I’m genuinely confused how people are supposed to handle this.

It seems like a common mistake couples make that go from monogamy to nonmonogamy is trying to make rules around avoiding falling in love with another person in order to “protect” the primary relationship/marriage.

The advice I read is “don’t make a rule about something you can’t control like feelings” and now having gone through a lot of ups and downs in four years I agree it was unrealistic to have a rule like that.

But how are couples that don’t want polyamory supposed to navigate this? Is the whole idea of having intimate friendships bullshit because humans are just going to naturally develop feelings under these conditions that will likely go into romantic love territory?

Swinging is great and all but individual encounters can be so much more enjoyable when you’re just connecting with another human, imo. But I don’t understand how not to find yourself accidentally falling for other people if that’s a dynamic you don’t think you can emotionally handle, do you just stay away?