processing my trauma

# tw: sexual assault, coercion

hi, i (25F) have only one experience with polyamory. it was miserable & i genuinely attest it changed my brain chemistry. i’ve been retroactively processing it, it was almost 4 years ago and ended 2 years ago.

i’ve been coming to terms with how my queerness is leading me to accept polyamory is best suited for my desires.. but for the reasons i’m about to share, i wasn’t fully comfortable pursuing this. it even pushed me to try and repress my queerness to enter monogamous relationships with a cishet man in hopes it’d be less laborious (spoiler: it was not). i’ve come to understand what i know now: **what i describe next is nowhere near poly, it damn sure isn’t ethical, & i shouldn’t let it impede me on trying polyamory.**

for a long time, i wasn’t able to reconcile my experience with education and facts behind it. i didn’t know about terms or manipulation. this relationship was between myself (24F) and a (25M) at the time who tried to open our relationship. i’m sure it’s unsurprising it didn’t work very well, especially due to it being hinged on OPP & unicorn hunting.

there was a lot i didn’t know at the time when attempting, but i know now that i just didn’t have a good partner. i was insecure in my relationship, desperate not to be left, and i allowed a new partner in an attempt to salvage this. *i was alone in a state & believed i needed him for security like money and connection.*

it was obviously wrong. i made mistakes because of it. but i just wanted to share what happened to me with bullet points:

\- insecure relationship with a man who goes out of his way to deny me emotional intimacy (pillow talks, getting out of bed immediately on wakeup, no interest in my hobbies, zero compliments, etc. — these are all things i begged for, made space to talk about, i just wasn’t able to accept this man hated me 😂) but **please note the pillow talking/staying in bed thing was a major conflict for me i shamelessly begged for throughout our entire 9 mont**hs

\- proposed poly myself thinking we could “fill some hole” of what’s missing

\- unicorn hunting directed by me fails so i give him the reigns

**- he chooses his ex from 1 year before me who recently moved back as the one to complete the triad (20F that i previously said no to, hiding my discomfort and claiming it was her age)** *i was so mentally exhausted by this point that, if you realized the age discrepancy between him & her, you’re correct: he definitely groomed her.*

\- i allow it but he tells me **she wants to take it slow just with him**

\- communication issues still happen but worse: no check-ins when around her, not sticking to previously established boundaries, & lastly telling **her she doesn’t have to be with me** despite what is communicated to me

\- i watch someone get all the things i was desperate for in front of my eyes

i’m gonna skip to the point: it was a combination of monkey-branching, cowgirl/cowboy whatever it’s called, and complete manipulation.

i endured it for weeks before breaking **and demanding that we speed up the program of us being a triad** as was told was happening.

we try. it’s obvious this doesn’t work. she only wants him. he tries to break up with me to be with her. i’m devastated, and i cry to him about him lying and all the scumbag behavior and how **i won’t allow it.**

so he stays with me and gives her the ultimatum. so she ends things with him. he gets completely depressed, won’t engage with me, and so i tell him he needs to block her.

i get broken up with.

i’m in shambles. i can’t cope, i’m so blinded by how painful it was that all my people pleasing bs did NOT reduce the harm or pain brought to me. ***i remember crying in his face asking how could he do this to me, what is it about her***

# i’ll never forget how he looked me in my eyes and said: “i’m not sure, there’s just something about her that makes me want to stay in bed with her.”

something inside me broke that day. i agonized for a year in this relationship.. to watch him fall in love with someone else right in front of me.

i wish it ended there, but it doesn’t.. new play by play:

\- he tells me he will stay in contact with me because of my personal circumstances (i.e. abandoned by family, broke, can’t drive, struggling with food banks, etc.)

\- i ask questions that lead him admitting to the following:

he breaks up with me on a wednesday, goes to see her friday, kisses her, sees me saturday to help me get to a job training

\- i have another meltdown, he blocks me saying i’m too much and says he blocked her as well because eVeRyOnE iS sO mAd aT hIm 😐

\- abandonment and isolation returns. i reach out begging for another chance

\- he says **he wants to fix our relationship by us retrying friendship, and saying she isn’t in his life**

\- like a dummy, i believe him. i believe i need to redeem myself from the lies and pain i received from him

\- he tells me he will come over when anime episodes drop weekly to watch with me, **and that he only wants me to contact him for emergencies**

\- the (won’t let me say it but number between 2 & 4)rd time he comes over to watch anime, after over a year of surviving him, suffering so much, and being made to feel i had to salvage us: **he looks me in the eyes and tells me he loves me for the first time.**

\- he attempts to use this as a way to access sex from me again. i decline

\- the weekly meetings suddenly are icy, uncomfortable, and forced

\- **incidentally lets me know he is retrying friendship with the girl.**

\- anime ends. it’s been 3 months of this.

# only 3 months since we became only friends, i stopped coming over to his house, AND HE WAS LIVING ALONE

\- i have an emergency **and reach out as told** (pipes burst in house and have no access to water)

\- he tells me he can’t help me **because the girl is over at his place AT EIGHT AM**

\- i put the pieces together, and ask if they’re together..

# he replies yes.

i have a meltdown. i hear him and her laugh on the other end of the phone. i can’t even process that as i’m mid-emergency and try to sideline it to understand if he’ll help me. he tells me **no because the girl got so uncomfortable at the thought of me being there she began to cry.**

i’m confused on how her feelings impede my need to water that was our agreed understanding of when i should reach out, *especially in a house she doesn’t live in.*

\- i meet a great friend who takes me in while my emergency happens

\- this empowers me to cut him off while cursing their relationship built off my agony

\- months pass

\- he reaches out asking to retry things “i know i was terrible to you” and he wants me in his life

\- my dumbass feeds into it saying:

# if that’s the case, then you both need to apologize for the water situation

\- she refuses to unless we talk over text

😐

\- unfortunately i bite thinking i need closure

the final bullet? after 3 days of arguing, she tells me:

# why would i apologize for not letting someone into a house i live in?

that did it for me. i finally closed the chapter, blocking them both. i accepted i was involved with sick people who genuinely enjoyed me being distraught. i blocked them and finally began telling others in the queer community what i endured.

# this ends with the woman telling people i sexually assaulted her because i coerced her into the relationship which resulted in a 3some.

when people asked her how thats possible if she’s dating the man for months that was a) involved in the coercion b) involved in the 3some c) therefore also assaulted her by that logic….. her story changed

they now label me as a coercer in my city, who wasn’t lied to & led on, broken down, and watched my partner give someone else everything i cried out for.

thanks for reading.

tldr; i let my trauma as an abandoned queer woman convince me the man i was with was my only option in life with all my baggage. he put me through the ringer & claimed polyamory to: bring his former ex he groomed into the triad, gives her everything he denied me in emotional intimacy, lies about the dynamic to keep me around, monkey-branches, then penalizes me for demanding accountability. he convinces me i need to work for our relationship to rekindle by being friends only, suddenly changes course to tell me he loves me for the first time after a year of knowing him, and tries to initiate sex. i deny it and suddenly he becomes cold, telling me to only reach out in emergencies. **he uses this distance to secretly move her in a month after our breakup** without my knowledge, and fails to aid me in an emergency due to it involving his (their house) & it makes her uncomfortable. i find support elsewhere and finally cut him off after a year & 6 months of hell. at the 2 year mark, he dms me asking for access to my life. i say yes with the condition they both apologize for how i was treated during my emergency. i’m made to speak 1 on 1 with her via imessage where i learn that she had been living with him the entire time. i block them both. their revenue on me speaking up to friends is lying i sexually assaulted the girl in a 3some, lying i coerced her, and telling people i’m a danger to other queers.