If I felt secure in a relationship, having a partner that wants to experiment with others/date others wouldn’t really bother me. Everyone likes a little novelty from time to time.
The desire for novelty comes from bored or unfulfilled from your current relationship, which would contest the "security" of the relationship if it is impossible to live without it.
That I am clearly fulfilled with my existing diet doesn't stop me from trying new things on the menu, nor new restaurants with entirely new menus.
And the desire to try new things doesn't imply that the absence of them is "impossible to live without" — even back out of metaphor land and back to human sexuality, lot of gay people used to live straight lives.
Which is my point: the relationship isn't "secure" if you're to find out that you're actually gay.
Are you unfamiliar with the concept of a metaphor? I did explicitly note that food was a metaphor. After all, your original comment said:
> if it is impossible to live without it.
Which is a much higher standard than you're now using, one where food is a useful metaphor as one does actually need it to live, albeit as a category and not any specific food — I like capsaicin, alliums, and fresh coriander, and yet I can live without them (e.g. if I had a partner who was allergic).
And are you unaware of the history (and indeed current diversity) of rules about sexuality, including the cases where couples aren't/weren't allowed to separate and gay relationships are/were forbidden? You can know full well what you like, and still be bound unfulfilled but alive. Thus, that question of fulfilment is still present when your relationship is not merely "secure", but the security is enforced by law.
What does "secure in their relationship" mean to you?
Prisoners are secure. They are also, to use the word you used earlier, bored.
Don't mistake "secure" for "fun". It is an independent axis of consideration.
Lots of people value security over fun, including when it comes to sexuality.
Not everyone, but lots of people.
And going further up this thread back to what Quinzel wrote:
> If I felt secure in a relationship, having a partner that wants to experiment with others/date others wouldn’t really bother me.
Alice can feel secure about Bob always being there for Alice when Alice needs it, while also being comfortable with the idea that Bob sometimes boinks Chris, and this can be either true or false, this is independent of if Alice wants to boink Dee.
There's stuff my wife just doesn't like to do! Like... hiking. Yes, hiking is what I look for in other partners.
Telling somebody you don't know in a situation that you aren't familiar with that they aren't secure in their relationship comes off as ignorant at best.
Especially since OP describes something on the more casual side of the ENM spectrum as opposed to full fledged polyamory.
Of course, some people don’t seem to mind this much. Or maybe this fancy new Bay Area “polyamory” memeplex works really well. I find it hard to imagine any amount of coping strategies could dull the pain for me.
We might have different ideas of security. If you don't value monogamy anyway, maybe your security isn't threatened much by your partner deciding you aren't good enough for it.
I wrote a comment 3 times trying to steel man this but it still reads like horribly bitter snark rather than an earnest pov.
People who enter poly relationships are not doing so because they value their partners less.
In a relationship between more than two people their communication skills must be on point and they have to sincerely take one another's needs into account or the whole thing crumbles, it's all the effort of monogamy and then some. If your partner isn't "good enough" for monogamy then they definitely won't manage polyamory.
Talking about people who mutually decide to engage in polyamory is off-topic for this particular thread. Quinzel’s scenario is someone in a monogamous relationship deciding to seek out new partners.
These may be your sincere feelings, I've also absolutely got the right to feel insulted by the way you've chosen to express them. It's mean spirited to vent in such a way that you catch other people in the crossfire when you're airing your personal dislikes.
Saying that people with polyamoristic proclivities seek out other people because their partner "isn't good enough for monogamy" is an offensive mischaracterizastion of the kind of relationship I've been in for half a decade.