rdy46227

My wife and I have been together for about ten years, and there was a couple of years during this time when I was strongly involved with a secondary. She had a casual secondary (not the current BF) a few years back lasting several months.

I've know her current BF almost as long as she has (6 years). He and I get along well together, and since we first met, I've gone drinking with him off and on as part of a Friday after-work group.

All that time they have been good friends, often seeing each other in professional settings as well as socializing. 4 or 5 times they drew close and pulled back, "chickening out", until last fall when things really blossomed between them. He's had a few affairs but this is the first time he's played by the poly rules (his spouse knows and has even met me).

Our official policy is "you only have to tell the other what they need to know", but with this BF she's been giving me quite a lot of detail, especially information about him and his life situation. She also tells him a lot about us. From our personal contact as well as the indirect communication, I'd say he and I know a lot about each other.

Now he and she frequently get together on their own, and the three of us also do informal dates together (theater, museum, ball game, drinks), after which they go off together.

Often after we have a 3-way date, he asks her how I'm dealing with her having a BF, why I'm not upset/possessive/concerned -- in short, where is my head at over their affair. Sometimes it sounds like he can't understand my encouraging/enabling them, or like he's waiting for me to do something dramatic, or is trying to tease out some defect in the primary relationship.

Six years back he and she were off together at a conference, and she told him how I gave her freedom to choose to be with him. At first he may have considered it just a part of the dance between them. But in the following weeks back home we got to know each well as friends, and he saw we were real.

I even had a one-on-one sit-down conversation with him a few months ago, trying hard to put him at ease about how I feel towards them. I've explained how I grew into poly decades ago. I used illustrations from my history to tell why and how I've practiced it. He knows my (new age-ish) philosophy, and how it's absent customary religious and societal moralities. Intellectually, he seems on board.

But after size years of knowing us, something still must be bugging him.

I realize you all aren't mind readers, but any ideas why he might keep returning to the question of my accepting them having a secondary relationship?