Searching for advice on current situation

Hello! Me (f) and my wife have been together for roughly 6 years (had a few breaks in between, unfortunately) and married for 2 years. (Marriage has been the best choice in my life. I wouldn't change that for the world.) We both are in our 20s and love each other a lot.

We've recently gotten into our first polyamorous relationship. We both were curious, and after speaking about it for some time, we agreed to try it out. We've been with him for about 2 months so far. He is very loving and patient with us and I appreciate him a lot.

Recently though, I've had some doubts on my willingness to be able to be in a poly relationship. I've been searching for the reason why I've been feeling these things, but my guesses are either I don't love him in a romantic way, I don't think I can love someone as much as my wife, or I don't know if I'm compatible with someone who is poly and seeing another person. I don't know if it's one reason or a mixture, but I'm having trouble coming to terms with the last guess, because I really do love my wife a lot and I know she loves me. I want her and myself happy, but with these new feelings, it's causing a lot of sadness for me, and I'm having trouble coming to terms with my options.

We've been communicating a lot about the situation. Sometimes we get frustrated and the conversations don't go well, but we usually will try again and come to a better understanding. She for sure loves him and is upset that I don't feel the same way, because she wants us both happy as well. He does stay at our house most of the time, and sleeps with us, and with my recent feelings some aspects of that have been hard. I've been starting to feel jealous and just wish we could go back to the way things used to be, but that's unfair to her and I'm having trouble coping with it.

I don't like thinking about them having sex alone. The threesomes can be fun, but I'm more focused on my wife and her enjoyment, and honestly prefer to just have sex with her. Like I said, it's not always like that. I'm pretty hypersexual, so it can be easy to enjoy, but I think it's more out of lust than love when it comes to him. Its roughly the same with affection. I just love my wife all around, and prefer her, and sometimes get jealous when he's receiving it rather than me.

He loves both of us a lot. I've mentioned to him that I'm struggling with the entire thing, but trying to work it out with my wife and me, to come to some common ground. If I do decide I don't want to continue dating him, then we'd have to decide whether he'd like to stay with just my wife or leave entirely, considering he loves me and I know it'll hurt him that I can't reciprocate those feelings. I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable with him staying in the same house full time, but that means the possibility of her staying at his place, and I honestly don't like that idea.

I want to make this work for her, but I'm not sure how to combat these uncomfortable feelings, since they both want this to be a long-term thing. I brought this up a little over 2 weeks ago and we've been working with it since, but I'm hurt that she still wants this even though I sorta don't. I know that isn't good to think, but I've been struggling with getting over that fact.

I've been struggling with some self-hatred over everything, because I'm the one who brought up the idea in the first place, and she was the one who took a leap to try it out, even though she was hesitant at first. I even was the first one who started doing anything with him. So I just feel ashamed, and blame myself that I caused all of this, and it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for me. It's not a good way of thinking, but sadly its the truth, atm.

Any advice or questions will be greatly appreciated. I'm pretty open. I just want us both happy and don't want to be upset with how this played out anymore. I love her a lot and just hope the best comes.

I hope it helped you to write all that out. Sometimes we have thoughts rolling around in our heads, and just seeing them typed out can make us feel better, more organized, more in control, better able to make healthy choices.

The situation is pretty simple. The emotions are hard to feel, but the choices are clear.

Scale back the relationship with this guy. (I will call him John, and your wife Mary, just to make things simpler to read.)

Don't be having John there more often than not. It's only been two months. It sounds like he's basically moved in. Even though he and Mary are infatuated with each other, it's not "true love." It's a hormonal thing called NRE (new relationship energy).

So, scale back on the visits.

There is no reason for the three of you to be sharing a bed every night.

There is no reason (other than raw desire) for Mary and John to be together every day and night. You can request they scale back to say, three overnights a week, max, either at his place or yours. Mary and John can share a bed three nights a week. You and Mary can share a bed four nights a week. Or it could be five nights for you and Mary together, and two nights for Mary and John.

You don't have to love John just because he loves you. You don't have to love John just because Mary does. You feel what you feel.

Polyamory doesn't mean "triads," where all three people feel the same sexual/emotional link. This sounds more like a V, where Mary is the hinge, dating John, married to you. You and John are the "arms" of the V.

Tell Mary you miss the one-on-one sex. Keep the threesomes to an occasional thing, or stop them altogether. You don't have to have sex with anyone, or do anything, you are not comfortable doing. It's call consent. It's extremely important.

Just because you brought up the idea of group sex or polyamory doesn't mean you have to consent to everything the other two want to do, whole hog, no questions asked, no individual tastes or desires allowed.

This all needs to be negotiated openly and honestly between the three of you. The easiest thing to do would be to schedule a sit-down talk on a day or evening when you don't have work the next day. You could print off what you wrote above in your OP and read it to them, or email it to both of them before your talk. Get it all out on the table, your feelings, your fears, your desires, your concerns.

It's not your job to prevent them from knowing how you feel, just so they can enjoy their NRE. You say you and Mary broke up and came back together several times, and I am guessing it's because you don't practice enough open and honest communication. Maybe you hold it all in until the dam bursts and it turns into a big fight. The goal is to communicate before it gets to that point.

I would also recommend you read this article and share it with Mary and John:

Hello devil-rat20,

It sounds like a mono/poly relationship might work for you, where you are mono and your wife is poly. It doesn't seem necessary for this man to live with you, as your wife can live with you, and just go over to his place to visit. There's nothing wrong with you having started things, sometimes we get curious about poly, and just have no way of knowing ahead of time that poly wouldn't be right for us. Your wife has discovered that she is poly, so there's no way you can unring that bell. I hope the three of you will be able to work things out.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.

Update: she left me for him. Thank you all for your kind words and attempt at solutions. I tried to work with it the best i can, boundaries, uncomfortable conversations, communication, explaining my feelings, attempted a mono/poly relationship. She divorced me 2 weeks ago.
It got to the point where it was only them having sex, they had more intimate time in general together. I would explain how I had a feeling of abandonment and even explained that I didn't think it was their fault but I wanted them to be aware that these feelings were happening. It was alot of defensive conversation rather than solution finding. Im pretty hurt but there isn't anything I can do about it, this is what she wanted unfortunately.

Well, it's shame that Mary left you after only having opened your relationship a short time ago, and only having dated John for two months! That's pretty ridiculous. She is infatuated and not thinking with her brain. She's carried away with lust. I doubt this will end well for her and John.

No one should start living together before having dated for a year. This is based on fact and experience. Too much togetherness causes imbalance. Did she move into his place?

But whatever. She can do what she wants or feels she needs to do. Meanwhile, you're left feeling rejected. And you blame yourself because you had the hots for John, but didn't love him, and so this ended up just a John and Mary thing. She wasn't polyamorous. She decided to choose the "new and shiny" over/instead of her legal husband. After two months!

This happens all the time, though. In fact, something quite similar happened to me with my ex-husband many years ago. I ended up in a much happier place without him, and I hope you do, too. Something tells me your relationship with Mary wasn't meant to be, with all the on again, off again stuff in your history.

Hi devil-rat20,

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. It seems to me that she hasn't treated you very well, she hasn't appreciated your feelings, and has not been willing to stay on and try to work things out. Maybe you are better off without her? I'm sure it doesn't sound very good when I put it that way. You are experiencing the process of grief. You do not need to be told that you are better off, you just need to know that people understand and sympathize. I hope you get some healing in the future months/years.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.