I'm a 49 year old, mono-identifying female who accidentally fell into a conflicted poly-fi situation just over a year ago. I'd been "active" on social media for years and had developed close friendships with numerous people of different genders, as you do, but had never taken that beyond the mildest of flirtatious banter until, out of the blue, a genuine romance blossomed between myself and a highly unusual, creative male friend, "J". Nothing happened in a sexually explicit vein until we both admitted we were in reciprocal love, then the "message storm" and cyber-sexing began in earnest; products of extremely potent NRE.
Thankfully during this period I was able to keep my head on straight enough to try and ascertain this man's personal life situation. J knew I was still legally married yet estranged from my husband, and I knew he'd had a complicated relationship with his ex-wife until a couple of years before, however at no point did he indicate that he was sexually involved with anyone in any kind of ongoing fashion.
His life had been a troubled one, yet at this point I was starting to feel safe with J and believed that he was being honest with me, so you can imagine how shocked and disheartened I was to discover (through a combination of my own intuition and some not-so-subtle hint-dropping by a mutual female friend) that he was involved in a secretive relationship with this woman, "B". She and I had begun to grow close in an online sense around the same time as he and I had, but B had sparked my "Spidey sense" by her over-interest in my personal life and emotional state.
When everybody finally came clean, so to speak, J swore he and B had been special friends with benefits ONLY, with no commitment or claims of "coupledom"... while conversely B had been convinced they were in mutual, deep and abiding love. Had he led her on to believe that? Yes and no. The man's immense intelligence does not preclude a degree of social blindness I admit, while her deep-seated fear of abandonment had caused her to cling too tightly to someone who'd been sending pretty clear signals that he did not wish to be smothered.
J's attitude completely changed when he and I got together. He fell deeply in love with me and committed almost immediately, and B ended up a casualty of that, for which I still feel overwhelmingly guilty. Had either of them just TOLD me they were involved at an earlier stage, I'd have respected the preexisting "relationship" (though he says they were never "in" one in that sense) and stayed in my little corner of the internet.
J held some anger towards B at this point, as he considered she had violated her self-imposed secrecy pact by divulging their affair in order to "head me off at the pass", though he still expressed a desire to remain platonic friends with her, much to my consternation. Some long-buried trust issues began to creep in at this juncture, harking back to a spectacularly bad early break-up involving a love triangle of sorts, although throughout my marriage I'd never been an especially jealous or possessive person.
So... while my new man and I immersed ourselves in NRE and each other, this other woman was relegated to the role of audience member (since those two had decided to stay in each others' lives as friends, albeit from a distance). Note: At this point I should clarify that I live in a different country to J, therefore ours was and remains a long distance relationship. On the other hand J and B live on opposite sides of the same country, so although they also conducted their relationship long distance, they HAD met in person a number of times and had been physically intimate.
Months passed and eventually B healed enough emotionally to let me back into her life and we began to become closer once again. The desire to do this wasn't completely altruistic on my part as due to the unconventional nature of the situation I had very few people to talk to about the unique difficulties I'd begun to experience as a result of dating this man. At least, none who could understand the way SHE could.
Around this time J's life changed in many ways that had nothing to do with me but which caused him to become far less "present" and engaged. Communication became sparser and sparser and our (cyber) sex life ground to a halt, although he was at pains to reassure me his feelings had not changed one bit. However, the more I yearned for the easy-going fun exchanges we used to enjoy, the more he seemed to withdraw until what had been 24/7 conversations were whittled down to a few brief exchanges per day plus the occasional phone-call.
Yes, I am aware that relationship dynamics change over time and that the "honeymoon period" is bound to end. But this happened very suddenly and it floored me. I still craved regular, warm contact. NRE was still affecting ME quite strongly but it seemed to have all but deserted HIM. B tried her best to console me but it didn't help to discover J had a pattern of flooding the object of his affections with attention then growing bored and putting increasingly lengthy silences between these bouts of enthusiastic communciation. Harder still being schooled on this by the very person who still felt like a rival for his attention/affection in many ways.
Although it felt like it, I knew J hadn't fallen out of love with me. He just lacked/lacks attention span and needs constant stimulation, not necessarily of the sexual kind. He reassured me time and again that I - and only I - had his heart. Nevertheless, I felt stung, hurt, rejected, by his absence. Meanwhile his former lover and I grew closer and closer, perhaps out of loneliness or a show of solidarity in the face of his abandonment. Neither of us had ever been same-sex attracted, however after a few months the sexual tension was undeniably building and we ended up declaring our feelings.
Before any real intimacy could occur, I knew I had to approach J and confess. Essentially I was seeking his permission to begin something with B, in what amounted to giving him an implicit veto option. Not being a possessive or sexually jealous person, J simply expressed happiness for us and wished us well. It might sound contrary in the extreme, but part of me almost hoped he would object. I now believe I may have subconsciously been testing him; hoping he would realise his position was under threat, step up and do better when it came to giving of his time and affection.
He didn't, and the upshot of all this is that I've now been in a relationship with B for the past year, alongside the relationship I have with J himself. They are both devoted to me (and I, them) but show it in completely different ways. I have since met them in person, separately and together, and have slept with both, although the relationships are still conducted mostly online due to distance issues.
To use a well-worn cliche, this past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions: guilt, shame, jealousy, confusion and feelings of propriety and possessiveness have all cropped up. However, due to the unique circumstances of our erstwhile "triad", and perhaps feelings of entitlement and/or exclusion on B's part, she has attempted several times to push through her own agenda of inclusiveness which involved suggesting we bring J into our relationship to form a poly-fi triad. Or more accurately, have her become secondary partner to the "primary" unit that was J and I at that time.
Aside from the obvious sexual fantasy element, nothing about that proposal appealed to me at all - in part due to scars I carry from an earlier breakup that ended in a failed threesome - however on two separate occasions I've gone along with the idea of it for a period of time to appease B. To be honest, the very thought of "sharing" J sexually OR worse, emotionally/romantically makes me feel sad, threatened, green with jealousy and frankly, sick to my stomach. In the months leading up to our in-person meeting overseas, I developed debilitating depression and anxiety due to the expectations being placed on me by B in this regard. J agreed to give it a try also, but frankly he can "take or leave" sex in general, and romantically it is only me he's interested in, although he did make the point that IF we were going to do this, there should be no notion of primary or secondary expressed.
B, however, wished to see if it could work, thus, to honour her and OUR relationship, as well as out of guilt that J had "chosen" me over her, to put it indelicately, I really really TRIED to give thisy serious consideration, and in fact we DID "go there"; engaging in a one-off, not-entirely successful threesome when we all finally met as a group.
Don't get me wrong, as people and friends, we all get along great - both in person and online - but sharing a bed, while exciting in fantasy form, is just not for me. I've tried it twice now, decades apart, and both were some of the worst experiences I've ever had in life, emotionally speaking. The sight of my lover/s engaging sexually with each other in the flesh, as opposed to in my head or even in milder cyber form, is an image I only WISH I could scrub from my memory permanently!
Needless to say that for the second time in our brief multi-partner relationship, the poly-fidelitous triad plan is now off for good. We have settled on a "V" paradigm with me as the hinge. They both, finally, appear to have accepted that this is the way it has to be for the imminent future, although it's not without its problems, even so, mostly involving feelings of guilt and a self-perception of greediness and selfishness on my part. I wrestle with these concepts every day because I never intended to live a polyamorous lifestyle and am still far from comfortable with the entire scenario, although I truly love and am committed to both my lovers. Hence my introductory caption, "The Accidental Polyamorist".
Thankfully during this period I was able to keep my head on straight enough to try and ascertain this man's personal life situation. J knew I was still legally married yet estranged from my husband, and I knew he'd had a complicated relationship with his ex-wife until a couple of years before, however at no point did he indicate that he was sexually involved with anyone in any kind of ongoing fashion.
His life had been a troubled one, yet at this point I was starting to feel safe with J and believed that he was being honest with me, so you can imagine how shocked and disheartened I was to discover (through a combination of my own intuition and some not-so-subtle hint-dropping by a mutual female friend) that he was involved in a secretive relationship with this woman, "B". She and I had begun to grow close in an online sense around the same time as he and I had, but B had sparked my "Spidey sense" by her over-interest in my personal life and emotional state.
When everybody finally came clean, so to speak, J swore he and B had been special friends with benefits ONLY, with no commitment or claims of "coupledom"... while conversely B had been convinced they were in mutual, deep and abiding love. Had he led her on to believe that? Yes and no. The man's immense intelligence does not preclude a degree of social blindness I admit, while her deep-seated fear of abandonment had caused her to cling too tightly to someone who'd been sending pretty clear signals that he did not wish to be smothered.
J's attitude completely changed when he and I got together. He fell deeply in love with me and committed almost immediately, and B ended up a casualty of that, for which I still feel overwhelmingly guilty. Had either of them just TOLD me they were involved at an earlier stage, I'd have respected the preexisting "relationship" (though he says they were never "in" one in that sense) and stayed in my little corner of the internet.
J held some anger towards B at this point, as he considered she had violated her self-imposed secrecy pact by divulging their affair in order to "head me off at the pass", though he still expressed a desire to remain platonic friends with her, much to my consternation. Some long-buried trust issues began to creep in at this juncture, harking back to a spectacularly bad early break-up involving a love triangle of sorts, although throughout my marriage I'd never been an especially jealous or possessive person.
So... while my new man and I immersed ourselves in NRE and each other, this other woman was relegated to the role of audience member (since those two had decided to stay in each others' lives as friends, albeit from a distance). Note: At this point I should clarify that I live in a different country to J, therefore ours was and remains a long distance relationship. On the other hand J and B live on opposite sides of the same country, so although they also conducted their relationship long distance, they HAD met in person a number of times and had been physically intimate.
Months passed and eventually B healed enough emotionally to let me back into her life and we began to become closer once again. The desire to do this wasn't completely altruistic on my part as due to the unconventional nature of the situation I had very few people to talk to about the unique difficulties I'd begun to experience as a result of dating this man. At least, none who could understand the way SHE could.
Around this time J's life changed in many ways that had nothing to do with me but which caused him to become far less "present" and engaged. Communication became sparser and sparser and our (cyber) sex life ground to a halt, although he was at pains to reassure me his feelings had not changed one bit. However, the more I yearned for the easy-going fun exchanges we used to enjoy, the more he seemed to withdraw until what had been 24/7 conversations were whittled down to a few brief exchanges per day plus the occasional phone-call.
Yes, I am aware that relationship dynamics change over time and that the "honeymoon period" is bound to end. But this happened very suddenly and it floored me. I still craved regular, warm contact. NRE was still affecting ME quite strongly but it seemed to have all but deserted HIM. B tried her best to console me but it didn't help to discover J had a pattern of flooding the object of his affections with attention then growing bored and putting increasingly lengthy silences between these bouts of enthusiastic communciation. Harder still being schooled on this by the very person who still felt like a rival for his attention/affection in many ways.
Although it felt like it, I knew J hadn't fallen out of love with me. He just lacked/lacks attention span and needs constant stimulation, not necessarily of the sexual kind. He reassured me time and again that I - and only I - had his heart. Nevertheless, I felt stung, hurt, rejected, by his absence. Meanwhile his former lover and I grew closer and closer, perhaps out of loneliness or a show of solidarity in the face of his abandonment. Neither of us had ever been same-sex attracted, however after a few months the sexual tension was undeniably building and we ended up declaring our feelings.
Before any real intimacy could occur, I knew I had to approach J and confess. Essentially I was seeking his permission to begin something with B, in what amounted to giving him an implicit veto option. Not being a possessive or sexually jealous person, J simply expressed happiness for us and wished us well. It might sound contrary in the extreme, but part of me almost hoped he would object. I now believe I may have subconsciously been testing him; hoping he would realise his position was under threat, step up and do better when it came to giving of his time and affection.
He didn't, and the upshot of all this is that I've now been in a relationship with B for the past year, alongside the relationship I have with J himself. They are both devoted to me (and I, them) but show it in completely different ways. I have since met them in person, separately and together, and have slept with both, although the relationships are still conducted mostly online due to distance issues.
To use a well-worn cliche, this past year has been a rollercoaster of emotions: guilt, shame, jealousy, confusion and feelings of propriety and possessiveness have all cropped up. However, due to the unique circumstances of our erstwhile "triad", and perhaps feelings of entitlement and/or exclusion on B's part, she has attempted several times to push through her own agenda of inclusiveness which involved suggesting we bring J into our relationship to form a poly-fi triad. Or more accurately, have her become secondary partner to the "primary" unit that was J and I at that time.
Aside from the obvious sexual fantasy element, nothing about that proposal appealed to me at all - in part due to scars I carry from an earlier breakup that ended in a failed threesome - however on two separate occasions I've gone along with the idea of it for a period of time to appease B. To be honest, the very thought of "sharing" J sexually OR worse, emotionally/romantically makes me feel sad, threatened, green with jealousy and frankly, sick to my stomach. In the months leading up to our in-person meeting overseas, I developed debilitating depression and anxiety due to the expectations being placed on me by B in this regard. J agreed to give it a try also, but frankly he can "take or leave" sex in general, and romantically it is only me he's interested in, although he did make the point that IF we were going to do this, there should be no notion of primary or secondary expressed.
B, however, wished to see if it could work, thus, to honour her and OUR relationship, as well as out of guilt that J had "chosen" me over her, to put it indelicately, I really really TRIED to give thisy serious consideration, and in fact we DID "go there"; engaging in a one-off, not-entirely successful threesome when we all finally met as a group.
Don't get me wrong, as people and friends, we all get along great - both in person and online - but sharing a bed, while exciting in fantasy form, is just not for me. I've tried it twice now, decades apart, and both were some of the worst experiences I've ever had in life, emotionally speaking. The sight of my lover/s engaging sexually with each other in the flesh, as opposed to in my head or even in milder cyber form, is an image I only WISH I could scrub from my memory permanently!
Needless to say that for the second time in our brief multi-partner relationship, the poly-fidelitous triad plan is now off for good. We have settled on a "V" paradigm with me as the hinge. They both, finally, appear to have accepted that this is the way it has to be for the imminent future, although it's not without its problems, even so, mostly involving feelings of guilt and a self-perception of greediness and selfishness on my part. I wrestle with these concepts every day because I never intended to live a polyamorous lifestyle and am still far from comfortable with the entire scenario, although I truly love and am committed to both my lovers. Hence my introductory caption, "The Accidental Polyamorist".
