Wishfuldreamer
New member
Hi everyone. Thought I'd register and come say 'hi' having been lurking reading other threads for a month or so now, having come across the forum through reading everything i could about polyamory.
Where to start? I can't say I'm one of those people who ever thought of themselves as poly, or have always 'known' it about themselves...but I definitely have always been flirtatious and have had to 'control' myself. To an extent I found this frustrating, but also loved my (now ex...more on that in a minute) partner, so told myself that this was the trade off you make. Now, I'm not so sure about that, and am feeling pretty liberated.
So, to rewind. I was in a monogamous relationship for 13 years, but it was a slightly unconventional relationship in the sense that we lived together for years 2 and 3, and then apart while I moved to a succession of different cities in years 4-13. For me, and for him as well, i think, that always worked. We liked our independence and our own space. But i think that the distance also let us leave some of the issues in our relationship fester - particularly around effective communication and emotional communication and intimacy. Also some sexual frustration on my part around my kinks,which i generally just let go, but the issue surfaced a couple of times. The first time i even considered an open relationship was about 8 years ago, when a friend of mine started going to sex and kink clubs and invited me to join her. My ex (let's call him Fred) wasn't happy about the idea - and wasn't up to the communication of the issues, so I just let it drop.
More recently, things became very difficult between us for a lot of reasons, which I won't bore you with here. It wasn't really to do with the fact that the relationship was mono, but more to do with the way we communicated and the love and affection that was by this time desperately missing. I am ashamed of myself for this, but I cheated with a friend (let's call him Matthew), but the experience was like someone hit me over the head with a frying pan in terms of realising how unhappy i was. Reading back over my diary in the run-up to May, you can see that it's there, but i was hiding from it.
Matthew went away for two months, and we agreed no contact, while i tried to repair things with Fred. 13 years is a long time. Sadly, all attempts to talk to Fred about how unhappy I felt were shut down - he is terrified of confrontation and any suggestion of discussion was met with asking me why i was trying to wreck our relationship. I didn't tell him about Matthew - we had had a 'if you fuck up, but don't want to leave me, don't tell me because i can forgive but not forget' policy in place for years. This had already been tested once, a few years ago when I was sure he had had an affair with a co-worker (he says he didn't...but the fact that it didn't actually bother me at the time, when our relationship was still good, made me start questioning how i felt about monogamy). So i tried to refocus on my relationship, but felt that i was doing all the emotional heavy lifting and went to therapy. Where I realised that it just was never going to work...I wanted something he couldn't give me.
We ended things formally at the beginning of September...at which point he pleaded to go to therapy, to talk things through, anything. By which point it was too late for me. I'd already done a lot of emotional processing on my own, and knew the relationship was over for me.
I promised myself at that point, that I wouldn't engage in anything with Matthew (who is in an open relationship - his partner of 6 years is Masha), even though I was still very strongly attracted to him, because I felt like it would be 'leaving' Fred for him, and it made it not a mistake, but an affair. however, humans are weak sometimes, and about six weeks later in early october, we were the last ones left on a work night out, and went back to mine. We met again a couple of weeks later, to discuss whether we wanted to make it something more 'formal', rather than just hooking up every time we got smashed. Now, we have a sort of arrangement which is somewhere between a FWB and a relationship - it is more than just sex, but a resistance on getting to emotionally involved. I am ok with this thus far - I like him a lot, but I also think that he has some complications of his own around how he engages with his emotions, so I'm happy to keep things a bit at arms length, and resist labels at the moment.
In the meantime, I decided to actively explore the non-monogamy that had always interested, and dipped my toe into online dating. I went on a few dates, but really clicked with one guy (let's call him Robert). Robert and I have a much more open communication than with Matthew. With the latter, I'm able to be fairly open, but it takes some time - there feels like there's more unspoken there, because there's maybe more to lose, in the sense that we've been friends for a number of years (and we also work together...forgot to mention that) and it does feel like we're dancing around a number of 'truths' sometimes. With Robert, I can be completely open about how I feel. He is also poly - he has another partner (Felicity) that he's been seeing for a year (not a nesting partner...both of them identify as solo-poly). I like him a *lot*. We really click, the sex is amazing, but so is just hanging out. It feels like it got emotionally close quite quickly, but I feel ok about that. We see each other about once a week at the moment (we live in different cities around an hour apart).
So...that's my story. At the moment, I feel that I am in a good place. I haven't found that jealousy has been an issue - but I wonder if that's because both other partners were on the scene first - and I knew Masha well beforehand. I have two bits of nerves: the first is that I am only ok with all of this at the moment because I have not long come out of a long term mono relationship and this is effectively just me on the rebound and not looking for any real commitment. I worry that I will end up hurting Robert in particular, if i realise I can't cope with the poly aspect of it - if it is only 'ok' at the moment because I am 'single' and not looking for anything 'serious'.
My second worry is that I'm only ok with the existence of Felicity, I haven't met her and when Robert sees her, I'm fine with that, because it's sort of an 'out of sight out of mind' kind of thing. That my feeling of being fine - even happy that he gets to see her and have fun - is just me kidding myself. It doesn't feel like it, but maybe it is? What i think I will struggle more with, is when the new 'me' enters the picture - when he meets someone else who occupies his mind and excites me as much as I do at the moment. I think i will feel the pull of jealousy more then.
Anyway...that's me. I'm sure I'm making all kinds of mistakes...but there you go. Hello
Where to start? I can't say I'm one of those people who ever thought of themselves as poly, or have always 'known' it about themselves...but I definitely have always been flirtatious and have had to 'control' myself. To an extent I found this frustrating, but also loved my (now ex...more on that in a minute) partner, so told myself that this was the trade off you make. Now, I'm not so sure about that, and am feeling pretty liberated.
So, to rewind. I was in a monogamous relationship for 13 years, but it was a slightly unconventional relationship in the sense that we lived together for years 2 and 3, and then apart while I moved to a succession of different cities in years 4-13. For me, and for him as well, i think, that always worked. We liked our independence and our own space. But i think that the distance also let us leave some of the issues in our relationship fester - particularly around effective communication and emotional communication and intimacy. Also some sexual frustration on my part around my kinks,which i generally just let go, but the issue surfaced a couple of times. The first time i even considered an open relationship was about 8 years ago, when a friend of mine started going to sex and kink clubs and invited me to join her. My ex (let's call him Fred) wasn't happy about the idea - and wasn't up to the communication of the issues, so I just let it drop.
More recently, things became very difficult between us for a lot of reasons, which I won't bore you with here. It wasn't really to do with the fact that the relationship was mono, but more to do with the way we communicated and the love and affection that was by this time desperately missing. I am ashamed of myself for this, but I cheated with a friend (let's call him Matthew), but the experience was like someone hit me over the head with a frying pan in terms of realising how unhappy i was. Reading back over my diary in the run-up to May, you can see that it's there, but i was hiding from it.
Matthew went away for two months, and we agreed no contact, while i tried to repair things with Fred. 13 years is a long time. Sadly, all attempts to talk to Fred about how unhappy I felt were shut down - he is terrified of confrontation and any suggestion of discussion was met with asking me why i was trying to wreck our relationship. I didn't tell him about Matthew - we had had a 'if you fuck up, but don't want to leave me, don't tell me because i can forgive but not forget' policy in place for years. This had already been tested once, a few years ago when I was sure he had had an affair with a co-worker (he says he didn't...but the fact that it didn't actually bother me at the time, when our relationship was still good, made me start questioning how i felt about monogamy). So i tried to refocus on my relationship, but felt that i was doing all the emotional heavy lifting and went to therapy. Where I realised that it just was never going to work...I wanted something he couldn't give me.
We ended things formally at the beginning of September...at which point he pleaded to go to therapy, to talk things through, anything. By which point it was too late for me. I'd already done a lot of emotional processing on my own, and knew the relationship was over for me.
I promised myself at that point, that I wouldn't engage in anything with Matthew (who is in an open relationship - his partner of 6 years is Masha), even though I was still very strongly attracted to him, because I felt like it would be 'leaving' Fred for him, and it made it not a mistake, but an affair. however, humans are weak sometimes, and about six weeks later in early october, we were the last ones left on a work night out, and went back to mine. We met again a couple of weeks later, to discuss whether we wanted to make it something more 'formal', rather than just hooking up every time we got smashed. Now, we have a sort of arrangement which is somewhere between a FWB and a relationship - it is more than just sex, but a resistance on getting to emotionally involved. I am ok with this thus far - I like him a lot, but I also think that he has some complications of his own around how he engages with his emotions, so I'm happy to keep things a bit at arms length, and resist labels at the moment.
In the meantime, I decided to actively explore the non-monogamy that had always interested, and dipped my toe into online dating. I went on a few dates, but really clicked with one guy (let's call him Robert). Robert and I have a much more open communication than with Matthew. With the latter, I'm able to be fairly open, but it takes some time - there feels like there's more unspoken there, because there's maybe more to lose, in the sense that we've been friends for a number of years (and we also work together...forgot to mention that) and it does feel like we're dancing around a number of 'truths' sometimes. With Robert, I can be completely open about how I feel. He is also poly - he has another partner (Felicity) that he's been seeing for a year (not a nesting partner...both of them identify as solo-poly). I like him a *lot*. We really click, the sex is amazing, but so is just hanging out. It feels like it got emotionally close quite quickly, but I feel ok about that. We see each other about once a week at the moment (we live in different cities around an hour apart).
So...that's my story. At the moment, I feel that I am in a good place. I haven't found that jealousy has been an issue - but I wonder if that's because both other partners were on the scene first - and I knew Masha well beforehand. I have two bits of nerves: the first is that I am only ok with all of this at the moment because I have not long come out of a long term mono relationship and this is effectively just me on the rebound and not looking for any real commitment. I worry that I will end up hurting Robert in particular, if i realise I can't cope with the poly aspect of it - if it is only 'ok' at the moment because I am 'single' and not looking for anything 'serious'.
My second worry is that I'm only ok with the existence of Felicity, I haven't met her and when Robert sees her, I'm fine with that, because it's sort of an 'out of sight out of mind' kind of thing. That my feeling of being fine - even happy that he gets to see her and have fun - is just me kidding myself. It doesn't feel like it, but maybe it is? What i think I will struggle more with, is when the new 'me' enters the picture - when he meets someone else who occupies his mind and excites me as much as I do at the moment. I think i will feel the pull of jealousy more then.
Anyway...that's me. I'm sure I'm making all kinds of mistakes...but there you go. Hello
