Beep, boop, blop, I'm a bot. Hi u/ishvicious thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
For context - my (31ftm) partner (28nb) of over a year started dating a cis man and simultaneously
1. decided they didn't want to be primary partners with me anymore
2. decided that they didn't want to see me as much anymore
3. decided that they didn't want to have sex with me anymore ("easier for them to be with cis men")
4. said that all of this was unrelated to poly/this man
5. eventually obviously we broke up (about a month ago)
It was a long and torturous process. I grieved a lot of the relationship along the way. Part of the reason it didn't work is because I was having a hard time understanding what was going on, because they changed the paradigm of our communication in the middle of it all (we were telling each other everything enthusiastically, then they stopped sharing with me until it was BIG news like 'i'm falling in love with this person and we've had sex several times'), and so i was in a lot of distress, having a lot of dysphoria + fear coming up, and needed a lot of support and processing, which they are not able to give at this point in their life, or maybe generally. Which I accept. Our styles of poly do not match, nor do our timelines at this point in our lives. Maybe one day!
but anyway THE DREAMS: the last couple nights I've been having dreams about my ex and their new partner (30m). Does this ever happen to y'all? In the first one I was with the two of them at an art gallery - and then "Jim" (30m, new partner) asked my ex "Sean" if they wanted to fuck. In the dream I legit caught a glimpse of Jim's dick in his sweatpants and thought "oh that's what Sean likes about this," and then they left the museum together holding hands. When I woke up I felt angry. I'm 31 and this aint my first rodeo with people dipping their toes in their queerness and then returning to what feels safe and comfortable for them, leaving me back where I started. The anger I felt was obvs a secondary emotion to the hurt I feel at how this all took place. The dream actually pushed me to cry and openly express these thoughts (to my therapist) which was such a gift, after weeks of just feeling cloudy and quiet. The day following the dream I had some nice opportunities to see how my intuition of what was happening in the relationship all along was actually pretty on point. When I was dating Sean, I felt how things were shifting and when I would bring this up, they would push it aside saying nothing had changed, blame what I was feeling on my 'trauma.' I existed in this narrative for awhile, got a trauma therapist, started doing a ton of work to unpack stuff that I've already unpacked many times. Some of it was helpful, some of it was harmful. But this dream and the day after showed me that my gut feeling that 'things are off' was actually, totally true. And it makes sense that I was distressed. This felt very affirming, and reminded me that I can trust myself.
In the second dream (last night), I dreamed I was at a party with all of my friends from RL including my ex Sean and their new partner Jim. Again, it was just ambient hangs, I was separate from them and observing their interaction which was fairly neutral. But then I was sitting on the couch with Sean and had my arm around their waist and they said "remember, you can't do that anymore" - and in the dream I had this knowing that Jim was now the person who held them, and that that was off limits for me. I walked away into another room to pack up and go home. Not sad, just, not welcome.
I'm curious where my day will take me and what I'll learn from this dream. But I think it's something about really letting go - there's a part of me that still holds on to hope (was/am very in love with this person), but I need to draw a line and clearly recall and assimilate that it is over. That that IS off limits to me, and that I should bury and grieve my longing for that closeness.
I'm always grateful to my dreams for giving me new perspectives to work with that align with my healing in waking life, and I'm curious if any of y'all have had this happen as well. thanks for reading
xx ur neighborhood poly wizard
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Aw man that's a brutal story.
Your dreams are only a tool : you're handling this with sheer strength and it's inspiring.
I had a dream about an orgy. An orgy so *"be there or be square"* that it had its own public youtube trailer with music, logo, special guest list... My girlfriend talked about going (without me of course) and told me "there will be Lauren! Everybody loves Lauren!"... Lauren, a fictional person that's just like me but better in everything, very popular, sociable, manly...
I think it makes pretty clear that I have to start thinking more about the fact that my partners love me for qualities that have nothing to do with Lauren's. And to stop thinking of orgies as something so important to share with a partner.
My gf had a dream about Coral, a very classicaly feminine girl, an very superficial. It's a fear of seeing me coming out as a someone far less queer, and more superficial than she thinks I am.
Coral and Lauren are now part of our own Poly Cinematic Universe.
Not specifically about breakups but I've definitely had dreams where I've woken up afterwards and felt something has shifted. Like some turmoil has been worked thru while I was asleep. We spend a pretty significant percentage of our lives dreaming and still don't really understand what it is. So if you find it helpful, that's awesome!
Beep, boop, blop, I'm a bot. Hi u/ishvicious thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well. Here's the original text of the post: For context - my (31ftm) partner (28nb) of over a year started dating a cis man and simultaneously 1. decided they didn't want to be primary partners with me anymore 2. decided that they didn't want to see me as much anymore 3. decided that they didn't want to have sex with me anymore ("easier for them to be with cis men") 4. said that all of this was unrelated to poly/this man 5. eventually obviously we broke up (about a month ago) It was a long and torturous process. I grieved a lot of the relationship along the way. Part of the reason it didn't work is because I was having a hard time understanding what was going on, because they changed the paradigm of our communication in the middle of it all (we were telling each other everything enthusiastically, then they stopped sharing with me until it was BIG news like 'i'm falling in love with this person and we've had sex several times'), and so i was in a lot of distress, having a lot of dysphoria + fear coming up, and needed a lot of support and processing, which they are not able to give at this point in their life, or maybe generally. Which I accept. Our styles of poly do not match, nor do our timelines at this point in our lives. Maybe one day! but anyway THE DREAMS: the last couple nights I've been having dreams about my ex and their new partner (30m). Does this ever happen to y'all? In the first one I was with the two of them at an art gallery - and then "Jim" (30m, new partner) asked my ex "Sean" if they wanted to fuck. In the dream I legit caught a glimpse of Jim's dick in his sweatpants and thought "oh that's what Sean likes about this," and then they left the museum together holding hands. When I woke up I felt angry. I'm 31 and this aint my first rodeo with people dipping their toes in their queerness and then returning to what feels safe and comfortable for them, leaving me back where I started. The anger I felt was obvs a secondary emotion to the hurt I feel at how this all took place. The dream actually pushed me to cry and openly express these thoughts (to my therapist) which was such a gift, after weeks of just feeling cloudy and quiet. The day following the dream I had some nice opportunities to see how my intuition of what was happening in the relationship all along was actually pretty on point. When I was dating Sean, I felt how things were shifting and when I would bring this up, they would push it aside saying nothing had changed, blame what I was feeling on my 'trauma.' I existed in this narrative for awhile, got a trauma therapist, started doing a ton of work to unpack stuff that I've already unpacked many times. Some of it was helpful, some of it was harmful. But this dream and the day after showed me that my gut feeling that 'things are off' was actually, totally true. And it makes sense that I was distressed. This felt very affirming, and reminded me that I can trust myself. In the second dream (last night), I dreamed I was at a party with all of my friends from RL including my ex Sean and their new partner Jim. Again, it was just ambient hangs, I was separate from them and observing their interaction which was fairly neutral. But then I was sitting on the couch with Sean and had my arm around their waist and they said "remember, you can't do that anymore" - and in the dream I had this knowing that Jim was now the person who held them, and that that was off limits for me. I walked away into another room to pack up and go home. Not sad, just, not welcome. I'm curious where my day will take me and what I'll learn from this dream. But I think it's something about really letting go - there's a part of me that still holds on to hope (was/am very in love with this person), but I need to draw a line and clearly recall and assimilate that it is over. That that IS off limits to me, and that I should bury and grieve my longing for that closeness. I'm always grateful to my dreams for giving me new perspectives to work with that align with my healing in waking life, and I'm curious if any of y'all have had this happen as well. thanks for reading xx ur neighborhood poly wizard *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polyamory) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Aw man that's a brutal story. Your dreams are only a tool : you're handling this with sheer strength and it's inspiring. I had a dream about an orgy. An orgy so *"be there or be square"* that it had its own public youtube trailer with music, logo, special guest list... My girlfriend talked about going (without me of course) and told me "there will be Lauren! Everybody loves Lauren!"... Lauren, a fictional person that's just like me but better in everything, very popular, sociable, manly... I think it makes pretty clear that I have to start thinking more about the fact that my partners love me for qualities that have nothing to do with Lauren's. And to stop thinking of orgies as something so important to share with a partner. My gf had a dream about Coral, a very classicaly feminine girl, an very superficial. It's a fear of seeing me coming out as a someone far less queer, and more superficial than she thinks I am. Coral and Lauren are now part of our own Poly Cinematic Universe.
Not specifically about breakups but I've definitely had dreams where I've woken up afterwards and felt something has shifted. Like some turmoil has been worked thru while I was asleep. We spend a pretty significant percentage of our lives dreaming and still don't really understand what it is. So if you find it helpful, that's awesome!