Paths into poly

rory

New member
I have read some stories of how people have come into polyamory. I would like to hear yours. :)
 
My husband and I started with monogamy, he was very jealous in the beginning of our relationship. We were very young (I was 16, he 20) and he had big insecurities. He was jealous of me spending time at school or with friends. There was some serious co-dependence in the beginning, I think that is why I put up with the jealousy. His self esteem gradually got better and he stopped the controlling behaviour within the first year, but it took us a few more years to repair the damage and for me to believe that he wouldn't start that kind of behaviour again.

We got married after we had been together for 4 years and started talking about the possibility of having a threesome with another girl at around the same time (I am bisexual). It was all very hypothetical at that point and first we only played with the idea. But I started to think about it more analytically and finally told him that the idea of him having sex with somebody else didn't actually bother me at all. I was sort of surprised myself, even though I had never been a jealous person. I gave him the "permission" to be with somebody if he felt like it. I didn't expect any freedom in return: my reason for giving him permission was that I didn't see a reason to limit him since the thought didn't bother me in any way. My husband started thinking about the whole thing, and after a while he told me that he wouldn't feel bad if I were to kiss or have sex with another girl, but felt jealous thinking about me with another guy. At that point neither of us had any knowlege of polyamory. I found about it later and shared with him that it would also be ok if he fell in love with somebody, but we didn't discuss it further.

We had the agreement for almost two years before either of us had sex. My husband hasn't still been with anybody else. I had sex with a friend, and that was a one-time thing. Then after more than a year, I met an online-friend of mine for the first time and there was sex as well but also deeper feelings. So after visiting her I talked to my husband about polyamory and discussed how he would feel about me having a serious relationship with her. My husband didn't feel any jealousy about the situation and was okay with it. My friend had similar talks with her husband, we spent some more time together and now she is officially my girlfriend. :)

I feel very happy, I like her a lot and feel that there could be so much potential in this. She is a wonderful person and seems compatible. Although that might partially be the NRE talking. :p

I also feel that taking this step we have gained such openness in my marriage. It's so wonderful to see new sides to a person you have been long with. And I feel amazement at how far we have come, and especially my husband. Both of us have obviously grown and changed a lot, but in terms of the jealousy he has made tremendous progress. I may have given him technically more freedom but he has taken more steps to be where he is now and I am very proud of him. :) And I do feel that I am the luckiest person in the world. :p
 
Thanks, I think I'll check out more of the life stories area when I have time :)

I've read some stories on here already in in separate topics, but I thought maybe an own thread would be a nice idea as well. :)
 
I hope that our journey into this turns out to be as wonderful as yours has :) I've been back and forth on whether or not to take on a girlfriend of my own, while my boyfriend is seeing this new woman (first meeting tomorrow, which I think will go well for them and they will move forward).

As of today, I was thinking I wasn't too sure that I wanted to take on a gf so soon until I sorted through my initial and huge jealousy feelings, but I got a message from a girl locally, who seems to have quite a few things in common with me and she is cute, so I'm going to entertain the idea of coffee with her. I'm nervous about it, lol, but he tells me I should do it and at least see what it is like.

Change has always been a struggle for me in life when I'm comfortable, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this makes me strong and makes us stronger. Your post was very inspirational for me :)
 
Thank you, gamerprincess :) Hopefully things will work out well for us all in the future and also for you and your boyfriend. :)

--

I wanted to add to the topic that I am interested not only hearing stories about how people have started their polyamorous relationship but also of how people in general have "found" poly, whether they were single or in relationships. :)
 
I distinctly remember posting this 'somewhere', but I'm fairly sure it's not my blog.

I have never been the jealous type, and have always experienced strong feelings of compersion. Being also often somewhat unavailable time- or energy-wise (I have a busy family life), I played around with the idea of my partners having other girlfriends too that would be available when I wasn't. When I brought it up however, the response I got was 'But I only want to be with you'. So I thought this was just a peculiar quirk of mine and that people in general were not interested in multiple partners (at that point, I had never heard of NRE).

I've always had a very practical attitude to romantic relationships in the sense that I feel wary of the whole commitment issue while things are new and I'm still in-love. I usually feel better committing to friends and family than to lovers, because I've always had a very strong idea that romantic relationships are transitory. I did wonder where all the drama came from with the cheating and 'we are no longer in-love, now I'm in love with someone else' and people having to break up their families because they no longer were feeling the same way about their partners. When I brought this up with other people the responses I got were something along the lines of 'That's a cool idea, but there's no working around jealousy' or 'If relationships between two people are complicated, imagine adding a third - that's just too much hassle'.

Now when I read Deborah Anapol's book 'Polyamory' I immediately recognized that this was what I had always been talking about. I imagine having already read a lot of critiques of the traditional heterosexual nuclear family and marriage helped. Also, I saw polyamory as a way to live out my bisexuality. At that point, I did imagine being partnered with an established male-female or lesbian couple. What I've discovered so far is that 1) the less expectations, the better end result; 2) weird stuff happens and 3) my bisexuality is somewhat incidental.

So, I personally have never had problems with sexual fidelity and that was not my introduction to poly (I was single until very recently). It is more of a philosophical choice and yes, a LIFESTYLE :p that resonates with who I feel I am inside.
 
I was brought up in a conservative religious family with strong "family values" (including jealousy as an indication of real love). In my first love-relationships, I experienced jealousy:( (therefore true love:)). But I'm a very rational person and my head was telling me that jealousy only causes heartache and pain. Wouldn't it be better:confused: if we could just throw it out the window?

From then on, with every new relationship, I set myself the task of dismantling another portion of jealousy, until I got to the point (in a long-distance relationship) where I could actually introduce my girlfriend to a guy that she MIGHT be interested in (no pressure or preference on my side re: whether or not they decided to take it further). And I felt happy when my gf had a happy relationship with another, because I thought: "If I can't be there for her, at least somebody else can.:)"

When boyfriends came to take my gf out on a date (or back to their place), I'd offer them tea, play the host, ask friendly questions, whatever. They were always more uncomfortable:eek::confused: than I was:cool::D.

20 years later, I come across the word "polyamory" and decide: THIS is where I feel at home:):)!
 
My partner (D) and my relationship started as friends with benefits, at times we were just benefits and not terribly good friends, at other times we were excellent friends, sans benefits, and at times completely out of touch with each other. We decided to say that we were dating about two and a half years ago, and both had a terrible time figuring out what to call each other. We decided to take our relationship one day at a time, and be monogamous while we solidified our relationship to each other, and sorted out some of our individual issues. (Okay, while I sorted out my issues, he's a reasonably stable person on his own ;) )

While D and I were friends with/without benefits D lived with L, and her two kids, his niece and nephew, and at times his brother. Independent of D and my relationship, the three of us bought a house together halfway across the country after all deciding we wanted to make a drastic change in our living situations. D, L, and I have been living together for about a year and 8 months (give or take) with both kids really happily. Before we bought the house we did do some lawyer time and write up what happens if someone wants to move out/move someone else in, sell their part, break up, etc.

D and I have always had fun checking out other guys together and the fact that I might be jealous that he thought other guys are attractive didn't really occur to me. I mean, I find other guys attractive and still love him, so why should it be any different? Philosophically, our relationship has always had room for multiple attractions, we just weren't practicing polyamory. Over the past six months or so we've been transitioning to actually practicing poly, and it feels so much more natural to me than to define our relationship as monogamous.

It's also freed my own little brainbox up to spend more time with L and appreciate my attraction to her and develop an individual relationship between the two of us. D is thrilled haha. I was reading Opening Up and came across the section on "compersion" and dragged D over to point out, "This is you! This is that 'I'm happy if you're happy' thing you've been trying to explain to me for the past two years! I get it!"

Lightbulb city. :)
 
I have written my story on my blog and in the intros but in a nut shell? I was monogamous and straight when I was a teen and into my twenties. I dated a lot and had lots of boyfriends. I was never without a partner. Then I cheated. Then was lesbian identified for about 10 years. Then came out as non-monogamous, met my now husband and was in a vee with him and my ex-wife. She was mono and it didn't work out. I am now married to the man I had a vee with. My ex-wife is part of my family still. After ten years I have a live in boyfriend, a girlfriend and a couple of other guys in the shadows if you will. I have no idea what will happen next. I fulfilled my poly goal of family, so the next path is unknown for now.
 
Back
Top