How did your mono S/O react when you first suggested poly?

I'm looking for some perspective and some ideas. I imagine some of you are like myself in that you fell in love with another person after entering a monogamous marriage/commitment. When you decided to break the news to your mono S/O, what were the challenges you faced? My husband is still struggling to be okay with the poly idea, and I was wondering if others had similar reluctance with their S/Os and how they overcame it. What helped get your S/O more "on board" with the idea? For those who did not succeed, what were the problems you perceived that led to the idea failing with your S/O?

My husband is still of the notion that he benefits much less than my boyfriend and I do from trying poly, since my husband does not desire to pursue the poly option much for himself. I disagree with his opinion as I see more benefits in it for my husband than he sees, but I fear that his perceived lack of benefit is creating some resentment on his part. I want him to feel that his feelings are validated and that he is still very cherished. I want him to see the opportunity for it to strengthen our marriage and hopefully his friendship with E. In his eyes he's had me all to himself the past five years and he feels he is giving up something very special to him by sharing me with E, and I see that this hurts him. Have you guys had to work with these kinds of concerns? If so, what helped the most? I appreciate any and all input. ^_^

Edit: Also, a big ethical concern in polyamory is full consent of all parties involved. Y has consented to some romantic gestures between E and me, but at this point I still feel that it's more logical consent than emotional consent. I imagine most mono primaries are initially reluctant to accept poly for numerous reasons, so I'm curious to know how it's truly developed to be full consent for you guys.
 
Last edited:
When I opened the relationship with my mono partner, he took it hard and personally. I wasn't interested in anyone in particular so I was fine with going slowly. We rediscussed it a few times and he seemed to grow more comfortable about it as time passed.

Fast-forward two years, he got interested in someone and told me he was poly all along, and mentioned examples from his high-school years, etc. I had a crush at the time (I had several over the years but wanted to wait until he was comfortable before acting on anything) and I started helping him pursue the woman he liked. I also tried to get closer to my crush by nothing came out of it, however I met Seamus, my current boyfriend, a bit afterwards.

Now I've been separated from Raga, my husband, for a year and a half. We had many issues, mostly trust, and a couple of months after the break up he told me he was mono, had always been, and was pretending for my sake. He seemed resentful that I didn't realise he was acting and that he was actually miserable.
Thinking back, I still remember him as the happiest he'd been in our whole relationship at the time he pursued that woman, and at the time I started dating Seamus. I have to admit, I still don't know if he was pretending then, or if he got bitter after the fact and changed history. Either way, I definitely think that if something went wrong with polyamory, it was the trust issue and a lack of communication. I always tried to communicate with him, but it became obvious over the relationship and after it ended that he tended to tell me what he thought I wanted to hear.

I don't know what I should have done differently. I was obviously intimidating, sometimes it felt like he was actually afraid of me. I hated it. Bottom line is, my advice for you to get out of my experience is to communicate more, and make sure everyone is comfortable, and double and triple check. And for everyone to be honest with their partners.

It's fine if your mono partner is struggling. It happens. It's normal. But they need to let you know so you can deal with it. So make sure he's aware of that. Or they, if both are mono. And I would also say I wish their had been more communication between my husband and boyfriend. They both wanted to hang out and chat in theory, but never really did, and I had to actually hold their hands and make them spend time together. And then again, only when I was around. I think things would have gone better if they had gotten to know each other more.

This being said, ultimately I don't think the end of the relationship was due to polyamory, and I'm not even sure if the polyamory made it last more or less. Sometimes I think maybe polyamory allowed me to see the problems better. But then again I remember the two years we were open but nothing happened, and I hung in there thinking it would get better. If I hadn't had that hope, would we have broken up before then? That's possible too.
 
My husband is still of the notion that he benefits much less than my boyfriend and I do from trying poly, since my husband does not desire to pursue the poly option much for himself. I disagree with his opinion as I see more benefits in it for my husband than he sees, but I fear that his perceived lack of benefit is creating some resentment on his part.

What are the benefits for him that you disagree with?
 
This was years ago, in 2006. The second, and last time I was monogamous. Our mono relationship lasted from 2003-2006. For a couple of months after we had "broken up", I was having sex with both her and an OSO. I was in heaven. Super-charged. Sex had never been so hot. So intimate. My self-esteem had never soared so high.

But, that didn`t last long. She said, "She couldn`t do it with me." Specifically...

Then, she went on to experiment with another couple. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
I would think having a happy wife would be a great benefit. I know that when I was in NRE, I was much more giving to both of them.

One of my men is much less into sex than the other. He's quite happy for me to be satisfied that way elsewhere, so he doesn't get yelled at because I'm not getting laid. :)

I also have much more tolerance for when either of them is bitchy, or behaving badly. Because I know I'm loved, I don't worry as much that I'm not, so I'm less likely to freak out on either of them.

Disclaimer: I've never been a wife (nor had one), so I don't have that perspective. But I see benefits.
 
My situation is different.

DH and I have been together a long time and I told him from the beginning when we were dating that I was not wanting to be exclusive. I just wanted the sex hygiene on the level and to be truthed to and kept in the loop. So if he couldn't hack it or was not looking for that, then we could just be friends. He was intrigued so we went on to date and he was fine.

Benefits to him? Our time then with him as my main squeeze? It was all about the present -- sweetness and light. He was for my heart and body. I dumped all my mind & heart stuff at my Other who was LDR. Body was harder there, so he got more of my mind. Blame geography.

Which meant he got more of my stressy and anxious and lalalala while my main squeeze got some of that but not as intense because... well, not! Other got more of my inner thoughts and mind intimacies because well... LDR. We spent a lot more time talking because we could not have all that much body time. And the stuff would burble up. We enjoyed the share mind intimacy.

So my main squeeze wouldn't always get my deepest thoughts in the mind bucket but he got the deepest experiences in the body bucket. It isn't that I did not inform him of wassup, but the bulk of my processing was with Other. So he got to weather the storm WITH me, while DH Then BF got the weather report. It's different.

Other offered to move closer... I often wonder what that would have been like -- both more local. But school/jobs and things just weren't lining up. We had to accept this and Other and I broke it off. HIS more Other, in person local was having probs and jealous at me.

Then we closed up to be exclusive and are in parenting mode now as closed. (No desire to have a poly tribe in parenting time at ALL. ) There have been times in our closed time where we argue and he's expressed his "Ugh! I hate having to be like SuperMan!" which is true. He's my everything guy right now, and sometimes that's a lot.

But we talk and agree that if we open again, it has to be after the main parenting time. Coupled with eldercare for our parents it's just too full of plates.

So it's not like he'd be shocked, surprised from ground zero if later in life I broached it. Or he did.

But we do talk about how different it would be to return to that. It would be ending the current configuration and there would a mourning for the season ending along with the exciting/scary of something new coming.

I think even if you started mono-mono and THEN discovered you wanted to go mono-poly it is something similar.


It would be ending the current configuration and there would a mourning for that season ending along with the exciting/scary of something new coming.... the unknown.

Only for you it is exciting scary and for him it's scary scary maybe? So it IS kinda like "I'm giving up stability config for WHAT?" anxiety.

Mine's BTDT. And I told him he had every right to seek others but somehow he never did. But since he's BTDT... I don't think he'd be all arrrrrgh shocker. It would be new in the sense it'd be new people. My ex's are long gone. But it would not be new in the sense that he's NEVER gone there. Maybe he'd be relieved not to be SuperMan any more? LOL. :D

And if I wanted to go there and he did NOT at that later stage of life we'd have to make some decisions then. But we've been together so long whatever happens will/should be ok. We talk about breaking up and being good exes if if ever comes to that for some crazy reason.

We talk about our decades together and the goals of the decade. Obviously right now is our parenting time so... *shrug* It is what it is in the 30s & 40s.

GG
 
Last edited:
I agree that having a happy, fulfilled wife would be a major benefit. Also, not having to watch her suffer as she tries to suppress part of herself to make you happy.

My husband tells me that when I have an OSO, I am happier and more relaxed in general, so that benefits him just by having a better me around. I also tend to be more appreciative of the things that hubby does since we don't get as much time together (love languages thing - when our quality time decreases our words of affirmation or acts of service or gifts increase to make up for it). That change up in how we show our love and affection is nice every once in a while since it keeps us from getting too complacent and habitual in our efforts. When we are spreading the love, we are more proactive about making sure our feelings are clear whereas when it's just the two of us, we tend to get into a routine. Not that we don't feel loved during the routine times, it just isn't as flamboyant. :)
 
I'm also curious what benefits there are for a mono husband having a wife dating others.

Main benefit would be being with a woman you love, and that woman being happy. Secondary benefits would include having someone else to remind you it's her birthday, and someone to go to when seeking advice about her who would know her as much as you do.
 
He made a stiff drink and walked out the front door. He got completely shit-faced and by the time he returned he was smashed beyond words. He passed out on the couch and I sat on the floor beside him worrying.
It took a couple of years for things to mellow out.
In the interim, he made boundary lists with me, promptly broke boundaries, went for revenge a few times, moved out twice and returned.

Essentially, it broke his heart and he flipped psycho.
 
My husband and I were just discussing this last night. He has said that he adamantly does not want to benefit from my boyfriend, in the sense that if C is visiting, he can't help me with projects or gardening or whatever around our house. My husband is also unwilling to befriend C. He also hates the idea that any increase in my sex drive might be due to C, even though he knows there is a correlation. (I have not felt so sexually free and excited and fulfilled since extramarital intimacy, even without full blown sex, became a possibility.)

I do feel like this whole poly journey has had a positive effect on my marriage, because it has forced us to move from a rather unemotional autopilot to closely examining what we mean to each other, how we want to love and be loved, and what we hope to gain from our marriage. My husband feels these things could have been discovered without the discomfort of bringing polyamory into it. I doubt it, since it's such an inherent part of my nature.

My husband feels he has lost a part of me, which just breaks my heart. I've pressed him for specifics about what he has lost, but he has a hard time explaining. I kind of think the part he has lost is me being monoamorous, but that part wasn't real. I feel like I've gained a part of me, and am more complete than ever.

In essence, I think the benefit to the mono partner might be a spouse who feels happier and more complete, has a better sex drive, and is more conscious and in tune to her/his spouse's needs, and a marriage that is more consciously, thoughtfully loving through forced introspection and communication. I just don't think a mono partner is necessarily going to see or acknowledge those benefits unless he/she wants to. I'm hoping it will come in time.
 
He made a stiff drink and walked out the front door. He got completely shit-faced and by the time he returned he was smashed beyond words. He passed out on the couch and I sat on the floor beside him worrying.
It took a couple of years for things to mellow out.
In the interim, he made boundary lists with me, promptly broke boundaries, went for revenge a few times, moved out twice and returned.

Essentially, it broke his heart and he flipped psycho.
lol! Haha. Breaking hearts. ;)
 
In essence, I think the benefit to the mono partner might be a spouse who feels happier and more complete, has a better sex drive, and is more conscious and in tune to her/his spouse's needs, and a marriage that is more consciously, thoughtfully loving through forced introspection and communication. I just don't think a mono partner is necessarily going to see or acknowledge those benefits unless he/she wants to. I'm hoping it will come in time.

Well written!

But I dunno. Merely going poly doesn't mean this will happen automatically. There were times too in polyland where I felt pulled in all directions and not giving ANYONE my best.

I've actually been enjoying a deeper ORE with DH lately because we've both been more PRESENT to each other lately. And at this time we are closed. What changed was not a new lover acting like catalyst to put forth more effort in connection.

It came from putting more effort in connection!

Which has been hard in the last year given how I've been spreading my attention on to eldercare of aging parents. He gets that, and is ok with it. But in terms of energy, time management? That health stuff just brings a major DING to our home life!

I was major depleted and basically he was sucking up extra at home that I could not do because I was eldercaring. Which rendered him super depleted.

We deliberately sat down to work out needs and what could be let go and what MUST happen. The rest was greater satisfaction, then after some resting time, the reaping of rewards once mind, body, heart and souls felt topped up again and not so RUN DOWN.

I think both have it's ups and downs. Just being mono is no guarantee of greatness or benefits. Just being poly is no guarantee of greatness or benefits. But mono or poly... putting for some effort into the rship(s) does have potential for greatness/benefits. :)

GG
 
Last edited:
Kind of feeling like the odd one out, but I will share nevertheless. The immediate reaction of my husband were the basic questions (as I had already someone in mind when telling him about my 'poly-ness'): Do you love him more, Do you want to leave me, What do you want from him, Do you still love me ... The last one was: What should I make of all of this?! Which I couldn't answer anymore.

After some minutes of quick processing, he was so relieved that something like falling in love again hadn't ruined our marriage (cheating, affair) or my feelings towards him (despite having a new love interest I was still in love with him or at least was claiming to be at that point in time from his point of view), that we naturally reconnected via sex that evening.

After this immediate reaction he needed roughly three weeks to wrap his mind around the new situation and many talks with my friend to come to the conclusion, that we should merge our households and my friend moved in. That's it for the immediate reaction. Yes, he later had some rough nights and days, constantly thinking about the changes that were bound to come, but I guess he did reasonably well in not loosing his mind over this.

After the first insecurities were gone, and after everything had become more normal, we once talked about the benefits he could see in the presence of my friend in our lifes. He said, that he liked this way of living (three adult household), the shared responsibilities, how our dynamic evolved with another person in the mix, how he liked talking about me to him and to a certain extend, he liked the thought of another love being in my life (added some sexual tension and excitement for him) as well as it was a good feeling for him to witness me being true to myself, loving freely while never excluding him in the process.
 
This is kind of hard to talk about. It's also my first post.

When my now-wife and I started seeing each other 15 years ago, she was seeing two other dudes, which didn't bother me. We're extremely compatible and I didn't feel at all threatened by the presence of other guys. She broke up with me for a while, which hurt a bit, but she came back after she broke up with her boyfriend. I like the guy, actually. We practice the same martial art and we get along well now, though there was a predictably awkward time for a while there.

But that's a long time ago now. We're married now. We specified in our Ketubah that we be able to satisfy our needs, that we were open to relationships with other people.

It turns out it's not true. Over the last few years of our relationship, I've brought it up, but she only grudgingly accepts our agreement and drags her heels to the point that no sane woman would ever want to get involved.

I appreciate that she's lucid in her feelings, that she's not faking it for the sake of the relationship or anything, but she's afraid of being outed to family and colleagues to the point that I'd have to keep any new relationship secret.

Complicating this matter is the fact that this heel-dragging has gone on so long now that it's butting up against the closing of our timeline to have a kid. I'm 39 and have said for years that I wanted to have a kid by the time I was 40. She dragged her heels similarly on this issue until I set a date and we could actually see it coming. We want to understand the configuration of our relationship before we have a child, though, and by dragging her heels, she's getting to set the pace of the entire relationship, determining not only that I can't have other relationships, but the age I'll be when my kid goes to college.

So, In general, she interacts with this area of my life like she does with others: she doesn't want things to change, scarcely realizing that her reluctance is forcing a very unpleasant change on us.
 
Last edited:
It's a tricky situation. For the mono party it's easy to see things in terms of quantity...you get more partners, more sex, they get less time, less attention. What they're missing out on though is the quality. Because you are able to express yourself freely and are not confined, or as confined the quality of the time you spend with your primary is (hopefully) better. Yes, your heart is more open to other people, but it is also more open to your primary partner and love is not a finite resource, even if time is.

The other side of that is polyamory is a part of you and so if you are living a poly lifestyle and your partner still chooses you then you both know that he is choosing the real, honest version of you.

When my previous partner found out he tried to be open to it at first. I think he was fine with the idea in theory and before we were together he usually had several partners at once, though he never identified as poly. However, he had a difficult time dealing with the physical reality of what that meant and as time wore on he instituted more and more rules about who I could and could not see and what I could and could not do with them. In hindsight I probably should have been firmer about what I was okay with.
 
I'm also curious what benefits there are for a mono husband having a wife dating others.

I'm Mono, and the benefits I see in my relationship are that my partner is happy (honestly, VERY happy to feel free to be who he is), and the biggest benefit is that I HAVE a relationship with him - that his love for his OSO doesn't mean that he's not with me.

However, when I start thinking of it in terms of "what benefits does Poly give me?" then I start putting together a mental Plus/Minus column of Poly. To me, there *are* far more minuses. I don't like the shared time. I don't like the idea that maybe the future of our relationship is "limited" somehow if the time with him isn't enough for me (I'm a HUGE "Quality Time" girl - and right now we're working on strategies to make it better for me when he's not here).

I had to reframe the question: What do I get out of my relationship with my partner? If I do the Plus/Minuses there, then "Poly" gets lumped in the minus column for me (sorry, folks - I do see some benefits, but I wouldn't do it again with anyone else). The focus remains on the relationship, and what we have together, and there are some very big plusses there.

Anyway, it took time for me to reframe my thinking. I still get a bit tweaked sometimes when his OSO and I go out with mutual friends and he says he's going to be lonely without us... Hello - I do that half-time, thanks. But again, if I reframe the thinking, it really means that he hasn't *had* that alone time and feels just as crappy as I did when I started. It'll take time.

And I'm just rambling on, now aren't I? Sheesh! Time to do chores and put the lunch dishes away. Best of luck. :)
 
What are the benefits for him that you disagree with?

My husband does see the benefit of making me happy by going along with this. He does not want to be poly himself, so he doesn't immediately benefit by being able to see other chicks. I feel that the situation helps us communicate better and more frequently, and our sexual activity has certainly improved. One of my biggest complaints before with our relationship was that he seemed to take me for granted, and now he doesn't. He takes the extra efforts now to impress me, which I personally thinks make the relationship a more meaningful one for both of us. Also one learns new things with new people and that can be used to spice up things for the primary relationship, but I don't think my husband likes that idea.

But, I realize there are some disadvantages as well. I just see poly as opening the doors for a more honest relationship, and I'm not sure that he sees it that way. But, at least he recognizes that I've been happier lately.

Phy said:
After the first insecurities were gone, and after everything had become more normal, we once talked about the benefits he could see in the presence of my friend in our lifes. He said, that he liked this way of living (three adult household), the shared responsibilities, how our dynamic evolved with another person in the mix, how he liked talking about me to him and to a certain extend, he liked the thought of another love being in my life (added some sexual tension and excitement for him) as well as it was a good feeling for him to witness me being true to myself, loving freely while never excluding him in the process.

This is a nice thing to see, and I hope to get to that point with my husband and E.

I want to thank everyone for their responses....they all helped me to see various perspectives and gave me some food for thought. If you have more to add though, definitely feel free to.
 
You said your husband doesn't see as great a benefit to him.....you said you disagree with that..... My point was it subjective to him. If he dreads communicating .....if he really doesnt like being in a state of constant competition. Then those things really can't count for him.

Do you share a car with your neighbor? Why or why not. What's the benefit to not.

Flip this around and pretend they both had other partners ....what benefit would you get in that?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top