r/polyadvice • u/Sudden-Mastodon6773 • 2d ago
Boundaries Around Events?
Hi everyone! Cross-posting this from r/polyamory as I really do need some advice here. My girlfriend (F23) and I (F30) have been dating for about six months. Last night, we attended a friend's birthday party and had loose plans to share a car back to our neighborhood along with a few other friends.
At one point in the night, she began talking to another person at this event and ultimately decided she wanted to go home with them, which she didn't express until we were all outside about to call cars. This really caught me off guard and hurt me, especially as it came out of nowhere. We're also going through a bit of a rough patch in our relationship, which made this particularly hard for me. I panicked and told her I would break up with her if she went back to hook up with this new person. It was an inappropriate, mean and manipulative thing to say. I immediately walked it back and have profusely apologized since.
I still love her so so so much and really want to make this work in a healthy way. I want her to be able to explore and engage in new relationships, especially as she is so much younger than me, but at the same time, our age gap [edit: and my struggles with being with abusive partners in the past and Moral OCD which makes me feel like anything I do that isn't entirely selfless is evil and abusive] makes it hard for me to set boundaries without feeling like I'm being manipulative. I also am afraid that I'm going to be replaced, even though I know that isn't true and she's said such. I think these feelings, ones that are also fueling the underlying conflict at hand, are coming from the fact that I am struggling to set boundaries because I want her to feel like she can really explore and enjoy and that asking for any kind of security is somehow going to be manipulative or coercive.
What is a reasonable, fair boundary that could be set here to prevent this from happening in the future? I'm currently outlining a list of boundaries that I am setting for myself and feel like if she's willing to, I'd like to make this an agreement:
I will set clear expectations about whether or not we will go home together (including travel) after an event. If anything seems as though it may change, we will, if possible, have a brief conversation about said change in plans.
Is this too controlling? I'll include the rest of the list in the comments, its based on a really good thread from ths subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/polyamory/s/jzk6mJxB0A) but I want to know what ya'll think.
thx < 3
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u/kyskat 2d ago
If the power imbalance is such that you cannot communicate without feeling like you’re controlling or manipulating her, perhaps this is why people are critical of large age gap relationships and you should, I don’t know, not date someone you can’t be an equal partner to?
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u/Sudden-Mastodon6773 2d ago
Yes this is fair, there's also a bit more context. It's a combination of things. Her age does play a role, but I have also been in several controlling, abusive relationships in the past and I'm afraid of accidentally harming someone. I also have really bad morality OCD and am constantly worrying everything I do that isn't entirely selfless is harmful and evil. I edited the post to add this context.
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u/kyskat 2d ago edited 2d ago
Possibly unpopular opinion, but if you have that much baggage, I think there’s a very high probability of harming someone for whom you’ve got more than a quarter of their life on them and that quarter of life has given you scars to share that you may well end up sharing.
Let this poor girl go date someone age and life place appropriate
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u/Sudden-Mastodon6773 2d ago
I have been in therapy for nearly seven years, I've started DBT, am seeing an OCD specialist and am on medication. I am not looking for my partner to fix me.
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u/kyskat 2d ago
Or, to put it more kindly - why are you, a 30 year old woman, settling for a relationship where you HAVE to point out that trying to leave a party with someone other than the person you came with, except in extreme circumstance, is totally uncool at best? Like.. why do you not want someone who’s hung out with adults enough to know that
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u/Sudden-Mastodon6773 2d ago
We hadn't discussed party dynamics before. I think she was unclear on what the expectations were and had we discussed it in advance, I know she would've approached that situation differently. I was emotional in the moment and did not handle it well and I want to prevent things like this from happening in the future as I know she does care about me and how I feel.
To be clear as well, despite our age gap, we're also in very similar points in our lives. She's starting her career and I'm completely restarting my career. We have a similar friend group, most of whom are older than both of us and we attend a similar set of social events.
All of this is to say, she means a lot to me and I want to be able to set a clear foundation for things like this going forward. This situation has made me realize that I need to get over my fears and actually tell her what I need from a partner in a relationship. if she is able to give me those things then great, but if not then we know we're not compatible and we can either break up or change the dynamic of our relationship to make sure our needs are met.
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u/kyskat 2d ago
I’m not saying you’re looking for a partner to fix you, I’m saying there’s no way there can be the core equality required for an ethical relationship. If you’re this panicked about pointing out that leaving a party with someone other than the person you showed up with being extremely shitty, how are you going to be able to tackle a real problem evenly and decently
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u/sammytipz 1d ago
I think it's important to remember that boundaries are what you will or will not do, and are not about controlling or manipulating someone else. There is nothing controlling or manipulative about setting a true boundary. It is also entirely reasonable to make requests of your partner, as long as you are willing to hear "no", and to negotiate and compromise.
If I were in your shoes, I would talk about this with your girlfriend in a calm moment. I would say something like:
"the other night at the party, I felt surprised and hurt when you left with someone else. I was assuming that we were going home together, and the sudden change in plans caught me off guard. I realise now that perhaps my assumption was incorrect. In the future, if we go to an event together, can we figure out beforehand if we are going home together or not?"
If she says yes, then that's great. Now it is up to both of you to be proactive about initiating that conversation before you go out together. If she says no and is unwilling to come to sone consensus or compromise, then you have that information and can decide whether or not to stay in the relationship in its current form.
Personally, I prefer to know if I am going home with a partner in advance as well, but it is not so important to me that it is non-negotiable. For example, some nights my partner may want to "play it by ear" and see how the night goes, in which case I might ask them to let me know their plans by 10pm, or whatever time, so I can still have some structure and predictability to my evening.
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u/_ghostpiss 2d ago
I get that this is one of those things where you didn't make an explicit agreement about how to handle a specific scenario, so there is equal responsibility and neither party is really to blame.
But I think the mark of a reliable, considerate partner is to err on the side of caution and not attempt to do the impulsive thing just because the lack of clarity has created a convenient opportunity to shirk accountability for hurting someone else's feelings.
She just as easily could have said, "hey I know we haven't talked about this kind of thing yet, but do you mind if I went home with someone else?"
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u/saladada 2d ago
Why is it your responsibility to set expectations? Should it not be a shared responsibility?
"If possible" opens the door to "sorry there just wasn't an opportunity to discuss it with you".
"A brief conversation" on what? And what exactly is "brief"? And what happens if you don't want it to happen, just like now?
"Heads up" rules like this simply don't work well in the long run, and often also not even in the short run.
Just talk about things now and set the agreement now. Constantly having to pause to run off to talk to you about things is simply not going to work.
It is okay to say, "If we go to an event together, we should expect to leave together. If we go to the same event separately, there's no expectation that we will leave together."