So This Is How It Starts

[Superfly]

The players:
Superfly - cis-female, pansexual, poly, 27
Beard - cis-male, hetero, poly(?), 30, husband to Superfly.
We have been together 9 years, married for 3. We have talked about opening pur marriage in various forms for the last several (3? 4?) years, but haven't until we felt our relationship was more secure (as I keep hearing, adding more people to a rocky foundation just brings the entire structure down.)
Monkey - our son.

The back story (well, a more detailed back story to the one provided above):
I have always been a tease. And a flirt. Since I started dating I would generally have a string of partners, always enjoying the initial phase of non-exclusionary relating before the eventual (and seemingly unavoidable) conversation in which we would agree to only have eyes for each other. I never really knew polyamory was a thing, and believed that monogamy was IT. The END POINT. The whole reason for dating. Which left me confused because, there's no way one single person could be IT, right? Forever? And the thought that I would have to be IT for them, as well? Egads, that's a lot of pressure!

Beard and I met when I was 18 (YOUNG! What was I thinking?!) I had just phased an LDR relationship from exclusive to FWB and was really beginning to realize that my attraction to, well, anybody, was more than an appreciation of the human form. Then Beard happened. He was.. Wonderful. Sweet, attentive, nervous, sincere. Other people stopped being. I was swept away in a tidal wave of beautiful, all encompassing NRE. As was he. We jumped into I Love Yous, into living together, into joint bank accounts, and talking about Forevers. It wasn't scary. It was right.

Fast forward a couple years. Let's say 5 years. Things are good. We are honest with each other, good to each other. We weather storms and support each other through college, unemployment, grief. We are happy. Yet.. I feel there could be MORE. There are not things missing, per se, it feels as if we could ADD something, though. So I begin reading. So much reading. We continue talking (we never stop talking). He is hesitant to open, he is nervous about losing. I am unsure of what open would look like, how much MORE I am looking for. We continue the reading and thinking for years.

 

[Superfly]

As the idea of Opening runs as an undercurrent the exploration of my sexuality is brought into focus. I develop a Big Crush on a trans woman at work. She was hella cute. There was reciprocated flirting (ok with Beard). There was a longing for more (which would not have been ok with Beard). I let it go. She moved to the mountains, and it was done. Except, I realized I REALLY wanted MORE. Again, I want to stress, nothing was missing, but some things with Beard werent quite.. Copacetic. A few big interests are not shared (I love reading, he loves long boarding), and our sex drives are off. I'm an as-many-times-a-day-as-possible kind of gal, where as he was a once a month kind of guy. I like extras, little forays into experimental territories, he's a vanilla sundae. Add to that my unexplored interests, the Others. I had done the cis male thing, which is fun, but outside of a few one time play sessions my experiences had been mostly hetero, and I felt incomplete.

Recently we added Monkey to our family. He is all sorts of wonderful. Around the same time Beard FINALLY sees a doctor about several issues (including the low sex drive, which had dipped to once every 6-8 weeks) and finds, ta-da! Low testosterone. He begins hormone therapy for it, and the effects are fast and all encompassing. As his depression fades he begins to feel Secure. Safe. I broach the Opening conversation again (this is also ok with Beard) and, tentatively, he agrees.

My space here is for venting, wondering, seeking solidarity, support, even critism if I'm doing something really tilted. Please feel free to share your thoughts, I'm so new and so many of you have a wealth of knowledge and experience. I will be (am planning on) chronicling the conversations Beard and I have around poly and opening, as we begin, slowly, so slowly. We want to do this right. Ethically, sincerely, and with love. We want to add value to the lives of others, not drama and turmoil. We want the same for US.