I have sadly reached a conclusion that likely will lead to breaking up with my partner of 6 years. I am not happy about this, and I don't want to break up. But it seems like it may be inevitable...
Please no hate comments, but I identify as polyamorous and I am not happy in a monogamous relationship. I didn't know this when I 'signed up' for the monogamous relationship I'm in now. I've tried very hard to make it work but in the end I am just not being myself, I am unhappy, and I'm hiding who I am in order to make someone else happy...that's not okay for me to do.
So tonight when my partner gets off work and has her nap and we get the plumbing fixed (sigh) I am going to sit down with her and have the Talk. That we can either try a poly-style relationship, or we can call it quits. I don't know what she'll choose. I don't know if she'll choose to stay in the house as a roommate or if she'll want to move out. I don't know how badly she'll react (she has a tendency towards what I feel are histrionics). There is so much I'm frightened of, but I have to do this, for me.
If she does move out, we'll have to decide who keeps the cats (the dogs are mine, without question). Who keeps the aquarium (I don't really want it). I will have to cut back on fostering because the numbers we take are only made doable by the fact of there being two of us to split chores.
It's scary and it's hard to do and I already struggle with depression and anxiety. But trying to be someone who I am not wasn't helping those. Being alone won't help them either, but I can only hope that this is the right thing to do.
The timing is terrible, too, because yesterday was my birthday and she took me out for dinner and gave me a pendant on a necklace that says "I love you to the moon and back". It isn't that I don't love her, at all, I love her quite a lot. But I think she is very attached to traditional notions of monogamous love and that this will come as quite a blow to her. It's hard to help someone understand that love is not a finite quantity--I can love other people and not love her any less--I guess I just don't feel, as I've come into my own, that it's realistic to think all my needs can be adequately, let alone perfectly, fulfilled by one person. So I still love her and she's very important to me, but any one person alone is not enough. I think she'll think that makes me greedy.
No need for responses, really. I just needed to get this out, somewhere. I don't really have many friends that I can talk to about this sort of thing.
Please no hate comments, but I identify as polyamorous and I am not happy in a monogamous relationship. I didn't know this when I 'signed up' for the monogamous relationship I'm in now. I've tried very hard to make it work but in the end I am just not being myself, I am unhappy, and I'm hiding who I am in order to make someone else happy...that's not okay for me to do.
So tonight when my partner gets off work and has her nap and we get the plumbing fixed (sigh) I am going to sit down with her and have the Talk. That we can either try a poly-style relationship, or we can call it quits. I don't know what she'll choose. I don't know if she'll choose to stay in the house as a roommate or if she'll want to move out. I don't know how badly she'll react (she has a tendency towards what I feel are histrionics). There is so much I'm frightened of, but I have to do this, for me.
If she does move out, we'll have to decide who keeps the cats (the dogs are mine, without question). Who keeps the aquarium (I don't really want it). I will have to cut back on fostering because the numbers we take are only made doable by the fact of there being two of us to split chores.
It's scary and it's hard to do and I already struggle with depression and anxiety. But trying to be someone who I am not wasn't helping those. Being alone won't help them either, but I can only hope that this is the right thing to do.
The timing is terrible, too, because yesterday was my birthday and she took me out for dinner and gave me a pendant on a necklace that says "I love you to the moon and back". It isn't that I don't love her, at all, I love her quite a lot. But I think she is very attached to traditional notions of monogamous love and that this will come as quite a blow to her. It's hard to help someone understand that love is not a finite quantity--I can love other people and not love her any less--I guess I just don't feel, as I've come into my own, that it's realistic to think all my needs can be adequately, let alone perfectly, fulfilled by one person. So I still love her and she's very important to me, but any one person alone is not enough. I think she'll think that makes me greedy.
No need for responses, really. I just needed to get this out, somewhere. I don't really have many friends that I can talk to about this sort of thing.
too.
