I'm married, but I always felt like I wanted more. I met people I connected with on multiple levels but could never go further because I was monogamous. Being honest about my desire to be poly has forced us to take inventory of our relationship, and even though it's been hard, and we haven't even fully started exploring poly, it's been fantastic for our relationship.

Being honest about what you want starts with yourself. Almost all of us start from a cultural background that says monogamy is the default and the only good approach. Even if we assent to the possibility of ENM, it's another step entirely to say that you want it for yourself.

For many, myself included, I believe non-monogamy is part of sexual orientation. For some it may be a choice, but for me monogamy was like being stuck in a shirt two sizes too small. Opening up about that was really hard, because of course no one wants to make their partner feel inadequate.

But that's part of the lie of monogamy, that you're only adequate if you're exclusively enough for your partner. Nobody is enough for anyone. That doesn't make anyone less-than.

Anyhow, opening up about my sexuality forced us into a lot of hard conversations. Ultimately, though, these were conversations we needed to have anyway, but we didn't have them before because we were coasting in the default monogamous straight marriage state, following the prescribed rules.

They weren't the conversations you might think, either. It was stuff like how do we make sure we can have discussions properly, how do we guarantee emotional intimacy, etc. All these things should've been addressed, yeah, but frankly being closed off about my desires and orientation led to closing off about a lot of stuff. Opening up has given us both the freedom to be our authentic selves.

To be clear, we may still break up in the end. We don't want to break up, but we both have to be honest. Being honest and split up will ultimately make us happier than being together and closeted. That much is very clear now. Personally I think we'll work out, but one never knows the future.

So this is my encouragement to anybody lurking here and wondering about it: listen to that voice inside you and be honest with yourself. You only have one life to live. You don't want to live it in denial, or worse, cheat on your partner in secret because you can't hold it in. Do the right thing and accept yourself.