Curious about y'all's perspectives on this, as someone who's still fairly new to polyamory.

In monogamy, where dating one person prevents you from exploring other relationships, it makes sense to break up when you feel stagnant or under-satisfied.

But in polyamory, do you just keep your romantic connection going indefinitely as long as it's feeling net positive to both of you? Or do you have any experiences of ending it when things are going just "pretty good"?

For example, in my current situation, I'm in my longest ever poly partnership and I love my partner, but sometimes I feel a bit stagnant or ambivalent, and I wonder if I should force quit to make more room in my life for other potential partnerships or discoveries. They have a nesting partner/spouse & are saturated at two, and I have a more casual other partner and am open to dates with others. Not really looking for direct advice, but curious how y'all think about this question in general.

Please be nice to me lol.

Hi! I’m very very new to poly. My partner has a nesting partner, and there seems to be no privacy when it comes to her and I’s relationship. If I tell her something personal, for example sake my pet died and I was very sad. I told her about it and how I was having a hard time with it. Later that day I went over and her nesting partner already knew and was talking to me about it. Other personal stuff I tell her she will tell him. He reads all of our texts or just knows everything that is happening in our relationship. When I asked her I’d like some privacy when it comes to me she couldn’t understand what I meant and thought I was telling her she can’t talk to her partner about me at all. If her and I fight he knows all of our fights yet she won’t tell me anything about their fights or problems (not that I want to know everything) but easily shares ours with him like nothing.

So my question is, is this normal or is it fair that I ask for some privacy. I’m not dating her nesting partner.. so it just feels weird he’s privy to everything about me.

Please be kind, it's my first reddit post and I'm new to polyamory.

I have a married partner - an asexual aromantic relationship of several years cohabitating and coparenting adopted kids, and an amazing girlfriend of several months. She has a decade+ of polyamorous experience, whereas she is my first relationship as a new polyperson.

I thought jealousy would be my biggest struggle, but it turns out that I'm struggling more with the "part-time" nature of our relationship. I've only ever had monogamous relationships that always quickly proceeded to spending way too much time together and me being available 24/7.

We both have marriages and kids, and she has a very busy work life and lots of great friends and a couple of other partners. We talk daily though, but our in-person time together is a couple of times a month. At first this was great, and the NRE was carrying me through the missing/wanting (which felt sweet and anticipatory and wistful), but then I was broadsided by a day where the missing/wanting did NOT feel good but miserable. I am very much in love, and it feels like I'm trying to fit full-time feelings into a part-time schedule. She's great at listening and supporting and validating my feelings, and she's always been open for me to ask for what I need/reassurance. However, I'm not sure on what to ask for or what will help with this new feeling.

I guess I'm looking for advice on how to adjust to this nature of polyamorous relationships when coming from a lifetime of cohabitating, what has helped you walk with those feelings, what reassurances/things that you've asked for from your partner has actually helped, etc.

Today my best friend will move halfway across the world for what could become the rest of her life. Me and her have a history of intimacy, but never dated, mostly because of a complicated history in our friend group. We've kept our adventures to ourselves and agreed to not consider eachother in a romantic way to avoid complications.

Now these last few months we got intimate after a long time, whilst we also both fell head over heels for the girl I've been seeing the past few months. Suddenly everything sort of clicked for me; me and my friend have been in a sort of polyamarous relationship for a few years now.

We are always there for eachother, we talk extensively about the people we are seeing, and we love eachother deeply, without the necessity of intimacy, but damn are we good at it when we allow it.

And now I sit here with this realisation, unable to see it through, for she will leave my life in a few hours. Here on the dawn of a throple with to amazing girls, it ends before it's even started.

I dearly hope she has the time of her life, but all three of us are pretty heartbroken about the timing of this all. If we ever get the chance to be in eachothers lives again, I do hope she gives me and the girl I'm seeing a real chance to see what we could all be.

Until then, have the best life you can find my dear troublesmith, and know we'll always have a place in our lives if you ever choose to be with us. I love you so so much 🫶🏻

Many people start down the poly road and then discover after a while that it’s not for them. But in my experience, the people who make it through the initial stage of understanding poly—which may take years—are typically committed to poly for the long run.

What’s your experience? Does this observation make sense to you?

I was in a triangle. we were in a hierarchical situation that shifted towards the end. my boyfriend and I were the primary and together for 4.5 years and happy. He is poly, I am monogamous. he had dated here and there, but nothing serious. 6 months ago he meets another monogamous girl and they hit it off and I became jealous initially and it caused some issues in the relationship. I met her and eventually started dating her, but there were still issues in the primary relationship. eventually it got to the point where I couldn’t bring up anything without him getting angry. His focus shifted to her and it felt like I was just in the way and unless I kept quiet about how I was feeling he would get angry. He stopped being a safe space to land. She and I had also started building a deeper relationship and he was upset by that as well. He broke up with me after I had brought up that he had been on his phone quite a bit during our weekend together even after acknowledging he had been. He said there were just too many cracks, but if she had brought up any of the issues I had, then he would have fixed them. Advice on how to heal from this?

About a year ago, freshly out of a long term monogamous relationship, I decided on a whim to give polyamory a try after a good friend had pushed me (much needed) to download a dating app for the first time, and a gothic polyamorous cutie sent me a like within 24 hours of me having said app.

We didn't have our first date until a whole two months later, partially because of distance and being busy, but we clicked instantly✨

Back then I wouldn't have expected to very suddenly have to work through old buried problems and to experience so many emotions. But still, I found switching to polyamory so natural and almost easy. I've made so much progress with myself and my relationships, and I'm very grateful for the "tough love" polyamory has shown me😆

And now I've been in the best relationship of my life for almost a year (November 21st🥳), with the most amazing, caring (and hot🔥) human being. I said "I love you" in July and they felt ready to say it back earlier this month, and I just can't contain my happiness❤️ Life is good and I'm excited for the next year✨

I (28NB) recently met a man (32) who was in my city for work, it was supposed to be for 3 days but his trip got extended twice and we ended up spending every single day he was in town together. (2 and a half weeks)

We knew from the start that he would eventually return to Europe, so there was never the expectation that this would become anything more. But while he was here we had an absolute blast together.

I’ve been thinking about how much I enjoy the concept of comet relationships, there’s something really appealing about two people maintaining their independence and occasionally crossing paths and sharing exciting experiences..

He knows I’m poly but isn’t really sure about it for himself regardless, Im not really interested in forcing this relationship into any particular structure. Just enjoying it for what it is and curious about what the future might bring!

For those of you with comet relationships:

How often do you communicate between visits?
How do you navigate NRE when you’re geographically far apart?
Have you had comet connections with people who weren’t already practicing polyamory?
What expectations or boundaries have been helpful in keeping these relationships enjoyable and sustainable?

Hey, all. I moved to the upstate SC area in the U.S. a year and a half ago, and I’m so, so lost. I lived in Portland, OR, for ten years prior to moving, and before that, I lived in Chicago (which is where I became polyam). I’m used to navigating radically open, transparent spaces that prioritize direct communication, boundaries, consent, etc., and in the south, I’m quickly finding that the opposite is true: a lot is underground, + because of that, consent is lacking. And more importantly, it feels like people sometimes write off predatory behaviors as ‘kinks’… hazy boundaries around non-monogamy are also the norm.

The thing is, I somewhat get it—people have the luxury of being open in the places I’ve lived because it doesn’t impact their social or professional reputations. But I’m trying and failing to meet people who are consensual. I’ve been to a handful of tabletop/RPG events, and after spending a month playing games w these folks, they’ll suddenly spring some kind of ‘you’ll join our polycule that you didn’t know we were vetting you for, right?’ I even had an o-gy spring on me that they obvi pre-planned but tried to present as a spontaneous thing (no joke), and I’m like woahhhhhhh, woahhhh, y’all. If they would’ve been open from the jump, I would’ve been down with certain things, but they weren’t. There are a lot of unspoken rules and signals that I’m not getting. And the only advice I could find was from my hair stylist who told me that her only polyamorous client had run into the same thing on dating apps.

So I was wondering if anyone was familiar with southern interpersonal dynamics/norms and had any advice for me. Because would I like it to change? Totally. But I have to make do with where I’m at. I feel like I might be missing how to find the actual ENM circles here. I know they have to be here, but again, bc it’s deeply conservative, people have to keep a tight-lid on these groups publicly just so they don’t get ostracized.

Thank you!!

So I recently broke up with a partner and I was very sad as we have many very happy memories together and had very aligned values and interests and hobbies so we got on like a house on fire. Unfortunately after several conversations about our wants and needs we mutually came to the conclusion that we were not as well suited as we initially thought and decided to end things in good terms. We both go to very similar poly groups in our city as well as kink/ swingers parties and there are
Several in the coming months I was looking forward to attending. I really don’t want to let him have power over the events I do and don’t attend and when we were a couple I never had an issue seeing or hearing about him being intimate with others but I know now that chapter has ended for us it will hit much different now. I really don’t want to change my social life because of one person but I also know seeing him with other partners or just on nights out now we are broken up at least right now will really sting me :( should I keep going anyways? Take a break? Or stop altogether?

On my FB feed there are always videos from "Dana & the Wolf"

As a polycurious person, I'm wondering if what's portrayed resonates with people's experiences & if it is "good" content to watch... or if its just more internet garbage.

I became poly about 4 years ago, when I met my longtime poly partner and decided I wanted to give the whole thing a try. When I first met S, he had a few partners and we always both enjoyed playing with others casually. I never really felt like I was romantically interested in anyone I played with enough to be in a relationship with any of them and so for a long long time I only had 1 partner.

About a year into our relationship, I made an online friend who I immediately had sexual chemistry with. We had lots of interests in common as well, so we started talking a lot. I started to fall for him but...he lives in a different country. For a long time, I guarded my heart because he was so far away. But we recently met and our connection in person is undeniable. So, we are now officially dating and have an LDR dynamic that actually suits us both well. We don't plan on trying to change our situation.

This is all the super shortened version of everything but...even though I know that I've been poly for years, I really really feel like it now. Having both the men I love together in one room for the first time was such an incredible experience. I feel like I understand things better than before but I also want to do right by them both as much as I can. And feel so much pressure to do well.

What kind of advice would you give to someone balancing 2 partners for the first time? Navigating NRE, LDRs? I am so so happy right now and feel loved like crazy. And of course, it doesn't matter how many partners you currently have, you being poly is still valid. This is just my feelings/experience.

I have long considered myself polyamorous, but as I'm doing research into relationship anarchy I don't quite see the inherent difference.

In general, I don't prioritize romantic relationships over friendships -- but I think I dont really know what that means? Like if I moved to another state I would not consult my friends about it but I would consult my partner.

I have a primary partner who I consider primary because they're who I consider when I make big decisions, I have toiletries at their house, we have right of refusal at holidays/birthdays etc. We don't have veto power or want any control over each others other relationships. We don't live together or share finances and never will. Neither of us want to get married.

Ive read that RA is an ideology that anyone of any orientation can live by. So if you can be married, monogamous AND a relationship anarchist, how is that different than hierarchical polyamory?

Hi everyone,

EDIT: I might have not been very clear, but it is actually not his child, as he did not want any in the first place. He agreed to be there to help the biological dad and his girlfriend, but not to be a full time father

I (F30) am relatively new to polyamory. About a year ago, I met M50. We started with casual sex, which organically grew into a deep, loving, and very affectionate relationship. For context, he is experienced in polyamory and is very communicative and supportive.

When we met, he was already with F40 for 2-3 years. They recently bought an apartment together and are co-parenting a baby (he didn't want kids, but she did, so he stepped in to help her and the biological father, and they mostly live in the apartment he co-owns with F40). M50 kept his own separate rental to maintain personal space, but he visits them regularly, sometimes sleeps there, and pretty much shares his daily life with her.

For a long time, F40 lived in another city, so her presence felt abstract, even though he and their friends talked about her openly. But now that my feelings are getting more intense and she’s back in town, seeing that they see each other 3-4 times a week (compared to the 2-3 times M50 and I see each other), made my anxiety spike.

I find myself constantly "keeping score":

• Comparing the time he spends with her vs. me.

• Noticing his phone is full of pictures of her/their life, while I don't have that space.

• Struggling because he is integrated into her broader social/family events in a way he is currently not in mine (due to various circumstances, although he has met 1 or 2 friends of mine).

On the other hand, our relationship is wonderful. He is deeply thoughtful, supports me through a tough personal time, talks about me lovingly to his friends, and we have a strong emotional and physical connection. He is my only partner right now (open to others but not actively looking, as short on time/energy for a second atm).

My questions for the community:

1. Is feeling like "second place" normal when a partner has a deeply entangled nesting partner of longer standing, or am I accepting "crumbs" disguised as quality time?

2. Should I stop scorekeeping, or are the scores an actual indicator of how much I count compared to her ? And if I should stop, how do I do it?

3. He is going to move in with her full-time for 2 months to help with the baby while the biological father is away, meaning I’ll likely only see him once a week. As someone with an anxious attachment style, I am terrified of this upcoming period. How can I prepare and survive this?

I know I can talk with him about these insecurities, he will welcome them, as he already made me feel more secure when I came up with doubts a few weeks ago...and I very likely will have another talk with him, but any outside advice, personal experiences, or gentle reality checks would be deeply appreciated here !

Using a throwaway account since people IRL know my main account.

I (24F) have been with my boyfriend (26M) for almost three years. He introduced himself as poly on our first date, and even though I had zero experience in polyamory or open relationships, I decided our instant connection was worth exploring. Our communication was initially great, we both set clear boundaries and discussed our future desires. While I'm not actively seeking a relationship with anyone else, I'm not opposed to exploring connections if they naturally happened with someone, and have been on one date with another guy but I wasn't feeling it. My boyfriend and I been living together for a few years now with our two cats, and are looking at putting a down payment on our first home. He recently started a relationship with a new person, and things moved very quickly. I read a lot about NRE and how it can cause someone to invest a lot of attention in a new person, so I tried to manage my feelings of jealousy when he started spending 2 or so days a week and 2 weekends a month with her, and spent a lot of time texting her while with me.

We've started having some arguments - stemming from communication problems, needs not being met, and hurtful things said (by both of us).

My biggest questions are, how do you all manage feelings of jealousy, and how do I process the fact that he has missed several important events (majority of them to genuine emergencies with his girlfriend, not necessarily his fault) and will continue to be absent for some holidays (or half of the day). How do you combat the feelings of loneliness? Being around friends or family without him on holidays specifically makes me feel even lonelier. He does try his best to make up for it by planning "just us" weekends, but it doesn't take the sting away. He's talking about planning a trip with his girlfriend to visit her family, and I'm starting to feel anxious about it.

I don't know anybody else in my life who's had experiences with polyamory or open relationships, so I have nobody to talk to about these feelings and questions - so any advice people can give would be appreciated.

This question is contributed to by my anxious attachment 😅

I have one platonic/de-escalated partner and I’ve just started dating someone new. I know the new guy doesn’t want the kinda relationship I’d usually have where you message and see each other a lot in the early stages…. which isn’t that easy for me but what’s harder is not knowing where I stand. I think we could establish something like we see each other roughly every x weeks, talk on the phone x often…

But I’ve never had that kinda conversation before, it feels v intense! And how soon to have it??

Any advice welcome!

Hello all!

First time posting in here (and first time posting on Reddit in a very long time) but I figured this would be the best place to post since everyone here seems so nice.

Some starters, I'm 28 non-binary who's been in a very loving relationship for 2 years with my GF who's a year younger. We met at our local game store where I also work and do a lot of things together and have a lot of shared interests and hobbies. We also communicate a lot so that way we both feel safe and secure. At the very start of our relationship I brought up that I might be poly given some previous times in life when I felt the most comfortable and happy when I was basically in a relationship with multiple people. While those relationships didn't really become romantic (chronic depression and anxiety in high school really put a damper on that) I wanted her to know in case we wanted to try it out later in the relationship.

Two years in, we still very much love each other and are now starting to attempt doing poly things. We've been in a "Poly Blob" with one of my GF's former partners from her home state that she's still really close with. He's a cool dude, I just haven't actually met him yet. GF started talking to someone that she met at a local wrestling show we went to and this past week went to a show with them 3 hours away and they stayed overnight at a hotel. There was constant communication during the event and she had a good time. I was definitely feeling some jealous feelings during the trip, but I was also going through a pretty bad depressive episode throughout the week as well due to other things. Everything is fine between her and I and I am accepting of her other meta (I think I'm using that term correctly, still new to the terminology.)

My reasoning for this post, I have a very hard time in telling people that I am romantically attracted to how I feel about them, due in part to anxiety and in part due to my demiromantic nature. I'm pretty sure I have some form of AuDHD as well so subtly also isn't a good thing for me most of the time. Recently, I've developed some pretty deep feelings for two people in our friend group and I don't really know what to do about it. For the one friend, who I will name Peach here (the fruit salad bit is coming I promise) is in a relationship and isn't poly, but is very supportive and is a very close friend, they are just constantly busy. The other friend, who I will name Dragon Fruit is far more complicated. DF is recently divorced but still spends a lot of time with her ex, is I think open to the idea of dating again, semi flirts with my current GF (which is fine as well,) is a good friend that offers good advice when my brain decides to hate me, and likes going to various events with my GF and I along with others of our friend group. The issue is that I'm way to anxious to tell her how I feel because I don't want it to ruin our friendship.

So now to the fruit salads and my actual question. I saw a TikTok recently explaining Polyamory to fruits and how one person can like a banana for being a banana and that doesn't stop them from liking an orange from being an orange, metaphorically speaking. I really like this analogy and like the idea of a polycule being a fruit salad. My problem is I don't know how to ask the people that I'm attracted to or have feelings for if they would want to be part of the fruit salad? My GF seems to have a very easy time talking to people and is very accepting of the fruit salad and adding people to her side, but I don't know how to go forward with people without feeling like I'm messing up their life or our friendships.

Big apologies for such a long initial post. I tend to yap a lot as a way to explain things because it's how my brain works ❤️

sorry for the long post:
TLDR I keep facing insecurity from NP's when dating someone partnered and I don't know how much is me vs others and how to show up respectfully and mitigate risk. 

Unsure what to do. I (34 f pan, solo poly, lean aromantic) recently met a guy (44) who has a NP (40ish). After a few dates I have concerns. On our last date he paused to check in with his partner and let her know that we were changing location (cool), but the response was sarcastic and he shared it with me (both not so cool). He explained that that is her nature and that was typical, but to me a sarcastic response is almost always saying a thing. I asked a bit more about their relationship the next day.

My read on the situation without giving too of their personal details is that she actually isn't as comfortable with the open relationship/him forming intense bonds that she isn't a part of. He explained she had a recent bisexuallity discovery but it feels more like a valid experience taking the shape of an excuse about having certain dating needs that manifest as her encroaching on women he dates and trying to form a thruple. Her willingness to go along with his needs/lack of independent exploration feels more like clinging to him rather than building security in each of their independent dating activities.

I was in an enm relationship before that was problematic and ended after I sensed some definite insecurity from the other woman (usually intruding on dates with conversations that couldn't include me and def could have waited) that eventually ended with him making some crappy excuse about not having time when I knew full well he was simply protecting the other relationship/and or lost interest. The fact that I was led on and lied to in the process hurt a lot.

What I'm finding is that this is the second time and probably not the last I'm being met with insecurity from the other partner. I am not trying to encroach on what exists but want to enjoy getting to know and spend time with someone under a flexible dynamic. I like the idea of dating someone partnered because I'm attracted to high energy individuals but they invariably have needs I alone don't want to and can't meet. I am always clear about my goal of lasting friendships alongside any intimacy and have one example of this working where the friendship has pretty much replaced any physical intimacy. Ive also maintained friendships just fine after one off sex.

I prefer older people due to childhood trauma forcing me to mature emotionally (in some ways) faster than my peers. The only men close to my age I get along with are those that also had to grow up too fast. I am smart and look successful on paper. I am midline in attractiveness and build. Also I'm socially awkward as hell but a skilled communicator that makes for a weird read. One on one I can be charming but in any group I clam up so fast which often comes off as cold. 

My questions are: 

1. Do I owe the current couple anything other than clarity about my own boundaries? I will probably end up just seeing myself out in the near future. But, is there anything I could or ought to do to improve the situation recognizing that people are in fact human?
2. Am I always gonna run into this issue? I feel like the combination of being usually younger, highly educated, and whatever other dumb societal boxes I happen to check might continue to raise issues for other women in particular. I refuse to make myself small for others comfort but am I actually doing something wrong? I also work hard not to judge others by these metrics but I'm aware enough to know that others will still value or read into them.
3. Is there an approach to take moving forward that might avoid some of this in the future? Something to look out for or questions I need to be asking? I'm still relatively new to this space and took a year long break from dating partnered people after the hurt of the prior situation. I've started asking how people work through conflict in their current partnerships but it feels a lot like prying when what I'm looking for is the ability to work through issues in a respectful way. It has helped me screen some bad fits but clearly not all.

I am using an alt account and am going to keep things as vague as possible because my primary uses Reddit a lot

I have been with my spouse/primary partner for 11 years. We started our poly journey a few years ago after I realized I was and it was something I wanted to explore with my spouse (I'll call her Sofie). Before I met Sofie, I was in a very emotionally abusive relationship that ended with him cheating multiple times with the same person. (Important context from this story is that he went out with some friends and someone who had been openly flirting with him, cheated, and then did not come back home until late the following evening.)

When Sofie and I started dating, I told her about me being cheated on. We spent the first 2 years of our relationship long distance before closing the gap.

I have never had any reason to ever distrust Sofie. She is very reassuring when I have been insecure in the past. As our relationship progressed I, foolishly, thought that I had no trauma from the cheating.

Fast forward to now, we are both actively seeking partners and she has made a connection with someone who seems genuinely like a good person (we'll call him Gerald). Sofie and Gerald have been on a few dates and I have never had an issue with that. She is honest about where she goes, we have location sharing on from waaaaaaaay before any poly stuff started taking off, and she has explicitly told me if there is anything I need or want her to stop doing, to let her know.

We have a pretty solid list of rules that we both have been following this far and have been open to negotiations as things change.

Now, here is the issue. I learned that Sofie is wanting to start getting sexual with Gerald. This is a situation we have discussed before as a hypothetical when putting our rules together. However, something in me broke at the thought of her with someone else. I have learned through talking with my therapist that it is unresolved trauma from being cheated on.

I know I trust Sofie completely. I have no reason to doubt her and what she tells me, but I keep having anxiety attacks surrounding this possible interaction. I don't want to shut this whole thing down. It is something we both want, but this trauma response I'm having is so overwhelming. I am not an anxious person by nature so for it to hit me this hard is scary.

The only thing I can think of that will help is for Sofie and Gerald to sleep together and Sofie to come back home to me. But that is something that is on their timeline not mine and I don't know how to deal with this trigger until then. Sofie and I have talked a lot about things over the last several days and had a deep, hard conversation earlier about my feelings and trauma and this response.

Has anyone ever run into something like this? How did you hand it? It is unfair, I believe, to call the whole poly thing off because of this.

TLDR: I was cheated on many years ago and my primary partner wanting to sleep with someone is triggering the betrayal trauma really badly. How can I move past this so we can continue to enjoy this experience?

Hello. My boyfriend is monogamous and I am interested in pursuing a polyamorous relationship.

It’s been 9 months of us, and in all those times he’s been the sweetest and cutest little thing. We’ve talked about polyamory before, but revisited it recently to come to find out that we actually weren’t on the same page on an understanding: that he is not interested at all. Don’t ask how that was not clear.

I am heartbroken… because I do want to be able to explore people who are compatible to me, and me to them. It’s a lonely, isolating world, isn’t it? why wouldn’t I want to face it with anybody that wants it, too? We can have so much interests, knowledge, and support to share together

I leaning towards staying monogamous with him. But I’m scared that I will change my mind and hurt him. That I won’t stick it through. That it’s not fair for him to think that I wanted “more” than him. That I am waiting for him to “change his mind.”

I want to pursue a polyamorous relationship, but i don’t want to sacrifice him for it. Because that just goes against why I want it in the first place— he is the reason I want this; He is one of said people id yearn a polyamorous relationship for. So to “abandon” him would only make me question why I want a polyamorous relationship. I want to explore things with him too. I don’t want a polyamorous relationship alone without him. Does that make sense?

I will probably yearn for more, but I think I am happy with what I have. But I’m scared that I’m not. What if this fails? Should I just break it off now?

If I were to desire or like the idea of polyamory but stick with monogamy, what would that mean? I just don’t know what I want. But I don’t want to waste his time.

I feel as if we should break off. That’d be the healthiest choice.

And that’s it? No more him? And recovery? For what? Am i just being dramatic?

Advice or stories please. Thank you.

**EDIT: Seeking resources on discussing agreements with NP**

(Sorry for the hierarchy language, was from a therapist and I can’t edit the title!)

First time poster! Been practicing non-hierarchical polyamory for 10 years, and in the past have described myself as a relationship anarchist. I now have a nesting partner of 1.5 years, and we intend on having a long term relationship involving children and possibly marriage one day.

My partner is new to polyamory (since dating me) and started exploring having other partners about four months ago. I’m currently focusing on other aspects of my life and not dating outside the relationship. I’m super happy for him, but I’ve realized that as we discuss having kids and having a long term nesting partnership laying out some of explicit agreements for our relationship is a good idea.

What are some resources (books, questions, podcasts, etc) you use to help guide you in these conversations?

Are agreements something that should be shared with new partners?

Any resources or suggestions would be super appreciated :) looking to be as intentional as possible here

My wife and I have been married for almost 11 years, and we have 2 young kids. I'll caveat all this by saying we've both been in individual and couples therapy this entire time.

We tried opening our relationship several years ago, and ran into issues when I started to identify as polyam, and my wife wanted things to be way more casual and had strong feelings around me exploring with other women. I didn't handle her negative emotions well, and we very nearly split up.

After a lot of work and success in repair, we decided to open back up after my wife spontaneously (with my consent) hooked up with and then started a dating relationship with a mutual friend of ours. I expressed my attraction and interest in the friend (we'll call her M) with my wife's okay, and M said it was mutual and was open to exploring. This kicked off about a year of M and me developing a deep friendship over text (she's long-distance) with an open flirtation and attraction dynamic while she and my wife became girlfriends and dated regularly. Eventually, the three of us all became intimate together on one of M's visits. While my dynamics with M didn't really change after this, we began to feel hopeful that a triad could be possible, and openly explored the possibility of me and her spending time together solo as well.

Then, I traveled to M's city for work, and M and I (with everyone's consent) met up for a dinner date. Agreements were made and kept well within, but the night ended with my wife having a panic attack and me up all night supporting and reassuring her. Now, my wife has been in a constant state of depression for over a month. I have paused anything outside of platonic texting with M and offered to build conservative agreements with my wife, but have been clear about not wanting to cut M out altogether. Still, little progress has been made. She's been clear that no coercion or boundary/agreement breaking happened during all the time we explored being open, and everything was consensual. However, she now says she hasn't been her authentic self all this time, and would choose to be monogamous if it weren't for me wanting to explore polyam. She has drastically withdrawn from both me and M, and is considering breaking up with M. She says she can't be close to either of us without getting hurt while we continue to be close, and she doesn't think she is capable of changing how she feels about it.

How can I salvage my marriage while not sacrificing this part of myself? Learning about and identifying with polyam, and the little bit I have been able to explore it, has brought so much healing and growth for me. It feels like a true, authentic way of being. My wife has acknowledged this improvement in my mental and emotional well-being, as well as the benefits it's brought to our relationship over the last year or so, and that she hasn't felt my closeness with M taking me away from her. However, she still says she feels afraid, small, and unsafe when thinking about me even wanting to explore outside our marriage. I really want to find a way that we can stay together, without having to give up polyam altogether.

Has anyone been through something similar? What happened, and how did you make it through? How do you respond when a partner says your way of loving is incompatible with her feeling safe, and neither of you is acting in bad faith? I'm not ready to give up on the relationship, but I'm getting increasingly worried there may not be another way for us both to be happy in the end.

EDIT: Lots of people understandably are concerned for M, and I left a lot of her situation out for brevity and privacy. She is married in a polyam relationship. I have disagreed with my wife's response to her openly and have made clear I'm not going to change my relationship with her beyond what we've all agreed upon to try and help my wife have the space she needs to deal with these emotions. Right now, that looks like us remaining close friends, which is the priority for us at the moment. She is supported elsewhere and has been encouraged to set whatever boundaries she needs to in order to take care of herself.