Trust your instincts

This is still very fresh but wanted to share regardless. I (40M) met my newest partner Aspen (36F) 4 months ago and from the beginning there were signs of things being...off.

Aspen travels a lot for work and yet they only have one car and if we didn't plan dates at least a few weeks (often at least a month) out then her primary Birch (55M) would have "reserved" it. We tried using public transit but even then things often "came up" at the last minute. When Aspen's friend had a break-up, it was a huge apology and "I have to be there for her" but every other time it would be very generic and often day of or day before. The car thing always hit me as off especially since her description was "well we had two cars but I wasn't dating so we got rid of mine."

At a play party, we made a plan for a date, and my other partner swore she heard Birch mumble something under his breath. Sure enough, day of, "work stuff came up." That's all I got and did not hear from her for several days.

Now the most recent and reason for this post:

We went to a big weekend retreat with our combined polycules. For weeks she's said "I can't wait! We'll get so much time together!" Then the event comes. She saw me, we hugged, she had plans so we said we'd connect later. I sent her texts telling her my plans and that she was invited. Nothing. 5 hours later, I get one text saying "I have some time tomorrow night."

I was upset that the entire plan changed so I just said "sounds good" and figured she'd contact me later. Nope. Never heard another word all weekend. We'd pass each other and she'd shy away or just do a small wave and say nothing.

My partners say they saw her in the hallway with Birch and they were obviously fighting. We attended classes as part of this...she wasn't at any.

So yeah, I should've stayed away. I'm not sure what drama was going on, but I'm done.