Lesbians

I guess my perception is that if you need monogamy and your partner needs polyamory, you are not a good fit ... if you sacrifice and try poly for her, you are already engaging in the kinds of self-sacrifices and lack of boundaries that set up ENM relationships to fail, imo ...

it sounds like the only reason you are trying poly is because you don't want to lose her, and you feel it's better to keep some kind of relationship over having no relationship ... which I understand (hell, when my girlfriend cheated on me I was "ok" with it because I didn't want to lose her, but then she dumped me later anyway); but I will point out, if you are sacrificing on something as important to you as mutual commitment out of desperation, then you aren't in an equal and healthy relationship at that point

so my advice would be to work on your self-esteem and learn to recognize and protect your needs - recognizing needs and setting boundaries is legitimately hard, and self-esteem issues are not uncommon for trans individuals - just know you're not alone in these struggles 🫂

If it means I can stay with her I am willing to try anything, especially since our bond is insanely tight..

Sounds like you feel vulnerable right now - which I think it just part of any worthwhile relationship.

When I have felt similarly vulnerable, I found it centering to internalize my commitment to our bond.

My spouse is the person that I would flex however they need, to be there for and have fun with them.

When they have had needs I'm still trying to understand, I center my mind on this core belief: I plan to be there for them.

It sounds to me like you found someone worth that, and are making peace with how vulnerable that leaves you.

I don't know what to add except I've been there, and it has been worth it.

Update: She said on our call that she will think about it, which is completely valid. I have concerns about specifics but that can be dealt with through conversations.

I was obviously raised in a monogomas culture, but never had issue with the idea of a bunch of girls loving each other. I like to think im open minded, but even with that this will challenge me in ways i am not gonna be able to predict even with all the advice in the world. I appreciate those who read my post, any additional words would be nice ❤️

If you are interested in becoming poly I would recommend that you read the required books (Polysecure, The Ethical Slut, etc.) to begin with. They should give you a background as you continue to at least think about this process. I also always recommend Dan Savage podcast and columns for all relationships problems. Especailly for queer people or poly people because he is both and rarely is that the case.

I saw that couples therapists was recommend which I also agree with. That being said if you needing couples therapy after only dating 8 months is kind of a bad sign. Needing couples therapy very early usually means that you should just call it over because you have some insurmountable differences. However, it wouldn't be crazy to give this a try. We are all conditioned to be Mono only and it might be worthwhile to try it. It might be a terrible failure but you might learn a lot in the process. It might be a great success and this is the start of your story. Give it a try especially if you don't have a lot of people nearby. This might not last forever (it also might) but that doesn't mean it wasn't worthwhile.

Looking at my transition from mono to ENM and when I experienced friends and lovers do it as well I can tell you that this might take time and sometimes it hurts and you make bad choices and suffer from the consequences. That's poly life how I see it. I saw couples break up over it, experiment with other people, learn more about themselves and then come back together and make it work.

There are some really great moments in that and eventually everyone has done their homework and it works out for long stretches till things change again and things repeat(the bad and good).

It takes time and effort and a ton of very direct communication without judgment to switch in am existing relationship. I highly recommend couples therapy with a therapist with understanding of ethical non-monogamy. It requires unlearning a lot of conditioning and habits like intense jealousy is often considered a good thing that means you care in monogamy, but will kill ENM type relationships flat out and lead to to bad habits like toxic hierarchies.

At the very least you need to communicate every single thought openly and both of you need to feel like the other isn't judging you. You can feel hurt, but work through that hurt rather than bottling it up as part of that open communication. Otherwise, resentment will win mo matter what you do.

I had a girlfriend once who wanted to do the Poly thing. She already had 2 others lined up, and I was ok with doing it part time, because she was a bit of a fucking handful mentally. After a while I met someone I really hit it off with brought it up with her and suddenly she wanted to go mono. The relationship didn't last long after that.