I’m not sure how to define ‘successful’. Is it time together? Integration/entanglement of lives?
My partners and I are in a closed triad and have been for 2 years, (we just had our anniversary). We’ve known each other about 12 years, and I knew them individually, before they got together and subsequently married. We were friends for 10 years, spending time doing vanilla-friend things, watching films, hanging out and laughing.
During that time, I fancied the pants off her (she’s gorgeous!) and he ticked all my BDSM boxes. They were looking for someone to play with them both. I was looking for a couple. But I never thought they would be interested in me in that way. He has certain body type preferences and I don’t really fit those. So the subject was never really broached. A good few years back, she & I hooked up for play but it fizzled out. The reason for that was I began to have feelings for her. However, I did not want to be ‘the other partner’. It didn’t feel right to me and it wasn’t the relationship structure I’d wanted since I was 14. It was a very odd feeling. Unbeknown to me, she was having similar deeper feelings for me, but thought when I broke it off I wasn’t interested in her. She jokes that she’s been stalking me for 10 years. (How she and I met is a whole other story!)
Anyway, fast forward about 7 years. We’re still friends, laughing and hanging out. Then one night, during a risqué conversation via facebook status comments, he messaged me and asked me if I would be interested in playing with them both. I joke that he caught me on a good night. I’d been closed off and single for pretty much 10 years (her and I’s brief interlude notwithstanding). He and I talked a lot over a couple of days. I had absolutely no qualms that she was fully aware and involved in the conversation and everything I said to him, she knew and vice versa. I knew them well and their relationship and so I knew there was nothing underhand going on. We negotiated for a few days. I was quite clear that it was a casual play thing, nothing more. They would continue to look for what they wanted in a third and I would continue to look for my dream couple. I put lots of ‘rules’ in about no emotions and that we would remain friends no matter what. I couldn’t afford to lose such good friends. We arranged for me to go up for a weekend.
About 4 months later I realised I had fallen in love with her all over again. I didn’t know what to do about it. The following easter, I realised I had fallen in love with him too (and not for the same reasons). I knew that it wasn’t reciprocated from either of them. I didn’t know what to do. I was a coward and emailed them both (we lived 200 miles apart, it wasn’t a conversation I wanted either of us to drive for, then drive home again). I told them how I felt. I told them I knew they didn’t feel the same, nor did they want the same relationship things I did and so now was a good time to end it.
Long story short, they phoned me (darn that distance), told me they felt the same, wanted to have a relationship with me, and all that entailed and we went from there. We haven’t looked back, except to marvel about where we are now, from casual play.
Earlier this year, while I was looking for new work opportunities, she sent me some adverts for contracts up near them. Somehow, without any real discussion, I got a contract near them and I am pretty much living with them. I retain my house and go home every other weekend, for my family and to give them time alone (which I think is important). We do the usual relationship stuff of planning trips to take together, how we’ll share and spend our lottery win. We are pretty much living together full time and our lives are about as entangled as any other couple. We do have to keep it quiet at work due to the nature of our jobs, but our families and most friends are in the know. I am fumbling my way through living with people again, after so long on my own. But I cannot describe the happy warm feeling in my stomach when I think about them, or when I think about going home to them at night.
We built our relationship on the foundation of being friends, having shared morals and ideologies, shared interests and a deep trust in one another that has developed over time before we got anywhere near sex/play. We also knew, though conversation and seeing each other at events in clubs that our kinks were fairly well aligned/matched. Each couple share things that the third may not and we share a lot as a three. We are very careful to ensure that each couple relationship is nurtured as well as the threeway relationship. We are all deeply invested in one another and our relationship, there is no one ‘going along with it’ for the sake of one of the others. I did fall in love with both of them, but at different times and for different reasons. The relationship I have with each of them has developed at different rates and in different ways. They’re relationship has also changed in subtle ways and they tell me that I am a positive influence
but there was no expectation of loving them both the same. We don’t generally ascribe to equality but to balance.
We often wonder why it took us so long to get together because it feels so good and right, and my conclusion is that we were not ready before now. We still had lessons to learn. I don’t find the relationship hard work, but we do consciously work at communication issues – there’s more room for miscommunication, assumptions and misunderstandings when there’s three people all viewing a single set of circumstances!
Not sure that the sort of thing you’re looking for
