Topics in Poly Living: Relationship Transitions

Surprisingly, despite the months of fighting, it didn't end in in screaming. There was a month of everything just going along, where I spent all my time in my head, turning everything over and over again, all the things I could not and would not say, what my options were, etc.It's only in the last week that I've been able to articulate a fair assessment of the problems. Apparently she had much the same thought and today we told them to each other.

My version: While we both work hard to love each other, trust each other, and be there for each other, what we think those things look like are so different that it is recognized by the other person, who ends up not feeling loved, trusted, or taken care of. This is a gap that I don't know how to bridge.

Her version: The things we need to be in the kind of relationship we were trying for are both incompatible and non-negotiable, so we can't have that kind of relationship. We need to focus on what we can have, what we are good at. 

So I guess my triad is now a V. Maybe it always was. We are good at running the house together. Sometimes we are good at being friends. I think that we still have a partnership of sorts. Maybe we're sister wives after all. 

Of course, with the way my brain works, I have all kinds of questions, ones neither of us have answers for. What does this mean for co-parenting? Does she still see us as both being mommies to our kids? What do we call each other to outsiders? Is it dishonest to still call each other girlfriends? I know lots of married men who still call the woman they don't have sex or romance with "wife" so maybe that's just as good. Did I fail because it didn't work out as a triad? Have I just become another failed unicorn, another example for why triad poly doesn't work? What basis do we have of asking that boundaries be set in regards to she or I dating others when we aren't dating each other? If / when the Professor isn't around, does she want to keep our household together, especially for the kids growing up, or not because we don't have that link? How are we going to sort out fluid bonding?

But the more important question for now is how to I mourn that relationship we had hoped for for so long while we're still living together and having this other relationship?