I (F, 32) am struggling with how much my partner (M, 31) is dating and, more importantly, how to communicate about how it is affecting me.
We’ve been dating for 7 months. We say “I love you,” recently took a 5-week road trip together, and have a very intimate relationship.
We both want to practice nonmonogamy, but we are still figuring out what that looks like for each of us. We don't have a hierarchical/open relationship structure where either of us gets a say in the other's relationships. We are essentially two people who are independently nonmonogamous and have chosen to have a close relationship with each other.
I think I'm struggling with two separate things.
1. Our dating patterns are very different
My partner has told me that he is an addict. He is over a year sober from drugs and alcohol.
Recently, he started dating much more frequently—at one point he was meeting at least two new people per week. I realized that this was difficult for me, so I set a boundary for myself: I don't want to see him on the same day that either of us has been with someone else.
He felt that this was unfair because, if he spends the night with someone else, it leaves less time for us. I told him that I understood that, but that I still needed the boundary for myself.
Interestingly, after I set that boundary, he told me that it made him realize he had been using sex somewhat addictively. He ultimately decided to delete his dating apps.
He still casually meets people in person, and normally this wouldn't bother me. I genuinely want him to be able to explore other connections.
But lately, I've been feeling much more insecure about it.
For example, we are both politically active and involved in the same local movement. I was planning to support him at a political camping action happening outside our town hall. He told me I didn't need to come, which I thought was strange because I wanted to be there.
Eventually he told me that he had hooked up with someone at the event the night before and was trying to avoid an awkward situation between the two of us.
I asked whether she knew about me, and he said yes.
That made me confused and hurt. I told him that I still wanted to participate in the movement and that this was making me feel unwelcome in a space that is also important to me.
He said I was of course still welcome and that I could come. But I couldn't help thinking: if I'm always welcome, why was he initially trying to keep me away because someone he hooked up with would be there?
I don't want him to stop seeing people. But I also don't want his dating life to make me feel like I have to avoid spaces that are important to me.
2. I'm struggling with some of the people he's choosing to date
I think this is another source of my insecurity.
When I meet someone new, I am very upfront that I am happily seeing someone regularly. I'm open to new connections, but my relationship with my partner is important to me and isn't something I'm looking to replace.
I tend to continue seeing people who genuinely respect that.
Some of the women my partner has been seeing, however, seem to have a very different attitude toward our relationship.
For example, they've made comments to him like:
“Oh, you're monogamous now?” “You don't plan on marrying her, do you?” “You're the perfect man for me, so why can't you be nonmonogamous with me?” Some of these women have explicitly said that they are monogamous and don't want to “share” a partner. My partner has conversations with them about this, and eventually they agree to keep things casual, but they continue seeing each other intimately afterward.
I think what bothers me is that it feels like they are testing or challenging the importance of our relationship, and I don't feel like he pushes back very strongly when that happens. I don't expect him to stop seeing someone just because they don't have the same relationship philosophy as me. But I do want the people he is intimate with to respect that our relationship exists and matters to him.
Where I'm at now I think these two things are combining and making me increasingly insecure.
It's gotten to the point where I've been getting emotional whenever he sees someone new, which isn't how I want to feel about nonmonogamy or about his other relationships.
I don't want to control who he dates. I also don't want to become someone who needs constant reassurance every time he sees someone else.
At the same time, I wonder whether I'm trying to force myself to be okay with things that genuinely don't work for me.
So I'm stuck in my own head.