I want to preface this by saying I definitely won’t be responding for the next 24 hours, as I have a long day of traveling ahead of me, and I’m actually unsure if I will respond at all as this is an incredibly sensitive topic for me right now.

Second: I apologize if this is rambling at all. I’m just trying to get my thoughts out and I’m not mentally in the best space right now.

My (29M) wife (30F) of 7 years (together for 12) has expressed over the past year or so that she may want to open our relationship. I am not immediately against this, however I’m also not totally on board - yet.

Originally, she had brought up swinging. It still took me a while to come around to the idea of this, but I think that I could one day be open to the idea of taking part in this with my wife.

More recently however, she has mentioned that she thinks she might be poly. To be honest, this hurts me a bit.

I do believe that I could one day be open to the idea of multiple sexual partners for both myself and my wife. I know that I have to work on myself some more first in order to be ok with that, but if it’s “just sex” I think that I could be ok. At the end of the day we still come back to each other in our house and we are still husband and wife, partners, soulmates etc.

The issue I see with poly is that I am scared at the thought of her having romantic feelings for someone else.

I feel special in my relationship with her, and I am proud to be her partner and husband, and I am over the moon every day that she is my wife. The thought of someone else coming into this, long term and with similar feelings is quite hurtful.

It’s been hard recently as in the past year she found out she has ADHD, and it seems as though everything about her life and our lives together is being called into question. I am not against this. I understand that this is a big deal for her and the both of us, and I want to support her through this.

She has said that she “needs to be true to herself” though, and if it comes to it, this is something she is willing to risk our relationship over. She loves me, and if we go ahead with this and I cannot get over any potential jealousy that may or may not arise, she is sorry that she hurt me and understands if I no longer want to be with her, but again, she needs to be true to herself.

I have no desire to break up with her. I do not want this to be something that ends our marriage. We have no children and are child free, but I still don’t ever want to leave her. I love her with all my heart, but I’m scared for myself at the potential for another love interest to enter into our dynamic.

As I said previously, if this were just sex, this may be something that I could be on board with as there would be less of an emotional connection to others. I just want to remain her number 1, and she my number 1.

I’m not sure if it’s worth noting or not, but we are each others first and only sexual partners.