CaptainUnderpants
New member
Let me state up front that this wasn't always the case for me as I didn't know what poly was until a couple of years ago. I believe poly and spirituality and inextricably tied together. True love expects nothing in return. It simply is. It is not given in exchange for something in return. That is not love. It is not given because of something we will get. That is not love. It simply is because that is who we are at our core. Love exists regardless of what the other person does. It is simply who I am.
To not allow myself to love would be to deny who I am.
Secondly, I am a human being. I am sexual by nature. It is natural to have sexual feelings towards the ones I love and have attraction. Now don't get me wrong, this desire to express myself sexually is very tightly controlled by what I hope is a very strong awareness of other people's needs and societal norms. Simply put, most times my sexuality is not expressed outside my marriage because it would be less than ideal. I always allow my care and concern for people's well being to trump any sexual desire I have. This prioritizes love and sex for me. Love for everybody concerned is first and then sex may follow only if everyone involved is better off. Most importantly I do not judge myself for having sexual thoughts and feeling that might be considered "wrong" by societal standards, because if they arise from love, heck even lust, then there IS nothing wrong with those feelings. They are natural.
I however was not born poly. In fact it took a lot of spiritual work (read pain) to become poly.
Relationship wise I am a very traditional person. That traditional nature had me in a monogamous relationship with my second wife, who for many years has been more than a handful. There were many years of her inconsistent behavior, as a result of drinking and drug use, that constantly poked at my insecurity. For the most part my wife is an amazing person that when sober is incredibly loving and reliable. Yet the drinking episodes and questionable fidelity and abuse directed towards me wreaked havoc with my psyche.
While I never went to al-non, I had decades of sobriety and new how to work on myself. I knew I didn't want to get divorced, so the goal was to still be able to love my wife and take nothing personally. Quite a tall feat indeed, and I feel like I achieved the goal. The process of staying sober and becoming enlightened is to surrender attachments as the suffering becomes to great. My marriage was one of the greatest joys of my life, yet I simply had to reframe it and step away from it, attachment wise, yet still be present to love my wife. This simply destroyed any ego I had around my marriage. It destroyed my opinion of monogamy and it destroyed my ego.
In place of this very large void flowed love. I didn't expect it. I just think it is the natural result of letting things go and surrendering to life as it is. It is the natural state of a baby or a puppy. In that space I became love and it just felt natural to love. At that time some women came in to my life where love just seemed natural. The love I felt for these other women didn't detract from the love I had for my wife.
At that point I realized I was poly.
Several months ago, I disclosed to my wife that I believed I was poly. This was enough of a shock to that she has sobered up and made a decision to move forward with her life in a new spiritual way. It has also brought out a lot of her insecurities and jealously, but she is trying to work through it. Our relationship hadn't been completely mono, so this hasn't been too big of a leap, but love is more threatening for a woman, than just sex. I have made it clear that just because she is now sober does not mean that I will change. I will get divorced before I treat the people in my life that I love as disposable. But this is also why I didn't leave her. So if she were to force me to not communicate with those in my life that I love, I would get divorced simply out of principle. If my wife were to expect me to get back in the box of monogamy, that would simply mean my spiritual death. On the other hand I am willing to be patient as she processes this new reality. I realize it took me years to transition from mono to poly. I believe my wife will be able to accept me and allow my to be me. It is likely to be a slow and challenging process.
So the bottom line of my belief system is that we are poly at our core. Most people however have way too many hang ups, insecurities and social conditioning to even come close to realizing this. It might take a person hundreds of lifetimes to clear away the insecurities to get to their core of poly. While I believe that we are all poly at our core, we may express ourselves as mono, just because we might only have one love in our life at a particular time.
To not allow myself to love would be to deny who I am.
Secondly, I am a human being. I am sexual by nature. It is natural to have sexual feelings towards the ones I love and have attraction. Now don't get me wrong, this desire to express myself sexually is very tightly controlled by what I hope is a very strong awareness of other people's needs and societal norms. Simply put, most times my sexuality is not expressed outside my marriage because it would be less than ideal. I always allow my care and concern for people's well being to trump any sexual desire I have. This prioritizes love and sex for me. Love for everybody concerned is first and then sex may follow only if everyone involved is better off. Most importantly I do not judge myself for having sexual thoughts and feeling that might be considered "wrong" by societal standards, because if they arise from love, heck even lust, then there IS nothing wrong with those feelings. They are natural.
I however was not born poly. In fact it took a lot of spiritual work (read pain) to become poly.
Relationship wise I am a very traditional person. That traditional nature had me in a monogamous relationship with my second wife, who for many years has been more than a handful. There were many years of her inconsistent behavior, as a result of drinking and drug use, that constantly poked at my insecurity. For the most part my wife is an amazing person that when sober is incredibly loving and reliable. Yet the drinking episodes and questionable fidelity and abuse directed towards me wreaked havoc with my psyche.
While I never went to al-non, I had decades of sobriety and new how to work on myself. I knew I didn't want to get divorced, so the goal was to still be able to love my wife and take nothing personally. Quite a tall feat indeed, and I feel like I achieved the goal. The process of staying sober and becoming enlightened is to surrender attachments as the suffering becomes to great. My marriage was one of the greatest joys of my life, yet I simply had to reframe it and step away from it, attachment wise, yet still be present to love my wife. This simply destroyed any ego I had around my marriage. It destroyed my opinion of monogamy and it destroyed my ego.
In place of this very large void flowed love. I didn't expect it. I just think it is the natural result of letting things go and surrendering to life as it is. It is the natural state of a baby or a puppy. In that space I became love and it just felt natural to love. At that time some women came in to my life where love just seemed natural. The love I felt for these other women didn't detract from the love I had for my wife.
At that point I realized I was poly.
Several months ago, I disclosed to my wife that I believed I was poly. This was enough of a shock to that she has sobered up and made a decision to move forward with her life in a new spiritual way. It has also brought out a lot of her insecurities and jealously, but she is trying to work through it. Our relationship hadn't been completely mono, so this hasn't been too big of a leap, but love is more threatening for a woman, than just sex. I have made it clear that just because she is now sober does not mean that I will change. I will get divorced before I treat the people in my life that I love as disposable. But this is also why I didn't leave her. So if she were to force me to not communicate with those in my life that I love, I would get divorced simply out of principle. If my wife were to expect me to get back in the box of monogamy, that would simply mean my spiritual death. On the other hand I am willing to be patient as she processes this new reality. I realize it took me years to transition from mono to poly. I believe my wife will be able to accept me and allow my to be me. It is likely to be a slow and challenging process.
So the bottom line of my belief system is that we are poly at our core. Most people however have way too many hang ups, insecurities and social conditioning to even come close to realizing this. It might take a person hundreds of lifetimes to clear away the insecurities to get to their core of poly. While I believe that we are all poly at our core, we may express ourselves as mono, just because we might only have one love in our life at a particular time.