Hello Hello!!

bluemerle

New member
I am a newbie to Poly, but am excited and want to learn more.

I am a widow. Seven years ago I lost my husband of 17 years. We were very happy together and it has taken me this long to want to be intimate again.

I am Bi-sexual and had a relationship with a woman for a few years before breaking up. We are still friends but went on to different partners. I met my husband after a couple other relationships and fell madly deeply in love.

My husband and I were sort of doing something like poly and not knowing it - in the 90's we started getting into swinging and ended with 3 couples that we had long term relationships with. Not really poly and not really swinging. The swinging was too impersonal. We enjoyed knowing and being a part of our other partners lives. I think we would have been more poly if we really had known about it as a way of life.
 
Salutations.

It's funny, I too did poly-stuff without really realizing it was "poly" or that it had a name. This was also in the 90s and I was a young teen.

Are you looking or just wanting to connect with the community?

My condolences on your husband.
 
Salutations.

It's funny, I too did poly-stuff without really realizing it was "poly" or that it had a name. This was also in the 90s and I was a young teen.

Are you looking or just wanting to connect with the community?

My condolences on your husband.

thank you.

I have sort of already connected and now am having lots of questions.

I have gone to a few parties where there were poly and singles and at one I met this really nice guy. We talked for awhile and he told me about his wife and their poly life. His wife has a boyfriend. Anyway, he and I have now dated a few times and are really getting along together. We have talked a lot. He is very laid back and mellow which helps. He knows about my long drought of no intimacy and is being very patient with me.

I really want to learn more about the lifestyle so I can make proper decisions. I also worry that I am asking him too many questions...but really it's that I have these questions in the middle of the night.

Like - what's a V? what's an N? what's a quad? I can sort of figure them out but am not sure if what I think they are is correct. lol
 
Last edited:
I have been doing the poly thing off and on for a long time, first relationship I ever had was poly and I just thought that was the norm (I was 13, I had no clue).

As I have grown into adulthood, I have watched the culture form and sometimes all the definitions and labels get a bit tedious. There is a whole dictionary of terms somewhere on here.

I am no expert on all terminology, as I just sort of do... whatever, and only bring up definitions when it needs explaining. It sounds like maybe you are forming an N with this couple?

A V is, I guess, what I am in. It's two people who share the same partner, but are not really romantically involved with eachother. So, I am seeing Igor, he has another girlfriend. It's mostly just the three of us right now, though Babs kinda fools around.

If I, say, decided to date another man, or woman, it would become an N.

Triad or triangle, and quads are where the relationships are intersecting instead of being separate. So if by some chance I started a romance with Babs, we'd connect that open part of the V and it would look like a triangle.

I hope this makes sense! :p
 
Last edited:
Greetings Betts4,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Sounds like you have made a good start into the poly world. If you're interested in learning more of the terminology, the site glossary is located at http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?p=15365#post15365

I know it's been awhile since you lost your husband but I still feel bad for you about that. I hope you have found some healing, even if there will always be an empty place in your heart where he used to live. :(

I am glad you could join us, and think you will learn a lot about polyamory here.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

There's a *lot* of good info in Golden Nuggets. Have a look!

Please read through the guidelines if you haven't already.

Note: You needn't read every reply to your posts, especially if someone posts in a disagreeable way. Given the size and scope of the site it's hard not to run into the occasional disagreeable person. Please contact the mods if you do (or if you see any spam), and you can block the person if you want.

If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Thank you for a kind welcome Kevin. My husband and I had a wonderfully open marriage with love, trust and respect as a basis. Those three things were very important.

I will also add communication. If we had a disagreement, I would not let us go to bed mad. We would talk it out. Sometimes I know he gave in just because he was tired though :D

My foray into Poly is mostly because of the relationship I had with my husband and the gentleman I am seeing has shown many of those same traits. I think I got really lucky, though it is still in a very new, tenuous stage.
 
Welcome! And you have our condolences as well on the loss of your husband. We've been together 17 years and can't imagine the immensity of the loss of such a partner. And we hope the past seven years have given you solace and healing.

Your comments about communication: perfect, wonderful.

It seems you've been doing well getting out there and trying to find what you want. We hope you find it. :) Do you mind if we ask where you are in the world? It seems there are sufficient numbers of poly people there -- enough for you to maybe find like-minded people. That's good.

Be well, dear! And the people here are great -- they'll always welcome you with open arms.

Cheers,
Alan and Anna
 
Re (from Betts4):
"Sometimes I know he gave in just because he was tired though :D"

LOL, that just makes it an all-the-better strategy. :)
 
Thank you Alananna - it is really something you can't imagine until you go thru it and I hope that you never have to.

I am in the DC/Baltimore corridor. There are quite a few groups in the area and I have a very good friend that is very active - not as a poly but has taken me to parties and events and sort of mentored me a bit. I am now comfortable enough to go to some by myself.

I did know that I really didn't want to do a variety of datings and hook ups. I think that is why I leaned poly from the start of my coming back out to the real world. I want a relationship (and no, not necessarily love right off, but friendship and sharing) that is steady and trusting. I can only hope that is what I found. If not or if in sometime in the future things change (as they always do) then we will see what's up then.

I went to get my feet wet and found myself sliding in. My best friend told me that she thinks it was something like fate that he and I were both at the party together. We both were looking for something and could give it to each other and we had enough other things on the checklist that we can talk, share thoughts and enjoy. She had me feeling very good about it all.

Losing my husband was an awful blow and it really has been just in the last year that I had any interest in dating again. I was lonely before. And wanted someone, but not someone to be intimate with. That has come slowly (no pun intended).
 
Your granddad was probably thinking, "If only I could offer her (and her husband) a cigar right now." :D
 
Back
Top