poly imposter?

jenniferjuniper

New member
Hello,
I am pretty confused at the moment and could use some advice. I was in a relationship with a man for a little over a year who I thought was open to the us pursuing an open relationship at some point as he is much older than I am. I often tried to broach the subject to get him to open up about what would interest him should the opportunity present itself but he seemed to shy away from frank discussion. I thought maybe it was just too early in the relationship for it to be a pressing issue. He'd just started a new, very demanding job.

But last week he told me he had met someone a couple of weeks back whom he has feelings for and wants to explore things with. He told me he wanted to break up. Then he told me he still loves me, is attracted to me, etc. etc. I admit I flipped out because it was very unexpected, abrupt, and I'd been having a tough week- I had a tight deadline to get a couple of major projects done. Not good timing.

Since that night he's emailed me just about everyday but won't discuss the other relationship with me. Is this a case of someone being manipulative? I would have been happy to bring other people into the relationship if he had been honest and direct with me about it, and considerate. But his actions seem to me kind of sneaky and selfish. I felt ambushed. Am I overreacting?

He also said he is beginning therapy to deal with all the stress of work and now this. He wants to talk to me on Tuesday. I'm thinking maybe I should move on given the huge failure in communication and that he has never been in a relationship that lasted longer than 5 years. What do you guys think?
 
Selfish

I would say he is selfish and manipulative. If he really wanted a open relationship he would have been willing to talk things out with you. He went behind your back, lying to you.

You cant trust him.

Let him go.
 
Hmm, it doesn't sound like the communication has been good. So, if I've got this right, you approached him during your relationship wanting to have an open relationship. He avoided the topic. Recently, he met some one else and wants to break up. N'est pas? He sounds like he's not trying to be all that considerate of your feelings, poly or no... As to whether this is a pattern, I would suggest looking at how his relationships have ended. Perhaps he's an NRE junkie.

I don't blame you for feeling ambushed. I think you would want to take a long hard look, talk to some friends who know you both before you would consider continuing anything with this guy.
 
I dunno, I think I would see what he says and ask him about the other relationship... I would make sure that he knows what it was that was a "fail" in this process and then play it by ear. Being new to poly doesn't make the person a failure at it when they first screw up... but it does mean they should learn from the experience.

I think I would let it go, not attach myself to any notion that anything will work out between me and him, forgive and see what he says... that way my heart would be open to possibility when I meet him rather than going to be closed and angry. If nothing else a friendship might come out of it.
 
I agree with RP that I wouldn't immediately write him off. Who ever really knows what they're doing in relationships? Maybe he didn't quite grasp what you were willing to accept whenever you tried to bring up the topic; perhaps it made him nervous to think about and when he met this other person he fell back on his default programming of only having one at a time. I would give him a chance at least to hear him out and see if this is workable. There have been good strong poly relationships to come out of much worse situations that this! I don't think what happened is such a huge failure.

Oh, and to say he's "only" had relationships that have never gone past five years made me giggle. Before I got married at age 39, my longest-ever relationship was three years - and that was when I was in High School. All my adult life, I never had any relationships last even a year. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. The most important things are how you communicate and treat each other. This can be turned around, methinks.
 
Hehe, I am a bit more cynical at present. I've been listening to lots of Dan Savage and the "dump the motherfucker already." ;) If he genuinely just fucked up and wants to make it right, that's a good thing, for sure. I've just seen so many people, not just men, treating their partners like shit, not caring and seeking out whomever they please for their own consumption. And if that is the case... run for the hills! And I agree with Indie that the time of his relationships doesn't necessarily mean much. Look at what happened during them. How they ended, started, went... If he is someone who dates then during that relationship meets someone else. And does that over and over. Dumping people for someone then dumping that someone for someone. That, to me, is a toxic pattern. Maybe tell us a bit more about what's going on?
 
Past relationship length as an indicator of future success

Past relationship length would be a very minor red (mayber reddish? pink?) flag for me if the person a) has a past of serial monogamy of relationships lasting no more than approx. a year at a time b) has always entered into a new relationship right after the previous one ended and c) blames the end of their previous relationships exclusively on their partners. That might be indicative of NRE junkiness, imho. But this is a minor trigger for me because of past issues.

As to the OP's situation - it reads as a 'OMG, I've fallen for someone else while in a relationship, ERGO I have to have fallen out of love with my current partner'-freakout. If he's not willing to talk, maybe but it on the back-burner for a while and ask him to self-educate on poly and decide if it's something he might consider?
 
who I thought was open to the us pursuing an open relationship at some point as he is much older than I am.

You thought (assumed) that just because he is older that he would want an open relationship?

I often tried to broach the subject to get him to open up about what would interest him should the opportunity present itself but he seemed to shy away from frank discussion.

When you tried to discuss an open relationship he avoided it.


But last week he told me he had met someone a couple of weeks back whom he has feelings for and wants to explore things with. He told me he wanted to break up.

He met someone else whom he dumped you for.


Since that night he's emailed me just about everyday but won't discuss the other relationship with me. Is this a case of someone being manipulative?

It's a case of you allowing yourself to put up with someone else's bullshit.


I would have been happy to bring other people into the relationship if he had been honest and direct with me about it, and considerate. But his actions seem to me kind of sneaky and selfish. I felt ambushed. Am I overreacting?

Yes. You did not have an "open relationship" with this man in the first place, except perhaps in your imagination.

He also said he is beginning therapy to deal with all the stress of work and now this. He wants to talk to me on Tuesday. I'm thinking maybe I should move on given the huge failure in communication and that he has never been in a relationship that lasted longer than 5 years. What do you guys think?

He broke up with YOU. YOU are the one who seems to know what you want and that you're not going to get it with this man. He was never a "poly imposter" because according to your story, you two never actually agreed to a "poly" relationship. "Imposter" is when someone PRETENDS to be someone they aren't. It does not sound like this man pretended to be anything, according to your story.

You know you shouldn't be wasting your time with this individual, but obviously other folks are already trying to talk you into staying with him. Pfeh.
 
ther folks are already trying to talk you into staying with him. Pfeh.
I hope it didn't seem like that from me. I would likely go into this more out of curiousity than with any kind of idea anything would come out of it. Mostly for closurers sake I think. If I didn't go and meet him I would always wonder what happened or what could of happened.
 
I hope it didn't seem like that from me. I would likely go into this more out of curiousity than with any kind of idea anything would come out of it. Mostly for closurers sake I think. If I didn't go and meet him I would always wonder what happened or what could of happened.

It kind of did.

Maybe it's just me, but on this forum I see a lot of encouraging people to "work" on relationships that are just... doomed to failure. It seems like in order to be "good poly people", we're supposed to leave no stone unturned when it comes to dealing with other people's bullshit.

I read these posts from people describing their situation, and if THEY read their OWN posts from an outsider's perspective, they'd say, "What the FUCK was I THINKING, getting involved with this person?"

Like this story:

OP wants an open relationship.

OP ASSUMES that because partner is "older", he must be agreeable to that, despite the fact that he refuses to talk about it. RED FLAG #1

OP knows that partner has a history of relationships not lasting very long ("Oh, but it will be different with ME because he's never been with anyone as awesome as ME. He'll change for ME.") RED FLAG #2

Partner behaves in predictable fashion in accordance with past relationship patterns and finds a Shiny New Toy to play with. Old Rusty Toy gets tossed into the scrap-heap.

Old Rusty Toy still thinks that there is something in it for her and finds an internet forum from whence to seek validation.

...

OK. Whatever makes your day go by.
 
I'd say, tell him "I'd like to see if we can salvage this relationship together. What I'm going to need, if we do it, is new level for us of trust, transparency, and a willingness to give and receive communication fearlessly." (Practice saying this to a mirror.) See if he follows through. If not, move on.

> ...who I thought was open to us pursuing an
> open relationship at some point as he is much older
> than I am.

WTF? How does A imply B here? What on Earth was your assumption? Examine what else you may be falsely assuming, and why.

Best wishes,

Alan M.
 
WTF? How does A imply B here? What on Earth was your assumption? Examine what else you may be falsely assuming, and why.

Exactly. I don't think it's fair to call the guy a "poly imposter" just because you assumed he is poly and willing to work with you on that, and he turned out not to be.

So far, I haven't seen any evidence that this man mislead the OP, or "pretended" to be "poly", except in the OP's mind.
 
... he seemed to shy away from frank discussion.

Red flag--aversion to communication.

He told me he wanted to break up.

I hesitate to say this is a red flag because, well, he dumped you. That sort of ends things.

Then he told me he still loves me, is attracted to me, etc. etc.

Red flag--wildly manipulative behavior.

Since that night he's emailed me just about everyday but won't discuss the other relationship with me.

Red flag--do you really need somebody else to point out how dysfunctional this is?

Am I overreacting?

I'd say you're grossly underreacting. Why haven't you washed your hands of his bullshit and walked on?
 
Thanks for the advice. I am moving forward with extreme caution. To clarify, didn't think he was into poly because he is older- I should have edited that out. I know, it doesn't make any sense. I thought he was interested in getting into poly at some point because a couple of his close friends are into polyamory AND he frequently brought up that fact and wanted to know what I felt about it. But of course it doesn't necessarily follow from there that he is into poly or even knows what he wants. I concur that his behavior is pretty bad/ immature/ selfish at the moment but I think everyone is entitled to at least one major relationship F- up, so we shall see.
 
Reading your original post, I bet you have one of two things going on here.

Either you got ahold of a woman-hating jerk who really just wants to have the adoration of NRE from as many women as possible.

Or you have a genuinely poly man who has been indoctrinated to believe that having multiple loves is impossible and/or immoral.

Actually, it could also be both of these problems.


Either way, it is probably a deep seeded fact of his psychology. You're not likely to change him.

I have to tell clients all the time "if you dont like him just the way he is, don't stay with him. Men don't (usually) change"
 
Back
Top