My ‘partner’ has recently decided he needs to work things out with his wife after several months of us being together and him telling me they were divorcing. Now, I don’t see how our relationship will work because we both worked up this image of how it would end up and it’s not happening that way at all. I feel I want a very different outcome than he’s able to give me and I’m not sure what to do. I really love him and don’t want to lose him but I don’t know how to make it work?

It sounds like there is not much you can do here to “make it work.” If you want something that he can’t give you, there isn’t necessarily a solution for that. Sometimes in life we don’t get what we want. Sometimes our expectations are not met. Sometimes things don’t work out the way we planned. It’s not always solvable, but it is always survivable.

This might be a situation where you need the “serenity to accept the things you cannot change.” When relationships don’t work out, it sucks and it hurts, but it isn’t always something we can fix. Let yourself grieve the loss of the future you planned. Eat ice cream. Reactivate your tinder. Take a day off work to watch Netflix. You’ll get through this.

P.S. Since this is a poly blog, I’m assuming your partner’s wife was aware of and okay with you dating him, and he’s now decided to close off the open relationship. But given the use of scare quotes around ‘partner’ and your point that him not divorcing spells the end of your relationship, that may not be the case. My advice to you in the future is: do not have affairs with married men who promise you they will divorce their wife so you can be together. There’s a reason this situation is a trope, and it’s because it rarely ends well.