I Dated Someone Who Was In An Open Relationship & It Was A Disaster

I knew he was in an open relationship but I dated him anyway. To be honest, I thought he’d dump his girlfriend for me—our relationship was that good! Obviously that didn’t happen. In fact, being with him ruined my self-esteem for a while (and that’s just the beginning).

1. I couldn’t help but compare myself to his girlfriend. He didn’t hide the fact he had a girlfriend. In fact, he dropped her name kind of a lot so I couldn’t help but think about her every time we were together. Was she funny? Was she good in bed? Was she a better kisser than me? I wanted to know how I compared to her and why he was dating me too if she was so great.
2. Sex was a little strange. I had no idea how many women he was swapping fluids with but the thought of his penis in other vaginas grossed me out, especially because he always wanted to go in without a condom. (Weird, right?) Birth control pills or no birth control pills, I wasn’t letting that go down.
3. I couldn’t introduce him to other people. I told my friends about him and they all thought I was insane. They didn’t care he was in an open relationship, they just knew I wouldn’t be able to handle dating someone who was also dating other people. They were correct, of course, but it still sucked that none of my friends wanted to meet the guy I was seeing.
4. We had way too much fun together. It really felt like I was the only one he was dating. He texted me every day, planned dates, and we hung out all the time. I never once felt like one of several other women. We had a lot of fun together—so much fun that it made me wonder why he couldn’t just commit to one person (i.e. me).
5. Our relationship wasn’t fair. He was the one in an open relationship, not me. I was faithful to him and only him and that made everything unbalanced. It would’ve been different if I was in another relationship or at least seeing someone else but I wasn’t. Why? Because I wasn’t interested in dating anyone but him.
6. I constantly felt insecure. I couldn’t help but see competition in everyone. He could date anyone he wanted without any consequences, so why wouldn’t he date the waitress at our favorite restaurant or the barista who always flirted with him? Every girl in the world was my competition and that felt wrong.
7. I couldn’t handle his social media. His girlfriend was all over his social media profiles as were some other girls. I don’t know if they were his cousins or people he was sleeping with but the pictures absolutely crushed me. Every post he put up made me want to cry but I couldn’t unfollow him. I had to know what was going on in his life!
8. I never felt like I could ask him questions. I wanted to know how I compared to his girlfriend, I wanted to know if he’d ever leave her for me and I definitely wanted to know if he was seeing anyone else. I had so many questions and yet I didn’t feel like I could ask any of them. He wasn’t mine, after all. He didn’t owe me anything, not even answers.
9. His girlfriend was completely fine with it. I want to make one thing clear: his girlfriend didn’t care about our relationship. They were very honest with each other (I guess that’s one of the “open relationship” rules). According to him, she was also seeing other people, and maybe she was. All I know is that her approval made me even more uncomfortable.
10. I lived off the hope that he would eventually pick me. I honestly thought he’d wake up one day and realize I was perfect for him. We made sense together! We got along well and he genuinely seemed to care about me but he didn’t want me, not completely. He liked not being 100% tied down to just one person and he loved his girlfriend—he was never going to walk away from his open relationship lifestyle. I get that now.