The Whole Package: Lying, Avoidance, No Repair
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Storytime- This is going to be a realllllllyyyyy long post since I need to clear my system and empty my head.
TL:DR - Multiple instances of partner hiding crucial information that takes away my autonomy to make informed decisions, which includes lying, fabricating reality. Also, broken agreements, broken promises, no repair. Otherwise highly secure as a person, I'm considering if I even want non-monogamy.
I (28 NB/AFAB) have been in a relationship with my anchor partner, Mist (name changed, 36 M) for 3 years and have been nesting since 2. Both of us practice Relationship Anarchy. I started my non-monogamy journey in 2017 and since then experimented with multiple styles until I found most resonance in RA. He has had 3-5 other partners - same city+LD - through this period (some relationships went through transitions or ended) and I had a few infrequent comet relationships.
Mist prefers parallel poly. But there have been exceptions with two of his partners meeting me+each other, with individual relationships forming between us. I experience compersion and think of all of his partners fondly and the general atmosphere has been of support for each other.
Right from the beginning, we have had a very solid foundation vis a vis values, needs, direction, vision and limitations. We had an extremely enriching, loving, deeply connected relationship with high attunement. Both of us have doberman energy, want to build an intentional anchor partnership with shared goals, a home, enmeshment and much more. We extensively spoke about keeping hierarchy in check so that it doesn’t slip out insidiously, yet being aware that in order to honor our shared goals and vision, this connection would require that much commitment in time, energy, and prioritisation. Both of us having done our own rigorous work with non-monogamy have also come to be weary of the preset “rules” or “shoulds” in the NM space and redefined a lot for ourselves keeping in mind the basic value of respecting each one’s autonomy and care for everyone involved.
Being nesting partners, one of my needs was to have dedicated, exclusive, intentional time to avoid falling into the roommate trap. We decided on device-free Sundays as our day. And also, a general hygiene about keeping our phones away for sometime everyday to reconnect from our busy schedules or when we are on dates or planned activities.
I treat my relational agreements sacredly. And the same is expected from others: not in a rigid manner, but ‘hey, I value this’ manner. There’s a lot of room to make mistakes, drop the ball, as long it is proactively repaired and not taken for granted. I emphasise on having shared agreements since I’m on the spectrum and this lets me design my life that doesn’t overwhelm my nervous system. I also have clear boundaries/rules around access to my physical living space, my home as that is my geographic safe space- my sanctuary. So, boundaries around no one showing up unannounced, no hosting partners, hosting community for short periods of time to avoid me having meltdowns. I had communicated this to Mist before he chose to move in with me, that I am fiercely protective of my home space.
Over the course of last year, there were multiple violations of these boundaries by Mist. For example:
His mismanagement and miscommunication of his plans with his friend, Pat (name changed, F 40)+ another partner which led to them showing up to my home unannounced. I had returned from an extremely exhausting trip, illness and had justtt managed to drift off to sleep when the doorbell rang and I woke up with severe anxiety and palpitations. I am aware of my body’s need for rest and reset and this is one example of why my home boundary is in place.
On one of our exclusive, device-free Sundays, he received a distress call from his other partner and he got up and left to attend to them without offering any apology or care for the breach in our agreements: the point of “device- free” is beaten if you are tuned into your phone and available to receive calls!!!!!!! And on our exclusive Sunday. Also, the distress was just a minor inconvenience not even a major emergency.
He asked me to get ready for a fancy dinner date. I was very excited and dolled up and just when we were about to leave, the same friend Pat called him and said “Hey, I need to meet you even if for 10 minutes, I’ll drop by wherever you all are having dinner.” He told her he’ll check with me and get back. I said, no, I wasn’t in a space to have anyone else in our space, it didn’t matter if it was 10 minutes or 10 seconds. And if you still want to meet her, then that’s fine, but I won’t come for dinner and we’d reschedule our date. He didn’t want that so he said he would say no to Pat. En route our date, I asked him if he communicated the no to Pat to which he said, “No, it’s just 10 minutes, she’ll drop by.” That sent me into a frenzy because WTF dude???????????? How the fuck can you take away my agency to make informed decisions????????? I had a meltdown on the road and asked to be dropped then and there and I returned home.
On another one of our Sunday dates, we went for a nature bike ride. At a cafe where we stopped for tea, we bumped into another one of his partners, and without any acknowledgment of my presence (no greetings, no hi how are you, basic courtesy), this woman said, “Wait here, I will join you”. And Mist didn’t draw a boundary where he could’ve said “Hey, I’m out on a date and not up for company.” or anything to that effect. She hijacked our space for upwards of 45 minutes and I felt like the walls were closing in on me. Because how many times should I communicate explicitly to Mist what my needs/boundaries/limitations are?????????
The cumulative of the above instances left me feeling very taken for granted. I have shown empathy for his changing plans, showing up for others, consideration for his limitations, but he blatantly kept transgressing my needs/limitations/boundaries?
And each time, despite seeing me in distress, he didn’t initiate repair even once. No check-in, no “hey, I didn’t handle that well, I’m sorry”, or nothingggggg. Like I was crazy and seeing an elephant in the room that didn’t actually exist. Each time, I asked for a conversation, every time repeating the same basics. It took some months to overcome this.
Then came August 2025- The major betrayal
(I’m already exhausted narrating the story so far)
Intimacy (emotional, intellectual, physical) is important to me in any relationship. And that involves sharing our lives with each other authentically and transparently.
Mist had a work meeting scheduled in a city 3 hours from ours. He asked me if I would accompany him for the same to give him company on his ride to and fro and wait at a cafe while he attends his work meet. He asked me this a week before the trip. During the same time, his LDR girlfriend who also lived in that city was moving to a different state altogether. I had suggested that he club his work trip and meeting her and I would skip going altogether. There was radio silence, he didn't acknowledge what I suggested, neither agreed, nor disagreed, nor I'll let you know.
On the day of the departure, I was feeling low and overstimulated, less on mental health resources. He said, if you wanna skip, you can. I love spending time with him and thought it would be a nice change of weather on this ride and the time spent with him. I chose to go.
After the trip, when we returned home at night, he slept and I was up. I wanted to transfer some pictures I had clicked on his phone into mine. When I opened my gallery, I saw a picture of my meta and him together taken on the same day.
It left me extremely disoriented because he never mentioned his plan of meeting her even once. And mind you, this is the person who shares details of his dates in excruciating detail (within reasonable bounds of respecting the meta's privacy).
This wasn't some incident of oh he just forgot to mention a detail from his day. Or hey he doesn't need to give you a log of his entire life to you.
He actively fabricated reality and lied about the logistical details and didn't bring it up even when there was ampleeeeee opportunity to do it. If it wasn't such a big deal, it would've been really easy to just tell me during dinner or our ride back that Hey, I met meta, sorry didn't inform you. Etc.
Again, informing me prior to his dates isn't my expectation. What I do expect is to know his plans in order to plan my day, since we have our daily rituals (like shared meals), and if he is planning something other than work, then I would make changes accordingly.
Anyway, I was extremely heartbroken, because my brain couldn't comprehend one logical reason for lying. Especially, when there is no past data or experience in our relationship of jealousy, or conflicts regarding meta or anything that would usually make people lie to their partners. The first thing I did was to go inward and ask myself if I did anything to make the space unsafe for him to be authentic. And I honestly, couldn't find it.
This particularly made me feel extremely betrayed because 1. Lying 2. Hiding information that would've contributed to my decision-making of whether I want to accompany him or not. And I had previously mentioned to him when I made the suggestion of him meeting meta, that if he chooses that, I'll just stay home and chill or work. I have my own boundaries due to fluctuating mental emotional landscape which affects my capacity to extend myself to him and his other relationships. In this case, the idea that apart from his work meeting, I was also waiting in that cafe alone while he met his girlfriend thereby extending the time I stayed there. Had I known this information, I would've had a better picture of the time estimate and chosen my well-being. Also, some residual emotions from previous instances of being taken for granted for another person in his life were still lingering.
And also, the lying completely made me question the reality of our entire relationship. Because this was the person, who smiled at me, said I love you, all while lying all along?
When it got unbearable, I woke him up and asked why did you lie and hide?
To which his answer was, I don't know.
Fair enough. But this was a major attachment injury for me. Honesty, transparency, authenticity are the roots of my foundation in any relationship. Which I underlined before I started dating him. Violating them would be a deal breaker for me.
The next day, he apologised and said all the right words one may think are him taking accountability. He said, he'd do anything to make this right and restore trust and safety.
After the initial storm of my emotions and therapy, I asked for a conversation from him. I had decided to give this space a chance (because remember how safe and nourishing and loving it was before this?).
I hadn't personalised his actions yet. All I wanted was accountability, repair and restoration on trust and safety. All that I was willing to receive and work towards any resistances to receive. One of the things I needed was to know the WHY. Because to me, changed behaviour meant going to the roots of the why and beginning there. And I didn't expect immediate results. I have oceans of grace within me as long as someone is trying (not the words but in action, consistently). And we can't fix something if we don't have a picture of why the problem exists in the first place.
He said, he doesn't have the capacity for deep work since he has work to focus on. Fair enough. I said, take your time. These are some actions in the interim that you could take to also help me in my healing journey while you take your time to do the work.
Actions that in essence would make me feel special, important- like him putting his inner world in words, through handwritten letters, instagram posts about me, longer love messages to me, initiating conversations.
The whirlwind of No Repair began here. His resistances, inaction, words not backed by action, promises made which were broken. It took him months to even take therapy. Forget the deep work, he didn't do any of the stop gap actions too. Nor did he come up with creative solutions on his own if he couldn't do the ones that I suggested.
And no they were not unreasonable for him as he's done that before, for everyone else. But for me, he had a writing block, or if he did it because I asked him it would not be natural and everything under the sun.
Over time, without actual repair, things started going southward for me. The only thing I received from him were empty sorrys and how sad he feels for putting me through this turmoil and that he doesn't have the capacity or time to do what I requested him to do.
All this while being available to 3 of his other partners. The wound started compounding for me when everything started to occur to me all at once. The original injury, the lack of repair, the dangling carrot of repair, the disorientation, the collapse of the past reality the current one and the future dream.
I started spiralling despite therapy, external support system, my hobbies. My stories about my self worth started becoming insecure. I have a veryyyy healthy self-image and confidence to begin with.
But it started dwindling. And comparisons began, the need to be chosen, and so on, the usual I guess. It started spiralling to the point where I started showing PTSD symptoms and then upon researching I found out about betrayal trauma.
I would communicate with him the stories my brain was cooking up in hopes that he would reassure me, or take small actions to speak to the core wound or attachment need. Nothing. Longgggg paragraphs of my inner world would either go unacknowledged or met with a generic 1 line message saying I'm sorry I am putting you through so much suffering.
I was doing all the heavylifting of doing my inner work of fighting these stories, extending grace to him while he pretended to work on us and waiting and waiting.
It got to a point where I even questioned non monogamy. For myself as well as whether it's safe to do it with him. My mind was going berserk and I wasn't getting any support from him in countering my voices. The resentment started cementing.
It was always him being sooooo busy and having no time or energy to do the work required to repair and rebuild. What started bothering me was, him having the energy to show up for others while I starved. That started fuelling the injustice and betrayal even more and I started hating the metas too. I started having bitter rage and desire for revenge. Why should I be the only collateral in loving this person? Why should I bear the cost alone? I didn't contribute to the betrayal in anyway.
I wanted some sense of justice and fairness to be established. I started seeing shifts in my own morals and understanding of nuances and grey areas. I wanted black and white. This identity shift was also profoundly painful for me.
I was desperate and in that I also as a last resort requested him, if it would be possible for him to redirect his energies to our relationship for a few months since he has limited energies anyway. And he calls this an anchor partnership. Redirecting meant not engaging with metas (meets, calls, messages). Because the triggers were intense, I would feel my chest tighten every time he picked up his phone, everytime he stepped outside for work, everytime he told me he loved me. I would have unnecessary images of him being intimate with his partners (by now even my sexual traumas were triggered). I cannot provide the entire map of my emotional experience of 9 months on this platform, but I do wanna emphasize that I was actively taking responsibility for discerning what was my past baggage vs what was caused by him.
I don't believe any request is unreasonable. Because everyone is an advocate of their own needs. I advocated for mine by making that request and gave him the explicit option of saying no. He said yes.
A few days later, my anxiety went up, and I asked him if he's been keeping his word on our agreement. He said yes. I asked that if I were to ask for his phone to substantiate his claim, would it hold? He said yes. I said okay and checked his call logs and there it was. A call with a meta. And it left me baffled. What am I dealing with?
Even after this incident, he didn't communicate about wanting to withdraw from the agreement, or apologise for breaking it, or anything about it altogether. Which to my mind means that the agreement is still active which later I found out that he still kept violating.
Anyway. I am completely disoriented and in deep agony because my brain can't make sense of anything. He otherwise behaves extremely dotingly. But his avoidance is tight when it comes to repair. Forget repair, but he keeps creating newer injuries in the form of broken agreements, not following through on what he commits to doing, la la la.
Uggghhhh.. I am no longer cohabiting with him until he figures this himself. I can't parent a grown man into learning the fundamentals of a relationship. I am taking my time to focus on myself.
But I am in a lot of pain and turmoil. And I needed to vent to strangers. I don't know what I need from you guys. But maybe some perspective? Am I missing something?
I have already beaten myself up more than enough as well as by circumstances, so please be gentle with your feedback. I'm very open to criticism and want to grow. But please show care for my tender heart.