peanutbutter123
New member
First I will say I am incredibly new, and the partner I will reference most likely has no concrete knowledge of the polyamorous community. However, I am interested to see if my partner and I could implement polyamorous principles to improve and grow our relationship.
To cut a very long and complicated story short, we started dating 2-3 years ago (I was 25, he was 33.) While we had an immediate and intense physical and emotional connection, the relationship was casual. We bonded over our wariness of the conventional monogamous relationship, and the fact that we were miserable in such relationships in the past. Yet, commitment conflict was a dominant theme in our relationship. Instead of having open communication, we pretended to be exclusive when we both knew we were not, causing lots of tension. On top of this, he struggled with the social pressures of having a traditional monogamous relationship, and felt that he should try to force himself to settle down (i.e. marriage and kids); something I could not offer him.
Fast forward to the end of 2015. An incident occurred which forced us to confront the issues in our relationship.
After lots of discussion, finally I told him “I don’t expect that I can fulfill your every physical and emotional need, and therefore I want you to have freedom. My goal is for you to be happy, not to lock you down or hold you back. In return, I expect the same treatment.” Somehow this opened up the flood gates, and he was very open about the fact that he felt the same way, that he didn’t want to say goodbye to me but that he was still exploring what he wanted. I felt happy that the cycle of denial could end and there was more honesty.
Then he told me about his very good friend whom he has a sexual relationship with, and how she was a big fan of mine. She was the one who had helped him see he shouldn’t give up on me, and she would joke about wanting to have dinner with me. He and I agreed that we would all meet.
Sorry this post is so long, but I’m at the very early stages and trying to figure out a couple things:
1) Based on our history, are we just fooling ourselves, or could this actually work? Deep down I’ve always thought I would only be happy if I had freedom in a relationship, but is this just an easy excuse out of dealing with commitment issues?
2) Our biggest flaw is avoiding communication. Has anybody been in similar situations, and have any concrete guidelines on navigating the waters at the beginning of a flexible relationship?
To cut a very long and complicated story short, we started dating 2-3 years ago (I was 25, he was 33.) While we had an immediate and intense physical and emotional connection, the relationship was casual. We bonded over our wariness of the conventional monogamous relationship, and the fact that we were miserable in such relationships in the past. Yet, commitment conflict was a dominant theme in our relationship. Instead of having open communication, we pretended to be exclusive when we both knew we were not, causing lots of tension. On top of this, he struggled with the social pressures of having a traditional monogamous relationship, and felt that he should try to force himself to settle down (i.e. marriage and kids); something I could not offer him.
Fast forward to the end of 2015. An incident occurred which forced us to confront the issues in our relationship.
After lots of discussion, finally I told him “I don’t expect that I can fulfill your every physical and emotional need, and therefore I want you to have freedom. My goal is for you to be happy, not to lock you down or hold you back. In return, I expect the same treatment.” Somehow this opened up the flood gates, and he was very open about the fact that he felt the same way, that he didn’t want to say goodbye to me but that he was still exploring what he wanted. I felt happy that the cycle of denial could end and there was more honesty.
Then he told me about his very good friend whom he has a sexual relationship with, and how she was a big fan of mine. She was the one who had helped him see he shouldn’t give up on me, and she would joke about wanting to have dinner with me. He and I agreed that we would all meet.
Sorry this post is so long, but I’m at the very early stages and trying to figure out a couple things:
1) Based on our history, are we just fooling ourselves, or could this actually work? Deep down I’ve always thought I would only be happy if I had freedom in a relationship, but is this just an easy excuse out of dealing with commitment issues?
2) Our biggest flaw is avoiding communication. Has anybody been in similar situations, and have any concrete guidelines on navigating the waters at the beginning of a flexible relationship?
