TroubledTigress
New member
So, I was just over in introductions, and introducing myself and realized that I was writing -a lot-. Much more then would be polite to ask someone to read for an introduction and really, I know most people might dislike how much I posted already. Oh well, that is honestly the shortened version.
Anyways, when I realized how much I was typing up, I remembered the blog section I had looked through when exploring the site and before joining. So I decided, why not post a more in-depth thing here?! Not waste those words I had already blathered on with, and perhaps type some more while I wait to see if my girlfriend can get online tonight.
To re-hash a little bit of my introduction; I'm 27, Canadian, newly realized pansexual and new to practicing polyamory. I'm married to my husband of 7 and 1/2 years and been with my girlfriend for 4 days. That, is how new I am to polyamory. To expand on that, I'm also an almost cat lady with 3 cats who are my kids, and a gamer, a geek, an artist, writer, nymphomaniac, and dreamer.
So for those who may be curious about my journey and how I got here, I will write it out for you and hopefully you find it to be an interesting read. But it does start a long way back I think. I'm a rather self-analytical and reflective person, so I often see connections. On with the story;
Previously I identified as bisexual, but after a few conversations with a very dear person to me, who has had problems feeling comfortable in their skin, that the label doesn't really fit all of who I am. I've known of pansexuality for awhile, academically but never had any experience with it growing up. Heck, growing up, I had very little experience with bisexuality and the other sexuality beyond hetero. So anyways, I identified based more on the basic ideas.
But as I have told my dearest friend, I don't care about gender. He, she, and everything else, they are merely identifiers. What matters, is the person and the person is what I am attracted to and matters above all.
What does this have to do with polyamory? Well keep reading
Seth, as I'll call my husband here, I met in high school in Gr. 9 and we dated for a short time. However, we were both at points in our lives that it was just not going to work out and broke up. He because he didn't think he could be a boyfriend to anyone, and I, was battling depression as I am still to this day. But we stayed friends over the years. I dated more guys, explored my sexual nature and had a couple flings with girls and was even engaged for a year. Nothing overly kinky or bizarre, just a lot of sex with my boyfriends and perhaps a little boundary pushing.
At 18, Seth moved out onto his own and I pretty much kidnapped him from day one. Hung out with him all the time I could, because well to be frank, my fiance was almost never around and I was on my own and lonely. Nothing happened at first however. No, it only came when my fiance one day, out of the blue tells me, he wanted permission to sleep with whoever, whenever he wanted. Now, at the time, I am certain I had not ever heard of polyamory. Polygamy through history most likely, but nothing like polyamory and like most people without concept of it I completely balked. Had he mentioned polyamory and explained the idea to me, I might have been more receptive, but... I don't believe he even knew of it. I was not remotely open to this idea however. Open relationship, notoriously meaning to sleep around- at least to my mind at the time from having seen how it worked. And to this day I'm certain he meant nothing like polyamory.
I was brought up in a very dysfunctional environment to give some background to this. Mother and father divorced early due to my father's cheating ways, and as of right now my father is on his fourth marriage. And I am one of 7 kids, 3 biological to my father, 1 adopted and the other 3 step. I'll sum it up to say, this was not a healthy environment either. And beyond suffering from depression, I have suffered from abandonment issues and jealousy issues due to being forgotten (literally) by my father many times for his 'new' families.
So I said no. I was firm in this. No. But he didn't drop the issue. I don't even remember how many times he brought up and me, being me, the person who wants to please the ones they love even at the cost of themselves was eventually coerced into saying yes. Of course I stipulated that if he was going to be allowed to do so, I was allowed the same freedom so we would be on equal footing. He was fine with this, but I still was not.
Now I suppose this was hypocritical of me to do, because if I'm completely honest, I cheated on him a couple times before this ever happened. He never found out til I told him much later. I don't believe it was evidence of being wired for poly either, because, as much as it doesn't excuse me the times I cheated on him were times to fulfill my loneliness and pain. By this time in our relationship, things had become abusive and frankly, he had tried to kill me a couple times by trying to strangle me when in a rage. He claimed them all to be accidents, and slipped hands, but when your feet leave the ground, that is no accident. Still I should have gotten out of the relationship instead of cheating, but that loneliness was a problem I couldn't deal with at the time.
Though when I sort of cheated on my ex, with that fiance, that might have been a hint of it since they asked if I could date them both and I agreed to it for awhile. But I felt it unfair to them and eventually chose one.
Anyways, Seth who I was hanging out with all the time by this point was a saviour to me. He supported me and was there for me when I needed him most, and well since we had dated in high school, I'd always been attracted to him. So with the newfound freedom of an open relationship, I had what was intended to be a one night stand with him. Since he's my husband now you can see how well that turned out XD
The fiance got jealous of our time together eventually and told me to choose. Well, you can tell who I chose.
For the next 8 years, (as we dated for a year before getting married) we've been married. For about half of that I didn't really even consider anyone else, prolly because of being so wrapped up in him. Perhaps it's co-dependent, but he is my best friend, my family and a lot more. We still have had friends and the like but we are both not socially adept and both have been essentially abandoned by family.
I have always, always felt terrible for the cheating that I did. Despite the reasons they were done under, I hated the fact I hurt the people I cared for. I really did. And so I did my best to squash any further feelings that ever developed for someone else. As proposed by monogamy and raising, once married you need to be utterly faithful to that one person. If there are problems, fix it or get divorced if they can't be fixed. And feelings for someone else, was a sign of problems.
Maybe I would have recognized a lot sooner that there were some of my needs not being met if I hadn't been so worried about being like my father and being a serial cheater. I always feared being like him the moment I had ever done my own cheating.
However, as it goes, preoccupied with trying to make things work and make sure that I was a good person by the standards of a monogamous society, I didn't see the reason why I still looked.
I didn't ever actually cheat on my husband, mostly because despite there being certain needs he cannot meet, one thing he does is being a listener. He's not good at advice or even really giving my of an opinion most of the time, but if there's anything, he's not overly judgemental and only gets cranky at listening to me when he's trying to sleep and I need to keep talking. And I told him every time that I had an attraction to someone, with the hopes that perhaps if I did something bad, he wouldn't be surprised and hurt as much. Maybe surprisingly, he never really had huge issues with it.
First came the guy from our work place, who looked a lot like my husband (amusing side fact, turns out the guy was the brother of a childhood friend of one of my stepbrothers XD) and who was interesting and incredibly smart. We talked about many things! And I eventually became attracted to him. Now that I think about it, I guess he would have been polyamorous, but very specifically because when I confessed to him my feelings he told me he would possibly have dated me had I been a male, because he already had a girlfriend he really cared for. (he was bisexual) End of that really.
Next was another from the same place, but that was a short lived attraction because he left the workplace and never heard from again and nothing was ever talked about beyond casual stuff.
After that was an old friend of my hubby's who was well, still a virgin and who I thought a good friend at the time. I'd known him for a while, and even had messed around with a tiny bit before, but that's another story. Nothing really happened there because I felt too guilty when it came close to it.
And then our next roommate. He was recently out of a relationship, also intelligent, shared a lot of similar interests and a nice guy at heart. It was after a dream I realized the attraction I had to him, but I kept that mostly to myself because, well I didn't want to screw up a friendship.
After that, years went by without anyone striking a fancy in me, mainly because my disabilities were really starting to catch up with me and we did a big move. And I slowly stopped being able to go out and be as active due to increasing pain. Of course this made me become more and more attracted to the online world. Not that I wasn't already one who spent a lot of time online, but it became my refuge, a place to be someone without pain and with friends.
Continued below due to text limit....
Anyways, when I realized how much I was typing up, I remembered the blog section I had looked through when exploring the site and before joining. So I decided, why not post a more in-depth thing here?! Not waste those words I had already blathered on with, and perhaps type some more while I wait to see if my girlfriend can get online tonight.
To re-hash a little bit of my introduction; I'm 27, Canadian, newly realized pansexual and new to practicing polyamory. I'm married to my husband of 7 and 1/2 years and been with my girlfriend for 4 days. That, is how new I am to polyamory. To expand on that, I'm also an almost cat lady with 3 cats who are my kids, and a gamer, a geek, an artist, writer, nymphomaniac, and dreamer.
So for those who may be curious about my journey and how I got here, I will write it out for you and hopefully you find it to be an interesting read. But it does start a long way back I think. I'm a rather self-analytical and reflective person, so I often see connections. On with the story;
Previously I identified as bisexual, but after a few conversations with a very dear person to me, who has had problems feeling comfortable in their skin, that the label doesn't really fit all of who I am. I've known of pansexuality for awhile, academically but never had any experience with it growing up. Heck, growing up, I had very little experience with bisexuality and the other sexuality beyond hetero. So anyways, I identified based more on the basic ideas.
But as I have told my dearest friend, I don't care about gender. He, she, and everything else, they are merely identifiers. What matters, is the person and the person is what I am attracted to and matters above all.
What does this have to do with polyamory? Well keep reading
Seth, as I'll call my husband here, I met in high school in Gr. 9 and we dated for a short time. However, we were both at points in our lives that it was just not going to work out and broke up. He because he didn't think he could be a boyfriend to anyone, and I, was battling depression as I am still to this day. But we stayed friends over the years. I dated more guys, explored my sexual nature and had a couple flings with girls and was even engaged for a year. Nothing overly kinky or bizarre, just a lot of sex with my boyfriends and perhaps a little boundary pushing.
At 18, Seth moved out onto his own and I pretty much kidnapped him from day one. Hung out with him all the time I could, because well to be frank, my fiance was almost never around and I was on my own and lonely. Nothing happened at first however. No, it only came when my fiance one day, out of the blue tells me, he wanted permission to sleep with whoever, whenever he wanted. Now, at the time, I am certain I had not ever heard of polyamory. Polygamy through history most likely, but nothing like polyamory and like most people without concept of it I completely balked. Had he mentioned polyamory and explained the idea to me, I might have been more receptive, but... I don't believe he even knew of it. I was not remotely open to this idea however. Open relationship, notoriously meaning to sleep around- at least to my mind at the time from having seen how it worked. And to this day I'm certain he meant nothing like polyamory.
I was brought up in a very dysfunctional environment to give some background to this. Mother and father divorced early due to my father's cheating ways, and as of right now my father is on his fourth marriage. And I am one of 7 kids, 3 biological to my father, 1 adopted and the other 3 step. I'll sum it up to say, this was not a healthy environment either. And beyond suffering from depression, I have suffered from abandonment issues and jealousy issues due to being forgotten (literally) by my father many times for his 'new' families.
So I said no. I was firm in this. No. But he didn't drop the issue. I don't even remember how many times he brought up and me, being me, the person who wants to please the ones they love even at the cost of themselves was eventually coerced into saying yes. Of course I stipulated that if he was going to be allowed to do so, I was allowed the same freedom so we would be on equal footing. He was fine with this, but I still was not.
Now I suppose this was hypocritical of me to do, because if I'm completely honest, I cheated on him a couple times before this ever happened. He never found out til I told him much later. I don't believe it was evidence of being wired for poly either, because, as much as it doesn't excuse me the times I cheated on him were times to fulfill my loneliness and pain. By this time in our relationship, things had become abusive and frankly, he had tried to kill me a couple times by trying to strangle me when in a rage. He claimed them all to be accidents, and slipped hands, but when your feet leave the ground, that is no accident. Still I should have gotten out of the relationship instead of cheating, but that loneliness was a problem I couldn't deal with at the time.
Though when I sort of cheated on my ex, with that fiance, that might have been a hint of it since they asked if I could date them both and I agreed to it for awhile. But I felt it unfair to them and eventually chose one.
Anyways, Seth who I was hanging out with all the time by this point was a saviour to me. He supported me and was there for me when I needed him most, and well since we had dated in high school, I'd always been attracted to him. So with the newfound freedom of an open relationship, I had what was intended to be a one night stand with him. Since he's my husband now you can see how well that turned out XD
The fiance got jealous of our time together eventually and told me to choose. Well, you can tell who I chose.
For the next 8 years, (as we dated for a year before getting married) we've been married. For about half of that I didn't really even consider anyone else, prolly because of being so wrapped up in him. Perhaps it's co-dependent, but he is my best friend, my family and a lot more. We still have had friends and the like but we are both not socially adept and both have been essentially abandoned by family.
I have always, always felt terrible for the cheating that I did. Despite the reasons they were done under, I hated the fact I hurt the people I cared for. I really did. And so I did my best to squash any further feelings that ever developed for someone else. As proposed by monogamy and raising, once married you need to be utterly faithful to that one person. If there are problems, fix it or get divorced if they can't be fixed. And feelings for someone else, was a sign of problems.
Maybe I would have recognized a lot sooner that there were some of my needs not being met if I hadn't been so worried about being like my father and being a serial cheater. I always feared being like him the moment I had ever done my own cheating.
However, as it goes, preoccupied with trying to make things work and make sure that I was a good person by the standards of a monogamous society, I didn't see the reason why I still looked.
I didn't ever actually cheat on my husband, mostly because despite there being certain needs he cannot meet, one thing he does is being a listener. He's not good at advice or even really giving my of an opinion most of the time, but if there's anything, he's not overly judgemental and only gets cranky at listening to me when he's trying to sleep and I need to keep talking. And I told him every time that I had an attraction to someone, with the hopes that perhaps if I did something bad, he wouldn't be surprised and hurt as much. Maybe surprisingly, he never really had huge issues with it.
First came the guy from our work place, who looked a lot like my husband (amusing side fact, turns out the guy was the brother of a childhood friend of one of my stepbrothers XD) and who was interesting and incredibly smart. We talked about many things! And I eventually became attracted to him. Now that I think about it, I guess he would have been polyamorous, but very specifically because when I confessed to him my feelings he told me he would possibly have dated me had I been a male, because he already had a girlfriend he really cared for. (he was bisexual) End of that really.
Next was another from the same place, but that was a short lived attraction because he left the workplace and never heard from again and nothing was ever talked about beyond casual stuff.
After that was an old friend of my hubby's who was well, still a virgin and who I thought a good friend at the time. I'd known him for a while, and even had messed around with a tiny bit before, but that's another story. Nothing really happened there because I felt too guilty when it came close to it.
And then our next roommate. He was recently out of a relationship, also intelligent, shared a lot of similar interests and a nice guy at heart. It was after a dream I realized the attraction I had to him, but I kept that mostly to myself because, well I didn't want to screw up a friendship.
After that, years went by without anyone striking a fancy in me, mainly because my disabilities were really starting to catch up with me and we did a big move. And I slowly stopped being able to go out and be as active due to increasing pain. Of course this made me become more and more attracted to the online world. Not that I wasn't already one who spent a lot of time online, but it became my refuge, a place to be someone without pain and with friends.
Continued below due to text limit....