Hey Poly friends! It's been a long time since I was last active here. Good to see that some of the regulars are still around.
So, for those of you who don't know (or don't remember), I was introduced to the world of poly in 2012. For the entire year of 2012, my wife and I tried various relationships. None of them succeeded, but definitely not for the lack of trying.
I came away from 2012 with the realization that I am poly at my core and it's not something I can choose to turn on or off. I can ignore the feelings but only for so long.
My wife, on the other hand, loves the idea of poly but is definitely not poly at her core. She has a hard time dealing with the jealousy and the loneliness. Which, those things are totally understandable. The problem is, she doesn't have any interest in trying and failing at relationships on the off-chance that she'll find one she is happy with. According to her, she'd need to find another me for that to be possible. I don't know why she'd want another me. I'm a pain in the ass. But that's a topic for another day.
She has given me permission to find someone to date. Her belief is that just because she's not poly doesn't mean that I shouldn't be who I am. She says it'll likely hurt but she won't stand in my way. She also says she has no idea how she'll react until it all happens so she can't promise me compersion.
She even used a lesson out of this site and said, "You need to worry about your buckets and let me worry about my buckets." I believe it was GalaGirl that first taught us about the buckets.
She also prefers that I date a male over a female (for reasons such as potential triad, she gets along with guys better, etc), which is fine because I could go either way and I'd honestly rather find someone who she would be less likely to have a problem with. I don't know if this is relevant but I'm just trying to provide as much background information as I can.
Anyway, for just under a year I stopped looking almost entirely. We have two kids and it's hard enough raising them and trying to support my family without also trying to look for people to go on dates with. I would randomly check in on fetlife, okcupid, and some other random spots but for the most part I either didn't find anyone of interest or when I tried talking to them they wouldn't respond or they wouldn't be a good fit.
During all of this time, we would broach the subject briefly and she would go back to the same thing, "I'm not standing in your way. You are. You refuse to look for other women while I'm not looking". She's right. I find it entirely unfair for her to be stuck at home with the kids while I'm out on a date, especially if that favor is never returned. There's very little that she enjoys doing outside the house so it would be difficult for me to repay her in other ways.
So here's where the problem comes in. I joined reddit several months ago and they have several poly communities. This past week, I went to r4r (which is just a relationship finder on reddit) and one of the top posts was about a girl who lived fairly close to me. Odd coincidence. I opened it up and our tastes about music and TV and video games were almost identical. So I thought, "Eh, why not?" and sent her a message with the intentions of just becoming friends since that was one of the things she listed as wanting.
After about a day of talking, she asked if I was single and I told her I was poly and married. She said, "yeah, I've spent a fair amount of time on the relationship sections of reddit and poly isn't a new subject to me" so we talked about it for a long time. She's not poly, I don't know if she ever would want to be, but she's definitely okay with me being poly and our friendship has started to blossom into something more. NRE has started to creep in and set up camp and I'm doing everything I can to resist the urges.
I've told my wife that this girl exists, told her how she plays a game that we've been interested in playing and that we could all play together, and I've told her that she lives nearby. My wife hasn't asked me a single time for any additional information. She just goes, "okay" and moves on.
If she would just ask a follow-up, this would be so much easier but I really don't know how to proceed. I was caught so off-guard by this woman's genuine interest in my poly status that I wasn't at all prepared for any talks with my wife.
In the past, my wife would often be upset because I would spend too much time talking to my "girlfriends". I would either ignore her for the texts or be constantly checking my phone, etc, etc. I've been extremely careful not to do that this time around and am keeping everything as under check as I can. But eventually, things are going to start heading in the direction where I will need to say to my wife, "Hey, I want to meet [cupcake] in person." I don't want it to be out of no where, but I just don't know how to bring the subject up without her feeling hurt.
Whew, that's a lot of stuff to read, sorry!
Here's the short version:
1. I've met a girl. My wife is aware that I am poly and is aware of this girl but is not aware that I have started to develop feelings. I didn't want to say anything until I was sure because I don't want to hurt my existing relationship or my children. Now that I'm sure, how do I go about bringing it up without hurting her?
2. How the hell do I keep a lid on these feelings of NRE? I love NRE, but it's such a pain in my ass.
So, for those of you who don't know (or don't remember), I was introduced to the world of poly in 2012. For the entire year of 2012, my wife and I tried various relationships. None of them succeeded, but definitely not for the lack of trying.
I came away from 2012 with the realization that I am poly at my core and it's not something I can choose to turn on or off. I can ignore the feelings but only for so long.
My wife, on the other hand, loves the idea of poly but is definitely not poly at her core. She has a hard time dealing with the jealousy and the loneliness. Which, those things are totally understandable. The problem is, she doesn't have any interest in trying and failing at relationships on the off-chance that she'll find one she is happy with. According to her, she'd need to find another me for that to be possible. I don't know why she'd want another me. I'm a pain in the ass. But that's a topic for another day.
She has given me permission to find someone to date. Her belief is that just because she's not poly doesn't mean that I shouldn't be who I am. She says it'll likely hurt but she won't stand in my way. She also says she has no idea how she'll react until it all happens so she can't promise me compersion.
She even used a lesson out of this site and said, "You need to worry about your buckets and let me worry about my buckets." I believe it was GalaGirl that first taught us about the buckets.
She also prefers that I date a male over a female (for reasons such as potential triad, she gets along with guys better, etc), which is fine because I could go either way and I'd honestly rather find someone who she would be less likely to have a problem with. I don't know if this is relevant but I'm just trying to provide as much background information as I can.
Anyway, for just under a year I stopped looking almost entirely. We have two kids and it's hard enough raising them and trying to support my family without also trying to look for people to go on dates with. I would randomly check in on fetlife, okcupid, and some other random spots but for the most part I either didn't find anyone of interest or when I tried talking to them they wouldn't respond or they wouldn't be a good fit.
During all of this time, we would broach the subject briefly and she would go back to the same thing, "I'm not standing in your way. You are. You refuse to look for other women while I'm not looking". She's right. I find it entirely unfair for her to be stuck at home with the kids while I'm out on a date, especially if that favor is never returned. There's very little that she enjoys doing outside the house so it would be difficult for me to repay her in other ways.
So here's where the problem comes in. I joined reddit several months ago and they have several poly communities. This past week, I went to r4r (which is just a relationship finder on reddit) and one of the top posts was about a girl who lived fairly close to me. Odd coincidence. I opened it up and our tastes about music and TV and video games were almost identical. So I thought, "Eh, why not?" and sent her a message with the intentions of just becoming friends since that was one of the things she listed as wanting.
After about a day of talking, she asked if I was single and I told her I was poly and married. She said, "yeah, I've spent a fair amount of time on the relationship sections of reddit and poly isn't a new subject to me" so we talked about it for a long time. She's not poly, I don't know if she ever would want to be, but she's definitely okay with me being poly and our friendship has started to blossom into something more. NRE has started to creep in and set up camp and I'm doing everything I can to resist the urges.
I've told my wife that this girl exists, told her how she plays a game that we've been interested in playing and that we could all play together, and I've told her that she lives nearby. My wife hasn't asked me a single time for any additional information. She just goes, "okay" and moves on.
If she would just ask a follow-up, this would be so much easier but I really don't know how to proceed. I was caught so off-guard by this woman's genuine interest in my poly status that I wasn't at all prepared for any talks with my wife.
In the past, my wife would often be upset because I would spend too much time talking to my "girlfriends". I would either ignore her for the texts or be constantly checking my phone, etc, etc. I've been extremely careful not to do that this time around and am keeping everything as under check as I can. But eventually, things are going to start heading in the direction where I will need to say to my wife, "Hey, I want to meet [cupcake] in person." I don't want it to be out of no where, but I just don't know how to bring the subject up without her feeling hurt.
Whew, that's a lot of stuff to read, sorry!
Here's the short version:
1. I've met a girl. My wife is aware that I am poly and is aware of this girl but is not aware that I have started to develop feelings. I didn't want to say anything until I was sure because I don't want to hurt my existing relationship or my children. Now that I'm sure, how do I go about bringing it up without hurting her?
2. How the hell do I keep a lid on these feelings of NRE? I love NRE, but it's such a pain in my ass.
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