My husband[34M] and I[27F] (both cisgender/straight-ish) are exploring ENM. We were monogamous for 5 years since the start of our relationship, been married for 3.

We now believe being ENM will be a satisfactory relationship for both of us. Our experience has been just swinging and a few FMF threesome with people we meet on dating apps in the past year. We are choosing to stay on the primary partner/hierarchical form of ENM, soooo not so much full-on multiple intense relationship and communicating as such with all respective casual partners/FWBs.

I haven’t gone on many solo dates because I feel like we are still doing the work to unpack jealousy and essentially just normalizing having our respective primary partner be with somebody else sexually/romantically. It’s a process we are being very careful and deliberate about and are taking our sweet ol’ time. Couples swapping as a straight-ish couple has been much easier and for lack of a better term, mutually “successful”.

My partner’s lack of recent dating success despite his best efforts has made me realize that opening up a previously monogamous long term relationship is a marathon, not a sprint. And married men obviously carry some negative connotations when being viewed by polyamorous women interested in dating men. And sincerely, I am extremely happy with our relationship as it is now. I never want him to feel steamrolled so dating on my side has been slower to match his feelings and comfort level.

My partner has an ex-coworker who I sort of fancied back in our monogamous days. Single bachelor type who we all get along with. Just someone who I thought I got along with well and had crush-y feelings that would fade easily. The thought of “oh, I bet this guy would be fun to go on a date with” summarizes my feelings on our brief exchanges in parties we’ve attended as a group over the years.

This guy now also lives in a different state. On one hand, I want to come out and tell my partner about this crush. I don’t feel like going full-on polyamorous with him is a huge risk or possibility especially since he lives out of state. I would love to have this guy as a dating option whenever he’s visiting our town or even just have a MFM threesome with him.

The other potential consideration is this person has some mutual friends with us who don’t know about this aspect of our life (being ENM/monogamish) and I fear if people found out, there would be gossip. So we’d absolutely have to ask for discretion on this guy’s part as that is just a boundary me and my primary partner have. Being “out” as ENM can be a whole can of worms and we simply don’t want to draw any kind of attention in our friend groups who are mostly monogamous types (either single or in couples).

TL;DR Again, ex-coworker who is a part of our social circle is someone I would date/be casual FWBs whether it’s one-on-one or in a threesome with primary partner. Worried about potential hurt feelings from primary partner (you had a crush on this guy when we were monogamous!? What!????) and the risk of shitting where you eat, although 1) this guy now lives in a different state and 2) partner and him no longer work for the same company. BUT We have some mutual friends (some who already know about us exploring ENM). Another caveat… did not open our relationship for this guy at all. I haven’t been pining for him desperately or anything like that.

He is my partner’s friend (more of an acquaintance at this point) and I’ve never had any direct communication to him except when we were in group hang out settings.