Well i do realize the fallacies to some level, but I think that even logically I still think that letting her be with other man increases the chance that she leaves me. But OTOH I also logicallt realize that the more freedom I give her, the happier she will be. It's about finding some balance I guess.
Honestly? YOu sound very insecure in your relationship, and that's a bad way to start poly. Poly isn't about holding on to people; you don't decide to be poly to keep someone from leaving you. "IF you love it, let it go," right?
You need a secure, solid relationship FIRST before opening it up to other people.
When I wrote about restricting how much sex we can have with outside partners, I wasn't that sure about this.
I definitely realize that you cannot control whether you will develop emotions, and I am willing to take the risk that she will develop feelings for someone else.
PolyAMORY. Many loves. The odds are very good that she will. One thing you need to understand is that's the whole point. It's not polysexual (although that's probably a thing.) Sex is by its very nature intimate, and intimacy begets feelings. You need to discuss, now, what happens if that happens. Period. It's not a risk, it's almost guaranteed! One of the things we who are truly polyamorous learn is that love isn't divided. IT grows, it expands. When I had kids, I didn't love the first one left, I loved the new one just as much, and it grew to accommodate both of my children.
If she does develop feelings for someone, that doesn't necessarily mean her feelings for you reduce, or change. I love my husband very deeply, and it is not diminished by the love I have for my would-be boyfriend.
I guess you just need to learn to recognize whether those feelings are just temporary excitement or something real. I realize she might develop something real and stronger then what we have with someone else, but also am willing to take that risk.
And yes, the leftover resistance is mainly emotional, in the last two days I actually feel much better as I have talked about this with a close friend and it helped me get it off my chest. I didn't really tell her how bad I felt, because she was dealing with the guilt anyway and didn't want to make it harder for her, I still feel that in time this will subside and that an open relationship (some version of it) is something I want to try.
This is a huge red flag for me. The true key to any poly relationship (hell, ANY relationship) is communication. You have to have painful, sometimes exhausting conversations with your partner... your partnerS. You can't protect them from bad feelings. Bad feelings are part of being human, and if you're hiding things, you're not communicating, and resentments develop.
You need to sit down, figure out what you want (which right now seems to be a hot fantasy of screwing lots of people while still getting the benefits of a relationship, but not with her doing the same... you don't like it.) Once you figure that out, you need to have a long, hard conversation for her, so SHE knows what she's dealing with. And you know what she wants. She may need time to deal with her feelings too.
Does that mean she may be done? Yes. One of the hardest conversations I have ever had was the one where my husband and I determined if we could really be poly or not.
He still doesn't know. My happy ending hasn't come yet. I'm not allowed to be poly in practice, yet, although he is on a date as we speak. That's by choice; I want him to have the chance to see if he can handle his own relationships before asking him to accept mine. He's also accepted we both have (though it is painful) that if this doesn't work out? It's probably the end for us, because he might not be able to live with knowing my heart is not devoted solely to him, even if I never act on it. We have to talk this stuff out though, because it's not fair to me, nor him, if we don't.
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