Doctor’s Note: Around the start of a new year, I like to look back and re-answer some older questions as I would if I had received them today. Whenever possible, I answer them without having read my previous response, to see and how my advice has changed in the intervening years.

Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove: Revisited for 2026…

Today’s letter was originally published on June 10, 2016��DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been an avid reader of yours for the past few years, and I really like your thoughtful perspective. I was wondering if you could help me with a relationship dilemma. I’m a grad student dating another student in my university, and after six months, things have been getting pretty serious. My boyfriend is intelligent, kind, thoughtful, and incredibly supportive—and he’s made it clear that he sees our relationship heading towards marriage and children. He’s the kind of person who brings by homemade soup when I’m sick, gives amazing pep talks, even watches my dog so I could visit family or present at conferences. I love him, but I’m not as completely certain that he’s “the one.” On one hand, I can definitely see us together long-term—we’re on the same page with life goals, conflict styles, vulnerable and open communication, sex, finances, and even hypothetical parenting styles. We’re compatible in many ways, and one of my favorite things is sitting on the porch in a comfortable silence with him, watching the sunset after a long day of teaching or weekend hike.

But on the other hand, he’s so different from the person I’d always imagined I’d end up with. Because we started out as hiking buddies and were friends well before we started dating, things that I would have deemed deal breakers on a first date didn’t seem to matter. He’s eight years older, not particularly religious, messy, smokes weed a few times a month, has tons of tattoos, and he isn’t quite as ambitious or career-focused. I’m a person of faith, uncomfortable with drugs, obsessively clean, and my degree is significantly more marketable. He’s supportive of my own beliefs, only smokes when I’m not around, and helps me mellow out when I get too uptight about school and work (and I’ve helped him with his job applications), so I know these should be non-issues. But I struggle to dismiss them completely. Is it disingenuous to continue dating him when I’m only about 75-80% sure that we’ll make it work long term?

He’s almost finished with his PhD while I’m still facing another five years of school to get mine — because he’s older, he’s dated more than me and wants to settle down more quickly, most likely while I’ll still be in school. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does put a little more pressure on me to be sure before he tries to find jobs this year near my next grad program. Is it normal to feel this way in a serious relationship? Am I ethically in the wrong for continuing to be with him when I’m not 100% certain? He’s so supportive, so I feel terrible for having lingering doubts about issues that seem shallower.

-Of Two Minds

DEAR OF TWO MINDS: Hey, two minds, two important things for you to consider! It’s like poetry, it rhymes!

Here’s the first thing for you, OTM: no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or to put it another way: man plans, and the gods laugh. That’s as true in love as much as it is in war; just because you have certain expectations or think that you have a particular type doesn’t mean that you can only fall for that type. Or even that your “perfect” partner is actually right for you.

In fact, this is one of the problems with dating apps that aren’t due to rampant ens--ttification and late-stage capitalism: it’s easy to get so focused on what you think you want that you miss out on serendipity. I know many, many couples who have been madly in love for years or even decades, but only because they met in person. On paper, they don’t seem like they would be “right” for one another, and they almost certainly would never have gotten together if they’d met on a dating app. But the fact that they met in the physical world – through friends, through work, through sheer dumb blind luck – they found that they clicked in ways that they would never have expected. Because they took a chance when they felt that click, they found someone they never realized they could be happy with. And yet, here they are, like multiple pairs of disgustingly adorable lovebirds, billing and cooing (and occasionally screaming) at one another.

Sounds to me like you and your beau are the same; he may not be the match you thought you needed on paper, but in person, those deal breakers just don’t apply to him. Maybe those deal breakers aren’t as deal-break-y as you thought they were, or maybe it’s just him – he’s just someone who can mitigate those deal breakers and make them less important than all the great things he brings to the relationship.

And honestly, that’s part of how we make relationships work; we love so much of what we do get from our partners that the things we don’t care for simply don’t matter as much. In some cases, those quirks and flaws become part of why we care so much for them. It’s what makes them uniquely them, and we’d actually miss those little frustrations and annoyances if they were gone.

So, yeah, maybe he’s not your perfect match… but could you honestly picture him and loving him as much as you do without the little differences? Would he still be that same wonderful guy without those parts that offset and highlight his great qualities by contrast?

Probably not. But that’s going to be true of everyone you date. There’s no The One because nobody is perfect and settling down means a certain amount of settling for. Nobody gets 100% of what they want, because no single person can do that. So, recognizing that perfect people don’t exist, we choose people who give us what’s important to us, what we need from our partners and we love what we do get so much that we see the 20% or 35% we don’t get as being well worth giving up in exchange.

Now the second thing for you to consider: no good comes from borrowing trouble from the future. You’re so busy focused on what may or may not come that it’s taking away from what you have now. And I am here from the Days of Future Past to tell you with certainty: if you let your worry about a future get in the way of your present, you’re guaranteeing misery in the here and now and doubling it in the future when you look back and realize how much you missed out on because you were so busy worrying.

You love him. You’re happy with him in the here and now. You are aligned in all the really important ways, the ones that matter. That’s no small thing, and certainly nothing to toss aside simply because you’re not 100% sure.

But hey, let me put it to you this way: if I offered to sell you a lottery ticket for $10, and guaranteed you that this lottery ticket had a 70% chance of winning the million-dollar jackpot, would you buy that ticket?

I’m betting that you would’ve shoved ten bucks in my hand before I even finished the sales pitch.

70%-80% odds of success are incredible f--king odds. They’re the sort of odds that people would think you’re bats--t for not leaping on like a duck on a Junebug. 70-80% odds of your relationship working? THAT sounds like a bet that’s well worth taking.

Passing that up because it’s not 100%? I think that would be the bigger mistake.

But that’s just me. You have to decide if you’re willing to roll those particular dice yourself. But like I said… the odds sound like they’re absolutely in your favor.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Doctor’s Note: Around the start of a new year, I like to look back and re-answer some older questions as I would if I had received them today. Whenever possible, I answer them without having read my previous response, to see and how my advice has changed in the intervening years.

Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove: Revisited for 2026…

Today’s letter was originally published on December 04, 2018��Hello Good Doctor!

I’ve been a long-time reader, and over the years have used a good number of your suggestions for improving myself, and so wanted to start by saying thank you for the help! 

A little information on me, I am a 25-year-old fairly recent graduate, in a long term (8 years) relationship with a lovely girl we can call Jane. The two of us purchased a house together about a year ago, and lived together on and off as schedules permitted throughout my time at university. By all means she is fantastic, lovable, sweet, funny, and a whole load of other things. All in all, I am quite happy! 

So why am I writing for help? Well, I’ve grown and changed a lot as a person since we started dating. This has been a largely positive change in most areas in her eyes, with the exception of one. 

While I had grown up largely focusing on monogamous relationships, around 3/4 years back I started to notice I rather enjoyed the prospect of polygamy. I first started to think about this shift in relationship style when I realized as time had gone on I had become less and less prone to jealousy or the general sense of “relational ownership” I had felt when I was younger, and that I greatly enjoyed the idea of being able to express romantic/physical/whatever inclination to more than one party, and wanted Jane to be able to do the same. 

Around this time, I asked Jane something to the effect of “Lets say I loved you fully, but also had strong feelings for another person. Do you think it would be possible for me to have feelings of love for both of you?” Jane has always been a bit a somewhat jealous type of person, never doing anything mean or destructive because of it, but none the less reacted not so well to this, assuming that in spite of what I’d said that it meant I did not or would not love her. As a result, after moving beyond the initial tears and fears, I never brought it up again. 

Fast forward to the here and now, I still feel the same way. The only difference is that Jane and I have both been becoming increasingly close friends with someone I used to know from my mid-teens, who we can call Susan. Back in “the day” Susan and I were never wildly close friends by any means, but were in to the same general music, hobbies, etc, and had hung out together over the years, and have kept in relatively good touch. Recently Susan and I started chatting more, just about random current events, politics, etc. It was a nice talk, and I suggested the three of us have dinner or find a time to hang out some time and catch up. We did so, and progressively one meet up became another, became many more, and we currently all meet up for movies, dinners, drinks, general whatever every weekend. Jane has expressed to me a level of attraction to Susan, and likewise Susan has expressed that she is very romantically interested in both Jane and myself. Susan has also expressed her own non monogamous leanings to both Jane and I. 

I have discussed things again recently, and in much more persistent detail with Jane. I have expressed that I think it would be nice to open our relationship up to the possibility of the three of us dating, and that in the event Jane had similar feelings for another, that I (and Susan in this context) would be open to that too, regardless of gender, presentation, etc, so long as we liked them as people. 

Long story short, Jane’s response was about as hard a no as it possibly could be. I wasn’t really expecting it to go over especially fantastically, but I’ve tried to improve communication and expression of desires so wanted to at least give it a “proper” try. 

Anyways on to my actual problem, which isn’t the one that it probably sounds like it would be based on the stuff above. 

I’m not looking for help making a decision of whether I should be with Susan or Jane, as I have already made my mind ages ago that Jane is someone I want to be with no matter what. If that means she is the only someone, and that I will not be following my poly leanings, then so be it. The issue is that even though I can consciously say this, it is something I still really want. I want to be allowed to express romantic feelings for people, and have them reject or receive them, and have that develop however it may. I have very strong feelings for Susan, and would love to act upon those, or similar for potential others in the future. 

Basically, the TL;DR question to summarize this is: I am poly leaning and my partner is not. How can I focus more on her, reduce my strong romantic desires, and get myself back into the typical “The One ™” mindset? 

Many thanks again! 

-Polygamustnot  

DEAR POLYGAMUSTNOT: This is a classic case of “I think you’re asking for the wrong advice,” Polygamustnot. Specifically: you’re asking how to not have feelings for someone and how to put the metaphorical toothpaste back in the tube, so you can go back to who you were beforehand, and I think that’s not going to help. I hate to be the one to tell you this but time really only flows in one direction; you can’t go back to who you used to be and having the mindset you used to have, simply because that person no longer exists. 

In the intervening years between when you started dating Jane and now, you’ve had a multitude of experiences, learned a multitude of things, and all of those contribute to the person you are today. To go back to being who you were before you realized you were poly and get back to that “There Can Be Only (the) One” mindset would require that you manage to undo all of those experiences and unlearn all that knowledge and in such a specific way that it only changed how you feel about Susan or others. 

Unless you get your hands on some very specific technology or the Mind Stone from the Infinity Gauntlet, you’re basically SOL on that score. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think you’d necessarily want to go back. Considering that this was more of a discovery of who you are, instead of something that you picked up out of curiosity and decided you like the fit, trying to go back to that previous version of yourself would just be resetting the clock until it happened again anyway.

Just as importantly, you can’t force yourself to not feel things; feelings are going to happen, whether we want them to or not. Trying to force them away or squeeze them down only pressurizes them, condenses them and that tends to make them more intense. And because they’re shoved into the part of your brain labeled “contents under pressure”… well, do you know what happens when that container gets punctured?

So, I think a better way to frame your question would be: “How can I continue be happy in a monogamous relationship, when I know myself to be polyamorous?” And to be sure, this is a thorny one, I’m not going to lie; this is something you know about yourself and it’s something that’s almost certainly going to come up again. But the answer to this question comes down to what it means to be monogamous and what it means to be polyamorous. Monogamy, very simply, means that you’ve promised to only have sex with one person; it doesn’t say a damn thing about not wanting to have sex with other people, nor about loving them.

Polyamory, on the other hand, simply means that you have the capacity to have concurrent romantic connections with more than one person; it doesn’t mean that you act on that capacity. Being poly functionally means that love isn’t a zero-sum game for you; your attraction or affection for one person doesn’t take away from your attraction or affection for the another. You can love someone to pieces and also love someone else in similar ways.

So, functionally speaking, you already have the answer to your question: you continue on as you have been up until now. You can acknowledge your capacity for multiple concurrent loves, but you choose to only keep and maintain your relationship with Jane. You continue to give her your time and attention in the ways you did before – or possibly even taking it back to the early days, when you were still in the initial courtship phase of the relationship.

Back when your relationship was new and uncertain, you were putting in a level of effort and energy that differs from what you do now, when things have settled and the two of you are more comfortable with one another. The simple act of expecting more and being more – trying to be the person you were when you first started this adventure together – pays incredible dividends in the relationship. You’re putting in the effort to see her the way you did back then and to live up to the person you aspired to be for her. Because so much of who we are is what we do, this helps bring at least part of who you were and how you felt back to the present, tempered by the greater knowledge and familiarity you have now. And because how we behave also affects how we feel, behaving as though you were at the start of this relationship can help bring back at least the echo of the New Relationship Energy you felt in those days… that same excitement and enthusiasm you’re feeling for Susan. You’re just plowing it into your relationship with Jane, instead.

In the meantime, you treat your feelings for Susan as you would an inconvenient crush; you acknowledge it for what it is and then gently turn your attention to something else. Feelings are like fire; if you give them fuel, they persist and grow. If you starve them, they tend to fade. Not giving more fuel to this particular fire will let your feelings for Susan fade on their own.

Now someone call 1-900-Mix-A-Lott because here comes a great big BUT.

BUT! If I’m being honest, I’m a little concerned about your relationship with Jane going forward, especially now that you and she both know that you’re poly.

I do wish you had a little more in your letter about those conversations with Jane, Polygamustnot. I feel like it would be helpful to know more about what you said, how you rolled it out to her (both times) and what not only her responses were, but what, specifically, she objected to or what she had a problem with. I don’t think there’s a way you could’ve changed her mind if she’s just not poly or comfortable with non-monogamy, but it can be a tricky conversation to have, and there’re a lot of ways to inadvertently make things worse without meaning to.

Is it possible that you could’ve framed things differently or presented it in a way that wouldn’t have prompted her to shut the discussion down? Maybe; that’s something that’s hard to say without having been there or been part of the discussion. It may well be that she might have been open to exploring a relationship with Susan, but didn’t feel comfortable being in a poly triad. It may also have been the case that giving Jane the option to explore things on her own at first and see whether her dating someone else diminished her feelings for you would help her realize that love wasn’t necessarily a zero-sum game for her, either.

But then again, Jane may well be a classic serial monogamist and happy staying that way, regardless of whether she found Susan attractive or not.

But I worry that maybe she may have a problem with the fact that you aren’t. ��I’m a little worried that Jane may think you’re heading for a “I can’t be happy denying this side of myself” situation. Since you don’t mention that you have a difficulty making a monogamous commitment prior to now, I would presume the likelihood is low. Poly, after all, doesn’t mean you need to be dating multiple people at all times; after all, you are still poly even if you’re in a monogamous relationship.

But I do worry that Jane may not see it that way.

You mention that she’s always had a jealous streak, and while she’s never done anything mean or destructive because of it, that was before now. Now that she knows that you’re poly and that you’re attracted to Susan… well, there’s a strong likelihood that she’s not going to forget this any time soon. I’m a little worried that her knowledge �of your feelings – acted upon or not – is going to be like a stone in her shoe that she can’t quite get rid of. I may well be wrong, and I hope I am… but I worry that she may now be on the lookout for signs that you’re having feelings for another person, and that’s going to end up becoming a sore spot in your relationship.

I hope it doesn’t, and I hope that you and Jane are going to be able to communicate on this issue openly going forward. It’s going to be important for both of you to be honest with how you’re feeling, and to feel like you can bring up worries, fears or concerns without it turning into an argument about what you “really” want. If Jane’s going to be afraid that maybe you’re hoping she’s changed her mind, she needs to feel like she can express it to you without having those fears be dismissed or belittled. Similarly, I hope you can explain that just because you can be attracted to other folks, that doesn’t take away from how you feel about her and that you’ve freely chosen to be with her and you are fine with that decision.

If she can’t accept that, can’t bring herself to trust that you’re being honest with her about how you feel, or you find that you are chafing under monogamy… well, then the two of you will have to have a different discussion.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My partner and I were broken up and then exploring getting back together while he was also dating a poly person. A few weeks in, he told me he’s poly and that’s non-negotiable. I told him I wasn’t sure if it would work for me to be in a poly relationship but I was interested to try and learn, as I’d been interested in it before.

Well, I’m a little shocked by my feelings. Now that I know for sure that he and the other person have had sex it feels like I’m having sex with this other person and I’ve realized I need to be more comfortable in my relationship with her in order to feel okay having that level of intimacy. It feels like it would be fine for them to have sex if this other person was okay having sex with me and/or if I had the level of trust and belonging I need with her. I have a high need for inclusion, which I knew but I didn’t know it was going to play out specifically in this way. She’s not interested in sex with me and I don’t know yet if she’s okay building trust and belonging with me. She’s been kind of warm/cold toward me. Now I’m feeling extremely uncomfortable and like it’s too intimate. I feel left out, betrayed and rejected (I realize I got myself into this situation by not knowing myself, so it’s not entirely their fault I feel this way). I’ve made a request that they not have sex until she and I feel the level of safety, belonging and trust that I need to feel that intimate with her while she also doesn’t want to be intimate with me. If they don’t want to do that then I may need to tap out.

The reason I don’t feel trust is she has told me that with every other poly situation she’s been in the “other woman” has left, so I’m not feeling very secure regarding her skills to make it work, and since I am also newly developing these skills, I don’t fully trust myself, either. She also told me she always wonders why everyone can’t just make out and be loving, but now that I’ve asked to be included, she’s said no, I just want him, so that’s why I feel misled and betrayed. There are other confusing things she’s said as well that lead me to not trust that she’s being honest. She’s told me I’m the warmest and most curious metamour she’s had so that’s a nice sign for me. I’ve worked hard to understand what she needs, while also communicating my needs as I discover them. I know she’s trying to learn and grow, too, but my alarm bells are up and I don’t know if it can work.

I’ve talked to my partner about all this and he’s being somewhat neutral. He thinks we’re triggering each other and we’re both working on doing better. I could see some of his point and I also felt annoyed hearing him say that because I need my partner to care about and respect my needs and boundaries. I told him that and I’m taking a day of space to process my feelings.

I still don’t know for sure how I’ll feel about them having sex if she and I have the safety, belonging and trust that I need, but my sense is of I do then I’ll be okay. I recognize my partner is taking a risk by being with me since I don’t know for sure how I’ll feel.

Do you have any advice for me? How do I know if I’m being reasonable? Am I poly? How do I decide if I should work through my discomfort, grow and change, or hold a boundary? Currently I’m using discomfort as my sign post that I need a boundary.

Sincerely,

Am I poly?

DEAR AM I POLY: This one’s a bit of a tangle, AIP, some of which is from being new and inexperienced with poly, and some that’s more personal for you.

Let’s start with an easy one: “Am I polyamorous?” The answer to this one is “you tell me”, because I’m not the Grand High Adjudicator of All Things Poly.

That’s my cousin Steve. I love him, but he’s insufferable at family dinners.

More seriously, having weird or complicated feelings about your partner or your metamour (your partner’s other partner)’s relationship doesn’t disqualify you from being poly. Being poly doesn’t mean that you’re magically immune to jealousy or that you’ll be in a full poly triad (or quad or $INSERT_COMPLICATED_RELATIONSHIP_TANGLE_HERE). Nor does it even necessarily mean you’re going to have any relationship with your metas. Polyamory just means that you’re someone who is capable of having and pursuing romantic relationships with more than one person.

Granted, how you go about conducting those relationships is a matter of debate; ask five poly people and you’ll get six poly opinions. But at the end of the day, it’s just about whether you’re someone who can have romantic love for more than one person at a time. So, you’re going to have to tell me if that description fits or not.

The next question of “are you being reasonable” is more complicated. A lot is going to hinge on what aspects you think you are or aren’t being reasonable about. It’s one thing if there’s a type of poly relationship you prefer, and you want to make that a priority in who you partner with. It’s another thing entirely when you start making that demand of someone else – especially when you’re the one coming to an existing relationship. It’s not necessarily reasonable to come into an existing relationship and say “OK, so here’s how this is going to work”; trust me, I’ve seen this go down and it’s never a pretty picture.

I think part of the problem is that you’re new to this and there’s often growing pains involved. One common thing that comes up with newcomers to varying forms of non-monogamy is that they want some mechanism to protect themselves from uncomfortable and unpleasant feelings – whether that’s jealousy, feeling neglected or the worry that their partner is going to be so twitterpated with The New Hotness that they’re going to end up closing the relationship and icing the other partner(s) out. These often come in the form of trying to establish rules – “no sex in our shared bed”, “only sleep with people who don’t live in our city”, “nobody I know socially”, “only on days that don’t end in Y and also with people who vanish back to their own dimension when you trick them into saying their name backwards” and so on.

The thing is: these are fig-leaves at best. At worst, it’s a way of trying to technically do non-monogamy, but in such a way that makes actual non-monogamy impossible. It’s understandable that folks want to protect their hearts and their place in the relationship and feel like easing their way in is safer, but it rarely works out as intended.

It also gets in the way of one of the core tenets of polyamory: that these are actual, significant and separate relationships, not just people f--king around. And as, such a third-party dictating rules on what two other consenting adults are “allowed” to do is seen as trying to dictate someone else’s relationship. This is why saying “I don’t want you having sex with your other partner until I feel safe and secure with her” isn’t reasonable. You’re dictating terms to two people whose relationship is separate from yours.

It’s one thing to say that you won’t be in a poly relationship unless you feel a level of security and trust with everyone involved; that’s you deciding under what conditions you will stay or go. That’s a boundary. So too is “I would prefer not to hear about your relationship with you partner” or “I don’t want to know when the two of you are having sex”.  Saying “you can’t do X with someone else until I say so” isn’t. You’re free to request it if you really want to, but it’s unlikely to have the result you’re hoping for. Especially since it involves a third person who doesn’t seem all that interested in playing along. It’s entirely possible that you’d be functionally asking them to not have sex until such a time that you either give up on trying to build a relationship with your meta, you leave your partner or he dumps you.

How long will that be? Who knows! But I’m sure you can see that you would find this unreasonable if someone asked it of you… especially someone who was a newcomer to your arrangement.    

I think one of the complicating factors is that you’ve got history with your partner. That may be leading a sense of… call it “seniority”, for lack of a better term, that you may feel carries over from your past relationship with him. The problem is that this isn’t a continuation of your previous relationship; the credits don’t transfer. This is a new relationship and a new relationship model, and there’s going to be an adjustment period for everyone. The fact that you’re his ex doesn’t automatically give your wishes greater metaphorical weight coming into this.

One thing I think that you may want to do is dig into precisely what you’re hoping to get out of asking your meta for a closer relationship. I know you said that you have a high need for inclusion, but is this about feeling like being excluded, or is it about feeling like you’re actually important? That is: that you feel valued to a point where you don’t feel like you could be easily excised from this relationship or that your partner would fight to keep you? Is it that you feel threatened by his having sex with other people in general or is it about his relationship with your meta, specifically?

I suspect that, if you dig into it, this is about FOMO.

FOMO, more often than not, isn’t just about “there’s a cool thing happening that I’m not part of”; it’s the fear that because people are doing the cool thing that you’re not part of, their connection will grow closer and you’ll be excluded because your connection isn’t as strong. It sounds to me that this is precisely what you’re worried about; the relationship that your partner is having with his meta will ultimately eclipse the one you have with him. There’s a sort of logic (if you squint); developing a strong (or at least, sexually intimate) connection with your meta would give you an additional tie to both of them, which would theoretically make it harder for you to be squeezed out. This is understandable… but that doesn’t necessarily make it reasonable.

While it’s important for our partners to support us when we’re having feelings of jealousy or insecurity, it’s ultimately up to us to manage and deal with those feelings ourselves. You can ask for reassurance, you can say “can we talk about how I’m feeling right now?” or address if there’s an actual need that is going unmet… but the bulk of dealing with those feelings has to come from you. Much of it is going to be about how much you trust your partner.

Which actually brings me to the question of your feelings about his other partner. I will admit, her saying “every ‘other woman’ has left” makes me cock a skeptical eyebrow. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen too many polycules where one partner seemed to think the right model to follow were the court intrigues between favored courtesans in the Tang dynasty, but that struck me as an odd thing to say. I could see how that could both be someone not necessarily taking responsibility for her actions and a warning of “I’ve seen them come, and I’ve seen them go, but I’m still here.” But then, I’m not there and you’re not necessarily the most unbiased person in this mix.

I don’t, however, think that her saying “why can’t everyone just make out and be loving” being incompatible with her not necessarily wanting to have a more intimate relationship with you. Leaving aside that we often aspire to goals that we personally may not be able to reach, the “why can’t everyone just make out” carries an implicit, if unspoken assumption that everyone involved is actually attracted to one another. It’s nice in the theoretical, but hard to achieve in the real world. You can’t ensure that any two people are going to be mutually into one another, even if they have a lot in common (including taste in dick). So while she may wish that this was how her relationships work, that runs headlong into the possibility that maybe you’re just not her type. That doesn’t make her a hypocrite or a liar, it’s just that, well, she’s just not that into you.

Or maybe there’s some complete lack of self-awareness going on and she’s the sort of person who talks a great game but never lives up to her own purported values and doesn’t see the issue there. Who knows.

I don’t think your partner is necessarily covering himself in glory here either. I can understand his not wanting to get involved, especially since he can’t exactly tell his other partner “look, you gotta make out with AIP for the good of our relationship,” but it also doesn’t sound like he’s doing much to reassure you that his relationship with her doesn’t take away from his relationship with you. Your relationship with your meta is ultimately your business, but he should be able to at least reassure you that his relationship with you and his relationship with her are separate, distinct and aren’t in competition.

Now, I don’t think any of this means that you’re not poly. I do, however, think this may mean that you may not be able to be poly with them. I stress may; you don’t mention how long you’ve been in this relationship or working on being poly. If it’s only been a handful of weeks and you’re not seeing everyone more than once a week, that’s not a lot of time to adjust. You also don’t mention how much experience your partner or his meta have with being poly or what their history is like. Considering the comment your meta made, I suspect it may not be the smoothest or most congenial. That gives me pause, and makes me wonder about the dynamics of his relationship with her.

The other thing you don’t mention is whether you’ve done any homework on poly and ENM relationships. Now granted, I have a pet peeve over how we basically teach people how to do relationships by expecting them to dive into the deep end and figure it out before they drown, but going into a poly or ENM relationship with no prep work is that but cubed. There’re a lot of skills, complications and conflicts that are very hard to figure out through trial and error, especially if you don’t have an experienced partner or meta who’re helping guide you through it.

Yeah, there’s a skill set overlap with monogamous relationships, but the more people who are involved makes everything exponentially more complicated. Doing your homework in advance can be helpful, because it can help make you more aware of things you didn’t know you didn’t know – such as the various forms that non-monogamous and poly relationships can take. It can also help you anticipate issues that you’re likely to encounter, give you the vocabulary to talk about them with your partner(s) and the skills to help navigate them, especially if you realize that some aspect of your relationship isn’t working for you.

While it’s often the case that you won’t know what you really want until you get some experience under your belt, having an idea of the model you want to follow when you’re getting started is helpful. For example: you seem to want a full poly triad, where you’re dating both your partner and his partner; that can be hard to find and make work, especially as a newbie. But even if we leave your feelings about your meta aside, you may find that this doesn’t work for you, period, and no amount of leveling up will change that. Fortunately, there’re many, many different ways to be poly; this is just one.

Whether you stay in this relationship, or if you choose to explore polyamory with someone else, I recommend you hit the books. I recommend that you check out are Tristan Taormino’s Opening Up, Dr. Liz Powell’s Building Open Relationships and Dossie Easton and Janet Hardey’s The Ethical Slut; I’ve found these to be among the most helpful for getting started. You might also get some insight and value out of Esther Perel’s Mating In Captivity and The State of The Affair, which aren’t about polyamory, but are relevant to some of your fears and worries. 

(Full disclosure: Dr. Powell is a friend of mine and we’ve worked together on multiple projects before, including some that are coming soon…)

As I said: I don’t know if this is the relationship you should be in, if you want to explore polyamory. The fact that you dated your partner before doesn’t guarantee that he’s a good match for you in a poly relationship. That doesn’t mean that you’re not poly; it just means that maybe you shouldn’t be dating him… or his meta. ��But again: I don’t think it’s reasonable to ask them to stop having sex until you’re cool with everything. If that’s a hurdle you can’t get over… well, it’s probably time to bounce, poly or not.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com