[CW: possible manipulation/abuse, venting]
I love this man and do not feel like I am living up to my vision of love right now. What follows is a rundown of the challenges and none of the virtues and beauty of our relationship. I have a good assessment of the pull of our relationship, but want an outsider's view of the pushes away.
I've been with my BF for a bit over a year now. When we first stated dating, he was very upfront about being in a KTP non-hierarchal relationship with his live-in GF. I met both of them at once and was initially better friends with his GF. The two of them had been together about 2.5 years, and my BF recounts their relationship only really escalating after he got engaged to his shithead ex (important later). While not super knowledgeable about poly, I also was not looking for a serious relationship when he asked me out.
Fast forward to mid last Summer when my life situation got more stable, and we realized our values and bodies synced up really well together. Things got more serious and I asked him to become my BF. Around this time, my relationship with his GF started to become more distant, but I wasn't picking up any hostility. Later I asked her to talk at a party and she admitted she had 'hated and resented' me at points over the Summer—presumably as my relationship with her BF affected hers—but that she had 'let go' of those feelings.
Things came to a head at Labor Day, when I accidentally got her keys stuck on a friend's roof. I apologized immediately and spent a good deal of effort getting them down a day later. She messaged me 'we are blood feuding now' and blocked my number. When I mentioned to my BF I was hurt by this & it didn't feel proportional he mainly defended her.
In the aftermath, she implemented the rule that she should be informed when I would be at their house. Before, I had shown up spontaneously sometimes or my BF and I had stopped by while out-and-about. When I did come over (which decreased a lot), I generally felt unwelcome and uncomfortable around her.
In mid-October, I asked her to talk to resolve our bad blood. During that conversation she was mostly respectful and I felt like good progress had been made, but at the end she stated she liked 'having us as blood feuding in the chart.' I told her this made me uncomfortable because, to me, a blood feud necessitates conflict. I had asked him to step in prior to this conversation, but he mostly avoided hinging.
Later that night, my BF texts me 'Why are you trying to fistfight my girlfriend?' Apparently, she had come home and told him I tried to fistfight her. This did not happen. As me and him are talking the next day, he breaks down crying saying 'I don't know who to believe.' and that reconciliation between his GF and his past lovers has always been impossible.
At her behest and at her aunt's house, the three of us meet up to discuss. She railroaded the conversation, called me a dipshit, and insinuated our relationship has no emotional basis/I am only good in bed. My BF was paralyzed and dissociative for most of the conversation.
From this point, I am almost never in their home. A few weeks later, I bring up my frustration around not feeling equal in our relationship. He is initially very cold and eventually starts crying, saying that most of his boundaries in his relationship with his GF are at her discretion, and that i have shown him what 'real kindness and real respect look like in a relationship.' He later admits he's thinking about leaving her because things haven't felt right in a while.
I begin to live in the limmerent world, where this is a given and a more equal and more involved relationship is likely between us in the medium-term. Acknowledging this since Christmas time is making me seriously doubt my understanding of events.
Our friend group had been planning a cabin trip for New Years. Realizing how uncomfortable I feel around his GF, I decided not to go. In the week between Christmas and New Years, I came clean about how I felt about his GF: that I saw her as abusive and that my wish for him was that he could spend some time single living on his own. We had a constructive conversation on how to make our relationship more equal which included him making more of an effort to host.
Since we both have the time off, he proposed for us to spend the first long weekend of the New Year together—normally we spend about two nights a week together. On NYE, he texts me asking if I want to extend it a day since his partner's friend who he doesn't like is going to be visiting an extra day. I did not realize this friend was visiting, and the weekend got reframed from a positive statement of desire to 'isn't this great the margin you fit into is larger than it normally is!' in my mind.
During the weekend, I felt closer to him than I had felt in a long time. We spent time hanging out with our friends and just doing nothing together. It felt like the taste of the partnered life I wanted to have. While I had let go of wanting it him from him per se, it was still wonderful and difficult to see what that life would feel like together. Crucially, he helped me with some deep cleaning which helped me feel firm in his commitment to equality and to making hosting less one-sided.
In spite of all this, I have been feeling sort of anxious when I did have plans with him, and walled up and lonely when we were together. Last night, his GF was out of the house for the first time in a while and he invited me to sleepover. Since their shared bed is off limits, we slept on a mattress topper I had found in the Fall for the purpose of sleeping over more often. It was pretty uncomfortable and callously, I blurted out 'it feels unfair that the only way we can be together is 'yours or the floor.'' We had a painful conversation where he got defensive and said I was ungrateful for him accommodating my desire to sleepover at his house. In my view, I was hurt he hadn't done more to make it viable since we discussed this being important to me in October. Obviously, I expressed this really poorly and hurt his feelings. His response feels similar to other times I have touched the third rail of his dissatisfaction/dissonance in his primary relationship. He had mentioned previously that they had planned to have separate bedrooms when they moved in together but it just had not happened for some reason. They'd had a fight about it over the holidays too.
I have been reading Polysecure and learning a huge amount and had been hoping to have a DTR conversation once I'd finished internalizing it. But I feel like I bungled things up and also forced myself to realize that I am more anxious about and insecure in our relationship than I had let myself believe.
My motto at the start of our last big conversation was 'you are the right person for me, but this isn't the right relationship for me.' I've done a lot of self-work to let go of my unrealistic expectations and he has done a lot more to be a fair partner to me. I am upset with myself that I turned a positive step into a conflict. At the same time, this suggests to me that things don't have a good resolution.
I love this man and do not feel like I am living up to my vision of love right now.