hello from a hesitant polyam in Kentucky

good afternoon everyone. first time posting here.

i'm a 40-something poly fella who was monogamous until just a few years ago. finding polyamory felt like the key to some kind of happiness for the back 9 of my life following a divorce. my first poly relationship was perfectly lovely until it fell apart. i've really only dated casually since then, until recently, when i started seeing someone a couple of months ago.

what i'm finding recently is that i feel like i'm giving a lot but not getting much from being polyamorous. not because of anyone's shortcomings--i have very little to say negatively regarding anyone i've dated--but because of maybe how i interact socially, or because of how the polyamory scene is locally, or maybe how it is for cis males generally. i feel like this may be a common experience for polyam guys, but i only have local experience so i'm not sure.

anyway, i've been really looking for community recently, and i hope to find it here. bless y'all.

Greetings mrd6582,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Hopefully Polyamory.com will be a nurturing community for you, we are here to help. I feel bad that you have had to do more give than take when it comes to polyamory. It's true that men often find it harder to find willing partners than women, although that is a complex subject. Anyway, I hope you can make yourself at home in this website.

Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter"

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Welcome aboard!

When you say you are giving a lot but not getting very much, can you clarify what you mean? It's a bit unclear. If you can let us know what's actually happening, perhaps we can lend some insight or even advice.

Evie said:

When you say you are giving a lot but not getting very much, can you clarify what you mean? It's a bit unclear. If you can let us know what's actually happening, perhaps we can lend some insight or even advice.

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i've been polyamorous since early 2023, and in that time i've been in two relationships and also dated a fair bit.

in my first relationship, i always joked with my partner that she could get a date by walking out onto her front porch and whispering into the wind that she was available for the weekend, and if my life depended on finding a date by this time next month, i'd just start saying my goodbyes. it was a joke but also pretty much true. she didn't date a *ton* outside of our relationship, and her other partner, but she could pretty much find whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it. in the year and a half we were together, i went on about 3 dates, none of which went anywhere at the time (though a couple of them did turn into something later on, after that relationship was over).

my current relationship is very similar. i've been seeing a girl for about 6 weeks, and she's had...i guess 7 dates in that time, outside of me, and i've had one.

again, none of this is to slight either of these lovely women. there have been instances with both where i felt *slightly* manipulated to keep me from other opportunities, but as weird as it might sound to say, nothing that felt toxic--none of us are perfect, we're all capable of being a little territorial, and i haven't really felt with either person that they're being unfair. it's more about schedules and opportunity and that sort of thing.

however, the fact that no one is to blame doesn't make it any easier to take. if you see your partner's dance card constantly filling up while you sit on the sidelines, you start questioning the lifestyle pretty quickly, especially when it seems like the norm rather than an anomalous period.

Thanks for elaborating. So have I understood...? You see yourself "giving" your dating partner (and were "giving" your ex) time with other people but you aren't "getting" time with others yourself?

And this is largely around scheduling of time together when it comes to the giving? But around success in meeting new people to date when it comes to getting. So, apples and oranges.

Obviously, any partner isn't yours to "give" so I am expecting you mean that you are giving your time that you could see them away so they can schedule with someone else. Do you sacrifice your time like this a bit too much? Or were your expectations around poly dating a mismatch with hers in the first place? Do you seek a partner to fill your leisure time or do you have other personal hobbies and friend groups that you also spend time on or with?

What have you got going on outside of potential romantic relationships that's going to attract like minded women to want to date you? Because people with the fullest lives also tend to have the fullest dance cards

Evie said:

Thanks for elaborating. So have I understood...? You see yourself "giving" your dating partner (and were "giving" your ex) time with other people but you aren't "getting" time with others yourself?

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i suppose that's accurate. i don't know that "giving" and "getting" are very good words here but they're the ones i chose so i'll roll with them, ha.

Evie said:

And this is largely around scheduling of time together when it comes to the giving? But around success in meeting new people to date when it comes to getting. So, apples and oranges.

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here's where i guess the "giving and getting" language breaks down a little, because i'm not sure this is precisely how i feel. i think polyamory is a give and take, in that you're giving up something with your partner (time, experiences, whatever) and getting back essentially the same thing for yourself (i.e., opportunities to share those things with other people). that's not to say that allowing your partner freedom outside of your relationship isn't a positive thing on its own--compersion is very real--but if we're choosing, ourselves, to be polyamorous, part of what we want from that is to have our own experiences and connections. if it were *just* about allowing your partner the freedom to enjoy new experiences, you'd just choose to be monogamous with a polyamorous partner. i'm not sure if i'm explaining that very well but it's the best i have at the moment.

Evie said:

Obviously, any partner isn't yours to "give" so I am expecting you mean that you are giving your time that you could see them away so they can schedule with someone else. Do you sacrifice your time like this a bit too much? Or were your expectations around poly dating a mismatch with hers in the first place? Do you seek a partner to fill your leisure time or do you have other personal hobbies and friend groups that you also spend time on or with?

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i think it's less about sacrificing my time with my partner, and more about feeling like i don't get the same thing back. in the beginning of my polamorous life, i still struggled with jealousy somewhat, but i found i moved past that pretty quickly. i don't want to monopolize a partner's time and i'm usually pretty happy to see them foster new connections. i just don't always feel like i'm getting that in return. partner is fine making the most of her free time when i'm not free, but when i am free, partner wants all of mine.

Evie said:

What have you got going on outside of potential romantic relationships that's going to attract like minded women to want to date you? Because people with the fullest lives also tend to have the fullest dance cards

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nothing really, i'm afraid. i have a 7 year old daughter who monopolizes my time when she's with me (by my own enthusiastic choice), and on my own time, i go to the gym a lot, and i'm in a band. these have proven to be less than super social activities.

So partner wanting to monopolize all of your free time (and potentially using some level of disappointment if you try to say no to lightly manipulate you into giving her all that time) is a significant factor here.

Have you formulated a boundary in your own mind for what time you have and want to be available for dating her, and what time you want to keep for yourself, or are you getting a little extreme on the compromises and thus ending up with this growing sense of unfairness?

If you don't have a clear sense of your own boundaries, it can get pretty uncomfortable. It's also impossible to communicate them if you're not even quite sure what they are. So could you possibly start there, the carving out your own time wherein you can actively date others, or at least put yourself in new places (not the gym or with the band) that will allow you to meet new people? And she doesn't get to see you during that time regardless of her schedule.

Evie said:

Have you formulated a boundary in your own mind for what time you have and want to be available for dating her, and what time you want to keep for yourself, or are you getting a little extreme on the compromises and thus ending up with this growing sense of unfairness?

If you don't have a clear sense of your own boundaries, it can get pretty uncomfortable. It's also impossible to communicate them if you're not even quite sure what they are.

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this hits the nail pretty squarely on the head i think. i'm not totally sure what my boundaries are yet.

first relationship is a hard comparison--we were long distance (~2 hour drive) for awhile, then life led us to the same town, so trying to figure out scheduling together was always just sort of its own adventure.

new relationship is more on point. i want to foster the connection, and i know that takes time. but i also need time to prioritize myself. the way our schedules work at the moment, she has a lot of free time during my work days, and takes advantage of it. as well she should. but then when i'm free, i feel like a real disappointment if i don't give her basically all of that time. there isn't much time where i'm free and she's not, where i can just do my own thing without feeling like i'm shortchanging her.

what this leads to, is feeling like things are developing at different rates. i feel like she's already a lot more invested in this connection than i am. that's partly because of all of the above, and partly because of other factors for both of us.

the bigger question, i suppose, is this: is it okay for things to be developing at different rates? in monogamous relationships that seems like a killer; you're the exclusive fulfiller of each others' romantic needs, and if the needs are imbalanced, it feels like a death knell.

but with polyamory i'm not sure. part of me says it's okay if i need 10 and she needs 30, because if 10 is all i can give, she can get 20 somewhere else. (let's just assume that we can describe this in numbers, for a moment.) another part of me says that if needs and expectations are imbalanced, you're still heading for disappointment. but maybe that's a lifetime of monogamy talking?

"where i can just do my own thing without feeling like i'm shortchanging her."

That's a tough one, but it really can only come from within you that you shift perspective on this and "date yourself first". If can't deal with that, then she's not a good fit for you.

As for her being a little more invested in being smitten for you right now, it can even out but not if you're eating a side serving of resentment that you've lost *all* your free time to investing in this relationship. If she's going to guilt trip you for not spending all your free time with her, then that's a red flag anyway.

She's poly, too, right? Is she seeing anyone else rn?

Evie said:

As for her being a little more invested in being smitten for you right now, it can even out but not if you're eating a side serving of resentment that you've lost *all* your free time to investing in this relationship.

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Well said!

Evie said:

She's poly, too, right? Is she seeing anyone else rn?

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She is. She has a girlfriend, a comet partner, and in the last couple weeks she's been seeing a guy likely to become something of another comet partner.