in love with a woman who wants me to herself

necrodefy

New member
I'm a young poly male who's fallen in love with an older mono woman who's been great to me. She fell for me knowing that I'm poly, I guess she thought I'd change. She's asked before if I could be monogamous to her and I said I don't believe so and that I don't want to be. Yet she still said she'll see this thing through cause she can't imagine life without me. She'll often hold me and say, "All mine! Nobody else can have." I'm not currently hunting for a second partner but you know how that goes... love finds you when you least expect it. Either way, I know eventually I'll want to share love with another. I know from my girlfriend talking of her past breakups that if I fall for someone new she'll leave me, so I don't expect her to accept me with other partners. I do care for her deeply, and I don't want to leave her, but I feel that it'd be the right thing to do so I don't break her heart even more down the line. She's suggested relationship counseling, but it seems to me that neither of us will change, and eventually I'll fall for someone new and that will be the end of us :-(

What is your input on my situation?
 
To thine ownself to true....

Sometimes the right thing is the hardest especially at first.
 
My lover/fiance has had three or four men over the last few months that want her to be monogamous. None have aggresively tried to make her monogamous. They just get close to her, start to develop feelings for one another, and then say that they can't handle being with a poly woman. Living in the deep south we expect this to be the norm, but I can tell that it still hurts her. It makes her feel like we are the strange ones.

I have not personally had to struggle this for a whole different reason; I have not made a romantic advance towards a woman since becoming poly. My local community is tiny and just not full of women that are both interesting and propoly.

I think that it would be a mistake to consider being monogamous with someone if you know that your are emotionally and morally aligned with a polyamoroud life. It can lead to bitterness and a delaied and amplified heart break. I'm not saying that is your intention, but it can seem like an easy bandaid if you are technically only seeing them at the time.

You gotta do you. All I can say that I would do in that situation is make your intentions very clear (it seems like you have), and then make a heavy effort to help that person see your choices the way you do. They don't have to agree, but you may be able to help them understand poly more. A lot of people that know think I'm just sleeping around and actually ask me questions like "what if Sydney falls in love with someone", and say things like "one of you will care more about your relationship than the other". So, maybe there is some room for explaining. In the end you can't live a lie forever, and you should not let one woman's feelings deny another woman of your love. That isn't fair.
 
If you aren't willing to sacrifice practicing poly for her then cutting things off now is definitely the kindest thing to do.
 
There's nothing wrong with either of you. But the two of you are ultimately incompatible. Staying in the hopes that either of you will 'change' is cruel and ultimately destructive to both of you.

Break up now while you still have the chance to become friends. It will be painful and hard. But dragging this out will just make that inevitable breakup more painful and actually damaging instead of just painful. Don't wait until another love comes into your life. That would be cruel to your current girlfriend and unjust to a new love.
 
There are some mono women who can accept, be happy and thrive in a relationship with a poly man. From my perspective, I would not want you to make the decision for me. Be honest with her that you will NEVER be mono and won't be able to give her that. Let her decide if she can accept the situation for what it is and see herself happy sharing you with others. She has to be honest with herself though and look at it from a practical standpoint as well as emotional. Unless you're really not that into her and are looking for a reason to end the relationship? In that case, do the right thing and end it.
 
Thank you everyone. As I mentioned, I feel that breaking up with her is the right thing to do. It wouldn't be the first time I've had to break up with someone because of it being the right thing... being poly really sucks sometimes :-( It's just that we do love each other very much, and she wants so much for this to work, I thought maybe there's some answer I'm overlooking. But since neither one of us will change, I suppose the answer is clear :-/
 
@LovelyLady,

I totally understand not wanting the decision made for her. Ideally that could be one conclusion she comes to as well. But the OP seems to have been transparent with her about who he is, what he can offer and what he wants. She seems to be ignoring the reality of the situation for a pipe dream. Of course, we only have his side of things but from what we know from him, she's not offering to accept his polyness and remain mono herself. She essentially wants to convert him. It is possible she could reach that acceptance but that requires seeing the situation as it actually is. Some hard conversations would be needed to see if that is even a possibility.

And sadly, in relationships, sometimes we don't get to decide all on our own if we remain in them. It's a vicious truth that the other person (or persons) can pull the plug at any time and while we can plead and try to work things out, we don't control if another person remains in relationship with us or not.
 
I don't wish to convert her. She believes in polyhusbandry, where she wouldn't mind taking on another partner if the first one wasn't meeting her needs, but she still wouldn't want to share either one with anyone else. She admits it's a double standard, and says that I meet all her needs so she doesn't want anyone else. Either way she wants to go, if she wants someone else or not, I'll be supportive.

I guess I have been sugar coating the situation a little bit. It's hard to tell someone you love who's mono that you want to see other people, but not because they're falling short of your needs, because they always think that and dwell on the thought that they're not enough for you. I suppose I should be more blunt, make the situation more real, and try harder to see if she could ever accept me practicing polyamory.
 
You do of course have the option of staying with her. Then, if another woman comes along and you fall in love with that woman, you can decide if you want to pass that up for your current partner's sake, or, if you don't want to pass that up, you can tell your current partner that you are going to start seeing the other woman, that you hope your partner won't break up with you as a consequence but that you respect her decision whatever it is.

You can even hope that you'll never meet another woman whom you'll fall in love with. Maybe you'll get lucky in that regard (if that's what you'd think of as good luck). I don't know how to advise you beyond that. The others have already stated the other obvious option, the one where you break up with her now in order to avoid a more traumatic break-up later on down the line.
 
My lover/fiance has had three or four men over the last few months that want her to be monogamous. None have aggresively tried to make her monogamous. They just get close to her, start to develop feelings for one another, and then say that they can't handle being with a poly woman. Living in the deep south we expect this to be the norm, but I can tell that it still hurts her. It makes her feel like we are the strange ones.

Well, maybe we ARE the strange ones. Even if we got beyond the sex hangups our society has, I don't see the majority of people going poly. Most people you date will invariably ask/hope for you to be monogamous with them. I've tried being honest, too, and I can say from personal experience that your lover needn't be remotely misleading for people to get misled. People hear what they want to hear.
 
I've had a heated debate about this on Fetlife recently, but I really think it's unethical to stay with someone who wants you to be something you aren't. I think the onus is on you, Op, to acknowledge that you aren't going to meet each other's needs and call it a day.
 
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