Transitioning from Monogamy to Polyamory

I (female) am in my late 20s, my partner (male) is in his mid-40s (age gap). I was previously in a long-term monogamous relationship, my partner was in an open and poly relationship with his now ex-girlfriend. Before that, he was in a monogamous relationship from a young age for almost 15 years, in which he was very unhappy. He says that he would have liked to have been non-monogamous since his youth, but that he wasn't allowed to do it for so long in his life and now wants to catch up.

When I met my current partner, he was in a poly relationship with another woman, with whom he had practically no agreements or rules regarding open and poly relationships, except that they would let one another know the next day. The topic of non-monogamy was completely new to me, except that I had heard about it from a few friends beforehand and found it very interesting on a philosophical and intellectual level.

In the beginning, it wasn't such a big problem for me, or rather I just didn't deal with myself that much and perhaps that's why it didn't even occur to me that it could be a problem, because I might have repressed it. Ans I guess I just wanted to be in a relationship with him so bad that I thought the pain of NM is less than the pain than not being with him,

I felt imbalanced in the relationship right from the start, for example I wanted a label relatively quickly after a few months, whereas my boyfriend didn't want that for a year, he just wanted an affair, which already gave me the feeling of not being wanted and not being as important as he was to me.

At some point we were then finally labelled and officially together, and some months later he split up with his other partner. Since then, I've felt more secure overall and have opened up a lot, but I still feel insecure in the relationship because there have been a lot of hurts that have accumulated over time, very unhealthy behaviour patterns and generally the topic of open relationships and him wanting to be with other people makes me very, very insecure.

I also just bring a lot of insecurity myself because I have an anxiety disorder and suspected cptsd, I went to therapy for the first time last year. We don't live together and he works as a mechanic, so he's often travelling and sometimes we only see each other once a week and he also needs much time alone (or with friends, so in time without his partner aka me).

Despite therapy and constant work on myself, the topic of open relationships is still something that has an extremely negative impact on me, my whole life and my psyche. I struggle a lot with intrusive thoughts and no matter what I do, for more or less a year and a half I've had spiralling thoughts in my head and cinematic images of how my partner is involved with other people.

This robs me of a lot of quality of life. For some time now, I've even had these images when we spend time together or even when we both sleep together. It's extremely draining for me, but also for the relationship. In autumn 2024, after a major breach of trust on the part of my partner (which concerned agreements on the subject of an open relationship, we had already promised to focus on ourselves and not have anything to do with others in summer, which was broken at a festival), we decided that we would close the relationship for the time being and try to focus on ourselves, even though there hasn't been a lot of living out the open relationship in the last two years.

In addition, over the last year and a half, there have been very long phases lasting months in which I didn't feel physically desired at all and we slept together very little and kissed too little for my needs and all other physical things. But we're currently in a better phase and are trying to do things differently and better in our communication and generally be more sensitive to each other. And that's working quite well, but the issue of an open relationship is still one that is really grinding us both down every day.

My partner communicated to me from the beginning that he only wanted to be in an open relationship and I originally agreed to that, but now I can't deal with it at all. Over the last two years, there was a long phase in which he looked after every woman he saw out of the car, no matter how tall or short, big or thin, old or young she was, while at the same time I didn't even feel looked at when I stood naked in front of him and asked him if we wanted to kiss, etc.

So for a very long time I didn't feel desired at all myself, even though we had sex from time to time, and at the same time I saw through his actions and also through his words (like ‘I would never say no’, ‘I find almost all women attractive’, ‘I would like to sleep with every woman’) that he desired almost every other woman, no matter who she was, who her personality was, but simply because it was a foreign body that was new and exciting and appealing compared to me.

It feels terrible. We've now gone through a different phase and we're sleeping together a lot again and exchanging lots of affection, but I still can't get over the fact that it hurts me so much that he generally finds other people interesting and attractive and would like to have something with other people.

But not even with a specific person that he finds interesting and meets, but generally just with any other woman that he's not in a relationship with. I totally relate this to myself and have a lot of self-esteem issues anyway, which stem from a trauma-related background, and also a lot of struggles with my body, finding myself attractive because I'm not as slim as the beauty norm dictates.

He now tells me that it's not that he wants to be with everyone, but that he just wants to take advantage of nice random situations when they arise, and that's something I, for one, would actually want too. And that he doesn't think ‘I imagine what she looks like during sex’ or ‘I'd like to have something with her’ with every woman he talks to or sees for more than one sentence, like he said a while ago.

But it still hurts me every day and has a huge impact on my thinking and my own perception. Sometimes I have the feeling that I don't want an open relationship myself, but am only doing it so that I don't lose him, because that would be really horrible for me. That makes me think of the anchor you recommend in your book, and I think I still need to find it. If the situation was such that he said he was monogamous, but I could still live it out as I wanted, then I think I would also like to take advantage of that, i.e. not be monogamous myself, even if I don't have an acute need to be, but it's nice to experience nice random situations without having to specifically aim for them in advance. So I mainly have difficulties with the fact that he wants that and that he finds other women attractive and wants to sleep with other women (or in my head "all other women, whoever“)

What also hurts me is that I think that if he wanted to have sex, I would be up for it at any time and would be really happy if he came over, and if I imagine that he meets a new person in a pub, for example, and then wants to have sex, that this person is better for that than me.

One thing that's also very, very bad is that when I ask him if we want to kiss, for example, and he says ‘I'd rather not until later’ or ‘not right now’, I'm immediately deeply hurt because I think that if someone else was there now and you could flick a magic switch and swap me for a strange woman or someone he used to date, then he would say yes to kissing and would want that really bad.

We've already had this situation in various ways, for example, he didn't want to sleep with me at festivals compared to earlier times because he says it would bother him if you could see the car shaking from the outside. But when I ask him what it would be like if he met a stranger at a festival and had sex with that person, he says it wouldn't bother him because it would be a one-off opportunity that you want to maximise. There are lots of examples like this and I conclude that the inhibitions that prevent him from wanting to be physically intimate with me no longer apply to other people. So I conclude from this that other women are much more appealing and interesting to him and more attractive than me if all the inhibitions that are there with me are removed. So that I'm not worth it and I'm not special.

This also means that I'm not really in the real world and in the here and now. That's a very big problem:

I'm not in the here and now, no matter what I'm doing, whether I'm alone, spending time with him or even having sex: my head is constantly rattling and has all these things in my head and the fears and the ideas of him sleeping with other women or ‘conquering’ them in pubs because I'm somehow stuck there. Therapy has stabilised me a lot so far and taught me how to deal with emotions and panic attacks and all these things in general, but when it comes to open relationships, I'm somehow stuck.

Because I have the feeling that my partner would like to have something with every other person, even if he now tells me that this is not the case - that he just likes to take advantage of nice situations and that the other things he said are not true and that they are just stupid sayings or fantasies - it is now even the case that I compare myself with every other women in every random situation.

So that I walk through the city centre and evaluate other women and think oh, he would certainly find this person interesting now, this woman would be special enough for him to want to have something with her (but EVERY person, simply because they are not me). It even goes as far as clothing adverts with models, for example, and not even real people. Since school, I've really got out of the habit of judging, because I find it really awful and it's really bad that it's back now. Especially through such disgusting patriarchal glasses, which I really disapprove of.

Intellectually and on a level of values and morals, I am in favour of open relationships, perhaps even more so poly, and I could always write a heartfelt essay about why I think this is a very, very good form of human interaction and a great form of relationship. Unfortunately, I don't get there emotionally and although I don't think on paper that if your partner likes someone else it means you're less worthy or less interesting, this feeling and this thought and other monogamy thoughts still go on inside all the time.

In general, the idea of him having a sexual encounter with someone at a festival or in another city far away, for example, is not as bad for me as the idea of it being here in our own city where we live, in his bed where I often lie, in his house and him meeting these people in our favourite pub or something. This idea isn't easy for me either, it completely knocks me off my feet, but it's a tiny bit easier.

What I also find a bit easier, at least in the pure imagination, even if it's still a really painful idea, is knowing things in advance and being able to plan ahead, then being able to plan a reunion when he has something with someone else, rather than something being possible spontaneously at any time (this also triggers my anxiety disorder, I think). But he would actually like the latter. His needs, he says himself, are mainly about freedom, which he himself didn't have in this 15-year unhealthy monogamous relationship.

Perhaps I can summarise it in the following questions:

- How can you deal with a huge discrepancy between intellectually held values and emotional experience and now 2 years of sustained daily nervous system stress? Do you think one can manage this anyway? If so, in what steps? Everything just hurts right now.

- Do you have any tips for dealing with these 24/7 intrusive thoughts that are so painful and consume all my mental capacity?

- How can the scenario that my boyfriend is involved with others or that he simply likes others and would like to have something with them in theory be less severely painful? The real and the imaginary.

- Do you have any tips for therapy on how to perhaps make better progress with these issues that affect the open relationship and not just with therapy ‘in general’?

That's a very detailed description and I hope it's okay. If you have any tips or advice for me I would be incredibly grateful.

There is so much I could say or address here. There are things you could work on in terms of your own self-esteem because genuinely I don't think being monogamous would mean that your partner doesn't find other women attractive or that you won't find a person who is pretty much willing to sleep with anyone who they see.

You could also work on the assumptions you're making around sex and your own personal value and worth as a partner. But none of this is going to solve the key problem that I see in two of the things you have said:

"[My] partner was in an open and poly relationship with his now ex-girlfriend. Before that, he was in a monogamous relationship from a young age for almost 15 years, in which he was very unhappy. He says that he would have liked to have been non-monogamous since his youth, but that he wasn't allowed to do it for so long in his life and now wants to catch up."

"I wanted a label relatively quickly after a few months, whereas my boyfriend didn't want that for a year, he just wanted an affair, which already gave me the feeling of not being wanted and not being as important as he was to me."

Your issue really isn't polyamory, it's incompatibility. Two people can be polyamorous and still incompatible. I think non-monogamy is exacerbating the issue, but it isn't the main issue. Primarily, you want different things in a relationship. You want a label. You want to "settle down" in a way. You want someone who is going to show you that you have a special priority in their life. That has meaning and significance for you and you keep betraying yourself by accepting what feels like this but really isn't.

It sounds like your partner has felt trapped by these things in previous relationships. He already has experienced a long time of being in a monogamous relationship and knows it makes him unhappy. Right now, in his life he wants freedom and autonomy, which is very likely why he did not want your relationship to be labelled. I don't think this is as simple as you not being important in his life, but you do not share the same perception of what is important in a relationship or the same wants in a relationship. And considering the "major breach of trust" which you describe but don't go into, you both keep trying to be compatible for each other and it's not working out.

Your emotions in this situation are freaking out for exactly this reason: "I just didn't deal with myself that much and perhaps that's why it didn't even occur to me that it could be a problem, because I might have repressed it. And I guess I just wanted to be in a relationship with him so bad that I thought the pain of NM is less than the pain than not being with him."

Clearly, this is not the case, unfortunately. You are avoiding pain by continuously betraying yourself and accepting things that you don't want because you don't want to break up. Some polyamorous people do want a relationship where they are prioritised and, while many people have criticisms of that, I don't necessarily feel like that is bad so long as that is clearly communicated to all parties involved. But in this case, this is not what your partner wants.

And I feel like it's because you're not getting what you want that you are looking for solace in other things. If you can't be labelled the way you want, then you want to be the person he chooses first if he's interested in something sexual. You compare yourself constantly because you're trying to figure out who is "most important". When you close your relationship, you get a temporary feeling of being the "most important" but this disappears when he actually starts to date other people. You're ignoring your own inner gut feeling and it sounds like your brain is begging you to pay attention with intrusive thoughts.

The discrepancy here really isn't in your "values". I would still encourage you to see a therapist about comparing yourself to others because, even in monogamy, your partner will still be attracted to other people and there are some people who feel sexual attraction to most people – and this isn't because they don't value the sexual relationships they have with the people they have. Comparing yourself to others in terms of your personal value when it comes to sexual attraction is something you can work on – but this will not solve the critical issue.

Your partner is in a place where he wants autonomy and maybe an approach to polyamory that is more akin to solo polyamory or relationship anarchy. You don't want that. You want perhaps a more hierarchical relationship and perhaps a situation where a partner lives with you and the life that made your partner unhappy. That doesn't necessarily have to be monogamous, but you can't make someone who wants a more solo form of polyamory want what you want.

I've gone personally from being more interested in kitchen table style polyamory or wanting partners to live with me and loads of children to being very independent, childfree and solo polyamorous. I have no interest in living with a partner, marrying, having children or becoming domestically attached. I could meet someone and have zero problems with them being attracted to most people, never comparing myself to the people they date, and not having any emotional obstacles – but if they want to live with me... we're not compatible.

It's not about our emotional issues or relational values. I want a certain lifestyle for myself and they want a certain lifestyle for themselves and our wants are just incompatible. Them forcing themselves to have me as a partner when they want to live with me and I don't would hurt them and me forcing myself to live with them when I don't would also hurt. It's not worth it for both of us to be unhappy.

What concerns me slightly about this situation is that you have a partner who is well into his 40s and doesn't seem to have the emotional capacity and maturity to recognise that you are a young person who wants something he cannot provide. Typically this situation is reversed – it's the person in their late 20s who is wanting more freedom, autonomy and experiences and the older person who is either waiting for the younger person to "settle down" or snap out of their wants. And sometimes that does happen.

People can desire to have something more stable in their life – but not always. As I described for myself, I have gone from wanting to "settle down" to being way more independent. It's possible that because of being stuck in a monogamous relationship that made him unhappy and because of his relatively shorter experience with non-monogamy, he has not really been able to develop his own boundaries and understand when to say when. A lot of people use polyamory as a reason to avoid breaking up with anyone and stay in incompatible relationships for a longer time because there is no "reason" to end it. And obviously, he may also be avoiding pain himself.

But at the end of the day, I think you need to have a serious conversation about what future you both want for yourselves. The reason you haven't found your anchor may be because you actually don't have a personal reason for being interested in non-monogamy. And that's okay. But even if you were to find that reason, you want a type of relationship that it seems like your partner does not. And no amount of emotional work is going to really change that in the same way that you're not going to be able to do emotional work to make yourself want children if you don't, or make yourself want to live in a city if you don't, or make yourself want to get married if you don't.

Listen to yourself more here. Think of your ideal polyamorous situation and ask your partner to do the same and compare them with each other and see if they match up. Have the conversation that you need to have.

If your partner does think he may be interested in some of your aspects of ideal, maybe you can take a break until he is ready to be less autonomous, but this inclination you have to avoid breaking up for the sake of staying in a relationship is something I would recommend you work directly with a therapist with. This tendency towards self-betrayal is going to be difficult for you regardless of what style of relationship that you enter.

I would check out Hailey Magee's resources on people pleasing as a start as well. It probably will also help with you comparing yourself, but I think that response is understandable given you're ignoring your own feelings and trying to find some stability in something. I think when you are actively in a relationship that fits with the lifestyle you want, you probably won't do this as intensely.

I hope this helps and good luck.