Solo poly = no accountability?
I (30F) just got out of a ~1.5 year nesting relationship with a guy (40M) who says he is solo poly. I have practiced various forms of poly before (including the first time him and I dated, which he handled horribly, and he has acknowledged this) but now I feel strongly that monogamy is for me. I know, recipe for disaster we should not have attempted. And it was! But our NRE to me felt like the start of something longterm and meaningful, he initiated, he offered that his home could be min, and I had read that poly people can choose monogamy. To him, our relationship was not as special or precious as it was to me, and after a few months he began to resent my desire for exclusivity (I know, no one is surprised). He recently told me he will have sex with lots of different women in his lifetime, and that I’ll have sex with lots of different people in mine (and I was like, speak for yourself!)
So I understand why our relationship exploded. But as I ruminate in the post-mortem, I keep circling back to how I still don’t think he practices poly in a healthy way, and I wanted your takes. Why am I ruminating? Well, I can’t get decent distance to get over him properly. He’s in my life in a project we share. Our city is small. I saw him out on a date accidentally and I’m still heartbroken. Terrible. Anyway:
He says, and this is not an exaggeration, that he never wants to be held accountable to anyone else’s feelings, that it’s too much. That whatever he does with any other person should not cause any upset to any other person. When my feelings were hurt during our relationship when he would do poly type of things, he was generally dismissive, irritated, annoyed, made no effort to comfort me. Says that he used to be jealous, but eradicated it and can no longer feel it. I tried to research poly more when we were together and was surprised he had not heard the term relationship escalator, etc. He also treats poly like a sexuality, like it’s not something you choose, but fundamentally who you are.
I thought that even poly people can experience jealously because it’s a normal part of the human spectrum of emotion, and the idea is to face it, work through it, recognize it, not just swallow it. That even more communication is needed.
But my take from him is because he doesn’t feel jealousy anymore, he has no desire to entertain jealousy or communication around that from others, and wants to not be held accountable for how his words or actions make a partner/partners feel.
He also has had a habit of dating people who were not enthusiastically poly, or not to that level of poly- I know it’s a spectrum. I was not the only one. At least the woman I saw him on a date with is poly…
So long story short, I feel like that’s more player than solo poly. What do yall think?
And please forgive me if I got something wrong here, this is my first post here and I am approaching this with curiosity, not judgment (like I am judging him obviously, but not poly as a whole here.)