My partner (they/them) and I (she/her) live together and have been in a relationship for 4 years. My partner wants to be polyamorous. I like the idea in thery but have a ton of fears about it. However, I am basically forcing myself to give it a try because this is what my partner wants and we will likely have to break up if I don't want to do this. We both agreed that we need to learn more and go to therapy before starting polyamory.

However, we are both looking for friends and we made profiles on a poly app (feeld) to find friends (my partner likes how specific people are about what they want on this app). I asked my partner what we would do if we meet someone plutonically but then decided we like them. We kind of just said we would talk about it if this happens and figure out what to do.

Lo and behind the very first person my partner meets, they end up liking, and this person likes my partner back. They have been talking on the phone every day since they met last weekend. My partner is definitely not going to act on these feelings and communicated with this person that they are currently just looking for friendship. My partner wants to continue plutonically hanging out with this person.

I don't feel comfortable with this because even though they aren't going to do anything physical, these hangout basically seem akin to dates since they both have feelings for each other. Them hanging out just feels inappropriate to me and disrespectful to me.

I told my partner all this and they feel like it would be unfair to this new person if they just stopped hanging out with them. They also think there is nothing wrong with them hanging out for now and if their feelings continue to grow, they will take a break until my partner and I are ready for polyamory.

This situation just feels like a terrible start to the world of poly. We were supposed to be starting this journey on equal footing and not I have to get comfortable with poly while knowing my partner already has someone in the que willing and waiting for them. I'm beyond frustrated and feel very alone. I feel like my partner is being unfair but maybe I'm the one who is for asking them to not hang out with this person until we are comfortable and ready for polyamory.