Estimated reading time: 17 minutes
Doctor’s Note: At the start of a new year, I like to look back and re-answer some older questions as I would if I had received them today. Whenever possible, I answer them without having read my previous response, to see and how my advice has changed in the intervening years.
Welcome to Ask Dr. NerdLove: Revisited for 2026…
These letters were originally published on June 10, 2016
Hello Good Doctor!
I’ve been a long-time reader, and over the years have used a good number of your suggestions for improving myself, and so wanted to start by saying thank you for the help!
A little information on me, I am a 25-year-old fairly recent graduate, in a long term (8 years) relationship with a lovely girl we can call Jane. The two of us purchased a house together about a year ago, and lived together on and off as schedules permitted throughout my time at university. By all means she is fantastic, lovable, sweet, funny, and a whole load of other things. All in all, I am quite happy!
So why am I writing for help? Well, I’ve grown and changed a lot as a person since we started dating. This has been a largely positive change in most areas in her eyes, with the exception of one.
While I had grown up largely focusing on monogamous relationships, around 3/4 years back I started to notice I rather enjoyed the prospect of polygamy. I first started to think about this shift in relationship style when I realized as time had gone on I had become less and less prone to jealousy or the general sense of “relational ownership” I had felt when I was younger, and that I greatly enjoyed the idea of being able to express romantic/physical/whatever inclination to more than one party, and wanted Jane to be able to do the same.
Around this time, I asked Jane something to the effect of “Lets say I loved you fully, but also had strong feelings for another person. Do you think it would be possible for me to have feelings of love for both of you?” Jane has always been a bit a somewhat jealous type of person, never doing anything mean or destructive because of it, but none the less reacted not so well to this, assuming that in spite of what I’d said that it meant I did not or would not love her. As a result, after moving beyond the initial tears and fears, I never brought it up again.
Fast forward to the here and now, I still feel the same way. The only difference is that Jane and I have both been becoming increasingly close friends with someone I used to know from my mid-teens, who we can call Susan. Back in “the day” Susan and I were never wildly close friends by any means, but were in to the same general music, hobbies, etc, and had hung out together over the years, and have kept in relatively good touch. Recently Susan and I started chatting more, just about random current events, politics, etc. It was a nice talk, and I suggested the three of us have dinner or find a time to hang out some time and catch up. We did so, and progressively one meet up became another, became many more, and we currently all meet up for movies, dinners, drinks, general whatever every weekend. Jane has expressed to me a level of attraction to Susan, and likewise Susan has expressed that she is very romantically interested in both Jane and myself. Susan has also expressed her own non monogamous leanings to both Jane and I.
I have discussed things again recently, and in much more persistent detail with Jane. I have expressed that I think it would be nice to open our relationship up to the possibility of the three of us dating, and that in the event Jane had similar feelings for another, that I (and Susan in this context) would be open to that too, regardless of gender, presentation, etc, so long as we liked them as people.
Long story short, Jane’s response was about as hard a no as it possibly could be. I wasn’t really expecting it to go over especially fantastically, but I’ve tried to improve communication and expression of desires so wanted to at least give it a “proper” try.
Anyways on to my actual problem, which isn’t the one that it probably sounds like it would be based on the stuff above.
I’m not looking for help making a decision of whether I should be with Susan or Jane, as I have already made my mind ages ago that Jane is someone I want to be with no matter what. If that means she is the only someone, and that I will not be following my poly leanings, then so be it. The issue is that even though I can consciously say this, it is something I still really want. I want to be allowed to express romantic feelings for people, and have them reject or receive them, and have that develop however it may. I have very strong feelings for Susan, and would love to act upon those, or similar for potential others in the future.
Basically, the TL;DR question to summarize this is: I am poly leaning and my partner is not. How can I focus more on her, reduce my strong romantic desires, and get myself back into the typical “The One ™” mindset?
Many thanks again!
-Polygamustnot
This is a classic case of “I think you’re asking for the wrong advice,” Polygamustnot. Specifically: you’re asking how to not have feelings for someone and how to put the metaphorical toothpaste back in the tube, so you can go back to who you were beforehand, and I think that’s not going to help. I hate to be the one to tell you this but time really only flows in one direction; you can’t go back to who you used to be and having the mindset you used to have, simply because that person no longer exists.
In the intervening years between when you started dating Jane and now, you’ve had a multitude of experiences, learned a multitude of things, and all of those contribute to the person you are today. To go back to being who you were before you realized you were poly and get back to that “There Can Be Only (the) One” mindset would require that you manage to undo all of those experiences and unlearn all that knowledge and in such a specific way that it only changed how you feel about Susan or others.
Unless you get your hands on some very specific technology or the Mind Stone from the Infinity Gauntlet, you’re basically SOL on that score. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t think you’d necessarily want to go back. Considering that this was more of a discovery of who you are, instead of something that you picked up out of curiosity and decided you like the fit, trying to go back to that previous version of yourself would just be resetting the clock until it happened again anyway.
Just as importantly, you can’t force yourself to not feel things; feelings are going to happen, whether we want them to or not. Trying to force them away or squeeze them down only pressurizes them, condenses them and that tends to make them more intense. And because they’re shoved into the part of your brain labeled “contents under pressure”… well, do you know what happens when that container gets punctured?
So, I think a better way to frame your question would be: “How can I continue be happy in a monogamous relationship, when I know myself to be polyamorous?” And to be sure, this is a thorny one, I’m not going to lie; this is something you know about yourself and it’s something that’s almost certainly going to come up again. But the answer to this question comes down to what it means to be monogamous and what it means to be polyamorous. Monogamy, very simply, means that you’ve promised to only have sex with one person; it doesn’t say a damn thing about not wanting to have sex with other people, nor about loving them.
Polyamory, on the other hand, simply means that you have the capacity to have concurrent romantic connections with more than one person; it doesn’t mean that you act on that capacity. Being poly functionally means that love isn’t a zero-sum game for you; your attraction or affection for one person doesn’t take away from your attraction or affection for the another. You can love someone to pieces and also love someone else in similar ways.
So, functionally speaking, you already have the answer to your question: you continue on as you have been up until now. You can acknowledge your capacity for multiple concurrent loves, but you choose to only keep and maintain your relationship with Jane. You continue to give her your time and attention in the ways you did before – or possibly even taking it back to the early days, when you were still in the initial courtship phase of the relationship.
Back when your relationship was new and uncertain, you were putting in a level of effort and energy that differs from what you do now, when things have settled and the two of you are more comfortable with one another. The simple act of expecting more and being more – trying to be the person you were when you first started this adventure together – pays incredible dividends in the relationship. You’re putting in the effort to see her the way you did back then and to live up to the person you aspired to be for her. Because so much of who we are is what we do, this helps bring at least part of who you were and how you felt back to the present, tempered by the greater knowledge and familiarity you have now. And because how we behave also affects how we feel, behaving as though you were at the start of this relationship can help bring back at least the echo of the New Relationship Energy you felt in those days… that same excitement and enthusiasm you’re feeling for Susan. You’re just plowing it into your relationship with Jane, instead.
In the meantime, you treat your feelings for Susan as you would an inconvenient crush; you acknowledge it for what it is and then gently turn your attention to something else. Feelings are like fire; if you give them fuel, they persist and grow. If you starve them, they tend to fade. Not giving more fuel to this particular fire will let your feelings for Susan fade on their own.
Now someone call 1-900-Mix-A-Lott because here comes a great big BUT.
BUT! If I’m being honest, I’m a little concerned about your relationship with Jane going forward, especially now that you and she both know that you’re poly.
I do wish you had a little more in your letter about those conversations with Jane, Polygamustnot. I feel like it would be helpful to know more about what you said, how you rolled it out to her (both times) and what not only her responses were, but what, specifically, she objected to or what she had a problem with. I don’t think there’s a way you could’ve changed her mind if she’s just not poly or comfortable with non-monogamy, but it can be a tricky conversation to have, and there’re a lot of ways to inadvertently make things worse without meaning to.
Is it possible that you could’ve framed things differently or presented it in a way that wouldn’t have prompted her to shut the discussion down? Maybe; that’s something that’s hard to say without having been there or been part of the discussion. It may well be that she might have been open to exploring a relationship with Susan, but didn’t feel comfortable being in a poly triad. It may also have been the case that giving Jane the option to explore things on her own at first and see whether her dating someone else diminished her feelings for you would help her realize that love wasn’t necessarily a zero-sum game for her, either.
But then again, Jane may well be a classic serial monogamist and happy staying that way, regardless of whether she found Susan attractive or not.
But I worry that maybe she may have a problem with the fact that you aren’t.
I’m a little worried that Jane may think you’re heading for a “I can’t be happy denying this side of myself” situation. Since you don’t mention that you have a difficulty making a monogamous commitment prior to now, I would presume the likelihood is low. Poly, after all, doesn’t mean you need to be dating multiple people at all times; after all, you are still poly even if you’re in a monogamous relationship.
But I do worry that Jane may not see it that way.
You mention that she’s always had a jealous streak, and while she’s never done anything mean or destructive because of it, that was before now. Now that she knows that you’re poly and that you’re attracted to Susan… well, there’s a strong likelihood that she’s not going to forget this any time soon. I’m a little worried that her knowledge of your feelings – acted upon or not – is going to be like a stone in her shoe that she can’t quite get rid of. I may well be wrong, and I hope I am… but I worry that she may now be on the lookout for signs that you’re having feelings for another person, and that’s going to end up becoming a sore spot in your relationship.
I hope it doesn’t, and I hope that you and Jane are going to be able to communicate on this issue openly going forward. It’s going to be important for both of you to be honest with how you’re feeling, and to feel like you can bring up worries, fears or concerns without it turning into an argument about what you “really” want. If Jane’s going to be afraid that maybe you’re hoping she’s changed her mind, she needs to feel like she can express it to you without having those fears be dismissed or belittled. Similarly, I hope you can explain that just because you can be attracted to other folks, that doesn’t take away from how you feel about her and that you’ve freely chosen to be with her and you are fine with that decision.
If she can’t accept that, can’t bring herself to trust that you’re being honest with her about how you feel, or you find that you are chafing under monogamy… well, then the two of you will have to have a different discussion.
Good luck.
Hi Doc,
I’ve been an avid reader of yours for the past few years, and I really like your thoughtful perspective. I was wondering if you could help me with a relationship dilemma. I’m a grad student dating another student in my university, and after six months, things have been getting pretty serious. My boyfriend is intelligent, kind, thoughtful, and incredibly supportive—and he’s made it clear that he sees our relationship heading towards marriage and children. He’s the kind of person who brings by homemade soup when I’m sick, gives amazing pep talks, even watches my dog so I could visit family or present at conferences. I love him, but I’m not as completely certain that he’s “the one.” On one hand, I can definitely see us together long-term—we’re on the same page with life goals, conflict styles, vulnerable and open communication, sex, finances, and even hypothetical parenting styles. We’re compatible in many ways, and one of my favorite things is sitting on the porch in a comfortable silence with him, watching the sunset after a long day of teaching or weekend hike.
But on the other hand, he’s so different from the person I’d always imagined I’d end up with. Because we started out as hiking buddies and were friends well before we started dating, things that I would have deemed deal breakers on a first date didn’t seem to matter. He’s eight years older, not particularly religious, messy, smokes weed a few times a month, has tons of tattoos, and he isn’t quite as ambitious or career-focused. I’m a person of faith, uncomfortable with drugs, obsessively clean, and my degree is significantly more marketable. He’s supportive of my own beliefs, only smokes when I’m not around, and helps me mellow out when I get too uptight about school and work (and I’ve helped him with his job applications), so I know these should be non-issues. But I struggle to dismiss them completely. Is it disingenuous to continue dating him when I’m only about 75-80% sure that we’ll make it work long term?
He’s almost finished with his PhD while I’m still facing another five years of school to get mine — because he’s older, he’s dated more than me and wants to settle down more quickly, most likely while I’ll still be in school. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does put a little more pressure on me to be sure before he tries to find jobs this year near my next grad program. Is it normal to feel this way in a serious relationship? Am I ethically in the wrong for continuing to be with him when I’m not 100% certain? He’s so supportive, so I feel terrible for having lingering doubts about issues that seem shallower.
-Of Two Minds
Hey, two minds, two important things for you to consider! It’s like poetry, it rhymes!
Here’s the first thing for you, OTM: no plan survives contact with the enemy. Or to put it another way: man plans, and the gods laugh. That’s as true in love as much as it is in war; just because you have certain expectations or think that you have a particular type doesn’t mean that you can only fall for that type. Or even that your “perfect” partner is actually right for you.
In fact, this is one of the problems with dating apps that aren’t due to rampant enshittification and late-stage capitalism: it’s easy to get so focused on what you think you want that you miss out on serendipity. I know many, many couples who have been madly in love for years or even decades, but only because they met in person. On paper, they don’t seem like they would be “right” for one another, and they almost certainly would never have gotten together if they’d met on a dating app. But the fact that they met in the physical world – through friends, through work, through sheer dumb blind luck – they found that they clicked in ways that they would never have expected. Because they took a chance when they felt that click, they found someone they never realized they could be happy with. And yet, here they are, like multiple pairs of disgustingly adorable lovebirds, billing and cooing (and occasionally screaming) at one another.
Sounds to me like you and your beau are the same; he may not be the match you thought you needed on paper, but in person, those deal breakers just don’t apply to him. Maybe those deal breakers aren’t as deal-break-y as you thought they were, or maybe it’s just him – he’s just someone who can mitigate those deal breakers and make them less important than all the great things he brings to the relationship.
And honestly, that’s part of how we make relationships work; we love so much of what we do get from our partners that the things we don’t care for simply don’t matter as much. In some cases, those quirks and flaws become part of why we care so much for them. It’s what makes them uniquely them, and we’d actually missthose little frustrations and annoyances if they were gone.
So, yeah, maybe he’s not your perfect match… but could you honestly picture himand loving him as much as you do without the little differences? Would he still be that same wonderful guy without those parts that offset and highlight his great qualities by contrast?
Probably not. But that’s going to be true of everyone you date. There’s no The One because nobody is perfect and settling down means a certain amount of settling for. Nobody gets 100% of what they want, because no single person can do that. So, recognizing that perfect people don’t exist, we choose people who give us what’s important to us, what we need from our partners and we love what we do get so much that we see the 20% or 35% we don’t get as being well worth giving up in exchange.
Now the second thing for you to consider: no good comes from borrowing trouble from the future. You’re so busy focused on what may or may not come that it’s taking away from what you have now. And I am here from the Days of Future Past to tell you with certainty: if you let your worry about a future get in the way of your present, you’re guaranteeing misery in the here and now and doubling it in the future when you look back and realize how much you missed out on because you were so busy worrying.
You love him. You’re happy with him in the here and now. You are aligned in all the really important ways, the ones that matter. That’s no small thing, and certainly nothing to toss aside simply because you’re not 100% sure.
But hey, let me put it to you this way: if I offered to sell you a lottery ticket for $10, and guaranteed you that this lottery ticket had a 70% chance of winning the million-dollar jackpot, would you buy that ticket?
I’m betting that you would’ve shoved ten bucks in my hand before I even finished the sales pitch.
70%-80% odds of success are incredible fucking odds. They’re the sort of odds that people would think you’re batshit for not leaping on like a duck on a Junebug. 70-80% odds of your relationship working? THAT sounds like a bet that’s well worth taking.
Passing that up because it’s not 100%? I think that would be the bigger mistake.
But that’s just me. You have to decide if you’re willing to roll those particular dice yourself. But like I said… the odds sound like they’re absolutely in your favor.
Good luck.
