Reflections on heartbreak: Navigating breakups and embracing growth in non-monogamy
I have recently been staring down the barrel of a major breakup with my husband after our non-monogamous arrangement blew up. It’s been a painful few months and I have been wallowing in some pretty major self-pity. By chance, I found a draft blog I’d written a couple of years ago about how I felt when one of my boyfriends broke up with me. The pain I experienced then was nothing compared to what I’m feeling now, but it struck me that it might be worth refreshing my memory about the lessons learned from that breakup. So we taking a trip back in time to the earlier days in my non-monogamous exploration to see if anything I learned then can be of help now.
Before I started dating again as a married non-monogamous woman in her 40s, it had been a long long long time since I had been dumped. For over 20 years, my husband had not dumped me (at least not out loud, but I’m sure he muttered it under his breath as he emptied the dishwasher I hadn’t loaded properly). I lived with the reasonable confidence that he liked me, wanted to be with me, and that our relationship was stable. However, when we opened up our relationship, to my total surprise, one of my boyfriends dumped me. Hard. Unexpectedly. And for another woman. I was floored at how much it sucks to get dumped.
