Reposting with Added Clarification. Edits in bold.

My wife and I opened our relationship about a year ago. Started out with swinging and made have cultivated a nice circle of couples we play with regularly. We have read about polyamory and both recently finished reading Polysecure. So polyamory is something we had been talking about for a little bit. But recently an opportunity presented itself to start pursuing it IRL. Here’s the situation:

There are two couples we have gotten particularly close with.

Couple 1 is a polyamorous couple who have been polyamorous for over 10 years.

Couple 2 is a new couple. We met her as a unicorn at a party and she has been in the lifestyle for 10 years as well. He is brand new to the lifestyle and they just got together in the last 6 months.

At our last party, the individuals from couple 1 approached my wife asking if we ever play separately. This wasn’t something we’d ever considered, but as we’d progressed, decided that polyamory is something we are open to exploring (not just playing, but exploring deeper one on one connections with others, separately). The wife from the other couple had a long relationship with another guy, but he and his nesting partner decided to close the relationship. That was a few months ago, so when I reached out to her, she said she felt very comfortable with me and was interested in cultivating a deeper emotional connection. We have a first date set in a couple of weeks.

With couple 2, we really like them, but he has struggled with getting hard. We hosted them recently, and when me and the other woman got up to move to the other room, he suddenly got really hard with my wife. She was excited, but it ended as soon as they joined us. Seems like he’s more comfortable playing separately.

My wife reached out to the guys of each couple and both said that isn’t something they are interested in right now. She is feeling pretty low and rejected. At the same time, I don’t believe it has anything to do with her. The guy from couple 1 already has other girlfriends he is involved with regularly, so I think he’s just saturated. And the guy from couple 2 isn’t interested in pursuing anything without his partner.

Still, I totally get why this is affecting her. Normally we have great communication, but both of these responses came to her via text this morning as she was getting ready for work. She told me just as she was leaving and said, “Have fun with _____.” I know this is just a comment made in the heat and frustration of the moment and don’t hold it at all against her.

I want to believe that I’d just be happy for her if the position was flipped, but I can’t say for sure. We went into this planning to take baby steps. Even made it clear that I would not play on my first date so that we can see how my wife feels when I’m out. We are both interested in this, but don’t want to damage our relationship in the process.

Is this something where I should just give her time and support, or is this an indication that maybe this is just a boundary we shouldn’t cross? My intuition is that this can be something we can learn and grow from with time, patience, and grace. But I feel so bad for her because it’s a tough way to start out. Especially when we discussed this thinking she’d have the easier start to it. She’s beautiful and kind and playful, so I know she wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone. But I also know we were kind of hoping we could both start out with people we are already comfortable with.

Anyway, input from anyone with more experience in this would be much appreciated.