u/HabaneroPepperPlants

So the context is that I'm aroace and having a bit of a sexual exploration phase. I never really did it in my teens or early twenties (because aroace), and I'm doing it in my late twenties because I figure it's now or never

I have a polyamorous friend (NB) who's kinda been openly crushing on me in their own aromantic-spectrum way for a few years now. When it came out that I'm in an exploration phase, they were almost immediately like "I volunteer as tribute!" lol

So they visited for the weekend, I showed them some of the fun spots in my city, and we had sex three times. I got to try some things I've never tried before, and it was quite interesting

Anyways, at the end of it, I kept them company for about an hour while they waited for their bus, and then after they left I spent the evening kinda just processing the weekend I'd just had

And I was like, "why did they seem . . . weirdly attractive while we were hanging out waiting for the bus?" Talking to them just seemed even more engaging than before. And I felt strangely amped, like my blood was a little more alive. And I find myself wanting to tell them a lot more about the little things I see in my day

And I guess I didn't realize sex could do that. I think I'm Spock-brained enough to be like "Ah, this feeling is just chemicals, it'll pass with time. But it's really fascinating while it's happening." I'll try to not treat my friend much differently than I was before, so that I don't end up playing with their feelings

What's kinda funny is I can kinda see the logic of sexual monogamy now, after sleeping with a poly person. The irony. This stuff messes with your brain chemistry, and I can see why people would want to avoid the complexities that come with that

I feel like the feelings afterwards are more worth the hassle than the sex itself. Is that common? I kinda wish it were possible to create these sensations without doing something as gross and messy as intercourse 😂

Anyways, I wanted to share that all somewhere. Most of my friends are very ace and wouldn't want to hear about all this stuff lol

So the context is that I'm aroace and having a bit of a sexual exploration phase. I never really did it in my teens or early twenties (because aroace), and I'm doing it in my late twenties because I figure it's now or never

I have an aroallo polyamorous friend (NB) who's kinda been openly crushing on me in their own quoiromantic way for a few years now. When it came out that I'm in an exploration phase, they were almost immediately like "I volunteer as tribute!" lol

So they visited for the weekend, I showed them some of the fun spots in my city, and we had sex three times. I got to try some things I've never tried before, and it was quite interesting

Anyways, at the end of it, I kept them company for about an hour while they waited for their bus, and then after they left I spent the evening kinda just processing the weekend I'd just had

And I was like, "why did they seem . . . weirdly attractive while we were hanging out waiting for the bus?" Talking to them just seemed even more engaging than before. And I felt strangely amped, like my blood was a little more alive. And I find myself wanting to tell them a lot more about the little things I see in my day

And I guess I didn't realize sex could do that. I think I'm Spock-brained enough to be like "Ah, this feeling is just chemicals, it'll pass with time. But it's really fascinating while it's happening." I'll try to not treat my friend much differently than I was before, so that I don't end up playing with their feelings

What's kinda funny is I can kinda see the logic of sexual monogamy now, after sleeping with a poly person. The irony. This stuff messes with your brain chemistry, and I can see why people would want to avoid the complexities that come with that

I feel like the feelings afterwards are more worth the hassle than the sex itself. Is that common? I kinda wish it were possible to create these sensations without doing something as gross and messy as intercourse 😂

Anyways, I wanted to share that all somewhere. Most of my friends are very ace and wouldn't want to hear about all this stuff lol

I somewhat recently went through a very messy breakup involving alloromantic relationship anarchists, that I'm still trying to make sense of. I'm kinda hoping that someone here can offer insight, hopefully in good faith

So, I'm aromantic

Aromantic (adj) - someone who feels little to no romantic attraction

Alloromantic (adj) - somebody who is not on the aromantic spectrum (a.k.a. most people)

I do form committed partnered relationships, even though I don't feel any romantic attraction and don't bring a particularly romantic vibe to the table. I do this for a variety of reasons (desires for companionship, commitment, domesticity, etc), but I also do it because I want to be prioritized

It is a fairly common aro experience to find a friend, love them a lot in your own way, treat them like a priority, and then get pushed aside when they find a partner/fall in love with someone else. For a lot of aros, their friends disappear completely, and it's deeply painful. That fortunately hasn't happened to me, but I have had the experience of my best friend subtly slipping away from me. You're in the #1 spot, and then they develop a romantic connection to someone else, and you can just feel yourself silently slide into the #2 spot. And #2 is still very high, but it hurts nonetheless. You feel a lot of sadness and self-hatred against your own aromanticism. You feel like you were just a pseudo placeholder partner while they waited to find their real partner

And, for what it's worth, I don't resent the friends who did this to me. They had never promised me that I would always remain the priority. One friendship that I'm thinking of in particular was a university roommate relationship, and so there was kind of an implicit understanding that our dynamic existed in a temporary context

No, I don't blame or resent them. But it made me realize that I wanted a relationship like that, where that desire to be prioritized isn't unspoken. Where I actually go out and consciously commit to someone, and where we mutually and verbally agree to prioritize each other

I often think of that Maya Angelou quote -- “Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option." To me, finding a partner means finding someone and saying, "Hey, I want to make you a priority. Do you promise not to make me an option?"

My ex and I started mono, but then mutually had interest in nonmonogamy. She was interested in making out with various women as a woman (she'd never gotten the chance to do so before, as a trans woman). I was interested in exploring new sexual experiences

I made it very clear, several times, that I was consenting to ENM, but not polyamory

And part of that is because I wanted prescriptive hierarchy. I wanted my ex and I to be each other's only girlfriends. I wasn't going to offer partner status to anyone else, and I didn't want her to either. I wanted that element of our relationship to remain exclusive, even if the kissing/sexual elements weren't. (I think this is prescriptive hierarchy, let me know if I'm using that term wrong). I didn't want anyone to ever say to me "well in poly, XYZ thing that you want in your relationship is problematic"

But my ex went and started getting involved with an RA poly woman, and that's pretty much exactly what happened. She said that it's toxic to want prescriptive hierarchy. My ex communicated that she only had a casual relationship to offer and made it clear that they wouldn't be girlfriends, but this other woman was frequently pushing on those boundaries, coming on really strong onto my ex, and pushing for them to have a more girlfriend-like relationship. And my ex was in the throes of NRE and being a terrible hinge, and doing a godawful job of holding boundaries and protecting our relationship. And I kinda got painted as this toxic controlling harpy for having a problem with all that

Now, here is one area where some confusion may have arisen, which is the fact that I said I was okay with my partner catching romantic feelings for other people

So, as I said, I'm aromantic. I don't form partnerships on the basis of romantic attraction, since that's not a feeling I typically experience. In my opinion, the notion that "romantic attraction = partner" and "no romantic attraction = friend", and that that's how it has to be for everyone, is allonormative and kinda arophobic. In my mind, a nonromantic relationship can be a highly committed and interdependent partnership, and a romantic relationship can be very casual and relatively uninvolved

I've heard some ENM people say that their open relationship is sex-only. They don't allow for romantic feelings with anyone else, and they have an agreement to end the relationship if those feelings start forming. And I always thought that was kinda silly. You can't control your feelings, you can only control your actions. So if I can trust my partner to choose her actions so that she's treating me the same and prioritizing me the same, despite feeling romantic things towards someone else, why should it make a difference to me?

And so I consented to nonmonogamy on that basis. I was okay with romantic feelings developing on that basis. My thinking was that there was no reason why romantic feelings have to automatically lead to girlfriend-like commitments, and I thought my ex was on the same page about that. But her other woman never seemed to agree, and my ex never stood up to her

Thing is, I still encounter relationship anarchists who tell me that my desires are toxic. And this pisses me off because I presume that they're allo, and therefore have no idea what it's like to be the aromantic friend or partner of someone who's in romantic love with someone else. I get told that in non-hierarchal dynamics, that sometimes you're the priority and sometimes you meta is, and that it's based on context rather than on the nature of either relationship

Except*,* it's never worked out like that for me in practice. The prioritization, the relationship resources, all silently implicitly slide towards the romantic and sexual connection

I've kind of developed this view of relationship anarchists (and anyone who advocates against communicated hierarchy/prioritization in general) as being privileged allos who are completely unaware of their allo privilege. But maybe that's unfair? Maybe there's some nuance I'm missing. Or maybe it's a few bad apples?

And I'm also wondering, should I just not trust that an allo can fall in romantic love with someone else and not let it affect our nonromantic partnership? Was that a naive thing to believe could happen?

So yeah that's why I made this post. If my prejudice against relationship anarchists is unfounded, then I'd like to talk about it. Or any other insights that allo polys might have. I'm sorry it's so long, but when you exist outside of a lot of social norms, there are a lot of concepts to explain. I'm sure you all can relate to that

We were switching over from monogamy to nonmonogamy. I wanted to have conversations about expectations and agreements. She called those conversations burdensome and exhausting. She told me it shouldn't matter and that none of my concerns were a big deal. I felt like I had to drag her into these conversations, like getting a middle schooler to do her homework

Now several months later after everything's gone to shit and we've broken up and my entire life has been turned upside down, and everything from my housing to my career to my social life has been set back by years, she keeps telling me over and over again how sorry she is. But then still says shit like this

What's ironic is she calls herself a relationship anarchist, but apparently ignores the part of the manifesto that specifically says that you should deliberately communicate

I think she might actually be more of a relationship libertarian. Just wants to do what she wants when she wants, and I'm overbearing and controlling and have "poor interpersonal skills" when I want to talk about how that affects me

Hi, I want to start buying eggs less frequently, and I was hoping this community could help me find creative solutions to replace my favorite egg dish

The dish is a couple fried eggs with runny yolks on white rice, with soy sauce and chili oil on top. I break the yolks, mix it all together, then eat. I'm no food scientist but I believe what makes it so good is the fattiness, saltiness, and spiciness all together on the carbiness of the rice

Their life got to continue on relatively uninterrupted while you lost your home and your life has been completely disrupted. They're focusing on "moving on" and "giving themself grace" while you're trying to figure out how to ever trust anyone again. They've already replaced you and you're the most alone and isolated you've ever been in your life

The unfairness hurts so deeply. That they got to damage me so much, and it's on me to learn how to cope with it while they're just proceeding with normal life like nothing happened

Their life got to continue on relatively uninterrupted while you lost your home and your life is in shambles. They're focusing on "moving on" and "giving themself grace" while you're trying to figure out how to ever trust anyone again. They've already replaced you and you're the most alone and isolated you've ever been in your life

The unfairness hurts so deeply. That they got to damage me so much, and it's on me to learn how to cope with it while they're just proceeding with normal life like nothing happened

We tried being nonmonogamous, and my ex girlfriend's other connection (let's call her R), kept pushing boundaries. R called our relationship structure toxic, continuously asked for things that she'd been informed went against our agreements, pushed gifts on my ex, and multiple times criticized me/the boundaries I had with my ex

My ex would relay these things to me, I think in the name of transparent communication? But then she'd just tell me about the criticisms, and say nothing about disagreeing with them or what she did to stand up for me. And I'd confusedly be like ". . . and do you agree with her on that??" And she'd then say she didn't, but wouldn't go into detail

But then when I had even mild criticisms of R's behavior, my ex would defend her so thoroughly and we'd have hours long fights about it

She also talked about how caring R was and how much she loved that R was so tall and could pick her up. I'm shorter than my ex. I tried to pick her up once but couldn't do it for more than a couple seconds. It made me feel less than

There were a couple different fights where she said that both she and R thought that I over-communicate and it's really annoying

Sometimes when we'd be having long conversations about relationship agreements (because my ex kept breaking agreements and then claiming she didn't understand them well enough), she'd call the conversations exhausting and say that R didn't expect to have them with her

When my ex hurt me and we were fighting about it, she'd say "I don't have these problems with anyone else"

At one point, it seemed that my ex was taking accountability for the stuff she did to me. So I reached out to R to talk things out. In our conversation, we talked about a couple of the things my ex had taken accountability for, and R tried to spin it around on me. A few days later I texted her telling her I thought this was victim blaming. She denied it, and doubled down and implied that I was a liar and abuser. I showed the texts to my ex and she said she didn't see anything wrong with the conversation. She used some therapy term that I can't remember to basically say that I was building some inaccurate narrative based on my own emotions that felt true to me. She also said "I like when R defends me"

We were once talking about the ways that R was disrespecting our relationship, and my ex said that R would stop when she had reason to believe I wasn't abusive. Which felt like a threat to me. Like, I had to make sure my ex was happy or else she wouldn't stop attacking our relationship

My ex often treated me as being unreasonable for how uncomfortable I was whenever she went to see R

Thank you for reading this if you got this far. Does this sound like triangulation to you?

We tried being nonmonogamous, and my ex girlfriend's other connection (let's call her R), kept pushing boundaries. R called our relationship structure toxic, continuously asked for things that she'd been informed went against our agreements, pushed gifts on my ex, and multiple times criticized me/the boundaries I had with my ex

My ex would relay these things to me, I think in the name of transparent communication? But then she'd just tell me about the criticisms, and say nothing about disagreeing with them or what she did to stand up for me. And I'd confusedly be like ". . . and do you agree with her on that??" And she'd then say she didn't, but wouldn't go into detail

But then when I had even mild criticisms of R's behavior, my ex would defend her so thoroughly and we'd have hours long fights about it

She also talked about how caring R was and how much she loved that R was so tall and could pick her up. I'm shorter than my ex. I tried to pick her up once but couldn't do it for more than a couple seconds. It made me feel less than

There were a couple different fights where she said that both she and R thought that I over communicate and it's really annoying

Sometimes when we'd be having long conversations about relationship agreements (because my ex kept breaking agreements and then claiming she didn't understand them well enough), she'd call the conversations exhausting and say that R didn't expect to have them with her

When my ex hurt me and we were fighting about it, she'd say "I don't have these problems with anyone else"

At one point, it seemed that my ex was taking accountability for the stuff she did to me. So I reached out to R to talk things out. In our conversation, we talked about a couple of the things my ex had taken accountability for, and R tried to spin it around on me. A few days later I texted her telling her I thought this was victim blaming. She denied it, and doubled down and implied that I was a liar and abuser. I showed the texts to my ex and she said she didn't see anything wrong with the conversation. She used some therapy term that I can't remember to basically say that I was building some inaccurate narrative based on my own emotions that felt true to me. She also said "I like when R defends me"

My ex often treated me as being unreasonable for how uncomfortable I was whenever she went to see R

Thank you for reading this if you got this far. Does this sound like triangulation to you?

For some reason someone made a post with this title and then deleted it ten minutes later. I shared my controversial opinions and then nobody got to see them : (

So yeah, actually controversial opinions please. Before you post, stop and think if you can name multiple people who disagree

In my last relationship, I wanted nonmonogamy but not polyamory. I saw no reason to limit feelings or physical intimacy (that was out of my sight), but wanted us to be each other's only partners. My ex girlfriend happily agreed to all of this. But the RA woman she was seeing called me toxic for it

The RA woman pushed on boundaries, insulted and criticized me to my ex, and typically spoke to me in condescending manner. My ex was a poor hinge who let it all happen, while also repeatedly breaking agreements and leveraging the RA woman's opinions against me in fights. They both called me controlling at different points. My opinion is that they both showed limited respect for consent or boundaries

It's only now that I'm out of that relationship that I realize how many months I spent feeling threatened, destabilized, and alone

I don't think their actions met the definition of gaslighting, but there was persistent dismissiveness and denial that made me feel so viscerally strange, and I start crying really hard if I let myself think about that feeling too much

I expected to find more of this attitude in the RA subreddit, and there was some, but also there was a post promoting conscious monogamy, and multiple people questioning why exclusivity is the only relationship agreement that gets called controlling. Why is it controlling to leave your partner if she decides she wants other partners, but not controlling if you leave because she gets into drugs or dates your family member?

I'm a bit of an odd duck -- I'm aroace, a germaphobe, a bit touch averse, a bit sex-repulsed in certain contexts, am overwhelmed by loud noises . . . the list goes on. I have lived my entire life in a world that actively tries to discourage and block me from having boundaries about these things, because those aren't "normal" things to care about

I think that trying to shame somebody for having a boundary is itself very controlling behavior. My ex and her connection were espousing the values of relationship anarchy while ironically not respecting my autonomy or freedom to choose what was most comfortable to me

I'm glad that I found this sub. I hope more people post here, I hope it continues to be healing

I'm just upset about a memory, and if possible I'd like some kind words or constructive feedback

My ex and I opened our relationship, though I made it very clear from Day 1 that I was not consenting to full-on polyamory. My ex said she didn't want that either. But pretty much as soon as we started meaningfully talking about it, she got involved with this super polyamorous non-hierarchal relationship anarchist woman

Nothing wrong with that on it's own, but this woman (over the course of months) called my desire for prescriptive hierarchy toxic, criticized me to my girlfriend, and repeatedly asked for things that she knew went against our relationship agreements. My ex broke agreements with this specific woman multiple times (but not with anyone else), and every time would cry and say that she just didn't understand the agreement well enough

After a few months, I started to believe that my ex was taking accountability and getting better, and so I tried talking things out with the other woman. At one point of the conversation she tried giving me a version of the "if you love her let her go" speech

And remembering it now, it just really fucking gets under my skin

I asked my ex many times over the course of those months if her desires were still compatible with mine, and she insisted many times that they were. But this lady who was actively undermining our relationship tried to paint it as though I had some problem with letting go

I get a very strong feeling of "threatened" whenever I remember her. Honestly this post doesn't even cover everything because then it'd be way too long. Thinking back, I think she disapproved of our non-poly relationship and looked down on it. There was just this special threatening way she'd frame herself as oh so morally superior that I struggle to properly describe, but it really got to me

Hello, I'm really hoping someone can help me here, since I didn't really get anywhere trying to talk to my therapist. I feel like I only have a moderate understanding of how abuse works. I've identified a few patterns that I think might've been abusive, but I'm not sure

Some questions I've struggled with:

1 - Was it abuse if I felt threatened, but not scared?

2 - Could it be abuse if she tried to take accountability and improve?

3 - Was it abuse if her actions weren't calculated, but rather a result of trauma triggers, selfishness, and a lack of relationship experience?

4 - Similar to 3, does it make a difference if she wasn't consciously trying to control me, but her actions still resulted in me being controlled?

5 - If she did abuse me, does this mean I shouldn't ever break no contact?

6 - Similar to 5, would it be pointless to ever try to trust her again?

If anyone has any insight into these questions, I would really appreciate it. Also, if any of you have resources that helped you recover from a toxic/abusive relationship, please share

I just finished a session with my therapist, in which I said that I was trying to figure out if my former relationship was abusive, or just toxic. My therapist seemed to be guiding me away from categorizing it as one thing or the other, or at least wanted me to explore why I felt that categorization was necessary

And I'm just wondering, why do these categories exist in the first place?

I said I wanted to have a better understanding of what happened and wanted to know what exactly it is I think my ex should take accountability for, if I ever decide to break no contact. But judging by the course of the conversation, she didn't think that applying the labels of "toxic" or "abusive" were the best ways of achieving those goals. So why do we have those labels at all then?