I walked in on my boyfriend with another woman and I then and there broke up with him for cheating, something I told him at the beginning of our relationship told him was a straight red card for me. I moved out of our shared apartment and have tried to cut off contact, at least for the time being to get past my hurt. He claims now that he is poly and I am being intolerant and that was wrong to break up with him because of it and especially to label it as infidelity. He’s even gotten some of our mutual friends on board with his defense, telling me if he’s poly what he did was not cheating and I need to get over it and apologize for calling him a cheater. I do try to be tolerant. I have no issues with people who want to be in polyamorous relationships, but I know they aren’t for me. Him being poly was never something he communicated to me in the 6 years we were together, I wouldn’t not have entered into a relationship with him if he had. Is what he did cheating? Or am I being ignorant?
Wow. The cojones on that guy. This nonsense would be funny if it wasn’t so maddening. I don’t want to make this about me instead of you, but fuck do people like this give polyamory a bad name and make me want to explode with baffled rage.
You are not ignorant. You did everything right. You knew your boundaries and stuck to them. He is 100% in the wrong. There is no grey area or wiggle room in the situation you described.
This guy is an absolute disaster. Of course what he did was cheating. Do not second guess yourself on this. Do not look back. Cut ties with all those “mutual friends.” Find new friends. All I want for you is joy and fun. Do everything that makes you happy. Be self indulgent. I’d send you on a cruise if I had the money.
I’m being so blunt here because I think, from your letter, that you know how absurd his argument is, and just wanted a sanity check because you’re being massively gaslit right now. If you want me to actually dive into why he’s wrong, why “tolerance” does not obligate you to accept horrible behavior from people, why this counts as cheating - send me a follow up.