My wife and I are considering non-monogamy
My wife and I are slowly getting closer to actually trying non-monogamy, and I’d like some advice from people who have already been through this.
We actually talked about this very intensely about 10 years ago. Back then, I was the one who really wanted to try it, while for her it was more something that sounded hot in her head but that she didn’t necessarily want to do in real life.
That has slowly started to change. The line between “this is a hot fantasy” and “I actually want to try this” seems to be moving for her, and she also dreams about it more and tells me abiut it more often. What we are currently imagining is starting relatively small and uncomplicated. For example, going to a swingers club, adult cinema or sauna together, where she could touch other guys without a lot of flirting, dating, emotional buildup or obligations attached to it. Possibly more if we both feel comfortable with it.
I’m bisexual and would like roughly the same freedom for myself.
We haven’t made a detailed set of rules yet because we’re still at the stage of figuring out what we actually want and how it feels once it stops being purely hypothetical.
One thing that makes this slightly complicated is my jealousy. My jealousy seems to be very specific rather than generally sexual. There is a certain type of person I can get jealous about even if they are literally just talking to her. From experience i can say with almost everyone else, I honestly think I could watch her have sex with someone right in front of me without being particularly jealous. Obviously, I also know that what I think I will feel and what I actually feel when it happens can be two completely different things.
The biggest thing I want is for her to feel completely safe telling me what she wants, what turns her on, what she fantasizes about and what she might want to try. I don’t want her to censor herself because she is afraid I might judge her, get jealous or interpret a fantasy as some kind of threat to our relationship.
So I’m especially interested in advice from people who opened a previously monogamous relationship:
How do I show her that she can genuinely talk openly with me about her desires without having to worry about being judged later?
How did you learn to handle jealousy when it actually appeared, especially if your jealousy turned out to work differently in reality than you expected?
How much should we agree on rules and boundaries beforehand, and how much can realistically be figured out as we go?
And probably my biggest concern: is there a realistic way back if we open this door and one of us discovers that it doesn’t work for us?
For people who tried this and then decided it wasn’t for them: were you able to return to monogamy without it permanently changing the relationship for the worse?
I’m not looking for reassurance that this will definitely work. I’d rather hear what you wish you had discussed or understood before you actually tried it.