milkthistle
New member
Hi all. I'm a 29 yr old woman on the east coast. I wish I knew about this forum before, it would have been a helpful tool and a comfort in all the open relationship negotiations I've gone through with my boyfriend. It'll be of help from now on!
My story is - my boyfriend and I opened up our relationship a few years ago, at my request. I started dating around, having casual hook-ups here and there and generally enjoying the openness. Enter another guy who started out as a casual hook up and slowly turned into something more. Even though our initial assumption was that our outside relationships would never last more than a few months, I am more of a go-with-the-flow kind of person and thought if there's not a good reason to cut something off, we shouldn't.
This outside relationship did go on for longer than a few months and though the boyfriend and I were constantly discussing our terms and expanding our boundaries, the relationship with the other person was fairly free of any emotional talk or confrontation. He didn't want to know about my boyfriend so I didn't want to talk about it. And maybe that's my error, I should have pushed the issue and reiterated that there was another person in the picture to keep our emotions in check. At a certain point, I realized that our feelings for each other might be stronger than we were letting on and polyamory was something I considered but I knew in my gut that he would not be willing to go that route, and I don't know if that would work out with the boyfriend either.
I was right because when it came to light that things were pretty serious with the boyfriend, he bolted. This was after almost a year of dating. I had seriously been convinced that he knew the deal and was okay with it but didn't want to know details but maybe I was convincing myself of that for my convenience? When things went to shit was the first time we ever expressed our true feelings for each other, and it was absolutely heartbreaking. I am heartbroken. He became one of my best friends and in all that time, I never once tired of spending time with him. I'll admit that even though I'm not letting on that this is the case, it has made me second guess my feelings for my boyfriend. But my boyfriend is wonderful and has been so understanding throughout all of this. But the feelings have been changing, the excitement has waned as it does but the excitement about that other person never faded.
This is probably too much for an introduction! I'll leave it at that but if anyone has any insight into what to do or if anyon'es been through a similar situation, I'd love to hear about it.
My story is - my boyfriend and I opened up our relationship a few years ago, at my request. I started dating around, having casual hook-ups here and there and generally enjoying the openness. Enter another guy who started out as a casual hook up and slowly turned into something more. Even though our initial assumption was that our outside relationships would never last more than a few months, I am more of a go-with-the-flow kind of person and thought if there's not a good reason to cut something off, we shouldn't.
This outside relationship did go on for longer than a few months and though the boyfriend and I were constantly discussing our terms and expanding our boundaries, the relationship with the other person was fairly free of any emotional talk or confrontation. He didn't want to know about my boyfriend so I didn't want to talk about it. And maybe that's my error, I should have pushed the issue and reiterated that there was another person in the picture to keep our emotions in check. At a certain point, I realized that our feelings for each other might be stronger than we were letting on and polyamory was something I considered but I knew in my gut that he would not be willing to go that route, and I don't know if that would work out with the boyfriend either.
I was right because when it came to light that things were pretty serious with the boyfriend, he bolted. This was after almost a year of dating. I had seriously been convinced that he knew the deal and was okay with it but didn't want to know details but maybe I was convincing myself of that for my convenience? When things went to shit was the first time we ever expressed our true feelings for each other, and it was absolutely heartbreaking. I am heartbroken. He became one of my best friends and in all that time, I never once tired of spending time with him. I'll admit that even though I'm not letting on that this is the case, it has made me second guess my feelings for my boyfriend. But my boyfriend is wonderful and has been so understanding throughout all of this. But the feelings have been changing, the excitement has waned as it does but the excitement about that other person never faded.
This is probably too much for an introduction! I'll leave it at that but if anyone has any insight into what to do or if anyon'es been through a similar situation, I'd love to hear about it.
