My husband recently approached me about him being poly and that he wanted to be in a poly relationship woman, we'll call Safrow. I told him I needed time to think about it as this wasn't our agreement when we got married. I since found out that he's already had sex with Safrow. I was really hurt and I had a conversation with my husband. Now Safrow sent me a friend request on facebook. What do I do? Do I accept her request? Am I right to want space for my husband and me?
Your husband is cheating on you, period. Just mentioning polyamory to your partner is not a magical invocation that means you’re suddenly polyamorous! You did the right thing by asking for time to think about it, because you’re right, it would be a significant change to the terms of the relationship that you initially agreed to.
If my partner said “hey, I want to move to Hawaii,” and I said “I’m not totally against that, but I’d need to really think about my career options out there, and whether I’m ready to leave my social support system out here - let’s keep talking and thinking about this,” and the next thing he did was terminate our lease and start renting a place in Hawaii, I’d be justifiably pissed. That’s not how these conversations work!
This isn’t really about the friend request from her; it’s not about her behavior at all. It’s about your husband’s behavior. Yes, it is perfectly okay for you to want more space for you and your husband to make this decision as a team, to think through the feelings and fears and desires at work here. If she knows that you’re in this position, her friend request is a major boundary violation - but it’s far more likely that your husband has misrepresented things to her and she thinks you’re going to be cool metamour friends; and in another context, FB friendship would be a great low-key way for you two to start connecting.
But that’s not the situation you’re in. You need to talk to your husband and say that you’re not interested in connecting with her right now - because you aren’t yet on board or invested in this polyamory thing. And, frankly, his cheating in the name of polyamory and trying to rush you into this is going to make that far more difficult and less likely. Let him know that you need him to take a huge step back from this and re-connect with you to talk about what he wants and what you want, what each other’s dealbreakers are, and whether this is something you want to try together. If he can’t do that, or if he continues to be selfish and pushy and willfully misunderstand you, this isn’t a healthy relationship - monogamous or polyamorous.