I have insecurity issues particularly because I have a history of being left for other people. The man I’m with now (6mo LDR) had done so prior, married her. He’s divorced now. He doesn’t want to label what we’re doing but he tells me he loves me. He wants me to think about moving in with him from another state with my kid. I want to but I’m scared about his commitment. I can’t for a while yet. How do I talk to him about “us” and labels? I’m taking a risk, but it needs to be a calculated risk?

Hold up. If I’m reading this right, you’re currently dating a person who previously left you for another woman, married her, then divorced her and got back together with you. You’ve been together in this second relationship for six months now, all long distance. He wants you to move to another state to be with him. But he isn’t willing to use language to commit to you. 

I do not think you should make this move. I do not think you should continue to sidestep your own needs because this guy “doesn’t want to label” things. You do not “have insecurity issues,” you are in a fundamentally insecure situation. He is making sure that he provides you no security, then making you feel like your sense of insecurity is coming from your own “issues,” not a clear-eyed observation of the reality of the situation.

You have the right to ask for what you need. If he refuses to give it to you, walk away. Say something like: “The fact that you refuse to “label” what we’re doing isn’t working for me anymore. Am I your girlfriend? Are you my boyfriend? How would you define our relationship? Are we committed to seeing each other exclusively? What do you see as our future together? Are you committed to staying with me unless an issue comes up between us, not just until you don’t feel like it anymore? I need honest, clear answers to these questions before I’m willing to make any more commitments to this relationship.”

That is an appropriate and fair thing to ask. If he acts like you’re being demanding or controlling or pushy or “moving too fast,” then there’s your answer: that he is not able or willing to provide you the security that you need. He doesn’t want to make a commitment to you. He doesn’t want to give an inch, but he wants you to cross the miles for him. Stop doing 100% of the emotional heavy lifting here. Stop sacrificing your security for his freedom. Ask for what you need. If he can’t or won’t provide it, find a more secure relationship.

I’m dating a guy who lives quite a few states away from me (we’re both in the US), and he’s dating…I believe three other people currently. I’m not sure at this point, to be honest with you. Lately it seems he doesn’t want to talk to me anymore. He ignored my birthday or simply forgot, and we just don’t talk much anymore. I feel like maybe I should end my romantic relationship with him and just be friends, but it’s hard. I don’t want to hurt him since another one of his SOs just broke up w/him.

I’m probably biased because this is the exact reason I broke up with my long-distance boyfriend of 6 years, and even though it sucked, it was ultimately the right choice for me.

End this relationship, friend. He’s not meeting your needs, and the only reason you gave for not wanting to end it is something that has nothing to do with you.

You could always try one last stand: letting him know that him neglecting your birthday really bothered you, and asking him to commit to spending more time and energy making the long-distance thing work. But be prepared for him to refuse, or to make the promise and then not keep it. And if you’re already at the point where you want to leave, just leave. 

The hardest part about being in a ldr poly relationship for me is feeling like I’m being left out of my partners life. Their other partners get to go on dates and spend time with them but I don’t and I feel like I’m always the last person to know things that are happening. It makes me feel really distant with my partner. What do you suggest I do?

Long distance is so hard! My current partner and I were long distance for 4 years, and I just ended a 6 year ldr, so I totally feel you. Basically, the number one thing to do is: talk to your partner. Let them know this makes you feel unhappy and see if you two can work together to find ways of bridging that distance that work for both of you.

I find that it’s the little things that can make or break that feeling of connectedness and shared lives. Knowing what they had for lunch or what they chatted about with their boss that day takes a lot more effort to share across distance, but it’s what keeps you close. Silly little texts throughout the day like “hey I saw this dog” go a long way; don’t wait for a long catch-up session.

Here is a previous column of mine where I give some advice about how to stay connected during a long distance relationship. If both of you are okay with it, try and set a routine of more frequent, low-key contact. If their job, routine, or preferences don’t allow for that, you’ll need to talk more about how to get your needs met.

I am also a firm believer in the magic of the group chat. Set up a text chain, a slack team, a google hangout, whatever, with you, them, and their other partners and just be silly and chatty in there. (This doesn’t work for everyone; some people hate group chats. But I find that if you can find a platform that works for everyone, they really foster intimacy.)

Previous columns on this:

Group chats & shared experiences

Keeping communication open across distance

Managing when your LDR partner can pay different attention to their proximal partners

I’m in my first poly relationship and it’s long distance. My partner was saying how they feel like I’m only their boyfriend when I’m in town and how they feel like we aren’t friends. I want this relationship to last. What can I do? I’m so new at this

It sounds like both of those issues are primarily stemming from the long distance, not necessarily the polyamory. 

If your partner feels like you’re only their boyfriend when you’re in town, it sounds like they need more from you during times when you’re apart. Being long distance can be hard, because the foundation of a relationship is often build on the shared little things - knowing the names of each other’s classmates or coworkers; little chats when you’re leaving in the morning; all those small shared moments.

The best thing to do would be to ask your partner for specifics about when and why they feel this way. What are they missing from you? What would make them feel like you’re their friend? Their boyfriend? What is their best-case scenario? Then, ask yourself whether you can provide that, or whether you two just need different things. 

They might have more of a focus on ‘slow burn’ things that keep a relationship alive in the day-to-day rather than the big bonfires of exciting visits. Things like:

• If both of you have smartphones, sending each other photos of neat things you see during your day
  
• Sending links to articles you enjoyed & discussing them
• Texting them little details about your day
• Asking them little details about their day
• Mailing them letters, postcards, or care packages
• Calling or video chatting once a week (or on whatever arbitrary schedule works for you two)

If you’re really not the kind of person who likes to keep up this daily chatty shared-life thing, then you can either:

• A.) set up things like reminders on your phone to send them a text, set up rituals like texting them when you sit down to lunch, etc. or
• B.) let them know clearly that this is not something you are willing or able to do, and that dating you long distance means seeing you during visits and getting as much boyfriend-type attention during times apart as you are willing and able to give.
  

Both choices come with pros and cons, as do most choices in life. If you choose A, it comes with the risk that this will frustrate and burn you out, if this is really something you’re not emotionally equipped to do, and you may feel resentful if meeting your partner’s needs feels like a chore or a demand. On the other hand, if they are worth the energy and you genuinely enjoy it, problem solved!

If you choose B, your partner may decide that they cannot be in a long distance relationship with you under those terms, and that’s their right. Or, you two might figure out a way to be together with different expectations now that that’s out on the table. I was actually just in a very similar situation with one of my long distance partners, which ended with me explaining that I needed more from him, him explaining that he could not give me more, and me making the hard choice to end things.

Good luck!

so ive been single for about 5 months now i like a girl and she likes me the only thing is im not sure if im ready to be in another long distance relationship even if i have known her for awhile what should i do?

Going for a long distance relationship can be daunting. It can also be hard to jump into a new relationship if you were just figuring out who you are in this new period of being single. There are a lot of variables influencing your decision - the long distance and the recency of your last breakup should be considered separately, I think.

Ultimately, it’s about you knowing your needs and how to best get them met. There are pros and cons to every choice, and I can’t make yours for you. The one thing I’d recommend is to commit to whatever choice you make, rather than keeping her (and yourself) on the line while waiting to see how things shake down. That doesn’t mean things can’t change later, but it means that whatever terms you set for your present relationship with this girl aren’t being clouded by hopes and expectations for a future that may or may not happen. 

Hi! I’m really new to the whole idea of being polyamorous. I’m currently in college, and my boyfriend of 4 years goes to college in our hometown about 3 hours away. This is the man I love to death and can see myself/want to marry. However, the distance is starting to get to me. When I’m home, it doesn’t affect our sex life at all, but I only go home about once every two months. With us both being so young and the distance factor, I was wondering what advice you had for someone in my position.

I was delighted to the point of giddiness to get this question, because I was in your exact same situation all through college! Well, sort of. Long story short, my boyfriend and I lived a 6 hour plane flight apart for all 4 years of college and polyamory is one of the major reasons we were able to stay together happily. I heartily recommend polyamory - or at least an open relationship with sexual freedom - for young people in long-distance relationships, especially in college.

Now, I’m not trying to sound all doom-and-gloom, telling you that a college LDR will never ever work, or that mono people can’t be successfully long-distance. I can say that I didn’t see a single mono LDR work among my college friends, and explain some of the reasons that they fell apart - cheating, resentment and jealous paranoia being the main three, as explained below. I can also say that being poly was what allowed my boyfriend and I to maintain a successful LDR through college, sometimes going up to 6 months without seeing each other. We made it through, had plenty of fun in the process, and are moving in together in August! So my advice would be: either try going poly, or, if you decide to stay mono, be really cognizant of the three factors I explain here, learn how to recognize them when they start to threaten your relationship and figure out how to head them off.

The 3 Biggest Threats To A LDR In College (and how polyamory helps ward them off):

Cheating. College is a sexual wonderland full of new people and intoxicating substances. There will be people you meet who are new and exciting and sexy and available. Much of your social life will take place in bedrooms. If you are like 100% of everyone I knew in college, you will give in to the temptation. And if you’re poly, you won’t have to give up this wonderful relationship for the chance at a drunken hookup with that really hot philosophy major. That is a really shitty tradeoff, but it’s a tradeoff you’re very likely to make. But if your relationship doesn’t have to end to allow you to have fun and explore in college, you won’t have to lose the bird in your hand if you want some dick in your bush. (I don’t know whether you are actually a woman but I couldn’t resist that pun, please forgive the heteronormativity.) Going poly makes your relationship essentially cheat-proof!

Resentment. Going poly will also help ward off the danger of you two growing to resent each other. This is something I didn’t realize could poison an LDR until I was in one. When you are long-distance and monogamous, it is easy to get frustrated with your partner for not being there. When you get lonely, you start to irrationally blame them. Slowly, “I miss you and wish you were here” loses its absence-makes-the-heart-grow-fonder tone and gets more and more accusatory. Now, not all LDRs suffer from this and plenty of mono people make LDRs work just fine, but I recognized early on that this was a risk for me, and I was grateful that being poly let me enjoy everything my boyfriend could provide for me without being resentful about his inability to provide me with other things. I could go out and get my needs for physical companionship met, so when my thoughts turned to the boyfriend, I could focus on how happy he made me even from far away, not how sad his absence made me.

This resentment also creeps in when it comes to sexual encounters you’ll have to turn down if you’re mono. If you really want that hot philosophy major, and there he is suddenly in your bed watching Arrested Development at 2am, but you summon all your self-control and resist, that will be a moment of high emotional tension where you lose out on something that you really wanted because of your obligation to your boyfriend. If your brain starts in on the thought loop of “if it wasn’t for him, I could have everything I want that’s right here in front of me,” that will be a tough rut of resentment to climb out of. When I was in college, I saw this happen over and over. My friends started facing lose-lose choices - either they cheated and had a messy breakup, or resisted cheating and in the process grew lonely and resentful and then broke things off when that frustration got too much. But if you’re poly, your relationship doesn’t become this thing that forces you into unpleasant decisions and prevents you from taking advantage of opportunities that you really, really want.

Jealousy & Paranoia. Even if you’re totally happy in a monogamous LDR, remember that on the other end of things, your boyfriend is also meeting hot philosophy majors and getting drunk in other people’s bedrooms and missing you with a passionate longing that threatens to turn malignant. If you’re constantly worried about him cheating on you, you’ll make yourself miserable. I saw friends who were previously not jealous or possessive get into the awful habit of scrutinizing all their partner’s FB photos to see whether they were standing near the same person in too many of them, or getting worried when they didn’t text back quickly enough on a Friday night. Jealousy and paranoia are not welcome guests in any relationship. Knowing that he has the freedom to enjoy college without having to give you up in the process will help you keep these at bay.

There you have my two cents on polyamorous LDRs for college students. I am a big fan and a happy success story. Congratulations on having found someone wonderful! You’re young and smart, so you should be able to have it all - the college experience you want and the great boyfriend. Good luck, and enjoy!