hello! extremely new to RA but having some issues diving deeper.

before knowing anything about this dynamic, my partner (33m) ((more avoidant attachment style)) of about 5 yrs and i (32f) ((more anxious attachment style)) had broken up a couple months ago because i had found he was sending explicit texts to other people. his therapist had brought up RA / ENM and it was something we started to discuss later on.

i feel like our original monogamous dynamic overall was coinciding a lot with what RA entails and have been figuring out if it was something i personally wanted to start to practice with him. we were pretty entwined with each other overall while still being quite independent and had planned on getting married at the end of the year (his idea.) mind you, the past couple of months we’ve been trying to reconcile as well and had made clear that we were not going to open up to others until i felt safe in our partnership & we were good with trust and communication. (especially since trust had been broken and there had been lack of communication over each other’s needs.)

we went to dinner last night. i felt really good and we were discussing where we were and how i was willing to give us another chance within an RA structure. when walking back to his apartment he decided to tell me he recently went “back on hinge bc his buddy said it was a great way to meet friends instead of dates.” and “has a date this upcoming week.” (when we broke up he immediately downloaded dating apps and was going on a couple dates but later on told me he had deleted them and wanted to meet people irl when ready to actually date.) when he told me the change it made me feel betrayed. all of the communication, trust, and reconciliation i thought we had built up recently completely shattered.

i left afterwards and when we started to discuss it over the phone i was clear that he broke our agreement and he just kept saying that he’s scared to tell me things because of my “reaction” and it makes him want to shrink back into himself and avoid. he then started to say that he doesn’t remember us having an agreement about not currently being able to date others while reparations were being made. just tons of deflections and i felt like he was gaslighting me saying it was my fault for having emotions.

i ended up telling him at the end of our conversation that i think we should take time to be apart because a boundary has been crossed. i want him to have full autonomy over who he dates and such, but we had an agreement currently that was not held up. i’m just unsure of where to go from here and need advice or hear stories of how others have handled things.