I Was Madly In Love. Then My Partner Told Me They Had A Crush... On Our Friend.

The author (left) and Quinn celebrating their first anniversary in Baltimore a few months before the polyamory conversation came back on the table.Courtesy of Eryn Johnson Sunnolia

“I have a crush on someone,” my partner, Quinn, said, sitting next to me on our therapist’s gray couch. Those were the words I’d been dreading since we stopped being polyamorous a year earlier.

When they told me it was our close friend, I threw my head back and laughed. Later, I curled up in their lap and cried.

Advertisement

Quinn and I were both polyamorous when we met. They weren’t dating anyone; I was living with my boyfriend at the time. My feelings for Quinn brought my uncertainty about my boyfriend, whom I had been with for four years, into sharp contrast. Two months after my first date with Quinn, I left him.

When Quinn and I decided to be partners, we shared what we loved about polyamory: the ability to get needs met through multiple relationships, the freedom to be individuals and the endless possibilities.

Advertisement

“I love the idea of there being infinite, limitless love,” my Pisces partner waxed dreamily.

However, we accidentally fell into monogamy, drunk off a love like nothing either of us had experienced before. I felt like I’d been looking for them — and my own authentic self brought to life through our relationship — my whole life. We made collages on their bedroom floor, ate injera wraps while watching the sunset on their roof and read each other our favorite poems in bed.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I told them one morning as we laid in bed. Our faces were inches from each other, basking in the easy intimacy we’d grown.

Advertisement

A smile broke across Quinn’s face like clouds parting for the sun. “I’m falling in love with you too,” they confessed. “I just didn’t want to say anything with everything you’re going through with the breakup.”

I left their house giddy as I walked down the sidewalk carpeted with spring petals and squealed about the good news in a voice note to my friend.