Title: I still deeply love both of my partners, but I don't know if our relationship is healthy anymore.

I'm hoping for outside perspectives because I feel like I've become too close to the situation to know what's reasonable anymore.

I (f34) have been married to G (m34) for 8 years together 13+, and for about a year and a half we've been in a committed triad with our partner, V(f31). We weren't looking for another relationship. After previous relationship trauma, none of us were actively trying or looking for anything. It happened naturally. G got to know them first, and I developed my own relationship with them shortly afterward. Over time, we all developed strong feelings for each other and fell for the other.

I was all in. I truly believed this was the person I wanted to spend my life with alongside G. I made commitments that reflected that because I believed in what we were building together.

That's why this hurts so much.

I don't want this to come across like I don't love them anymore, because I absolutely do. I love spending time with them one-on-one. I love when the three of us are together and connected. When things are good, they're genuinely wonderful. That's what makes all of this so confusing.

The first major shift happened around my hysterectomy.

For roughly three months—before, during, and after my surgery— V became emotionally closed off from me. At the same time, she remained close to G, to the point that their only concern was them. It wasn't that she withdrew from everyone; it felt like she withdrew specifically from me.

Before my surgery, my therapist and I spent a lot of time talking about my trauma stemming from relying on others in times of need and having to handle it myself (ex: being left in a position when i had to rely on someone and they abused/cheated/ neglected me, ie recovering from an emergency csection and then being abandoned not being able to move) and what I would need emotionally while recovering and what would be needed to feel safe for me to trust that they had me. We all sat down before surgery and openly discussed those needs together. We wanted everyone on the same page so recovery would be as smooth as possible.

Instead, it felt like almost everything we talked about that needed to happen, was out the window to the point I refused to rely on either of them.

That period changed and possibly broke something in me. I don't think I've ever fully recovered emotionally from it.

After my second emergency surgery, things seemed to have started to improve. And then another pattern started emerging.

Holidays, vacations, and special occasions that should have been happy often ended with arguments, emotional tension, or trying to repair hurt feelings. Instead of looking forward to making memories, I started feeling anxious because I never knew if something would happen.

I've also noticed that the conflict seems different depending on who she's interacting with. V doesn't lash out at G the way she does with me. She doesn't seem to have the same emotional reactions with him that she has with me. Over time, that's made me wonder why our dynamics feel so different and whether I'm doing something wrong or if this is simply the dynamic we've fallen into.

There were also several important boundaries that were crossed and or tested. They weren't small things to me, and while I've genuinely tried to move forward, I don't know that I've ever shaken the feeling of trust and safety being cracked.

Over time, another pattern developed.

Whenever I tried to talk about being hurt, the conversation often shifted toward someone else's feelings—fear of abandonment, guilt, or anxiety about losing the relationship. Instead of my feelings being processed, I found myself comforting someone else. It slowly became normal for my pain to take a back seat.

Eventually I reached a point where I tried to end the relationship.

The aftermath of that scared me enough that I've questioned ever since whether I'm staying because I freely choose to or because I feel responsible for someone else's wellbeing. That's an incredibly painful thing to admit because I don't want that to be true.

G has tried to support me, but I also don't think he fully understands how deeply all of this has affected me. There have been many moments where I wished he would step in instead of remaining neutral because I felt so alone carrying the emotional weight.

Something else I struggle with—but I honestly don't know if it's insecurity or intuition—is that because G's relationship with her developed first, I sometimes wonder whether I'm truly a wanted partner or whether I'm simply part of the relationship because that's how they both feel is the only way to be together. I don't know if that's a fair fear or one that's grown out of everything that's happened since.

The hardest part is that I still love her.

If I didn't, this would actually be easier.

When we're one-on-one, I genuinely enjoy being with her. When the three of us are connected, I remember exactly why I fell in love with this relationship in the first place.

I'm not grieving the absence of love.

I'm grieving the growing gap between how incredible this relationship can feel and how deeply it can hurt.

I'm in therapy and actively working on myself, so I'm not looking for validation that anyone is a villain or that I should immediately leave. I know all three of us have our own histories, struggles, and blind spots.

I guess what I'm asking is this:

Has anyone else ever deeply loved someone while also questioning whether the relationship itself had become unhealthy?

How did you separate love from compatibility?

How did you know whether you were holding on because the relationship was still right for you—or because you were holding onto the hope of getting back to what it used to be?

I'm just... lost.

Hello, first time poster here. My partner of 7 years (trans masc, they/them) and I recently entered an open throuple with a new person (nb, they/them). This is everyone's first experience with polyamory so it has been a long road of figuring out communicating needs, how much time to spend together, etc. my nesting partner has been out of town a few times since we started the throuple, so I have had a good amount of 1:1 time with our other partner, which often included sex. This made my nesting partner uncomfortable because they began to worry (as did I) that our other partner was only interested in sex with me. The three of us had a long and hard conversation about this a few weeks ago, after which the new partner shared that they feel like they might be partly asexual and in general have an easier time having sex w me because they are more used to being intimate with femme people (although they are pan).

The conversation went over well and my nesting partner (who has a much higher sex drive than myself or our other partner) began casually dating other people to get their sexual needs met. My nesting partner also talked w their therapist abt being nervous about me and our other partner having sex when we spend 1:1 time together, and their therapist suggested always assuming it's going to happen, and not sharing whether or not it happened afterwards.

Last night me and our other partner had a 1:1 date (which I requested bc I connect better that way). I talked with my nesting partner before to assure them that I love them but was still a little worried about how they would feel after my date. On the date I did have sex with our other partner, and made sure to not bring it up but offer a lot of love and cuddles to my nesting partner when I saw them afterwards.

Unfortunately my nesting partner was still really worried about it and ended up asking me in the middle of the night if we HAD had sex on the date, and when I said yes they were very upset and said they felt like our other partner just didn't want to have sex with them, and that if that's the case then my nesting partner can't date them anymore.

Now I feel awful that my nesting partner is feeling so bad and feel like if they bow out of the throuple then I wouldn't be able to continue dating our other partner because I would know how much it hurt my nesting partner. At the same time though, I feel like I love our other partner and am very sensitive to the fact that if we all broke up they would not have anyone to lean on.

Thoughts?? What should I do?

TLDR: nesting partner of 7 years started dating someone together. Me and that someone have had more 1:1 sex than my nesting partner has had with them, and my nesting partner worries our other partner isn't attracted to them.

I’m a 52F interested in a polyandry type of relationship, anyone successfully reached this? I’ve asked in other forums about the dating aspect and been call unicorn/dragon hunters.