My (f22) and my girlfriend (f23) have been together for over a year, a few months ago we started seeing Claire (f22) together on the side. Claire was my partners friend before we started going out and I had met her on multiple occasions and really like her. Our first date/ hookup went really well and I had an amazing time. The second time around I started having feelings of inadequacy, that feeling comes and goes and I can usually reason with myself that I know my partners loves me and I shouldn’t be concerned.

My partner has been extremely supportive through this whole thing, she is the one who asked for poly and I agreed once I felt we had good enough communication skills between us. She pushes me to make my boundaries clear so she can follow them to avoid hurting me and I really appreciate that. Part of my boundaries/ rules are that I’d prefer they don’t engage in sexual activity without me.

Recently my partner told me that after we all had a sleepover and I left in the morning they were dry humping and Claire ended up cumming, I could tell my partner felt bad about it and she told me that she didn’t intend or expect Claire to get that worked up. Initially I didn’t mind and was glad she told me but it has resurfaced some of the inadequacy I was feeling.

My biggest insecurity surrounding all this is that whilst my partner and I do have sex alone, when Claire comes over my partner seems MUCH more into it. In the past year there have been periods of our relationship where we’ve gone long periods of time (a month) not having sex or touching eachother sexually due to my partners dysphoria, she is trans and I am cis, I am also a bottom 99% of the time, I initially thought the reason we had these sexual dry patches was because of her feeling too dysphoric to top but with Claire (who is also trans and ONLY bottoms) it seems she has NO problem topping and even being rougher than she’s ever been with me.

I will admit that I can be nervous to initiate and get rowdy and I wonder if I am actually causing all this myself. I was a virgin before I met my partner and with the amount of times I’ve been denied sex or had to stop halfway through because of her dysphoria I’ve become a lot more wary about initiating. I’m not sure if it only looks like she’s more passionate with Claire because we are in the honeymoon stage or if she’s actually just more comfortable and more attracted to her than me. Of coarse she denies being more attracted to one over other but it’s hard to believe her when I can actually see it happening.

I know I shouldn’t base my value to her on how much sex we have but it’s still an important part of a relationship in my opinion. I worry that when they hang out without me (which is often as I work full time and my partner works from home) that there is a lot of sexual tension that she is suppressing because of my boundaries. I’m trying to be more forward and initiate more with just my partner so I can feel that the sexual intimacy is at least even between us. I don’t want to think of this as a competition as I’m also super into Claire and we get along great but I can’t seem to let go of these feelings permanently.

I trust my partner completely, she is aware of all the worries I’m stating in this post, and I know she wouldn’t leave me for Claire as we are committed long term and I believe we can get through this if we keep up the good communication but I don’t want these feelings I’m having to make anyone feel guilty or cause a rift.

Do you think I can work through this or is poly just not right for me? Any advice? I think I just need affirmation that we are doing this correctly.