Ashley Ashborn was in a polyamorous throuple – until her two partners kicked her out of it and her life came crashing down.
"Unfortunately, looking back on the relationship itself, I noticed a lot of red flags that I wasn't aware of consciously," the 30-year-old from Kansas says now. She's been keeping her TikTok followers up-to-date with the ups and downs of her relationships since, her bubblegum pink hair popping across the screen.
Like any kind of relationship, not all polyamorous relationships are alike. Breaking up with your primary or nesting partner that you live with, for example, may not uproot your life as much as ending a more casual fling. But polyamory and non-monogamy experts say people in these relationships grieve, heal and thrive just like anyone else.
"Breakups in polyamorous and monogamous relationships are more similar than different," says Manijeh Badiee, a licensed psychologist and professor whose work focuses on polyamorous, queer and BIPOC communities. "In both cases, people’s ability to heal depends on how significant the relationship was, the coping tools they have and the support they receive."
Just like in monogamy, if you're dating someone for a long time and have finances and share children, "obviously, that breakup is going to be a lot more heartbreaking, probably, and complicated and life-changing," say Sarah Stroh, 37, of Berlin, Germany, who documents her non-monogamy journey in her "monogamish" newsletter.
