My basic question is is there any way to make this work without one person being left feeling unfulfilled.

My partner, Brent (39m), and I (36f) have been together 9 years most of that mono. We have children and are not married. He introduced non-monogamy over a year ago in the form of swinging, which transitioned to solo dating and play. Then he had an absolute melt down and basically left me for a few months during which he fell hard for another woman, Katie. He decided he wanted to make it work with me so he came home.

A stipulation of him coming home was that I didn’t want him talking to Katie anymore. He agreed. This was about 9 months ago. She has reached out multi times since. I would like to point out that i don’t like this woman. Even if their relationship didn’t exist I wouldn’t like her. I find her manipulative and a user.

I have been very open since he introduced non monogamy into our lives that I have no interest in having emotional relationships with others and I don’t want him to either. In the beginning he was totally on the same page or so he said. It was just supposed to be a fun sex thing. Obviously that’s not the case now. He very much wants to be full poly even though he doesn’t fully admit this his actions show it.

Bret’s on dating sites talking to multiple women. He asked to start talking to Katie again too. He basically explained he feels he has the capacity to love multiple people in different ways and he wants the chance to do that because he misses her and what she brought to his life. He also says one person cannot meet all his needs. I agreed he could talk to her which he has started doing. He says the rule he will live by is his other relationships cannot effect ours or he will end it.

Even though I agreed this has made me irrationally angry and very hurt. I’ve come to realize the whole idea of him needing others in this emotional romantic way makes me feel a whole mixture of negative emotions. That alone affects our relationship. I find myself wanting to do less for him, wanting to put less into the relationship, because what’s the point anyway when I’m never going to be enough? I basically feel like he wants this because I’m not enough. If he was with someone else he wouldn’t even want to be poly or swing anymore.

I think it’s important to note that I’ve also realized part of the issue is he isn’t meeting my needs. I don’t have the capacity to love multiple people the way I love him so finding another partner to fill those needs won’t work for me. And frankly the needs I want meet if I did get them from somewhere else would make the new person a primary partner not Brent. (Such as security, marriage, someone to just run daily errands with and do family things with). Bret works from home (when he works) and the only time he consistently will leave the house is when sex with someone else is involved. He says he wants me to feel secure but doesn’t take the steps needed to do that. Same with marriage he says he wants to get married but never takes steps to do so.

If my needs were met I’m totally fine with him having casual fwb type relationships. It doesn’t seem like that’s enough for him. Him having other romantic relationships will slowly destroy any positive feelings I have for him. So I feel we are stuck. I don’t see a way out of this that will end with both of us happy together. It feels like the only options are one of us compromise our needs or we go our separate ways.

Any advice is appreciated.