'Ello, 'ello, Polyfolk...

Arinbjorn

New member
My name is Tony. I'm 24 years old, male - been married to my 24 year old wife for five years (together for 10 years.) We are from Northern Illinois.

We have been into polyamory for a couple months, after being traditionally monogomous for 10 years. Once we decided to give it a shot, we found ourselves surrounded by old time friends who wanted in on a serious level. We have one female lover locally, one female long time friend who is kind of testing the waters also locally, and one long time male friend who is transgendered - he lives out of state, and is becoming a serious lover.

Locally, that leaves me and 3 women :D Tough life, y'know.

I came on board here to learn more about polyamory, and to read up on other people's experiences.

I am a US Army Special Operations (Airborne) veteran, honorably discharged in 2009. I love tea and coffee, martial arts, working out, smoking my old school corn cob pipes and cigars, bonsai and other gardening - I am a licensed religious Minister, but not a Christian - most of what I do has roots in Scandinavian shamanism, also incorporating some Native American and Indo-Asiatic concepts and traditions. I try to have an open mind, and study the world and what it has to offer.

I work in private contract security, though I just finished the education and licensing necessary to take x rays in hospitals (radiographer.) I also own and operate Green Flames Studio, where I make handmade chain mail jewelry from scratch, among other artistic endeavors.

Thanks for having me.
 
Hello! My father grew up in Illinois (Arlington Heights), so I'm somewhat familiar with the area. I is unusual to see other poly folk so close to my and my partners' ages around here. Nice to see you!
 
Hello! My father grew up in Illinois (Arlington Heights), so I'm somewhat familiar with the area. I is unusual to see other poly folk so close to my and my partners' ages around here. Nice to see you!

Thanks for the welcome. Glad to meet y'all.

MR - I've been through Arlington Heights plenty of times. I grew up in Rockford, and I live just a few minutes north of Rockford currently.

As far as polyamory goes - it's a pretty drastic change for me. My wife is the one who really suggested that we give this a legitimate try. I think I'm growing into it fine, but it seems like a lot is happening very suddenly. She's incredibly happy though - which makes me very happy. I am also pretty happy myself. I guess in the back of my mind, I'm just being cautious still.

Things pretty much revolve around her - we are the spokes on her extroverted hub, though we are all good long time friends, and have been getting involved with each other as well in this new way. It honestly helps that at least locally, I'm the only male involved. Maybe that's a double standard of some sort, but I guess that's just how I feel.

She does have one person where the relationship is just her and solely this other person. Makes me contemplate about searching out something akin to that for myself, there is a sense that this could be more balanced. Yet, I am wary of thinking too overconfidently in myself that I could handle even more - or wary of channeling a subconscious jealously into a new want for myself.

I see it as her + me in the middle. She has someone that only she has that sort of relationship with on her end. Then there is a person we share. Then there is a person that we share who is just testing the waters, but I'm fairly certain will end up going back to monogomy. Then, there is a blank spot on my end that mirrors her open spot. I don't know if that makes sense or not?

My wife and I have both been honest about our emotions and are communicating way more than before about our emotions, which is genuinely awesome. I think we've both grown a lot as human beings as a result. Polyamorous relationships have definetly been positive thus far.
 
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It definitely makes sense. Originally my fiance and I were looking for another couple and trying to achieve a balance in the number of sex partners or whatever, but then I met and fell for one of his coworkers and have been dating him for 8ish months now. My fiance still doesn't have another girlfriend, but we talk to another couple that is interested in all three of us. Not sure if that is really going to go anywhere, but it certainly has made their past few visits interesting.

It can be weird to figure out and I've honestly gotten to a point where I feel like we plan and fate laughs haha. Love really does kind of spring up out of nowhere sometimes and you never know what is going to work or not or when it is going to happen to you.
 
"I feel like we plan, and fate laughs"

I suppose Murphy's Law applies to everything - and if I was Murphy, I'd pay special attention to having my claws sunk deep into this particular area of people's lives :D

Love is quite the adventure. I suppose if we knew everything, that would take a little of the zing out of it.
 
It makes me happy to finally find out that there are people in Rockford that are poly. My wife and I seem to have a hard time finding people that even know what poly is. We are currently a couple, but had another couple that we were connected to in the past.

I would love to find some locals and meet up some time. It would be nice to sit down and see if our experiences are like others.
 
My wife and I grew up in Rockford. We live in Machesney Park now. Quite impressive to come across other poly folk within a few minutes driving distance!

We would love to meet you both and talk, get to know you two, and compare experiences. I think it would be great to know people, in the flesh, that we can communicate with! I'll PM you our contact info here shortly when I can get off my smart phone and onto a real computer.
 
Hi Tony,

Although it's very belated on my part, I wanted to add my welcome to the forum. It sounds like you guys have quite an exciting situation, with few dull moments. I wouldn't worry too much about balancing things; poly tends to be wabi-sabi, so to speak.

I hope you're enjoying your time on Polyamory.com, there's certainly a lot to discover here.

With regards,
Kevin T.
 
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