JuneauHiker
New member
This story isn’t completely comprehensive, as 3 years of a relationship is pretty hard to distill into an easy-to-read snapshot. But it hits all the main stuff between me and my partner, and you can get a pretty good feel of things.
I’m not posting this for advice, necessarily, though feel free to advise away. I do have a therapy session coming up, for that sort of help. Mostly I want this to be out there so people can perhaps learn from my experiences, or find something they resonate with, and because I just need to open up more than I have been, traditionally.
-Kyle
“When did you first become poly?”
It’s a common question between those of us that consider alternative means of love, sex and relating with other people. The answers are myriad and valid in all of their forms, and one of the reasons we ask is to learn the kind of polyamory others practice. Another is to learn what kind of experience(s) your prospects have had with non-monogamy.
This story is the latter answer to that question.
For myself, it all started with a book (like so much of my life has): Stranger in a Strange Land. Within its pages were concepts that challenged my presupposed notions about sex, love, and jealousy.
For those of you that haven’t read it, the story is about a human that grew up on Mars, and eventually was brought back to Earth as a sort of celebrity. Through the course of the book, the main character meets other humans and, perhaps through his “alternative” upbringing, introduces the concepts of shamelessness, sharing good feelings, and denouncing the ideas of jealousy - his thoughts being that anything that feels good and brings further goodness into the world should be celebrated.
For anyone considering a read of this book, know that it is rather dated. But it undeniably altered the landscape of alternative means to love, and today’s poly community probably wouldn’t look like it does without it.
After reading Heinlein’s Scifi story about a loving Martian-raised human, I came back to the idea of sharing love and lacking jealousy often. But for the next nearly decade and a half I stuck with the tried-and-true, exclusive monogamous structure, not realizing I was missing something by denying what I had felt for so long.
When I broke up with my then girlfriend and started searching for likeminded folk, I only had a vague picture of the kind of open relationship I was looking for. Sex was, admittedly, on the mind - my previous relationships had all been very vanilla, and eventually devoid of sex in their latter stages. Beyond that, all I knew was that I wanted off of the escalator to find those that I could connect with organically and without structure.
I dated around for nearly a year without much success. That changed when I met someone that would become very, very special to me, and continues to be.
As supposedly open-minded and alternative as I was, she challenged me in ways I never thought I needed to be, and widened my eyes on aspects of my life I never thought to examine. After a long period as friends (she was taken, in an exclusive D/bg relationship for the first few months, then worked a summer away at a remote location), we became partners and began living together.
The sex was fantastic, and we started exploring a Sir/kitty relationship, which neither of us had experience with, although as I’ve said, she was a babygirl for a few months. About a month in, we were screamed at by our landlady for having sex that was too loud, so we moved out. To this day both of our sex lives (together and separately) are affected by this experience. It interrupted the natural progression of our relationship and our come-down from NRE, and perhaps laid the foundation for further grief later on in our lives.
One of her main passions in life is to travel, a passion we both now strongly share. For three years now, she and I have crisscrossed the states several times and worked seasonal jobs every summer and winter.
She and I both have had issues with being able to communicate effectively with others, something we have both worked on since but in the interim provided some unfortunate misunderstandings, tears, and arguments. We’ve also very much discovered a difference in our natural communcation styles; I have a tendency to try to “fix” things, or provide wisdom and advice, a holdover from being raised by my mother, who doesn’t understand how to say no or to not bend over backwards. This conflicts with my partner’s independent streak, and her need to simply be heard and supported.
One of these communication errors occured during our first occasion completely seperate from each other. While finishing our first seasonal job together, she met and slept with a man while she was traveling. This was my very first test of compersion and polyamory - and I failed it spectacularly. My first feelings of inadequacy, which would become a recurring theme off and on, cropped up during this experience.
I’m not posting this for advice, necessarily, though feel free to advise away. I do have a therapy session coming up, for that sort of help. Mostly I want this to be out there so people can perhaps learn from my experiences, or find something they resonate with, and because I just need to open up more than I have been, traditionally.
-Kyle
“When did you first become poly?”
It’s a common question between those of us that consider alternative means of love, sex and relating with other people. The answers are myriad and valid in all of their forms, and one of the reasons we ask is to learn the kind of polyamory others practice. Another is to learn what kind of experience(s) your prospects have had with non-monogamy.
This story is the latter answer to that question.
For myself, it all started with a book (like so much of my life has): Stranger in a Strange Land. Within its pages were concepts that challenged my presupposed notions about sex, love, and jealousy.
For those of you that haven’t read it, the story is about a human that grew up on Mars, and eventually was brought back to Earth as a sort of celebrity. Through the course of the book, the main character meets other humans and, perhaps through his “alternative” upbringing, introduces the concepts of shamelessness, sharing good feelings, and denouncing the ideas of jealousy - his thoughts being that anything that feels good and brings further goodness into the world should be celebrated.
For anyone considering a read of this book, know that it is rather dated. But it undeniably altered the landscape of alternative means to love, and today’s poly community probably wouldn’t look like it does without it.
After reading Heinlein’s Scifi story about a loving Martian-raised human, I came back to the idea of sharing love and lacking jealousy often. But for the next nearly decade and a half I stuck with the tried-and-true, exclusive monogamous structure, not realizing I was missing something by denying what I had felt for so long.
When I broke up with my then girlfriend and started searching for likeminded folk, I only had a vague picture of the kind of open relationship I was looking for. Sex was, admittedly, on the mind - my previous relationships had all been very vanilla, and eventually devoid of sex in their latter stages. Beyond that, all I knew was that I wanted off of the escalator to find those that I could connect with organically and without structure.
I dated around for nearly a year without much success. That changed when I met someone that would become very, very special to me, and continues to be.
As supposedly open-minded and alternative as I was, she challenged me in ways I never thought I needed to be, and widened my eyes on aspects of my life I never thought to examine. After a long period as friends (she was taken, in an exclusive D/bg relationship for the first few months, then worked a summer away at a remote location), we became partners and began living together.
The sex was fantastic, and we started exploring a Sir/kitty relationship, which neither of us had experience with, although as I’ve said, she was a babygirl for a few months. About a month in, we were screamed at by our landlady for having sex that was too loud, so we moved out. To this day both of our sex lives (together and separately) are affected by this experience. It interrupted the natural progression of our relationship and our come-down from NRE, and perhaps laid the foundation for further grief later on in our lives.
One of her main passions in life is to travel, a passion we both now strongly share. For three years now, she and I have crisscrossed the states several times and worked seasonal jobs every summer and winter.
She and I both have had issues with being able to communicate effectively with others, something we have both worked on since but in the interim provided some unfortunate misunderstandings, tears, and arguments. We’ve also very much discovered a difference in our natural communcation styles; I have a tendency to try to “fix” things, or provide wisdom and advice, a holdover from being raised by my mother, who doesn’t understand how to say no or to not bend over backwards. This conflicts with my partner’s independent streak, and her need to simply be heard and supported.
One of these communication errors occured during our first occasion completely seperate from each other. While finishing our first seasonal job together, she met and slept with a man while she was traveling. This was my very first test of compersion and polyamory - and I failed it spectacularly. My first feelings of inadequacy, which would become a recurring theme off and on, cropped up during this experience.
