That’s what’s on this week’s episode of Non-Monogamy Help.

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Podcast Transcript

I have been in a relationship for a year and a half. My partner is poly[am], and I am more mono-leaning, but open to exploring non-monogamy. I feel like my partner often lacks the ability to consider how I feel when he shares that he’s pursuing or interested in other partners.

For the first several months of our relationship, we agreed to be monogamous because we wanted to focus on each other. Then there was an incident where he cheated on me. There was no sex involved, but he spent the night at an ex’s place. They cuddled and shared a bed. He had told me he was going to see this ex, but he didn’t mention that he planned to spend the night. He only told me afterwards. I felt betrayed, because it seemed like he approached polyamory as “I do what I want, when I want,” without considering my feelings.

When I brought this up, he deflected and pointed out that I had “cheated” on him early in our relationship. But the situations weren’t the same. At that time, we had just started dating—literally within about a week or so. We both knew we were seeing other people. I had sex with another partner after being with him, and while I didn’t tell him beforehand, I did tell him afterwards. We hadn’t had any agreements yet because it was so new, so I didn’t realize there was an expectation to check in before being intimate with other people.

I’ve noticed a pattern: he doesn’t validate my feelings or show much care for how I might be impacted. For example, after a particularly difficult conversation we had about our relationship, he told me the next morning that he had a coffee date lined up with someone he met online and that he wanted to start a sexual relationship with another ex of his.

This was out of the blue because he hadn’t been interested in pursuing any new relationships for several months. He didn’t ask how I felt or invite a conversation about it—he just announced it. I would have appreciated him showing some consideration, especially after a conflict, instead of dropping that on me as I was heading out the door, with no time to process or talk about agreements.

Then, a few weeks later, I flew across the country to be with my dad after he had a heart attack. While I was away, my partner was supportive over the phone. But during that time, he also told me he was planning a trip to see the new person he met online.

Again, he didn’t ask if the timing would be okay. It’s not that I expect him to ask permission, but given that my dad had nearly died, I think it would have been considerate for him to say something like, “I know the timing isn’t great—if you’d prefer, I can put this off.” I probably would have been fine with it, but the point is that he didn’t acknowledge the impact it might have on me.

So here’s where I’m at: I feel like I can’t trust him to show the level of care and consideration I need, especially as we explore non-monogamy. I don’t think my expectations are unreasonable—I’ve told him directly that I want more sensitivity and consideration, but the same patterns keep happening.

Now I’m at a crossroads. I’m debating whether to break up with him or to de-escalate our relationship—shifting from seeing each other multiple times a week to something lighter, maybe once every two weeks or once a month. I’m realizing I don’t want to practice non-monogamy in this way, at least not in such an involved relationship.

My questions are:

Does it make sense to de-escalate rather than end things completely?

If so, would it help to take a cooling-off period with no contact, to give myself space to grieve the relationship we had before?

Response

So I'm going to ask a couple of difficult questions, because I understand where you're coming from, but I think that there's an aspect of this. You say he's not asking for permission, but he kind of is, because what is the utility of asking how you feel when talking about a date? It feels like you don't have any other common ways that you bring up relational issues with each other, and the only time you can bring up feelings about stuff is when he tells you that he's—and he is showing consideration by telling you, "Hey, I'm going on a coffee date with somebody."

In some forms of polyamory, especially someone that you don't live with, you don't even get that. I don't—I kind of feel like, if I'm—I'm solo polyam. I'm not interested in cohabitating with anybody. And I date people, and I would never expect someone to give me—unless there was a sexual health risk. I expect to be warned about new sexual health risks and any time our risk profile changes. But on the whole, I would never expect someone that I wasn't living with to disclose to me that they're going on a coffee date with somebody. I wouldn't expect that, because as long as we have our set agreements between each other and we have our set time with one another, what they do in their own free time is not really my concern.

Because I just don't understand—what is the utility of asking how you feel? It seems like you want him to witness your upset, but why do you want him to witness your upset?

What you want is control

This is kind of a permission-based rule. You want a heads-up. He's giving you a heads-up. But you don't just want that. And that kind of comes through with the example you gave when you flew across the country, and your dad had a heart attack, and I'm sorry, that's a really hard thing to go through. But literally, you said what you wanted him to say. Being considerate—what this actually means is giving you control.

So literally, you're saying, "I know the timing isn't great, if you'd prefer, I can put this off." So consideration to you means turning the reins over to you and allowing you to decide if it's okay. This is permission. You're not framing it that way, and you're not using those words, but that is permission. What you want is not sensitivity and consideration. You want him to hand you the reins, and you want to be able to decide—you want your emotions about what he's doing to decide whether or not he's allowed to go out on a date with somebody, which isn't really fair and isn't what he wants.

And if that's what you want, then that's fine, but it's not really fair to the other person either. Put yourself in the position of somebody who he's dating. You've just met someone new. You want to go out with them, and then they call you and say, "Actually, we can't go out today because my partner's not happy about that." That's not fair. And you might be okay with it, because you want that type of control, but maybe he doesn't want that type of control.

He's not not caring about your emotions

And he's not not showing you consideration. He's not not caring about your emotions. And it might be that you would like a place—you are going to have these emotions and feelings about him dating other people, and that's fine. I'm not saying it's bad that you have those feelings, but those feelings shouldn't then get to dictate what he's able to do.

And he shouldn't have to—it's understandable—it would be one thing, if he said, "Hey, I'm going out on this coffee date with somebody, or I'm planning this trip with somebody. What do you need from me so that I can support you? Because I'm aware I'm going out on this trip, but I want to also be there for you." That would have been consideration, that would have been care, not—because whether or not he goes out on a date with somebody else, he's not incapable of providing you with support during emotionally difficult times just because he's going out on a date with somebody else.

Think about it in terms of a friend

Think about it in terms of a friend. If you had a best friend and you were in the same situation, you flew across the country, there's something wrong with your parent, you're really upset about it. I don't think you would expect your friend—I don't think you would have the expectation of your friend being like, "Hey, I'm here to support you. Do you want me to not spend time with my husband so that I can support you?" I don't think you would have that expectation. That would be really weird.

It would be fine for your friend—if you were like, "Oh my god, something's happened," and your friend was like, "You know what? I was going to go out on a date with my husband tonight, but actually, this has happened to you, and I want to be there for you, so I'm going to reschedule with my husband and be there for you." That's fine. That's understandable. If there's an emergency situation, if there's something like that that happens, we absolutely don't have problems with changing our schedule for friends and for partners to be there in support of one another. That's okay.

But to say that every single time he plans on just going out on a coffee date with somebody, he has to tell you, and then he has to give you the reins and decide whether or not he's actually going to go through with that based off of your emotions—that is permission. Even if you don't want to call it that, that is permission. That is essentially permission. And that really isn't fair. It's not fair to him, it's not fair to the people involved. It's also not fair on you, because if he has to tell you before any of this happens, then what if he's out at a party and it's 3am—this is the scenario that I always give—but if he's out at a party, it's 3am, he meets somebody, they have the energy, he wants to hook up, he's going to call you on the phone at 3am waking you up. Maybe you've had a really bad day. He'd be like, "Hey, I'm about to hook up with somebody. Is that okay?" This doesn't work.

You both need to agree on what cheating is

And I think that he's pointing out—the first scenario that you describe of cheating, you both need to be—you both clearly, especially since he came back with, "Well, you cheated before," you both clearly need to agree on what cheating actually is, because this sort of idea that you didn't get permission with each other before you did something with somebody else is cheating is unsustainable, exactly for this reason.

And I don't think he actually thinks that you cheated on him. I think that he's just pointing out—and maybe he did use the word cheating, but I think he's pointing out that there have been times when you've done things and, more like, you've had sex with somebody else, and then you told him afterwards, right? You allowed to sit—a situation between two people. You don't plan on having sex, but it happens, and then you tell your partner, and then they get mad because you didn't say so before.

But I think it sounds like he didn't plan on this being necessarily a cuddle date or anything, but it happened, and now he's in trouble because he didn't tell you for something he couldn't predict, right?

This is why permission can be so tricky

So I think that this is why permission can be so tricky. He didn't, I don't think he planned on spending the night necessarily. I mean, if he did, then—but if he doesn't live with you, then why does it matter if he's—I can understand heads-up and permission rules, not permission rules, but heads-up rules if you share a space with each other. Because it's like, if I generally cook for my partner, and I'm making a meal for both of us, and I plan, and I usually do that every night, a heads-up of, "Hey, you don't have to make an extra dinner, because I'm going to go out tonight. I'm not going to—" whether it's with friends or with anybody else, "I'm going to go out tonight." That's understandable.

But if he doesn't live with you, then why did he need to? What is the utility of telling you this? You say it's about considering your feelings. But it seems like the consideration that you actually want is to control whether or not this happens or to have this emotional reaction to it. It's almost like you want—you want the space to—him to say, "I'm planning on doing X thing," for you to have a bit—to see whether or not that causes you this big emotional reaction. And you get to decide if this emotional reaction is too much for then—to control what he does, or if it's fine enough for him to be—and that's—you're going to have emotional reactions. And I get that. I get that that's not fun, but you can't prevent yourself from having emotions.

You want to inoculate yourself

It seems like you want to inoculate yourself against the emotions that you're going to experience by him telling you before it happens, so that then when the—you get to have a little taste of the emotion as a treat, so that when it does happen, then you can actually deal with it. But it's kind of continuously—it's kind of confirming to yourself that you're not able to trust yourself. You're kind of leaning into this idea that, "Okay, I need this little bit of a heads-up, because I can't actually—I don't want it to have already happened, and then I can't control it, and then I have an even bigger emotional reaction," right?

So I think that you need to kind of think a little bit more about what you actually want, because asking him for, “more sensitivity and consideration” is very nebulous, because he may feel like he is giving you sensitivity and consideration by telling you these things, by telling you he plans on doing these things. When, if you don't live together, and he gets to decide his own schedule, does he tell you when he's going to spend time with his family? Does he tell you when he's going to spend time with his friends? No.

Establish set dedicated times

And I get that you're afraid that other relationships could escalate and take time away from you, but really what that means is that you actually need to establish set dedicated times you have with each other, and then it doesn't matter how other relationships escalate. And then you also need to think about having a regular relationship check-in. Multiamory does a great example of this. If you look up RADAR and Multiamory, they talk about regular relationship check-ins. And then that actually provides you with the space to talk about feelings if you want.

And I think you also need to both think about, even if you're more monogamous-leaning or whatever, I think that you need to think about what's your ideal setup, how much time would you ideally like to spend with each other? And how can you compromise on that? Because maybe your ideal is actually having more of an anchor partner, and he doesn't want that. So you've got to—but just because both of you are interested in polyamory doesn't mean that you're compatible.

Polyamory is not an excuse to avoid a breakup

And the other thing that kind of concerns me about this is you're talking about de-escalating, and polyamory is not an excuse to have multiple semi-sustaining relationships until you reach a level of permissible stasis. And I think that sometimes polyamorous people and people in polyamorous setups will use polyamory as an excuse to avoid a breakup, and if you're fundamentally incompatible in terms of how you want to operate and do things, de-escalation is not going to fix that.

So I think this isn't—I would encourage you to rethink this about what it is that you actually want, and be honest with yourself. Do you want the ability to stop him from going out with somebody else because of your emotions? Is that what you're really asking for, even if you don't want to call it permission, even if that's not how you want to frame it?

And if you want this space to have an emotional reaction about what he's planning on doing, ask yourself why you want that space. What utility does that provide? Because really, he can show care and consideration for you in regular relationship check-ins. He can show care and consideration if there is an emergency thing that happens and you do need his support, his emotional support. He can show care and consideration for you—it shouldn't be about what he's taking away from other relationships, and it should be about something he's actually providing you.

This is about prioritising you over others

And I think that right now, the consideration that you're asking for is more about him showing his willingness to prioritise you over other relationships. And that's not really—that may not be what he wants, and it's not really fair to the other people involved. They don't deserve to have their date cancelled with somebody that they're super interested in because you're having a feeling about it. And that sounds quite harsh, but that is essentially what's happening through what you've described as what consideration would have been.

Consideration seems to be giving you the power to cancel his date or his trip with somebody else, because you're not feeling great about it, and that's not really fair. On a base—that may not be what he wants, and it's also not fair to the other person involved.

Put yourself in the other person's position

I would definitely invite you to put yourself in the position of the other person involved, planning a fun trip out with him. How would you feel if he was like, "Actually, I can't support you while your dad is in this position, because my other partner's not happy about it"? I think that you would not be happy about that either. So think about that.

I would also consider working with each other about how you—I think a regular relationship check-in will also help you with conflict resolution. It does concern me that when you bring up this, that if he specifically said, "Well, you cheated before"—you really shouldn't be enemies of one another. You're supposed to be on the same team.

But I think it would help. It would help if maybe you listen to this together and talked about it and talked about what it is that you both actually want, because it's not great that, in response, it was like, "Well, you cheated too." It shouldn't be a tit-for-tat thing. But I can understand if it wasn't meant to be a tit-for-tat thing. It was meant to more say, there has been examples of you doing something and telling him afterwards, and that being okay, and then now he's expected to tell you, especially if he didn't intend to spend the night with that person. And it just kind of happened, and that does happen.

Why does he have to tell you?

And if he's not living with you, and there is no expectation of, "Oh, you need to tell me that you're not coming home, because I need to know that you're not dead in a ditch somewhere or something like that," then I don't understand why he has to tell you about spending the night at somebody else's house if you don't live together. It has to tell you before it happens. Because that does seem a little bit—it seems a bit—it's not something that I would personally agree with.

I wouldn't date somebody who expected me to tell them before I—if I planned a date, especially if I didn't live with them. I don't see why I would need to tell them about every date that I have, or any time I spent the night with somebody else, especially if I didn't have sex with them. And there was no increased risk of STIs, there's no increased risk of anything for them. So I don't see why I would have to tell them.

What consideration actually means

And yeah, so I think I've summed up things, and hopefully I think that you can get to an agreement. I don't think you have to de-escalate or anything, but I just think that you need to explore a little bit more of what the actual—what consideration actually means, and what the result is, and what you actually want.

Because at the end of the day, I totally understand you wanting this. I totally understand you wanting to know before something happens, because it's very easy for your brain to trick you into thinking that this is going to prevent something. But ultimately, and I would definitely invite you to read my 101 and 102 articles at https://NonMonogamyHelp.com/101 and 102—ultimately, you can't control if he goes out on a date with somebody and decides that he wants to be monogamous with them, or decides that he wants to spend more time with them and wants to spend less time with you, or becomes completely uninterested in you. You're not going to be able to control that.

So you trying to create a situation where you get this heads-up so that you can emotionally prepare—it's not, it's not going to—it just makes you think that you have control over the situation, and if you're asking for control over the situation, then you do have control. And that's not really fair. But it's making you think you can prevent losing him by knowing about things ahead of time. And that's not really the case.

You can give up on this relationship. You can be monogamous. You can find somebody who is monogamous, and you can date and then you can get married, and you can be together for 20 years, and then that person could meet someone at work and decide that they are in love with that person, they want to pursue a relationship with them and leave you. Even being in monogamous relationships will not save you from that. That's just an inherent risk of life, unfortunately.

So yeah, I hope that helps, and good luck.