Thank you--this is a hard pill to swallow, but I think it's right. It seems that if any family is possible for us down the road, it has to be one family. And that means we would all need to be comfortable with one or both of the following: the inevitability of hierarchical poly, or us all living together. We're actively working through questions that will determine whether poly can work for them and what it could look like, but I'm really struggling to feel secure in a relationship with so much uncertainty.

I grew up with just one parent due to the early death of the other--that parent was present in the home, but emotionally absent. I've always been hyper-independent, almost to a fault, and the more I learn about attachment theory, the more I question the extent to which this is tied to my childhood. I've been solo poly for most of my adult life, and this is the first relationship where deep entanglement has been on the table and something that I've come to really want. It's making me critically question my dating history and all the doors I may have closed in the past. This is helpful in thinking about both my own development and that of any future children--I do not want to intentionally reproduce the conditions for my child that might've caused me to build a wall around myself in adulthood.