Opening up from Married Couple

F

FreeToBeMe

New member
Hi everyone, I would love to hear your stories about opening up from a married couple. I don't have any specific questions, but would love to know what you did, how you did it, how it worked (or didn't!), words of wisdom, etc.

My story, in brief: hubby and I have been happily married for about 16 years. I had never thought about polyamory before. Then about a year ago, hubby developed a close friendship with another woman. Rather than being jealous or suspicious, I thought "wow, that's really cool!" And I started making an effort to be more "real" in my relationships with other people, but I still wasn't interested in the idea of "polyamory." Hubby read several poly books, I was still not interested, but we talked about it a little (sometimes a lot).

Then a couple of months ago, I met a guy that I thought would be "just friends" and I found myself with this idea that my relationships should all be as real and genuine as I wanted them to be, and... oops... I kinda fell in love.

There are a couple of huge problems here, however. Hubby and I hadn't actually worked out a plan saying we were definitely on board with polyamory and moving forward with it, so he was totally blindsided by this development (and the surprising amount of NRE I developed), and the guy I fell for doesn't identify as polyamorous.

(I'm laughing now as I write this, but this was NOT a happy situation! :eek: )

So.... my not-quite-boyfriend and I have agreed that we really need to be "just friends" and hubby and I are now working on talking seriously about opening our marriage for whatever possibilities polyamory may bring.

We have done a lot of reading, talking, worksheets (relationship homework - yippie!), thinking, processing, etc. I'm not a big fan of making lots of rules, but would like to believe that I can transition from 16 years of monogamous marriage (where basically I didn't even have any friends who were men), to a new phase of my life where I can embrace any and all relationships to their fullest potential. This sounds so cool!

So, please, feel free to share your story, journey, thoughts, ideas, about this transition from long-term marriage to polyamory.

Thanks!!! :):):)
 
Hi FreeToBeMe,

Snowbunny and I fell in love early in 2005. However, both of us were married. We did not know what to do. Snowbunny did a lot of web research, and discovered polyamory. She then proceeded to discuss the idea with her husband. He was certainly reluctant at first, but after about a year of discussions (like one discussion every other week), he decided he liked the idea.

I had a few discussions about it with my wife, but that was a rather different situation as she had Alzheimer's, and would forget the discussions or even not even comprehend the discussions in the first place. Plus the fact that I was transitioning from a husband to a caregiver to her. We (Snowbunny, her husband, and me) decided it was okay to forgo getting my wife's consent.

You can read more of my story in my blog. Also I am happy to answer questions if you have any.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
My husband and I opened about six years ago. But our situation is a little different. He is not polyamorous. He has no desire whatsoever to see other people; he's happy having only me. But back in 2013, as we were trying to repair some rifts in our marriage, I told him that some incompatibilities we had were grossly unfair to me, because he wasn't willing to compromise about them. He set his position on the subject, and I had to go along with what he wanted, even though it was not meeting my needs and was leading to me being very unhappy and feeling very trapped in the marriage. The fact that some of the incompatibilities were about something that he had promised to go along with--meaning that not only was he not meeting those needs, but he had broken a promise about meeting them--made it that much worse.

After I said all that to him, he asked me to let him process what I'd said. The next day, he came back to me and said, "You're right. That isn't fair to you. So I've decided I'm okay with you seeing other guys to meet those needs." After a week of discussion during which he said everything he could think of to convince me that yes, he meant it, and no, he wouldn't think less of me for having sex with other men, I started connecting with other guys.

At first, it was intended to be just sexual, and Hubby and I agreed that if any feelings stronger than friendship developed, I would cut ties with that person. (I made sure to tell that to every guy I connected with, so they wouldn't end up being blindsided and could choose to opt out of getting involved with me.) After about six months, I realized I'd fallen in love with one of my friends-with-benefits. I came clean to Hubby and said I was going to cut ties with the other guy, per our agreement, and Hubby said, "No, I don't want you to do that. You loving your kids doesn't take away from you loving me, and I don't think you loving this other guy will take away from you loving me either. You're polyamorous, and I'm okay with that."

I'd heard the word "polyamorous" before, but never realized it applied to me until Hubby said that. He was familiar with the concept from reading science fiction and fantasy novels. Thanks, Robert Heinlein...
 
Although I have always identified as poly, MrS and I were functionally pretty monogamous for most of our marriage, it wasn't until Dude showed up that my "full-time" poly skills were tested. We got off to a rough start - I made some SERIOUS mistakes. You can read about it in my Journey Blog here - the Dude part starts around post 19. After a lot of unnecessary grief that I caused, we did settle down into our current arrangement pretty successfully about 8 years ago. Not all smooth sailing all the time but...most of the time just life.:rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it and would love to hear more.

Even if you're just getting started here, as we are, it would be neat to share some stories, experiences (both positive and negative are welcome!), and thoughts.

Today as I write this, I am feeling generally open to being open, but also feeling reservations and hesitations, mostly just because of diving into something very different and unfamiliar. I don't have any real-life models to follow. Generally, when someone from a married couple gets involved in a new intimate relationship, this signals bad things. :(
 
Well, polyamory is a very new thing in our present society, and it is not widely understood that there can be a healthy way to enter open/poly, let alone what that way would be, and when you are new to being open, you are going to have some reservations and hesitations, that is only natural. Keep reading and posting on this forum, it will help you to get used to polyamory a little at a time. Good luck!
 
Hi Freetobeme - my story is the sig link below - and some of the developments are included in the comments sections that follow the initial post. A couple of years back, my wife asked me to open our relationship so that she could explore her resurgent feelings for an old college boyfriend. Eventually, after much processing, I agreed - primarily out of altruism - for the sake of her happiness. But, over time, my perspective evolved - I found a partner (albeit quite seriously long distance, but we do get together for a weekend a couple of times a year - meeting in Vegas in a couple of weeks) - and I became more and more comfortable with poly as a whole - so that we have more or less reached a state of kitchen table poly at our home (and my girlfriend has a kitchen table situation with her partners at her home). My wife's boyfriend recently spent 5 nights in our guestroom while here on work (he's long distance also - but only about 4 hours) - rather than stay at a hotel. Since we have a young daughter, we agreed that my wife, Becky, would go upstairs for an hour or so to "tuck him in" at bedtime- but spend the night in our bed in case our kiddo should wake up. Needless to say, there was a lot going on that week. But, we also all sat around the kitchen table (literally) talking till late a couple of times - so can't say her boyfriend and I are actually friends - but definitely ok (kind of like family, maybe) - have talked about doing some cycling together as we both cyclists. Al
 
We're pretty new to it. Together monogamous for 16 years. Openish for 6 months. It's a lot easier once both of you have found someone to see in our experience. I don't think your husband is getting anything out of this atm. Correct?
 
Married 11 years. Old-school wife/mistress model.

The wife developed fantasies of me with a younger girl. She began pushing for ever closer experiences: Graduating from porn to web chat and strippers to some very fun sporting girls and finally the vastly better long term relationships.

I did all the research: mostly books, but relationship fora where recovery from infidelity was the big draw. My reasoning was that before I went into poly, I wanted to have a recovery program ready.

It turned out to be important training in poly, and logically so. Despite the wife being so determined all the way, it was a roller-coaster for her (and therefore me!) every step of the way.

But it sure has been fun. I can go back to mono too, that's plenty okay. Thrilling, even. The wife really makes all this possible for everyone and we all have to say a big "thank you"!
 
My husband and I opened our marriage after 20 years. I am a bisexual/bi-romantic female, he is a straight male.

He used to resent and feel threatened by my bisexuality. Also, I would get crushes on men. This was well before polyamory was a concept. We met in 1974. We opened the marriage in 1999, when he finally accepted my bisexuality. He got the idea we could seek a woman together and have a triad. I went along with this idea.

We had a female single mutual friend and approached her to be our unicorn. She agreed. My husband had sex with her first one on one. Then she admitted she wasn't attracted to me or any other women, in fact, didn't trust women at all because of a bad relationship with her abusive mother.

I consented to her and my husband continuing, but I was angry since this was supposed to be about me exploring my bisexuality, not him getting something on the side. And also, my husband didn't want me to date or fuck other men. He'd always been very jealous, insecure, when I would get crushes on other men.

Oddly his gf told him that wasn't fair, and since she said it, not me, he theoretically told me it was OK for me to seek and date men too.

After giving it a try for several months, I vetoed their sexual relationship. I don't recommend vetoes. It broke my husband's trust in me. He and this woman were soul mates (their words). Deeply in love. Also, come to find out, he was mono, and when he fell in love with her, he fell out of love with me. They continued as "friends," seeing each other infrequently (she lived 6 hours away), emailing very often, phone calls too. I was very uncomfortable and went into depression. I did 3 years of therapy.

I was a stay at home, homeschooling mother. I was too busy with the kids and running the house, and working part time, to hunt for a girlfriend or boyfriend, and didn't have any convenient real life prospects. Dating sites weren't really a thing back then.

We struggled on for 8 more years, in a mostly bitter ugly fashion. He was no longer in love with me, but we did have sex. We had 3 kids and didn't want to break up the home. But we finally split in 2008. I won't lie, our kids struggled with this, despite being, at that point, almost grown, at 16, 19 and 21.

Fast forward: My ex h is still with that gf. She waited for him those 8 years until he and I broke up. When he and I separated, I went online to OK Cupid and found a female partner almost right away. We are now celebrating our 10 year anniversary. Both my gf and I also date others.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top