Tentative steps to explore

dracopanther

New member
Hello everyone! This is my first post in the forum, and I'd like to reach out and ask some questions and hopefully make sense of where I am and where I'd like to go.

I'm currently re-orienting myself after a break-up I went through last year with a man that I thought I was going to marry. We were a long distance relationship for 5 months, fell really hard for each other, and decided to move in together. Almost immediately, there were problems. I got very, very sick and he was not an emotionally comforting type. I felt a lot of emotional deprivation and was forced to confront a lot of my own insecurities and needs after I cheated on him. We stayed together for the remainder of the lease, then broke up. The breakup left a trail of wreckage that has lasted up until just recently, as we both tried to "make things work."

During that time, I became involved with 2 other guys who were both monogamous. It was very complicated, and confusing, as I tried to make sense of what I was doing with my ex, and what it was that I was able to give. All three of them are still present in my life, and I've often felt that I'm being pulled in 3 different directions.

I haven't set up good dynamics, and I haven't really known what I've wanted to be able to tell someone else. Currently, one of them is living with me, on a month-to-month basis, we consider ourselves dating, but I feel often very emotionally drained by him and his insecurities. He needed a place to live just as my roommate was moving out, and so I've seen this as being a temporary stay. I want to set up a poly lifestyle, but I'm not sure if I want him to be a part of my life. And how to proceed if I'm living with someone who I don't know if they're going to be here for long? How do I explain that to new people?

Right now, I'm in therapy for borderline personality disorder. I have PTSD from past sexual abuse, and have chronic physical illness. I'm living in a city away from my family going to school and am pretty lonely, but I feel like I can't interact with people without knowing how to structure things, for fear that I will hurt them. I guess that's it in a nutshell.
 
I would personally make my first goal finding a strong support system - i.e. friends. With all of the stuff you have going on, physically and mentally, it is a lot to ask someone in a brand-spanking-new romantic relationship to be your primary emotional support. While you're in therapy and figuring out what you want relationship-wise and from these three men in particular, I would recommend striking out on your own and finding a few good friends. Learning how to live on your own, without depending on a person or people you're in a relationship with, is probably going to help you in the long-term.

I think you're on the right track trying to figure out what you're able to give to others in the course of your journey. There is all kinds of info about poly here, and I really recommend the reading list here. There are also threads about explaining poly to people, when the people around here feel like it's best to tell others you're non-monogamous, and all kinds of goodies.
 
So did you go right from an LDR to moving in with the person? That can be a massive shock, as I'm sure you realise now - so much stuff you can't know about a person when they are LDR and once you are moved in with them, it becomes very difficult to go slowly.

And now you find yourself living with someone else that you don't want in a relationship...

I think there may be a pattern there that you may want to examine.

Some poly folk will get involved with you under circumstances similar to yours, but I think that a lot will tell you to go get your life sorted out a bit more, then contact them, because they probably don't want to have to deal with the potential drama that a setup like yours could cause.
 
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