I’m in a relationship with a polyamorous man and I’m monogamous. Both of us know that we were meant to be together and that we’re definitely 100% soulmates. Recently he just started dating another person and things are starting to go downhill. He knows it hurts me and I know it hurts him. He says that seeing me unhappy kills him and vice versa. We couldn’t break up with each other, that would just kill us both, but either way one of us is going to be unhappy and we don’t know what to do.

There is no magical solution here. If your friend told you “It just kills me to not be able to see penguins outside my window every morning - I can’t be happy without that! But it also kills me to live in Antartica - I simply can’t be happy in the cold!” - what advice would you give your friend?

I’d caution you to take a step back from the drama of it all: it will not actually kill you to be sad. You will not die from not getting what you want. The stakes here are actually much lower than that. Feeling bad is survivable. Also, you have really backed yourself into an emotional corner with the “meant to be together and definitely 100% soulmates” claim. Think honestly with yourself about whether you are mistaking an intense feeling for an empirical reality.

You two can figure this out. You need to either find a compromise that lets you two grow in this relationship together, or you need to make the painful decision to end a relationship. It is okay for two people to really like each other, but be unable to make a romantic relationship work. It happens. There is no immutable force of nature or law of physics that dictates that you two must be together, or cannot be happy without each other.