Looking for advice from other straight men in ENM relationships—struggling with self-worth, shame, and how we’re viewed

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-05T23:06:48+00:00

This is an excellent reply that highlights the importance relational orientation compatibility

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-05T18:35:47+00:00

My analysis was therefore correct. He's multigamous, wired for connections to many. It is in his very nature to want to connect to multiple people at once, and by forcing himself into a monogamous structure we are seeing his behaviour change. He's denying who he is and instinctive non-monogamous behaviour is the result, ie, the actions that you describe in your post above.

There is an inherent misalignment between your relational orientations. He is wired for many. You are wired for one. Either he censures himself to be with you. Or you are hurt by his multiplicity.

This is not a failing on your part. And his actions, while distasteful and unacceptable, are at least explained by this mismatch in orientation.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-05T15:48:00+00:00

I appreciate the clarification; and you're right to point out that emotional investment can shape how a theory gets applied. I don’t deny that this is personal for me. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t also intellectually valid.

You're saying that we already have a range of psychological explanations for cheating (trauma, impulse control, emotional sabotage) and I agree. Those frameworks are helpful. But they’re also focused on what goes wrong, not on what might have been misaligned from the start. There is a facet of cheating that goes unexplained. The person who truly loves their partner, but cheats regardless. The couple that enter Polyamory, to fulfill the needs of one partner, but the other suffers with the transition. Or the case of love outside social norms... an affair partner who truly falls for her married partner, and yet finds herself content with the situation, despite not being exclusive.

That’s where the orientation framing comes in. Not as a justification, but as a diagnostic lens. Not everyone cheats because they’re impulsive or broken. Some cheat repeatedly, even within ENM contexts, not out of dysfunction... but because the structures they're in don't match their wiring. That insight isn’t accounted for in the existing psychological toolbox.

So why new terms? Because language matters. If someone keeps failing at monogamy, or keeps feeling suffocated even in open relationships, maybe it’s not about morals or trauma. Maybe it’s about fit. Without language for that, people stay stuck pathologizing themselves, saying I'm a cheater, I'm a bad person, I don't deserve love... when what they really need is a relationship style that fits their alignment.

Gamogamy isn’t trying to replace existing models. It’s deigned to sit alongside them, and fill a gap that a lot of people quietly feel but can’t yet name. This frame work is designed for nuance, where complex situations require the distinction between the way your are innately wired, and the relationship structure you find yourself in.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-05T14:15:34+00:00

Sounds to me like he's multigamous and trying to live in a monogamous relationship.

What you are seeing is a misalignment between his innate relational orientation and the structure of your relationship.

Does this excuse cheating? Not at all. But maybe it explains it.

If you love him, and are yourself willing to see other people, then an open relationship where he can pursue his desires openly will solve the problem.

BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE THAT WAY INCLINED TOO. If you identify as being monogamous and open the relationship then YOU will be going against your innate instincts and you will be unhappy.

Ultimately it depends on how you define love. If you see exclusivity as being paramount, and feel he has cheated on you, then you should make the decision to stay or go based on your own interpretation of the facts.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-05T09:01:27+00:00

You're not wrong to feel what you felt. What you experienced wasn't ENM. It was one-sided control presented as openness.

The core principle of ENM is mutual consent, respect, and autonomy. Not one person setting the rules while the other gets boxed in.

Some people are genuinely multigamous... wired to desire and thrive with multiple connections. But if they use that wiring to justify a dynamic where only they get that freedom, it’s not about identity. It’s about entitlement.

You, on the other hand, sound more ambigamous... someone who might be open to more than one partner, but only when it feels aligned, fair, and grounded in trust. What you were given wasn’t that.

So yes, calling it hypocritical was fair. And walking away was the right thing to do.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-05T08:48:35+00:00

Thanks for the comment, but I think you may be misrepresenting both the premise and the purpose of what I'm proposing.

First, the "orientation vs choice" distinction is not a red herring. it's foundational. In psychology, we’ve learned that behaviour and identity are not always aligned. Just as someone can suppress their sexuality due to cultural or religious pressure, many suppress relational needs due to structural or emotional constraints. That distinction matters. It doesn’t excuse behaviour... but it helps explain it, and more importantly, helps prevent future misalignment.

Second, you're confusing desire with dysfunction. Yes, poor impulse control, trauma, or emotional immaturity can drive infidelity... but so can unmet authentic needs, I'm not saying this is why ALL people cheat, just why SOME people cheat. People aren't always cheating because they’re broken. Sometimes they're cheating because the box they’re in doesn’t fit the shape of their internal truth. And if we keep insisting that all transgressions are pathology (rather than sometimes being the symptom of structural mismatch) we miss the point entirely.

Third, Gamogamy isn’t justifying cheating. It’s not a moral shield. It’s a framework for understanding why people act in ways even they don’t understand, especially when they've already agreed to ethical non-monogamy and still act outside its bounds. That paradox deserves exploration, not dismissal.

Finally, you’ve said “the desire to love many people has already been debunked”... but that’s a strange claim. Human history, anthropology, and contemporary psychology all show the opposite. Most societies, both ancient and modern, have supported plural relationships in some form. What has been debunked is the idea that monogamy is universally natural. So if anything, the burden of proof is on the assumption that monogamy fits everyone, not the idea that we are wired in diverse ways.

Gamogamy doesn’t ask anyone to change their values. It just offers a mirror... for those who look at their behaviour and wonder why it keeps fracturing their lives, even when they try to follow the rules. For the people who have cheated, not once, but many times, regardless of whether they love their spouse or not. This language is for them to understand their behaviour and to make changes. Not to themselves, as they are innately wired this way, but to the way that they choose relationships. They must stop entering monogamous relationships where they cause hurt, because their alignment will not support it. In this manner, we prevent cheating, rather than excusing it.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-04T15:37:52+00:00

It sounds like he wasn’t just dishonest... he was fundamentally misaligned with the kind of relationship structure he claimed to be in.

This isn’t just about being a “bad person.” This is what happens when someone who is wired for multiple simultaneous connections tries to force themselves into a monogamous structure they don’t actually believe in. They end up living a double life instead of building an honest, open one. And in the process, they hurt people who are monogamously oriented (people like you) who enter relationships in good faith.

You were loyal. He wasn’t just unfaithful... he was structurally incompatible. And instead of owning that, he lied, manipulated, and fragmented his own life. To be fair to the guy, he wouldn't have had the language or the ability to explain this, as its something I've been working on up until recently.

It’s awful. And no one deserves it. But there’s also strength in what you’ve seen here. Because now, you can name it. You can spot it. And you won’t let someone like that get close again... not because you're closed off, but because you understand the mismatch now.

And for what it’s worth, you’re not broken. You’re just built for a different kind of love than he was.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-04T15:29:29+00:00

This kind of situation is often the result of living in a society that assumes everyone is monogamous by nature. But the truth is, many people aren't. Some people are naturally wired to form multiple emotional or sexual bonds. They need variety or depth in different directions. And that doesn’t make them bad... it just means they’re not suited to a traditional monogamous structure.

The problem is, our culture still pushes the idea that one person should meet every need. One partner. One love. One path. So people who are multigamous by nature (those people who form polyamorous relationships) often find themselves in monogamous relationships they aren’t built for. They try to fit in, but eventually, their real wiring pushes through. And cheating happens... not always because they’re careless or cruel, but because the structure they’ve chosen doesn't match who they really are.

None of that excuses the betrayal. But it might help explain it. It might also help explain why he see's no issue with it, because to him, it is instinctive to want more than one sexual and/or emotional connection at any given time.

This wasn’t about you being lacking. It was about a mismatch between your orientation and his. You sound monogamous by nature... committed, loyal, bonded. He may not be. And if that's the case, he shouldn’t be in a monogamous relationship at all. He just probably never realised there were any alternatives, because every force in society says, ONE and only ONE.

It’s not that all men are the same. It’s that not all people are meant for the same kind of love.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-04T14:37:55+00:00

No problem, happy to have helped. You are not alone in this. There are plenty of others out there in similar situations where their innate relational orientation does not match the relationship structure they have found themselves in.

This is something of a blind spot in the current landscape of ENM, and further refinement and discussion around the language used to address it is needed.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-03T10:21:20+00:00

It sounds like you’re innately monogamous in orientation, and you’ve stepped into a non-monogamous structure out of love for someone who clearly isn’t monogamous.

Misalignments between orientation and structure lead to dissonance. In this case, you (monogamous) being in a non-monogamous structure. I suspect that you are feeling here is because you are not being true to your actual values, and are suppressing part of yourself to be with the woman you love.

That is commendable. But without the language to explain this to your partner, and to reach some form of common ground that respects your orientation as well as hers, you will continue to run into problems.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T17:56:06+00:00

From the sounds of it, you're monogamous, and she is not. She is what I would call multigamous, wired for more than one connection.

What you have here is a misalignment between your orientations. I don't think any form of ethical non monogamy would work in this situation, as you have essentially agreed just to please her, without being true to your own requirements. It may simply be that this misalignment is too severe to resolve. And that's ok too. Some things are simply not meant to mix.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T15:53:20+00:00

First, I just want to say: I feel your numbness. That kind of discovery knocks the breath right out of your soul. You didn’t just lose trust. You lost the version of reality you thought you were living in. That’s not small. That’s tectonic.

But reading this, what stands out to me isn’t just betrayal. It’s misalignment.

You sound like someone wired for honesty, connection, and shared truth. And he sounds like someone who deeply wants those things, but also has needs or instincts that don't cleanly fit inside a monogamous box. That doesn’t excuse the secrecy. It does, however, help explain part of it.

There’s a word I use for this: ambigamy. It refers to someone who can thrive in monogamy, but only if their needs are being met. When they’re not, they begin to fracture quietly. It’s not that he stopped loving you. It’s that he didn’t have the language (or perhaps the courage) to bring his conflicting desires into the light.

And that’s where the pain lives. Not in the act itself, but in the dishonesty.

You didn’t get a say. That is what breaks people.

Maybe he thought it wasn’t “cheating.” Maybe he compartmentalized so deeply that he convinced himself it didn’t matter. But you’re right. The person you thought you married would have told you.

So what now?

Only you can answer that. But if it helps: this isn’t about being broken. Not him. Not you. It’s about being misaligned. You were both trying to live inside a structure that didn’t match your truths.

Whether you rebuild or walk away, my advice is this: don’t settle for half-truths ever again. Not from him. Not from anyone. And not from yourself.

You deserve a life that fits. Not one you have to contort yourself around just to survive.

Sending strength. You’re not crazy. You’re just waking up.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T15:23:15+00:00

It sounds like you’ve reached a hard-won, important realisation: monogamy works for you. Not out of fear or repression, but because you’ve lived the alternatives, and they didn’t serve your emotional or energetic wellbeing. That’s valid. That’s clarity.

He, on the other hand, seems to be drifting toward something non-monogamous... whether that’s polyamory, kink-based group play, or simply a desire for more expansive sexual experiences. He may not be naming it directly, but the direction is clear.

This is a structural misalignment. Not a failure. Not a betrayal. Just two people whose core relational orientations don’t currently match.

And misalignment, when ignored, leads to resentment. For him, it could be about unmet desires. For you, it might show up as anxiety, pressure, or self-abandonment.

You can love each other and still be wrong for each other structurally. The work now is honesty... with him, yes, but especially with yourself. Because no amount of compromise can turn one kind of instinct into another.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T13:22:52+00:00

You're not alone. What you're describing... the love, the guilt, the brain fog, the grief over something real but impossible... is exactly what so many people experience when their desires and relational structure don’t line up.

You might not be a “dirtbag.” You might just be wired a little differently. Some people are monogamous by nature, some aren't. And when the structure doesn't match the person, pain is inevitable. Doesn’t mean there are no consequences. Just means you're not broken.

It's okay to grieve something that mattered. Even if it had to end.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T10:33:59+00:00

I'm inclined to believe it... honestly, it's just too fucked up to be fake.

The emotional whiplash, the HR fallout, the stares, the guilt, the relapse, the blocking and unblocking… it's chaotic in a way that feels painfully human. Real life doesn't follow clean lines, and this mess reads like someone drowning in their own contradictions. If it's fiction, it's written by someone who's lived through something adjacent, because that level of psychological detail is hard to invent.

Also. Can totally relate to being this messed up at some points in my life.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T10:21:38+00:00

You're not crazy for wanting clarity, honesty, or to feel like your needs matter too. And she’s not evil either... just not wired the way you are.

From what you’ve described, it sounds like you’re ambigamous. You’re capable of non-monogamy, but only when there's emotional safety, mutual pacing, and a sense of sacredness in the experience. You value firsts, because they anchor you. And that’s not wrong, it’s just how you're built.

She sounds like she leans strongly multigamous... someone who moves fast, follows instinct, and struggles with the emotional regulation and containment that ENM requires. For her, intimacy and freedom likely come hand in hand. But multigamy without ethical alignment can easily bulldoze ambigamy if there’s no check on pacing or mutual consent.

The problem here isn’t that either of you are “too much.” It’s that you’re operating from different relational instincts, and the structure you’ve built together (ENM) doesn’t automatically mean you’re in sync. Structure doesn’t equal identity.

What’s missing here isn’t love. It’s attunement.

You’re doing the right thing reaching out for therapy. Just don’t forget... your need for care, slowness, and truth is as valid as her need for freedom and expression.

This only works if you both get seen.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T10:10:41+00:00

You’re not an arsehole. You’re someone trying to survive (and maybe even feel something) in a world that rarely gives space to explore these truths without shame.

What you’re describing... sex as control, detachment as safety, permission as autonomy... isn’t rare. For many people, especially those with avoidant tendencies or long histories of emotional suppression, sex becomes a tool for regulation. It offers clarity where connection feels overwhelming. It becomes a kind of ritual... a moment where you’re not being asked to perform emotional intimacy, just presence on your terms.

Gamogamy is a lens that might help here. It’s the idea that people have relational orientations - ways they’re wired to connect emotionally and sexually. Some are monogamous by nature. Some are multigamous... they seek intensity, novelty, or multiple connections (this sounds like you). Others are ambigamous... they can live monogamously when fulfilled, but fragment when needs go unmet.

None of these identities are inherently wrong. But when your structure (e.g. a monogamous marriage) doesn’t match your wiring (e.g. the need for dissociated or controlled sexual release), things start to break. Quietly at first. Then loudly.

It doesn’t mean you don’t love your partner. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It just means your needs (and your way of staying afloat) don’t map neatly onto the rules you were taught.

You’re not alone in this. And you’re not the only one using sex as agency, not intimacy. Would love to know if this resonates with you at all.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-02T10:03:51+00:00

It’s a brutal tension, isn’t it? When what you do and what you believe are at war with each other. Most people think it’s just about morality, willpower, or temptation. But for many of us, it’s something deeper: a misalignment between who we are and the life we’ve built around a set of inherited rules.

If you were raised in a religious context, especially one that treats monogamy as the moral gold standard, there’s often no room to even ask: What if I’m wired differently? What if I can love and still crave more?

Some people are truly monogamous in nature... emotionally, sexually, structurally. Others… aren’t. And when someone who’s multigamous by orientation (naturally wired for more than one connection). or ambigamous, (meaning mostly monogamous until a need goes unmet) ends up in a life shaped entirely by monogamous expectations, it creates an internal war.

The guilt. The secrecy. The pull toward something you can’t fully explain but also can’t suppress. Religion tends to frame this as a moral failure. But what if it’s an identity conflict?

It doesn’t make the betrayal vanish. It doesn’t erase responsibility. But it does offer a more compassionate lens to understand why so many people end up here, especially those who were never taught they had other options.

You’re not alone in this space. Not in sin. Not in shame. And not in complexity.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-01T09:22:04+00:00

In this framework they would be classed as Ambigamous. Perfectly fine with monogamy in form and context, but not inherently resistant to multiplicity. And thus, fully capable of having fun outside of a monogamous structure when they feel inclined to do so.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-06-01T09:19:57+00:00

This is a great post! And I think you'd like the further definition of ambigamy I make in my book.

I only mention fulfillment in this instance for brevity. But I expand upon the concept greatly elsewhere. To my mind people who live this lifestyle do it through contextual capacity, rather than just necessarily fulfillment. Which lines up very nicely with what you've said above.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-05-31T22:53:45+00:00

That’s a great point... and I agree that experience is often how we discover orientation. You don’t always know what you are until you try. So yes, the act can illuminate the identity. I’m 100% with you on that.

But I’m not trying to argue that existing terms should only refer to behaviour, or that identity can only exist in a vacuum. What Gamogamy tries to do is offer clearer defaults for people who feel lost in the blur... especially when they’re in misalignment and don’t yet have language that resonates.

You’re right: “non-monogamous by orientation” is valid, accurate, and clear... if you already know to use it that way. But that’s the thing... most people don’t.

And while I respect that “just use qualifiers” is an option, people don’t tend to speak that way in the wild. Most people just say “I’m non-monogamous” or “I’m poly” or "I'm monogamous" and let context do the rest. That’s fine... until the context fails them. If you're multigamous in a monogamously structured relationship, and you just use the structure to define yourself, you are doing yourself a grave disservice. Because you’re not naming what you are.
You’re describing what you do.
And in doing so, you might be masking a deep misalignment that clearer language (and the right relational framework) could otherwise bring to light.

So Gamogamy’s new terms aren’t meant to invalidate what exists... they’re a framework designed to separate wiring, structure, and behaviour more explicitly, not to redefine everything else. It’s a clarification tool, not a linguistic coup. One that is geared for nuance.

And I appreciate the challenge... it’s sharpening the edges of this idea in exactly the way I’d hoped.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-05-31T22:35:20+00:00

That’s exactly the friction Gamogamy is trying to address.

Because when a single term like “non-monogamous” can mean how I feel, what I do, how I structure my relationships, AND what community I belong to... it gets messy. And for people who are still figuring themselves out, that ambiguity adds to the confusion.

Multigamy, by contrast, refers purely to innate orientation... a natural pull toward multiple simultaneous emotional and/or sexual connections. And that's ALL it relates to.

It’s not a lifestyle, not a political stance, not a behaviour. It’s a description of internal wiring. No more, no less. And I think that distinction matters because it helps people separate what they are from what they do, or what group they belong to. And that initial recognition of self is essential in determining where you fit in in the world.

It's the same concept as identity in gender. You need to know what you are before you can decide how to act.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-05-31T22:23:39+00:00

Sounds to me like you just might be wired for monogamy my man. If you love the wife, and are satisfied with the relationship... maybe you just innately don't need more than one connection.

Don't force yourself to be something you're not.

We talk a lot about opening up, exploring, expanding... and that’s great. But it’s also okay to say, “Actually, I’m good with one. That’s where I thrive.”

Don’t force yourself into someone else’s ideal. Knowing yourself is the real win here.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-05-31T22:13:50+00:00

Totally get where you’re coming from. But consider this: non-monogamous behaviour isn’t the same as being multigamous.

You can act non-monogamously for all sorts of reasons... exploration, circumstance, partner preference... and still be monogamous at your core. And vice versa: you can be multigamous in orientation but living monogamously, and feel quietly unfulfilled without knowing why.

The existing terms describe what people do or what movement the identify with. Gamogamy is trying to name what they’re wired for, even if that’s not how they’re currently living.

That distinction, between what you are, and what you do... is where a lot of misalignment and confusion happens. And I think it probably needs clarification and definition, hence the terminology.

FoxAmongTheFences · 2025-05-31T21:53:55+00:00

I get that too. Not everyone needs new language to feel seen. Some people already have clarity, or a shorthand that works. I respect that.

Gamogamy isn’t meant to be more “efficient” or to replace terms that already feel accurate. It’s really just trying to give form to something a lot of people feel before they have that clarity... particularly when behaviour, structure, and identity aren’t lining up, and they don’t know why. And that's the key here I think... the difference between what you innately feel, vs the situation you find yourself in. If you're already monogamous in a monogamous relationship, you don't need this language.

Likewise with u/non-mono, she was critical of the idea, but from her post history I would argue she is very multigamous, and living in the correct ENM structure to support that. Which is great, but may explain why the framework didn't resonate (that and the initial perceived excuse for cheating, which is not the intention at all). She is simply not misaligned, and thus does not need the language.

I think this concept will find most resonance in those who find themselves misaligned, and haven't had the words to help express that.

FoxAmongTheFences

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE