SweetSparkle_88
New member
Hi hello <3 I was sending a series of frantic texts to a friend about how overwhelmed and excited I feel about All the Poly Things, and then thought: oh yeah, the forum! So I figure I'll just start sharing some of the feels here and availing myself in general of folks' experience.
I haven't posted since my initial intro way back in February. Reading it now is, well, humbling. The "very healthy relationship" I referred to being in with my then-spouse, N, has since ended. Not because of my being poly, or any particular wrongdoing, just a coming-to-clarity about how different our needs are in relationship and how lonely I felt. We've been separated for more than half a year and are finally able to pursue legal divorce according to the laws of the state we live in. No shared property, no kids, no animosity, so I'm grateful for that.
Some months after our split, I started seeing Prince (they/them), a friend I'd made at a residency program back when I'd been married and monogamous. We sparked right away and despite the distance (they live about a thousand miles west of me), we sizzled right into what very quickly became a deep and satisfying relationship. Prince identifies as poly by orientation, and was in the process of renegotiating things with a long-term partner when we started talking. Since then, that partnership has become a friendship. Prince also had a couple comet-love situations going on, and a non-sexual partner they consider somewhere sweet but hard-to-describe between romantic and platonic. That partner (I'll call him Amos) is still in Prince's life, but the comet loves have been set gently on the shelf for the past six weeks or so when we decided to cozy into an open-ended moment of exclusivity. The agreement was "for now, since it feels good, for as long as it feels good."
I experienced quite a bit of attachment trauma growing up, so the past couple weeks of exclusivity gave me a moment to process some of my fears in a way that felt emotionally safe to me. Due to the timing of things in Prince's life and the nuclear-levels of very-much-in-love, just-want-to-stare-at-each-other-for-hours type of way we were both feeling, it's felt good for him, too--"a brief, fascinating experiment in monogamy," he described it.
This past weekend I had a series of breakthroughs/clarities around some of my fears and hangups around nonmonogamy with Prince; most of them, turns out, had to do with crappy crap I learned about boundaries growing up in an alcoholic household, and separation anxieties I've long felt as the child of a suicidally depressed parent. Once I was able to really feel my way through some of that baggage, I came out the other side feeling very, very clear that yes, indeed, I am a person who crushes on lots of people (I like to call them 'sparkles'), am very romantic and fall in love often and easily, and in fact, I want a big, expansive life full of partnerships and sex and exploration.
So, yeah. I shared my underworld journeyings with Prince, who as per usual was very loving and impressed by my emotional courage and expressed some excitement at the prospect of moving forward from our Exclusivity Moment into the brave new world (to me) of poly relating. They were also kind of charmed by my childlike, wondery overwhelm. I shared a couple of folks who sparkled for me with Prince, which seems like such a small thing but is a very new maneuver for me, this sharing-of-the-crushes and it-being-welcomed-and-ok. I think, for me, for tonight? It's enough to just vacuum the shit out of my apartment and marvel at the fact that I get to be my full self in this relationship, that I don't have to hide my feelings for others, that there's just so much shimmering possibility out there for loving partnerships of varying configurations.
Anyhow. This is a long background kind of post and I should go do some life-related things. I just wanted to put my little newbie flag proudly in the sand. More soon! Adventuring onwards!
I haven't posted since my initial intro way back in February. Reading it now is, well, humbling. The "very healthy relationship" I referred to being in with my then-spouse, N, has since ended. Not because of my being poly, or any particular wrongdoing, just a coming-to-clarity about how different our needs are in relationship and how lonely I felt. We've been separated for more than half a year and are finally able to pursue legal divorce according to the laws of the state we live in. No shared property, no kids, no animosity, so I'm grateful for that.
Some months after our split, I started seeing Prince (they/them), a friend I'd made at a residency program back when I'd been married and monogamous. We sparked right away and despite the distance (they live about a thousand miles west of me), we sizzled right into what very quickly became a deep and satisfying relationship. Prince identifies as poly by orientation, and was in the process of renegotiating things with a long-term partner when we started talking. Since then, that partnership has become a friendship. Prince also had a couple comet-love situations going on, and a non-sexual partner they consider somewhere sweet but hard-to-describe between romantic and platonic. That partner (I'll call him Amos) is still in Prince's life, but the comet loves have been set gently on the shelf for the past six weeks or so when we decided to cozy into an open-ended moment of exclusivity. The agreement was "for now, since it feels good, for as long as it feels good."
I experienced quite a bit of attachment trauma growing up, so the past couple weeks of exclusivity gave me a moment to process some of my fears in a way that felt emotionally safe to me. Due to the timing of things in Prince's life and the nuclear-levels of very-much-in-love, just-want-to-stare-at-each-other-for-hours type of way we were both feeling, it's felt good for him, too--"a brief, fascinating experiment in monogamy," he described it.
This past weekend I had a series of breakthroughs/clarities around some of my fears and hangups around nonmonogamy with Prince; most of them, turns out, had to do with crappy crap I learned about boundaries growing up in an alcoholic household, and separation anxieties I've long felt as the child of a suicidally depressed parent. Once I was able to really feel my way through some of that baggage, I came out the other side feeling very, very clear that yes, indeed, I am a person who crushes on lots of people (I like to call them 'sparkles'), am very romantic and fall in love often and easily, and in fact, I want a big, expansive life full of partnerships and sex and exploration.
So, yeah. I shared my underworld journeyings with Prince, who as per usual was very loving and impressed by my emotional courage and expressed some excitement at the prospect of moving forward from our Exclusivity Moment into the brave new world (to me) of poly relating. They were also kind of charmed by my childlike, wondery overwhelm. I shared a couple of folks who sparkled for me with Prince, which seems like such a small thing but is a very new maneuver for me, this sharing-of-the-crushes and it-being-welcomed-and-ok. I think, for me, for tonight? It's enough to just vacuum the shit out of my apartment and marvel at the fact that I get to be my full self in this relationship, that I don't have to hide my feelings for others, that there's just so much shimmering possibility out there for loving partnerships of varying configurations.
Anyhow. This is a long background kind of post and I should go do some life-related things. I just wanted to put my little newbie flag proudly in the sand. More soon! Adventuring onwards!