His Girlfriend Says He Doesn’t Understand Her Need for Polyamory

From r/relationships on Reddit,

Any advice? She (28) and I (29) have been together for 5 years. Recently, she said that since there are things that I would never do to her sexually, that she wants to explore with another person. She has said that I can have full control over this.

I can’t get over the feeling that what she’s doing is incredibly selfish. I was her first long term relationship, and she had only slept with one other person other than me. She didn’t experiment when she was away at university. I had been with a handful of other women in short and long term relationships.

She says that she wants to explore her sexuality and that it would be cruel for me to stop her from doing so, while I am perfectly content with just her. To me, it seems selfish that instead of working with me to try to incorporate some of the things she wants to try into our sex life, she would be fulfilling those needs in another way. When I bring this up, she says “You don’t have that in you” or “Your heart wouldn’t be in it”. This hurts me very much as I would do almost anything for her, and while I may not be good at it at first, I would be willing to try my best. I’ve always tried to accommodate her needs (like anal sex, I hate it) even though I might not personally enjoy it.

I told her that I would be open to trying swinging, but that was not good enough for her and she said I wasn’t understanding what she wanted. I feel like I am being somewhat replaced and that she wants to have her cake and eat it too. A part of life is coming to terms with the fact you can’t get everything you want, and I feel like her wanting this is putting the focus on her instead of us.

TL;DR: GF wants to try polyamory and I think she’s being selfish. Am I the jerk here? I know this was a rambling mess but I don’t know what to do.

So, there are a number of possibilities here.

1) She thinks he’s terrible in bed and can’t deal with the idea of just sleeping with him for the rest of her life.

2) She feels a need to sow her wild oats, but still wants to keep him around while she does it.

Trending: He Watched 9 Guys Run a Train On Her & Then Later Married Her

3) She thinks he’s enough of a beta that she can keep him (and maybe more guys) in the background while she gets laid.

4) She wants him as a safety net while she plays the field and sees if she can upgrade.

5) She’s extremely unhappy in the relationship and wants to date around without coming out and saying it.

Time and time again when I’ve seen open relationships or polyamorous relationships in the real world, inevitably it doesn’t work out over the long haul because there is one person who’s happy with the arrangement and someone else who doesn’t like it.

In this guy’s case, he’s just refusing to accept the reality of the situation. The girl he’s with is demanding to sleep with other guys and do sexual things with them that she won’t be doing with him. Who wants to be sitting at home watching TV while your girl is out doing freaky stuff she doesn’t do with you — with another guy? Can you live with that? If the answer is “no,” then it doesn’t matter if you have five years in, you thank God that you didn’t marry her, accept that it didn’t work out and move on.