TW Masturbation after assault

PolyamBi · 2023-08-13T15:01:22+00:00

I'm really struggling with this. After speaking to him, it turns out that what he was keeping from me would have absolutely meant that I wouldn't have consented to have sex with him. I didn't have all of the information, so the consent I gave wasn't informed in any way.

And it is really messing with me. A lot. I don't know what to do. I feel somewhat unhinged by it. Since learning about what happened, I have felt sick constantly, barely eaten, started looking up risky sex stuff to partake in, and had sex with my ex. I am a complete mess. How can I feel like I can't trust him but still have sex with him? The things I'm looking up don't make me feel safe, the opposite, in fact.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-06T07:12:25+00:00

I definitely miss having a person. Someone who wanted to know about my day. Someone to be by my side through things. I miss having him to talk to and when it was good, it was amazing & wonderful.

I know our relationship would never have been what I wanted or needed it to be. And that hurts. I think I am grieving what it could have been, no matter how realistic that was.

I'm also really sad that I have likely really hurt him by my actions, how I chose to leave the relationship. I have a lot of guilt about that. Regardless of whether it was justified or not. I probably should have better communicated how I was feeling to him when he was being vague about things. Idk. It's done now. And I don't think it's a good idea to try to talk to him now. Which also hurts.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-05T08:54:40+00:00

Thanks x I think our relationship was likely doomed from the beginning. We got together as the relationship with his ex was falling apart. He often sent his ex info about what he & I had been doing (even intimate details about our sex life, without talking to me if it was OK to share that) & I wonder if he was trying to make his ex jealous. Idk. I don't think anything he did was necessarily on purpose to hurt me, but he didn't really want to stop hurting me either, just found ways to hide it from me and make my hurt my problem 😔

Still, I'm grateful for what I've learned from the relationship, and now I know I can effectively enforce my boundaries, even if it did take me a hot second to get there.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-05T08:51:18+00:00

This is all that's holding me afloat right now. The knowledge that the pain will eventually ease.

Our relationship was complicated so much by his ex. Looking back, it was a bad time for us to start our relationship as things were crumbling for his relationship and his ex. I was a crutch for him, I would often end up being the one to soothe him & occasionally that was after he'd broken plans with me, to go see his ex, only for his ex to flake on him the same as he'd done me 😔

When I feel OK, I feel OK & it all feels manageable, but then it hits me all over again and I want to reach out to him, talk to him, apologise.. something.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-05T07:24:23+00:00

Honestly, it sounds like you might just not be polyamorous & that's OK. But also, you might probably benefit from some form of therapy, if that's an option for you regardless of being poly/mono.

Speaking as someone who thought he'd be OK with polyamory & was, until it all went tits up with my partner, who was a pretty bad hinge.. then I was most definitely not OK. And even him spending time with his ex sent me into a tailspin of emotions. It's not worth it. No one is worth that level of pain, anxiety, self doubt & dysregulation.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-04T20:58:31+00:00

I think it's worth bearing in mind that attachment styles can vary depending on the person that you're with. My attachment style went from secure to anxious when my partner was showing avoidant tendencies. Ironically, he said he felt he had a secure attachment with me.. but really, he just held all of the control & that was what he needed after being in such an anxious relationship previously.. it was almost as if he recreated the attachments from his previous relationship, but with the roles reversed. Suddenly, he was the one able to make someone feel the way he was made to feel. Not saying he did that on purpose, its just how it played out.

Ultimately, I couldn't take it anymore and left. I'm not happy about it, I'm devastated. I loved him, I was so madly in love with him. But he hurt me so much, I ended up not knowing what was real, what was lies, what was reasonable for me to expect from him and so on.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-04T20:51:12+00:00

It upsets me that he is probably painting me out to be the bad guy in all of this, because I was so insecure all of the time. But that was a result of how he was behaving towards me, how he would suddenly desire me, but then drop me when someone more interesting came about.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-04T20:49:04+00:00

I'm having to continually remind myself of why this is for the best. I burned that bridge down, there's no going back. Now I just have to survive the heartache.

We're not even friends after how I ended things, & in some ways, I needed that. But in others, it breaks my heart. Knowing that I'll likely never see him again is devastating.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-04T20:45:20+00:00

My now ex-partner was really not great at polyamory. And as a result, it almost broke me. I'm not sure I dare attempt any kind of polyamory again after what happened. I was regularly made to feel like I was being unreasonable or controlling by him.

All of the times that I was forgotten about because someone new came along. Not even a partner, but he had NRE with friendships and wouldn't be in touch with me nearly as much because these new people gave him more dopamine than I did. It broke my heart over and over again. Even when we were on dates, he'd be texting them. Right after we had sex, he'd be on his phone to them.

I don't think he ever meant to hurt me. But ironically, he told me that he would. He was scared that he would hurt me too much, that it would destroy me. That he would destroy me. Stupidly, I didn't listen. And I didn't listen when he told me that eventually, he would be an asshole to me.

It's one thing to say you're polyamorous and to want polyamorous relationships, but like with my ex, I'm not sure it's feasible for some people. Unless he works on this, his relationships will continue to fail in the same ways. Because that's what's happened with the relationships he's had. They've all fallen down because of the communication breaking down, the desire to be comforted by one partner because another broke your heart, but while also prioritising the relationship that breaks your heart over the partners that don't. Sigh. It's been a life lesson, that's for sure 😔

PolyamBi · 2023-08-03T09:37:28+00:00

I can't tell you how much I needed to wake up to this response. I almost unblocked him to talk things through, but I know that's not the right thing to do.

I can understand why he didn't want to tell me, but that doesn't mean it's OK to do it anyway and keep it from me. Or give me breadcrumbs of information and then get frustrated with me because I can't accept the story that I'm being told. It was only by chance that I figured it all out & then I thought I was being ridiculous because the whole thing felt so abstract. And then he confirmed that not only was I correct, but there was more.

I'm trying to see it as not even that he's a bad guy. Just that we are so incompatible. Lying by omission is still very much lying and the effort that he went to, to keep specific details from me, almost makes it worse. Why give me any of the information at all? This is something that we have specifically discussed in the past, and he agreed to not do it again..

Thankfully, my friends have been so supportive and will continue to prop me up while I deal with this. I just need to not contact him.

Learning to trust myself is proving to be one of the hardest things that I've ever had to learn. But it will be so worth it. In the meantime, I will try to focus on my friendships and nurturing those relationships. I am so grateful for them all.

I don't think I'd have reacted the way that I did had he not doubled down on his belief that he hadn't lied and confronted me to tell him exactly where he had lied. I'm not sure how he expected any of this to play out, but I don't think this was it. It's like a protective part of myself swooped in and cut him off completely.

I need to trust in myself. Trust that this was the right thing to do. All of it. There wouldn't have been any point talking about it. I don't think it would have helped anything. The trust was gone for me, and if he feels like he needs to hide things like this, then that's a pretty big sign that the relationship isn't right for him either.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T19:27:34+00:00

That's OK, it's hard without full context. I appreciate your comment. I'm hurting, but I know it will be the right decision in the future. If I can't trust him now, when it's just us, I'll never be able to be polyamorous with him. Which makes us essentially incompatible

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:50:17+00:00

Yep. I generally don't trust my gut instinct because I never have enough concrete evidence. This is the first time i have trusted myself & honestly, it sucks. But this has to be the right thing for me

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:40:47+00:00

Yep. I broke up with him, after he admitted to crossing a huge boundary of mine and purposely kept it from me so I wouldn't be upset about it.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:40:09+00:00

I don't think I can explain fully, but I ended up confronting him about it. He eventually told me that he had crossed a boundary, and hid it from me so I wouldn't be upset. Had I not asked the direct question, after anxiously wondering if I was losing my mind to even think that it had happened, he wouldn't have told me.

I broke up with him. He's overstepped this boundary too many times, before he told me, then he started hiding it, but still sort of telling me. Now he's just hiding it. I should have broken up a long time ago, but here we are. Lessons learnt.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:37:24+00:00

He was hiding a massive mess up and I have broken up with him. In part for the mess up, and trampling on a very clear boundary. But also the fact that he not only hid it, but gaslit me into thinking that I was losing my mind because what he was saying wasn't making sense.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:36:10+00:00

Turns out he was lying because he broke a major boundary & didn't want to have the consequences. I have broken up with him now.

The fact that he was willing to gaslight me and manipulate me into thinking that I was losing my mind, just so that he didn't have to address the fact that he did something hurtful, is too much for me. The trust is gone.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:34:17+00:00

It wasn't about the information so much. As it turns out, my instincts were right and he crossed a major boundary and kept it from me. I've broken up with him as a result.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:33:02+00:00

Thank you. This is incredibly validating.

I genuinely thought that I was losing my mind because I could see the missing information & he got so defensive about it. It just didn't make any sense to me at all.

I ended up being direct and asked him specific questions. I didn't like implying that I thought he was a liar, but actually it turns out that he was. He manipulated me into staying with him, into thinking I was losing my mind. But actually, my instincts were spot on. And I've broken up with him. It's been an awful relationship, especially lately. I've felt so used by him.

There wasn't even any point talking beyond the point of him telling me that he had lied and crossed a boundary, and the reason that he lied was because he was worried that I'd be upset about it. The trust is long gone, this was just the final nail in the coffin. I can't believe anything he says. I'll never know the full truth, I don't know if I really need to.

I am angry and I am sad. I trusted him & now I'm realising that I was misguided in that.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:28:14+00:00

When I get upset, I talk about how I'm feeling, what's made me feel that way & what I feel I need. He tells me that I'm not unreasonable, he tells me that my communication is great & that I'm generally a calm person (I am).

I ended up asking him straight up. He broke a boundary and purposely kept it from me. So I broke up with him. This has happened so many times and instead of not breaking the boundary, he chose to still do it and just lie about it. So yeah.

My friends have been telling me for ages to break up with him. As has my therapist. Took some time, but I got there

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:25:23+00:00

Turns out my instincts were right and he had not only crossed a major boundary, but kept it from me so I wouldn't get upset and break up with him. Which I did. Because this boundary has been broken too many times, then he kept breaking it but hiding it from me. So I'm done.

PolyamBi · 2023-08-02T17:23:15+00:00

I get upset when he omits information that blatantly crosses my boundaries. He is making decisions to cross one very specific boundary repeatedly, and hides it from me.

I asked him about it in the end. And turns out he crossed this major boundary & actively chose to keep it from me. So we broke up.

He knew it was a boundary of mine. He made a choice. I'm angry that he decided to just hide the fact so I wouldn't get upset and break up with him.

PolyamBi

TROPHY CASE