u/Fabulous-Ninja1712 — reddlx

This is a long one folks so bear with me. I (43f) met my bf, let's call him Drew (41m) just about a year ago on a dating app called feeld. This dating app is for people in the lifestyle/Ethical Non-Monogamy/Kink community. Initially I was not looking for a serious relationship right off the bat but someone I could lightly date and attend parties with as my primary play partner. He had pretty much no experience in the lifestyle community so I figured since I was 10 years into it I would be able to show him the ropes fairly easily.

As we were getting to know each other and outlining our dynamic I asked him if it was okay if I still saw my existing play partners solo. He said he wasn't okay with it and I agreed that we would become a Monogamish couple and would not play solo at all.

People in my community were pretty supportive aside from a few people who made comments like "well when you break up I would love to get to play with you." Which frankly is very gross, and bothered me but I largely ignored it because I was quickly falling in love with this guy who I found insanely sexy, strong, fun, and chill.

Things move on and life with him is exciting and fun, we have a good time, we have some fun experiences until one unfortunate night. I had a crush on this one woman, and thought we would both give him a blowjob. And simply "see where it goes" big mistake. I had tried to explain to him logistics many times over the time we were together and he would get very dismissive about it and make comments like "less talk more play" etc. So I figured ok well let's play. Man was I wrong.

Through the experience it was going great until on 3 different occasions he got annoyed with me and harsh with "what the fuck are you doing?" (Remember hes never had a 3some and ive had several) so much so he made the other girl uncomfortable too but we kept going. So anyway it gets to the point where we were trying to get in a position where he was in her and I was kissing him while straddling her. Welp, he pushed me away, wrapped his arm around her tightly pulled her away from me and buried his face into her neck. A move we often did together alone that made me feel safe and secure. So at that point I am sitting there on the bed no longer part of the threesome.

This went on for a few minutes, which felt like eternity to me. I am on the verge of tears, and then she realizes I am not part of things. She goes are you okay? And I said Nope. And go to get off the bed. Wanting desperately to get out of that situation. Spiraling intensely.

I left the room and went into the bathroom with her and tried to calm down.

When I went out to talk to him I was not okay. I was hurting and embarrassed. I was falling apart.

He proceeded to act like the entire failure was my fault, broke up with me, never once actually said hey I am really sorry for how this went tonight.

That should have been it. I should have just ignored him and never saw him again after that but my foolish heart thought my god I love this man and we have had so much fun up until now, let's see if we can work it out.

We continued on. I explained i needed a break from the parties because of things and feeling burnt out. And figured he and I could work on our relationship and fix it. As time went on, things got really good and I was beginning to think, okay this might work now. We went on a vacation together where I felt closer to him than I had before. And then within 2 weeks of being back from that vacation he decides its time to discuss returning to the lifestyle. Implying I should be over it by now (it had only been 3 months since the failed 3some) and all the trust we had been working on flew out the window. It felt like all that mattered was the lifestyle, not our relationship.

Things calmed down again and we went about the rest of the year. Christmas came and we had discussed multiple times what the plan was. We had agreed to provide each other with an experience and some other cheap gifts. I got him tickets to a comedy show of a comedian he had said he enjoyed, and some other small gifts he needed. What I got was a hoodie he had sprsyed some of his cologne on and a card game but no experience tickets with him claiming they were too expensive and he would buy them soon. These tickets were never purchased. And the event sold out. The whole time I am sitting there waiting for him to simply show up for me the way I've been showing up for him.

Not to mention on Christmas eve he attended a family dinner and invited his ex (they have kids together) along. Now this person has been actively making his life a living nightmare. Taking him to court, enrolling the kids in activities he can't afford on purpose to make him spend more money then he has. Not to mention she broke up with him when his mother was dying and never let him move into the townhouse he helped her buy. He knew this made me uncomfortable as we had at that point been dating 8 months and I still hadn't been even talked about with his family let alone met any of them (not his kids, like his sisters or someone, or even his friends for that matter).

Come January, the event he had said he would get tickets to for me for christmas is selling out. He is being a bit of a dick when I ask him about it all the time and at some point the comment of "if you behave" gets said. I snap. I broke up with him.

The days that followed were a barrage of texts and we settle on working on things casually. We get through a few weeks and then somehow a discussion comes up about how nice it is that the pressure is off and we are having fun again now that we arent in a relationship. And I am like um... yes we are... because from my understanding we are working on things meaning fixing our relationship.

We break up again. And this time I block him. And I feel somewhat more settled. Until I decide to unblock him on fb.

Well that sets it off again. And I said we need counseling. Since neither of us can let this actually go, we need counseling.

And things go really good. We have a great time again, counseling begins, I feel more secure because he actively participated in the counseling and I thought great! He really does take this seriously and we can rebuild.

My birthday comes and I decide its time to try another 3some because here I am having faith in us. So we do. This time it goes super well and we become closer because of it, I feel closer to him than ive ever felt before. I am feeling like perfect we have finally got there, we are communicating, we are having fun again. I am loving this man more and more and more.

5 days after he tells me hes going away with his kids AND ex for a tournament for the kids and sharing a hotel room with her. And not only that its been planned for months and he never told me about it. Now I should say I am also a single mom, who has an extremely amicable situation with my ex (we live on the same property, and everything is super chill) we recently went on a vacation with our kids and Drew knew about it from the get go, and my ex even would say things to Drew like hey why dont you come with us! Remember no one in Drew's life knows about me. So there is no possibility that I could have gone along and gotten our own room etc.

Drew insists he is treating it as a vacation with his kids which is totally fine and understandable, but i am still really struggling with the fact that he knew about it for months and never told me. Not to mention he is traveling with a woman who actively is taking him to court to do with the kids and money. I told him that by going he is going to add fuel to her desire to clean out his bank account and that I am really concerned about how his mood is going to be when he returns from the trip.

I also am trying to lean into the energy of well we are in counseling and maybe this is a way for him to show me how important I am to him. Well you guys probably guessed it. I was last priority. Even at times he turned his phone off. He never texted me unless I texted him first and I had said several times in the days leading up to the trip that I was going to need contact to not spiral and have anxiety.

At this point my friends all hate him, they want me to break up with him, they want him gone from our lives because he is hurting me too much. They forget I really love him because when we aren't in conflict its literally perfect. I love our day to day.

He comes back from the trip and I explain I had a really rough time and he gets angry at me for expressing how rough my weekend was.

He claims it am never going to get over shit and that I am the problem in the relationship not him. He has also never told me in the year we were together that he loved me. He also said that he never saw me as a long term partner or marriage material when he was angry.

Also sure enough his ex served him with more court proceedings for more money in the days following the trip, like I expected she would.

Am I the asshole for not being able to just move on and give him experiences and for not being comfortable with the way things are going? Am I crazy for feeling like I am being taken advantage of here?