Hello Partypeople
Yes, again, I feel like you all deserve an update: Everything is fine. I’m still with Arthur, we’re still monogamous and like any other couple (regardless of relationship style) we have our little highs and lows. The problems have become so mundane though that I find myself laughing at them from time to time (e.g. he always puts cups on top oft he dishwasher instead in them, i alwas put the hairbrush in „the wrong“ drawer,…).
I stopped seeing the therapist – party because I feel like we got tot he root of a lot of my insecurities, partly because I felt while the sessions were helping me identifying the issues, they weren’t reall helping in a constructive way (whcih I hope i was able to find alone now). Arthur is doing better as well, though of course he has his bad days (especially since Brianna keeps inserting herself in his life by e.g. visiting his parents or sending ‚closure‘-letters) but overall I think we are both steady.
Sometimes I’m still struggeling a little with conflating the disparity of our experiences with Brinanna – him having experienced her as a positive long-term-partner, me having experienced her as a mainly negative influence on my relationship – but I think that might be something we all experience with our partners at some level (e.g. I once was with a guy who’d had a adultescent period of extreme religiousness, which I found hard to put together with his – and our shared – current view oft he world). Luckily, Arthur is very understanding and beeing able to talk to him about this openly is helping a lot.
@Magdlyn Arthur has made it rather clear that he doesn’t think he’ll be up for poly again in any forseable time and has admitted (albeit indirectly) that he believes neither him nor Brianna might never really have been polyamorous, but really just looking for a way to keep their dying relationship alive. It was scary for me, as this of course changed our realtionship dynamic and I have struggeled in traditional monogamous relationships before, but after a lot of soulsearching and talking we have agreed on monogamy.
Therapy helped a lot with bringing awareness to the insecurities I have that I used to fix with sexual attention and has made it easier to find ways to get the external reassurence I need in other capacities (e.g. I make a list of nice things people said to me at the end oft he week, but only nice things about my character like „my boss thinks i’m a quick thinker“ or „my prof said I was a hard worker“ or I make lists with things I like about my own character).
So for now, beeing with Arthur and exploring this and the if’s and how’s and what’s of a possible future together seems to be enough for me
Thank you again for all your advise and help during this really crazy time of my life!