Guidance on early steps of a quad needed...

[telivan]

I think this can work. The part you should start building is the platonic relationship between everyone. Keep individual hobbies as alone time is going to be even more important. Find stuff to do as pairs, as triples, and as a quad. Everything is going to develop at different speeds, so be patient and communicate.

The triad I'm a part of developed as friends first. I'll outline the formation in the hopes that some of it might be applicable to your situation. The other members of the triad we'll call C and T.

I met C through one of the podcasts I'm a part of. Every Tuesday night we host a creative night on the podcast's discord. C and I meet and become friends through that. T listens to the podcasts at this point but I haven't met him. A mutual friend of ours starts up another podcast and C, T, and I are all a part of it. We hang out and talk regularly through it. C and T start dating and I join not long after, once I realized that I was developing feelings for both C and T.

We keep in touch regularly through discord. We have nights where we hang out as a triad and we have other nights where we hang out as pairs. T hosts Jackbox nights weekly, C and I go to creative night together, we all game regularly together. We work to maintain platonic, romantic, and sexual bonds with each other as a group and in pairs.

It's a lot of work and communication but we all love each other and work together to keep it healthy.

 

[Magdlyn]

Hi Magdlyn,

I am very sorry to hear about this experience it is indeed bad. On the other hand your words have helped me greatly and I think they also apply here. It still might be in the present moment that you met and dated that he liked you and wanted to explore his feelings with you. Sex is sometimes taken for granted as it is easy to do so but it can also be a great way to release emotions. This person could have thought he had more or would develop more but just didn’t do so in the end. No harm in that but feeling will get hurt in any case.

Oh, he had "feelings" for me. He was very "respectful" and seemed to like me, enjoy my personality somewhat. But he had insisted he was not looking to get married to anyone, and yet, he was. It was an outright lie. Of course, I am not, was not, looking to get married to a man at all. I am nesting with a woman, my long term partner, whom I would marry, if I was interested in marriage.

I was just a release valve for him, after all. A fuck buddy, or maybe someone with potential to be a casual gf until Ms Right came along. And so many people who don't understand poly (like this guy, who had done swinging) think that's all that polyamory is.