r/polycritical

and you know they are both just happily cheating on each other under the guise of it being 'polyamory.' Ugh! I am so ready for karma to just wreck them both. We were all friends, and they cheated on their long term partners. Both people are miserable gnats. But I also am driven mad by the idea that they are ok with being miserable gnats because they can say 'oh I just am not built for a monogamous relationship' and excuse their behavior under a 'nice girl'/'nice guy' disguise. But they were built for a 10 year relationship and a 5 year engagement??? No I think they are just sucky weak humans who found someone to be sucky and weak with...

I dont know guys. Im just sad and angry. It's been close to a year and I am doing so well, have people who love me and someone who really likes me. But for some reason I just cant release these two people from my life. Lately I've been thinking about my ex and while I despise him and my once friend, I also wish he would just apologize and work on himself. Hell maybe he is, but by golly not enough! lol It's just complicated and something Im sure you all have dealt with before. Time will heal. Time, time, and more time.

I(25F) had never been in a poly relationship but I met someone (22F) online who i really liked and decided to give it a try. They already had a partner(37F) who they had been seeing for about 4 months. From the beginning they told me they were “non-hierarchical” (which like? is that even real) and anytime i brought up how i felt deprioritized they would accuse me of hating their other partner (which isn’t true i honestly really liked her.)
Anyways a few days ago (thursday) her partner asked me if we could switch days because she was having a really bad day and wanted more support. normally I would 100% say yes but it didn’t work for me and my response was very nice, in my opinion, I asked if she still wanted to hang out w us or if there was anything i could do (she did not reply back).
That day my (ex) partner was talking about how worried she was so i told her she should go to her partner and i kept checking in asking if her partner was okay but she didn’t do anything.
The next day (Friday) My partner ignored me all day and didnt respond to me until saturday in which i asked if I had done something wrong and she said she didn’t want to talk about it. I said i thought it was unfair or her to ignore me and not even tell me if i had done something wrong (i didn’t ask to have a full conversation I just wanted some like clarity or reassurance) anyways I definitely texted her way to much but i was panicking a little bc i had no idea what i’d done? and she told me i was breaking her boundaries. Finally she told me it was bc i lied to her (by omission) for not telling me her partner reached out to me for help (i didn’t intentionally not telling her i just didn’t think about it?) and the thing is her partner wasn’t even mad I said no? (and even if she was like it was between me and her it wasn’t rlly my partners business? in my opinion at least) She only offhandedly mentioned it to my partner and my partner freaked out on me. Anyways i don’t think i’ve ever been treated with less empathy and understanding in my entire life. Is this what all poly relationships are like? that’s actually insane to me.

Really pinpoint everything wrong with polyamoury, especially the way it's become almost compulsory in LGBT relationship ( and even more if you're a trans woman... )

So, my previously 100% trusted partner of many years had a six month affair with a therapist (not his). She knew he wasn’t polyamorous, but decided she didn’t care. I find myself hating people, in general. Nobody can match my exceptionally loyal energy. I’m not perfect, but that is one thing I have going for me. Anyway, struggling. If reconciliation doesn’t work, I’m never dating again. Nor do I feel like adding new people to my life.

Hello this is my first post here but someone said I should find somewhere where people relate to me. I'm not going to hide anything I'm a dad of 2 and no they are handsome boys who are very much loved by me and their mother. I also thought me and my sons were both loved by my now ex partner. I am poly by birth and informed her of that I thought she was okay with it and honestly thought everything was going okay. I am not perfect and yes I fucked up but I valued communication above everything and wanted to know where I fucked up she never said and I think that's how we got here. A friend from a sport she does confessed to her which led this spiral downhill. She wanted monogamy and I am not opposed to that I guess she just doesn't want it with me which hurts a lot. I am trying to cope with the pain of being rejected but it's hard cause she works right next to me in my office. I feel ashamed of who I am and I am having a hard time believing that in my area someone who is poly can truly be loved. I live in New Mexico and I don't really know anyone else that is like me here.

People in this subreddit who have been polyamorous for a long time, how much other people in the community lie or tell the truth. Every now and then I decide to torture myself and look at the polyamory subreddit, and despite the horrible posts, there's always a group of people speaking well of the lifestyle or saying that everything is going very well for them. Not only in r/polyamory but in other relationship subreddits as well, when someone appears complaining about how the lifestyle went wrong. I'm quite skeptical because I have an extremely negative view of everything involving this lifestyle. But I wanted to see accounts from those who have been in the polyamorous community or have lived with many polyamorous people (if it's not traumatic to talk about it).

whenever i come across monogamous gay guys theres always an element of blurred lines on what they might consider cheating etc or they claim to want monogamy but can't seem to live in line with those values they claim to have and so they cheat the first chance they get or keep people around as back up plans in case one relationship doesn't work out. or they see no harm in sending inappropriate DMs to people on social media etc.

literally had guys tell me they despise cheating while actively cheating themselves.

it's getting tiring and it's making me want to give up on love and relationships entirely.

As the title says, in my experience, people who have admitted to me that they are polyamorous will treat my monogamy as a "condition" that should be treated and I'm really sick of it.

I'm a trans man who is attracted to men exclusively. I've always been monogamous in my romantic attachments, and my attachments are a blend of anxious and earned-secure. If I become romantically attached to one person, I lose any other romantic attachments I have had or currently have. I cannot physically, emotionally or mentally love more than one person at a time in romantic capacity. I have explained this to would-be lovers and/or friends to exhaustion and they don't seem to hear me. I am literally incapable of having a poly life.

The few times I have met poly people, they have told me that my monogamy was selfish and I receive an almost bible-length manifesto about why polyamory is better and I should try it. I tell them that I am incapable and they still try to say that "Everyone is capable" and that I should let go of the stigma.

There is no stigma. I'm just not capable of loving in that manner. The fact that they are basically admitting that they are attached but cannot love me fully is even more heartbreaking, not just for me, but for them too. It makes me sad to see people be so afraid of being alone that they collect human beings to fill the void without ever really, truly loving any of them. I worry that they may not fully understand what unconditional love is.

In other words... if you're poly, and you're reading this... when I tell you I'm mono, could you just please say "Okay" and move on? Don't try roping me into your shit, it's not gonna work, and you're just pissing me off, which means I'm not going to want to talk to you at all.

I've become annoyed enough with it that I associate the entitlement to polyamory as a whole and now avoid poly people as much as possible. I'm sure not all poly people are like this and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but come on. Enlighten yourselves a little, please. Mono people aren't asking to be converted or their mind "expanded" to "other possibilities," it's just the way we are wired. Live and let live, that's all I'm saying.

I am so done with polyamory. Feeling like I have to suppress my needs all the time, the notion that every discomfort is inherently wrong and needs to be ‘unlearned’.
I was with her for 4 years, we lived together, have a cat. A year ago we stupidly decided to try non-monogamy.
I was really nervous for her to get romantic with other people, but she reassured me that it made no difference to how she felt about me.
I dated a guy for a while but decided it wasn’t for me and I couldn’t feel for him whilst I was with her - my brain just didn’t work that way.
Meanwhile she started seeing one of my acquaintances, and they got serious FAST.
As soon as this happened, she stopped sleeping with me, stopped hanging out, all the time she had off work was reserved for him.
All our time together was spent crying about how much we both hate being poly. I had already said I’m not going to be dating other people, but as much as she hated it, she said she was “in too deep”.
She would be gone for a week at a time, and I’d be alone at home. But alas, the idea in poly that any discomfort makes me selfish or that I need to “work on myself” made me feel like I was crazy for being upset.
Anyway, we finally ended things a month ago. It was heartbreaking. She is still with him and - of fucking course - they are now monogamous.
She is moving in with him in a month.
I feel like shit, I was just replaced in real time.
4 years down the drain. I remember when we used to talk about getting married.

My partner of over 20 plus years was exhibiting red flags. It was a shock to me because I had previously trusted him completely, and gave him absolute freedom. This is not to say I’m perfect. I have pretty significant anxiety that I’ve been working on for a long time, but I acknowledge I can be a pain in the arse. Anyway, I finally pulled out of him his affair, after a few months of inquiring about the amount of time spent with his “friend.” He polybombed me. No, I didn’t know he presented this way. It was his excuse for cheating, of course. I asked him if he loved her and he said yes. I was understandably devastated. I found out this was a half year affair, started directly after I had taken him on vacation for a significant birthday. Also ugly was that she is a therapist. I believe she knew he didn’t have permission, and this may have been a turn on for her. She is highly unethical, as he’s been telling me more information about her. She really shouldn’t be a therapist and I’m terrified for her patients.

I told him to leave. I was a disaster for a few months . He was previously known as an incredible man. Everyone was shocked. I am finding evidence that she manipulated and love bombed him. He’s still responsible for his ugliness, though. He’s found he doesn’t love her, and has been relieved since going no contact with her. We’re attempting to reconcile because this is his first screw up like this.

What can you tell me about healing from such brutality from a previously trusted person? Any success stories? I’m mostly having issues with the “I love you” component and the duration of this evilness.

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?