My wife (29F) and I (31M) have been married for 7 years. She recently met a new person who she really vibes with, and she had “the talk” with me about changing our previously monogamous dynamic a few days ago. It was constructive & insightful, & I agreed to try being poly. We have had random casual encounters in the past with other people, always as a couple, but no poly-type relationships. She did end up asking them out, and they agreed. So they are going to start having a real relationship together.

So we started a group chat on discord & started talking about rules & boundaries. I’ve only met this person twice, and this is all incredibly, incredibly new to me. We have never once tried being poly, and I never even gave it much of a real hard thought until I agreed to it less than a week ago. I haven’t read any books, or done any research. I want my wife to be happy though. So we settled on the label of ‘Hierarchical Polyamory’.

Not gonna lie, I feel so many ways about all of this. Insecurity, my anxiety is sky high ever since “the talk”, nervous, jealous, scared, and of course, a bit titillated & intrigued.

Sometimes, it feels like I was just walking on a solid concrete foundation, and now I’m suddenly trying to swim in quicksand.

She has reassured me a lot in the past few days though on the strength & security of our marriage (my personal self-esteem & sense of self-worth has never been the highest, tbh) but my feelings persist & lingers a lot longer than I thought they would. I am really trying to internalize this new concept of ‘compersion’ for myself though.

I would like to do some reading & research, but do not know where to start, other than reading all of this communities posts & comments. I’d also like to just talk to some other people that hopefully went through the same stuff I’m going through now.

-Very anxious, newly-poly husband