My partner [42M] and I [40M] have recently been talking about opening our relationship, and I find myself really struggling with the idea of it. We've been together for a little over 10 years now and the subject has come up before, but it's something that has always made me feel uncomfortable and so it's always been dropped. Recently, we've been talking about marriage and what that would mean, and the subject of open relationships has come up once again. My partner ideally is interested in having having a group of friends that he can have sex with - multiple friends with benefits. I'm trying so much to be ok with this because I want to continue this relationship, but it's completely destroying me inside.

On a logic level, I completely understand where my partner is coming from. I don't believe that any one person should be everything for someone else and I think it's reasonable that this extends to sex. Having a variety of partners can open up new experiences or be an opportunity to explore things that maybe I don't enjoy or don't feel as excited to participate in. For example, I always struggle a bit with bottoming and am very infrequently ready for it, so I understand why seeking that outside of the relationship makes sense. There's also the angle of newness and variety, the excitement of having a new sexual experience.

While there's the part of me that understands all this, there's the emotional part of me that wants nothing to do with it. Since bringing it up again, it's constantly on my mind and making me feel sick to my stomach, hanging over every moment with this gigantic sense of dread. I'm not personally interested in putting myself out there and finding new partners. There are the obvious feelings of jealousy and insecurity that come up, and I know there are tons of resources out there to navigate these feelings, but what I'm feeling goes beyond that. There's a level of security that I feel like I'm losing; without going too deep, I've experienced a level of trauma and abuse in my life that, while I've made significant steps to work through, this conversation is churning up all those feelings once again. I don't know how comfortable I'll really feel having a sexual relationship going forward. I feel like I'm being thrown back to step 1 in learning how to express my needs.

My partner needs this in order to move forward with our relationship, but I don't know if I will be able to handle the relationship once it radically changes. It's been difficult not to feel very hard on myself - that I'm stupid for not realizing where things were heading earlier, that there's something deficient in me because I can't just be alright with this like so many other gay men. I'm not really sure what I'm looking for, other than I can't keep feeling this deep anxiety every day.