My partner’s boyfriend just decided to cut me off and stop talking to me and on top of that, my partner barely communicates with me anymore (even though theyre in constant communication with the bf) despite me letting them know that my depression is getting worse and i’m feeling more alone. Any advice at all on how to approach this??

This sounds like an emergency to me. The first thing you need to do is reach out to someone who isn’t part of this situation for help - ideally, a therapist, but if you don’t have one, a trusted friend or someone you can rely on for support. Depression is not something to mess around with. 

It is possible that your partner’s boyfriend feels overwhelmed or doesn’t know how to handle the fact that he’s very close to someone who’s dealing with mental illness. It’s crappy, and it’s not your fault, but not everyone has the capacity to handle tough situations like this. And it’s possible that your partner also is struggling with how to meet your needs as well as their own. 

My suggestion is, once you’ve established a safe avenue of support outside this poly network, to talk to your partner about what’s going on. Say your needs are not being met and you’re feeling alone, and ask them whether they’re feeling able to be there for you and what they need. You may find out that they can’t be what you need them to be right now, which will be difficult, but you can use that information to start building the support structure that you need rather than asking someone to help you carry something that’s just too heavy for them to hold.

I am sorry that you’re dealing with this. Best of luck. <3

Overall im excited and happy about my poly relationship, sometimes ill get in a real sad dark place. Happens maybe once every few of months but i cant shake. Is this occasional depression and regret normal? Should i care since it’s so infrequent?

I’m not a trained psychiatrist, but I think it’s pretty common for people’s moods to fluctuate over the course of months. If you find that these sad, dark places are something you can’t tolerate, or you’re afraid you’ll do lasting damage to yourself or your relationships while you’re in one, I strongly suggest you talk to a doctor or therapist about these waves of depression.

Journaling can also help you get to the bottom of what’s happening. If you’re a person who gets periods, you might find that the hormone fluctuations before or during menstruation often trigger these bouts of depression. Or, they might happen when you’ve been stressed or after something affects your sleep, diet, or other parts of your routine. They may be tied to weather, stressors from your job, or something else.

Or, they may truly come out of nowhere - the mind is a mysterious and sometimes frustrating thing. But paying attention to when and how these moods show up, what they feel like, how long they last, and what helps you get through/out of them can really help.

And if you find that these depressions are exclusively focused on issues with your poly relationship, I’d encourage you to figure out what is bothering you during those periods and discuss it with your partner(s). You may have some unresolved problems or unmet needs that surface when you don’t have the mental energy to keep them at bay, and addressing them can help ward off these eruptions of sadness.

Good luck!

I have a somewhat new relationship (a few months) and we just “officially” became boyfriends. We’re both poly and don’t have primary partners. It’s very open. However, we were just talking about jealously and insecurity and it came up that I feel, at times, unmanageably jealous, insecure, and sad about my bf’s other partners (potential or current) when I’m going through a bout of depression. I’m going through one now. Should I suggest a more closed relationship until I get back on my feet?

Here’s the thing about any relationship practice: it’s never in a vacuum. It intersects with everything else in your life, including your family background, your career, and your mental health needs. There are as many ways to be poly as there are poly people, and that’s partly because each one of us has unique needs and perspectives to take into account.

Part of a healthy poly practice is knowing your own needs, and another part is reaching out to get those needs met in a healthy way. It sounds like you have a solid sense of self-awareness about your needs, which is awesome. If you haven’t already, talk these over with the new boyfriend. Explain that this is something you know about yourself, and do your best to help him understand.

The next step is figuring out how to get those needs met. You asked whether you should close the relationship until this bout passes, which sounds like a good idea especially considering the newness of this relationship - but if this is something that happens to you with some amount of frequency, it’s worth developing a long term plan. If he starts seeing someone else while you’re in an on-your-feet period, but then you enter a bout of depression, would you want him to put a pause on that relationship? If that doesn’t sound fair or realistic to you two, you need to work on a more consistent practice to keep things healthy and fulfilling for you as the whole person that you are, which includes your experience of depression.

Also, if you can, consider talking to a poly-friendly therapist - not just about poly practices but about managing the depression in general.