Hard disagree with the last part of your comment -- dating as a partnered male is much more difficult that dating solo. At least with the latter, I can leverage the prospect of a future escalated relationship with cohabitation/shared finances/whatever, and for most guys, that is a potent card to play. If I've already got a spouse with whom I share a life, that takes a lot of that stuff off the table for everyone else.

That's the thing, though: you're not looking for the same kind of relationship, because you're coming from a different place. Even in an explicitly nonmonogamous context, single folks who are looking for a potential primary/spouse have markedly different things to offer another person than someone who's already got that "slot" filled.

In my experience, most straight women engaging in nonmonogamy view a prospect's other partners as a potential friction point, and would rather avoid those headaches altogether. They're spoiled enough for choice upfront that they can afford to do so, I'm afraid 🤷‍♂️

I haven't "focused" on partnered women, per se. The pool of women who are even willing to consider NM in my area isn't exactly gigantic, so any non-essential limitations in that area would be massively counterproductive. I don't care in the slightest whether someone is partnered or not, since I'm not offering a romantic relationship that might conflict with something they already have 🤷‍♂️

In any event, I've gotten that precise feedback from quite a few married or partnered women, and it's always struck me as hypocritical nonsense. I think they just want a sidepiece with as few obligations as humanly possible, and don't want to look selfish or shallow for ensuring they're always in the superior bargaining position when it comes to those interpersonal dynamics.

I guess my experience has just been very different. I had never gone more than six months or so without a serious relationship while I was single, and even during those periods, it was never much trouble at least finding folks with whom I could mingle. I've always had a lot going on in the whole husband/father/provider department, so that makes sense in retrospect.

After getting married, I've had many different women from all walks of like tell me that while I look like an enticing prospect by myself, the fact that I've got a wife and kids at home makes me a no-go, since they don't want the inevitable headaches of intimacy with a person who's already got a spouse. I know that no one deserves any kind of fairness in this paradigm, but it gets demoralizing being shot down over and over (and over) again on account of me having a spouse, when she experiences precisely none of those difficulties herself.