My boyfriend has a wife

My boyfriend has a wife.

And I love calling him my boyfriend.

I love when he calls me his girlfriend.

Recently, we were talking about what makes each of us feel like the other is ours.

For him, it’s the way I’m completely with him when we’re together. I’m present. I’m focused on us. In those moments, he has all of me.

For me, I realized that part of it is being claimed.

The other day he casually texted me, “Hey there girlfriend,” and something in me melted.

Girlfriend.

There I was.

Named.

Not his only relationship. Not his primary relationship. Not his wife.

His girlfriend.

There is a place in his life that is mine.

Because yes, my boyfriend is married. I have other partners and I date.

And still, there are moments when I feel very deeply: this man is mine.

Not because I own him.

Not because I have exclusive access to his body, his time, or his love.

But because we belong to each other.

Being polyamorous doesn’t mean I don’t long to feel chosen. I do.

I want commitment. I want security. I want to belong to someone and feel that they belong to me.

I’m just discovering that, for me, belonging and exclusivity don’t have to mean the same thing.

Someone can choose you deeply without choosing only you.

A relationship can be real, committed, precious, and uniquely yours without requiring every other relationship to disappear.

And I want to be clear about something:

I don’t have an agenda that polyamory or non-monogamy is a better or more evolved way to have relationships.

It isn’t.

It’s one relationship structure among many, and it’s definitely not for everyone.

Non-monogamy can offer tremendous freedom, the freedom to allow different relationships to meet different parts of us, to follow attraction and connection without requiring one person to be everything, and to question some of the assumptions we’ve inherited about what love is supposed to look like.

But that freedom can also ask a lot of us.

It can bring us face-to-face with jealousy, comparison, insecurity, attachment wounds, limitations of time and resources, and the reality that someone we love is choosing and loving other people too.

Some people genuinely thrive in that complexity.

Others feel safest, freest, and most themselves in monogamy.

Neither is more evolved. The question is what kind of relationship allows you to live and love most authentically.

So yes, this is also a little bit of a coming out for me.

I’m polyamorous.

And increasingly, I want people to know that this is something you can bring into the room with me.

I don’t only work with people around s-x, intimacy, relationships, desire, jealousy, communication, and the ways we get activated in connection.

I also understand the particular territory of consensual non-monogamy, not only professionally, but personally.

I know how vulnerable it can be to question the relationship scripts most of us inherited. I know that non-monogamy doesn’t magically eliminate jealousy, attachment, insecurity, or the longing to feel chosen.

Sometimes it brings us directly into conversation with all of them.

So if you’re curious about non-monogamy, wondering whether it might be right for you, trying to open an existing relationship, or already practicing it and finding yourself tangled up in jealousy, attachment, boundaries, communication, disclosure, or questions about how to create security without exclusivity, this is territory you’re welcome to bring to me.