New and looking for advice on relationship transition

A

Arsinik

New member
Hello
I'm new to the forum alot of great info thanks. I have been with my wife for the last 15 years monogamous. Recently she has expressed interest in polyamory and has said she would like to have relationships with others but is not comfortable with me having relationships.

Her reasoning is that i should spend all my free time with her and do not have time for others. I work and am the sole provider and have other responsibilities and she is currently in school. we still have what i see as a healthy relationship. We love eachother have two teenage girls etc.

I have expressed to her that if we open the relationship it would be two ways and she does not like that. Am i missing something? Im ok with the idea and i know she is a loving person and multiple relationships emotional and or sexual seems to be a good fit.

But the fact that she would want it to be a one way street is not sitting well with me. From what i know of polyamory and friends we have that are poly it seems to contradict the idea.

We have had situations in the past where she has been with other women. I have always been apart of it and we were all good friends. It had worked out well for the short times that had happen but it was more of an open communication with us and not really relationship orientated just good times if that makes sense.

Anyone have any input?
 
This doesn’t seem ok to me at all, so I’m not surprised you’re uncomfortable with it. What’s her rationale for how it could be fair that you should devote all your spare time to her, while she should be free to pursue other relationships? It makes no sense I can think of. It just sounds self serving.
 
It's one thing if you aren't interested in pursuing other relationships yourself. It's another if it's your partner being selfish and unreasonable. I would tell her that is not acceptable.
 
I agree that this sounds very unfair.

It sounds like her point is that she has more free time (therefore maybe is bored) so it will be easier to have outside relationships while still meeting her obligations to you. If so, perhaps some of the "other responsibilities" that you have could be shifted to her.
 
Hello Arsinik,

It sounds like your wife is trying to introduce a double standard to your relationship. It's like dragonette said, if your wife's reasoning is that she has more free time than you do, then some of the responsibilities should be shifted over to her shoulders. The point is, there should not be a double standard. If she gets to have relationships with others, then you get to have relationships too.

I see that you care about your wife, and want to work with her. Hopefully she feels the same toward you.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
I think one important aspect to a healthy poly relationship is the ability to trust your partner in the choices they make with time management, as well as being able to trust them with the relationships they choose to develop.

It seems like she's not willing/ready / able to give you that trust. My guess would be that she's scared that her needs within your relationship with her would not be met.

I agree that it's not fair that she asked you to give her that trust and freedom, but not be willing to put herself out there and give you the same.
 
I agree with what everyone has said. A double standard like that isn't ok, and if she isn't comfortable with you having other partners, then why does she think it's so acceptable for her to have other partners?

If it's a matter of who has more time, then she could definitely be doing more to shift the burden of responsibilities so that the amount of free time that each of you has is more equal (understanding that this may never be totally 50/50 given that schedules change all the time).
 
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