So I was advised to come on over here and share my story and see if anyone can offer advice. Any advice whatsoever is helpful since I'm really just fumbling around in the dark. Hopefully this post isn't too lengthy and obnoxious...
I suppose I'll start a little earlier on. When I first started dating, it was normal for me to be talking to multiple guys at once. I might have had one consistent boyfriend but there would be a flurry of others that I would flirt with, cuddle with, or whatever. I imagine no one ever said anything to me about it because they just assumed it was some boycrazy teenager phase? But fast forward a few years, I've had issues with serial monogamy and cheating. I always felt like such as screw up because I couldn't get my long-term monogamous relationships right. I was always having something casual with the guy at work, the guy at the library, the friend of a friend. I never had anything serious with them - that was what my boyfriend was for, right? I just wanted to enjoy their company until the time was up. Usually things were disastrous, I couldn't keep any guy around too long because they saw me as a "whore" or "cheating slut" even if I didn't typically sleep with most of these guys. All of this started at a fairly young age, as well, around 14 or 15.
I'll jump to my relationship that lasted the longest, I'll just refer to him as E. We started dating a few months before I turned 18 and were together for 2 years. During that time I cheated once and he miraculously forgave me even though I probably didn't deserve it. What was really unique about that relationship for me was his friend, we'll call him A. A and E reconnected shortly after I turned 18. The three of us became very close, and we would spend hours watching movies, playing video games, and having fun, all with me cuddled up between them. A had become a part of our relationship even if it wasn't as close and serious as what E and I had. They were both my guys, they were protective of me, and I felt safe with them. We enjoyed a couple threesomes and spent many a night cuddled up together. When problems arose between any two of us, we worked it out together as a team. A death in A's family kind of pulled him away from us, though, and without him, E and I sort of fell apart. We became close with a guy named R and it seemed like things might be good again but they weren't and I ended up leaving E for R, which was a huge mistake. I broke E's heart, R lost all his friends and our relationship hardly lasted a year before he cheated on me with a married woman he had been pining over for our entire relationship. He even told me he wouldn't be with me if he could have had her. It was karma, for sure.
So after R, I told myself I would be single for a while, and enjoy "single people things" which mostly included being with whoever I wanted without feeling obligated to anyone. Up until about this time, the idea of polyamory had never even occurred to me. Everything that had happened in previous relationships was purely organic.
At this point, I was feeling thoroughly fed up with being single. Sure, I had lots of guy friends but I didn't have anyone to cuddle and be intimate with and I missed that. E and I saw each other for a little while and tried to rekindle things but it just didn't work. Then I met the man I'm with now, Dylan. I was sitting at a cafe on my school campus and decided to move to a different area to sit because I didn't like the cleaning chemicals they were using. I plop my stuff down on a counter and go to grab a chair when suddenly the attractive, way out of my league guy sitting at the other end hops up and offers me his chair and runs to grab another one. We talk, he's dreamy, I'm nearly shaking because I can't believe this amazing man would have the time for me. We have so much in common and then we realize that we're both late for class. He tells me his name but I would forget it because I'm awful at that sort of thing and I tell him that I'm always in that same spot every Wednesday. A few weeks go by and the semester is almost over and I don't see him, so I take a leap. We're both taking different classes but with the same professor, so I ask him and he more or less hooks us up. We go on our first actual date. Despite ourselves, we fall madly in love and we still are to this day.
After a couple weeks of being together, Dylan tells me he is bisexual and enjoys a sexual fetish called cuckolding. I've never heard of it and after discussing it for a while, I end up thinking I understand that he just wants to see his girlfriend in an irl porno, which I feel completely okay with. I ask him how he feels about us being open, and freely explain everything I've just explained to you. I had seen a brief video about polyamory earlier that day. He's excited about it and enjoys it. We're in a win-win situation.
So for a couple months, I see one guy called B and even though he's sort of an jerk to me in front of our friend group, we enjoy each other's company when we're alone and the sex is great. There's another guy that I typically only see at certain events perhaps once or twice a year that I don't really have sex with, we just have fun together and talk over Facebook. I'm really happy with what is going on, and always careful to never take away from time with Dylan for these other guys. Then Dylan starts acting jealous, suddenly in a bad mood when I go to see B, sneaks onto my computer and reads through my conversations with the other guy, etc. When I finally get him to explain, he tells me that he was really into the humiliation of me being with other guys but didn't like that I was emotionally connected to him. So now our sex life has this whole other dimension. He starts going to a counselor to work through his issues and we stop being open for a while, which makes me sort of unhappy but I'm willing to do it for him.
B and I remain friends and study for our classes together, and only have one slip-up, which I do tell Dylan about. He's a little upset at first but doesn't seem to mind otherwise. Later on he decides he wants to be open again and try to embrace and not be ashamed of the things he enjoys. I see B a few times again, but then Dylan asks me to use Tinder to just find random guys. I try it and hate it. I don't want to have sex with random people, I like having connections and enjoying being with someone multiple times and learning about who they are and what they enjoy. One night stands are just too awkward. So he agrees to let me do my thing as long as I find someone else.
At the current moment, I haven't found anyone and I'm not really pursuing anyone heavily because I've been busy with school and work. There are a couple nice guys that I won't turn down if anything arises but I'm not actively putting any work into it. There's been one person in our friend group, however, that is making me want to explore polyamory more seriously again. I'll call him R. Dylan and I both know R, though I'm a little closer to him than Dylan is. I'm not overtly interested in R sexually, but I really love his company, we watch movies and hang out and once or twice he's sort of hug-cuddled me. He and Dylan get along great, and when I've talked to Dylan about involving R in our relationship more, he seemed oddly happy and in favor of it. R has also expressed support and interest in polyamory himself. Maybe I'm idealizing the situation a little bit, but it seems like things could really work out. Someone else on here mentioned that Dylan might be polysexual and monoamorous while I'm polyamorous, so is that our problem? Is there a fix to this? I'm sorry if all this seems confusing or not really cohesive, like I said, I'm very much in the dark and confused about all this. I value my relationship with Dylan above all else, and I know that there isn't anyone else I'd rather build my long-term life with. I just want to work all this stuff out and help him find a healthy view of his sexuality while working out what I want as well.
I suppose I'll start a little earlier on. When I first started dating, it was normal for me to be talking to multiple guys at once. I might have had one consistent boyfriend but there would be a flurry of others that I would flirt with, cuddle with, or whatever. I imagine no one ever said anything to me about it because they just assumed it was some boycrazy teenager phase? But fast forward a few years, I've had issues with serial monogamy and cheating. I always felt like such as screw up because I couldn't get my long-term monogamous relationships right. I was always having something casual with the guy at work, the guy at the library, the friend of a friend. I never had anything serious with them - that was what my boyfriend was for, right? I just wanted to enjoy their company until the time was up. Usually things were disastrous, I couldn't keep any guy around too long because they saw me as a "whore" or "cheating slut" even if I didn't typically sleep with most of these guys. All of this started at a fairly young age, as well, around 14 or 15.
I'll jump to my relationship that lasted the longest, I'll just refer to him as E. We started dating a few months before I turned 18 and were together for 2 years. During that time I cheated once and he miraculously forgave me even though I probably didn't deserve it. What was really unique about that relationship for me was his friend, we'll call him A. A and E reconnected shortly after I turned 18. The three of us became very close, and we would spend hours watching movies, playing video games, and having fun, all with me cuddled up between them. A had become a part of our relationship even if it wasn't as close and serious as what E and I had. They were both my guys, they were protective of me, and I felt safe with them. We enjoyed a couple threesomes and spent many a night cuddled up together. When problems arose between any two of us, we worked it out together as a team. A death in A's family kind of pulled him away from us, though, and without him, E and I sort of fell apart. We became close with a guy named R and it seemed like things might be good again but they weren't and I ended up leaving E for R, which was a huge mistake. I broke E's heart, R lost all his friends and our relationship hardly lasted a year before he cheated on me with a married woman he had been pining over for our entire relationship. He even told me he wouldn't be with me if he could have had her. It was karma, for sure.
So after R, I told myself I would be single for a while, and enjoy "single people things" which mostly included being with whoever I wanted without feeling obligated to anyone. Up until about this time, the idea of polyamory had never even occurred to me. Everything that had happened in previous relationships was purely organic.
At this point, I was feeling thoroughly fed up with being single. Sure, I had lots of guy friends but I didn't have anyone to cuddle and be intimate with and I missed that. E and I saw each other for a little while and tried to rekindle things but it just didn't work. Then I met the man I'm with now, Dylan. I was sitting at a cafe on my school campus and decided to move to a different area to sit because I didn't like the cleaning chemicals they were using. I plop my stuff down on a counter and go to grab a chair when suddenly the attractive, way out of my league guy sitting at the other end hops up and offers me his chair and runs to grab another one. We talk, he's dreamy, I'm nearly shaking because I can't believe this amazing man would have the time for me. We have so much in common and then we realize that we're both late for class. He tells me his name but I would forget it because I'm awful at that sort of thing and I tell him that I'm always in that same spot every Wednesday. A few weeks go by and the semester is almost over and I don't see him, so I take a leap. We're both taking different classes but with the same professor, so I ask him and he more or less hooks us up. We go on our first actual date. Despite ourselves, we fall madly in love and we still are to this day.
After a couple weeks of being together, Dylan tells me he is bisexual and enjoys a sexual fetish called cuckolding. I've never heard of it and after discussing it for a while, I end up thinking I understand that he just wants to see his girlfriend in an irl porno, which I feel completely okay with. I ask him how he feels about us being open, and freely explain everything I've just explained to you. I had seen a brief video about polyamory earlier that day. He's excited about it and enjoys it. We're in a win-win situation.
So for a couple months, I see one guy called B and even though he's sort of an jerk to me in front of our friend group, we enjoy each other's company when we're alone and the sex is great. There's another guy that I typically only see at certain events perhaps once or twice a year that I don't really have sex with, we just have fun together and talk over Facebook. I'm really happy with what is going on, and always careful to never take away from time with Dylan for these other guys. Then Dylan starts acting jealous, suddenly in a bad mood when I go to see B, sneaks onto my computer and reads through my conversations with the other guy, etc. When I finally get him to explain, he tells me that he was really into the humiliation of me being with other guys but didn't like that I was emotionally connected to him. So now our sex life has this whole other dimension. He starts going to a counselor to work through his issues and we stop being open for a while, which makes me sort of unhappy but I'm willing to do it for him.
B and I remain friends and study for our classes together, and only have one slip-up, which I do tell Dylan about. He's a little upset at first but doesn't seem to mind otherwise. Later on he decides he wants to be open again and try to embrace and not be ashamed of the things he enjoys. I see B a few times again, but then Dylan asks me to use Tinder to just find random guys. I try it and hate it. I don't want to have sex with random people, I like having connections and enjoying being with someone multiple times and learning about who they are and what they enjoy. One night stands are just too awkward. So he agrees to let me do my thing as long as I find someone else.
At the current moment, I haven't found anyone and I'm not really pursuing anyone heavily because I've been busy with school and work. There are a couple nice guys that I won't turn down if anything arises but I'm not actively putting any work into it. There's been one person in our friend group, however, that is making me want to explore polyamory more seriously again. I'll call him R. Dylan and I both know R, though I'm a little closer to him than Dylan is. I'm not overtly interested in R sexually, but I really love his company, we watch movies and hang out and once or twice he's sort of hug-cuddled me. He and Dylan get along great, and when I've talked to Dylan about involving R in our relationship more, he seemed oddly happy and in favor of it. R has also expressed support and interest in polyamory himself. Maybe I'm idealizing the situation a little bit, but it seems like things could really work out. Someone else on here mentioned that Dylan might be polysexual and monoamorous while I'm polyamorous, so is that our problem? Is there a fix to this? I'm sorry if all this seems confusing or not really cohesive, like I said, I'm very much in the dark and confused about all this. I value my relationship with Dylan above all else, and I know that there isn't anyone else I'd rather build my long-term life with. I just want to work all this stuff out and help him find a healthy view of his sexuality while working out what I want as well.
