Managing trauma and polyamory

Photo by Roman Trifonov on Unsplash

I’m a 33 year old man with significant relationship trauma and abandonment issues. My partner of six years has, until recently, only had two partners; I was the only partner of the two she maintained a sexual relationship with, in what used to be a Dom/sub dynamic. She doesn’t, however, share a bed with me.

Shortly after we all moved in together she expressed a desire to be with someone else, looking for a heavy top to fulfill her masochistic needs. Her job places several people under her care and that gives her little energy to see to me as her submissive. She stays over at their place out of town roughly half the time, and still never with me.

I’m dealing the best I’m able, but I have a paralyzing fear of being abandoned because of where she’s at currently, what that means for her energy for me, and also because of betrayal and trauma in every major relationship. Since seeing this partner I feel like she has lost a lot of interest in me and that’s digging up a lot of pain. She will sometimes ignore texts that pertain to a pending vasectomy for the purposes of safer fluid bonding and that makes me feel like she doesn’t want that for us anymore.

I feel like she’s running out of patience with my fears and I don’t know how to pull myself out of this tailspin I’m convinced I caused. I’ve begun counseling to deal with my anxieties but I’m afraid she’s pulling away despite my best efforts. I’ve considered asking her about me exploring non-monogamy but I think she wouldn’t go for it.

Is there anything that can be done? Is this just part of cohabitation? I still feel get butterflies when we make eye contact, but that barely happens anymore.

This column has been moved to the Non-Monogamy Help website.