I’ve been in love with a man who loves me back… and he loves someone else, as well.

For the first time in my entire life I found myself in a dynamic like this. Never has it crossed my mind that it would happen to me.

I was sure that now that I’ve finally moved on from unhealthy relationships, my future in love was bright and joyful. Little did I know.

I used to have a friend who was polyamorous; love being something unlimited in her romantic relationships, for love can only expand.

I’ve always been supportive of this friend. Whatever works as they say, for each person; love is love and for as long as there’s peace, joy and harmony, good on them.

What I was clear on though is that I am definitely monogamous.

How did I know? Because of the way I’ve always loved.

In my experience, when I am in love, I only have eyes for that one person, I only have heart for that one person: my person. It’s not something I choose or decide, it just is.

When I fell in love with the man this article is about, let’s call him Ali, he was in a relationship with someone.

When Ali and I first met, in March 2023, I remember him making an innocent joke at one point that to me sounded somewhat flirtatious, and I remember thinking to myself:

Who do you think you are, sir? You are literally the opposite of my type.

He was charismatic and charming from the go, yes, and I felt drawn to be around him, but only as friends.

When I first noticed myself catching feelings for him, very gradually, I never said anything to him. I had absolutely no idea that he felt the same way about me, that our emotions for one another were simultaneously intensifying, slowly and progressively.

It was last summer when our friendship really took off, as we decided to collaborate on some projects together. I visited his home and met his partner for the first time. I thought to myself then how wonderful she was, in a way she even reminded me of myself a little.

My feelings for Ali were mere infatuation at that point and all I thought then was that with such an incredible partner by his side, there was absolutely no reason for him to even look in my direction. What I wished for instead was to meet someone similar, but single.

My friendship with Ali continued, with many shared laughs and admiration for one another. We loved spending time together and I felt amazing about myself in his presence, as a person, as a friend, as a professional.

Then one day, Cupid paid a visit and love, like a strike of lightning hit us both.

It was in December when we had both realised we were in love, but both still oblivious to the fact that it was mutual.

With love in the picture, there was no more space for these big feelings to be kept secret.

Since Ali was committed, I had made myself a promise not to tell him that I was falling in love with him. I promised myself I would say nothing at all,unless he ever said something himself first.

At the time when I already had strong feelings for Ali, I saw him and his partner together twice. Both times I could hear my heart break to pieces inside me and ache in agony, as I watched her call him darling and kiss his lips. Both times I cried on my way home after these encounters.

Then one day, the conversation happened.

The blazing energy between Ali and I was indisputable. Indirectly and very subtly Ali brought up the topic. After walking some time around the bush, afraid to be straightforward, we both confessed and were both shocked that our feelings were mutual.

There was one thing however that I did not see coming…

When Ali expressed how he felt for me, I assumed that if he is in love with me, he is therefore, no longer in love with his partner.

My brain was so confused when he said to me that he feels equally in love with the both of us. The moment he told me this, I rushed to say how nothing can happen between us.

Before you wonder: Ali did tell his partner too, that same day or the next I believe. He expressed the truth about his emotions to her, and as much as I know it did hurt her, understandably so, she found the space in herself to be understanding and compassionate. I was in utter disbelief that she held nothing against me.

A few short months down the line we would meet with her one on one and talk about the situation. We hugged and we both cried, both at a loss as per what to do, both certain that neither of us has the heartspace for polyamory.

But let’s reverse to the beginning.

For Ali this experience was just as new and confusing.

He was not and never has experienced polyamorous feelings before, and was equally at a loss about what the right thing to do was. For the weeks to come we continued being friends, limiting ourselves to as much as a hug.

I thought that with time Ali’s confusion would dissolve and he would feel clear about who it is that he loves. I thought he was in an ‘in-between’ area of sorts; his feelings were either transitioning from her to me, or his feelings for me were just lust or limerence, and not love, and hence would pass. Likewise I wanted to give myself some time to see if maybe my emotions would somehow vanish, or at the very least diminish.

I even thought to myself that I should give myself more time to get to know him because once I do, I’d realise how he’s definitely not my type. And so I got to know him more, and fell in love more. *facepalm*

It was me who kissed him first, hoping that he would acquire some clarity. All it did was add to the confusion. Don’t ask me what was I thinking.

What followed next were months of dissociation for me and an endless number of times of us breaking up and getting back together again.

When we were together, like two magnets we gravitated towards each other. It no longer felt possible to keep distance, the gravitational pull was too strong. When we were together, the entire world would disappear.

I loved everything about him: his acts of kindness, his sense of humour, his laugh, his inner child, his fun nature, the way he’d give my face a dozen kisses, his ability to uphold an interesting conversation, his inclination for self growth, his attentiveness, reliability, support and loving attitude towards me. I loved how safe I felt in his presence and how soothing he was for my nervous system. And perhaps most of all I loved the energy between us, and his hugs.

I felt that I had met my soulmate. I couldn’t help but envision a future together. I saw in him my ride or die, my best friend, and eventually even my potential husband.

When we spent time together, my heart was on a high, to me it was just the two of us, I would completely forget that somewhere a few kilometres away, there was another woman waiting for him. It was when it was time to say goodbye that reality would hit me.

The realisation that he has someone else and he is on his way to see her. Someone else who he expresses words of love to, who he kisses and shares intimate moments with.

How is that possible?

My heart and my mind could not grasp the concept of this. It drove me to tears and an aching heart. I couldn’t imagine myself doing that to him and so I couldn’t understand how could he hurt me like this; or why would he hurt her like this? I would equally place myself in his partners shoes and all I could see was a lack of compassion on his end.

I felt like I was “the other woman” and this made me feel cheap and guilty, as if I was the one he was cheating on his partner with. Even though Ali had told me that his partner and him had agreed to open their relationship ever since their first chat about the situation, I couldn’t bring myself to feel okay with it. All I could think of was that I was the lover in the scenario, and ever since childhood, my associations with the word ‘lover’ have been very far from positive or neutral.

Very gradually and almost invisibly I began to accumulate feelings of shame, guilt, sadness, depression….one tiny drop at a time… a drop that five months down the line would compound into an ocean worth of these feelings, stripping me entirely off my positivity, my joy, my high energy, my laughter and authentic self identity. I stopped sharing content online honestly, a part of me felt I would be humiliated.

I used to think before that if I ever were to develop feelings for a man who is already committed, there is no way in hell that I would step foot anywhere close.

Waw. Now I understood. I was placed in those shoes first hand. My love for Ali overshadowed everything.

After all, this was my soulmate we are talking about and it just happens to be that when we were brought together, he was still with someone else. They certainly will break up, right?

I didn’t want our relationship to be kept secret, I wanted to be open about it and share Ali with the world. He wanted that too and numerous times expressed it to me that he is happy to go public about it; one time he almost did. It was I who stopped him, for I couldn’t do it, not until he made a decision: who does he wish to stay with, me or her?

I also couldn’t promise Ali that if he were to break up with her, we would now be a ‘happily ever after’. I was aware that it is not uncommon for me to fall for unavailable men, and I had no idea if him being single would change how I felt towards him.

I was also cautious whether my feelings towards him were intertwined with the fact that he was helping me financially, helping me with work. I asked myself the question if I would be just as attracted to him if I were entirely independent of him? I couldn’t answer that. Instead I insisted that if he were to break up with his partner, it should be because their relationship was no longer working; it shouldn’t be because of me per se.

Moreover, if Ali were to become single, I wanted for us to go slow and start small, with a first dinner date and flowers on his end, and to get to know each other one step at a time.

Of course, from Ali’s perspective things were much different, it was a matter of giving up an entire lifetime and people he had built a home with. When he asked me if we would move in together, if he were to leave, all I could say was that my idea was to live alone, and that perhaps, potentially, maybe, my idea would change down the line. This answer, I believe, only added to Ali’s doubts and uncertainty.

Although I felt compassion for Ali’s partner, I couldn’t help resent her whenever he brought up her name.

I would tell myself that what they have is attachment, it’s codependency, it’sfamily love, but it certainly can’t be love-love. I equally continued to believe that in reality she despises me. Then one day I ran into her. Thankfully she was alone.

Although I felt awkward, I rushed out of my car and asked her if we could talk. The first words that came out of my mouth were “I am so sorry”, as tears run down my cheeks I expressed to her how I had never planned on this to happen.

I did not expect for her to hug me and reassure me that she held nothing against me.

I on the other hand, could not understand how was it possible that she did not tell me to go fuck myself? I would have. I felt like cheap trash.

It was easy to detest the other woman for as long as we hadn’t actually spoken one on one. But once I found myself face to face with her, I saw a human I related to, felt empathy for, and my conscience was now all the more present.

I had every intention to stop meeting up with Ali after our encounter with her, unless it was for professional reasons and at a public space. I believed that it had to be me who walked away. I also thought that if I created space between us, he would then feel clear if he misses me enough to come back to me, or if he wants to stay with her.

The distance between us didn’t last long. Instead, a pattern had developed:

First Ali and I would spend time together and enjoy every second of it. Then Ali would leave and reality would hit me. As I experienced the pain of abandonment, I would tell him how I could not do this anymore, not unless he was single. I would then break up with him. This would then cause him heartache and depression, he felt abandoned by me just as much. A few days later we would see each other for work, hold our distance for a brief time, keep our language dry… but the pull of gravity didn’t go anywhere, we were still magnets, and like magnets do we would end up in each others embrace, with a hug leading to a kiss, and back we were at square one.

Clarity had no intent on visiting, at least not in the way I waited for it.

I shared my feelings with Ali, about how painful this was for me. Never did I tell him to choose me, or to leave her; I merely wanted him to decide: me or her. His other partner, I have reason to believe, wished for the same thing.

Ali was understanding and compassionate of the both of us, but we were asking him to break his heart in two, for this was not something he could just pick. He loved us both and couldn’t do anything about it.

There was a moment when I told myself that I will just do whatever I feel, ultimately it should not affect me what he or her are doing; I should not care. I am only responsible for my own feelings and my life experience. I tried this method but all it did was add to the dissociation.

The fact that I pretended that everything was fine for me, meant nothing to my subconscious. Silently, I was accumulating everything deep inside, and would eventually break down.

Likewise I had tried bargaining with my mentality, I asked myself the question whether it was I who wasn’t open minded enough, who wasn’t sufficiently spiritually awakened to the idea of unconditional love. In a way this only made me feel inadequate and imperfect the way I was. I was rejecting my emotions and invalidating my experience. We want what we want and at every stage of life it is okay to do so.

Other times it would hit me how disrespectful I was being towards myself, how pathetic I was in hoping and waiting to be chosen.

I deserve better than this, I deserve to be certain of, I deserve a love that cares for my needs and acts upon it, I deserve a man who chooses me without a second thought, a man who says ‘’that’s all you need?”.

In these moments I’d pull myself together, ready to show Ali where the door was. In the end however I would always return to placing myself in his position and reminding myself that he wasn’t doing this deliberately, that we all feel what we feel, and we shouldn’t punish people for their feelings.

It is now that I realise that regardless of how someone else feels, whether they’re right or wrong, what matters most is how we feel within ourselves.

What I want for my life, for myself – matters, and it is no less important than what someone else wants for theirs.

There was one time when Ali and I went on a trip together for two days. To say it was incredible is to say very little; every love chemical had spiked up and through the roof. Upon return back home, Ali had an event he was attending. Initially I did not intend on going but last minute I decided to surprise him. I texted him and asked if he was attending the event alone…

“No, she is coming too”.

You know what happens when you experience higher levels of bonding, intimacy and happiness together? The drops reach an equal level of low, the pain intensifies too, tripling in its magnitude.

I stayed home that night, once again experiencing heartache, only this timethe heartache was a lot more excruciating than the times before. I broke up with Ali the following day. This wasn’t our final breakup; the final one would follow a much harder hit to the ground.

The Stages of Grief.

Denial. Depression. Bargaining. Anger.

The one missing was Acceptance, which never came.

I remember when anger hit me though. I broke down one day and could not stop crying, this time the tears simply wouldn’t cease running down my cheeks; everything that had piled up inside me was pouring out, my dissociation from the reality of the circumstances had caught up.

I felt so angry with him, I felt as if all I was doing was accommodating him, all while he was ignorantly shrugging off the pain he caused me. I felt like punching him. He did have to make a decision who to commit to, it was hewho had two choices, not us.

Ali suggested that we meet up the three of us to talk…

…somehow he felt that it would be helpful. I thought he was insane. What did he want, for me to grab a bat and smack it over his partners head? Or his head? Did he want to witness a murder scene?

Jokes aside though, in reality what I felt would happen, if I were to see them in the same room together, and god forbid express any signs of affection towards each other, is I would break down crying; I thought it would completely break me.

There was only one way, which was for me to make a choice, do I stay or do I go?

The last time we saw each other, before two whole months of barely any contact was in April.

It was our last day of a mutual work project, it was also the day when shame and humiliation would swallow me alive, intruding their way deep inside my bloodstream, making me incapable of thinking, paying attention, acting normally.

Shame and humiliation had literally embodied me.

The minute we finished work, I excused myself and left home. Ali saw it on my face that something was clearly wrong, I was not myself. He sent me a message saying he was worried for me.

I spent the next three days in bed, incapable of anything. I knew that this is it, this is the end, because if it wasn’t, it would be the end of me as I knew myself.

I couldn’t even bring myself to verbalise it, that we are breaking up for good. I was only capable of saying that I could not meet up today. Then repeat the same sentence tomorrow: I cannot meet up today.

I requested for him to not message me and to give me time to disconnect. It helped and as days went on I felt myself returning to myself again, to my own energy, my inner joy, once again I was experiencing authentic laughter.

And then what happened?

At some point during our separation time his partner got in touch with me. She asked if we could talk and we jumped on a video call. Being just the two of us on the line, it almost felt to me like we were speaking about two separate men with the same name. Of course it was the same Ali, but my mind had to self protect.

It felt like talking to a close friend, we shared our difficulties, we laughed, and we seemed to be entirely on the same page; our values and our morals aligned, and so did our painful experience of the situation. We both felt completely understood by one other, to the point that I could no longer avoid considering her when making decisions regarding Ali.

Damn it, why did we have to speak? Why did you have to make me care about you? It was so much easier when you were just a mirage, Alexandra.

Sigh.

The next time I saw Ali was in June. He showed up to a meeting without warning me, which had caught me completely off guard.

On the positive side, I looked drop dead gorgeous that day.

I acted neutral, we said hello but barely interacted, and only on my way home that evening, I tapped into my feelings regarding our unexpected encounter. My feelings felt like they were nowhere near ready to see him. It felt like he just opened up a wound that was only starting to heal. I sent him a long text that night expressing everything I felt. I was not very nice.

He asked if we could meet to talk, after all we were both members of the same community and were bound to see each other weekly. We met up. Deep down I think we were both hoping that the other had changed their mind, and that we could somehow resolve this, and maybe be together again… but that wasn’t the case. Our viewpoints and our feelings hadn’t changed regarding the dynamic we had found ourselves in.

For the next three weeks I avoided going to any meeting where I knew I could bump into him, until July came and we were both attending an event that neither of us wanted to miss out on.

When the day came I was the first one to arrive. My heart was burning with anticipation and anxiety, nervously awaiting for the moment he would make an appearance. He arrived over an hour late and I felt like a 17 year old kid who had just spotted her prom crush.

For the most part we were sat at different ends of the venue and had interacted only once the entire night. I was at the bar getting a drink and he walks in to order one too. As Ali approached me we gave each other a hug, which rather noticeably neither of us wanted to let go of. We exchanged a few polite sentences and the night continued, each in his separate corner.

Of course I wanted to come up to him, to talk to him, sit next to him, spend the evening close to him, pull him out to dance… but I had learnt my lesson.

I was wary that if I was to act on any of my desires or emotions, I would open up a door which took me so much of my mental health to shut, and potentially reverse all of my progress back to square one, where a hug leads to a kiss, and down the spiral we would go again.

You cannot expect a different result by continuing on doing the same thing, I reminded myself.

I hadn’t changed. He hadn’t changed. Therefore the consequences would not have changed either. I still wanted him all to myself. He still loved the both of us, and I couldn’t bring myself to embrace that, not at the expense of my mental health.

I’ll confess: that evening my mind was wishfully inclined to believe that Ali had changed his perspective, that over the course of our separation, which was around 3 months, he was somehow illuminated to the realisation that I was his one and only. Was I silly to think that?

It was my friend Tomas who snapped me out of my delusion. He explained to me how I had created a mental picture of what was meant to happen and was continuously causing myself pain because reality wasn’t matching it.

Tomas equally pointed out to me that the act of hoping that something would change while we are separated is a form of manipulation. Not deliberate manipulation, but me holding on tightly to an idea and hoping for Ali’s return, was manipulation nonetheless.

I think it is only after that evening that I had finally allowed myself to acknowledge reality for what it is, and not what I wished for it to be.

Reality is not a world where there is Ali and I. Reality is also: Alexandra.

I’ve been in love with a man who loves us both, he loves me, and he loves Alexandra.

It has been very challenging for me to let it sink in that he genuinely, he actually, he truly loves her. Just as much as he, according to Ali, loves me too.

And yet, as understanding and compassionate as I am towards Ali, first and foremost I must show compassion for myself, and my soul wishes for a union of two.

At last I had invited the grief of letting go to flow through me…

So strong was my desire to hold on tightly, every shared memory called in nostalgia and an array of tears. At last I gave myself permission to believe that it is time to say goodbye to a life chapter.

How did I do it?

I sat with my feelings, I continue to sit with my feelings. I sit with the hurt and let myself feel it, while taking deep breaths, and with every exhale I release one piece of him at a time.

Acceptance.

I accept the situation for what it is.

I accept that Alexandra exists and is loved by you.

I accept that this is not my last love story.

I accept that I’ve been holding on to a mental picture.

I accept that I am moving on.

I accept that even though a beautiful chapter has come to a close, a new one will be born.

And…

I accept Myself, for who I am, the way I am, the way I love and how I love.

I accept and I let go.

Epilogue.

One year ago I felt unattractive as a woman. My feminine worth was hardwired to my financial instability. I felt that for as long as my ass was broke, other women – all women – were alluring to men, and I wasn’t.

Ali, at some point of us being together, I had completely let dissolve this insecurity, which followed me around for years. You’ve never cared whether I had or had not a penny to my name. Your attention has always been on who it is you saw in me; physical aspects aside.

You’ve allowed me to surrender into my feminine energy, by taking care of me when I struggled.

Before I met you, I lived with my nervous system on high alert. I was often fearful in anticipation of your reactions to my thoughts, my feelings and my behaviour. Time and time again you met me with peaceful embrace and warmth. Overtime I’ve let my guard down and found safety in my own bold self expression.

By daringly expressing your real feelings to me, exactly as they are, you’ve gifted me the opportunity to practice standing firm in my boundaries;inviting me to show myself compassion and to prioritise myself, in the face of being loved so dearly by you.

You’ve given me the chance to practice bravery and belief in myself, belief that I am loveable even without your love.

You’ve pushed me to take accountability for my own feelings, my responses, and my experiences.

You have shined a light on the unhealed parts in me, by triggering my wounds, which said to me that I am not enough. You’ve gifted me the opportunity to nourish my self-love once and for all. For going forward I shall never accept a love that will be less than yours was for me, and going forward I will only accept the kind of love that is more than what you were able to offer me.

I walk away with lessons learnt, and in a way I do not walk away at all.

I choose not to run from you as I have from my past lovers. I choose to transmute our shared experience into friendship, warmth and light, for I am grateful for you and I will always love you dearly as a friend, and hold you tenderly close to my heart.

You are no longer my secret Ali. Our love story happened and I do not want to hide that.