âYou know this poly shit never works! When will you realize if you stay in it youâre just going to end up alone. Heâs just going to dump you when he finds someone younger and prettier anyway. Donât you want a family? Donât you want children? I want them with you, but i want to know that theyâre mine, not live in fear that theyâre your boyfriendâs. I donât want to have to explain to my children why mommy goes off a fucks another man on weekends!âÂ
âGet OUT! Donât come back for awhile, just LEAVE!âÂ
Six years ago I had that argument with my then secondary partner, Fawn. We were living with my primary, Mage, and broke as fuck. At the time, I was doing house chores and, in the grand tradition of those before me, lightly complaining about how bad the house was. I was actually in a pretty decent mood, Fawn though, always felt that living there was an indignity. That I was dancing too much attendance upon the person paying our bills, instead of him. He wanted out. Thus started the breakup...or it should have. He came back with things we couldnât afford to apologize, and used smooth words in a soft, sweet voice to reconcile what shouldnât have flown. We were together four years after that point.
 I met Fawn at a Halloween party hosted by a mutual friend. Two years younger than me, he was doing a bit of bar work and laughing, joking with people getting drinks and generally handling the role with aplomb. I thought he was sweet. He thought I was the most beautiful girl at the party.Â
 We met up roughly two weeks later at the Barnes & Noble in Hollywood, and sat talking for hours, about who we were at that point and who we wanted to be, in hindsight. I wasnât what he wanted, but we were younger then, and in pretty serious lust for each other. Weâd talk and text back and forth for hours, dreams, fantasies, bits about work, anything we could think of poured from our phones. There were hiccups, but I thought those were normal, everyone had quirks and growing pains. I wish i had seen the red flags that came later from the start.
 Red Flag 1: He was militantly straightedge. First off, there is nothing wrong with being straightedge, if thatâs you, you do you. Same for any other lifestyle choice, Iâll support your pursuit of it, but donât expect me to join in on it unless i think itâs a good idea for me. At the time we met, I was a light to moderate smoker and drank socially. I was even known to smoke weed on occasion. He never liked that, and often gave me disapproving stares or grumped if I would have a cigarette socially or get a drink with dinner. And tried to enforce a dry household on everyone he was friends with.Â
 Red Flag 2: I identify as mildly gender-fluid. Iâm most comfortable in tactical pants, a t-shirt and what my Sir refers to as shit-kicker boots, mostly in black, with splashes of color. These days my shirts are cut a bit more femme, but Iâm still pretty much on the same style. Fawn wanted pastels and dresses, again nothing wrong with that, if thatâs your thing, but it was forced and uncomfortable for me. He tried to change large portions of my personality to suit him, including how i ate and enjoyed things. and would pout if i failed to adjust my behavior.Â
 Red Flag 3: Total emotional shut-down whenever he was upset. Even for minor things. Simple stuff, like how I ate or not wanting to watch a show would set him off for days into a cold, silent funk. Wouldnât talk or even look at me, just cold silence.Â
 Red Flag 4: Total ideology shift from poly. He wanted me all to himself, and sulked when I spent time with my other partner, or when I talked about possibly going on a date, including, driving off someone i was kinda hopeful about with his disapproving presence. Any time I went to visit my Sir, Mage, heâd throw fits and generally try and make me miserable via text and call if i was away.Â
 Red Flag 5: The fact that most of my friends were male made him super uncomfortable. In fact, any males in my life, except my brother and father that got any portion of my time, including my ambulance partner, he was unhappy about. But it was totally okay that almost all of his friends were females. The fact that i worked with patients made him unhappy, âbecause you can see and touch their dicks!â He wanted to be the only man in my life, period.Â
 Red Flag 6: Heâd defend me to his family, then turn around and tell me that my opinion/choice/style was wrong if i was against them. Case in point, one of his sisters said something that hurt me very badly, and i admit i reacted poorly, at the time he comforted me, but then turned around and said she was right a few weeks later.Â
 Red Flag 7: Super often bouts of passive-aggressive woe-is-me commentary if my opinion about something differed or if we wanted different things. Constant little bitchy things in texts, or over the phone, and then telling me i was wrong if i called him on it. Every conversation like that was some form of gas-lighting in retrospect.
 Red Flag 8: Money. We were running on shared finances. Iâd take the bus and eat off the dollar menu, and heâd Uber to work every day, and order the most expensive thing on the menu, then bitch if we were out of money. He had no concept of being super-cheap, or the fact that maybe someone else might need the cash he had spent on his $20 lunch. Thereâs nothing wrong with the occasional splurge, but every day when your partner is scrimping is a bit much. The final straw was when I got a part-time job, that he was against, and his sudden plans for spending âourâ extra income.Â
 I should have left sooner, i should have known better then, now I do, and am in a much better place. But the memories still sting. And, sometimes, I wish he could have been happy with how I turned out, and the life Iâve made post him. Heâd never approve, but I donât need him to anymore.