Anneintherain
Member
You say such foreign things sometimes! I don't think being a mono (or poly for that matter) person in a poly relationship means you're feeling like you're in a constant competition with your partners other partners, unless they are saying things to compare you to each other or the person suffers a lot of insecurity or self esteem issues.if he really doesnt like being in a state of constant competition. Then those things really can't count for him.
I get the feeling you believe all men have this constant testosterone driven secret battle going on with all other men 24 hours a day. I've never gotten that idea from either of my spouses, partners, or even the monogamous friend I dated briefly. I feel like I should pin them down and grill them to see if this is the case, but I do think you're just projecting
I've also experienced my partners and me acting more as if we are in the dating stages again when a new person comes into the picture, and this is behavior on all sides - being more romantic, taking time out to hang out with each other, more foot and back rubs, being more interested in having fun times in bed more often, wanting to go out and do things together, making breakfast for the other when they come home in the morning if they've been out to show we care, shaving legs everyday (that's me only ) but none of this is because of competition, it's because of a renewed appreciation, and seeing your partner again like you did when you first met them.
For me, I started thinking about opening up our relationship after some friends told me about going to a swing club and having sex in front of other people. I'd told my husband, then about a month later I brought it up like I do most important things, while painting the house (it gives me so much extra thinky time!). Because of that story and the fact my parents are swingers, the topic that came up first was going to a swing club of some sort since that was our only context. I actually recall us yelling our thoughts on the subject back and forth across the house since we were painting in different rooms. My husband was pretty interested and excited in the idea since we met and married young and had only each had a couple of partners before we met, and we'd talked about how we hadn't been ready to stop dating other people and settle down, but hadn't know there were options, so it was nice realizing that we could explore again.
Research and talking quickly let us to decide that I'd be more comfortable with dating or FWB (and I found info on poly) and he was open to that or very casual hookups. I'd say on paper the introduction and application of poly went really well (although with too much talking for his tastes), but when the time came, apparently he got pissed off when I actually had sex with my friend (because he hadn't found somebody to hook up with that night), but instead of telling me he went and chose to find a sex partner the next day and broke every single agreement we had, then lied about it for months, which led to us breaking up.
It just makes try to remember that no matter how well things seem to be going, if one party is afraid to speak up when they are unhappy you're screwed no matter what.