jillybeane
New member
How we fell into poly before we knew it even existed [the abridged version]
Hi, y'all, I'm Jill! I'm 38, I'm married to an awesome guy, and I stumbled into poly quite by accident.
I met my best friend "Lia" and her husband "Bob" seven years ago, and fell rather quickly in love with her. I tried to keep it in check, knowing she identified as hetero, but she's not blind and she picked up on it pretty easily. Anyhow, I was afraid of burdening my hetero friend with my non-hetero feelings toward her, but she coped like a champ, and we started enjoying a physically affectionate relationship (kissing, cuddling, holding hands; that sort of thing).
Fast forward a few years. Lia starts putting out I'm Attracted To You signals, which I was extremely reluctant to act on for a couple of reasons. . .namely our married status, and the fact that she still identified as hetero. The whole business was very conflicting to me because I very much loved my husband and had no desire to hurt him, and how did I countenance being sexual with a straight gal? It just felt like taking advantage somehow.
So we started talking about it, and our communication was mostly me -> my husband, Lia -> Bob, and me -> Lia (my husband and Bob didn't really talk much to each other). Our exhaustive communication led to the decision to open our marriages up to one another in a limited sexual fashion.
The experience was both rewarding and frustrating. Jealousy and insecurity cropped up (as expected), and I feel like we did a well enough job at dealing with it. We all became very close emotionally, but the sex remained awkward, mostly due to Lia's ever-shifting boundary lines. Her boundaries were never being respected because she failed to communicate them until they were crossed. This became tiresome to all of us.
We carried on in this vein for three months before Lia put the relationship in a long, protracted state of limbo, saying she needed to work on her marriage (which did have some fairly major issues).
We waited for six months, and it was clear their marriage was deteriorating rather than getting better, and Lia broke things off completely. Somehow, we managed to stay close friends
Looking back, a few things are obvious to me now:
1. Lia and Bob thought that having others in their marriage would somehow help their problems.
2. Lia was bicurious, and after having satisfied the curiosity, was ready to retreat back into heteroworld.
3. Lia wasn't interested in my husband at all, but accepted him as a necessary obstacle in order to explore her bicuriosity with me.
The fallout:
1. I still have feelings for Lia that are no longer reciprocated (and I understand this, because somewhere in the back of my nonhetero mind, I knew she would never be anything else).
2. I still have feelings for Bob.
3. Bob still has feelings for me.
4. My husband still has feelings for Lia, but also feels bitterly deceived by her, because she said she loved him.
Even though Bob and Lia had a lot of issues in their marriage, we still felt enriched by having them in ours. So now here we are- a single couple, wishing we were still poly.
Hi, y'all, I'm Jill! I'm 38, I'm married to an awesome guy, and I stumbled into poly quite by accident.
I met my best friend "Lia" and her husband "Bob" seven years ago, and fell rather quickly in love with her. I tried to keep it in check, knowing she identified as hetero, but she's not blind and she picked up on it pretty easily. Anyhow, I was afraid of burdening my hetero friend with my non-hetero feelings toward her, but she coped like a champ, and we started enjoying a physically affectionate relationship (kissing, cuddling, holding hands; that sort of thing).
Fast forward a few years. Lia starts putting out I'm Attracted To You signals, which I was extremely reluctant to act on for a couple of reasons. . .namely our married status, and the fact that she still identified as hetero. The whole business was very conflicting to me because I very much loved my husband and had no desire to hurt him, and how did I countenance being sexual with a straight gal? It just felt like taking advantage somehow.
So we started talking about it, and our communication was mostly me -> my husband, Lia -> Bob, and me -> Lia (my husband and Bob didn't really talk much to each other). Our exhaustive communication led to the decision to open our marriages up to one another in a limited sexual fashion.
The experience was both rewarding and frustrating. Jealousy and insecurity cropped up (as expected), and I feel like we did a well enough job at dealing with it. We all became very close emotionally, but the sex remained awkward, mostly due to Lia's ever-shifting boundary lines. Her boundaries were never being respected because she failed to communicate them until they were crossed. This became tiresome to all of us.
We carried on in this vein for three months before Lia put the relationship in a long, protracted state of limbo, saying she needed to work on her marriage (which did have some fairly major issues).
We waited for six months, and it was clear their marriage was deteriorating rather than getting better, and Lia broke things off completely. Somehow, we managed to stay close friends
Looking back, a few things are obvious to me now:
1. Lia and Bob thought that having others in their marriage would somehow help their problems.
2. Lia was bicurious, and after having satisfied the curiosity, was ready to retreat back into heteroworld.
3. Lia wasn't interested in my husband at all, but accepted him as a necessary obstacle in order to explore her bicuriosity with me.
The fallout:
1. I still have feelings for Lia that are no longer reciprocated (and I understand this, because somewhere in the back of my nonhetero mind, I knew she would never be anything else).
2. I still have feelings for Bob.
3. Bob still has feelings for me.
4. My husband still has feelings for Lia, but also feels bitterly deceived by her, because she said she loved him.
Even though Bob and Lia had a lot of issues in their marriage, we still felt enriched by having them in ours. So now here we are- a single couple, wishing we were still poly.
Last edited: