r/polycritical

This is something I have been ashamed to admit for a long time, because it's painfully obvious that I had self-esteem issues that played into this problem, and autism that made me struggle with the "grey" areas that were treading on.

My wife and I tried nonmonogamy for a year or so a while back. We had several polyamorous friends, and I had become convinced that this structure was more 'evolved' and healthy. I also had a deep rooted fear of not being 'enough', which was made worse since my wife had been in a poly relationship before and had engaged in several nonmonogamous events at parties during college, and had asked me for a threesome one time. I started worrying constantly that I wasn't enough for her, and I ended up asking her if she wanted an open relationship, and she said yes.

I tried sex with others a few times and it made me depressed because it made me feel disconnected from my wife. Meanwhile, my wife had began to develop feelings for someone she claimed to only want sex with. I spent a lot of nights alone in bed, while I listened to her giggle with him until 4am in the morning on voice calls. She bought him expensive gifts, but had stopped buying me gifts because I'm "hard to buy gifts for and [she's] not good at getting gifts." She would get mad at me when I called their relationship into question. And then only admitted to being obsessed with him after he made it clear that he wasn't going to have sex with her.

I was heartbroken. She was the very first person I fell in love with and loved me back. For a while she didn't want me to talk about it, but she eventually seemed genuinely remorseful, and admitted she had "got carried away" with the nonmonogamy. I feel like an absolute idiot who did literally anything aside get therapy. But nowadays, I have such bad anxiety surrounding the topic of nonmonogamy/polyamory. I feel that there's only a matter of time before she wants to leave me, that I'm no longer enough for her, even though she tells me she is sure that she wants monogamy with me now.

Every day I wake up, I remember that several month stretch where she woke up and immediately texted him. When she was usually only in 'the mood' after talking to him. When she would stay up late for hours talking to him. Nowadays, when she is 'in the mood,' it's hard to trust that she actually wants *me*. It's hard to trust that she isn't just closing her eyes imagining she was with him, or another new, novelty someone.

I remember her asking me at some point during that time, "why should sex be treated differently than any other activity you might do with friends?" and it still destroys me. She still sees it that way too. It makes me feel like she doesn't think I'm special at all. It makes me feel like she's taking advantage of my willingness to provide income and housing, while she remains a stay at home spouse, that she's taking advantage of my autism and my struggles with grey areas. It is so difficult to trust her now.

I am still heartbroken after this and I'm just now accepting how horribly this has messed me up. I don't know what to say or do. I love her to death and she gets me on so many other levels and our connection is so much deeper than any I've ever had. I can't give up on this relationship but I have no idea how to move on from this pain that consumes me every goddamn day.

Sorry for the long rant, I didn't know where else to put this.

After being polybombed ( brutally cheated on) by a previously monogamous LTR, I’m considering hoping the ranks of the ever-growing population of single women. Who else is sick of the abuse?

Oh, to lead such a vapid and feckless existence as to collect a harem of insignificant others. I'm sick and tired of its prevalence in modern society. One would think we would have left this cowardly ideology in the past where it belongs. Imagine being so spineless as to flit from fling to fling, penciling in your "loved ones" according to rank and schedule. Imagine looking upon what you claim to love and seeing only what they fail to give you, filling all your holes like you're a broken puzzle, with no self-control, recklessly defiant against any sort of attachment.

Nobody deserves this affliction yet they swear by it, like a cancer patient denying treatment as to not harm another living thing. I hate it. I'm sick of it.

Went to couples counseling because I found out he'd been watching porn daily for years and lying about it. Felt like a betrayal. Not because of some rigid moral stance but because he was hiding an entire part of his sexual life from me while I thought we were being honest with each other.

Therapist listened to both of us and then gently suggested I explore why it bothered me so much. Gave me a worksheet about insecurity. Told me most couples navigate this by building tolerance. Tolerance. Like my feelings about my partner lying to me were an allergy I needed to build immunity to.

He left that session validated. I left feeling like something was deeply wrong with me for caring.

Took me months to untangle that. I'd been writing about it on this therapy app rae chat because I couldn't talk to anyone without getting the "it's just porn" speech and something in one of my entries finally cut through the noise:

"Your discomfort wasn't about the act. It was about being told your standard for honesty is unreasonable by the two people who were supposed to take it seriously. The therapist didn't help you communicate, they helped him reclassify your boundary as your dysfunction."

I read that and felt sane for the first time in months. I wasn't insecure. I had a boundary that two people agreed to dismiss and then I got handed a worksheet for having feelings about it.

We're not together anymore. Different therapist now. One who doesn't treat my standards like a diagnosis.

So, I've noticed it's next to impossible to be monogamous and part of that community, let alone part of that lifestyle. The moment you admit you're into anything apart from the normative things, there's an assumption of total degeneracy...And no, no I'm very private and committed but I'm literally not capable of a vanilla relationship...And when I do try to reach out into that sort of social zone it's...I admit, while not literally impossible, damn close, to find anyone remotely serious who is interested in a long term monogamous commitment.

Not to mention that the moment I put my foot in the door of any of those kinds of social events or social spaces, even outside of yknow 'event' events...It's never about just meeting people, there's always got to be some nasty garbage about having a massive cule or a totally open arrangement and when I approached partners in the past, which I admit was stupid of me to give in to, they would already be assuming I was poly/open or only interested in a dynamic and not a romantic relationship on top of that...

And it's really busted up my view of how capable literally anyone is of a relationship where that kind of thing is mutually necessary but not the entire reason to be with each other...Like, do people just...Not like other people anymore? Is it all about sleeping around and entertaining themselves with being dramatic and manipulative/mean for no reason to each other?

Like, fundamentally it's a space with a lot of mental health stuff implicit in the needs of those who engage it but like...There's gotta be SOME real ones out there, right?

I've seen so many poly people having the "needing deep connections and trust", as well as the "dating only one person prevents you from forming different bonds and relationships with other people in a romantic way and missing that is sad" arguments against monogamy. At the same time, many poly people I know or I've heard about (keep in mind that don't know every single poly person on earth) actually lack proprer friendships, or have no genuine friends at all.

A poly person I knew considered their acquitances (ie, persons they tolerated, liked to spend some time with but not too many of it, worked with) as their friends. And they told me they had romantic feelings whenever the connection was stronger than that : being able to have deep conversations, sharing interests, and the other person being a safe space. Which, to me at least, is the basis of friendship.

And this is sad to see, as someone who has several healthy, deep friendships, and circle of friends which I can confide in without having to mask, people lowering their standards like that.

I had one ex which cheated on me on the pretext that she was polyam. Her way of seeing her friendship was that she had one main "friend" in her life, which she spent all her time with, and this relationship was very ambiguous as well. I was in this position, as her partner later, and she was jealous whenever I interacted with friends (and I meant in a normal way ie talking and spend time with, not flirting or trying to date them or anything gross like that). But at the same time, she blamed me when I told her kissing another guy was cheating, on the pretext that she was poly and couldn't repress her needs. She mixed everything up.

And I saw many poly people being like that : friendship and love are close things for them, or even sometimes, the same thing alltogether. They don't seem to have the same limits to what's everything supposed to be differenciated by.

And I mean, in the end, they're adults and choose whatever fits them most, I guess. But knowing that there's a big chance they're missing the point of having genuine and amazing friendships and a partner who truly loves them, and instead, choose to share what's not shareable (in my opinion) ie their lover, and have these weird, unhealthy dynamics where their friends are the people who share their partner with them...

Instead, they choose to have shallow friendships, and involve themselves systematically in romantic situationships which will inevitably break at some point. They're thinking that this lifestyle will give them opportunities to build stronger relationships, but at the end, they're making them more fragile, more difficult, more prone to drama. And they're bringing themselves closer to isolation, which is truly depressing. Both for them and to an exterior point of view.

And truly, I think they're missing out something amazing. Hoping to see some of them think about that and change their ways instead of denying their, and their loved one's needs.

you just know they’ll spring it on you once you’re emotionally invested.

also not to mention when their bio says “looking for connections” but won’t specify what their end goal with dating is.. standard avoidant behaviour 😅

It all started off with my gf asking me if I was frustrated. I was. I told her, that I'm frustrated that she won't have an adult conversation with me about how polyamory hurts people.

She straight up denies that most poly people get hurt. She wants scientific papers on harm.

So Im asking people, for scientific papers they might have.

A few years back I was pretty active in the ace groups on Facebook. I loved the memes and feeling of community, but anytime an ace person talked about issues with a non-ace partner wanting more from them than they were comfortable with, the comments were full of non-ace poly people suggesting opening up their relationship, and ace people in poly relationships glorifying how they could be themselves while letting their partner go out and find someone to fulfill their *other* needs.

Here on Reddit it's the same, ace people are told that if they can't fulfill every desire of their partner, that they should just *add more people*.

And it's the same with *any* relationship outside the queer community too, if you aren't giving someone everything they want, there's something wrong with you, and so you need to accept them doing whatever it is they do to cover for your failings. You're just a consumable product that is easily replaced or discarded. You are never *enough* on your own.

The idea that nobody could ever fulfill someone else's needs completely, is so bizarre and really the pinnacle of capitalist ideals. There are straight monogamous couples married for decades, and bedroom desires isn't at the center of their relationship. But it's expected if you're outside of that dynamic, if you aren't straight, the only other option is absolute degeneracy. Otherwise you're still *somehow* too straight, too hetero for the community.

Anyways, hello! Sorry for the rant.

I'm a bit nervous to post this honestly, as I'm not sure if it's something many people will relate to, but I just wanna get this off my chest so we'll see how it goes.

I'm a 32F monogamous lesbian, but it took me a while to realize that. My timeline of self-discovery has been very non-linear, which makes telling the story a bit challenging, but the story of my relationship with non-monogamy can be broken up into 2 parts:

Part 1: General Poly/ENM Trauma

My first encounter with the concept of "ethical" non-monogamy was when I was 18 and I dated a bi guy who wanted a sexually open relationship. I said yes to this arrangement but the relationship fell apart pretty quickly. I'm the one who ended it. The whole story is long and messy but I was just looking for a way out. I did go through some traumatic experiences due to this relationship but they weren't directly related to the non-monogamy aspect per se... I just met some unsavory people in the local kink scene.

After that relationship ended, I continued to experiment with non-monogamy off and on, but I did have some monogamous relationships as well.

I had 2 shitty experiences with men in polyamorous or open marriages that were similar, and made me start questioning. Both led me on, then said I would never be as important as their wife, and then ultimately only wanted sex. One of them ghosted me. I began to think marriage was a red flag in non-monogamy because it creates an inherent hierarchy, but it didn't make me write off non-monogamy entirely. At least, not at first.

Ironically, the guy who didn't ghost me? His wife had a boyfriend, and she ultimately left him (her husband, who told me he couldn't bring himself to date anyone else) for the boyfriend. So in this case the married partner didn’t put her spouse first... But the arrangement failed anyway.

After all that, I gave non-monogamy one last try, although I didn’t realize it would be the last when I agreed to it initially. After realizing I was a lesbian, I met a strictly polyamorous woman who developed a crush on me, and proceeded to enter the worst relationship of my life. Our rules were fairly simple: mostly, just be fully transparent with each other about who we were seeing, where & when. No overt PDA with other partners in front of each other until/unless discussed. Allowed to veto another partner ONLY if they are toxic/abusive. That kind of thing.

Well she managed to “cheat” on me by breaking these simple rules. But it’s probably worse than you think. See, she had developed bipolar disorder a couple of years into the relationship. The kind that comes with psychotic delusions. I had to become her caretaker because she refused to take her meds and was out of control. It was around this time that she decided to pursue another relationship, with another woman who also had a partner she was living with. She wasn’t fully honest about her from the start, made out with her in our house while I was home which made me super uncomfortable, and the worst part? When she was in the hospital due to a manic episode, she asked me when her new partner was coming to see her, and told me that I was basically a useless piece of shit and a terrible partner, and told me her new partner was better than me in every way etc etc, ripping my heart into a million pieces. I was the one at the hospital by her side. Not the new partner. And when I reached out to the new partner to pass on her questions about when she was coming to see her or if she wanted to even call, she told us to fuck off and blocked us both. When I told my gf, she called me a liar.

Obviously, at that time, I was too concerned about my gf being in the hospital, my responsibilities as her new caretaker and everything else to fully process what she had just done to me, but I did cry my eyes out. Eventually, as you can imagine, this single most traumatic experience with non-monogamy did kill my belief in it altogether. She had all the freedom in the world. It was almost hard to cheat with such flexible rules. Yet she did it anyway. Non-monogamy has, for me, never solved a single problem. Just given me some new or different ones, and made relationships more messy.

Part 2: Sexuality Confusion

I left this part separate from the rest of the story because I wanted to emphasize how non-monogamy hurt me separately from the sexuality aspect and give a broader overview of my history with it as a whole. But, even though the pain of my ex-girlfriend’s betrayal was very tough to deal with, it's almost equally painful how polyamory prolonged my confusion about my sexuality, as well.

Unlike probably a majority of late bloomer lesbians, I knew I liked girls already from an early age. I started identifying as bi when I was 13 or so. But I did struggle with a lot of self-doubt. I kept identifying as bi publicly, but internally I'd question if I could be straight or lesbian. By the time I was 18, I was honestly starting to lean towards thinking I might be a lesbian after all, because I had started to realize that I could be happy never being with another man ever again, but I couldn’t give up women. But then I got introduced to non-monogamy, and that kind of changed the whole criteria for understanding my sexual orientation, if that makes sense. Because there’s no need to pick, and most importantly, if you’re not satisfied with your partners, that’s NORMAL, and not necessarily a reason to break up. Just add more partners to the pile. Thus my ongoing dissatisfaction with men could be a sign I need to go back to poly, or that I just need more partners. If that makes sense.

While I did in fact realize I was a lesbian before I fully gave up on non-monogamy, in retrospect, I think it prolonged that important self-discovery.

Anyway I know I left out tons of stuff but this post is already long af so I’ll leave it there. Can anyone relate to my story? Weird and convoluted as it is, lol. Feel free to ask questions if you have any. :)

CW for huge polyphobia I guess?

Had experiences being cheated two times with the "but I'm poly so this is okay" shit of an excuse, and in a new relationship where the person considered trying it at one time, but changed her mind (tho I still struggle trusting her because of my background). Yes, at this point I think I'm cursed lmao. Plus, since I tend to hang out in a lo of queer spaces, I also see a lot of positivity around ENM in general.

That stuff used to make me go "Eh this is weird but as long as everyone is adult and consenting" but, with time, it got to the point where it made me sick to the stomach. I wish I could just be able to not care and concentrate on myself. But god this is hard. I think about it almost every day. Being forced in this kind of twisted narrative. Losing the one I loved. Forced to accept things I wouldn't. Feeling deep hatred every time I come across stuff promoting ENM. This became a sort of mental self harm to me and I feel like I can't escape it.

It's been almost 10 years, with one entire year with these kind of thoughts in servere amount that I just described.

The consequences have been desastrous on my mental health, I'm seeing a therapist (who agrees with me that all this shit is just a bunch of narcissistic weirdos who are scared of engagement), but this is not enough. This made me unable to enjoy some moments, concentrate at work or whenever I'm with my close ones. I can't stop having to talk with my gf to be reassured, which works, but then I'm so scared she might change her mind again, like the others did, that I almost need to be reassured on almost a daily basis. This makes me feel pathetic and needy, which I hate, and is poisoning my relationship.

I want this to stop. I want to go back to a normal life and not live in constant fear and pain.

As a queer person myself, I feel like an outcast thinking like that. Sometimes I try to convince myself that I'm overreacting in fear of becoming like the bigots who hate us. At the same time, seeing people endorsing ENM almost makes me want to vomit so I can't just... let it exist while being in peace at the same time.

This might sound egoistical but damn. I wish that non-mono nonsens never existed. I wish people didn't start collecting spouses like they were trophies. I wish people never rediscovered that and adapted it so it could be "ethical". I wish that this lifestyle was more denounced, more studied and that the world, well especially a lot of queer/afraid of commitment/traumatized people would see that this is NOT the solution to their problems, on the contrary...

I want them, both the narcissists who will never be satisfied even while dating 12 people at the same time, and the folks who think that they don't deserve true love, to heal and find peace.

I couldn’t do it, I can’t be part and linked to a meta that is 20 years apart from our hinge. The deep concern for the younger female and our full grown adult hinge pretending to be some expert dom is just disgusting. The power imbalance and the whole “she’s very mature for her age” is so predatory to me. All the attraction and respect left my whole body. Watching her all stary eyes at him and he’s with her cause of it and it’s so easy and cool and connected. The girl has a history of not being able to handle Fwb so we going to set her up for a spiral!!