Polyamory, limerence, and marriage

random1

New member
My parents divorced following my father having an affair and I grew up with lots of other kids from broken homes so monogamy/marriage never really made sense to me. Nor did being exclusive in a relationship as I enjoy people, different people have different things to offer, and I chafe at being restricted. I don't _require_ multiple partners and it has been the case for periods of time that 1 partner has been sufficient. Monogamy not making much sense to me, I've not really had the good sense to respect the boundaries of others and have had inappropriate relationships with married women in the past, without their husband's consent. I admitted that this behaviour was unethical and damaging, and likely a product of my commitment issues and early life attachment wounds so I have resolved not to do this any more.

My last relationship was a committed, exclusive LTR which lasted for about 7 years. It ended recently because a year ago I became limerent for someone else. I met my Limerent Object at a sports club and we became fast friends and later sports partners. She involved me in her social life outside of the sport and created a lot of opportunities to spend time together. We are both fairly intelligent and nerdy and have had quite a lot of success in our chosen careers. We both sit somewhere on the Aspergers spectrum and have that rare experience of feeling a connection that we will simply never be able to have with the majority of people who are just plain wired differently to us.

She is married with children and I recognised fairly quickly that I had become hopelessly infatuated. This was a wake up call for me and I've entered therapy in order to work on family of origin issues, low self esteem, and early attachment wounds. I think I have traits of love/sex addiction and have acted out with other addictive/compulsive behaviours in the past. My partner was initially patient and understanding, but did not wish to have an open relationship and when it became obvious that I would take some time to get over limerence she decided to end our relationship.

I'm fine with this as I recognise I need to do a lot of healing and growth work before I'm ready for another relationship; otherwise I'll just bring along my baggage again. As part of my recovery I am having a period of No Contact with my LO. This might be permanent.

It is clear that there was some physical / sexual attraction between my LO and I. I didn't disclose my feelings. She seems to be in a fairly stale but comfortable marriage. Her husband is a nice man, smart, witty, out of shape and apparently lacking energy. She is an outdoors girl and fitness bunny. I'm younger and in good shape. There has been far too much eye contact, touching, inappropriate comments, etc. I'm not prepared to sneak around and I intuit that she would have serious ethical issues even contemplating having an affair. (though I suspect by some standards we have already had somewhat of an emotional affair and have over-shared too many intimate details of our lives)

I'm determined to live a more honest and transparent life and break free of the shame I was taught to feel by my family. I'm working through some complex and difficult issues in therapy. This may be the limerence talking, but I feel there was a genuine connection with my LO, and at some point in the future if we were to meet again I'd probably find that I wanted to have a relationship with her.

Which brings me to poly. I know some men fantasise about their wives being desired by other men. And certainly there are many women who would like to enjoy sexual variety with a younger, fitter man. She is very intelligent and broad minded. I'm considering introducing her to the concept of ethical polyamory at some stage and seeing if anything comes of it. From a position of security and strength and with no expectations.

And it occurs that I'm probably naturally poly and ought to do more reading around the subject and have some discussions with the nice folks here.
 
Greetings random1,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

It sounds like you're working hard to unpack your baggage so to speak, so, kudos in that area. As for learning more about polyamory, Polyamory.com is a good place to do that. Have a look at our various boards and threads and see what calls to you; let us know if you have any questions.

It's good to have you with us.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

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