I’m in a polyamorous relationship with two longterm partners. I live with one of my partners, who I’ve been with for 8 years. My other partner is still working and so to protect myself and my live-in partner I haven’t been seeing him; we’ve been together for about a year. 

I recently had a friend of mine move in who has been traveling abroad. I’ve been interested in her and have expressed as much with my non-live-in partner, but he has not been supportive of me pursuing anything besides a friendship with her. He says that he doesn’t think “adding another partner right now during a crisis is a good idea” and he wants me to find articles that discusses adding a new partner right now, during COVID. 

From the beginning, he has seemed to have monogamous tendencies — we all do — but says that he wants to pursue polyamory with me. After we had a situation where I kissed her and it upset him, I told him I would wait to do anything else physical with my friend until our relationship was doing better. 

But after reflecting on that, I think it goes against my belief that I need to have the state of my relationships depend on my other relationships. To me, each is its own entity and I should be able to let my other relationships grow into however feels best for the two people involved and not let one of my metamours dictate how my other relationships should be (if there should be sexual intimacy or not, etc). 

But then I was looking up articles and read one from More Than Two (which has informed a lot of how I approach polyamory, though I recognize one of the authors has questionable morals in how he’s approached some of his relationships) and it talks about opening up and making sure that the relationship is sturdy before adding new people. 

So, I’m a little torn about what I should do because I think both perspectives make valid points about my situation. I just want to feel autonomous in my relationships but also respect my other partners’ thoughts and emotions.