This is a mess, so please forgive me if it’s hard to follow, but I need to get this out and hoping for some advice.
My partner (31M) and I (41M) started dating 2 years ago, and agreed to be “open” but explicitly said we didn’t want a poly thing. However, due to some racist shit, he has no interest in casual sex and said he wanted to maintain an ongoing thing (about 5 years) he has with another person who also himself has a partner. I understood it to be a FWB thing, and said that’s fine, and I would probably just have one-off casual things.
That mostly worked for the first few months, but then this other person apparently told my partner he didn’t feel he was getting enough, and my partner agreed to give him more (without discussing with me), and pretty quickly I saw a change in our relationship – I was getting less. I initiated discussions many times on it, and asked many more questions about this other relationship, including some uncomfortable questions like “do you love him”, to which he gave an unequivocal “no”. We established more rules, and I tried to shake off my doubts.
Sometimes things seemed to improve, and I was trying to figure out if the changes I saw in our relationship were maybe more natural “cooling” after the NRE fades, but I couldn’t shake it.
After some acute instances where he did things that were against our rules, we had a hard convo where I basically forced him to admit he wanted a poly relationship, but he insisted I was his primary and he didn’t want this other guy to be more than he was now. I tried to be ok with that but it still didn’t sit right. At this point, I had stopped having sex with anyone else for months because I was worried and insecure and had no interest, and also I think I was subconsciously trying to manipulate him into feeling guilt or shame that he was the only one seeing someone else, and maybe that would out a damper on it (not super proud of that, but it’s honest).
Then, like an idiot, I bought a house with him. He was very gung-ho on the idea, and I think I was encouraged because it seemed like an indication that he really did love me and wanted to be with me. To be clear – we make almost the same amount, finances are all 50/50 and still separate other than shared stuff.
Of course, the house didn’t fix anything, and now we had new complications because we had to negotiate the unfun parts of living together, all while I had to watch him go on dates with this other guy unencumbered by those unfun parts. I started to add resentment to my worry and sadness, but talking about it just drove him further away.
I started going to therapy, and getting treated for OCD because sometimes this whole thing drove me fully nuts. He would be avoidant and secretive, and when I tried to discuss it, he would tell me there’s nothing to discuss. My therapist said I needed him to assure me that he’s telling me the 100% truth, and then I needed to take that as gospel so I could stop spinning and accept it, so that’s what I did. The OCD treatment helped with the rumination, but left many big issues unresolved and it was now clear that they weren’t simply my mental health concerns and I couldn’t address them alone. We started couples therapy (at my insistence), but he never really authentically engaged.
So then comes the holidays. They had their natural ups and downs, but there were a few times where this guy was invited over for parties (he’s a friend in our group), and seeing the way my partner acted around him or the excitement he had anticipating him coming, and knowing he hadn’t given me that kind of attention in a long time, set me off. We had some discussions that tended to turn into fights where he felt trapped and I felt pathetic.
This all came to a head last Sunday.
Our couples therapist had worked with us to be more intentional with our time together, and my partner had come up with a suggestion that we make every Monday a dedicated dinner-at-the-table-no-devices (instead of in front of the TV or with others) night. We had done it for one week and it was nice.
Sunday, my partner comes to me as I’m leaving to go walk the dog, and tells me he wants to reschedule our Monday dinner because he wants to go on a date with this guy that night instead, but that he wouldn’t if I was upset about it. I was disappointed and angry that he was making me defend our night, I felt he should have told the guy “no” because he already had plans with me, even if it wasn’t exciting plans. I told him I didn’t feel like I could say no, because then our Monday dinner is tainted knowing he would rather be on a date with this other guy and I left.
I spent the whole walk getting more and more mad, and by the time I got home I decided to pack a bag and go stay with my mother for the night. I wrote an angry note and left. He simply texted “ok, I’ll give you space” when he got home.
I came back the next day, and we talked. He said it was the only night that that guy could meet, and he “hadn’t gotten to spend any of the holiday with him this year or last year” and he didn’t think moving our night was a big deal.
I told him that him needing to see this guy for the holidays was a symptom of the problem for me, who was this guy to him that he was keeping track of seeing him for Christmas.
That’s when my partner admitted that he had lied for nearly a year, that he DOES love this guy, they have said “I love you” to each other for YEARS, and that he lied to me because he knew it would hurt me if he told the truth.
This was heartbreaking to hear, but weirdly very empowering that all I had suspected was true. And then it made me angry that he saw me struggling, going to therapy, thinking I was crazy, and he let me do all of that alone.
I’ve spent the last week trying to figure out if I should leave. I love him so much, and I know he loves me in some way. But I’m predisposed to singular romantic love – I devote that energy to one person and expect the same back. I don’t need “monogamy” – fuck other people if you want, but I need you to have romantic googly eyes just for me. He clearly operates differently.
We’ve had many long conversations where I’ve made clear that he was emotionally cheating on me (he agreed), but I’ve tried to remain open to the possibility of this working. He’s said many things I’ve wanted to hear for months – that he knows he wasn’t showing up for me and showing me love, that he knows he broke me trust and it needs to be repaired, and he’s suddenly become the partner I fell in love with again – affectionate, caring, attentive. It seems now that he's not hiding it from me and ashamed, he can finally be authentic again, and it feels so good… but then I get so angry at all that happened, and then I get worried and disappointed because he still wants to be with this other guy too.
It honestly feels like a classic affair situation, except when those all come out in the open the typical repair path necessitates that the affair be OVER, and in this case he's not granting me that – I would need to find a way forward with him continuing to see this guy, now knowing that they are openly in love.
So, I guess here's where I'm at: I still love him, and now he's finally showing up in nearly all of the ways I've been missing for months, but he is in love with someone else too and I can't wrap my head around how to be ok with that. It would probably be emotionally easier to just end things, but I can't bring myself to do it, and it feels like giving up something that has so much good still.
We have significant financial ties together in the house, and it won't be quick or cheap to untangle that mess, nor is it really viable for either of us to take it on alone. One of us would probably end up couch surfing for a long while, and I fear it'd be me because he won't be the one to break things off.
I'm lost and not sleeping. I just don't know what to do, and the thought of the next time he wants to go on a date with this person leads me to some dark places.
Can anyone offer advice other than "just break up"?