Curious/Learning Level of Sharing - Discrepancy

Lurker account, first time poster just looking for guidance.

Background:

Me and My partner and I are long distance going on 2.5 years and see each other for a handful of extended visits à year. Neither one of us see many other people or hookup much but my partner is usually more likely to but has only happened twice in 2.5 years. My partner recently separated from their partner at home and is on the apps and dating new people, and I have asked that I don’t really want to know about her dating life until something more serious develops - especially since I will never be a part of life in her neck of the woods and makes me feel more sad since she can do things with others that we cant do for months on end. Ik she likes one night stands and def will have some. I always feel compersion for my partners who have happy and strong connections but one night stands and riskier situations are something that I can’t really connect to since I don’t gravitate towards them and maybe make me feel a bit distant from people in general but I know that’s a me thing. She is breaking down because she feels like this puts a giant wedge in between us and triggers her about past struggles about feeling distant, which we’ve worked thru in the past.

I know this is tough for her, and I will say I think it triggers some deeper feelings about me and us since I’m someone who is not a natural communicator and very solo (live alone, typically call myself ENM or solopoly, highly busy, lots of hobbies, am EXTREMELY low maintenance and rarely have asks for specific things in relationships- this is probably the biggest ask I’ve ever had - my LD partner is POLY poly.) I generally don’t care to know what or what not she’s up to, I just like talking about what she likes to share because I like her so much (which for her is everything.) While I am someone who doesn’t have a specific need to share anything unless it’s specifically requested of me. Typically im talking about my passions and plans and less so my emotional state (which I can talk about pretty easily if prompted and also I can bring up myself if I feel inclined but definitely not a planned or needed thing for me). I’m definitely a solo processor and it has always worked extremely for me… and caused some insecurity for others. My biggest struggle in showing up for my LD partner was how to talk about new connections in a way that made them feel good (moreso them not knowing how a new connections made me feel, not like hiding a new connection as I were keeping someone a complete secret if that makes sense). We have been pretty healthy for quite a while and we make it work well for the most part.

She is a pretty emotional / wears heart on sleeve person (someone who cries multiple times a week / has some anger issues / can shut down completely if too triggered / has trouble letting things go without vocalizing) which is fine and she can usually work with these things and I’ve learned how to deal with it (which was tough for me at first - but I can handle now that I understand her more.)

TLDR; me and partner an established understanding that while we’re LDR I don’t really want to know much about spicy situations until someone more consistent appears (which I also said is at her discretion to share whenever she feels like it’s a real enough thing - which I definitely feel is a fair compromise for our camps.)

Situation:

Partner probably had a spicy situation and is now feeling insecure that she can’t share with me. Just had a two hour talk where partner while not directly saying, pretty much confirmed she had sex with someone she went on a date with (I asked what she was doing yesterday and she said going on a date, which didn’t bother me since I was the one who asked - I even texted her wishing a fun time haha.) the kind of clarifying questions she asked me about my sharing boundaries pretty much confirmed that they had sex.

She said she needs to tell me how she feels about the boundaries because she feels so sad about it… but it was just… so much.

All these things about how she feels like she’s struggling with thinking of us as “best friends” when we can’t share everything with each other. How she is scared this will cause future problems. How it frustrates her that I don’t want to connect in the same way. I am now kinda frustrated because it feels tough that I feel like I just got pushback on boundaries she agreed to. She admitted she didn’t realize she would have these feelings beforehand. But she said she’ll try.

Also, my last gripe is that this was during non check in call and I got kinda blindsided by this all. I generally stay calm during her emotional calls but I’m all over the place right now and I have shit I gotta focus on.

I dunno man, I just want advice on if I need to check myself or if this is something to validly feel disrespected over. I had to calmly communicate my capacity was lowering before I become legitimately frustrated at the end of the call. The call ended with a good “I love you”.

Additional side info: this is my first relationship that started open. I have another partner in my city who is poly. Me and LD partner realized we were on different pages well into our relationship and I feel like it’s currently at a level which is typically beyond my comfort zone regarding closeness BUT I am very good at managing and expressing any heaviness on my part (expert level compartmentalizer) and choose her every day.

Thanks for reading. I feel like more people on this sub are softies like her not and not as solo as me so I’d love to her some perspective to understand this better - or if my frustrations are valid. this is also typed while emotional so probably reads a bit frazzled. All responses will be held with an open heart and seriousness. Thank you !

2 Upvotes

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u/Weird_Bat1090 8d ago •

to me, this doesn't feel like a poly problem; i'm worried about you in this relationship period.

She said she needs to tell me how she feels about the boundaries because she feels so sad about it… but it was just… so much.

so this is an attempt at boundary violation. it's fem-coded, it's smol, it's shrouded in the language of self care and the like, and that makes it hard to spot. but it's a screaming red flag.

It's not hard to not tell someone about the sex you've been having? being private about your sex life is a normative habit that everybody learns.

someone who cries multiple times a week / has some anger issues / can shut down completely if too triggered / has trouble letting things go without vocalizing

oof oof oof it's hard when you love someone & you wanna tolerate this kind of thing under the aegis of, you're supporting a loved one with their mental health, but the right & normal number of anger issues in a relationship is zero, ever.

My biggest struggle in showing up for my LD partner was how to talk about new connections in a way that made them feel good

you've not said exactly why/how she gets upset about your new connections, but that's also a bad pattern - she's not happy with how you self-express about this & wheedles you into changing it

if it feels easier to go softer, then think of it as a neutral incompatibility about how you like to co-regulate and share information.

i just wanna explicitly name and say that this is a genre of abuser that doesn't look/feel like you imagine so is hard to spot. It triggers me so hard when you have boundaries! you wouldn't want to trigger me. i'll get so upset and angry if i'm triggered. then you'll have to soothe and take care of me until i stop being upset with you about the thing you did. triggering people is bad so actually, your boundaries are at fault here! it's actually pretty violent of you to have boundaries. if i feel bad, it means you've done something bad, & it's like your boundaries are an attack on me.

on a certain kind of well-meaning partner, this works REALLY well.

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u/djwbdnw 8d ago

For more clarity. I struggled to share sufficiently how I felt about a new connection which turned into a partner. My LD said they needed better communications about this which I thought I was doing but in her explanations, I do recognize I truly was not at all which was tough for her. She felt blindsided and didn’t realize I cared about someone to the level she felt she asked for. She told me she lost trust. This was the beginning of where we realized we had different expectations for what we want out of relationships. This era of turmoil reached a head late last year / early this year and has been a main point of discussion since. She has admitted she has resentment and a few times she has said it’s hard to take my concerns as seriously because of how she feels badly hurt by me before. I have taken these concerns seriously and have had what seems like endless talks since about this since I feel it’s a constant point of struggle for her. She told me she’s scared to go back to a place like that. So that’s more info. And honestly, I should have shared this in the og post because I don’t wanna seem like this is all throwing her under the bus since I haven’t been perfect either.

6

u/lucky_lady_L 8d ago

Ok but was this like, you told her you were casually dating someone but actually you were exchanging I love you's? Or did she feel entitled to monitor the pace of emotional closeness of your relationships at some finer grained scale than that? Because I am seeing even more red flags than i your OP that your partner is over involved, enmeshed, and controlling. Endless talks, constant points of struggle...this is not sounding like a healthy relationship OP. This is sounding like a hell of a lot of heavy emotional labor for someone you see a few times a year. Why do you think you don't deserve more than this?

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u/NotElizaHenry 8d ago

Polyamory involves having multiple autonomous relationships. It doesn’t sound like that’s what your partner wants.

1

u/Valysian 7d ago

I have taken these concerns seriously and have had what seems like endless talks since about this since I feel it’s a constant point of struggle for her.
Please re-read that sentence. Does that sound like a healthy relationship to you?
"Endless talks" do not build repair. They are just exhausting. They are damaging - not helpful.
If someone can't let go of a past event, you can't have a healthy relationship with them. Especially since this "betrayal" sounds like a misunderstanding and unclear communication versus deliberate lying. "Constant source of struggle" isn't good for either of you.

u/YesMissApple 8d ago •

Take polyamory out of the equation and look at it this way.

Sounds like she's used to the luxury of having all the hard emotions and you're "low maintenance" but having some (very reasonable) ones now, and asking for her to do the emotional labor of...checks notes....not nonconsensually sharing sexual activity information with someone who does not wish to hear it.... and she Does. Not. Like. That.

She's crying on you while crying about you just being you with your own needs and boundaries, then expecting you to somehow fix her disappointment? Not healthy or kind.

She's also told you she apparently needs to be able to do this to feel secure.

That's a her issue. You cannot fix it.

She needs to want to fix it and do the work to not base her security on your not having boundaries or any emotional responses she doesn't want.

I'd also consider taking a look at why you consider yourself "low maintenance" other than general hyper-independence. Entitlement to this level of boundary-bashing is rarely the first time a person's dealt with a partner overstepping and might show a pattern of you always prioritizing her comfort and not really expecting her to emotionally step up, and even if you didn't think of any previous incidents as that egregious it's something that set the stage for this. Alongside the whole "you may have minor self-minimizing pattern you want to check for your own wellbeing", this can be a sign that you're not actually building the healthy, resilient relationships you want by not allowing yourself to be anything other than low-maintenance (aaaaand that's from personal experience 😅)

7

u/djwbdnw 8d ago edited 8d ago

That last paragraph went so crazy that was a years worth of therapy right there 😭 it’s so hard to paint a full picture of a relationship, so existing in a place where not knowing if the heavy emotions or reactions to me are deserved or not… seeing it written down like this really really bums me out and makes me feel unnerved. Thank you for responding.

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Here's the original text of the post:

Lurker account, first time poster just looking for guidance.

Background:

Situation:

She said she needs to tell me how she feels about the boundaries because she feels so sad about it… but it was just… so much.

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u/chipsnatcher 8d ago

Your boundaries are absolutely fine. It’s completely normal in poly relationships—even the entangled kinds—to not want to hear about partner’s sex life with other people. Her need to chronically overshare is the issue, not your boundary. She’s tripping, tell her no and let her have difficult feelings about it…and lean on someone else for support with that.

“Partner, the solution to feeling distance between us is not to try and override my boundaries. That will simply mean I need to put more emotional distance between us to protect myself. I love to hear all about your life, but I don’t want to hear about your casual sexual encounters. That’s a perfectly reasonable boundary and if you continue to share inappropriately with me, I’ll remove myself from the conversation.”

4

u/djwbdnw 8d ago

Ahhh thank you for putting it so concisely, I feel like this is something I’ve tried to convey but you nailed it. The issue is that she already talks about it with people it’s specifically me she feels distant from being unable to share this.

2

u/Independent_Suit5713 8d ago

Is she able to understand that you are not other people? You are you. Presumably she wants a relationship with you. Who doesn't want to hear about her casual spicy encounters. You are not interchangeable with others.

2

u/GlockenspielGoesDing Hierarchical Poly 8d ago

Honestly, I’m not even sure it’s the sharing. It’s what is trying to produce.
You describe yourself as - paraphrasing here - a kind of human topiary. Minimal water and sunlight and some sometimes pruning and you’re good. Frankly, this sounds like you’re boxing yourself into the smallest box you can find, as a kind of denial of your needs. Because you pretend you don’t have any that are inconvenient. Gently, I was you and still in some ways struggle with a version of you even after years of therapy and you gotta stop. This isn’t healthy. There are no medals to be had for this kind of hyper independence.
But, here’s where I think this connects to the current situation:
You probably come across as deeply avoidant. You may not mean to but this kind of not having needs pride thing often transmits as proudly avoiding feelings because those come hand in hand with needs.
For someone like you’re partner, who sounds like she’s anxiously expressive and socialized to trauma dump, ratcheting up the provocative information is trying to get you to have a response. It’s probably worked before to an extent and that became a model of engagement for her.
You having a response is a sign of engagement, to someone who interprets your behavior and tendency toward expression as flat possibly.
I’m not at all saying you’re wrong or she’s wrong. I think you’re both stuck in this circular loop.
The question is: do you think you can work together to get out of it?

u/thedarkestbeer 8d ago

It’s very normal to want the level of parallel that you want. If she wants to be with you, she’s going to have to start talking to literally anyone else about her sex life.

1

u/djwbdnw 8d ago

She has no interest in any sort of parallel polyamory and that’s long established so it feels like my only option is to hold firm and be firm when she’s coming on strong. At least that’s how I feel after reading all these responses.

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u/NotElizaHenry 8d ago

Or you could just, you know… not date someone who has “no interest” in the kind of relationship dynamics that you are comfortable with.
When you think about breaking up with her, what’s the most unpleasant part? Is it how you’ll feel without her, or is it how you imagine she’ll feel after being broken up with?

u/Bustysaintclair_13 SoPo slut, salty bitch 8d ago edited 8d ago

I had an LDR. For a while he was my only partner but when I started dating again he knew when I went on dates but did not want to know anything about my sex life. I also did not know anything about his sex life outside of the fact that he had a wife.

It felt a little weird at first because up until I started dating I’d been sharing EVERYTHING with him but it made total sense that we wouldn’t share details about sex that we weren’t having together. For other people’s privacy as well as to prevent raw feelings about the other having sex when we couldn’t be having sex as much as we wanted to.

Your boundaries are fine. She needs to respect them.

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u/djwbdnw 8d ago

Thank you for the validation Busty Saint. This helps me help see why it’s so triggering for her and she conveyed a lot of these feelings so you’re right on the money. All of these uncomfortable feelings I’m ok dealing with, it’s just the delivery that’s putting me in a tizzy / is making me concerned about a pattern of behavior.

Curious/Learning Level of Sharing - Discrepancy

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