Sometimes I think I'm not a relationship material

You had a great relationship. The only problem that your guy had was you being bisexual and poly. Why not ditch those 2 traits and concentrate on find a man to have a serious relationship with? By the way, if you're open to having kids later, you should be mindful that it's biologically hard to have kids as you get older. So, if you've already had lots of fun as a single individual, why not open your mind to having lots of fun as a parent?

what part of uk you in

I've been in a great relationship that lasted almost 10 years. We've been through a lot together. The guy is still my best friend, but now he is married with kids. We broke up because he could not deal with me being bisexual and poly.... and didn't want to have kids...
Another guy I've been with who is very poly friendly (maybe even poly too with zero experience in poly relationships before me) we broke up because we defined our relationship differently. Now we lost contact too.
I've been in short term relationships too, but most of them led nowhere at all.
I'm almost 35, bisexual with much less experience with girls, I'm poly, don't want kids (maybe later). I'm looking for a serious relationship but I'm not actively looking. I mean I want a serious relationship, but I won't sign up for dating apps or social media stuff for that. I'm sort of fine the way it is now, but seeing everyone I know moving on with their life and I'm stuck being single and understanding that I'm actually getting older (despite feeling young) it sometimes makes me feel lonely and depressed. The pressure from my family don't help either.
Sometimes I think I will never find someone who accepts me the way I am and will stuck in a relationship I don't truly like or stuck being single for the rest of my life.

Not in UK. Why?

i'm not sure what to tell you, because my relationship history is a total mess... but can i ask why don't you want to try dating apps?

I prefer to get to know a person first. People on dating sites and apps wear too many marks just to try to impress you. I also don't like social media so I'm mostly interacting with friends of friends or colleagues or people with common interests

right. yeah, i get that. but i imagine it's gonna pretty difficult to find a poly relationship irl. most people just aren't into it. i once suggested an open relationship to my partner. he pretty much went 'so you have chosen death' on me.

Poly is not exactly an open relationship. It's a bit different.

oh, i thought that's what it was, just like, when partners agree to have relations outside their relationship. excuse my ignorance : <

If I am being honest, you are indeed not relationship material.
While there are some men out there who would accept that or be too desperate not to despite their own feelings, the combination of fertility concerns looming and an unwillingness to be loyal to a man means that your relative relationship value would not be especially high and limit the pool of men you'd actually want to be with further.
Your doing the correct thing avoiding online dating. It's a hellscape these days.

I'm kind of in the same boat as @Rakas21, if we're speaking candidly about what people value in relationships anyway. The poly thing would be a deal breaker moving forwards for me, while I might have been a bit more open to experimentation or more open relationships when I was younger, moving forward and building a life together I don't want to be sharing forever or being treated as a part time option.
Push comes to shove, its going to massively limit your dating pool and wider relationship value, at a guess it must rule out like 95% of people? and that's not even considering people who may be poly in way you can't agree or compromise with :/

I know it rules out almost everyone. I just know I won't be able to live with someone who can't accept me for who I am.
What is harder for me, is that I was in a very good and very long relationship. When I am talking about a relationship I am not looking for a short term hook, I'm looking for a relationship, probably for the rest of our lives.
Poly relationship is more complexed than single relationship. I know that, and kind of like it more that way.
Thanks for your reply

You actually demonstrate this yourself. You have a 10 year relationship which you go to great lengths to state was emotionally satisfying and without significant prohibitive issues and yet when given a choice between true commitment and separation, you chose to separate.

At the risk of sounding like a man, this is why you shouldn’t make significant decisions in a highly emotional manner. You have made a highly irrational choice based wholly on emotion having expended a decade of emotional investment (unless you never loved him).

My honest recommendation would be to get back with him and at least attempt to be with only him. You may find that the beauty of psychology means that over time it becomes easier to dampen your desire for other people.

I have a feeling you might be evaluating your problem incorrectly. I think all these new-age creative labels like 'poly', 'bi', etc. might serve their purpose in some sense, but I also think a lot of people misuse those labels to mask an entirely different issue of theirs, pertaining to attachment styles.
You need to understand what your attachment style is. I won't list them here, as there is far better and practically infinite advice online about the topic. I'll just say that 'secure' attachment is the best kind of attachment. People often adapt polyamorous dating patterns as a result insecure attachment styles. It is effectively a mechanism that they subconsciously use to sabotage their prospects of a stable relationship.
If you are confident that you are of the 'secure' attachment type (which there is a good chance that you are, considering you were in a happy 10-year relationship) - then there is a chance you can find someone. But it is slim, and it is not because there's necessarily anything wrong with you. It's just that people with secure attachment styles who are also into 'authentic' polyamory, are very rare.
I had an interesting discussion about this on this forum some years ago with someone. We initially disagreed. They were polyamorous. Whereas I do not consider myself polyamorous (I'll elaborate on that in a bit), so we had strong differences of opinion obviously. But then we agreed, that in fact a lot of people label themselves 'polyamorous' as a pretext to just act promiscuous with zero meaning behind it. Inauthentic. Hence the stigma around it. As with a lot of things, the reality of it is often much less wholesome than the idealistic dictionary definition of it. People with promiscuous pasts, disproportionately have insecure attachment styles. And hence why there exists a perceived correlation between "polyamory" and insecure attachments. That's why I brought it up. Almost always when I hear someone bring up 'polyamory', or if I hear someone is in a relationship and sleeping around, etc. I am very put off wanting to have anything to do with them. Because some 90% of the time - what they say is total bullsht/t. Unfortunately. And it really sucks to be at the receiving end of it. Why would I take those odds? The chances are, I will just get messed around.
But there is that 10% that isn't bullsh/t. And I didn't make those figures up. Somewhere in the USA, they monitor success of open marriages. 90% of them allegedly end in divorce, compared to approximately 50-60% of conventional marriages. If you can figure out an effective and reliable way to filter out those 10% that actually work... then please you can probably give a Ted talk about it and make money from giving masterclasses.
Now, in my case - do I find myself attracted to multiple women? Sure I do. Thus, you could argue that I have some "polyamorous" tendencies, even though I do not act on them. There is the visceral / impulsive attraction 'at first sight', that I do not act upon and it also usually isn't very strong in me. Then there is a deeper attraction I experience when I get to know someone better and when I actually like them and see them as an equal, that is also much stronger. Even if I experience little/no physical attraction at first, that can be completely overturned by the 'deeper' attraction. My point is - the more I like someone, the less I tend to pay attention to other women the same way. It happens naturally, by itself. Thus I find it difficult to relate to and really understand polyamory. Because even though I might feel it occasionally... it usually is when my relationship with someone does not have a great deal of depth yet. Whereas the deeper my relationship is with them... it starts to then go away.
Another way I like to think of it as - is that you have a finite amount of time (24 hours) and energy (2000 calories) per day. Empathy, is a brain activity that consumes energy. How much is not important. The point is, it is not infinite, even if it might sometimes feel like it. You will know this, if you ever noticed that an intense 'high' is often followed by a 'dip' to compensate it. Intense emotions can be draining, and require recovery time. Similarly, the more you invest in one person in an intimate relationship, the less you will have to simultaneously invest into intimate relationships with others. It becomes a lot of effort to maintain. It becomes tiring. You experience more 'highs' and 'lows' as a result. Etc. These kinds of emotional rollercoasters, again, are typical of insecure attachment styles.
The counter-argument is that a perfectly secure attachment, will have no rollercoasters, and will therefore require very little energy to maintain. Thus a perfectly secure attachment, can lend itself to a polyamorous relationships. However:
And that is also assuming that all those adults with secure attachment styles would be open to the idea of polyamory, which is probably not the case. I mean... if you can pull it off, great. But it will be difficult.
Bottom line is... I am sceptical. I am not trying to be critical. Just sceptical. It is complicated I know. Hopefully my essay was useful somehow.

That's exactly how I feel about Poly relationships and why they are not really an open relationship as many think and why it is harder to maintain.
The thing is that I don't like to compromise on one hand and to miss opportunities on the other hand. If there is a person who is great in everything but the sexual part, and another who is great in the sexual part and ok as a close friend, why not being with both if they agree.
I completely agree about investing energy in a relationship like you described. Same goes as for recharging. The better the relationship is the better recharge you get. If you are 100% satisfied in a relationship with one person you simply won't need another one ever, however, it is very rare to get to even 80% satisfaction and recharge in a relationship with one person, that's why people cheat.... If you need another recharge and have 2 relationships that one gives you 70% and the other gives you 25%, you will fill much more energy back.
I know a couple whose relationship is simply going on dates because they enjoy each other's company while eating or watching a movie, but are completely incapable of running a household together. They are dating for years already with occasional sex and it is good for both of them.
There are many types of relationship in a poly relationship and if all the sides agree it could be the best thing ever.