I’m in an open relationship with my partner of 1 year and am super happy with him. However when my fwb (tha I have a crush on) does anything that I read as blowing me off I feel just as hurt as I would if he was my only love interest. Is this normal?

Yep, that’s perfectly normal. The thing about human feelings is that they aren’t zero-sum - liking two people doesn’t mean you like each of them half as much. Our ability to feel invested in other people, to care about them, to get excited about time spent with them, is not a finite resource. It grows to accommodate every new person we bring into our lives.

So even if you already have a partner, that doesn’t lessen the sting much when another partner lets you down. In fact, poly people often experience something called NRE, or New Relationship Energy, where their feelings for new partners feel stronger or more intense. Humans like novelty, and we also chase hard after things we can’t have. After a year with your boyfriend, you can trust him to be around, so you might not get butterflies every time he texts you back. But with this fwb, you’re getting less than you’d like, and you feel blown off and hurt. That’s perfectly understandable and doesn’t mean you like or need your partner any less.

But even though it’s natural to feel that way, it’s not necessarily okay for someone to make you feel hurt like that sounds like maybe some boundary setting is in order with this fwb who lets you down. Let him know next time he blows you off that you don’t like the way that makes you feel, and if you are getting more frustration than fun out of this arrangement, it’s within your rights to ask for what you need or walk away.