Okay, to be clear, I'm not after a thread on ideas on how to come out as poly. Rather, I'm interested as to your own stories on how you came out as poly to other people. How did you tell them? Where you blunt, or did you leave hints around? Have you come out to your parents, friends, co-workers? How did they react? And have you made or lost any friends because of it?
My story is this. For as long as I can remember, I've never really thought it a bad thing to have more than one love. When I was a little kid, I came home from school one day and proudly told my mum that I had several girlfriends at school. Unfortunately, my love life was never a very successful one, and it never really got going until my mid 20s, and despite a rather unfulfilling relationship, the whole idea of non-monogamy never really came to mind. Maybe I was just too busy trying to make one relationship work I just didn't have time to try to get into another one. But when I met my current partner (Ro, for those of you who are keeping track with my other thread), we really hit it off, and we've developed a very strong and secure relationship. We hardly fight, and when we do, we are able to solve the problem quickly. We just WORK.
We'd discussed having an open relationship for a while, but she was usually fairly unsure about it. Recently, a few months ago, Ro came to realise that she is bisexual. Now, I'm about as liberal as you can get, so I told her that she should feel free to explore this newly discovered aspect of herself. We started talking about a threesome with another girl, to which I have absolutely no problem. So, with the idea of opening our relationship up to allow for a threesome, I started looking at the Wikipedia articles on different kinds of open relationships.
And then I got to the one about polyamory. And as I read it, I felt the ideas just resonating with me like none of the others had. It just seemed RIGHT. Now, this was pretty late at night, and Ro was already in bed asleep, but the next morning I told her how the polyamory article had really resonated with me.
So since then, she's read a few things about polyamory, and we've discussed it at length. We've come up with rules and guidelines for how I can pursue other relationships, and we're getting to a point where we're both pretty comfortable with it.
I've also told a few other people. I told my best friend from highschool (a guy who is like a brother to me), and he played devil's advocate to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons, which was pretty good. And I've told another good friend who lives interstate. She's quite religious, so she has her worries, and she was also quite surprised. I've also told a guy at work, as he's also got an open relationship, although his is more of a casual sex thing rather than polyamory.
What about your stories?
My story is this. For as long as I can remember, I've never really thought it a bad thing to have more than one love. When I was a little kid, I came home from school one day and proudly told my mum that I had several girlfriends at school. Unfortunately, my love life was never a very successful one, and it never really got going until my mid 20s, and despite a rather unfulfilling relationship, the whole idea of non-monogamy never really came to mind. Maybe I was just too busy trying to make one relationship work I just didn't have time to try to get into another one. But when I met my current partner (Ro, for those of you who are keeping track with my other thread), we really hit it off, and we've developed a very strong and secure relationship. We hardly fight, and when we do, we are able to solve the problem quickly. We just WORK.
We'd discussed having an open relationship for a while, but she was usually fairly unsure about it. Recently, a few months ago, Ro came to realise that she is bisexual. Now, I'm about as liberal as you can get, so I told her that she should feel free to explore this newly discovered aspect of herself. We started talking about a threesome with another girl, to which I have absolutely no problem. So, with the idea of opening our relationship up to allow for a threesome, I started looking at the Wikipedia articles on different kinds of open relationships.
And then I got to the one about polyamory. And as I read it, I felt the ideas just resonating with me like none of the others had. It just seemed RIGHT. Now, this was pretty late at night, and Ro was already in bed asleep, but the next morning I told her how the polyamory article had really resonated with me.
So since then, she's read a few things about polyamory, and we've discussed it at length. We've come up with rules and guidelines for how I can pursue other relationships, and we're getting to a point where we're both pretty comfortable with it.
I've also told a few other people. I told my best friend from highschool (a guy who is like a brother to me), and he played devil's advocate to make sure I was doing it for the right reasons, which was pretty good. And I've told another good friend who lives interstate. She's quite religious, so she has her worries, and she was also quite surprised. I've also told a guy at work, as he's also got an open relationship, although his is more of a casual sex thing rather than polyamory.
What about your stories?