Hi,
It looks great here. I just want to introduce myself and tell a bit about my situation and the life path that led me here. Sorry for the wall of text, I often have trouble being concise.
I'm a man, 32. I was a rather shy and nerdy guy for a long time (and I suppose I still am, at least for the nerdy part). I only start caring at all about relationships at 17, and I only started actually dating people and being in relationships in my 20s.
I discovered what polyamory is as a consequence of fighting jealousy. At some point I had a few experiences of rejection and breakups made me feel intensely jealous, but I sort of grew tired of all that emotional garbage and thought over it. Intellectually, I understood that other people just have every right to leave or to reject me and to do what they wanted with their life. Although feeling pain at the breakup or rejection was normal, feeling and acting on anger at other people was rather wrong. I didn't want to be that jealous guy; I actually wanted everyone to be happy and my jealousy just make that impossible. I therefore deliberately worked on conquering my jealousy, for months, and ultimately it just worked; I felt I was not jealous any more. I was not in any relationship at the time, but I felt good and at peace with other people I liked.
From that point, it was quite natural to think that if it was possible and desirable to successfully fight jealousy, there was no reason not to do so inside relationships too. It's about at that time that I found D. Easton & C. Liszt's book The Ethical Slut, which impressed me a lot at the time (I even translated it in French to share it with some friends who were less proficient in English.) I started hanging around with like-minded people; I didn't know anyone who would identify as poly but there were a few people in open relationships and also a few people from the swinger scene. More often than not I was myself alone, though, mostly because although I had healthy ideas about relationships (and tried to live by them), I still had rather poor relationship skills. (Probably I should also mention that I have Asperger's syndrome but wasn't diagnosed yet at the time, so I didn't really understood why my way to relate to other people was often off.) I didn't really understood that, but I sort of got that it was difficult for me to get into committed relationships at the time and I was at risk to hurt myself and others. I also decided to commit myself to being totally honest with anyone I would be in a relationship with.
Nonetheless, at 25 I met someone, and even though in the beginning our relationship was not very different from others I had lived, it grew into something else. I was honest about wanting to be in multiple relationships and probably not wanting to get involved in too committed relationship at the moment and it was all right, but eventually we simply got more and more attached and emotionally linked. I don't say that as a negative thing by itself, she is a wonderful, loving and creative person and I am proud and happy to care for her. But simply at the time I was not aware that their could be something like impossible to meet emotional needs or emotionally dependent people, and I sort of fell into it. It's not that my girlfriend is some vile manipulator, she had a really rhough childhood and teenage years (violent and emotionally abusive family, depression, etc.) and was very dependent and in need of help. Basically she was in trouble, I could help her up to a point (and she helped me about other things too, about social communication and getting better at relationships, both romantic and friendly) but I was very unable to protect myself from those troubles, and it gradually influenced our relationship and ended up defining it.
We helped each other, supported each other, put up with each other, cared for each other, but there was little time and energy left for living positive things and enjoying ourselves. The relationship devoured us. We did not change our mind about relationships and jealousy, but the relationship we were living took so much room in our life that it felt lightyears away from our reality: one relationship already felt more than complicated and demanding enough. We shared some really great things at some time, but too often the way we lived the relationship was destructive. I broke my promise to myself of always being honest, lying to justify taking some time off the relationship. I often felt depressed and went through very dark times. She did too, and additionally despised herself because she (wrongly) thought my issues were her fault. I did not dare challenge the relationship because I was absolutely scared that toppling the emotional house of cards we had build could shatter her, and to a lesser extent myself. Besides, we did spent some good times too and shared a lot of trust, fondness and love when we were not fighting ghosts and demons, and I never gave up on fixing the relationship.
Over the last years we both did considerable personal work (on our own and with therapists) on both our personal issues and our relationship, and in the last year things started to wind down a bit. However, we were still stuck in the destructive patterns we had spent years building and did not manage to get out of them. I couldn't take it any more, I felt we were both stuck being people we didn't want to be, and for the first time in years I was condifdent in my and her ability to function as independent persons. So one month ago, I decided to leave and tried to find myself again. I kept all communication channels open, I got better, she got better, and she actually thanked me for breaking the circle of abuse we had both put ourselves in.
We love each other. We want to rebuild a relationship in a way that is respectful of each other and is based on what we expect of a relationship and not on emotional dependance and fear. We agreed to give each other time to find out what we want and reclaim ourselves from that monster we had created. And when I thought about reclaiming myself, polyamory quite rapidly popped up again in my mind. Not as a way to somehow fix my relationship (and there is certainly nobody else I want to be in a relationship with right now), but as something I identify with.
I feel I had the right idea 7 years ago (even if I was quite naive and had no clue how to make it work), and got carried away in something that does not match me. Any relationship (romantic/sexual or not) I build should leave some room for me and for other relationships (romantic/sexual or not) I potentially want to build. If I redefine the relationship, I want it to be on this basis. I felt great when I was thinking that way. I felt not so great when it stopped being relevant. I want to live in that way again. And, well, here I am. Wether or not I manage to build a polyamorous relationship with the person I have been in a relationship with during 7 years is another issue, one we will discuss together. But I feel quite sure about that now.
Thanks if you read all that
and nice to meet you !
It looks great here. I just want to introduce myself and tell a bit about my situation and the life path that led me here. Sorry for the wall of text, I often have trouble being concise.
I'm a man, 32. I was a rather shy and nerdy guy for a long time (and I suppose I still am, at least for the nerdy part). I only start caring at all about relationships at 17, and I only started actually dating people and being in relationships in my 20s.
I discovered what polyamory is as a consequence of fighting jealousy. At some point I had a few experiences of rejection and breakups made me feel intensely jealous, but I sort of grew tired of all that emotional garbage and thought over it. Intellectually, I understood that other people just have every right to leave or to reject me and to do what they wanted with their life. Although feeling pain at the breakup or rejection was normal, feeling and acting on anger at other people was rather wrong. I didn't want to be that jealous guy; I actually wanted everyone to be happy and my jealousy just make that impossible. I therefore deliberately worked on conquering my jealousy, for months, and ultimately it just worked; I felt I was not jealous any more. I was not in any relationship at the time, but I felt good and at peace with other people I liked.
From that point, it was quite natural to think that if it was possible and desirable to successfully fight jealousy, there was no reason not to do so inside relationships too. It's about at that time that I found D. Easton & C. Liszt's book The Ethical Slut, which impressed me a lot at the time (I even translated it in French to share it with some friends who were less proficient in English.) I started hanging around with like-minded people; I didn't know anyone who would identify as poly but there were a few people in open relationships and also a few people from the swinger scene. More often than not I was myself alone, though, mostly because although I had healthy ideas about relationships (and tried to live by them), I still had rather poor relationship skills. (Probably I should also mention that I have Asperger's syndrome but wasn't diagnosed yet at the time, so I didn't really understood why my way to relate to other people was often off.) I didn't really understood that, but I sort of got that it was difficult for me to get into committed relationships at the time and I was at risk to hurt myself and others. I also decided to commit myself to being totally honest with anyone I would be in a relationship with.
Nonetheless, at 25 I met someone, and even though in the beginning our relationship was not very different from others I had lived, it grew into something else. I was honest about wanting to be in multiple relationships and probably not wanting to get involved in too committed relationship at the moment and it was all right, but eventually we simply got more and more attached and emotionally linked. I don't say that as a negative thing by itself, she is a wonderful, loving and creative person and I am proud and happy to care for her. But simply at the time I was not aware that their could be something like impossible to meet emotional needs or emotionally dependent people, and I sort of fell into it. It's not that my girlfriend is some vile manipulator, she had a really rhough childhood and teenage years (violent and emotionally abusive family, depression, etc.) and was very dependent and in need of help. Basically she was in trouble, I could help her up to a point (and she helped me about other things too, about social communication and getting better at relationships, both romantic and friendly) but I was very unable to protect myself from those troubles, and it gradually influenced our relationship and ended up defining it.
We helped each other, supported each other, put up with each other, cared for each other, but there was little time and energy left for living positive things and enjoying ourselves. The relationship devoured us. We did not change our mind about relationships and jealousy, but the relationship we were living took so much room in our life that it felt lightyears away from our reality: one relationship already felt more than complicated and demanding enough. We shared some really great things at some time, but too often the way we lived the relationship was destructive. I broke my promise to myself of always being honest, lying to justify taking some time off the relationship. I often felt depressed and went through very dark times. She did too, and additionally despised herself because she (wrongly) thought my issues were her fault. I did not dare challenge the relationship because I was absolutely scared that toppling the emotional house of cards we had build could shatter her, and to a lesser extent myself. Besides, we did spent some good times too and shared a lot of trust, fondness and love when we were not fighting ghosts and demons, and I never gave up on fixing the relationship.
Over the last years we both did considerable personal work (on our own and with therapists) on both our personal issues and our relationship, and in the last year things started to wind down a bit. However, we were still stuck in the destructive patterns we had spent years building and did not manage to get out of them. I couldn't take it any more, I felt we were both stuck being people we didn't want to be, and for the first time in years I was condifdent in my and her ability to function as independent persons. So one month ago, I decided to leave and tried to find myself again. I kept all communication channels open, I got better, she got better, and she actually thanked me for breaking the circle of abuse we had both put ourselves in.
We love each other. We want to rebuild a relationship in a way that is respectful of each other and is based on what we expect of a relationship and not on emotional dependance and fear. We agreed to give each other time to find out what we want and reclaim ourselves from that monster we had created. And when I thought about reclaiming myself, polyamory quite rapidly popped up again in my mind. Not as a way to somehow fix my relationship (and there is certainly nobody else I want to be in a relationship with right now), but as something I identify with.
I feel I had the right idea 7 years ago (even if I was quite naive and had no clue how to make it work), and got carried away in something that does not match me. Any relationship (romantic/sexual or not) I build should leave some room for me and for other relationships (romantic/sexual or not) I potentially want to build. If I redefine the relationship, I want it to be on this basis. I felt great when I was thinking that way. I felt not so great when it stopped being relevant. I want to live in that way again. And, well, here I am. Wether or not I manage to build a polyamorous relationship with the person I have been in a relationship with during 7 years is another issue, one we will discuss together. But I feel quite sure about that now.
Thanks if you read all that
and nice to meet you !
