Hi! Triad in San Diego

sdguitarguy

sdguitarguy

New member
I've been on the forum for quite a while but my situation has changed a lot over that last year so I thought I would reintroduce myself.

Over the last five years, I was in a polyamorous relationship with Celia. But in July of 2015, we separated after a long year of discussions and counseling. I spent the next six months not dating and focusing on understanding my needs and priorities. Celia and I still saw each other occasionally but we were not that close.

End of December, I met Bea and things really took off. Bea is solo poly as am I. As we got to know each other, Bea was very interested in my history and was very supportive and encouraging about me salvaging my relationship with Celia. As a result, I started seeing Celia again on a somewhat regular basis.

We all got together for breakfast in early January so that Bea & Celia could meet. They got along very well and, surprising to me and them, they are in the beginning of a relationship. As well, the three of us get along really well and we've enjoyed a number of evenings together.

So although none of us were looking for this, we seem to have a triad that is forming. This is new to all of us and we have some trepidation but we're coming at it from the point of three independent solo poly people, each of whom is responsible for putting their wants and needs on the table.

Any suggested reading material for triads is extremely welcome!!

Dino
 
Greetings Dino,
Thanks for your update.

Now when you say triad, do you mean that Bea and Celia are starting to fall in love with each other? If their relationship is strictly platonic, then the three of you have a V relationship. I got confused since your siggy line indicates all three of you are straight. So ...

I think the best way to find good reading material on triads is to do a tag search for "triad." One thread that especially stood out for me when I did the search is, Ask a triad - advice column. But there are many others.

Hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

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Welcome aboard!
 
that's what they tell me!

Yes, there is a growing romantic relationship between Bea and Celia. And, in my discussions with them about this, neither of them considers themselves "bi" per se as a general orientation. This appears to be specific to the two of them and it is somewhat surprising to both of them. So until they tell me otherwise, I went with their desired designation.
 
You broke up with Celia, but somehow your NRE for your new gf Bea, and Bea's NRE for Celia, and Celia's NRE for Bea, have magically smoothed out all the issues you and your wife had together, that 12 months of therapy were unable to solve?

And your wife and your gf ID as straight yet are falling in romantic sexual love with each other.

How is that possible? Are you sure you aren't all just in a high hormonal sexual state, caused by NRE? What were the problems you and Celia had that were previously unsurmountable?
 
Magdlyn said:
You broke up with Celia, but somehow your NRE for your new gf Bea, and Bea's NRE for Celia, and Celia's NRE for Bea, have magically smoothed out all the issues you and your wife had together, that 12 months of therapy were unable to solve?

And your wife and your gf ID as straight yet are falling in romantic sexual love with each other.

How is that possible? Are you sure you aren't all just in a high hormonal sexual state, caused by NRE? What were the problems you and Celia had that were previously unsurmountable?
Click to expand...

If this is what's happening, then I think it's awesome.

Sometimes you meet a person who is like a magical glue that smoothes over rough spots among others and facilitates ease and calm and happy with a group. There are times in my quad that I could see certain little frictions in conversation escalating into hard feelings if one of us didn't chime in with just the right insight, or even humorous quip to bust tension. Different humans have different human skills to bring into a dynamic.

And I also get being a "mostly straight" female person...since I find it easier to pursue, establish, and maintain relations with men, but once in a while I fall completely arse over teakettle for a woman. Rarely. But sometimes!

And then there's the fact that not every therapist is effective for every person or couple. I think any of us who have done counseling much in life know that some work for ya and some just don't.

Anyhow I like this story and I hope it continues to be a happy one.
 
I agree, not all counselors are good. I guessed their counselor was "good," though, or why see them for a year?

But talk therapy isn't the only therapy, or necessarily the best, also true.
 
Magdlyn said:
You broke up with Celia, but somehow your NRE for your new gf Bea, and Bea's NRE for Celia, and Celia's NRE for Bea, have magically smoothed out all the issues you and your wife had together, that 12 months of therapy were unable to solve?

And your wife and your gf ID as straight yet are falling in romantic sexual love with each other.

How is that possible? Are you sure you aren't all just in a high hormonal sexual state, caused by NRE? What were the problems you and Celia had that were previously unsurmountable?
Click to expand...

Good questions. No, there were no magic bullets. After Celia moved out, I spent six months figuring out what I wanted and my priorities. Celia had wanted to continue a relationship with me after she moved out but I was feeling too hurt and rejected. Without getting into it, we had never really defined what "primary" meant and we had some very fundamental differences once we dug down into it. Celia and I did get together occasionally over that six months but not very often.

However, Celia's moving out was best for both of us. In December, I started dating and met Bea who is also poly. We hit it off and have been spending a lot of time together. But we are both solo poly and we have no plans to move in together. In our discussions, Bea found a photo album that Celia had made for me some years ago (a gift celebrating our first two years together) and Bea & I went through it. It was therapeutic to talk about the good times and that kind of cracked a barrier inside of me. Bea was very supportive about me re-establishing a relationship with Celia.

Celia was very happy that she & I were re-establishing a relationship. The fact that we were not living together was a big factor in us being able to have a new kind of relationship, non-primary, not living together. We re-established the good bits and being solo poly made the problem (what is a primary? What does that mean?) irrelevant.

I can't speak too much towards the "why" of the relationship of Bea & Celia. I'll ask them if they are interested in contributing. Celia does not consider herself bi. Bea has mentioned some fantasies but does not consider herself bi. But the three of us met for breakfast because I was spending a lot of time with both of them & I wanted them to meet. I felt if they knew each other it would help with logistics and scheduling conflicts if they knew there was a real person on the other end. Maybe it has something to do with Celia being grateful for Bea's support in re-establishing Celia & my relationship, I don't know. But they hit it off and were attracted to one another immediately. But they were both surprised. They have been developing their relationship since.

We have approached this as three solo poly people, each of us responsible for taking care of ourselves and making our wants & desires known.
 
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Magdlyn said:
I agree, not all counselors are good. I guessed their counselor was "good," though, or why see them for a year?

But talk therapy isn't the only therapy, or necessarily the best, also true.
Click to expand...

Our counselor was good. And I don't know that it was a year, probably less. We certainly were dealing with this issue for a year.

Counseling, to me, is to help people figure out what they want. The purpose was not specifically to "save" our relationship but to help us communicate better and figure out what we wanted. Celia & I had been very good about conflict resolution but we kept running into the same problem over and over again and, unlike our other issues, we could not resolve it on our own so we went for help.

It's easier now to look back and say, Oh, the problem was that we never really had a clear agreement about what "primary" meant and that our problem stemmed from very different views of it. It's not so clear when you are moving through the fog of the present. Hindsight is always so much clearer.
 
Magical glue

Spork said:
Sometimes you meet a person who is like a magical glue that smoothes over rough spots among others and facilitates ease and calm and happy with a group.
Click to expand...

That's probably a good description of Bea's role in catalyzing my new relationship with Celia. She is very good at suggesting ideas outside the box. Plus relationships are very important to her.

We are open to things evolving without being attached to a specific outcome (except that it work for everyone). But it's interesting, we see the triad as four different relationships - three different couples and then the three of us. Their leg (Bea & Celia) is the newest and most tentative (that's not quite the right word). But it's something neither of them has done before (a relationship with a woman). The three of us spend time together making dinner, watching movies and we definitely bliss out when we're all together :)
 
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I'm happy for all of you, SD. I love a woman. Women can be so much easier to get along with than men. For me, anyway. We have such a great communication, talking things to death in a rational loving way, that I've never found with a guy. And since we are both also boy crazy, we totally support each other's desire for dudes, and have fun comparing notes!

I am so happy you found that things work better with Celia when you both have your own places. Some people are easier to love with a bit less togetherness!

I hope you all stay together and grow in love a long long time.:eek:
 
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