A hello

Timmer

New member
Hi everyone,

I'm going to try to make this brief, but... yeah, it won't be.

I've been aware of the rough basics of what the poly life is all about for awhile, but I've been slightly nudged to be here from an unlikely source.

So, me.

I'm 42, Canadian, separated after 20 years of a monogamous relationship (15 of it married) and a father of two boys.

The relationship is a painful thing for me. The shortest way to explain it is that we loved each other, but she had severe issues with body image and how she looked, and though at the start I had been confident that she would see that I loved HER and that that would somehow fix things, it obviously in hindsight was the idea of a very young man with idealistic ideas about the world and was doomed.

Flash forward 20 years, and from her perspective she never could get past her issues and from my end, I ended up with half of my life in a relationship with virtually no physically intimacy of any kind. At some point, I had tuned out the world, tbh, because for someone like me, a lack of personal physical connection is, over time, a soul killer.

But I woke up to what had happened, and pulled the plug on things. We actually function very well now as co parents and things are fine in that regard. I'd say we are both happier now.

But I've been adrift because so much of my life went dormant.

I started reaching out to old friends and have been fighting to get my sense of life back. Yesterday I had a text chat with my very first gf from when we were teenagers. I told her everything that had happened in my life, and she suggested that the answer to my future was poly.

I'll explain.

The two of us, when we had been together, were teens and were way too immature for the feelings we felt, but we both had a sense of a relationship's power as being one where joy comes from providing joy to the other person... we had both felt that you get more out of seeing the other happy then in getting something specific back, and that holds true for little day to day things all of the way up to the physical aspect. Needless to say, the relationship was great while it lasted, lol. But we went our separate ways as life demanded we must.

She told me about how she had gone on to basically live a poly lifestyle before the term had really even taken hold in popular lingo, and she's been living as such for much of the last 20 years with various partners and has found it to be the answer to her way of seeing how humans should interact...

Her blunt message to me was that there is no one she knows who is more equipped right to their core to be poly, and she suggested that I should find a site like this one and at least... read up.

So that's why I am here, basically.

I've got issues to deal with... while I understand the concept and I do think she is right that it would work for me, I am guaranteed to suffer from fear... I would have enough trouble going to a traditional mono singles night... for the life of me, at this time, I can't even fathom how a single man my age with kids etc walks into a place where people are already in various forms of relationships... I don't get how that works, especially how it works without people thinking that you are some schmoe trying to get a quick bit of action, which would be the complete opposite of why I was there. How do poly people trust a newcomer to not be a douchenozzle?

I know I have a tremendous amount of light to share with... someone, or someone-s... but the mechanics of how to find people and to even understand the cues of how to tell if they would be interested in knowing you in ANY fashion are beyond my comprehension, tbh.

My other issue is I live in a place called the Kootenays in British Columbia, and it is a small place in mountains with small populations. I can't believe that there would even BE a big poly presence here, unless maybe in Nelson, a city nearby.

And lastly, I'm still healing internally from the realization that through my own inaction and... emotional slumber I guess? I wasted years of my life, and to an extent my ex's as well (plus of course her end of things but that's not important here). So I'm still tying to regain confidence in my life choices...

But I trust my old friend more than almost anyone in the world, and she's adamant that I should at least... like I said, read up.

So anyway, that's me. Thanks, I'll be around reading and learning :)
 
Hi Timmer - and welcome to the Forum! Since you are here to explore the possibility of polyamory, please do read through some of the many threads that you will find here. The General Poly Discussion and Poly Relationships Corner are the most active - please feel free to post any specific questions that you may have. We have lots of experienced poly folks here who are generally helpful and friendly - so you are very likely to get some good feedback to your questions. You may find reading through some of the blogs helpful as well.
There is also a search function and over a quarter million archived posts, so if you find a specific topic that interests you, take advantage of the search function.

Other resource suggestions:
Morethantwo.com - lots of info on poly basics to be found there.
Polyweekly.com - Cunning Minx's podcasts on poly topics (regular, if not weekly) - over 500 archived podcasts spanning a dozen years - free to listen to.
My favorite introductory book - "Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships" by Tristan Taormino.

It does sound like your first love is quite the poly enthusiast. I would encourage you to be open minded from all angles. Poly is not for everyone - it may or may not be for you. As a practical matter, your rural locale will very likely make actually practicing a poly lifestyle more challenging - large metro areas usually have poly groups but small cities are less likely to have them.

Again, welcome - and best of luck on your journey! Al
 
Thanks for the reply... I'm absolutely remaining open minded about things for now, I'm still in a self-healing phase, anyway.

I do think that on an emotional level my old gf is right about me, though.

I've always felt that there are different relationships for different people, and different ways to love someone. I've always hated the idea that you find one person you have a connection to and then you get married and that's the end... which is ironic, of course, but I was young... I also fully can feel in my bones that a traditional mono marriage, the way society sees it, is kind of a weird thing, like it shrinks you down from being you, within a greater something, to being a pair of people first, and you are sort of buried within it...

I'm also, deep down, someone who is highly experimental, something that defined my early dating years (and in particular with the previously mentioned gf) and also felt right to me... I wouldn't say that I've got particular things about ME that are definable in terms of kink etc. but I used to love exploring different kinky things with partners to see what would make them tick the most...

And I feel love in lots of lower level relationships that I think the average person wouldn't even consider AS a relationship... I work in a predominantly female profession, and over the years there have been times where I've developed a very simple feeling of closeness with some of my coworkers, and occasionally I've become close with their hubbies as well and we've had funky little friendships that have lasted awhile but then someone would switch jibs or what have you, but I've kept in contact with all of them. In a way, aren't these kind of hinting at a poly way of thinking for me? Because while traditionally these are "friendships" I feel bonafide love for them all and a sense of connection beyond what I think the average person does?

I actually think, in hindsight, that had my ex and I had the knowledge to define our relationship in our own terms, that we could have found much better happiness, by removing the overhanging issue of frustrated sexual needs from it. Of course it was more complicated than that, but it may potentially have helped.

So I don't know... I think it could be right for me. I think it may BE me, and I just didn't know it. But, for now while I'm kind of emotionally healing up it can be a simple exercise in rediscovery, but like i said previously, I don't really understand the dating scene part of it... how do you meet someone (down the road, for me) and run with a poly mindset and explain it to them? Do you find people who also think that way? How do you discover if a person or a couple or whatever would want you in their lives? I struggle with the logic of it from the view of a single person who wants relationships, in whatever form would feel right, but is met by what seemingly is a group of people already in relationships.

I'll be reading up on things like that.
 
Greetings Timmer,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

To me it sounds like poly is for you, you'll just need lots of patience as you open yourself to friendships first, and worry about dating relationships later.

"As for where to meet poly people, if by some chance you are interested in anything alternative like Renaissance fairs, goth culture, sci-fi conventions, indie music, bdsm, or any small fringe group, you will be more likely to meet people who have at least heard of poly and are accepting of it."
-- SpaceHippieGeek, Polyamorous Percolations

Even if it's not an "alternative" type group, if there's a club or something in your area that does something you're interested in, you can always join that group and it just gives you a way to get out there and meet people. If you meet someone on a platonic level and get to talking about poly, then they can decide how they feel about it without any "pressure to agree." Then if they do decide poly doesn't bother them too much, and some kind of romantic connection subsequently develops, you'll already have "had the poly conversation" with them.

And there are ways you can look for people online, such as

Hopefully some of that might help.
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!
 
Welcome

Welcome Timmer,

>I'm 42, Canadian, separated after 20 years of a monogamous relationship (15 of it married) and a father of two boys...

That was me 20 years ago, except I was initially a single parent of a boy and a girl. I'm glad to hear that you are considering poly. My mistake was that despite having been in a poly relationship before I got married, I didn't even think of it when looking for a new partner. At the time I was totally focused on finding somebody who would provide a better role model for my kids than their mother, who was still seeing the kids but not living with us.

I won't call my decision at the time a mistake, but it was certainly not optimal: I have a wonderful partner who is not open to poly relationships. I think I would feel better now if I had tried to find a partner open to poly relationships, even if I had ended up with my current partner.

I guess what I am trying to say is consider your options with an open mind, but unless one form of relationship is essential to you, choose the best match.

Northerner

P.S. To be fair to my ex I should add that she eventually got her act together and proved to be a good role model for our kids.
 
there is no one she knows who is more equipped right to their core to be poly
Good that you have had such enthusiatic encouragement :)

...but be sure to take the sentiment with plenty of salt-grains. ;) Really, no individual can know if he (she) is going to be happy in longterm nonmonogamy until it actually happens. And then there's the matter of finding people who are suitable, & before that of being able to "learn how to learn" how to deal with evolving realtime relational situations. (And how recently has she interacted with you tete-a-tete anyway?)

It's like leaving a well-managed apartment (with a GREAT super) to spending your savings to move into your own house. You've spent more than half your life believing that "love" was a simple cause-&-effect mechanism. Now, you need to learn how to be a do-it-yourselfer for things you possibly never before KNEW were going on down in the basement.

That's startling, sure; maybe even makes your head hurt a bit, & you might lose some sleep.

But if you "fear" freedom, being an individual, then indulging in that "fear" -- & moreso planning to wallow in it -- is nothing but disguised self-sabotage.

Walk into it, then deal with it. That's really the only way. Go out & do stuff that "scares" you. :cool: Have a stylist do something about your hair; spend $1,000 on clothes that don't look like what you already have. If you drive a BMW, get a beat-up F150, or vice-versa. And definitely look seriously into the potential for moving somewhere else entirely (like a few hundred miles away) for at least a couple of years.

ASAP, go to whatever "singles nights" you have locally (or at least within a two-hour drive) just to learn how to learn how to meet new people

...& (IMNSHO) do NOT under ANY circumstances let yourself fall into the trap of talking yourself into starting up with someone you meet (unless you INTEND to go running back to the "safety" of Monogamism, where the super takes care of all the messy little details, for a price -- if you're gonna do that, then at least don't do it half-arsed & "accidental"). Set aside the "kinky" stuff; it's so premature here as to be inappropriate. Hang out with strangers, enjoy the activities, watch how others do this stuff, note how many of them are waaaaaay more awkward than you. ;)

But most of all, STOP re-replaying the script of "wasted time" & "inept" & "undesirable."
 
Thanks everyone for the replies :)

My head is in a great space right now since spending time thinking things over. I really do believe that poly fits with who I fundamentally am as a person.

I'm just simply going to be open to enjoying my life right now and when and if a romantic opportunity comes along I will work out the details... I'm not going to try to define anything between me and another person, we will just have to figure that out based on what our hearts tell us we are, at that time...

Again thanks, I appreciate the support :)
 
Wow, I wrote all of that in May 2018...

So, I thought I would come in and re-introduce myself...

I wrote all of the above very soon after my separation, and much of it was, in hindsight, wishful thinking and hopes... but I'm rather excited to come in here now after this much time to say that my life did indeed become polyamorous, and it has turned me upside-down in the most incredible ways.

I've had an amazing relationship with my nesting partner for a year and a half now, and when we met we both discussed poly, and the fact that we both felt it was how we were wired. After the first months together we branched out and found our local poly communities and now in 2021 we each have a partner outside of our core relationship who brings us excitement and joy in ways that complement our already loving life. It was challenging with covid, obviously, but we managed it even while sticking to the local parameters of what is allowed and not allowed. I've... never felt like this, honestly. The sense of overflowing with love and friendship. We have decided that one other partner is the most we can, we have 3 children between us and both work, any attempt at adding other partners would simply not allow enough time for anyone to get the quality time the relationships with them deserved and needed.

So to re-introduce... Hi, I'm Tim, 44, from the Okanagan in B.C. now, polyamorous and living a wonderful life. When I first joined the site I was floundering but everything pulled itself into place for me and my wonderful partners. I'll be using the site to expand my understanding of the finer points of our world now, and to continue growing.

Thank you all for those early words so long ago, they genuinely helped :)

Tim
 
Hey there Tim,

I'm super glad to hear that things have worked out so well for you ... sometimes it takes a lot longer, and can be a frustrating process. I'm glad you came back here, there's always something new you can learn about poly. And people may turn to you for guidance. This, too, is part of the learning process. Anyway, congrats on your poly relationships, and I wish you the very best going forward.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
It's so nice to read your update! Congrats on all the growth and progress and happiness.
 
I read your original post and laughed when you used the term Douchenozzle, lol....

a short story...when I was a kid I visited my grandmother and she had an old school douche apparatus hanging on her bathroom door, I used to play with the nozzle because it hung down to my level, not really knowing what it was for until I was older. lol

glad to see you figured out your place in poly.

if you like, keep providing us updates as time goes on. :)
 
Back
Top