Marcus
Well-known member
Over a year and a half ago I joined this forum in a very similar situation. I, too, was told "leave your husband and be polyamorous or stay and be monogamous." This all-or-nothing approach felt lose-lose to me. I wanted to bring more love into my life, not lose the great love I already had. So I ignored it, and I'm so glad I did.
If someone told you that you needed to divorce your husband and move on with your poly fantasy then that was short sighted advice. Better advice would be much closer to what most of these posters are recommending, "Decide for yourself if you desire poly or mono relationship style and then proceed accordingly". At that point hubby and bf can decide how they want to proceed.
What happens to the relationship should be of lower priority than living a genuine life. With any luck one can live true to their values AND keep their relationships but one without the other is tragic.
Whether it is right or wrong, a very SMALL percentage of men will ever accept a relationship where their partner goes out and has sex with other men. So before you make this choice I would be sure that is what you want and that this is just still not a NRE fog that you are in.
This is true in the US because there is heavy handed social pressure to be monogamous. In a society which polyandry is the social norm you could probably make a similar statement about the very SMALL percentage of men who will be interested in a monogamous relationship.
Dating/romance worldviews on the fringe of current social norms are going to have a smaller dating pool... true enough. If having a lot of dishes to choose from is a high priority for you then you should heed this advice. If instead living a genuine life is important to you then maybe don't give this high priority.
But just remember if you decide you are poly, that means when your husband leaves you and finds someone else, which will probably happen, the next time you meet a man you should tell him you are poly and have no intentions of maintaining an exclusive relationship with him. That will be fine until you find someone who wants to marry you or enter into a real committed relationship. Then you will see how many will stick around.
This is also very true. If you want to be a part of a real committed relationship it needs to be a sexually exclusive marriage because... wait... what?
What about a poly relationship is not "real" or "committed"? Did you really mean it that way?