CaptainCharisma
New member
My name is Captain. I'm a 22 year old woman-ish person, and I am slowly acclimating myself to a polyamorous lifestyle. I have been poly since November 2014. I'm writing this blog mostly as a therapeutic device because I have an extremely hard time processing my emotions and opening up to others about them. I would really love feedback and questions--I benefit a lot from bouncing my ideas off of people.
Throughout this blog, I will refer to and discuss Myers-Briggs personality type indicators (MBTI). I use MBTI to discuss people because it offers a standardized vocabulary to describe certain personality traits and processes. If you aren't familiar with the system, here is a free online test along with some information regarding different personality types. I am an INFJ.
Here goes:
Although I had heard about polyamory before, I only began to discover my interest in it about a year ago. I got engaged at age 19 to Brave. He was my first friend in a new city. We fell in love and moved in together fairly quickly. Brave is an ENFP, a very warm and caring person with the attention span of a goldfish. He has severe ADHD, which affected his ability to thrive as an individual and took an enormous toll on our relationship. We were engaged for a year and a half. I eventually called off the marriage because I was terrified of the idea of spending my entire life with only one person, even if that one person was the wonderful, trustworthy Brave. I brought up the idea of opening our relationship to him, but he made it clear that he was only interested in a monogamous relationship. As time went on, I found myself falling in love with our very close mutual friend, Jay. Brave and I broke up, and shortly thereafter, Jay and I started dating. The three of us were so extremely close that for awhile, it felt as though we were in a poly trio. Eventually, however, Brave started dating someone new and drifted away. He remains my good friend to this day.
Jay and I moved in together partly out of necessity. He didn't have a place to stay, and I couldn't bear to live alone as I was suffering from severe PTSD. For awhile we experienced a very intense honeymoon phase. Although I had been interested in polyamory, I didn't know anything about it, and I had decided that I was merely a bad person who couldn't control her impulses. Polyamory seemed abnormal and unacceptable to me, and I felt that if I wanted to date multiple people or even have casual sexual encounters, I would sacrificing the "purity" that women should preserve. This is still a sensation that colors most of my feelings about myself--only recently have I been able to accept that loving multiple people is possible and okay.
After dating Jay exclusively for some time, I felt a renewed interested in polyamory. I started investigating it obsessively, consuming all the information and vocabulary hungrily and happily. I read these forums constantly throughout the day, ecstatic to learn that others felt the same way I did, and that they were able to form satisfying, successful relationship with others. I spoke to Jay about potentially opening our relationship and tried to encourage him to learn more, but he resisted very strongly. The more I talked about it, the more he dug in his heels.
In November I met Perry. He's an ENFP as well--a very genuinely kind, outgoing person who was pretty excitable (he reminds me of a golden retriever). I didn't originally have a romantic interest in him. Even when Perry expressed interested in me, I was so secure in my relationship with Jay that I felt no desire to pursue Perry (unusual for me, because I really enjoy receiving & reciprocating attention).
When I told Jay about Perry's interest, however, he became extremely jealous and passive-aggressive. He wouldn't stop bringing Perry up, even though I had tried to relay that I wasn't interested. Jay started attempting to restrict my interaction with Perry and Brave (my only friends in the area) and I started to push back against it. I had spent all my time over the past five or six months with Jay almost exclusively and had failed to reach out to make new friends. I started hanging out with Perry a lot and found myself unexpectedly developing feelings for him. This was probably due to the strife in my relationship with Jay, which left me feeling very isolated and lonely.
Jay, who is ESFJ and a very naturally kind/giving person, turned into this very twisted, controlling version of himself. He constantly shamed me and threatened to leave me. He began to monitor my communication (and still does occasionally to this day) and essentially instated a curfew. I foolishly believed that if I adhered to all of his rules, that he would eventually calm down and begin to trust me again. I kept trying to get him accustomed to the concept of polyamory, which he refused to learn anything about. Eventually he instated a DADT policy, probably as way to get me to stop talking about polyamory. He clearly didn't actually want me to pursue anyone, but I was so frustrated and lonely that I chose to ignore this unspoken expectation. Perry and I started dating and hit it off immediately. He was very respectful of my primary relationship, even though the DADT policy affected him greatly.
About a month later, Jay snooped through my text messages and found some correspondence between the two of us. He angrily confronted me. That confrontation ended in Jay raping me. Afterwards he decided that he was not going to break up with me; instead, he was going to generously give me a "second chance" -- under the condition that I cut off all contact with Perry. I felt ashamed and guilty about having been dishonest with Jay, and used this to justify all the emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse I had been subjected to. I tried to cut Perry off, but this was extremely painful for me and I could not do it. We started talking again, albeit platonically. My primary concern was keeping everything as quiet as possible because I was afraid Jay's anger might pose a danger to me. (If you're wondering at this point why I didn't break up with Jay--I had/have a lot of complex issues that make me very vulnerable to codependency. I couldn't envision a life without him, even if my current life with him meant that I was dishonest with him. I am ashamed of my dishonesty, but at the time I had no strength to leave my live-in abuser.)
Jay discovered that we were talking again and reacted very aggressively. However, by this point I was sufficiently emotionally detached from him that I refused to stop talking to Perry, and I made it clear that I was intent on being a polyamorous person whether or not Jay was along for the ride. He told me that I could do whatever I wanted re: polyamory, but then refused to speak about it from that point on. His idea and expectation currently is that we are monogamous and never will be anything but monogamous. I have started to make friends outside of my relationship with him, which he has grudgingly accepted, but he pretty consistently expresses irritation about it.
Tomorrow Jay moves out of my apartment. Our relationship has broken down so much that neither of us really cares for the other anymore, but he refuses to let me go. Probably because he doesn't want me to end up with Perry. As for me? I'm waiting until he's moved out and sufficiently disconnected from my life so that I can move on with minimal drama. I may not have the strength to tell him that I want to break up. The one time in the past that I did say so, he managed to manipulate the conversation so that he could stay in my life. I'm disappointed in myself for not being able to end something that I can objectively see as deeply unhealthy and pointless. But tomorrow things will change. We'll see.
Throughout this blog, I will refer to and discuss Myers-Briggs personality type indicators (MBTI). I use MBTI to discuss people because it offers a standardized vocabulary to describe certain personality traits and processes. If you aren't familiar with the system, here is a free online test along with some information regarding different personality types. I am an INFJ.
Here goes:
Although I had heard about polyamory before, I only began to discover my interest in it about a year ago. I got engaged at age 19 to Brave. He was my first friend in a new city. We fell in love and moved in together fairly quickly. Brave is an ENFP, a very warm and caring person with the attention span of a goldfish. He has severe ADHD, which affected his ability to thrive as an individual and took an enormous toll on our relationship. We were engaged for a year and a half. I eventually called off the marriage because I was terrified of the idea of spending my entire life with only one person, even if that one person was the wonderful, trustworthy Brave. I brought up the idea of opening our relationship to him, but he made it clear that he was only interested in a monogamous relationship. As time went on, I found myself falling in love with our very close mutual friend, Jay. Brave and I broke up, and shortly thereafter, Jay and I started dating. The three of us were so extremely close that for awhile, it felt as though we were in a poly trio. Eventually, however, Brave started dating someone new and drifted away. He remains my good friend to this day.
Jay and I moved in together partly out of necessity. He didn't have a place to stay, and I couldn't bear to live alone as I was suffering from severe PTSD. For awhile we experienced a very intense honeymoon phase. Although I had been interested in polyamory, I didn't know anything about it, and I had decided that I was merely a bad person who couldn't control her impulses. Polyamory seemed abnormal and unacceptable to me, and I felt that if I wanted to date multiple people or even have casual sexual encounters, I would sacrificing the "purity" that women should preserve. This is still a sensation that colors most of my feelings about myself--only recently have I been able to accept that loving multiple people is possible and okay.
After dating Jay exclusively for some time, I felt a renewed interested in polyamory. I started investigating it obsessively, consuming all the information and vocabulary hungrily and happily. I read these forums constantly throughout the day, ecstatic to learn that others felt the same way I did, and that they were able to form satisfying, successful relationship with others. I spoke to Jay about potentially opening our relationship and tried to encourage him to learn more, but he resisted very strongly. The more I talked about it, the more he dug in his heels.
In November I met Perry. He's an ENFP as well--a very genuinely kind, outgoing person who was pretty excitable (he reminds me of a golden retriever). I didn't originally have a romantic interest in him. Even when Perry expressed interested in me, I was so secure in my relationship with Jay that I felt no desire to pursue Perry (unusual for me, because I really enjoy receiving & reciprocating attention).
When I told Jay about Perry's interest, however, he became extremely jealous and passive-aggressive. He wouldn't stop bringing Perry up, even though I had tried to relay that I wasn't interested. Jay started attempting to restrict my interaction with Perry and Brave (my only friends in the area) and I started to push back against it. I had spent all my time over the past five or six months with Jay almost exclusively and had failed to reach out to make new friends. I started hanging out with Perry a lot and found myself unexpectedly developing feelings for him. This was probably due to the strife in my relationship with Jay, which left me feeling very isolated and lonely.
Jay, who is ESFJ and a very naturally kind/giving person, turned into this very twisted, controlling version of himself. He constantly shamed me and threatened to leave me. He began to monitor my communication (and still does occasionally to this day) and essentially instated a curfew. I foolishly believed that if I adhered to all of his rules, that he would eventually calm down and begin to trust me again. I kept trying to get him accustomed to the concept of polyamory, which he refused to learn anything about. Eventually he instated a DADT policy, probably as way to get me to stop talking about polyamory. He clearly didn't actually want me to pursue anyone, but I was so frustrated and lonely that I chose to ignore this unspoken expectation. Perry and I started dating and hit it off immediately. He was very respectful of my primary relationship, even though the DADT policy affected him greatly.
About a month later, Jay snooped through my text messages and found some correspondence between the two of us. He angrily confronted me. That confrontation ended in Jay raping me. Afterwards he decided that he was not going to break up with me; instead, he was going to generously give me a "second chance" -- under the condition that I cut off all contact with Perry. I felt ashamed and guilty about having been dishonest with Jay, and used this to justify all the emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse I had been subjected to. I tried to cut Perry off, but this was extremely painful for me and I could not do it. We started talking again, albeit platonically. My primary concern was keeping everything as quiet as possible because I was afraid Jay's anger might pose a danger to me. (If you're wondering at this point why I didn't break up with Jay--I had/have a lot of complex issues that make me very vulnerable to codependency. I couldn't envision a life without him, even if my current life with him meant that I was dishonest with him. I am ashamed of my dishonesty, but at the time I had no strength to leave my live-in abuser.)
Jay discovered that we were talking again and reacted very aggressively. However, by this point I was sufficiently emotionally detached from him that I refused to stop talking to Perry, and I made it clear that I was intent on being a polyamorous person whether or not Jay was along for the ride. He told me that I could do whatever I wanted re: polyamory, but then refused to speak about it from that point on. His idea and expectation currently is that we are monogamous and never will be anything but monogamous. I have started to make friends outside of my relationship with him, which he has grudgingly accepted, but he pretty consistently expresses irritation about it.
Tomorrow Jay moves out of my apartment. Our relationship has broken down so much that neither of us really cares for the other anymore, but he refuses to let me go. Probably because he doesn't want me to end up with Perry. As for me? I'm waiting until he's moved out and sufficiently disconnected from my life so that I can move on with minimal drama. I may not have the strength to tell him that I want to break up. The one time in the past that I did say so, he managed to manipulate the conversation so that he could stay in my life. I'm disappointed in myself for not being able to end something that I can objectively see as deeply unhealthy and pointless. But tomorrow things will change. We'll see.
