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

Don't forget to subscribe using this handy RSS link. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Use my affiliate link for 10% off your first month.

The discussion question this week was brought to you by Odder Being Polyamory Conversation Cards. Use my affiliate link to get your own and use NONMONOHELP at checkout to get 10% off.

Thank you to Chris Albery-Jones at albery-jones.com for the theme music.

Podcast Transcript

About 5 years ago, we got back together and had a long discussion about the swinging lifestyle and my spouse asked to continue their connection with their lovers and I had no additional relationships at the time. I readily agreed and we agreed to continue in the lifestyle by going to parties. Then, we remarried and my partner continued with their two, then three, then two occasional lovers and we stopped going to parties. At the same time we discussed my meeting people but each time it resulted in an argument as I followed the rules to the letter but somehow still was accused of "cheating" and "violating their boundaries ".

In short, I feel that we agreed to non-monogamy when we got back together, I've been supportive of my partner playing with others as they find it pleasurable and have not dictated circumstances or frequency or style. In contrast, I no longer go to parties, can't meet other people even when the circumstances, frequency, and style (I enjoy a certain amount of kink) are dictated by my partner and even when engaged within their stipulations, I am accused of cheating for engaging in non-sexual activities that weren't pre-negotiated with my partner.

I feel like it is ok for them to have lovers, which I'm happy to support because my partner enjoys it, but they are incredibly jealous and threatened if I do the same and thus it is not ok for me to engage with others. At the same time, they aren't interested in some of my kinks and I feel like I am being asked to give up non-monogamy (they say they will as well if I agree to not engage in non-monogamy), give up my kinks (they aren't shared by my partner so we don't participate in them as a couple), and effectively only engage in sex when my partner decides they want to engage in it (and my sex drive is substantially higher than my partner's).

This is really not working for me as I feel taken advantage of and controlled. I could use some advice because I don't want to lose the relationship over this but also don't want to lose myself over it. The solution to me is straight forward, they don't like my kinks or meeting new partners, then they don't need to but shouldn't prevent me from engaging in the play I enjoy.

In a relationship, I feel that we each should strive to support the other's interests but feel like I'm consistently supporting them in their interests (sexually and non-sexually) and constantly fighting to be permitted to engage in my interests (particularly sexually).

Response

This is really difficult, because you say you don't want to lose the relationship over it, but I know there must be some good things about your relationship. But everything that you're telling me here is that you agreed to non-monogamy, I don't know if you've had an explicit conversation about what that means, because non-monogamy and swinging and all of these things can mean different things to different people.

But clearly, I don't know why I would stay with someone who I think has cheated on me. Do you know what I mean? It just feels, I don't know what's going on inside of your... I don't know if this is, you said you divorced, so I don't know if this person is still a spouse or not. I don't know what's going on inside of your partner's head, but it feels like somebody, especially because you said that they said that they would be fine giving up non-monogamy if you would give it up.

And it just feels like, why would they stay with you? That's the question. That's the biggest question that I would ask: why would they stay with you if they genuinely felt like you were constantly cheating on them, or at least that you cheated or violated their boundaries enough that it happened multiple times? Like, why would they stay with you if that's the case?

Is the goal to make non-monogamy uncomfortable?

And it makes me wonder if the goal for them is to make non-monogamy so uncomfortable for you that you just eventually give it up. I don't know if everyone who does this willfully and intentionally is trying to do it, but they agree to non-monogamy, and they don't really want to do it. But then every single time the rubber meets the road, or the shit hits the fan, for lack of a better term, they flip the fuck out. And then their partners are like, "Oh no." And then you end up playing this chicken… polyamory Chicken Game, which isn't like the game of chicken exactly, but you're trying to do it, they freak out, and you back away. You try to do it, they freak out, you back away.

Sometimes that happens because the person is too nervous of their partner freaking out, and they really just need to sit in the discomfort that their partner's going to freak out. But in this case, where you're being explicitly accused of cheating because your partner didn't pre-approve every... I just would be like, "Listen, this whole pre-approval process isn't working for me."

I mean, I am such a relationship anarchist that I wouldn't be okay with any type of situation where my partner gets to approve or disapprove or negotiate anything that I'm doing. Like, no, absolutely not. I'm not a swinger, and I don't know, I didn't come from the swinging community, so I don't know what's normal within those types of communities, but I would be like, "Nah, I'm going to do what I want." We can agree on sexual health prevention methods and how we define risk and when we disclose things to one another, that's how I do it.

It just, I mean, I have a hard time not asking your partner: if you think I'm cheating on you, if you genuinely feel that I'm cheating on you, why are you still here? Because the math isn't mathing for me on that one.

Naming the control

And then I think, I'm sorry, but I feel like you have hit the nail on the head. Really, there isn't any pearl of wisdom that I'm going to be able to give you that's going to make your partner stop being controlling, in a way, because it does seem like that's what they're doing. They are controlling.

They get to dictate what you do with other people. And the only way, as I've said before in other podcasts, when it comes to the behaviour of other grown adults, as I learned from Mathias Barker, I think that's Mathias, I can never remember how to say his name, but he's a great guy, he's a therapist online, he has a lot of really great stuff, I don't agree with him on everything, but I don't agree with anybody on everything.

He has something called the three C's, which is cut, consent and confront. Yay, I remembered all of them. So this is the only thing that you can really do when it comes to the behaviour of other grown-ass adults: you can confront the behaviour. You can say, "Hey, listen, I get that we've kind of been in this situation, and for some reason we have this sort of agreement where you get to pre-approve, but I'm not happy with that. I don't want this type of agreement now.

“I want to be able to be free to sleep with who I want, and we can talk about how we disclose that to one another. We can talk about safer sex protections, we can talk about those things, but the whole idea that you get to pre-approve of what I do with other people is not working for me, and it's not something that I want, and I would like for us to find another agreement that works for us, because this is not working for me."

You can do that. That may not work. It kind of sounds like you've already tried to do that. And as you said, every single discussion that you've had about whether or not you can have partners has ended in an argument, and that, I think, would have been the first sign that this is probably not going to work, because it's never going to work, and you shouldn't have to follow someone's rules to the letter.

It shouldn't necessarily be that not everything has to be always completely and utterly equal, but I think that you bring up the fact that you've been super supportive of them, even about non-sexual stuff, and they're not. Where's the reciprocation here?

You can ask for what you want

But you can ask for this, and you can say, "Listen, I'm going to dictate the circumstances, frequency and style of how I engage with other people. You're not going to dictate that anymore. I have no desire to dictate that for you, so you're free, and have always been free, to do that, but this agreement is not working for me, and I would like to change that."

And if she doesn't want that, then I think you can say, "All right, then I guess we're not really compatible, and we should probably not be with each other." I wouldn't put it up to her to end the situation, for lots of reasons, because I think there's a lot of reasons that would suggest to me that she would not do that.

So, like I said: confront, consent. If you want to be in a situation like this, if you are fine... it doesn't sound like you're fine. I don't know why, it seems like you don't like the fact that even if you did follow the letter of it to a T, I don't think that you actually want to be in a relationship where somebody is dictating all of the means by which you can engage with other people.

And quite frankly, as a person who would maybe end up dating someone who had another partner on a casual basis, I would not be okay with my sex life being decided by somebody else who isn't there. It's also not fair for your partners. It's also not fair for them.

Maybe that's less of a big deal in a swinging situation, but somebody else's wife or spouse or partner or husband deciding what my partner can and can't do with me, and also the privacy aspect of it, the fact that my partner is going to go to their partner and say, "This is a list of all the sexual things I'm going to do with them," and then that's pre-approved... fuck that.

That's a GDPR violation. Like, no, I'm not okay with that. That's a violation of my privacy. No, absolutely not. So it's also not fair for them.

Are you consenting because it's what you want?

So is this the situation you want to consent to? It doesn't sound like you want to consent to the situation. It sounds like you've consented to it because anytime you bring it up, it ends in an argument, it ends in emotional upheaval, which you want to avoid. So are you agreeing to this situation because it's actually what you want, or are you just scared to break up and you don't want to deal with the volcano of emotions that comes every time you try to ask for what you want in a relationship?

This isn't a relationship. It’s a hostage situation. I'm not saying that a partner should just be like, you come to them and say, "I want this," and they go, "Okay, whatever you want." I'm not saying that. But if you're at the point where you're tiptoeing and walking on eggshells because you're afraid that everything you do is wrong, nothing you do is right, even when you follow the letter of it there's still something wrong, there's a word for that, and it's not a good word. And I think you should really think about that. Do you really want to consent to that situation?

Because I feel like, even if you were monogamous, this is the thing, your world gets smaller and smaller. It sounds a little bit like the big A-word here. Your world gets smaller and smaller. They push you and push you and push you into a smaller and smaller corner, your circle gets smaller and smaller.

I'm not saying this is definitely going to happen, because I don't know, but I can easily see a situation where, okay, fine, you give up non-monogamy, and then you can't have women friends because you're being accused of cheating just by being kind to your women friends. Really think about this. The answer to somebody demanding that you behave in the ways that they dictate is not to behave in those ways. It's to say, "No, I don't agree with you having the ability to dictate my behaviour." So that's what I think anyway.

Consent, confront, or cut

So, like I said, consent, you can confront, or you can cut, and cut is sometimes the only option you have left, because you can't control other grown-ass adults. And I can't give you any wisdom about how to do that, because I can't control them. So yeah, unfortunately, that's the situation. I think you really need to stick to your guns, more or less, for lack of a better word. Be honest about what you want and ask for what you want, and then learn to be okay with walking away from situations that don't serve you.

Because even if you were to follow all of the rules, even if you weren't accused of cheating, if you followed all the rules, there's still a lot of people who would reasonably and understandably not want to be your partner, because your other partner is dictating what you can do with other people, and it's almost a violation of their privacy too. So I would really think about that and ask for what you want. And if this person is going to be explosive and unhappy, and you will have to give up who you are, I don't think that you should do that, and I don't think you want to do that.

So you can give them a chance and be like, "Listen, this situation where you get to dictate this, it's over. I'm not doing this anymore. I want to be able to dictate that. I want non-monogamy. This is the form of non-monogamy that I want. If you don't want that form of non-monogamy, then I think we should end this, because we're clearly not compatible."

You deserve better

So yeah, I'm sorry, I wish that I had a better thing to help you with. I think, in a way, please look on the bright side of the fact that you are being really real with yourself.

You say this is not working for me, and that's really good, because there are a lot of people in your same situation who would just agree, who just don't want to be alone and don't want the conflict so much that they will just agree, and they'll lose themselves, and you're not willing to do that.

It sounds like you have a good grasp of that, at least, that you know that you don't want to lose yourself, and you deserve someone who supports your other interests, sexually and non-sexually. You deserve someone who you don't have to constantly fight with. You deserve better, mate.

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