Hi !

This is gonna be very long and very rambly. I'm not great at evaluating which context is or isn't necessary. Feel free to burry or delete this post if it isn't appropriate and I'm just spilling my whole life story ? I did speak about it with my psychologist/sexologist/couple therapist, but she didn't have much to say beyond "as long as it's transparent and works out for everyone involved" (which is a given).

I think I should preface this by saying that I'm on the sprectrum. Social rules in general are a huge confusing mess for me, I need very clear and exhaustive definitions to know where I stand. I think this whole post is just me being confused with social norms, thus the title. I don't care about labels per se, but I feel like everyone else outside my immediate entourage does so.... My sister has been poly for 10 years but really doesn't have the time or energy to talk about that with me for the forseeable future.

I went on a rabbit hole in this sub and other related subs, I read as much as I could, but I couldn't really relate to any post. Please tell me if I'm in the wrong sub.

Background info : I'm a bi-romantic demi-(bi)-sexual cis woman, married to my partner of 10 years, a cis-het man (prob demi too). We've both only ever been with each other. We consider ourselves monogamous but I guess our ... "rules" are a bit looser than the norm ? (If you consider the norm being super controlling relationships with insecurity or trust issues. Talking about the stereotypical traditional monogamous relationships. I don't know two relationships with the exact same set of rules so I'm making generalisations)

So our baseline is that we don't want the other to date other people or have sexual interactions (anything to do with purposeful arousal I guess ?) with other people. If something like developing confusing or romantic feelings or attractions for other people (which did happen at one point or another), the expectation is that we talk about it as soon as we're aware of it, and discuss it together. Reevaluate our needs and baseline if necessary, which it hasn't been for now. We live together so we like to know if the other is gonna come home super late or not home at all, but that's about it. We trust each other to do whatever we want with whomever we want within the established limits.

What brought me here : I was having an hours-long debate with an aroace friend about what a couple is. My husband was in the room, doing other stuff, half listening. I think we decided the word couple was a lost cause, and that it would be much easier to only talk about relationships. And we boiled it down to something like "a relationship is a basket that different people decide to carry together. They can put or not put whatever variables within it." (So it's pretty erm... large). It really took us ours, because we were exchanging hypotheticals after hypotheticals to find something that worked. Her not knowing what romantic or sexual attraction really was, me kind of knowing the feeling but being confused af with social norms. Because no norm can describe every single situation and I don't know why we even try. Academia might have ruined me a bit, too.

What I did not expect was for my husband to come to me the next day, and just tell me "just so you know, I think I would be perfectly comfortable with you doing whatever you want with women, especially romantically" I asked why women and not men, he realised there was no way to answer that without being at least biphobic in nature. I think he's more comfortable with men that he's aware, because I had a very close male friend and martial-arts partner. It was explicitly platonic, but we would hug a lot or snuggle up to watch tv, sleeping on the same bed if large enough. The only time it became an issue was when my husband started feeling like we weren't spending enough time just the two of us, without my friend being there (we were not living together at the time). Some people around us were sometimes confused about the nature of the relationship with my friend but in the end all was good.

We had a very long conversation that boiled down to : - we're both very content with how our relationship is. We don't need to change anything about it, so we can just default to that. - he has zero desire to be involved with anyone else. He's more of a loner and one relationship is enough work for him and he doesn't feel sexual attraction for other people - while I do not have the desire to look for something else, I crave touch and emotional connections (with people I trust), and so would be happy to be more intimate with other women (I usually feel safer with women) if the stars align and the opportunity arise. Part of me would really love to explore that - now that I'm more counscious about it-, but I know it's not likely, and it's not conditional to my happiness or my relationship with my husband. For me it's more about closeness and intimacy in broad terms, not sexual at all (but demi so that could always arise later), but could definitely include what I think would be considered romantic ? (Sleeping in the same bed while cuddling, kissing, cuddling up). To be fair I have a really hard time to draw the line between romantic connections and very strong platonic connections, so there's that. - if there's ever a wish to try something sexual with a friend of mine, he'd like for us to discuss it beforehand. - I would gladly extend all the same rights to him of course, if he ever became interested. I think I would feel jealous because I can be very insecure ? But that's on me to work on, there's no logical reason behind it, I would trust him with my life without a second thought.

My question is, what do I make of this ? Does it resonate with anyone ? Is there even a term for this ?

I honestly feel like I will just give up on society again, go back to my 5 friends and be happy with my life. Getting philosophical about societal stuff is just a frustrating mess 😂 (I studied criminology, I would know)