Feeling super lost right now trying to figure things out as my boyfriend wants to swing and I (F) don’t. We’ve only been together for about 6 months, and before we were officially dating our relationship was a lot about exploring things together. He has an ex who was into open relationships but essentially forced him, and it hurt him. Once I met him, he wanted to try having a three way with another girl, which I had never done and never really wanted to, but I was willing to try it.

He was the first person to introduce me to this scene, and i’m realizing he doesn’t know much about it because he keeps referring to our situation and what he wants as being poly, yet he said he didn’t want any emotions involved. I am naturally a monogamous person, and the idea of him being with other women makes me extremely upset. I enjoyed the three way, but it has been really confusing for me because it still made me jealous and I did start developing an emotional friendship with the girl which made it even harder for me because I’m connected with her, but I don’t want us to sleep with her. I tried it and realized it takes a big emotional toll on me.

He has also said that he would like to be able to play with other women, but he would not want to open the relationship on my end to allow me to see other men, so both of us could only see other women (but i’m only slightly attracted to women and have no desire to sleep with them on my own). He admits that the idea of me sleeping with another man makes him jealous and he isn’t comfortable with it. I feel the same way thinking about him with other girls, so it upsets me a lot for him to even mention that he would want a situation like that when it would make either of us upset for the other to do solo play with someone of the opposite gender.

I have explained how much it hurts me and that I need to put a pause on everything at this point, but would possibly be open to bringing a girl back in at some point. I’m just feeling super hurt that he would even consider or want a situation where he can play solo with a girl, and it feels extremely unbalanced and unfair and hurtful that he’d want to play solo with other girls and not allow me to play with other men (I don’t really want to play solo regardless, which is a big part of why i’m hurt).

He is fine with the fact that I don’t want any of this, but it feels unfair to even ask that of me in my first experience with swinging/poly relationships knowing that I am naturally monogamous. The idea of him wanting to be with another woman hurts me regardless, but him wanting to play solo with another woman while not wanting me to solo play hurts the most. I think it all upsets me extra since he is so new to this too and says he doesn’t want any emotional aspect, it feels like we should have just never started dating if he wanted to sleep with other women without me. He isn’t going to act on it, but i’m just still really hurt by it and feel that it was so unfair to suggest it, and i’m trying to grapple with not being hurt just by the fact that he wants a one sided open relationship ideally. I know others have gone through this, but just looking for some advice and insight as i’m feeling hurt and lost and not knowing what to do. I know i’m uneducated on this lifestyle and have a lot of respect for people who do it, but I feel like I just got asked to do something that is super unhealthy and damaging to start out with (the threesome was ok, the solo play is not) and am trying to figure out how to get over the hurt.