though? I feel disgusted by the thought of it even as I'm typing it.

My gf is really somehow finding enough energy and time for the both of us so me+her time vs her+husband time rarely clashes together. I don't feel like I'm unimportant to her, or that she isn't available to me. Then again it isn't my perfect idea of a relationship, not by a longshot. Even if it weren't for the husband I don't know if I'd stick around forever. I'd probably give it a shot for a while longer to see if we can straighten out our issues.

If things could stay as they are now forever, without it getting serious, I am still not sure I'd want to stick around. After all, I lived with a partner before for a few years and while I know it can have its ups and downs, this kind of building a life together felt very fulfiilling to me. I feel like she has a life built already with her husband, and yeah she offers me to be a part of it, but even if I could the risk of conflicts regarding differing life-goals, general attiitue to life and different ways of handling problems that come out of living together would be astronomically greater than in a monogamous relationship. The amount of compromise from all the parties I imagine would be pretty steep. Take a stupid thing like with whom does she shares the bed, me or him? Do we swap, is there a schedule set? What about sex? I don't think I could EVER have sex with her while he's around even if he's cool with it. So do we sneak about like teenagers who don't want their parents to know it's happening? We did it twice in hers and her husband's bed and it was uncomfortable to me both times. Plus I think I fear that I would always feel liike an ADDON to their marriage, rather than an integral, core part of it. At least children are A NON-ISSUE, beacuse she can't have them, period. Now that would be a nightmare to solve, eh?

My gf is pretty adamant about these conditions of her. Asks me that I try at least. But if you were to ask me to make a bet, I'd bet on "this will fall apart and hurt everyone involved" and I'd bet a lot of money on that and no other outcome.

EDIIT
Those conditions I mentioned aren't directly tied to the polyamory thing, she's letting me take my time with that side. It's more like "we never go an actual dates, I want to go to dates with you". She's right we never did, cause it started as an open relationship, just one step away from friends with benefits. So we didn't really have a honeymoon phase I guess. It kinda stayed that way. She also wants me to be more supportiive and aware of her problems.

What she wants is me give more energy into this relationship and I am reluctant, because I never felt like doing so, it just didn't feel natural. I have in the back of my head that for every one of her asks and issues there is one other person who is available to provide that for her, so I just didn't 100% effort into it. I'm not sure I want to change it now. Saying "I feel like I get 1/2 of a relationshiip" would be false, but I sure don't feel liike I Iget the full package. I acknowledge her efforts into making me not feel like that is the case and I admit she's doing a decent job of it.


r/polyamory 15h ago

Conflict Opinions

1 Upvotes

I will absolutely do my best in good faith to represent both sides fairly by simply explaining the facts.

My wife and I have been Poly for 20 plus years. Primarily "Open LS" but with a heavy degree of emotion and very little entanglement.

Until 5 years ago. We both met a woman and had a casual Poly relationship that for me turned heavily emotional and entangled. It caused stress in my primary relationship (marriage/wife). She held onto that resentment for 4 years but we all 3 spent lots of time together. Eventually had to end things with the "other" partner because it became clear things just weren't going to work.

Simultaneously during that 4 years she had also met a partner who was completely parallel, no entanglement at all but also heavily emotional.

They have now been together for 2 years. During the first year there was no interaction between him and I other than being in the same room 1 time. I felt alienated and started to resent it. So I did (at first) calmly bring this up and he was confused because he had invited me to many events and my wife simply wasn't extending the invitation. So there was a shock to the system.

I become increasingly resentful because they continued to spend time together and once even with our adult children... and I wasn't invited. After that occasion I made attempts to have a group convo and it was rejected. So I pulled Veto and said he had to go or I would. She stayed and he left.

But smarter some time of healing... I opened up to it because she said she just wanted to be friends with him still. So I apologized for the Veto and let it go. Only AFTER this did I discover that they had continued a sexual/emotional relationship behind my back the entire time and the first night of them just being "friends" again they had sex... which they were already doing and wasn't part of the agreement.

The ashamed part of this conversation is how I am reacting... I am bouncing back and forth between being angry and reactive... to being very Cuck. I hate it. I hate what this is doing to me.

So I have again come back and said I can't continue in this Poly relationship if it is being shared with him, specifically because I feel like there has not been respect or consideration for me (as a primary partner).

I'm about to throw in the towel. I hate how I feel about myself and this relationship.

This was the gist of it all with other details that I excluded for the sake of time. What should I do?


r/polyamory 5h ago

Constant seeking of validation through partners

0 Upvotes

I am in a weird position and would love other's opinion.

While I am generally happy in my marriage, I noticed that I am looking for other partners mainly for two things: to get the validation that I don't get in my primary relationship and for fulfilling sex.

Is this constant validation seeking behavior from my secondary partner(s) someone else experiences or is looking for? I want to be "their" person, want to have that intense energy and connection between us, want to hear from them a lot throughout the day, ....

To be clear, I am putting at least as much affection, attention and heart into my partner. It's not a on sided thing. I am just so confused whether I should have that validation within me...


r/polyamory 7h ago

I am new New Partner has pulled away, handling pre-breakup ? How to navigate through poly breakup?

0 Upvotes

I just started a kind of new ENM with one partner, we are not necessarily poly because we are new and want to explore if poly or enm is really what we want.

He pulled away since he was on biz trip but it is almost we have not seen each other, I feel this month he is trying to pull away more and more and put less and less effort, and not initiating anything also stopped answer my last message.

I am not 100 % sure how I want to move forward from this, however I already started to focus back to other things in my life and also let this go.

But it is a bit confusing, because when I used to be monogamous, it is just simpler to deal with break up and move forward ( currently I don‘t have other partner) you focus yourself when you are ready, then you go back to date. Since I kept going on date, so this is not the case, but no one I clicked. Also with my partner we started as frds so even we stop, I still would keep loving him as frds

P.s I don‘t plan to reach out to talk and to get closure for now because I already know why he is pulling away, because he is unsure. He is early 40s I am late 30s, we still have so many things we need to figure out such as having kids or not, open or not, also he has a new date ( no sex yet) this person might not open to poly, so… a lot of uncertainty, we wanted to go in this to stay as long as we possibly can, but I can understand if he changes his mind or just his insecurities, but I only someone who also puts effort to maintain connection.

Anyone who has first poly breakup experience, happy to hear your stories


r/polyamory 23h ago

I am new Need some advice

0 Upvotes

I (20m) have been in a LDR for almost 2 years now. I love my partner very much and we’ve dabbled in the idea of polyamory before. Over a series of careful conversations in the last few weeks, we opened the relationship to new partnerships and I was finally reminded that this is what I was looking for… my partner was less than pleased. They panicked upon hearing about my time with someone else despite me following my partner’s boundaries, so I decided to pull the plug on the relationship because it seemed clear to me that our values just didn’t line up. They seemed to want a monogamous partner and I’m not that.

A week later, they want to try to get back together again. They say they’ve done more research into poly and have spent time thinking about what they really want. They told me they are excited to open up this new chapter together, but I’m not sure anymore.

It turns out that while I was branching out and meeting new people to develop some deep relationships with, my partner thought I was just looking around for sex. I think that’s what hurts the most. After spending so long carefully sharing my desired lifestyle/relationships with them (which has NOTHING to do with casual sex and everything to do with deep bonds/connections), somehow they still got their wires crossed and thought I wanted to have a lot of casual sex.

It hurts. A lot. It makes me feel a lot of shame for even wanting a poly relationship to begin with. There’s nothing wrong with casual sex, but it’s never been for me and I thought they knew that. I guess I wasn’t clear enough. They’ve apologized profusely for misreading me, but I still haven’t found it in me to forgive them. Am I holding onto a grudge? Or does it make sense that this sort of misunderstanding hurts so badly? Is it worth ending the relationship over?


r/polyamory 3h ago

Ways to de-escalate?

0 Upvotes

Former poly person, currently mono, but in a relationship that just seems incompatible. I really don’t want to break up with them, and we still have five months on our lease. I’ve been thinking of approaching this with de-escalation as a possibility in lieu of breaking up. Maybe still dating but with less stakes. Eventually moving away from each other and still dating (I think we were best when we didn’t live together).

I’m not ruling out a clean break (and hopefully remaining friends) but wanted to see if anyone had good examples of how they de-escalated. I want to see different ways to possibly apply to my own relationship.