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My husband and I have been talking about how the fact that we are poly opens doors to us regarding family and children that monogamous couples don't have.

He wants to be a father, and I don't want to be a mother. (I'd love to be something closer to an "auntie" or "stepmom" where I can be a supportive parental figure, but not the primary parent.) We both want "family" in the sense of other people in our romantic and family life. I don't want to deny him an opportunity to be a father. And, we both love each other and want to stay together.

With polyamory, disagreements about having kids doesn't need to necessarily end the relationship. It's possible that you could become a mother to children through another partner, and share custody with that partner. Or, you could someday have the bio-father partner move in with the two of you and create a blended family where your husband is more like an "uncle" or "stepdad" or maybe even less involved than that.

You get to decide what works for you and polyamory lets you potentially find very creative ways to be fullfilled in your life and relationships beyond what the normative society says is okay.

My therapist recommended my husband and I start reading two books:

https://www.amazon.com/Polyamorists-Next-Door-Multiple-Partner-Relationships/dp/144225310X/

and

https://www.amazon.com/Stories-Polycule-Real-Polyamorous-Families/dp/0991399773/

It seems like Elisabeth Sheff is sort of the go-to person regarding poly and families. Maybe these books might help you start new kinds of conversations with your husband and explore whether or not going in this direction could make you both happy, while still affirming and strengthening your marriage.

It's not impossible necessarily, but the concept in general can be kind of a turnoff for a lot of potential partners. u/violetbreen outlines a lot of the pitfalls really well, but basically it comes down to this: you need to remember that this person is a person. They will have wants and needs and feelings of their own that don't necessarily fit neatly within the box that you want them to fit into.

Questions to ask yourselves: Are you willing to be out with her as your partner (a lot to unpack here - what will you tell your families, how will you handle holidays, will you all live together, etc)? Will she be an equal parent to your child? Will she still be able to date people besides you? What will happen if her relationship with one of you winds up not working out but she's still in love with the other? Will you only have sex together as a group of three, or will you be able to pair off - or will only the two of you be allowed to have sex as a pair, but if she's involved then it has to be a threesome? If your marriage begins to struggle, will you include her in the conversations or therapy you engage in to try to repair the relationship? Are you willing to accept that your current relationship will be fundamentally and permanently altered once you enter into this new relationship?

There's a lot more than just these questions to consider. While the idea of an "equal partner" is alluring, it's important to recognize how tricky that relationship would be in practice. I'd encourage you to ask yourself why you specifically want an additional partner in your existing relationship versus each of you finding additional partners of your own. It's possible that you feel you would have better control of that type of situation, which makes sense but indicates that what you really want is control over your partner - meaning they would, in fact, not be "equal" after all.

If you haven't already, reading up on polyamory can be very helpful! My favorite resource is the book More Than Two by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert. You may also find unicorns-r-us to be helpful in answering some of your questions.

There are books out there with systematized ways to approach relationship agreements that aren't dependent on hetero norms. Here's one: https://www.amazon.com/Relationship-Agreements-Strengthening-Communication-Increasing-ebook/dp/B01MT6S582?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B01MT6S582.