hi! im a monogamous person in a relationship with a poly person, & my partner is also dating someone else. my partner was already with this other person before we were together, & i am not and have never been comfortable being in a poly relationship. i have read various articles & watched videos & /tried/ to be okay with things, but nothing has worked & im on the brink of breaking up. i really like him & i want to make things work but i dont think im ever going to be happy like this. any advice?

There is no magical way to make this work. If you don’t think you’ll ever be happy in this relationship, you need to leave it. It sounds like you did everything you could to work on yourself so you could find a way to be happy and fulfilled in this relationship, and it didn’t work. That’s okay.

It’s okay to try things out and realize they aren’t for you. It’s good to be honest with yourself about what you need and what you can and can’t do. You may really like this person and enjoy most of your relationship with them, but there’s a fundamental issue that isn’t working for you. You have a right to find relationships that make you happy on every level.

Breakups suck, but part of the point of dating different people is learning what you like and what doesn’t work for you. You should be very proud of yourself for taking the leap and trying this out, for doing your best in good faith to make it work, and for having the honesty and self awareness to get out when you realized it wasn’t healthy for you. 

Soapbox: This is one of the reasons I think it’s perfectly okay to see polyamory/monogamy as orientations rather than chosen behavior choices. Some people just can’t think themselves into being someone who gets what they need from a polyamorous or monogamous relationship. Forcing the “it’s a choice open to anyone” narrative implies that people for whom monogamy or polyamory doesn’t work have somehow failed and just need to work harder on themselves. I think it’s crucial to empower people to say “this is who I am, and this is what I need.”