I’m wanting to let my partner know that I’m poly…
I need help, advice, tips and support.
Anonymous
I’m wanting to let my partner know that I’m poly but I have no idea how to even start. We’ve been together for 10 years (since high school) and have 2 kids together. I’ve known I’m poly for a while but have never spoken up or said anything about it (absolutely no one knows about this) but it’s come to a point I don’t want to not say anything anymore.
We’ve had light jokes about getting with other people in the past and he’s said how there is no way he could deal with that and we both laughed it off. I really want to open this part of myself and not grieve over it anymore but I don’t want to loose him. I don’t know how to explain it to him without him thinking or feeling like I no longer love him which isn’t true at all.
It may feel fully authentic for you to label what’s happening as “Telling my partner I’m poly” but that’s going to come off extremely badly to everyone else, and do a disservice to the reputation of poly people in a greater sense. So even if that’s what your journey truly feels like to you, I recommend more tact than bluntness with how you handle it with your partner and family.
Recognize that you are ending your relationship as it has existed up to this point. Your partner and family won’t see things any other way. Don’t let yourself conflate the reality of what this means for your family with what it means to your own personal development. Yes, in a way you are “coming out” but don’t make these conversations centered on you.
If you want to give yourself the best chance of sticking the miracle landing (your partner opting-in to a new polyamorous relationship with you without disrupting your lives too much), you’ll have to spend considerable time and effort making them feel safe and heard. You’ll need to give them time to process and some leeway for being upset. It could possibly mean you don’t pursue other relationships (at least not too obviously) for a while.
It’s up to you to deliver the information about what you feel and what you want and then just listen and wait to see what happens. You may get options you don’t expect. You may get zero options and just have to roll with the punches.
It’s definitely a sticky situation and I feel for you. I’d brace myself, be honest, and just do my best to not hurt anyone more than I have to, but I’d definitely speak up and advocate for what I want too. Good luck!
This was my response. I was concerned about their framing because they seemed to be setting themselves up to fail.
Realizing later in life that we’re polyamorous after we’ve already made monogamous commitments is sadly common. Our options at that point rarely allow those relationships to continue at all, but the only way to keep any semblance of mutual respect and trust is to center our monogamous partner in our actions for a while. After all, we are essentially breaking promises we made to them.
Grace and Frankie
While polyamory isn’t the same as sexual orientation, I think of Grace and Frankie when discussing stuff like this. It’s a Netflix show about two friends whose husbands come out as gay in their 70’s. They want to divorce their wives and get married to each other. The story centers the titular characters, obviously, and how they cope with the upheaval their families experience. At the same time, the show affirms (while poking fun at) the realities of our culture and how unfortunate it is that we’re conditioned/forced to be heterosexual even if we’re not, and how long it can take someone raised in such a society to find authentic love.
The husbands in the show don’t do a great job of delivering the news or centering their spouses at first. I think it serves as a good cautionary tale for balancing the joy of self-discovery, the euphoria of new love, the excitement of living openly after hiding oneself for so long, and the impacts that delivering this news to others who will be negatively affected by it.
An Ultimatum
Polyamory reveals aren’t necessarily the same as Grace and Frankie’s situation. In the case of the original poster here, they ideally want to maintain their existing relationship but change its dynamic to open it for dating others as well. The announcement doesn’t come packaged with “I’m breaking up with you” the same way, but to anyone who is deeply rooted in monogamy, it may as well be. It’s the introduction of an impasse where the person hearing it gets the ultimatum: Agree to stay in a relationship where they will also have other — possibly, but not always, including romantic and sexual — relationships.
How well do we know our partner? I get the sense the poster here knows this is going to blow up their relationship. They seem like they’re positioning themselves defensively and spinning the situation as a coming out story so anyone who has a problem with their announcement might be viewed as “closed-minded” or, to a combative perspective, bigoted. I don’t see this sort of self-righteousness tactic working out for anyone beyond imbalanced influencer/celebrity situations where there’s an already-sympathetic audience to play to, detached from any actual effects of the decisions the person makes.
I hope I’m wrong about that, or that they rethink that strategy to do less harm. Hopefully they make an earnest effort for what they claim to want, as I advised. Especially for the kids’ sake.