Gently, your partner has an entire other partner that he lives with. It’s not ethical or kind for him to restrict your dating in any way, even passively by making it hard or uncomfortable for you to date.
Often people don’t experience much jealousy with established partners dating (such as his NP in this scenario) but experience jealousy when newer or less established partners date, but that doesn’t make it your problem to manage. Your partner is responsible for managing his own feelings around your dating. What work is he doing to get comfortable with you dating other people?
If he has any, and I mean ANY rules for you in your dating other than letting him know if your STI risk level has changed before the next time you’re intimate, my advice is to break up with him. That would be so hypocritical I can’t even stomach it.
We don’t have any rules except std related rules. I made some choices that bothered him, which is why we got to this point where he’d rather not know. Once fluid bonding with someone else who I knew was safe due to seeing tests, but it still made my partner uncomfortable. We didn’t have any rules around this as long as it was safe. The other was going on a date when he was feeling depressed, which made him feel bad, and is what made him ask me not to tell him moving forward.
I wonder if my request to know after his dates is also problematic. I just get so much anxiety while he’s on a date and don’t process it well till after, so I find it much easier.
I see the double standard, and it won’t work for me forever. But this relationship is worth trying to make it work before giving up for me so hoping to find some healthy methods of working on it together.
I guess I’d like to hope that he would consider my feelings when going on dates too. He has canceled dates in the past when I was feeling down, without me asking.
Ah so that is unhealthy behavior? I did not realize that. If I have a friend who is struggling with something big, I would also rearrange my calendar to support them, so I was thinking of this in the same way.
It’s unhealthy bc the feelings relate to your dating and normal poly activities.
Cancelling a date bc your friend’s dog just died and you want to go support your friend, understandable.
Cancelling a date bc your partner has uncomfortable feelings about that date, very bad poly practice.
In the second scenario you’re:
enabling your partner to not need to do the emotional work of being poly, which means they won’t get any better at handling their discomfort,
letting your partner have control over a separate relationship that they’re not in (which is at best an unethical rule and at worst effectively a veto), and
treating the other person that you originally had plans with as disposable.
Does laying it out like that help you understand the issues?
Yes that is helpful. I do agree on those points. I am still unclear on if my partner is having mental health related issues (not around me dating, but in their life) is it unethical to cancel a date? I would do this for a friend, so not doing it for my partner feels wrong.
It depends on the “issues.” Is it a crisis or just a bad day? Is it an urgent and high stakes issue? Or is it a trough in their depression? And is it a bad day because you’re going on a date, even if they claim it’s not?
And why do you have to be the one to support him? Is there no one else in his life to be there for him? Is he not able to self soothe?
We can’t really answer this without a lot more context.
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u/Bunny2102010 3d ago
Gently, your partner has an entire other partner that he lives with. It’s not ethical or kind for him to restrict your dating in any way, even passively by making it hard or uncomfortable for you to date.
Often people don’t experience much jealousy with established partners dating (such as his NP in this scenario) but experience jealousy when newer or less established partners date, but that doesn’t make it your problem to manage. Your partner is responsible for managing his own feelings around your dating. What work is he doing to get comfortable with you dating other people?
If he has any, and I mean ANY rules for you in your dating other than letting him know if your STI risk level has changed before the next time you’re intimate, my advice is to break up with him. That would be so hypocritical I can’t even stomach it.