I need to discuss this situation with people who might understand. My friends and partner have been wonderfully supportive but they are either mono (my friends) or brand new to poly (my partner). So I don’t think they get how fucked up this situation feels.
My (43f) ex partner Matthew (35m) recently ended things with me after 3.5 years. This post isn’t about the breakup though. It’s about everything I watched him do to his life beforehand.
Throughout our relationship Matthew told me that he valued the autonomy of polyamorous relationships. He valued my independence. He said a lot of things that made me think he wasn’t really into the traditional escalator-style relationship concept.
In fact he told me directly that he was RA, and that he didn’t want the state involved in his relationships. He told me on numerous occasions over the years that he wanted to live by himself.
But then a couple of years ago he got married to his long-term partner. It was a big, sorta traditional wedding, not just an administrative thing.
In the months immediately after he married, Matthew lost a lot of money by falling for an obvious scam, despite being a very smart person. Then he lost much more money and had cars repossessed due to failure to deal with the issues caused by the scam. His mortgage was at risk.
Matthew is 100% adamant that he does not want children. His wife, however, does want to have a baby, and may with another partner. Our state is a presumed paternity state. That means if they are married when a child is born, or divorced within a certain time period before, Matthew is legally the father, no matter what. They would have to go through a court process to remove him from the birth certificate, regardless of paternity test results.
So that situation has been cooking for a minute.
Then maybe a year ago, Matthew let his boyfriend move into his house along with his wife (who was not into it). His boyfriend who doesn’t work and is now essentially dependent on him, and doesn’t really have anywhere else to go. They met after Matthew was married. After all that talk about wanting to live alone.
All this time I put up more and more boundaries with Matthew. I value stability and there was no way I was getting involved in anything like any of that. If Matthew had asked me for advice or help I would’ve given it. But he did not. It was getting to the point where I didn’t even really want to hear about his life.
Like I said, my relationship with Matthew has now ended, almost certainly for the best.
But I’ve never in my life seen someone say they want something and choose the opposite so many times, or so dramatically.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around it. The wtf-ness of it all just defies explanation to me.
Have any of you seen anything like this? Is this extreme self-sabotage? Just someone who really can’t live up to their own values? Was he just lying to me about what he wanted for some reason?
I know I’m well rid of this situation, but my mind keeps returning to “what the fuck?”