Is it unethical to put an ex meta on a messy list?
I have a hard time with adding too much context or over explaining so I’m gonna do this as simple as can be and will add whatever extra context if it’s asked for in comments.
So I (36 F) don’t think I will change my mind on it but I do feel bad that I’ve told my boyfriend (Aspen 37 M ) that if he and his ex (Birch 36 F) ever get back together, I will not/can not continue dating him.
There’s many factors why, but some big ones are Birch and I just did not work as metas.
It was messy AF. We were all friends first and were all dumb and thought it would be easy but it’s absolutely not. Worse we all share a pretty tight knit friend group (but only us 3 were in a polycule).
I will not date friends anymore nor will I be ok with my partner dating our friends. (Like his own friends that I’m not involved with 100% ok.)
We just did not get along and we just had way different ideals and needs. (Short example, Birch NEEDED really intense KTP. I was fine with KTP but I wanted there to be room for individual independent relationships and she wanted to be 100% group time unless it was her day with Aspen. (I have another partner Cedar (36 M) so she would have alone time any time I was with Cedar. Birch did not have any others at the time so if Aspen and I spent time together she was “alone”(Aspen did not engage with this too much and made it clear it was ok and good that he and I got alone time too)) there were many different things that really hurt me and damaged our relationship including some sexual trauma that still feels bad to think about. We again… were dumb and would do like threesomes and there were things between me and Birch that always felt uncomfy but after that incident I refused to do any more threesomes.
Once the friendship was mostly over (like I said we do share a tight knit friend group so we still were in each others lives just not close and more like “a friend of a friend”) I was clear I wanted to be as parallel as possible. So we basically were garden party poly. Aspen was really good and basically handled all communication with like conflict or scheduling.
I honestly felt pretty relieved and I enjoyed this dynamic way more and felt more relief. Not hearing about anytime Birch had an upset feeling or having to talk to her about things was so nice. I felt lighter. Birch did not thrive in it and while she says that it’s not a factor, her and Aspen ended up breaking up. With her initiating.
It’s been almost a year now and it’s just been drama and anxiety. Birch just refuses to accept the relationship is over. They were NP and had a pretty lengthy lease and both don’t want to break it and they both want to be friends. Again it’s just been anxiety and drama the entire time. If we weren’t all close friends I think I could get away from it more but I’m as far from it as I can be at this point. I’m actually way happier than I was while they were together I mostly feel bad about how everything is without them being together. I can tell it’s eating at Aspen cause he and Birch were close and now it’s SO strained.
It’s why I’ve been clear with Aspen that if he and Birch ever wanna get back together, that is fine but I will have to leave cause I cannot be in that kind of thing with Birch again. Unless somehow I stopped being friends with everyone, and they were not NP, and I could be completely fully parallel… I just could not do it.
(There’s other reasons as well like Birch has become monogamous and only wants monogamy from now on so… obviously that wouldn’t work.)
But even though Aspen is completely ok with this and has expressed 0 desire to be in a romantic or sexual relationship ever again with Birch, (he’s honestly struggling with the idea of trying to stay close friends with some of her actions) I still feel guilty and like I’m somehow doing a veto which I have never wanted to do.
So I guess I wanna know if I’m being ridiculous and actually vetoing, or if it’s wrong to put an ex meta on a messy list or if this wouldn’t really be a boundary?