For privacy sake, I'm changing names into cheeses.
So I've been with my nesting partner (Cheddar) for about 2ish years, living together for most of it. She's wonderful, she's thoughtful, and she means the world to me.
About 6 months ago I met someone really cool (Swiss). We hit it off immediately and things have been great, except for one thing. Unfortunately I happened to meet her during a time when my relationship with Cheddar had a fair bit of turmoil, so unsurprisingly Cheddar reacted with a lot of insecurity and jealousy. The first night I hung out with Swiss we ended up getting in a huge fight. From there on, anytime I even mentioned Swiss all the energy was sucked out of the room.
I did my best to make sure I was moving forward with Swiss slowly, and did my best to try and bear Cheddar's feelings in mind. She still felt like I was putting more effort into this new relationship than I to my relationship with her. To her credit, I was absolutely far from perfect. I definitely didn't communicate how things were going between me and Swiss very well, to the point that Cheddar felt like I had stepped over a big boundary.
Fast forward to about 3 weeks ago: I've been head over heels in love with Swiss since July, but had been putting off prompting the partner conversation for the sake of Cheddar's feelings. It was my last chance to see Swiss for over a month, because she was about to do a bunch of traveling, and I decided I had put things off for long enough.
I tell Cheddar I'm going to ask Swiss to be my partner that night, and Cheddar reacts super negatively. She says something to the effect of "We're moving soon, your work schedule just changed dramatically and now I have to get used to having a metamore on top of that? It feels like too much is changing all at once."
To her credit, Cheddar later texted me to encourage me to have the conversation anyway, but by then I had already decided not to. "After all, even if Cheddar gives her blessing it's still going to hurt" I thought "Better just wait till Swiss is done traveling. Cheddar is right, and in her position I probably wouldn't like all of those changes all at once either."
Fast forward once again, but to last week. We're in the new apartment and slowly unpacking. Swiss has been out of town for awhile, and still has a week or two before I'll get to see her in person. Cheddar has been seeing someone (Gouda) for a couple of months. One night Gouda tells Cheddar "we need to talk". They hang out next chance they get, and Cheddar comes home to tell me "So, you have a new metamore."
It fucking sucks, and the timing could not be worse. I feel like I've just been consumed with jealousy. Watching her do all the things I've been holding myself back from for months: Coming home with hoodies, or hickeys. Spending entire days with the new partner. Nothing unreasonable in and of itself, but all stuff I've denied myself with Swiss for the sake of Cheddar's feelings. In the meantime I won't even get to see Swiss in person for another week. It certainly doesn't help, that because of my new work schedule I've had a lot less time to spend with Cheddar, and a lot of what I do have has coincided with her only opportunities to hang out with Gouda.
Last night we talked about it and Cheddar asked me "Do you want me to put things on hold, atleast till Swiss gets back?"
It feels like I'm being so unfair, but I said yes. Like, why should Cheddar have to put her relationship on hold, just because my other romantic interest is out of town? A lot of the things I've been holding myself back from weren't even explicitly requested by Cheddar, just the sort of thing that usually sets off her jealousy.
This morning Cheddar told Gouda "I need to take a step back for a little while for my partner's sake" and apparently Gouda didn't take it very well. She isn't talking to Cheddar at all at the moment. I feel like a fucking monster.
I don't know. Am I being unreasonable? Am I being unfair?
My first question is: what are y'all doing? I can't tell how much work either of you has put into learning about polyamory, learning about how to be good hinges and take care of all of your partners or anything else related to polyamory. Additionally, I am getting the feeling that both of you are doing "the relationship with the person I'm living with always comes first" thing. Or that you and Cheddar are primaries with nobody else being a primary partner to either of you. If that IS the case, I hope you're being up front about it.
Both of you need to be thinking about if your relationship with each other is meeting your needs. It doesn't necessarily matter what your metas are"getting". Are you "getting enough" from each other? Do you know what "enough" is? Are you both mature enough to have figured out your enough for yourselves based off of your actual needs and wants vs "I need everything that is important to me + I have to be first/always get anything my meta gets, not because I actually want or need it but because it makes me feel bad when they get things I don't".
It sounds like you both need to work on repairing your relationship. Separately, I think you both need to decide if polyamory is really for you, and start digging into podcasts & books about it, because it seems from your post that neither of you has done a lot of the foundation work that helps make polyamory successful and healthy.
Cheddar's partner has every right to be pissed and not talk to her. A LOT of polyamourous people have no interest in dating someone who allows their preexisting partner to veto or put limits on their relationships. If you and Cheddar are going to practice polyamory like that, you need to inform prospective partners of it up front, and look for people who will agree to a relationship like that.
Get some polyamory resources. Read them, listening to them, communicate. Figure out what you each need from your relationship and see if you can give each other that. Make sure polyamory is right for you, for both of you.
Those things may or may not help your current attempted relationships, but they will definitely help your future ones.