My boyfriend asked me (Intersex Woman) for an open relationship and I'm really struggling
My (23F) boyfriend (23M) recently asked to open our relationship and ever since i have been really struggling with myself, our relationship, and my feelings toward him. I apologise for the length.
Important context:
I am an intersex woman, i have a condition that makes me appear like any other woman but my genitals look a little different, i have no internal reproductive organs or vaginal canal, and i have XY chromosomes. I had surgery as a kid to make my genitals look more like a regular vulva, and i had another surgery last year to create a small vaginal canal from a skin graft.
Ok so i met my boyfriend about a year and a half ago. I have always been extremely scared of sex and dating due to being intersex. I have had like two short lived FWB over the years. When i met my boyfriend it was a very slow and vulnerable process getting close to me and having sex. He made me feel wanted in a way i never had before, he was always so nice and tried his best to make me comfortable. He was much more experienced with sex and dating than i was so he kind of took the lead.
I had the second surgery i mentioned about 3 months into officially dating him and he helped me with recover and everything.
During this time he revealed to me that he thinks he might be bisexual. I was kinda like 'cool, i dont care', I've always been very close to queer, trans, and intersex people so it wasn't an issue for me. We hugged and left it there.
A couple months later we tried having sex with my new vaginal canal. it was hard and painful (the doctors said it would be for a little while and to go slow), so again we took it very slow and tried a few times over the course of a month, and eventually everything seemed to be working fine to me.
During this time (while we were cuddling in bed after sex) he brought up the idea of an open relationship. This really shook me. I asked what he meant by open, and he explained it would only be sex nothing romantic. He said he mainly wanted to 'explore with other men and some women'. My heart really broke in that moment because, as someone who's body is objectively different and unique from most people and who is still getting comfortable with sex, it felt like he was saying I wasn't enough. My body wasn't enough. Like maybe after finally having 'normal' sex with me he decided it felt bad and wanted a normal body again.
He tried to soothe me saying it's not that, he said he 'loves me emotionally, and this stuff is just physical exploration'. I said i would think about it. I listened to a bunch of audiobooks and read a lot online. I tried to understand the appeal of non-monogomy, the way people described it as freeing and stuff. I really tried to picture myself liking or enjoying it, because i know it does truly work for a lot of people .
The issue is, if we had an open relationship, i already know it would only involve hime sleeping with others, i wouldn't be able to participate. Sex and dating are so hard for me, it's so hard to trust someone with my body, it's hard to have casual sex when i need to explain so many quirks with my anatomy. For me, my boyfriend is my safe person who understands me and my body and (i thought) chose me over 'normal' bodies. Sex with him got to b easy and comfortable and required no talking after a certain point. I can't just have that with anyone.
I told him i can't do it, I gave him my reasoning, and he just said 'ok, but you can always bring it back up to me if you change your mind'. We haven't talked about it since.
Ever since, though, i have felt awful. I am struggling to be physical with him at all because i feel so scared he just doesn't like my body or my scars or anything else. When we have been physical i keep my underwear on and haven't been letting him touch me, i only please him. I just feel really scared.
I think i feel like he doesn't want to be with me, like being monogamous with me is a compromise for him. I told him this and he tried to reassure me by saying 'its not about you not being enough, its about me just wanting to explore different types of bodies with men and women, it has nothing to do with you and i only emotionally love you, nobody else'.
He keeps emphasising that he emotionally loves me, which is reassuring to an extent but it makes me feel like he likes me mentally and as a person but not my body. He doesn't want my body the way he does other people. It feels like he's with me in spite of my body not because of it, which hurts.
We try to talk about it but nothing he says is really making me feel any better. I don't know what to do. I feel myself becoming really jealous and resentful too, like i feel angry with him, i feel like overtime he goes out he might be cheating on me.
I don't know how to cope or fix this. I really need some advice.