Am I compromising myself? How? But it doesn't matter because we'll end soon... once he falls in love with someone monogamous. Unless he's... married? Already have... but...
I open my mouth again, but James steps forward, his voice steady but weighted with the worrying etch across his face. "If you compromise your relationship with yourself by compromising who you are to love him, you won't have a foundation left to love from. You need yourself to love him. Without a clear sense of 'I,' how can you choose him every day and say, 'I love you'?"
"Not to mention," Anat continues, her grip tightening slightly, "over time, you'll build resentment. When you compromise yourself, that resentment will boil up inside... until you blow up. That's why relationships fall apart when someone loses themselves."
We won't get there. No forever for us. I'm living with him the way a person lives with terminal cancer. I can't tell them that.
"What are you really clinging to, Ace?" Beth presses, her voice growing sharper. "When we become too attached to someone, our sense of self blends into theirs. What does he have that you don't see in yourself? Are you clinging to him because you're holding on to the last version of yourself that was monogamous, before you fully embrace your identity as a poly person?"
I'm not attached to him. It's how much time we have left. I know it's probably less than I hope for, but definitely more than if I never lived it.
Just as I'm about to speak, someone else jumps in.
"If that's the case... it's unfair to both of you," Valentina reasons, her tone softening slightly. "Do you really want that for him? Or for yourself?"
"I..." I try to answer, but the words get stuck. My mind races, swirling with their accusations, their concern, their truths. I want to tell them everything, but I also know it might make things worse.
"Do you think you're rushing into this?" James asks gently, his warm blue eyes searching mine. "You've spent so much time with him, letting him sweep you off your feet for two months, and now this. Are you letting his impulses carry you away, or are you getting lost in your own?"
The two months I was hospitalized had been explained to my friends as a spontaneous couple's adventure, sprinkled with enough details to make it believable.
"I'm... slowly processing things," I say finally, trying to steady my voice. "I don't know the answers to all of your questions. I need more time."
The words seem to satisfy them for now, but inside, the emotional storm rages on.
Triads, quads, vees, polycules, solo poly, parallel versus kitchen table, open or closed—there are so many ways to structure a polyamorous relationship. Poly people don't shy away from customizing their relationships, layering boundaries and agreements like puzzle pieces to make everything fit. But we all know there's one combination that almost never works: a monogamous person with someone who's poly.
The gap is too big. No matter how many boundaries are set, the difference in what love, commitment, and relationships mean is too wide. It's a divide that's impossible to bridge.
I knew we were impossible by our fourth meeting. But it was too late—I had already chosen to love him. Hope, paired with a strange happiness in knowing he didn't love me in return, made it easy to dive in full throttle. As long as he doesn't love me, I can love him freely. I know this. I know I can't desire his love, nor could I need it, because his love would be the end of us. We will end when he loves me—or when he loves someone else. But for now, he can be mine, as long as his heart remains unattached.
With a heavy heart and a mind clouded with uncertainty from the earlier exchange, I step into the glass house, where darkness greets me. It dawns on me—thanks to my friends—that I am the returnable furniture. I'm here temporarily, a placeholder for someone else. The sofa has a year, and the table and chairs have a year and a half before they can no longer be returned. Is that how long I'll last?