When a poly isn't poly

A

anamikanon

New member
On the other thread by Remnant, I was wondering what I'd do if I ever got swept away in NRE and hurt my partner badly to the point of dismissing their worth in my life.

If I was in OP's place and Spexy agreed to stay with me and consider adapting to my wishes in time after fucking up so massively, I'd be down on my knees and weeping in gratitude. Heck I'd be discovering an interest in monogamy rather than risk hurting him ever again.

It was a flashbulb moment. It is a pretty good gender-reversed description of what we went through last year when I landed up here and Spexy's complete block on considering poly for himself since then. He is still so rattled that he almost threw away our relationship because of NRE, he point blank goes "NO" if I so much as say something that could *hint* at poly still being an option for him. It is so instant and emphatic, it sounds like I asked him if he'd like to murder someone. He is completely fine with me being poly and doesn't believe in monogamy.

Putting myself in his place just now is the first time I ever understood his "extreme" PoV on rejecting poly when it really wasn't what went wrong with us. I put myself in the place he was and hell, no, I wouldn't want poly if I sucked at handling it and hurt someone I loved either.

It is like a shock reaction that creates an aversion. I have told him often that if we are committed to fixing problems between us, we can weather problems and hurts (sidenote: make-up sex is scorching hot and so precious emotionally). It took us months to work through things, but we did it. He does not seem to have forgiven himself.

That said, with time I do hope that he doesn't feel that he can't trust himself when in love with someone. Not even necessarily fall for someone, but at least not be so dead set against even allowing himself to consider.

Not pushing it though. It is his readiness and his call to take. I can support, but pushing feels... invasive.
 
Shaya said:
Where do you want the discussion in this thread to go?
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Nowhere in particular. It was just sharing an insight into something I've found strange for a year. Spexy tried opening the relationship but too many things went wrong and he handled it awfully. He hurt me badly - and he did everything to fix us - we are good now. Have been for months.

But ever since that episode, Spexy never considers polyamory for himself. No question of liking another woman, no question of getting involved, even a joke about liking someone will lead to an immediate reassurance that he is not interested in anyone except me.

I find that... odd. I don't need him to be monogamous at all. My issue was with the hurt he caused me (and himself and the other woman), but now that we have worked through it, I am fine. And even when he was involved with her, my issue was hurtful behavior with me, never her. So I never really understood why he has suddenly become so anti-poly for himself. Till today.

I realized that if I became aware that I was at risk of getting reckless with NRE to the point that I did serious damage to people I loved, I'd avoid NRE like the plague myself. For the first time I "got" his aversion (though I still don't agree that he can't be trusted to be poly).

Nowhere I need this thread to go in particular. I don't think it is right to keep persuading him about poly even when he refuses so strongly, so there really isn't anything that needs resolving with this at this point. Just got a new insight into a year old story.
 
I see the main thrust of your opening post now. Thanks for clarifying.

There's a saying, "Once bitten twice shy". You've shared your story of Spexy having hurt you and not trusting himself with NRE again, never wanting to go there again and cloud his mind again, afraid to hurt you again, vowing to monogamy for himself. Once bitten by NRE, shying away from it twice.

I'll share my experience, which is similar, with my wife scared of polyamory, or maybe NRE, vowing monogamy. I think that monogamy, or variants of it, can be ethically sound as a conscious choice between two people, rather than the usual default relationship choice that is forced on two people by society without true consent of either party. Choosing polyamory, or choosing monogamy, can be satisfying I think, as long as it's a conscious choice.

In the end though, I suspect Spexy is choosing monogamy out of fear, as is my wife probably. As the fear subsides, they may consider polyamory again. I have mixed feelings about this, but then, my journey into considering poly is still young.
 
Ethical monogamy. Now there's a term. :rolleyes:

I get what you mean by "mixed feelings". In the wake of the fiasco, I made sure we spoke and negotiated what poly means and etc. Even if he wasn't interested in anyone, I was making it clear that I had rules about what information I need and when and so on upfront or it was a no go by default.

My consent was strictly conditional to him informing me about a new interest and being able to convey his current feelings about the person - no lies, no evasions, no concealing - if he wasn't comfortable, outright refusal would work, but no dishonesty. As in "Just someone I'm interested in, no idea where it is going." or "I want to spend my life with her" or "There is someone, but I don't want to talk about it" - BEFORE any commitments happened. He stressed that he wasn't going to be involved with anyone to begin with, but he agreed to the rules to make me feel better.

I didn't even feel ridiculous making it an explicit demand. I just needed to know I wasn't going to be blindsided again. I am all joyous if he finds love. I don't want it to hit me in a bad way.

I find the demands absurd now. I don't have any jealousy issues and am absolutely fine with him being in love with other people. But I bet if he went poly tomorrow, I'd like to have some reassurance of information given how the last time went.
 
I can't be trusted with NRE. I take it too far and let it damage my life. I have tried poly and can't do it. There are countless other people who manage NRE just fine, but I know myself and keep as far away from it as humanly possible.
 
The NRE for Idealist took me over completely - in a way that I'm not sure will repeat itself. It was not 'love at first sight', but 'love at first touch' ;), and it quickly uncovered layers of needs that have been unfulfilled for my whole life. If it will repeat itself with this strength, then no, I'm totally not able to manage NRE.

I'm still not sure if I can start a new one and sustain a previous relationship. I suspect I flip my romantic focus in the serial monogamy way - although I also got glimpses of loving two people. So maybe it's not impossible for me to love more, it's just I haven't had the opportunity to practice.
 
Interesting. I wasn't aware that there are poly/friendly people who consciously choose to stay away from NRE.

Now that I know it, makes a lot of sense. Being able to feel love about many people and being able to sustain enough of a larger picture about it to not damage others we love could be a difficult balancing act and the potential for harm is tremendous, so obviously there will be some people, possibly those who are in relationships they treasure deeply, who choose to not engage with that risk for the existing relationship they value.
 
anamikanon said:
Interesting. I wasn't aware that there are poly/friendly people who consciously choose to stay away from NRE.
Click to expand...

Having poly friendly people who consciously choose to stay away from NRE surprises me too. Polyamory for such people doesn't sound that different from a deliberate choice of others choose monogamy.

In the end, I suspect it comes down to choice or autonomy. If you have the power to choose your life and the rules of your relationship, you're going to feel in control. If you feel forced into monogamy because of society, then the lack of control you feel over your situation might make you unhappy.
 
Yes, I choose monogamy. It's just what is best for me. Yes, reconciling myself to possibly having only one romantic relationship for the rest of my life isn't the most exciting thing, but I don't need it anymore. I don't handle myself responsibly. I am very interested in the stories of those who do.
 
I guess my anchor partner and I handle NRE OK. It took me a year or two after starting to live polyamorously... I'd be in a new relationship and start having these moony obsessive feelings, so yummy, so sexy, and I'd recognise them. Oh, it's just hormones washing through my brain and pussy. I'd kind of give myself a side eye and a metaphorical slap. Get ahold of yourself, Mags! You're not a silly schoolgirl.

So, I learned to enjoy those yummy feelings, but to curb the excessive obsessive thoughts and desires. Just tamp it down a little.

It helps that my gf is very patient and fond of me, and full of compersion. She seems to think it's cute when I have a crush.

I still desire her sexually when I am in NRE for someone else. Yes, I might sometimes think of him when I am having sex with my gf, but so what? Fantasies are allowed.
 
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Personally, I HATE NRE - it makes me feel out of control and like a lunatic. Luckily, for me, it is a rare occurrence. I have always ID'd as poly, and while MrS agrees with me on a philosophical level, he has not actively pursued anyone for himself. I blame myself for this, as I did not respond as I had hoped with his first foray after we were a "couple" (20+ years ago:eek: - details in my Journey Blog). This was a minor blip but seems to have tainted things for him for a good while.

THEN, I fucked up majorly with Dude - I was a JackAss. They have actually really forgiven me, but it has been harder to forgive myself. But it has been 6 years, and everything worked out (after 3 months of heartbreak) so I am mostly OK about it.

Now? MrS seems to have relaxed a lot. I use the label "polyflexible" for him - doesn't need it, not opposed, supportive of my occasional forays into dating somebody new and willing to let himself be attracted to new people as long as everything is OK in the rest of the polycule (i.e. "PolyBorgCollective":D)
 
I feel guilty/sad about the way I handled NRE in 2005-2006. Not that everything I did was wrong, but I wish I'd had the perspective that I have today. Lucky for me I didn't know the word poly. I guess I was poly to a certain extent.
 
At this point I am not sure I can truly do the "complete fall in to NRE" in the way I did originally (as a 16 year old!) for TheKnight, or the lunatic way I did back in 2013 for HipsterBoy. (I had had crushes in between, but nothing that lent itself to deep dive off the cliff.) I can certainly crush on people and have the giggly "this is amazing" moments, but I don't lose my head - I can't let myself do that again, it fucked up my life too much. On the other hand, it means that the crush feelings can stick around long enough for trust to actually catch up, so I can just be stupid-happy with no downside, so there's that... (I think this is why I'm still in something damn close to NRE with Artist, well over 2 years in, because I almost rationed the NRE at the beginning so it'd last longer...)
 
@icesong

By rationed, do you mean a deliberate boundary to see each other, like, once a week? Or some other way of rationing?
 
Part of the "rationing" wasn't intentional - when we met, Artist had a wife and 2 other partners already (one of whom was fairly time intensive as she was mono), I was of course married but was also still dating someone else and had a couple FWB and a kid - so we really couldn't see each other more than every other week or so.

And he doesn't really do a lot of talking on text, so, in contrast to my first poly lover, we weren't virtually in each other's lives ALL THE TIME. (HB and I probably sent thousands of iMessages in the space of 8 months or so)

So the intimacy between us grew (comparatively) slowly, which meant no instant-NRE.

Even now we only see each other 1x or 2x a week, tops - which has it's pluses and minuses, but is I think mostly good for us.
 
I think poly/NRE/relationships like anything else takes time, practice and effort. And making mistakes. Just because you handled NRE horribly the first time doesn't mean you will repeat the same mistake over and over and over. That's implying that like everything else in life we experience we can't learn and grow from a negative NRE experience.

There are plenty of things in my life I handled poorly. And knowing I handled them so, doesn't mean I won't do them again. It means I won't handle them that way again. I might not get it completely right, but I won't get it wrong in the same way. We are never the same person after an experience than we are before.

Who hasn't hurt someone before, for plenty of non-NRE reasons? Who hasn't had a horrible relationship that turned out badly for whatever cause? We still learn and keep going, and NRE as that cause is no different.
 
For me the only bad thing about NRE is the crash that occurs if things don't pan out. Because of that I don't let myself start feeling that until things are looking good. I never feel that for somebody who is casual.

Of course, I have to be careful not to be too standoffish. It's a delicate balance for me.
 
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