My (37M) partner (30F) have been married about 5 years and together for 10. After a lot of discussion, a couple years ago we decided to open our marriage. My wife says that she has always felt polyamourous and that her desire for other relationships is important to who she is. She is also interested in a lot of sexual exploration at the moment. I have had a bit of my own sexual awakening and desire to explore, but I haven't had this same impulse regarding relationships. I accept my wife and respect her autonomy and choices. This is something I want to protect as my actions in the past (primarily due to unmanaged depression and anxiety) have at times hindered her autonomy and made her feel trapped. I also understand on an intellectual level the basic ideas and principles of polyamoury (as varied as they may be) and can certainly agree with them. My difficulty is in reconciling this with my gut feelings of jealousy and rejection. And at times this comes out as possessiveness over her body. Her having sex without me is particularly hard for me still. She has had multiple partners whereas I really just had one fling that basically ended in me being taken advantage of sexually.
It has been hard the whole way but I truly want my wife to be happy and I feel like compersion is attainable. I realize I have been anxiously attached to my wife for years and pushed my emotions on her. As I have struggled to deal with these changes, my emotions have gotten out of control at times. As a result, she has withdrawn a bit to protect herself.
Right now, I am struggling to believe the changes I am trying to make will ever be enough to not just be okay, but happy for my partner and happy for myself. Disentanglement is not going well for me. I have put her on a pedestal over the years and I am having extreme difficulty reframing some of my feelings about love now that we no longer have exclusivity. Even with small moments of what could be compersion, I'm still distraught when she's with another partner. I truly want her to be free and happy. Im having difficulty accepting that this means fundamental changes in our life together. There are certainly other issues that we need to resolve and I am trying to find a relationship therapist that has poly experience.
I am in therapy to better take care of myself instead of relying on my wife or others. I have always struggled with my own autonomy and emotional processing. But adding to my struggles is my current lack of community. Due to some falling outs unrelated to this, my social circle is almost non existent so I have almost no one to turn to when things are difficult.
I'm aware of all the horror stories and some of the success stories. I know that even if Im successful in doing the work to fully accept this and make changes, there will be a lot of pain before I get there. I feel that the truth is we are soulmates. And losing her seems like a far greater pain than learning how to cope with my own issues with self-love, self acceptance, and autonomy so that being away from her isn't so hard. I love her so much that I always want to be around her. And even without having other partners, I'm aware that is not realistic to how life works. I need to be able to be there for myself and not reliant so much on validation from her.
I'm not looking for a bunch of comments saying to leave. I guess I'm just looking for some acknowledgement that this is hard but doable. And any advice that anyone can offer is greatly appreciated.