After months of talking about whether to do it, when to do it, why to do it, how to do it-- I did it. I broke up with R today. We'd seen some of his relatives, then come back to my place, and I said I wanted to talk about our relationship. So we talked for a while. He talked about his frustrations--how it felt like we'd never gotten to the stage where he got to really integrate with me and my friends. I talked about my feelings...but there was an elephant in the room. Finally, I took a deep breath, looked at him and said, "Hey, there's something I need to tell you that it is really hard for me to say--but I have to say it....I want to have two boyfriends. I want to have a relationship with you and also one with Wash."
Watching R's face was watching the storm roll in. I won't repeat the blow by blow, but the short version would be that sharing me was untenable to him--that he could barely tolerate my having sex with other people (he acknowledged there was more to it than that)--having to be one of my two boyfriends was something he would NEVER want. (There was this sense he was willing to have me sleep with Wash so long as he didn't know about it and so long as he could believe that my relationship with Wash was all about sex, but of course I didn't let that stand...)
We talked back and forth, he was angry with me (of course) and accused me of lying a couple of times. I reminded him that I'd brought all this up, so the concept I was lying to him didn't make much sense.
"You realize my life is OVER," he said at one point, and I just nodded, trying to hold my own self together and to remember that he had a choice about his own actions and that I couldn't mislead this guy about what I wanted. "What I would like is for us to try and see how it worked out," I said, but he didn't want that.
I'm feeling a couple of things: 1) Relieved I said what I really wanted; I've waited months and felt dishonest far too long. 2) Sad..I care about R and wish he wanted to be poly (but recognize that is his choice to make) 3) Happy...Once I get over feeling guilt, this is going to free up more space in my life for me to focus on me. 4) Guilty..I know this is hurting him and I feel bad about that.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.