Are you both enthusiastic and interested in being poly/open, or is one of you hesitant? Is there a problem you've encountered that brought you two back to discussing polyamory again? Or is it that one or both of you feels like you have not been true to yourself to be living monogamously?
I am curious about the difficulties you mentioned - could you elaborate a bit?
I’m working on writing my back story and am finding it difficult to keep it concise. I find that the details can greatly change how a situation is viewed.
A “brief” description is that we agreed to an open relationship from the start.
I believed that an open or poly relationship style made the most sense and would allow us both to remain happy as we grew in our relationship and as separate beings.
Neither of us was interested in pursuing other romantic or sexual relationships at the time so it was easy to see the benefit for both of us then.
My partner was very unhappy when I started actually acting on it. (Even though I took things VERY slowly)
After experiencing all the negative emotions that can be associated with poly he felt strongly that poly was wrong and went to great lengths to convince me of this. (I even believed some of his points were valid.) Simultaneously, he said he was feeling guilty for feeling jealous etc. and open to trying to work through things.
We tried to work through it and got to a point where he said he was alright with me having relationships with females only while he dealt with his issues.
Due to the difficulty I have finding/approaching bisexual/lesbian women this basically put us at a standstill.
He was happy that I was not getting male attention, but there was nothing happening on the female side of things to help make progress with his feelings of jealousy etc. We ended up being mono for many years because I was unable to find a girlfriend.
The past few years have been very tough on our relationship due to my school and work commitments.
He started to become more private and began to have emotionally intense online relationships. I gave him his space and privacy and was supportive of him meeting his needs this way.
He was able to open up to me to tell me about his online relationships and I noticed that he was becoming very attached very quickly and then things would fizzle. I spoke to him about this and voiced my concerns about the possibility of him hurting others this way.
He backed off on the intensity of the online relationships, but still maintains friendly and caring communication with some of these women.
He then turned his attention to a woman at work.
I was working crazy hours and understood his need to get attention that I was unable to give. Our relationship was suffering due to the stressful and demanding nature of my job. I would come home and vent as my only coping mechanism. This caused him to associate me with negativity and stress.
He convinced me to quit my job and pursue my dream of starting my own business. The soonest this may happen is about a year away and we decided that this year should be spent preparing for the transition. Quitting my job was very difficult for me because we had originally planned on having my job support us so he could go to school, and I have a strong need to feel independent. I’ve been off work for almost two months and I’m just beginning to pull myself from a relapse of depression that was triggered by me feeling that I was letting us down and giving up my independence.
I’m confident that I’m through the worst of it, although I’m finding it difficult to deal with him becoming quickly attached to this woman at work when I feel that the damage to our relationship has not been properly addressed first.
I’ve been doing that unhealthy co-dependent garbage and putting his needs and wants before my own. I’ve even been putting her feelings before my own to help facilitate the growth of their relationship.
I realized that no one is concerning themselves with my needs or feelings and that I need to make myself a priority.
I am happy that he’s happy, but I’m left feeling very insecure in our relationship and about our plans for the future. It’s making me feel jealous in ways that I never thought possible.
I’ve expressed to him my needs to help me feel more secure and safe in our relationship so that we can move forward.
Their relationship is moving forward very quickly and he’s quite deep in the NRE.
I’m afraid that with his lack of communication skills and poor awareness of the power of NRE that we will not be able to work through this. (He’s gotten used to having me put him first.)
It’s terrifying. Employment in my field only becomes available at certain times of the year and this is not one of them. I’d also have to move a considerable distance in order to gain worthwhile employment (again, due to the nature of my field). I feel trapped in the sense that I am not in a position of equal power to negotiate my needs with him.
I do feel that in order for me to deal with their NRE productively I need to be able to have my needs met. He is proving unable to contribute to this so I am certain that I will have to look elsewhere for fulfilling my needs. The problem is that he is still not comfortable with me seeking attention from men and I have yet to meet a woman to share myself with.
I don’t know how much I can reasonably expect from him. I don’t even know how much I can reasonably expect from myself in this situation. I love him very much, but I recognize that I need to have limits too.
I feel lost and only know how to deal with these issues by attempting to prepare myself for the worst case scenario.