Trying Monogamy After Polyamory

I find myself in a predicament that I need some outside perspective on. A few years ago I was in a monogamous marriage of 15 years. I approached my husband about opening our marriage. We did the reading and the learning and the talking, and then opened our marriage.

It was very bumpy with a lot of growing pains and ultimately was the end of that relationship. I know opening a monogamous marriage is like shining a spotlight on all of the cracks that I never realized were there, and that is absolutely what happened to us. The extremely solid foundation that I thought was there was absolutely not. Ultimately it turns out my ex-husband required monogamy with me and by that point I was not willing to go back to monogamy and also had seen so many dark and ugly parts of his personality that I had fallen out of love with him.

Since that time I have been in a loving non-monogamous relationship with a man that was married. My metamor and I had a close relationship and the three of us are still friends to this day. That relationship didn't work out for a variety of reasons. I have also dated non-monogamously since then but that was really my only relationship since my divorce. There were certainly challenges and I actually found it hurtful to be "secondary" in the underlying hierarchy of their marriage. That experience made me realize that I do want a primary partner and most of the trappings of a "traditional" relationship, as far as nesting and meeting each other's families, presenting to the world as a couple etc etc etc.Fast forward to today, and I have met the most incredible man.

You probably know where this is going. On the NM spectrum he is much closer to monogamy. He would potentially consider threesomes, swinging, sex parties but not necessarily dating others even in a DADT or parallel way. So the sex aspect of NM only and not the relational/emotional part. At this point in time I have agreed to be exclusive because I also genuinely want to lay down that very solid foundation with someone before exploring NM together, even if that takes years. My fear is that what he is offering to me won't be enough, and both of us will be incredibly hurt in the future if I continue to see him now.

I'm feeling guilty because I exploded my marriage for NM and now I am seriously considering monogamy again. (Though I honestly think that marriage may have ended for other reasons and the NM sped it up quite a lot.) I also am genuinely not sure if NM is for me at all! My experiences have felt hollow in some ways and as I said even in the loving context of the NM relationship I was in I still felt that a lot was missing for me emotionally.

I'm willing to participate in monogamy with this man with the expectation of dipping our toes into NM in the future, at his pace. Last night we had another long conversation about this and it consistently sounds like he really needs monogamy and will not be comfortable with any level of openness (except maybe threesomes which I don't consider to be NM at all). What are your thoughts? As painful as it would be to end things now, am I making a mistake at trying to surpress the NM side of myself?

Or might I actually be closer to monogamy than I thought as well? I agreed to exclusivity because the idea of him doing the EXACT same things I wanted to do (date others, have sex, spend a weekend with someone else) were so wildly uncomfortable I wasn't ready to do that internal work yet. I don't feel secure enough with him yet to include those things. But maybe I don't actually want that kind of relationship structure at all! I'm feeling so confused and really don't know what to make of all this.

Can I commit to monogamy after ending my marriage for non-monogamy? I feel choosing to be with just one person as almost a (to be fair, small) sense of loss of the "what might be" with others. Is this just the choice that all monogamous people make at some point in their lives?!

I really appreciate your insights, thank you!

One of the side effects of new relationship energy or NRE for people, and I have done this myself, is that we often tend to downplay our wants and needs when it seems like we can continue to experience the positive aspects of a new relationship. It makes a lot of sense. We're driven to be connected to one another. And I think the reality of this is that you're lying to yourself a little bit.

He is a monogamous person. He is "willing to consider", as you've said, some aspects of non-monogamy but he is not necessarily enthusiastic about this and this might be him doing what you're doing. You're both pretending like you have interests in things you don't so that you can stay together, which is very human of both of you, but it's something that I think won't really serve either of you well in the long run. Your previous marriage has already shown to you that you do not want strict monogamy and your experience with your non-monogamous partner has demonstrated to you that you don't have an interest in hookups or swinging. You want romantic relationships with multiple people. You do want a nesting partner, but you don't want monogamy.

What he is okay with is not what you seem to want. You might be able to be okay with other sexual experiences, if he actually is okay with that (and that "if" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here), but I think it's kind of setting yourself up for failure. I could easily see you agreeing to this, you getting restless in monogamy after the NRE dies off, you asking for some other sexual experiences and him pushing himself to be okay with it, you developing feelings for the people that you are dating the same way you did for your loving, non-monogamous married man were partnered with and then that blowing up in both of your faces.

It's hard for me to say without knowing what happened in your first marriage. Is non-monogamy for you about having other sexual experiences? Was the problem that your partner tried to be okay with you having sex with other people but in the end, didn't feel comfortable with it? Was the problem that you were only meant to have sexual experiences with people but inevitably ended up having feelings that you didn't know what to do with? Did you establish a clear idea of how much time you wanted to spend with a nesting partner versus how much time you wanted to spend with other partners? If having other romantic relationships with people feels threatening to this new partner you have, why is that?

There are so many reasons why monogamy can fit better for people than non-monogamy and vice versa. For some people, they simply do not want to divide their lives and time between multiple partners. Having a monogamous relationship where they live with their partner, have a house, children, etc. is practical and the way they want to live their lives. It has nothing to do with the emotional impact of their partner experiencing love or having sex with another person. And for those people, a monogamous long distance relationship doesn't work neither does one where their partner spends the majority of their time in a time intensive career or hobby. For others, they want a different life and they are more independent so having partners that they don't live with is much more ideal. They can have partners who are married and spend the vast majority of their time apart because it isn't an issue.

Some things can be worked through. Monogamous-centric culture encourages people to believe that love is a finite resource and that if their partner experiences love for other people, it is a threat to them. Misogynistic aspects of our culture in particular encourage men to believe that there is something detrimental to their personhood if their women partners have sex with other people, so it is a threat if their partner has other male partners but not female partners. Some people's inability to "do non-monogamy" comes from things that they have learned that actually can be harmful regardless of what type of relationship style they prefer. People may find as they let go of the assumption that love is a competition or that their partner experiencing sexual desire or love for someone else is a threat, they find non-monogamy less of a threat to them and are more open to the idea.

And in general, I find that a lot of the anxiety that people feel in non-monogamy comes from a lack of a cultural script they have and seeing their partner be with other people and not knowing what this means for their relationship. They have been going through their entire life being told that their partner being with someone else or being interested in someone else is threat level midnight -- so of course they are going to be terrified when that happens. Very few introductory polyamory resources, in my opinion, give people things they can do to help them feel secure so they just read for six months, do the Polyamory PhD, and wonder why they feel like crap. This is why I came up with my own introductory course and why I wrote my 101 and 102 articles.

One thing is for sure, if you intend on practicing non-monogamy going forward and, even if you are monogamous, you do yourself a world of good by being really honest with yourself and being real about what you want. And I know that is incredibly hard, especially when you have the chance to be in a relationship again. But do not allow NRE to pull the wool over your eyes and cause you to agree to things that you don't actually want just because of the rush of hormones and feel good chemicals a new bond brings to you. When you make the choice to try and go along with something just because you don't want to lose the relationship you have with someone else, you end up betraying the relationship you have with yourself. And the relationship you have with yourself is one of the most important ones.

Sit down with him and be real, be straightforward. Tell him what happened in your other marriage and tell him what you want. How much time do you want to spend with him and how much time will you spend with other people? Lay your cards out on the table and see if that is something that he wants. Because all of the time you spent both in your first marriage and the time you spend with him is time you're not spending with people who would look at the cards you have laid out and said, "Sure. I want that."

I hope this helps and good luck!