Last night and the last few days have kind of been eye opening for me. My boyfriend and i opened up our relationship again (we started out this way and then somehow during covid just became exclusive for a while). He seemed to be really enjoying himself, his mojo was up, and the other night before one of his dates he was giddy like a fking school girl. I checked in with him about eveything that night and he was very positive and used the word "opportunity" to describe how great everything was. Well, fast forward a few days and hes really depressed because 2 girls he was seeing told him they just werent feeling it. Now, all of a sudden, hes saying things like "i was happy with the way things were" and is giving me the impression that he feels like i am making him do this terrible thing he doesnt want.

When i reintroduced we go back to the way things used to be, his only hesitation was that he has never done it before and didnt want things to crash and burn, but he agreed that he wanted to. Last night I reassured him that I'm not phasing him out, because i was worried his negativity was partly due to him thinking he needed to find someone special to replace me/that he thought i was trying to leave him so he was putting his eggs in those baskets, and he says to me...."well, thats what's happened evey other time", refering to that when his other girlfriend's have wanted to have an open relationship they were just soft launching a breakup. Okay. The only issue i have here is that he has never done this before. He said this on several occasions that he's never been in an open relationship, so i dont know what he's talking about when he says this. He was very sad last night so it didnt seem like the right time to point out this inconsistency and accuse him of lying, but i also felt like...and its terrible to say... that he was lying to me so that i would feel bad for him. All of his other long term girlfriends have been exclusive and, according to him, there was never a point that they asked him to be non-monogamous. I was the first. So there is simply no "evey time".

When he had girls on his arm/to date, he loved it. When his mom came to visit and asked us about our weekend plans we both giggled about it after because we were attending dates with new people and didnt want to tell her, exchanging naughty glances over the dinner table and making up a quick story on the spot. He was having so much fun. And now all of a sudden i feel like the bad guy.

His explanation for being sad about these girls is that he needs an emotional connection before he can be physical with someone. I totally understand if that's why he is so upset. But last night he also slipped in the little bit about not really wanting to do this, which stung me.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I know i didnt ask a pointed question. I really really love & value him, but this stuff is throwing me off. I also understand that its not always as simple as just wanting to do something and sometimes people go back and forth emotionally. But i think there's people in here who night have something useful to say or suggest for when i talk to him about this again.