Gender roles and non-monogamy

Photo by Michael Prewett on Unsplash

I’m in a monogamous relationship and I’ve been in this relationship for 4+ years. We’ve talked about non-monogamy but my partner is quite against it. What makes things worse is I cheated on her last year with a man. We slept together twice before I told her and broke it off with him.

I’ve had a hard time in monogamous relationships in the past because I feel like i get put into a gender roll box. If I’m dating a woman, im put into the role of the man, and vise versa.

In my ideal world, I would be either in a triad with a woman and a man, or I would be in a primary relationship with a partner of one sex open to other relations.

My partner doesn’t really understand the gender stuff, eventhough she tries to. She is really good about treating me how I want to be treated, but a big part of it too is how I’ve been raised. I feel like when I’m with her, I /want/ to do the “manly things” because it makes me feel like a good partner. But it makes me sad that nobody does those “manly things” with me.

And, sex has been… sparse. We have sex maybe once a month if every thing aligns. (Double periods makes things a bit tricker plus my partner is super delicate and only wants sex when every thing is perfect.) For me, this can be quite hard because physical touch is really important for me to feel bonded with someone and feel happy in general. She does like things like hugging, hand holding, and small kisses (like a peck on the lips.) But sometimes it makes me feel undesired when someone doesn’t want more than that from me.

Anyway, I don’t really know what my question or issue is. Right now I’ve pushed aside any thoughts of the relationship opening up because I definitely shot that possibility in the foot when I cheated on my partner, and I’m fully aware of that. And, I haven’t been able to do much to increase our sexy times. These last few months I’ve decided to focus more on solo sessions and not think about sex with my partner and it’s been helping my mood a lot. But I’m still not fully satisfied.

Maybe my main question is, how long should I wait before mentioning non-monogamy again? It’s been about 6–8 months and she’s still quite hurt about it. I wont ever make the mistake of doing something behind her back again, but I also can’t stop fantasizing about having a man in the house. I also enjoy the thought of watching my partner with a guy. It sounds super fun and sexy.

This column has been moved to the Non-Monogamy Help website.