How Much Dating Is Too Much in Polyamory?

My partner and I met when we were poly. He left the mother of his kids to pursue a poly identity. Unfortunately we both fell madly in love and soon zoomed up the relationship escalator; as other partners fell away. It's an incredible love - and I left behind my previous life of adventure to join the family, be a parent, and share the home.

A couple of years in I started experiencing jealousy and insecurity. I read and researched everything I could, looking for help; but eventually got-out of my partner that he'd been building-up other relationships and feeding the flames of multiple communications, without naming it or bringing it into the light between us. 

There are reasons, like his shame, and mono-assumptions, but it really hurt to be gaslit and also excluded from the simple truth. It was a huge deal for me to have let one person in so deeply, and in retrospect I see that my solo-poly life was probably driven by avoidance and escape. I'm doing a lot of work and therapy to try and find my equilibrium.

I still believe in poly values, but I'm more vulnerable and all I'm looking for is contentment. My partner is at the point of owning that his need for multiple women is driven a lot by connection-compulsion and dopamine addiction. He stands by his poly nature, but has realised the questions of capacity too, and at least doesnt want to have relationships with them all. And yet, there is still lot of activity that's invisible to me.

He is online for more than 12 hours each day, available to all the connections there - and secretive about the messaging that goes on. I ask for truth consistently, and keep on having to be the one requesting information and clumisly trying to name the impact on my feelings. He will have 2 or 3 coffe or zoom dates, with pretty ladies, per week, and I can count the names of at least 25 currently open attractions, (from the ones which are 'above water' and known to me)...

Now, he will frame them as 'not romantic' and yet still revel in the flirting field, capturing more adoration, and adding to the cohort of charmed fans and fawners. (As you can tell there's alot of judgement in me).I'm someone who needs the uncomfortable transparency; and I'm finding it so hard to trust him. It uses up so much of my energy and time, trying to track who's around and what the stakes are, and what he's up to, especially when I'm not around. I have steeped right into his witch/huntress role, in my quest for truth.

I'm doing my best to sort and claim what anxieties are my own, and to trace what my real fear is, from this new phase of having let someone in. But it's all so consuming. I also fear for the desires and beliefs of all the other women, and him feeding their projections. He does consistently reassure me about his love for me, so that's not in question.

I'm off my map as to what's acceptable to expect - partly because I'm a stranger to long term committed relationship, but also because we do have radical values at heart. And yet, I feel like he's making very little concession to the system of us, and am constantly with the question of whether I can do this; with such a consistent background of unsafety, despite our world-bending connection.Thankyou for your perspective.

It might be worth you asking yourself what the transparency about this serves.

Our culture stigmatises hookups and creates a slut shaming image of this awful person who hooks up with and dumps people. We've decided that someone who enjoys flirting, enjoys flings, enjoys dates for the sake of being dates is a problem. Some people would even call this an "addiction" of sorts to new relationship energy. I don't tend to agree with that. I'm definitely not someone who enjoys flirting or flings, but I have ended up in relationships with people who have and I have been the judgmental one there -- and I was wrong.

There is nothing sacrosanct about a relationship that lasts until one of the people in it dies, as Dan Savage frequently points out. A connection is not only meaningful when it looks in the way society has codified. While it is absolutely wrong for someone to pretend to be interested in a long term relationship and present as such to someone for the purposes and intentions of sleeping with them and then ghosting them, people who enjoy dates or flirting are not necessarily doing that. I think so long as one is honest and straightforward with people about what they want, I don't see this as an issue.

You're hyper fixated on what he is doing with the time he is not spending with you because you do not have the security that you need and it's okay for you to want and need that. The issue is not actually that he is spending 12 hours a day having different dates and what the nature of the relationships are of the dates he's having. If he was spending 12 hours a day playing Minecraft alone, I think you would still be relatively unhappy – it just wouldn't feel like such a threat. You've grown up in a mono-centric society, likely, which has told you that your partner seeing other people is a threat, so you're focusing on that rather than focusing on what the real issue is.

It seems like what you want is scheduled, dedicated time with him. You want to feel like your relationship with him matters. And it may feel comforting for the short term when he reassures you because he's saying you do matter, but you are not mattering in the way you want to matter. You want more time with him it seems like. Or you want to see that he is willing to spend time offline with you and in a context that makes you feel like you are experiencing quality time together. You want to have a discussion about what your relationship actually means and some idea of where you fit into his life in the long term and instead of asking for that directly, you're trying to find hints and clues by analysing his other connections.

Focus on the relationship that's between the two of you. See if you can establish some scheduled dedicated time with one another. Ask him what time he has for you and what time he wants to spend doing... whatever. Again, if he was spending 12 hours a day playing Minecraft, it seems like you'd still be unhappy. Step away from the analysis of what's happening in his other relationships and focus on what can happen between the two of you. Can you both work towards spending quality time with each other and co-creating a relationship that is meaningful together? Create the safety you need together and then you will likely feel a little less shaky.

I hope this helps and good luck.