Navigating Love, Loss, and Lessons: My Journey through Polyamory

Trigger Warning: This series discusses sensitive topics, including mental health struggles and suicidal thoughts. Please read with care, and prioritize your well-being.

I didn’t begin this journey with polyamory as my goal. Instead, I was searching for something deeper—trying to understand what I truly want in life. For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with feelings of being unlovable and flawed. I often prioritized the happiness of others over my own well-being, convinced that my worth depended on how much I could give or how perfectly I could meet others’ expectations.

This way of thinking followed me into my relationships. I felt like I owed the people around me more than I could give and lived in fear that if I failed them, they’d leave. Polyamory, for me, wasn’t an intentional choice so much as another way of trying to make sense of myself and the world around me. I thought that by loving freely, by attempting to embrace and articulate my own needs and desires, I might finally find clarity—or even feel worthy of the love I was giving.

What I found instead was a path filled with both beauty and struggle. Polyamory, and the relationships I've had have challenged me to confront my fears, my boundaries, and the ways I had learned to value myself through others. Along the way, I experienced moments of joy and connection, but I also faced the hardest lessons of my life—including moments where I struggled with my own identity, and a sense of despair I saw no end in sight to.

In this blog series, I’ll start by sharing the stories of three significant relationships that have shaped my journey: Triss, my first love in the polyamorous world and still a current partner, who has taught me how to grow alongside her even amidst uncertainty and pain; Willow, whose relationship pushed me to find balance and advocate for my needs in ways I hadn’t before; and Sam, whose mental health challenges, personality disorder, and emotional intensity stretched my limits to breaking point, and compelled me to confront my own inner battles.

To protect the privacy of everyone involved, I’ll be writing under the name Flynn and have changed the names of all individuals in these stories. Privacy is deeply important to me—not just for my own comfort but out of respect for the people who have been part of my life and my growth.

This series won’t be a simple recounting of events. I don’t know how many posts it will take to explore everything I want to share. Some stories will span multiple entries, reflecting the complexity of these relationships and the lessons I’ve drawn from them.

Writing these posts is an act of self-reflection—a way for me to process the past and make sense of the experiences I’ve carried. As such I will be attempting to be as non-biased as I can be, articulating my own flaws and limits I've had to explore as part of this journey as well. With that said, I am no mind-reader, and can only express what others have said and done, with no more insight into their own motives than what I can ponder by myself, or with my therapist. Perhaps there is truth in any analysis, perhaps not - all I can hope for is a broadened understanding of myself, and how I wish to be in future. 

Polyamory has been more than just a relationship structure for me; it has been a way of questioning social norms, exploring the idea of self-defined living, and wrestling with the confusion that comes from stepping outside traditional expectations.

Through these reflections, I hope to heal. I hope to understand why I made the choices I did and begin to see my past not as a series of mistakes, but as the path that brought me here. My goal isn’t to paint polyamory as either perfect or flawed—it’s to share my truth in the hope that it resonates with anyone else who has felt lost in the search for love and identity.

Thank you for joining me as I navigate this journey.