Hello, I’d like some advice. Myself (25F) and my fiancé (27M) recently opened up after we met someone a couple of months ago (23M) and dated him for several months. My fiancé and I became engaged this spring after dating each other for over three years. My fiancé and I own a home together, have lived together for 4 years, and share most financial accounts/responsibilities.

This relationship was new for all of us, as we have never been in a polyamorous relationship before. We started going on weekly dates and our new partner would spend the night with us sometimes for several days at a time. I fell deeply in love with our new partner as we connected emotionally, physically, and mentally.

However, my fiancé expressed concern about the different levels of connection and intimacy between myself and our new partner and between my fiancé and our new partner. He had asked us all to break up once before when he was feeling threatened (about two months in). He agreed to get back together and I encouraged him to explore his jealous/envious feelings and to model the love he wants to receive in return.

This lasted for about another month until he asked us again to break it off and we all did. My fiancé was struggling with physical symptoms of anxiety including dizziness which he attributes to the stress of being in a relationship he claims to have never been happy in or wanted. Our ex-partner recently opened up to my fiancé about not necessarily wanting penetrative sex with him as his attraction towards me vs my fiancé is 80/20. My fiancé told me that he never loved our ex-partner even though he said that he loved him. He said he allowed this to go on because he was sexually attracted to him but he never opened up emotionally. This makes our ex-partner feel like he was manipulated.

My fiancé continues to express to me that he doesn’t want to have a fiancé or marry someone who is polyamorous. I want to at the very least, keep our ex-partner as a close friend if not something more. I’d be open to exploring the idea of myself continuing to date him and keeping the engagement and eventual marriage with my fiancé. I don’t want to hurt either of them because I deeply care and love both of them. I don’t feel like I should have to choose one or the other - why not choose both? I’m in individual counseling, my fiancé are I are in couples counseling (2 years), and I’m reading The Ethical Slut and Polysecure. However, I’m not sure what to do or where to go from here.