Hi,

I broke up with my boyfriend day before yesterday and I want to let it all out of my system. He was my first love and this is my first break up and I am having a terrible time coping with this. Let’s call him G. G joined my team at work last year and within a short span of a couple of weeks, we became good friends. At that point, I was chasing S and was incredibly infatuated, perhaps even borderline in love. S was a batch-mate from grad school and both of us were working in the same place. S, G and I became a trio and started hanging out after work for drinks and G figured out my infatuation for S and helped me navigate through it. He was one person that I felt I could open up to about almost anything under the sun. With him, my emotions were as secure as they could be. Slowly and steadily, with S’s emotional unavailability and visible lack of romantic inclination towards me, led me, after much agony to come to terms with the fact that he did not reciprocate my feelings and it was best to let go. No sooner had I started accepting that, I started feeling more than just friendship for G. G was my person – he understood me better than I understood myself, he stood by me, was there for me – G was my comfort zone, my happy place. I had found a home in a person, a home where I felt like I truly belonged, for the FIRST time in 23 years.

S moved abroad for higher studies and by now, S and I were buddies in the truest sense, as neither party had any romantic feelings, but at the same time loved and valued each other as friends. While I was catching feelings for G, S only reinforced my feelings for G and played Cupid in a way. Fast forward to a few months, and I had confessed to G about my feelings at a time when he was already dating someone else. G admitted to reciprocating and that was when he told me that he was polyamorous. He had never been in a polyamorous relationship, but had briefly dated someone who was in an open marriage. I could not wrap my head around the idea. Initially it all felt very wrong – what is this polyamory thing? Does he want to sleep around? Is he a cheat? etc. Then I read up extensively on it and figured out what it was. In ages, it was the first time G could articulate his confusions about his own self and I was there steady as a rock for him. I understood him, just like he understood me. Soon after G’s then girlfriend (who was monogamous) broke up with him. I demanded to talk about where G and I were now headed. I was clear that I was a monogamous person too. We talked about it. Both of us were deeply in love and really wanted to date each other. The only thing standing in the way was the poly-mono difference. However, with full knowledge of what this entailed, we dived into the relationship, and it was the most beautiful, most cathartic experience of my life. It was pure and wholesome, except that G valued all relationships – his platonic bonds were just as strong as the romantic one. I was his fifth girlfriend and he had been through many different experiences, while he was my FIRST boyfriend. Fast forward to a couple of months into the relationship, poly-mono discussions had become an everyday thing. We had the best kind of communication- absolutely transparent. It was essentially him trying to be monogamous while knowing that he is polyamorous. I would ask him every now and then whether he felt suffocated in the relationship, whether he had needs that were not being met and he always said that he was perfectly happy and content and wasn’t looking for other people to date and if ever he did, he would tell me.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks later, and he had to go out of town for a friend’s wedding. An old female friend of his wanted to visit the same city for a vacation with him at the same time. It was a platonic relationship. While I would suffer from doubts about whether he was falling for someone else, given that he was polyamorous, and I had my doubts about this female friend too, he said nothing of that sort would happen and this friend knew about us. He had told her. When he returned from the wedding, he told me that there were things he wanted to discuss. He had slept with this female friend. He discovered that he could not fulfil a monogamous relationship and had to be polyamorous. Apparently, this girl is polyamorous as well, however, he can’t be sure if he wants to date her and vice versa. I obviously flipped, like any monogamous person would, and there was a lot of crying, while I understood where he came from, it was devastating to think that he would do this to me. How could he? If he liked her, he could have just told me and we could have talked about the possibility of opening this up. Why did he have to sleep with her and then come and tell me about it? At that very moment I decided to end it. Both of us were crying, because he thought that I understood that he is polyamorous and would have a conversation about it. We had a conversation, yes, but I just did not think trying out polyamory was my cup of tea. While he did try to be monogamous, I refused to try for him. I felt hurt and I was broken. I couldn’t get the fact that he slept with some other girl out of my head. While for polyamorous people, sleeping with Y while being in a relationship with X does not take away from the love he has for X, my monogamous mind was not ready to settle for this.

We have never seen each other so broken and shattered. It is particularly hard for me because this was my first relationship and it is very difficult for me to cut him off for a while because we work in the same place, in the same team. The other thing is that, I don’t want him out of my life. I have always held our friendship in very high esteem and cherished it and so has he. We were first best friends and then romantic partners. I want to keep him in my life. It’s not nasty. Both of us are grieving it together and there is tremendous beauty in this kind of a bond. It was a tough decision, but it had to be made. At this point, however, my heart hurts like hell. It’s just been two days and I’ve only managed to have one proper meal on my family’s insistence. I’m unable to cope with the situation. My insides feel broken. I feel like I’m crumbling. I don’t know why I have written out everything here and what is the response that I’m looking for, but I guess, just writing this out was therapeutic in itself. Any suggestion on how to deal with this is more than welcome. Many thanks!