Am I being Toxic for not wanting to be here?
TL;DR told SO I wasn’t comfortable with being poly when we first started dating and he said it was fine. Now if I don’t allow him to explore his sexuality I’m hurting his mental health but it’s hurting me knowing that he’s sleeping with other people.
Not this thread. Obviously I’m here looking for advice because nobody else understands my situation and whenever I ask people I know they start disrespecting my partner to my face instead of providing real advice so I just end up keeping everything inside and Im just at a point where I want to shut everyone out including him.
This is a long one so buckle in.
My SO (24m) and I (26f), both bi, have been in a relationship for a little over 2 years now and he’s in the military . When we first started dating I was very specific with my intentions since I had a tough break up the year before. I wanted to make sure that my values and whoever else I was dating aligned. On one of our first few dates we went on he asked me if I was seeing anyone else because his intentions were dating to marry. I’ll admit I did agree to go on a date with him a few days after agreeing to go on a date with someone else but the other person had ghosted me a few weeks before and was trying to make up for it so I didn’t really consider us to be seeing each other.
Fast forward 4 months and I end up telling him this information because things are getting pretty serious and I didn’t want our relationship to be built on a foundation of mistruths.
He ended up revealing to me that he wasn’t entirely truthful either. Firstly, he and his ex had only been broken up for 2 weeks when we met. Secondly he told me he identified as poly and wanted to experiment more with his sexuality. I don’t just people for loving who they love or doing what they want with their bodies— shine on my friends— but I do feel as though this is something that you bring up sooner rather than later. I end up telling him that I don’t want to be in a polyamorous relationship and I’m confident in that I wouldn’t be able to handle it emotionally. I also expressed that if he wanted to explore I don’t think that I would be able to date him and get emotionally involved but we could still be friends, possibly with benefits if the vibes were there, but a serious relationship would be out of the question. He said it was just something he thinks about but if I didn’t want to then he wouldn’t because he was serious about dating me and didn’t want to lose me.
A few months later he gets deployed and almost instantly he brings it up again. Obviously I’ve heard all the stories about deployment so I tell him that I’ll be here when he gets back if he wants to go explore but again as long as he’s trying to see other people I’m not putting my heart into something that I know will hurt it. At this point I’ve been thinking about how to make it work for me bc I know for kinks consent is everything and if everyone isn’t happy then it’s not sexy so I try to come up with some middle ground like suggesting 3somes/ parallel as well as rules like only talking to potential playmates as a couple and not fucking our friends. Immediately went on about how those rules were inherently dangerous to him because he trusts his friends and how it’s weird to approach strangers as a couple just for sex, but we can move at whatever pace I feel comfortable.
Fast forward to him being home . Just a few weeks before Valentine’s Day we get into this huge fight because he’s tells me he’s gonna start to explore by himself and I can either be with him and leave. I told him I was tired of having the same fight if him not hearing me over and over and that I was going to leave and he started telling he that he knew I didn’t actually care about him. Now I’m pissed off at myself because it’s been 2 years and I feel like he doesn’t even care about me he just wants to make. After the fight we take a break and he immediately sleeps with one of his friends but wouldn’t tell me who or any other details because it was none of my business. Whenever I bring up sleeping with someone else he gets upset and tells me he doesn’t feel good then goes on about how his mental health is just so bad now from deployment.
It’s now been 3 months and I have no idea what the plot is anymore. He’s still calling me babe. He bought me a Costco membership and groceries after my surgery. He even called me his girlfriend to his sgt. But every week he gets busier and busier. He talks to me less and says it’s because he’s exhausted from work. He doesn’t come over as much because he’s got other projects he’s working on. The sex isn’t even as good anymore. I cum but it’s not the mind blowing stuff that was happening before the break. In fact I mostly just end up thinking that he’s probably fucking someone else the same way when he’s not with me and I end up crying while we have sex but he thinks tears are hot so I just don’t say anything (unfortunately I have a cnc kink so it’s kinda hot for me too but at the end of it I usually feel more ashamed than turned on)
He tried o convince me that now he’s okay with talking to me about me having new partners, but I just don’t trust sharing that part of me with him.
Am I being selfish?