If you frequently don’t follow your boundaries with action, your brain could respond with anxiety because of the self-sabotage. That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Thank you to Chris Albery-Jones at albery-jones.com for the theme music.

Podcast transcript

My partner (34M) and I (34F) of 8 years have been some version of non monogamous our whole relationship. I'm asexual (ace buds!) though I'm very sex favourable, and he's bi, so it was important to both of us that we keep options open sexually. It was a new concept to him, I'd been decidedly uncomfortable with strict monogamy in my heart always, but he was very receptive to it and our version worked great for the entirety of our relationship.

At his insistence we kept emotions out of it as best we could - physical only, no deep emotional bonds. I had no problem with it as I'm panromantic but very good at keeping my attraction types separate. I was a little concerned that he'd have trouble as he already has trouble separating romantic and platonic feelings for people, but for 7 years we never had any issues.

A little more than a year ago at time of writing something happened. He started rejecting my sexual advances and turning to pornography and friend hook ups instead. He did stop when I confided that it didn't make me feel good that he'd turn away from me - not that I have a problem with either of those things, it was just hurtful to be replaced with them rather than them being an addition.

Then came the [celibacy]. This went on for about 10 months before we were able to find connection again. For about a month I was so excited to be able to build our relationship back up again. I'd started flirting with a friend of ours to (by mutual agreement) rev my engine up again (while I'm sex favourable if I'm not getting any I can completely switch off), and he'd also asked to start digitally flirting with a different friend. The friend I was flirting with is no longer involved.

Here's where it got tricky. The friend he was flirting with is also in a long term relationship. One of our other big boundaries for acceptable behaviour was "All parties are in the know and consenting". I really don't like cheaters or cheating, I know there's reasons for it but I don't want to enable that in my relationships.

This was important to me. I did make sure to remind my partner not to go too far as the friend's partner was away at work and unaware that the flirting was happening. But I wasn't monitoring their conversations or anything, I trusted my partner to not push the boundaries of friendly flirting.

Well, he fell in love with her, of course. I don't have a problem with that. The problem stems from two different aspects. 1) We still had a lot of emotional baggage to sort through from our [celibacy] and 2) he didn't tell me that his feelings had changed until they'd already discussed said emotions and determined they were mutual. I felt frozen, like I couldn't do anything for an entire month. If he'd told me before hand and we'd had a chance to discuss it and change our relationship structure in a healthy way, I wouldn't be writing to you.

We have spent several months now breaking down old walls. We're in a better spot now than I think we even were in any other time in our relationship. But I'm still feeling echoes of rejection every time he turns to her, or carves out time for her in his day, or sits close to her in front of me.

Yes you read that right, they are wanting to continue the relationship that had both of them acting in a way that violated the trust of both of their partners. I'm understating and accepting of this. All four of us are on board to make a more poly[am] switch. Her partner is the least experienced about it of the four of us but willing to try the new structure, the friend desires total relationship anarchy, whereas my partner and I do vibe more with prioritizing each other over outside partners.

Yet I'm still feeling so rejected. For almost a year he rejected me with no explanation, then immediately upon our relationship being "fixed" (it wasn't we still had a lot of work to do) fell too far too fast with someone else who's partner was unaware and for an entire month prioritized speaking with her digitally over engaging with me in person (lots of time spent sitting next to each other with him glued to his messages).

He's put in so much time effort and work to prioritize our relationship recently. He's explained the reasoning behind the rejection (anxiety and stress). I know the only way I'm going to be able to trust him to put his money where his mouth is is to give him the opportunity to "mess up" as it were and have him choose to not.

The last time he was given no boundaries at all (or ignored the ones we had) he made choices that made me feel like I didn't matter to him. And I'm still dealing with so much rejection feeling that I don't know when I'll be able to lessen the space they're abiding by (no romantic talking right now, no deliberate touching in front of me, limiting alone time), but I also know that lessening that space will give my partner more opportunities to prove that he's not going to toss me aside again and that he can handle both a wife and a girlfriend without making either of us feel slighted.

I'm mostly writing to ask your advice on how to get over this feeling. We've done a lot of work with our therapists - both who specialize in unconventional relationships, and your book in particular has really helped me make some mindset shifts. But I'm not all the way there yet. And I am tired of feeling like this all the time. Both my partner and my meta-ish are glad to keep that space there as long as I need so I don't feel pressure from them, just from my own emotional exhaustion.

Response

You say that you're both interested in prioritising each other other relationships, but is your partner actually prioritising you?

I just feel like the reason why this is so difficult is because basically, every rule and boundary that you've put up — or whether you want to call it boundary or rule as I've spoke about earlier on the podcast, like there's a difference between those. You don't really have any boundaries. You don't really— there are no consequences for him really going back on his word. I mean, not really.

Because at first it's like, “Okay, you're not allowed— we're not allowed to fall in love with anyone else,” which I wouldn't necessarily advise that as a rule in general because I don't think it's realistic. And I also think that if you're going to put in place a rule you should also discuss what happens if it gets broken, right? When we have sexual health rules and we say “okay, please wear condoms, bla bla bla”.

¨There probably should be some type of discussion of what happens if the condom breaks or it's forgotten or people are under the influence of substances and something happens. We should have that discussion. And quite often when people make rules about like, “okay, no emotions involved, no love, blah, blah, blah”.

They don't really ever talk about what happens if that does happen, right? It's just like “oh, we've made a rule so that's handled and that's done”. When that is never ever the case.

There are some people who know themselves well enough emotionally to where they can feel like “okay, I know exactly when I'm when I'm able to fall in love and I know exactly when I'm”, you know, “I know when to stop basically when to say when”. But the vast majority of people I don't think are that emotionally and aware or in control of their emotions at such a point where they can make a rule like that and have it work.

So you had that rule. That got broken, then you have this rule of like, no cheating, and he broke that. Both of them broke that and there were no real consequences for that. It seems that there weren't any, you know, nothing happened. They just — and I'm not saying that you should have necessarily completely broken it off. But what's the point in having a rule if nothing — like the point of having some type of boundary or some type of system put in place is to make your life better.

If that happens in a way that you in so that you can act in a way that— I'm not putting this very well, but the point of it is that this is some sort of sign that either something needs to change— behaviour needs to change, you need to change, what you're doing, the relationship needs to change, like there's — that some sort of sign that something should change. And nothing's changing.

When all of these sorts of things are put in place have been put up so of course you don't trust like… okay, yeah, so now they're not touching in front of you or whatever. But that's just exactly the same as every single other rule and boundary you've put up. I mean, they've cheated with each other. So why on earth would this rule matter if no other rule has?

So of course you feel like shit. And he's — you know, you’re saying one thing and doing another constantly in this relationship. You're saying no cheating, but then there's cheating. You're saying no falling in love, but then there's no falling in love. Either he’s saying this or both of you are saying that? You're prioritising one another.

You seem to be prioritising him and prioritising trying to fix this relationship. He's not. He hasn't shown that through his actions. He may be saying that, but you've literally said multiple times throughout this letter that he's prioritised speaking to her digitally over you in person in the middle of having relationship struggles. He's repeatedly demonstrated to you that he is prioritising this person over you.

So of course you're feeling this way. Sometimes we have feelings because of mono-centric cultural scripts that we've learned because we're trying a new relationship style. And I have no doubt that you have those anxieties because of this, but also it's sometimes because people are acting shitty.

Like, there are some times when yes, we're dealing with the complexities of going out and trying a new relationship style that we have no cultural scripts for. But sometimes people also are being shitty. And it's not… It's not a sign of like, unprocessed, monogamous thinking or toxic monogamy or whatever people want to call it.

It's sometimes is your brain saying, “um, this person is kind of like constantly showing us that they're going to treat us like shit, and we don't expect anything different in the future. So why are we trying to continuously make this work?” And that's— And you kind of keep going back on yourself and that's something that your brain is noticing.

I'm pretty sure. You say like, “Okay, I don't want cheating in my relationship, but yet I'm okay with this. I don't want this but yet I'm okay with this”. You know, you didn't even necessarily want this rule about no love with other people. But you went along with it. Like you go along with things that you don't really want. And then of course you feel like shit.

Like, it doesn't matter if you give him rules. Which these are rules. He doesn't follow them. So you know, why would you on earth have any faith — and like you say, “Okay, maybe I need to give him space to put his money where his mouth is”. You have. You’ve been together for seven years. And I don't know if like this is it's just been in this last year.

Like you said things had been fine for seven years. But in this last year, I guess something's going on with him and he's just now no longer giving a shit. But like you've given him a year. If it's not seven years, then you've given him a year to put his money where his mouth is. And he's not. So I mean, it comes down to like, how many more chances are you going to give him to mess up and do better?

Because I don't think that you're going to be able to get over this feeling because this feeling is a result of a frequency of him going back on what he said he would do. He said he wouldn't fall in love. Or he put in that rule. You went along with it. You didn't have a problem following it. He broke it. I don't know if you did have any explicit discussions about cheating or enabling cheating but if he did have that rule, he broke it.

And he promised to prioritise your relationship and fix some of the issues within them. He didn't do that. And you know, no one's obligated sex and I'm sure you know that but he continuously rejected you for a long period of time without any real explanation during that time. And then, you know, that still hasn't been fixed. And there's just promises and promises and promises, that things will change. And they haven't.

The only thing that's really changed is that he's found someone else new to focus on, and then continue to reject you in new and not so great ways. So he's following this little rule that you've put in place for them to basically hide their relationship in front of you. But is that really like… that rule isn't going to make him care about your relationship that you have.

And maybe that's forced him in a way. It's sometimes like when people do exercise the veto rule, sometimes that does force their partner to actually refocus on them and it does kind of “fix the problem” in a very short term way. And I think that's what this rule is about. Like you not having to witness them, basically fawning over each other in front of you. This is like a little band aid over a gaping wound.

Like it's only a temporary fix. It's not fixing the — it's treating the symptom but not the disease. It's not addressing the issue, which is that has — like ask yourself, in what way has he really demonstrated outside — don't count him spending less time or not showing affection to this — that's not a contribution to your relationship. What he does with this other person has nothing to do with adding to your relationship.

Just because he gives her less doesn't mean he's giving you more. So don't count that. What has he done? What has he done to address some of these issues? And he has a problem. He's also continuously demonstrating a pattern where he doesn't tell you what the problem is, or doesn't tell you something until after the fact. I don't think I necessarily take a great issue with him speaking to her about his feelings before coming to you because I can understand why he did that.

Like I can understand why someone would go “okay, I'm starting to feel something. But if I'm the only one who feels it and this other person doesn't feel anything for me, it doesn't really matter because it's not going anywhere anyway”, right? So like I can understand why he spoke to her first. And I don't know what kind of real discussion they had.

If they had a like relationship discussion, if they talked about, you know, actually dating one another, that's a little sketch, but if he just was like “hey, I'm feeling you know— we've been flirting and I'm feeling a way. Are you feeling a way? Yes, I'm feeling a way. Okay. Now we know to take it to the next step and let our partners—”

You know, because at the same time, the thing that— I'm very much with you with regards to the cheating. I'm not a fan of that and I would have a really hard time with that and have historically had a really hard time with that. To the point where I have told partners if you are helping anyone cheat knowingly, I am gone— because I won't even be a part of it as a witness. And when I know it's none of my business but I don't like… I don't do that.

Unless there are specific extenuating circumstances that would make this situation really tricky or something like that. I do not get involved in that. That's for me. But she then has to tell her partner that she's cheating. Maybe not physically, but a lot of monogamous people, rightfully so, don't care if it's physical— emotional cheating is still emotional cheating. She has to tell her partner “Hey, so I've cheated and also polyamory?”

That's a tough sell. So and I'm shocked that he is okay with it but you know, I can understand given that context why he spoke to her first before coming to you to. Even just to make sure because if she was like “Nah, man, I'm just flirting. I don’t know what you're talking about. I'm married dude back off”. Which is kind of likely. There are a lot of monogamous people, and maybe that's fine within their relationship as well.

We don't necessarily know what the boundaries were in their relationship. Maybe you know for sure it was cheating. But there are some monogamous people that have a little bit of a licence to flirt because there are people who are super flirty and still monogamous. But either way, like, you know, flirting is not really the same thing. And there are people who are married, happily married, who just like flirting so I can understand why he spoke to her.

But at the same time, he could have still come to you and said, like, “Hey, I'm catching the feels. I'm gonna just check with her. And if she's not into it, then that's it”. But I can understand why he didn't like — I don't know. But I don't think that's nearly as sus, but it does create a pattern right? That he's like, okay, he's done all this and he's not told you. He's rejected you for a year and not really told you why.

So like, you have this pattern of like every rule— almost every rule you put down he's completely run over and ignored. Every time he's saying he's prioritised you, he's not. Every time he's saying he doesn't do something— Or sometimes he will go on for long periods of time with pertinent, crucial information that he's not telling you.

So I don't think you're going to get over this feeling because essentially, what your brain is saying, which I think you are kind of ignoring is that he is continuously demonstrating a pattern of not prioritising you, of not prioritising your relationship, of not following any rules that he or you set forth. And of course, your brain is like “um, we're kind of scared right now”. Like, why wouldn't your brain be scared?

It's it's witnessing someone that you care about in are, you know, for understandable reasons, afraid to leave and afraid to — It's difficult to walk away from such a foundation that you've built, but like, it's also really scary because you want to continue. But there's going to be an aspect of your brain that's going like “um, this rule…”

The rules are not going to work for making you feel better. Like they'll make you feel better, maybe temporarily, but they're not going to fix this feeling. Because he's already demonstrated multiple times that he will completely disregard your rules. So you know, where do you go from there?

To sum up, like this is really about your own personal boundary around how many chances you're going to give him. How much are you going to wait to see if his behaviour changes? And I would really work with your therapist and talk about like, really isolate — because it's very, very easy, especially when we want to see our partners in the best light, and, we want to stay in a relationship.

We want to see all their good sides. It's very hard to see their bad sides. But really go through the last year or maybe the last seven years — the whole time. Ask yourself. Has he made concrete steps to improve the relationship between the two of you? And do not count within those steps, things that he's— like the de-prioritisation of other relationships like him agreeing to this rule of showing less affection if that's what you need. That's fine.

It's great that they're agreeing to that but like, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna give someone like super extra duper extra credit for following a rule when they refused to follow the most basic rule, which was, hey, don't cheat. So really look at the things he's done within your relationship, not in other relationships, not with other people.

Has he shown a demonstrative difference in behaviour? That's that's a weird way to say it. Has he demonstrated different behaviour? Has he actually done things that make you feel prioritised? Has he actually shown you through his actions between the two of you that he is going to change his behaviour? Has he really done that? Really ask yourself that.

Because maybe you're counting other stuff to try and find the good here so that you don't have to deal with the more painful aspect of saying, “okay, maybe this isn't working out and this person isn't treating me well enough”.

And think about what your actual boundaries are. Because you don't really have any boundaries here. Everything that he does, you're like, “Oh, I'm I'm fine with it. I'm okay with it. Like I can accept it. I'm—” Why? Why are you accepting it? Why are you accept— If you don't want cheating? If you don't want to enable cheating, why are you accepting it? Like obviously, you know, you can't force him to dump someone and that's fine.

But you also don't have to force yourself to be okay with it either. Is forcing yourself to be okay with something that you're not okay with a good thing? Your brain is kind of noticing that you're self sabotaging a lot and so it's panicking and freaking out. And, you know, I don't think that that's going to go away anytime soon. To be honest with you.

I think that that until he demonstrates an actual change in behaviour and rebuilds all the trust that he's broken by constantly putting up these rules and then completely breaking them, I think you're still going to have that feeling. And I think you also need to think about the rules you make with yourself. Because you have made these rules and then you go back on them.

And so in a way you're kind of in a self sabotaging cycle that I think your brain is also noticing. So it's hard for you to trust yourself when you put down some of these rules, because you're not following through. There are no consequences. If there are no consequences, if your behaviour doesn't change, then then what's the point of it?

Right? So yeah, I'm sorry that you're going through this. I really wish that things were a little bit better. I think that it's really a personal thing with regards to how many chances you give people and how long you're willing to stay in a relationship where someone has demonstrated that they are not true to their word and how many times you're willing to forgive them.

That's totally up to you and I think that's something to discuss with your therapist about when to say when and when you need to actually decide, “okay, I'm not seeing enough change and I need to walk away”. Yeah, I hope that helps. And good luck.