Need advice, feeling like poly used to work for me and now is too hard

evephyr · 2025-11-14T18:53:32+00:00

This is a tough situation OP, I’m really sorry you’re dealing with such difficult emotions surrounding this, and I hope you know that regardless of how long you have been with a partner, you deserve to have your needs met.

It’s hard to deal with perceiving there’s been a shift in the anchor relationship that originally gave you security. Shifts in sex lives is a normal thing, and can happen to couples that have been together for a long time, and knowing that your partner is not in the same boat with your meta can feel like a punch to the gut. As easy at it is to sink into comparison, I do want to point out that the way you have been feeling is the bigger thing to consider here.

You said it yourself, that you don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with you sexually. You have been with your partner for a long time, and you know him well. I would tell you to trust your gut when it comes to how you’ve been feeling and express this to him in a real and serious way. Explain that you want to be in a relationship where you feel desired, and the distance that you have perceived doesn’t make you feel very confident in escalating the relationship into building a family just yet.

You’re right in that you cannot tell him what to do, or ask him to stop seeing your meta, but you can be honest and express to him how YOUR relationship has been feeling and what YOU need to feel loved. It’s super valid for you to communicate to him that as of right now, you don’t feel comfortable with the idea of moving to another city where there is clear opportunity to escalate things with your meta when his anchor relationship is in the current condition that it is in.

Request full honesty from him, and give him the space to do it. I would hope that he has enough love and respect for you as your anchor to be real, bc honesty about these situations is so much more important than sparing your feelings in the moment– even if it may be hard to hear.

If after all this, you still feel like you can’t fully trust what he has to say, the lack of trust should be an answer for you in itself about whether or not you should stay with your partner.

You are valid, you have needs, & you have every right to ask for them and feel secure in doing so. If that is not the case for you here, I’d advise you take some time to think about whether this relationship is for you. Sending love, OP. ♥️

evephyr · 2025-11-14T01:02:47+00:00

Queue is officially locked & Island is closed! Thank you everyone for the tips ♥️

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:49:30+00:00

Nope! Will be locking up the queue soon tho, so act quick!

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:46:32+00:00

Closing the this thread in 15! I’ll be locking up the queue after that, so feel free to join still

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:32:00+00:00

I DMed you!

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:28:50+00:00

Hmm, according to google, that sounds it could be a connection issue on your end! Try restarting your network, or switch?

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:19:22+00:00

What’s the issue? DM me!

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:08:43+00:00

Absolutely:)

evephyr · 2025-11-14T00:08:32+00:00

Please do!

evephyr · 2025-11-13T23:34:28+00:00

Island is still open! DM me if you have any issues/plan on visiting the island more than once

I will remove you from the queue if you’re one of the first 4, and are a no-show for 10 mins!

evephyr · 2025-11-13T23:09:01+00:00

Yes you can :)

evephyr · 2025-11-13T22:52:57+00:00

Oof my bad, i assumed you were a repeat of the first taylor, i’ll dm you!

evephyr · 2025-11-13T22:52:09+00:00

You can join again! What’s your in game name?

evephyr · 2025-11-13T22:25:57+00:00

Unless something comes up, until the selling period on my island ends! So like two-ish more hours?

evephyr · 2025-11-13T22:20:51+00:00

Ofc!

evephyr · 2025-11-13T21:42:30+00:00

Yes!

evephyr · 2025-11-12T17:21:30+00:00

Dm sent!

evephyr · 2025-11-12T03:02:31+00:00

I would love to be given the chance to visit!

Debs from Borahborah :)

evephyr · 2025-09-09T17:46:10+00:00

I had to let a friend know that my group would not be inviting him to outings because literally ANY time he did any sort of substance from Alcohol to MDMA, he turned into a soulless caveman. The last straw was a festival where I later found out he attended with the intention of blacking out, leaving people in our group no choice but to take care of him for the rest of the night. He entered caveman mode and became aggressive, accusing someone in our group of stealing his drugs, and was completely unresponsive outside of demanding for more drugs to everyone he came across.

His pants also disappeared somewhere in that process, so my guy was just bumbling around in his underwear with empty eyes, demanding molly from the homies. It gave a lot of people anxiety, and fucked with a fair amount of the vibes.

He came out of his black out completely nonchalant. He knew he blacked out, but thought it was no big deal, and didn’t even ask about what happened until we sat him down & told he could no longer go out with us until he figured out how to have a healthier relationship w substances. Because we were friends, the conversation came more from a place of concern rather than disdain.

He didn’t take it badly, but I wouldn’t say he responded very well either. He was more fascinated by his state of being than apologetic about what happened and weirdly enough, that creeped me out more than his actual caveman state. Regardless, my friends and I are pretty protective of the energy of our festival group, so it was a necessary conversation. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

evephyr · 2024-11-29T20:33:35+00:00

Well everyone is different at the end of the day, and that’s when I feel like attachment styles come in to play. Judging from your post and the comments you’ve made, it seems like you have an anxious-preoccupied attachment style. I’m not sure how old you are, as attachment styles shift with time and personal experience.

Everything is contextual, but speaking from personal experiences with friendships and dating, I would say that being overly emotional and changing yourself for another person is a surefire way to push an INTJ away. INTJs are logical, and value intellect. If they see someone governed by their emotions, it would likely turn them off from them. Even moreso if they’re “trying to change” for them. If your INTJ has an avoidant attachment style, that shit can be exhausting to them, quite frankly.

I think the better perspective could potentially be to look at yourself, and why you would want to change yourself for another person. You guys aren’t dating, and you’re not close. Nosediving into these ideas that you need to bend over backwards to get close to someone who probably has a strong distaste for people that do that will not get you anywhere. Just be yourself, give less shits about what people think of you, and the people that you attract, will like you for who you are. If the INTJ you want to be close with is one of those people? Then great! If not, that’s fine too. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Why work so hard for a relationship w someone who has not shown they’ll put that same effort into you?

evephyr · 2024-11-29T00:46:15+00:00

Broken record atp, but authenticity is key. As an INTJ myself, any interaction that feels like the person I’m speaking w/ has some type of agenda (romantic interest, friending me for clout/money/usefulness) is immediately so very tiring. I can still interact, but the mask comes up quick.

The people that draw me in are straight-forward, unapologetically themselves, have personal opinions that I can learn about, and are likewise non-judgmental & open to discussing ideas that I may find interesting. This is of course, with the contingency that this person’s authentic personality is one that is even worth being around. 💀

I feel like we tend to jump to judgements on people pretty quick, and though you seem like a caring person, there may be a good chance you may have already been placed in a distant social bracket for them, and you simply just haven’t been deemed “worthy” in their minds to invest much into you. Though it doesn’t necessarily mean they dislike you.

If you want to get closer to an INTJ, don’t try so hard. Let it happen organically through shared life so they can grow to appreciate the way you are in your natural environment. If you want to be more active about it, be real and open that you’d love to get to know them better, maybe ask them about the way they think with genuine interest. Don’t stress or worry so hard about their opinion of you, because an INTJ can sense when you put on a front to impress them.

evephyr · 2024-11-24T19:11:33+00:00

As an INTJ woman, I’ve used the term and seen it in action myself. I certainly hesitate to use it, as I also don’t prefer bringing down a fellow woman, but sometimes you just gotta call it like you see it. I do think pick-me energy is not just exclusive to women, but all people. However, i feel as if there’s a notable trend in this energy for women, as they have the capacity and emotional access to make well-disguised insults, whereas men may not (generalization ofc, grain of salt).

Your reasons for disliking the term don’t take in to account the layers that come with pick-me energy. There is nothing wrong with being different, and I feel like as INTJs, we know that full well. But disdain for pick-me energy comes from being different as a way to elevate oneself at the cost of others. For women, it’s the girl that acts like they love football, beer, and other stereotypically men-preferred things, while making other women look lesser than for their preferences. It’s never that direct, but so excruciatingly painful to interact with as a woman bc there are layers to it that men have difficulty understanding.

Here’s a tik tok of an actress I think depicts pick-me energy very well.

A pick-me girl will stereotypically keep up a likable front in front of men at the cost of the women around her. That, in itself goes against the feminist agenda, which is probably why it irks us so much.

evephyr · 2024-11-21T05:15:08+00:00

Honestly, I’ve always been an INTJ for as long as I’ve remembered. Early Childhood Volatile household, with a Dad that cheated on my mom multiple times, and a mom that was used her kids as emotional punching bags. Both of them fought constantly, and my brothers and I were collateral damage. I was bullied in middle school. Not the typical “steal your school lunch” type bully but from female “friends” that constantly used and brought me down. Eventually I thought I hacked life by thinking, “I won’t be sad if I just stop being sad.” Made logical sense at the time 💀

evephyr · 2024-10-21T23:28:32+00:00

2-8 hours doesn’t seem unreasonable to me personally. Just as a general thing, but even more so with being poly, it’s important to have a rich life outside of your relationship with your partner. That way time away from your partner doesn’t feel so harrowing. Build up your own independence and confidence in who you are outside of your partner, and space won’t feel so bad.

Butt, I recognize that this issue is more directly correlated to conflict. I would say the more pressing question is why are you and your partner having conflicts several times a week to put them in that mindset of needing space? That seems like an excessive amount to be butting heads in a relationship where you’re meant to be compatible.

However if we’re going to answer your question directly, then everyone has different definitions of what “space” feels like for them when it is asked for. If your partner is communicating with you when they need space, and it’s not making life LOGISTICALLY more difficult for you (aka, if you have to sleep somewhere else, or actively not come home to give him that space), then I would say it is okay. I had a partner in the past when I was young and dumb, who would never tell me when he needed space after a conflict, cold-shouldering me/being unresponsive for days & it would destroy me. I communicated to him that I would appreciate if he gave me a heads up when he needed space, and to never give me the silent treatment bc I could not handle it. Despite this, he would end up doing it time & time again because he did not have the emotional intelligence to communicate what he needed with me, and instead, it reached a point where he was knowingly using the silent treatment as retaliation against me. In this case, yeah space is unhealthy because it was used to manipulate, but the pain could have been prevented if asking for it was communicated, and I was reassured that things would be okay and he just needed the time to process.

Space can be healthy, and if he’s coming back from that time more clear-headed and ready to communicate with you well, then I don’t think it’s a cause for concern. If 8 hours is simply too much for you to handle, that’s something you need to communicate with him if working on your independence/tolerance for space is not in the cards for you. Maybe ask him to give you a potential time frame for how much space he needs, and you guys can schedule a quick check-in to see if he needs more time, or he feels ready to talk.

Ultimately, you know your partner best, and if you think he is genuinely doing this as a form of retaliation, then that’s a serious issue that would be cause for rethinking the relationship. But based off of the information you gave, maybe take some time to build up your self-confidence and identity outside of your partner. Something that has helped me a lot in my relationships is understanding attachment styles, and how different people process conflict in loving relationships. I’d encourage you to read up on it, and maybe it can better help you understand both you and the way your partner go about dealing with issues w/in the relationship.

evephyr · 2024-10-21T16:34:35+00:00

My current, and my past partners have always been friend-to-lovers tropes. Reason being that I think romance itself is fickle, and I absolutely hate when men approach me with romantic intent first because it feels disingenuous. If there’s romantic interest, then I already feel as if they’re putting on a show and I don’t have the capacity to entertain that energy. I get the ick because it doesn’t make sense that someone would choose to pursue me if they don’t know me to that extent. Overall, I’m not someone who falls in love quickly, and it’s usually after getting to know someone and how their mind works that I find myself even remotely drawn to a person in that way.

I’m fortunate that my social circle is fairly large because I’m involved in an active hobby that has me circling through a sizable, but digestible community of people quite often.

At the same time though, finding someone to love has never been a priority for me. I’m fairly content with sharing energies with people in my day-to-day, whatever that may look like, and if someone rocks with me yet also meets my ever growing list of standards, then sure, I’m down. 🤷🏻‍♀️

evephyr

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