failure w ex-partner / need to know true feelings esp negative
icon: "tenebrous (a dark, orangey photo of me in a heart-crushed moment, looking down, tear-streaked face.)"
I had a weird experience today where I was failing at words and logic, getting lost. Usually that kind of fail is ADD meds related and that had a little to do with it as I took my meds really early and forgot to break the pill in half and save the second half for the afternoon. But then I got disproportionately upset and suddenly realized I was projecting and trying to rescue my friend from my own fate, not theirs. My failure with my ex-partner in transitioning from monogamy to polyamory apparently still hurts. I really thought I was over it. I did everything I could and I really couldn't have tried harder, but it wasn't enough because when it came down to it my ex just didn't want to. We practiced poly for two years before we broke up, but they didn't actually try to change their thinking or understand me, they just avoided thinking about it and lived in denial - possible, because my relationships were all long-distance. They told me they were okay with it and even happy for my happiness but it wasn't true, as they told me later. Once they stopped being able to pretend, that was the end. They dumped me by starting to date someone else (while we were still supposedly together) and deciding to be monogamous with that person.
My greatest fear in relationships is that someone will pretend to be okay with something and not actually be okay with it. Pretend to love all of me and really just be tolerating parts of me or pretending them away. When I say greatest fear, I mean I'd rather someone get furious with me, be cruel to me, and dump me. I'd rather they express any possible negative feeling about any part of me rather than pretend like or indifference.
This is why it is so important to me that my close friends be willing and able to tell me when I upset them in any way, or when they don't like something about me, and be honest with me when they don't care one way or the other about an aspect of me or things that are important to me.