I will elaborate for you. When I think about my hubby with someone else I feel jealousy, yes, but also I feel loss. I don't want to lose the special and unique relationship my hubby has only with me. Fundamentally, it is selfishness and a strong love for my hubby that makes this hard for me.
A couple of thoughts from my experience, limited as it has been...:
Every person is special and unique, therefore all relationships--comprised, as they are of people--are unique and special. Nothing can alter the specialness and uniqueness of a relationship between two people who love one another. It won't be any
less special or unique if you or your hubby love another. It won't detract from the
amount of love that exists between you. Love
isn't like a pie that only has so many pieces to share. You
won't get half a pie if your hubby loves another, or a third of a pie if your hubby loves two others.
Sometimes, in fact, the love between two members of a couple can expand and grow significantly when a third or fourth person comes into the picture. When my partner began to fully comprehend that I wasn't worried that I'd lose him when he began to open to another in love (and vice versa), and when that realization deepened within me in the experience, we opened to greater love with one another. There was more joy, more happiness, more love, greater trust and better communication. Nothing whatever became less or smaller! All the good things grew, expanded, proliferated.
Uniqueness and specialness. Everyone is unique and special. I love many people, some passionately, and each relationship is unique and special to me.
I have one
lover, per se, at the time--my partner of 12 years--, but I do not fear that the specialness or uniqueness of our love will be threatened by either of us extending love to another, or even falling in love with another. That each of us
trust each other and the the other's love enough to allow each other such freedom to love others without fear, guilt, shame..., is a blessing we give to one another.
Learning to love in this way takes time, but I think it is worth every bit of investment of thought, feeling, inquiry, communication.... Talk with your hubby heart-to-heart. He sounds like a "keeper". Go into this inquiry with big heart. Speak the truth of your hearts to one another. Maybe you'll decide that poly isn't for you. That's fine; that's great if that's the outcome. But don't have it all figured out in advance. None of us do.