posting here off of advice on the poly subreddit. i’m very stressed and starting to panic, so please approach with compassion.

hi everyone, this is going to be long, so strap in. first of all, i'm autistic and have very prominent OCD that's mainly been around relationships / my own morality, so please handle me gently.

i'm having significant concerns about the fact i might be doing things badly and setting my relationship up for failure. for full context, i (25f) am bisexual with a strong preference for women / femmes. my current partner (25m) is a cis man who i have been with for 4 years. he is amazing, we have a connection that runs very deep and our relationship is and always will be my priority. we have a very secure, trusting relationship and communicate very very well.

for about a year ive been having a lot of thoughts about the fact i haven't explored my queerness as much as id want to, and that at some point it would be best for us to discuss opening the relationship. at first i thought it was an OCD symptom (because i've had episodes where i thought i was a lesbian in denial) but that turned out not to be the case. I ignored it for so long because it was a theoretical problem and i hadn't felt i was at risk of doing anything to hurt my partner or our relationship.

skip to about 2 months ago and i met someone and we became friends. i don’t work with them, but they help run events in the building. so i can see them a lot if i choose to, it’ll be easy to avoid them sometimes and it’s not permanent. they are 24 and NB transfemme. we became friends and started communicating as such. still we didn't talk a lot until very recently, but one day i felt an attraction to them i hadn't felt before. i immediately became severely anxious and riddled with shame, so i assumed it an OCD symptom and hoped it would go away. however over the past 3 weeks its became clear it isn't an OCD symptom and is in fact a genuine attraction. me and my partner have had two very long and detailed conversations about it, and my partner told me that he had thought about opening things in the past, but hadn't brought it up to me because he thought i wouldn't be willing to try it. i was still concerned about being coercive, and made clear that if it wasn't possible, id be taking as much distance as i can from this other person, because losing my relationship is nowhere near worth it. we landed on taking the process as slow as possible, i consulted with our poly friends to get their perspective and understood this would be an ongoing discussion for a long time. im posting this in here rather than in non monogamy because we both said our goals may be more casual, easy going partners rather than long term commitments, i think that was more my feelings than his, he seemed open to more (this wasn’t us setting rules to start, it was just what we believed we would be okay with in theory as we haven't even started the process properly, but it was part of the discussion.) for clarity, i am comfortable with the idea of him dating other women. he has said he's not planning on scoping anyone out, but that he is relieved and comfortable with me going ahead with this other person knowing he has the freedom to do the same. (i am not just going ahead with the other person)

i spoke to the person im attracted to and explained everything. they were very understanding and receptive, basically saying they're also attracted to me but wouldn't want to be on the other end of something that risked crossing a boundary, and that it'll be an ongoing conversation, because they're interested in me but also don't want a hand in fucking up my life. my partner has said outright that he's totally comfortable with us talking, spending time together and some low level intimacy. i am not planning to in any way shape or form, i think he was just being clear of his expectations. we've been clear with each other and the person i'm interested in that it's slower than baby steps, all boundaries are set before anyone crosses them and that it's possible things may need dialling back or closing completely if anyone isn't comfortable. i'm gonna be doing a lot of research and asking a lot of questions. im posting this because im still really worried that this person and my feelings for them bringing this conversation to light is me trying to open for someone. I have been thinking about it a while and so has he, im trying to harshly police myself but im still worried that im putting my relationship at risk. is anyone seeing any major red flags? ive tried to absorb and take all the advice ive been given so far, which is to go very, very, very slowly, communicate constantly and be willing to dial stuff back in a way that isn’t going to hurt anyone we’re both involved with.

at the moment i feel like i’m getting a lot of conflicting advice that all assure me any other way to approach it is a huge mistake. i don’t know what to do.