Dan, 32 from New Jersey writes…
The girlfriend and I have been with each other for just over 4 years, and now she wants a poly relationship. Honestly doc I’m not down for it. I’m happy with just the two of us, I don’t want to share. She’d been fine till now, then a week ago she’s telling me it’s either poly or she doesn’t know whether she can stay in the relationship. We have sex often, and it’s good, so where this came from suddenly is bizarre. The worst part is she already has someone she wants to do this with, his name is Raymond and in his 40s. We live together and have many mutual friends. Is this anything I can fix, or just drop her now?
Dr Thatslife has this to say….
I’d cut this one loose Dan. A big part of a functional poly relationship is the mutual agreement to do so, which doesn’t include a gun muzzle pressed into the side of your head. The fact you have a name to pin to the new penis she’ll be getting flogged with (or most likely already is getting flogged with), before she even has your blessing on the idea leaves me gagging. In fact it leads me to believe your relationship is more of a cluster fuck than you realize.
If she had approached this more tactfully and had an honest discussion about opening the relationship up, that could have been more workable. At least it would have framed the idea to you in a better light, making you perhaps see the benefits beholden to yourself in such a relationship setup (you finding another set of tits to play with). But in your case, there are no pluses for you – it’s only you envisioning Raymond blowing cum shots in your girlfriend’s mouth. You didn’t sign up for a non-monogamous relationship, so for her to assume you’d be willing to jump onboard her newly spun idea years into things, under such duress, is ridiculous.
Really this is your girlfriend’s thinly veiled attempt at justifying a new found fuck buddy. And by giving the ultimatum, she’s really saying “I’m moving on”. So take her up on the ultimatum and walk away. Don’t let details like having all your shit at the same address slow you down; you can have all your crap packed and in a moving truck faster than you can say “Gonorrhea”. And if these mutual friend’s are in fact friends, they’ll stick around. If not, then no big loss there, they would have pulled out for some other equally shallow reason down the road anyway.
It’s jarring to watch the person you’ve loved for years suddenly launch an assault on your relationship, but trying to change the course of what’s already in motion would be futile. Good luck to you buddy.
That’s life.
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