HMA/Violet's ongoing poly experience

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OK, so between our intro posts and a few scattered posts around the site, a lot of what we have going on is here - but it's fragmented and we still get questions or people who thought we had something else or whatnot. So I'll put something in here and people can check it if they want to, lol.

Me - 34 year old straight guy. Norman Rockwell upbringing with a VERY large family. High functioning autistic who was perfectly happy in his little world until he made the basketball team (still don't know why I even tried out) in high school and had to learn to be social and "popular" - under threat of beatings from the jocks that had to be seen with me, lol. Anyway, learned to fake my way through life as a "normal" person, and I'm damned good at it now. Married a great girl at 24, went through some crap that split us up but did get a wonderful son out of it, now 5. Previous to this, I'd been a "serial monogamist" who couldn't figure out why his relationships always went bad, and why when I fell in love so completely and so hard I never felt fulfilled. Had my heart stomped on a few times to boot, became a "mostly" ethical slut for a while in there, then back to serial monogamy - had a steady girl before my wife and I were done splitting up, and caught a lot of flack for it. 4 1/2 years into that one, things were very rocky - see earlier statement - I loved this girl with all my heart but she never trusted me because of my "wandering eye", and we fought a LOT as a result. Enter Violet. I lilke strip clubs, always have - some people don't dig them, whatever - they're about teh same money as other clubs in a night in this town, the girls are already naked, and they at least acknowledge that they're after your money, lol. Anyway, this lovely dancer caught my eye, and long story short, she broke the cardinal rule about dating customers and we've been together for over 10 months now (breif period of us not dating as my previous relationship crashed and burned - so the serial behavior continues). Very early on, we talked a lot about how our views on relationships were very different from the norm. Specifically, not only was she okay with me seeing and even fucking other women, she encouraged it! As a result, I was completely faithful to her, lol. Let it suffice to say that our relationship, though odd and bearing a huge age gap, is the best either of us has ever had by a very, very wide margin - and the key since day 1 has been communication and brutal honesty. Moving on...

Violet - 20 year old bi girl. I'll not go into too much detail about either young lady as they will decide what to or not to post about themselves, but the basics should be okay... Adopted daughter brought up in a crazily dysfunctional family. Had a very bad thing happen to her at age 11 that left her deciding at a very young age that she was either going to hate men and all things sexual all her life, or look for a positive experience to offset what happened to her because she realized that other people liked this sex thing, so there must be something cool about it. The pendulum swung a bit far, and she basically became a raging slut for her teenage years. Don't freak out, she will take no offense whatsoever to that statement I promise, lol. Figured out before the bad thing that she liked girls, so this slut phase included both women and men, though she started identifying more and more as a lesbian. Married at 16 to a guy she never even slept with - I'll let her explain that one, divorced when he caught her fucking his best friend, who turned into a very bad long term relationship the death throes of which she was in when she met me. Yup - all the wrong signs and every red flag in the book for our start, lol. Controlling, manipulative men had been most of her experience, and loving but very difficult relationships with women - and she'd never been with a guy that let her date girls when they were together, either (something I have never understood, but I guess that's my natural poly-ness showing). We met, we were cautious about teh rebound factor, we;re still togther and surreally happy. Which brings us to...

Anne - 21 year old somewhat bi-curious girl. Anne comes from a very conservative background. Cheerleader type. Had a negative experience with an older guy at 16 that she got over but not without a few hangups. I met Anne through the ex I broke up with shortly after meeting Violet. They were very good friends from work, and when that girl left, she and I stayed - loosely - in touch. She'd dated one of my best friends briefly (who started dating my ex a few months after the breakup, hows that for Jerry Springer material?) and we've always got along, though we didn't know each other really well. She's always admitted after a couple of drinks that she liked girls, admitted that she liked them when sober but was very uncomfortable with that fact, and had never been with a girl or even kissed one. Came out of a long term relationship with a a guy that started out great, but got very controlling and things were pretty bad at the end. This left her a bit guarded and very sexually repressed. Started a long distance relationship with a guy she'd known before, our triad story starts with her talking to me over coffee and the occasional lunch about that relationship as it went through various phases.

So - those are the members of our group. Next, The Relationship story, and how sometimes unicorn hunting sometimes has very unexpected results!
 
So - as previously mentioned, Violet and I started out in a very different kind of relationship from what either of us had known before; it seemed too good to be true. Everything about me that drove my exes nuts, she either didn't mind or thought was cute; everything her exes hated about her I had no issues with or thought was sweet. On top of that, we had this weird tendency to be honest with each other no matter what; almost like an ongoing dare to tell the other some little thing that they couldn't handle - which always ended up with sticky sweet moments when we realized that time and again, these things weren't mountains at all, barely rated as molehills to the other.

One of these things involved other people outside of - or involved in - a relationship. It took her almost as long to wrap her head around the fact that I didn't care if she saw women on the side - seriously or not - as it took me to realize she felt the same way. But about women, not guys (I am, as I said before, straight). This was hard for me because

1 - I didn't think I would be as cool about her being with another man as she was about me being with another woman, and I HATE hypocrisy, and
2 - related to 1, I couldn't see how this wouldn't breed jealousy.

Regardless, I finally decided dhe meant it - but I was so darned in love with her that I just didn't take her up on it much. Once, to be specific, and I wasn't even looking, the girl was after a casual encounter with me, lol. There was also the frightening tendency for her to be completely understanding for the first couple of months that my recent ex and I still talked about patching things up, and couldn't keep our hands off each other when we met up. Yes, Violet is the most understanding woman on earth, and I was happy as a clam to be with only her forever (secure in the knowledge that I could have the occasional outside foray without upsetting things at home). But we both talked all the time about how great it would be to find a real girlfriend, one who by some freak of chance would fall in love with both of us. We didn't call "her" a Unicorn at the time, but damn is that a fitting term, lol.

A few attempts were made. Other girls at the club knew she was bi and that her guy was okay with it, and some fooling around was had by her. When one seemed like more than a fuck buddy, she would tell them about her odd policy of letting her guy have girls too. Being a not unattractive man, a few showed interest in me, but didn't go anywhere. Until Lana.

I'll try to keep the Lana part brief, because although she's an important part of our lives, she's tertiary to this story. Lana is straight, which drives Violet nuts 'cuz she's madly in love with and VERY attracted to her. Violet brought Lana around because she wanted Lana and I to hook up since she couldn't get any there, lol. We all got along famously, but it just never happened between her and me, for reasons that we won't know until judgment day I'm sure. All the chemistry is there, it just wasn't meant to be. But a strong friendship was forged between the three of us, and when we found out about the horrible situation she was in with her abusive mother and really bad family situation, we moved her into our spare room post haste. There she remains, and we're somewhat sure she'll still be living with us as our "girlfriend without benefits" until we're all old and gray.

Having Lana around changed the dynamic of our "hunt"; because we loved her so much we kind of stopped looking, but we were frustrated because we really wanted somebody as intimate physically as emotionally and mentally. Yet we got an odd satisfaction having Lana around, so the motivation to keep looking just wasn't there.

Enter Anne. We never did find our Unicorn - she wandered into our camp of her own accord, looked at us and said "hey - what's up? Mind if I stay?" LOL!

Anne called me and wanted to meet, we hadn't seen each other face to face in almost a year. We had a great afternoon hanging out, which led to us becoming much closer friends. After a few more lunch dates and a lot of conversation about our respective relationships, she met Violet and Lana, and fit right in to our little cadre. Then she and I started going out on "not dates" as we called them - I was safe to go out with because I was just a friend and not her type, but she needed a companion because her "real" BF was 600 miles away.

And then one night it all hit the fan. We were on our way back from a "not date" and out of nowhere she confessed that she liked me as quite a bit more than a friend. This took me completely off guard - almost as badly as figuring out really fast that I liked her too. There was some kissing. A little fooling around that didn't go very far. And then I dropped her off and went home, and told Violet what had happened. She thought it was great; she and Lana had been teasing me for days about Anne liking me and that I was blind (I a when it comes to these things, another story there). And Violet liked Anne a lot, and had been teasing her for weeks that she was going to get her drunk and make her decide if she liked girls or not, lol.

Next day, anticipating some awkwardness about last night, Anne came over. Instead of being akward, she told Violet how greatful she was that she wasn't angry at her, and confessed to a little crush on her too.

And things went really, really fast after that.
 
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So here we are. A month into this thing, there's a lot going on. There have been some very tough times already, but we've got through them - and been better off for it every time. As it stands, 24 hours ago was the greatest night in our breif history - a big fight between Violet and I resulting in newfound understanding, followed by Anne and Violet having a date that resulted in some VERY intense conversation and "coming clean" about feelings and issues that resulted in - you guessed it, newfound understanding and love, followed by me meeting up with them at the end of the night to pick Violet up, and us not leaving until dawn - fill in the details yourself, I won't - but it was an amazing night for all of us, physically, emotionally, and mentally, and our triad is much stronger than ever and looking forward to the future.

There are still challenges we see. Violets family is a nonissue. Mine and Anne's - well, not so much a nonissue, lol. Cross that bridge when we get to it.

Violet and I have been engaged for months. There are equality concerns about how this should go forward, as we do not consider Anne a "third". So far Anne has said she would feel aweful if we broke it off on her accountm, and Vilet has decided she's fine breaking it off until we figure out how to go about the legal union aspect of things down the road. I'll let them sort it out, lol.

Anne has not officially broken up with her long distance guy, and still has feelings for him. Violet and I both have jealousy issues there, though not the way we thought we would. I a oddly okay with Anne having another male love interest, moreso than I thought I would be. Not HAPPY about it mind you, but not as bothered as I would think. It's an honesty thing - he has no idea about us yet. He knows she's fooled around with Violet a little, and isn't concerned; he has NO idea at all about me, and she doesn't know how to break it to him. She says she wants to break up with him but not lose his friendship; we're worried about the way she's going about it. She's going to see him this coming weekend; we'll see how it pans out.

There are some uncomfortable weirdnesses with Lana. She loves Anne to death, and says she's happy for us - she also acts as though she's very jealous, though she denies it. This makes for some new akwardness around the house, but it's not bad and we do talk about it and are working through it.

Living arrangements in the long term are up in the air. Violet and I live together in a nice 2 bedroom condo with Lana in the spare room, Anne has her 1 bedroom apartment. Her lease is up in January, ours in March. We would all like to move in together, but exactly how and where remains to be seen. Anne has two dogs, Violet two cats, and though I adore all 4 animals, I frankly don't like having that many 4 legged friends around the house, lol. Again - a bridge to be crossed when we reach it.

So there it is. Spelled out in horrible length - sorry about that. Never have to explain anything again, just the occasional update, lol.
 
Update - last night was rough, and into today - but in a good way.

After this weekend in SF with Mike, Anne came back happy as hell to see us and upset about how he acted all weekend. This triggered a long talk yesterday about that situation. After that talk, Violet and I felt good that Anne was getting it straight in her head and making her decision on how to handle it, be it stay with him but be honest, or leave us, or leave him. We thought that she'd think it over and decide what to do over teh next couple weeks and we could look forward to a resolution that would take that load off her back soon.

Well, we always say that once she makes up her mind, she makes up her mind...

We got a call from a bawling crying Anne t 1:30 this morning. Mike called, and she broke up with him, just like that. Didn't dump it on him about me (he kows about Violet), but told him that regardless of what else was going on, she knew that they weren't going to make it and that if they didn't end it now, it would end worse later. Mike did not take this well. She stuck to her guns. And called us crying afterwards. We've been taking turns leaving work on extended lunches to console her and make sure she gets to class and work okay as she's quite a mess about it, and we'll be staying over there tonight at her timid request.

So - it's a good thing, but we're going to be helping a very sad Anne for a while now. Hopefully Mike gets his around things and they can salvage the freindship they had before.
 
Missed a few updates, some were good, some were bad.

Violet and I no longer have a triad.

Anne is a manipulative, lying bitch.

And that's all I have to say about that.
 
(((((hugs))))))))
 
Sorry to hear you guys are no more... I'm sure right about now NightDragon feels about the same way about me, as you feel about Anne... not totally sure though, guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens next. :(
 
I figured I'd pop in here and give a little more detail. I don't know how much HMA is going to be around.

TO make a very long story short, Anne came to us a few days ago and said that she felt a need to "pull back" and "take things slower". Upon further conversation, I got it out of her that she'd broken down and started talking to Mike again. He manipulated her, told her what she wanted to hear, and got her to get back together with him.

When she was back home this past week, she cheated on us with another man - who has a girlfriend. She then cheated on us with Mike when she saw him this weekend. She came clean to Mike about everything, and he decided to brush it off, tell her what she wanted to hear, etc. She lied to him too - she told him that she was only using HMA and I to "put some spice" back in their relationship.

I spent several hours there last night, to no avail. She told HMA she only got involved in the triad in hopes she and HMA would build something strong enough to get me out of the picture, and admitted the reason she never had a problem "sending him home to me" was because once she felt like she'd gotten what she needed from him, she didn't want him around anymore and could send him home to me. And a whole lot of other amazingly hurtful, awful things. She lied to us, manipulated us to get what she wanted, and when she figured she was done - that was that.

She knows what she's going back to with Mike. She admitted she doesn't think it's going to work. She knows she'll be another statistic in an "on again, off again" relationship. But it doesn't matter to her. HMA is far more hurt than I am. His confidence is killed, it's really bad. And problems got created in our relationship for nothing.

I don't know that we'll try this again. I'd be willing, as it stands - he's not. I don't blame him.

Thanks for being there for us, everyone. Hope you have better luck than this.
 
I am sorry about that Violet, especially after HMA told you ON THIS FORUM IN PUBLIC that Anne really loves you (in that thread you started where you deleted the original post).

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that we were all wondering why Anne was curiously absent from this forum. Now I guess we know part of the reason why.

I was talking about threesomes with my husband yesterday, and I have reaffirmed that even if we were to both end up seeing the same person, it would have to be three separate relationships with two people each, not this "triad" stuff. But the fact is, the possibility of a triad is nowhere on our radar at all. I was just coming up with a hypothetical scenario.

If I were you, I'd just look for a girlfriend for myself. Hell, I'd even ask you out if we lived near each other.
 
It's a really fucked up situation. She was really good at the manipulation. I'm trying really hard not to justify my fears because of how this ended up. It's hard.

I'll probably look for a girl sooner or later. I need time to heal first, and HMA and I need time to work on our relationship. Thanks for all your support.
 
Sorry Violet, hope you guys get over her soon and keep your distance. It's so hard to stay away sometimes. Anne knows that apperently. Trust in Karma.
 
Thanks for the fill in. You guys certainly got put through a lot by the whole experience, but it does sound like your relationship is going to survive this and be stronger for it, and that's a good thing.

Hugs to you and to HMA...hoping he recovers from this well, and he's lucky to have you there.
 
HMA / Violet,

We feel your pain. Our own breakup was about 3 weeks ago, before we started visiting here regularly.

Let us know if you wanna talk.

Ben and Bex
 
HMA / Violet,

We feel your pain. Our own breakup was about 3 weeks ago, before we started visiting here regularly.

Let us know if you wanna talk.

Ben and Bex

Much appreciated. This is the first time either of us has ever been through anything like this. I'm not sure if I speak for HMA or not, I think I do ... we're both just so lost and unsure right now. It's really hard.
 
Violet,
Our first "failure" was in 2002. We stopped looking for nearly 5 years, it was so bad. Then we started looking again, and found someone in July of 2008. We went through an on-again/off-again period through the end of the year, then she had some family/crazy issues and we backed off. As of April 2009, she was pretty much out of the picture, but kept coming back into the picture every month or so -- even though she was with another guy by then. (And this other guy is a really bad apple.)

In August, she started things back up with us--telling us that she was putting her relationship with him on a back burner. Bottom line, we discovered that she was actively seeing him and lying to us about it. When Ben confronted her, she confessed to the duplicity and lies, then tried to patch it back up. Ben let her back in, but within two days, she was already lying to us again and Ben ended it.

That was about 3 weeks ago. Ben is still torn up about it--yet relieved at the same time.

Again, the issue for us is the lying and the duplicity--although her choice in another partner really showcased her lack of character (the guy is a real sleaze-bag).

Didn't mean to take over your thread, but wanted you to know that we really do feel your pain. :)
 
Violet,
Our first "failure" was in 2002. We stopped looking for nearly 5 years, it was so bad. Then we started looking again, and found someone in July of 2008. We went through an on-again/off-again period through the end of the year, then she had some family/crazy issues and we backed off. As of April 2009, she was pretty much out of the picture, but kept coming back into the picture every month or so -- even though she was with another guy by then. (And this other guy is a really bad apple.)

In August, she started things back up with us--telling us that she was putting her relationship with him on a back burner. Bottom line, we discovered that she was actively seeing him and lying to us about it. When Ben confronted her, she confessed to the duplicity and lies, then tried to patch it back up. Ben let her back in, but within two days, she was already lying to us again and Ben ended it.

That was about 3 weeks ago. Ben is still torn up about it--yet relieved at the same time.

Again, the issue for us is the lying and the duplicity--although her choice in another partner really showcased her lack of character (the guy is a real sleaze-bag).

Didn't mean to take over your thread, but wanted you to know that we really do feel your pain. :)

No, no! That's what this thread is here for. Sharing experiences and helping one another, yeah? The "duplicity and lies" certainly sounds familiar. It's really so painful - but I know it will heal with time. I'd be glad to talk to you guys more - misery likes company. :eek: It's amazingly heartening to hear that people have gotten through this before. I know, I know - "This too shall pass." But, it certainly doesn't feel like it right now.
 
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We live in the state of misery ("Missouri") and there's a town not far away called "despair" ("Des Peres"). :)

We just had another long talk about the our situation and both agreed that this was the best thing that could've happened for us, even if it is painful right now.

Time will heal. *sigh* (We keep saying that to ourselves, too.)
 
Wow - a lot can change in a few hours.

We are stil hurting. Things are not perfect. But they are better.

I have been struggling all day with feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, failure - all kind of things. It's been killing me because I am literally the most self-aware and objective person I know or that 2 therapists I was dragged into seeing over the years say they've ever seen. No joke - one of them said I should be helping him with other clients instead of seeking treatment. It's a huge deal for me, and I have spent years at it.

And somehow this thing with Anne tore it all down in 48 hours. There have been slips before; tears in the fabric. But nothing has brought the ceiling in to this degree.

Sparing you all the actuals of the conversation, I had a breakthrough while talking to Violet an hour or two ago. I was able to see Anne's POV from a whole different perspective - one that I'm embarrassed to acknowledge I had missed before, because it's ne I frequently direct others to see, one that I usually filter everything through before anything else. In my anger and hurt I had missed it, and not realized that I had missed it.

I put her actions and stated feelings through the most basic filter I have - the hypocrisy according to my own life actions and experiences filter. And in literally minutes, 90% of my anger and resentment for Anne melted away, along with most of my insecurity, fear, and feelings of inadequacy. I am still hurt, but it's a passing thing, and I find it is a very simple thing indeed to forgive her.

And almost instantly, that allowed me to get my mind and heart back on track, and to start fixing Violet and I, which also became far less daunting.

I hope I can convince Anne to give me a few minutes soon, as I would like to share this with her, nd let her know that she is forgiven, and that whatever she may do from here on out, I will be her friend and one who accepts and loves her. And this will come in handy, becuase the jerk she ditched us for will screw her over in short order, lol. I don't think that we'll want her back in a relationship way, but I can certainly still care for her and be the friend she needs. I think Violet is for the most part right there with me (although she has a little catty female spitefulness remaining, lol).

It feels so good to let all that negativity go. Maybe I will be ale to share in more detail the process and specifics so that others can take them or leave them as they see fit, but this is already long enough and am very, very tired right now. And I can't go to bed, because I need to try to help NightDragon, he needs people worse than anyone right now.
 
Don't knock catty spitefullness, sometimes it's the only thing that keeps us with dignity intact. Of course, it's not terribly productive in the long run but it is soo satisfying for the five seconds it takes to say something cruel.
 
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