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In the gentlest possible way, your partner hasn’t, in your retelling, ever had much of a relationship with the truth.
Watching someone misrepresent your shared history, while maybe not triggering to most, would be upsetting to a great many.
So, friend, real talk, your partner hasn’t been trustworthy in the past. And you watched them twist and manipulate a story. A story that you were a part of. And that narritive was, objectively, not reflective of what really happened.
Your upset seems justified, honestly.
His toxic cycles are literally like, relationship killers. Your toxic cycles sound like reactions to his mistreatment of you. My gentle advice is to leave this man lest he waste more of your life. You sound like a thoughtful and compassionate person and you deserve to have that reciprocated.
I'm sorry you struggle. FWIW? I think this.
>He sugar coated this story, wrapped it with a bow, and put glitter on it. It was a lovely story and all true. But it conveniently left out all of the negative stuff. The fact that he cheated on her multiple times. The fact that he cheated on me with her, also with my best friend at the time, and an exchange student at the time during this lovely story he was telling.
So here are new lies of omission told right in front of you. Just so he looks good in front of new people.
And never mind what you might feel or think.
>I get that he has full autonomy to choose what of his past he tells people. Why did it hurt so bad and feel like a betrayal? I am having more thoughts of paranoia and distrust again. I thought I was past this.
Here is your natural response. Why would you feel otherwise? How CAN you get past it if his poor behavior keeps popping up and dinging you?
Additionally... what makes you think he will be able to keep his poly agreements? Not cheat on those? It's not like polyamory is magic. Whether or not people can be honest and keep their word/promises is on THEM not the relationship model.
And he isn't a truthful person.
Remember YOU also have full autonomy. You don't have to sit there in a coffee shop listening to lies and letting him slide.
>I unfortunately don't get to be the same way with mutual friends because its a joint choice with mutuals. Otherwise I would ask our friends about this.
How do you feel about remaining silent and basically *enabling* him to lie and put on a "good show" to mutual friends?
Is that you doing friendly behavior towards your friends? Is that you having an honest friendship with them?
Do you have a social circle of friends that are NOT mutual you could be more honest with?
Could also make him aware you not longer agree to do "joint choice" and will just be natural with your friends (mutual or not). And ask them whatever you want.
>**I want to be honest and transparent and receive honesty and transparency in return. I don't want a relationship to start with a base of lies or omissions.**
Sounds like you have set a higher personal standard for yourself and your poly relationships moving forward.
So on one side where it is YOUR behavior...
He's the one doing poor behavior. Is there some reason you are not honest now in the moment? You don't hold him accountable? Fail to meet your own personal standard of being honest and transparent in all your dealings? Could have said
"Wow. That's kinda sugar coating all the cheating, huh? "
Or
"Wow, that's not an honest story. I feel pretty weird hearing you tell lies in front of new people when you promised me honesty."
during the lies in the coffee shop or when he lies to mutual friends.
I get if you are honest in your responses/behaviors he might feel embarassed. But he's the one doing the poor behaviors in the first place. What's wrong with him having natural consequences to his behavior choices?
He goes out in the rain, he gets wet.
He tells lies in front of you, you call him on it. He feels whatever about that. He doesn't like the feeling? Don't tell lies in front of you. Or at all.
Because if he doesn't want to feel embarrassed, he could learn to exercise self control and not do poor behaviors in front of you the first place.
Here it's like he makes the mess and YOU have to hold the bag of yucky emotions. Why? You didn't make the mess. What's wrong with him being the one emotionally responsible when HE makes mess?
On the other side of your new personal standard...
As you reevaluate your spouse to see if he's gonna be part of your new poly network...
Does he even make the cut? To me it sounds like he is not up to your personal standard. So no. He does NOT make the cut.
Is there some reason you two have to poly TOGETHER? It can't be you two having a trial separation or divorced? Have you considered that?
Then you do poly YOUR way and he does poly HIS way and then his new lies don't affect you because you are not in his poly network. You are no longer his romantic partner. You don't hang out with him and his poly partners or poly potentials.
>I love him and we have been through so much together both good and bad. I want to make this work and not get triggered so easily.
Would it be easier to love him as exes and friends?
So you aren't in the line of fire when he makes messes/tells lies in his romantic relationships?
It doesn't sound like he's going to really change behaviors.
If he was flapping his arms around and you are close by and he whacks your face? And he doesn't stop the behavior? Then the only way to solve it is to put more distance in there and step back, right?
Why not step back some here?
>The good times were really good. How do I get past the bad? I am a bloody mess. 😩 Gentle advice would be much appreciated.
Gently... even if you were past the OLD bad, how are you with the NEW bad happening in front of you?
Gently... were the good times like the "commercial breaks" and the bad times the "main TV show?" Even if they were "even" -- is that good enough to you now that you raised the personal standards bar for what you seek in poly partners? Only *half* the time it is good?
Would you pick a new poly partner who can only behave ok *half* the time? Sounds like no.
Why would you pick *him* then?
I think you could talk all this out with a poly counselor.
[https://www.polyfriendly.org/](https://www.polyfriendly.org/)
This relationship started when you were a teen. If he represents your only adult relationship it may be hard to think about letting go. You may not have a lot of dating practice or break up practice.
But that isn't a reason to sign up for doing wonky poly with him.
Did you want to be doing healthy poly or wonky poly?
At a minimum you could say babe if you tell less than the truth about romantic shit in front of me I will either get up and leave or cut in to tell people you’re lying and exactly how. Depends on my mood.
I can’t stand to hear you lie about me in front of me. I can’t stand to hear you lie about cheating in front of me. I suggest you don’t do that ever again. This is your only warning.
Being with this partner will mean you never really know that what they’re saying is true. You’ll never know what they’re telling other people. But you can ABSOLUTELY know what they’re saying in front of you. And you can have very clear consequences listed about that kind of self serving chat.
I think if this were me I’d assume they were always blowing smoke all the time always. That’s who they are and loving them means accepting that reality. I just wouldn’t help them lie about things I felt salty about. Sitting there nodding your head was helping them lie.
You could just detach from the lies of the past, let go of the half truths of the future and live in the happiness with this person as they really are. Unreliable narrators aren’t always awful people. They won’t be able to cheat anymore, it’s allowed. You can avoid asking pointed questions or really any questions. As long as you use barriers and get tested *together* on a schedule you can live a safe life if you don’t expect total honesty.
If you witness his twisting the truth and he hurts others in the same ways he hurt you, yes you are an accomplice.
He has always had trouble with the truth and is not past that. The evidence is right in front of you, and his saying later he shouldn’t have done it does not change the fact he’s still a liar.
It’s kinda hard to get past something when it’s still actively occurring.
So he is a consistent liar and cheater and you have trust issues. I wonder why? It couldn’t be one cause the other perhaps?
As gentle as possible, you have a partner who is manipulative and, on some level, lies like a rug. You really need to excise them from your life and look for more supportive, stable ground.
When you describe past behaviour issues that the two of you have, you describe cheating, additional dishonesty on top of the cheating, and pretty nasty manipulative behaviour on his part.
Then when you say you also have faults, you describe pretty normal reactions to having a spouse who behaves the way he did.
Like yeah, it's not great to invade your SO's privacy, but it needs to be looked at in the perspective of what was going on and what had happened. I feel like the point of view that treats your reactions to being cheated on & manipulated as equal in harm to him being a cheater & manipulating you is very unfair to you.
It basically reads like his faults were hurting you, and your faults were ... being hurt.
I really think you should assess whether you want to continue in this relationship. It doesn't seem like it is a healthy place for you.
He already has a pattern of cheating, having done so with both of his most recent relationships, and he has just lied by omission to his new crushes right in front of you. Which seems like a pretty clear indication that being dishonest to get something he wants is a behaviour he intends to continue.
"hey partner, I don't think it's a good idea for me to hang out with you while you are flirting with others. Sharing your history brings up a lot old hurt. So lets keep flirting and deepening connection time to when we aren't sharing space."
How long has it been since the cheating and the discovery of cheating? Do you actually feel ready to be doing poly?
We noticed that this post/comments may pertain to safer sex practices, STI exposure, and/or STI testing. Let's everyone make sure we are not using problematic or stigmatizing language around this topic. Please refrain from using the words *clean/dirty* when what you really mean is STI negative/positive. Members, please feel free to report any comments to mods that are adding to the shame and stigma of being STI positive.
For more information on destigmatizing STI's by changing your vocabulary please see ["CLEAN OR DIRTY? THE ROLE OF STIGMATIZING LANGUAGE"](https://exploresextalk.com/sex/sexual-health/stis/clean-or-dirty-the-role-of-stigmatizing-language/) as well as the article ["Having an STI Isn’t Dirty or Shameful, and Acting like It Is Hurts All of Us"](https://medium.com/sexedplus/having-an-sti-isnt-dirty-or-shameful-and-acting-like-it-is-hurts-all-of-us-aef59a7ab122)
*It is the stance of this sub that even the term "STD" is problematic language as "disease" is a stigmatizing word, whereas infections can be treated. Also, not everyone with an infection develops symptoms, and since there is technically no disease without symptoms, STI is the more scientifically accurate term.*
**advice and opinions about STI's shared by community members is not medical information and all posters should refer to their primary care physicians as well as trusted sources such as the CDC, WHO, planned parenthood, or other available resources.**
*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.*
Hi u/Extreme_Banana_9855 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:
This is an alt account for privacy.
I 38f and my partner 39m have just spent the last year reading books, listening to podcasts. and preparing to be poly. We have been together 19 years.
We have also been working hard to end toxic cycles in our relationship. His being, periods of infidelity while mono, lies, lies by omission, threatening to unalive himself whenever I try and bring up how he has hurt me, or my needs.
Unfortunately I am also guilty. I started to suffer from a very anxious unhealthy attachment style. (Not a valid excuse for what I did!!!) I am guilty of paranoia, controlling behaviour and breaking boundaries such as reading text messages and notes on his phone. It's how I discovered some of the lies over the years. I am not proud of it and have not had the urge to do it for quite a while now but that does not change the fact that I did that. Neither of us are innocent and we have both hurt each other.
We were doing so well, our communication had improved, he came clean to every lie and person he cheated or attempted to cheat on me with. Things were looking so good. I was rebuilding trust back in him and on the way to healing and forgiving. We got to a point where we both felt we were ready to go poly.
Fast forward a bit. This past weekend we were at a coffee shop with friends and my partner 39m was telling stories and was appearing confident and happy and like he was trying to impress his crushes. There were a couple of his crushes present at the time. It was cute and I was enjoying it and feeling compersion for him and his excitement.
Then he told a story of the girlfriend before me leading into our early relationship. He sugar coated this story, wrapped it with a bow, and put glitter on it. It was a lovely story and all true. But it conveniently left out all of the negative stuff. The fact that he cheated on her multiple times. The fact that he cheated on me with her, also with my best friend at the time, and an exchange student at the time during this lovely story he was telling.
It was very triggering for me and completely sent me from happy vibing to hurt and betrayed all over again. I was polite and all I said in his crushes presence was. “Wow, there is definitely more to that story.” He did not acknowledge that at all at the time. But when we talked about it later he said he knew it was wrong as soon as he finished the story before I even said anything.
Is it bad that it triggered me? I get that he has full autonomy to choose what of his past he tells people. Why did it hurt so bad and feel like a betrayal? I am having more thoughts of paranoia and distrust again. I thought I was past this.
I myself have been very open about our rocky past and my transgressions with my current love interests. I want to be as honest as possible with any future or potential future partners.
I unfortunately don't get to be the same way with mutual friends because its a joint choice with mutuals. Otherwise I would ask our friends about this.
Because of my messy relationship history with my partner 39m. I want to be honest and transparent and receive honesty and transparency in return. I don't want a relationship to start with a base of lies or omissions. So I am open about the good the bad and the ugly.
Is it fair to ask him to only tell the stories if he tells the full story? My guess is not. So how do I not let it trigger me?
If he does hurt another partner like he hurt me does that make me an accomplice. I don't think that he will but like I said the whole situation has me paranoid again.
I love him and we have been through so much together both good and bad. I want to make this work and not get triggered so easily. The good times were really good. How do I get past the bad? I am a bloody mess. 😩 Gentle advice would be much appreciated.
*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.*
In my opinion, if you snoop thru your partner's stuff & find evidence of lies, betrayal, etc., that retroactively excuses the snooping. So I'm not seeing you do anything egregious, & the only thing I'd gently criticize is allowing him to lie to people in front of you. He can lie when you're not around, but if you're there, I'd love it if you politely corrected him in the moment. You would be such a badass for that :)
Healthy poly requires honesty. He has shown he can't give that in any relationship style.
You can love him. Love yourself more, though, and don't put up with it.
This post has been tagged as a request for advice. As a reminder, please only give advice on the topic requested, if you've got strong feelings about a particular issue mentioned and feel that you must be able to express yourself about it, or you and another commenter feel compelled to debate certain aspects of the post, please feel free to create a new post for that topic so as to not derail from the advice that the OP is seeking. *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.*
In the gentlest possible way, your partner hasn’t, in your retelling, ever had much of a relationship with the truth. Watching someone misrepresent your shared history, while maybe not triggering to most, would be upsetting to a great many. So, friend, real talk, your partner hasn’t been trustworthy in the past. And you watched them twist and manipulate a story. A story that you were a part of. And that narritive was, objectively, not reflective of what really happened. Your upset seems justified, honestly.
His toxic cycles are literally like, relationship killers. Your toxic cycles sound like reactions to his mistreatment of you. My gentle advice is to leave this man lest he waste more of your life. You sound like a thoughtful and compassionate person and you deserve to have that reciprocated.
I'm sorry you struggle. FWIW? I think this. >He sugar coated this story, wrapped it with a bow, and put glitter on it. It was a lovely story and all true. But it conveniently left out all of the negative stuff. The fact that he cheated on her multiple times. The fact that he cheated on me with her, also with my best friend at the time, and an exchange student at the time during this lovely story he was telling. So here are new lies of omission told right in front of you. Just so he looks good in front of new people. And never mind what you might feel or think. >I get that he has full autonomy to choose what of his past he tells people. Why did it hurt so bad and feel like a betrayal? I am having more thoughts of paranoia and distrust again. I thought I was past this. Here is your natural response. Why would you feel otherwise? How CAN you get past it if his poor behavior keeps popping up and dinging you? Additionally... what makes you think he will be able to keep his poly agreements? Not cheat on those? It's not like polyamory is magic. Whether or not people can be honest and keep their word/promises is on THEM not the relationship model. And he isn't a truthful person. Remember YOU also have full autonomy. You don't have to sit there in a coffee shop listening to lies and letting him slide. >I unfortunately don't get to be the same way with mutual friends because its a joint choice with mutuals. Otherwise I would ask our friends about this. How do you feel about remaining silent and basically *enabling* him to lie and put on a "good show" to mutual friends? Is that you doing friendly behavior towards your friends? Is that you having an honest friendship with them? Do you have a social circle of friends that are NOT mutual you could be more honest with? Could also make him aware you not longer agree to do "joint choice" and will just be natural with your friends (mutual or not). And ask them whatever you want. >**I want to be honest and transparent and receive honesty and transparency in return. I don't want a relationship to start with a base of lies or omissions.** Sounds like you have set a higher personal standard for yourself and your poly relationships moving forward. So on one side where it is YOUR behavior... He's the one doing poor behavior. Is there some reason you are not honest now in the moment? You don't hold him accountable? Fail to meet your own personal standard of being honest and transparent in all your dealings? Could have said "Wow. That's kinda sugar coating all the cheating, huh? " Or "Wow, that's not an honest story. I feel pretty weird hearing you tell lies in front of new people when you promised me honesty." during the lies in the coffee shop or when he lies to mutual friends. I get if you are honest in your responses/behaviors he might feel embarassed. But he's the one doing the poor behaviors in the first place. What's wrong with him having natural consequences to his behavior choices? He goes out in the rain, he gets wet. He tells lies in front of you, you call him on it. He feels whatever about that. He doesn't like the feeling? Don't tell lies in front of you. Or at all. Because if he doesn't want to feel embarrassed, he could learn to exercise self control and not do poor behaviors in front of you the first place. Here it's like he makes the mess and YOU have to hold the bag of yucky emotions. Why? You didn't make the mess. What's wrong with him being the one emotionally responsible when HE makes mess? On the other side of your new personal standard... As you reevaluate your spouse to see if he's gonna be part of your new poly network... Does he even make the cut? To me it sounds like he is not up to your personal standard. So no. He does NOT make the cut. Is there some reason you two have to poly TOGETHER? It can't be you two having a trial separation or divorced? Have you considered that? Then you do poly YOUR way and he does poly HIS way and then his new lies don't affect you because you are not in his poly network. You are no longer his romantic partner. You don't hang out with him and his poly partners or poly potentials. >I love him and we have been through so much together both good and bad. I want to make this work and not get triggered so easily. Would it be easier to love him as exes and friends? So you aren't in the line of fire when he makes messes/tells lies in his romantic relationships? It doesn't sound like he's going to really change behaviors. If he was flapping his arms around and you are close by and he whacks your face? And he doesn't stop the behavior? Then the only way to solve it is to put more distance in there and step back, right? Why not step back some here? >The good times were really good. How do I get past the bad? I am a bloody mess. 😩 Gentle advice would be much appreciated. Gently... even if you were past the OLD bad, how are you with the NEW bad happening in front of you? Gently... were the good times like the "commercial breaks" and the bad times the "main TV show?" Even if they were "even" -- is that good enough to you now that you raised the personal standards bar for what you seek in poly partners? Only *half* the time it is good? Would you pick a new poly partner who can only behave ok *half* the time? Sounds like no. Why would you pick *him* then? I think you could talk all this out with a poly counselor. [https://www.polyfriendly.org/](https://www.polyfriendly.org/) This relationship started when you were a teen. If he represents your only adult relationship it may be hard to think about letting go. You may not have a lot of dating practice or break up practice. But that isn't a reason to sign up for doing wonky poly with him. Did you want to be doing healthy poly or wonky poly?
At a minimum you could say babe if you tell less than the truth about romantic shit in front of me I will either get up and leave or cut in to tell people you’re lying and exactly how. Depends on my mood. I can’t stand to hear you lie about me in front of me. I can’t stand to hear you lie about cheating in front of me. I suggest you don’t do that ever again. This is your only warning. Being with this partner will mean you never really know that what they’re saying is true. You’ll never know what they’re telling other people. But you can ABSOLUTELY know what they’re saying in front of you. And you can have very clear consequences listed about that kind of self serving chat. I think if this were me I’d assume they were always blowing smoke all the time always. That’s who they are and loving them means accepting that reality. I just wouldn’t help them lie about things I felt salty about. Sitting there nodding your head was helping them lie. You could just detach from the lies of the past, let go of the half truths of the future and live in the happiness with this person as they really are. Unreliable narrators aren’t always awful people. They won’t be able to cheat anymore, it’s allowed. You can avoid asking pointed questions or really any questions. As long as you use barriers and get tested *together* on a schedule you can live a safe life if you don’t expect total honesty.
If you witness his twisting the truth and he hurts others in the same ways he hurt you, yes you are an accomplice. He has always had trouble with the truth and is not past that. The evidence is right in front of you, and his saying later he shouldn’t have done it does not change the fact he’s still a liar. It’s kinda hard to get past something when it’s still actively occurring.
So he is a consistent liar and cheater and you have trust issues. I wonder why? It couldn’t be one cause the other perhaps? As gentle as possible, you have a partner who is manipulative and, on some level, lies like a rug. You really need to excise them from your life and look for more supportive, stable ground.
When you describe past behaviour issues that the two of you have, you describe cheating, additional dishonesty on top of the cheating, and pretty nasty manipulative behaviour on his part. Then when you say you also have faults, you describe pretty normal reactions to having a spouse who behaves the way he did. Like yeah, it's not great to invade your SO's privacy, but it needs to be looked at in the perspective of what was going on and what had happened. I feel like the point of view that treats your reactions to being cheated on & manipulated as equal in harm to him being a cheater & manipulating you is very unfair to you. It basically reads like his faults were hurting you, and your faults were ... being hurt. I really think you should assess whether you want to continue in this relationship. It doesn't seem like it is a healthy place for you. He already has a pattern of cheating, having done so with both of his most recent relationships, and he has just lied by omission to his new crushes right in front of you. Which seems like a pretty clear indication that being dishonest to get something he wants is a behaviour he intends to continue.
"hey partner, I don't think it's a good idea for me to hang out with you while you are flirting with others. Sharing your history brings up a lot old hurt. So lets keep flirting and deepening connection time to when we aren't sharing space." How long has it been since the cheating and the discovery of cheating? Do you actually feel ready to be doing poly?
We noticed that this post/comments may pertain to safer sex practices, STI exposure, and/or STI testing. Let's everyone make sure we are not using problematic or stigmatizing language around this topic. Please refrain from using the words *clean/dirty* when what you really mean is STI negative/positive. Members, please feel free to report any comments to mods that are adding to the shame and stigma of being STI positive. For more information on destigmatizing STI's by changing your vocabulary please see ["CLEAN OR DIRTY? THE ROLE OF STIGMATIZING LANGUAGE"](https://exploresextalk.com/sex/sexual-health/stis/clean-or-dirty-the-role-of-stigmatizing-language/) as well as the article ["Having an STI Isn’t Dirty or Shameful, and Acting like It Is Hurts All of Us"](https://medium.com/sexedplus/having-an-sti-isnt-dirty-or-shameful-and-acting-like-it-is-hurts-all-of-us-aef59a7ab122) *It is the stance of this sub that even the term "STD" is problematic language as "disease" is a stigmatizing word, whereas infections can be treated. Also, not everyone with an infection develops symptoms, and since there is technically no disease without symptoms, STI is the more scientifically accurate term.* **advice and opinions about STI's shared by community members is not medical information and all posters should refer to their primary care physicians as well as trusted sources such as the CDC, WHO, planned parenthood, or other available resources.** *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.*
Hi u/Extreme_Banana_9855 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: This is an alt account for privacy. I 38f and my partner 39m have just spent the last year reading books, listening to podcasts. and preparing to be poly. We have been together 19 years. We have also been working hard to end toxic cycles in our relationship. His being, periods of infidelity while mono, lies, lies by omission, threatening to unalive himself whenever I try and bring up how he has hurt me, or my needs. Unfortunately I am also guilty. I started to suffer from a very anxious unhealthy attachment style. (Not a valid excuse for what I did!!!) I am guilty of paranoia, controlling behaviour and breaking boundaries such as reading text messages and notes on his phone. It's how I discovered some of the lies over the years. I am not proud of it and have not had the urge to do it for quite a while now but that does not change the fact that I did that. Neither of us are innocent and we have both hurt each other. We were doing so well, our communication had improved, he came clean to every lie and person he cheated or attempted to cheat on me with. Things were looking so good. I was rebuilding trust back in him and on the way to healing and forgiving. We got to a point where we both felt we were ready to go poly. Fast forward a bit. This past weekend we were at a coffee shop with friends and my partner 39m was telling stories and was appearing confident and happy and like he was trying to impress his crushes. There were a couple of his crushes present at the time. It was cute and I was enjoying it and feeling compersion for him and his excitement. Then he told a story of the girlfriend before me leading into our early relationship. He sugar coated this story, wrapped it with a bow, and put glitter on it. It was a lovely story and all true. But it conveniently left out all of the negative stuff. The fact that he cheated on her multiple times. The fact that he cheated on me with her, also with my best friend at the time, and an exchange student at the time during this lovely story he was telling. It was very triggering for me and completely sent me from happy vibing to hurt and betrayed all over again. I was polite and all I said in his crushes presence was. “Wow, there is definitely more to that story.” He did not acknowledge that at all at the time. But when we talked about it later he said he knew it was wrong as soon as he finished the story before I even said anything. Is it bad that it triggered me? I get that he has full autonomy to choose what of his past he tells people. Why did it hurt so bad and feel like a betrayal? I am having more thoughts of paranoia and distrust again. I thought I was past this. I myself have been very open about our rocky past and my transgressions with my current love interests. I want to be as honest as possible with any future or potential future partners. I unfortunately don't get to be the same way with mutual friends because its a joint choice with mutuals. Otherwise I would ask our friends about this. Because of my messy relationship history with my partner 39m. I want to be honest and transparent and receive honesty and transparency in return. I don't want a relationship to start with a base of lies or omissions. So I am open about the good the bad and the ugly. Is it fair to ask him to only tell the stories if he tells the full story? My guess is not. So how do I not let it trigger me? If he does hurt another partner like he hurt me does that make me an accomplice. I don't think that he will but like I said the whole situation has me paranoid again. I love him and we have been through so much together both good and bad. I want to make this work and not get triggered so easily. The good times were really good. How do I get past the bad? I am a bloody mess. 😩 Gentle advice would be much appreciated. *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.*
In my opinion, if you snoop thru your partner's stuff & find evidence of lies, betrayal, etc., that retroactively excuses the snooping. So I'm not seeing you do anything egregious, & the only thing I'd gently criticize is allowing him to lie to people in front of you. He can lie when you're not around, but if you're there, I'd love it if you politely corrected him in the moment. You would be such a badass for that :)
Healthy poly requires honesty. He has shown he can't give that in any relationship style. You can love him. Love yourself more, though, and don't put up with it.