Hi all!

So my husband and I have been married 4 years and been best friends for 10. The short version is that he is poly and well...I'm not. This is gonna be kinda long, but I figure the best way to sort this on my side is to discuss it with people who understand it.

I guess we'll start at him coming out with it. I'd known something was bugging him and he wouldn't tell me, but he finally did. He was very open about it willing to work with me and accept however I felt about it and I listened. I didn't shut him down, I just took it all in and asked questions. It wasn't a huge surprise to me because of how long we've known eachother. But later, I broke down. I cried for days behind closed doors because I felt like I wasn't enough. I only stopped because I realized that a good portion of that feeling is likely due to the difficult relationships I've had with the men in my life.

My dad sued me because he didn't like my husband. All of my uncles fell into his words of how I was being terrible to my dad and called and e-mailed me with details about how horrible I was. My grandfather sent me a letter telling me that he would not walk me down the aisle because I refused to rectify the relationship with my dad. My dad yelled at me when I came to him at 16 confused and concerned because I'd found his porn. An older male friend decided to grab my chest while his wife was inside fighting cancer and his kids and grandkids were on the other side of a fence.

I think you get the point. I've had difficult relationships with men. So it's difficult for me to wrap my head around this. He describes himself as bi-flexible. Which only vaguely makes sense to me. I told him that I was fine with him talking and flirting with people over a digital medium, but 1) I don't find it fair to me if I have to fix it because they broke his heart or something (has already happened) and 2) I want to be kept up on the happenings to ensure that everything is safe. He has been in counseling for anxiety and depression so I definitely don't want any relapses for him. I have had to pull info out of him about what is going on because he feels like he's hurting me with all of this. He's been very open and said that he would be fine if I wanted to do my own things as well or if we wanted to bring another into our relationship. He just said that he would be picky about a guy with me to make sure that I was safe.

Things have definitely been rougher lately as I've been dealing with nerve issues so our sex life has disappeared almost completely and honestly, most months, it doesn't bother me that much. It never has. I get off more on the romance and the relationship than the actual sex, so I see sex as a very intimate thing, kinda a last step of intimacy. He's the opposite. He could swing, go for a one night stand, enter a friends with benefits type of situation and be fine. He'd still care, he'd still have a certain level of at least friendship with the person, but he sees sex as a separate thing of fun.

I know he's not hiding me in any of his digital relationships. He's upfront about the fact that he's married and he will only go as far as I "allow". Which is kinda what bugs me. I love this man, but I know neither of us wants the other having to make concessions for the other. I would love to just tell him to go do his thing, but I don't see myself taking that well. I would be in constant fear that he'd get attached and leave. Which do acknowledge as irrational and based on my history with relationships with men.

It's basically my sense of logic saying that it would probably all be fine, because 1) he's poly, he's not just doing this for a free pass. And 2) we have such a great relationship outside of sexuality and needs (I'm much more vanilla than him) that it really shouldn't make a difference. But the emotional side of my brain is freaking out and upset that I'm not enough. But it's also upset that this whole situation is unfair because even when I want to do things right now, I can't because of nerve pain. To put this in perspective, in a year, we've had sex probably less than 5 times and he's the kind of guy who could easily get off multiple times a day.

I don't know exactly what I'm asking. I guess advice on what the situation should be in a healthy sense? Any advice or suggestions in general would be much appreciated. I'm just really lost and not sure where else to go.