Greetings from lurker-ville

friday

New member
Hi everybody,
The screenname is a reference to one of my favorite Heinlein books, the main character was in a group marriage and though I've always been fascinated by the idea never expected to find myself in a poly situation, mostly because its hard enough to find the time and energy for a traditional relationship, much less a poly one.
I am 30, female, and would like to say that I'm bi since I appreciate particular people of either gender, but really have only had romantic relationships with men and on the whole appreciate men's sexuality more easily. Married a wonderful 29 year old gay man, just last year though we've been together for over six now and our delightful son is coming up on five. We were always open to outside sexual encounters, some friendly and sporadic but casual, others simple one night stands with either or both of us, usually depending on the third's preference.
About three and a half years ago we met and became very close to a dear (straight male) friend who is several years younger than us, and offered a poly amorous relationship and at the time he declined for religious reasons, and ended up pursuing a mono relationship. He then found a new religion in his secular studies and is now atheist and after ending the mono relationship this summer moved in with us for a few months and, much to my surprise, was up for a relationship with us that is sexual and romantic. So here we are, trying to muddle our way through it, none of us expecting to have found something both this cool and confusing.
Pretty much the husband and partner are best friends, and I'm the romantic hinge though they would be tight friends if I were absent. Its nice to hear about others' experiences, especially with the NRE stuff, etc. Been reading people's stories and thought it would be nice to say hi rather than lurking forever. :D
 
Hi everybody,
The screenname is a reference to one of my favorite Heinlein books, the main character was in a group marriage and though I've always been fascinated by the idea never expected to find myself in a poly situation, mostly because its hard enough to find the time and energy for a traditional relationship, much less a poly one.
I am 30, female, and would like to say that I'm bi since I appreciate particular people of either gender, but really have only had romantic relationships with men and on the whole appreciate men's sexuality more easily. Married a wonderful 29 year old gay man, just last year though we've been together for over six now and our delightful son is coming up on five.

Your husband is gay, but you 2 have a child? Adopted? Artificial insemination? Or do you 2 have sex though he defines himself as gay? Sorry to ask such a personal question!

We were always open to outside sexual encounters, some friendly and sporadic but casual, others simple one night stands with either or both of us, usually depending on the third's preference.
About three and a half years ago we met and became very close to a dear (straight male) friend who is several years younger than us, and offered a poly amorous relationship and at the time he declined for religious reasons, and ended up pursuing a mono relationship. He then found a new religion in his secular studies and is now atheist and after ending the mono relationship this summer moved in with us for a few months and, much to my surprise, was up for a relationship with us that is sexual and romantic. So here we are, trying to muddle our way through it, none of us expecting to have found something both this cool and confusing.
Pretty much the husband and partner are best friends, and I'm the romantic hinge though they would be tight friends if I were absent. Its nice to hear about others' experiences, especially with the NRE stuff, etc. Been reading people's stories and thought it would be nice to say hi rather than lurking forever. :D

Glad to meet you. Thanks for the thorough introduction. Congrats on your successful poly V! So you have sex with the new SO; don't have sex, but do have romance with your husband? And your husband gets his gay sex and possible romance from yet another guy or guys?
 
Welcome aboard, former lurker!




I'm also a bit puzzled by the sexual orientations of the people in the opening post. I guess I can understand a gay man and a basically straight woman having a profoundly loving relationship. But marrying? Hmm.
 
I'm also a bit puzzled by the sexual orientations of the people in the opening post. I guess I can understand a gay man and a basically straight woman having a profoundly loving relationship. But marrying? Hmm.

Heh, I can even get the marrying part (could be for economic's sake, tax breaks, immigration, etc), but a kid? Where'd s/he come from?
 
Sorry I should have clarified that my husband is mostly gay. He was openly gay when we met and only did men, then we met and fell in love and our sex life is much like a normal straight couple except for being open, and now being a poly. He's a confusing but awesome guy, and it created some weirdness in the beginning of the relationship that we worked through before conceiving our son, of whether or not he wanted to 'give up men' or the possibility of finding his perfect man rather than pursuing the relationship that we were forming way back when. We actually resisted getting married for the economic/tax breaks for a long time since we actually lost money on that one, plus I think we both feel there's something wrong with the fact that straights can marry and gays can't and the main reason we're allowed to marry is that we happen to be opposite genders. But that's another ball of wax altogether.
He'll probably be on here to post his own perspective soon - at least he says he will be since he's been lurking longer than I have.
Also, shortly after our son was born we moved to another state and most people here (about half of my family and all of our coworkers) don't know or haven't asked about his sexual orientation because they simply see him as a normal married guy. My parents know about his being gay, as do most of our close friends who say he plays "gay chicken" too well to be straight, but only if you spend a lot of time with him. He's not "in the closet" here, but we figure there's no point in bringing it up with people we're not interested in being intimate with since its just that much more complicated to explain for no reason. Husband has occasional gay sex with men who are either bi or gay who we encounter in our social life, but mostly neither of us have had a lot of time for 'extra-marital' stuff and we never go looking for it, just whenever people give us "the look" when we're out and about, we see what they might be interested in.
Oh, and our partner is mostly straight but very okay with threesomes, though sometimes he and I enjoy alone time in the sac without the husband, and at some point they may want to enjoy some alone time without me, which we are all okay with ... I guess the romance is between both me and the husband and me and the partner, the sex and friendship/companionship is all three of us, if that answers. Sorry its sort of a complex situation and I was trying to keep the intro simple to start with. The real answer is all three members are a little bit bi, but have definite preferences for what gender we like in the general population that don't apply to our relationship with each other.
 
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OK, thanks for answering. For the record, I am pansexual, a cisgendered but genderqueer woman in a poly "lesbian" relationship with a pansexual transwoman.

I was in a het marriage for 30 yrs but we split in '08. I've been with my gf for 2 1/2 years.

I am still getting used to being openly queer and partnered with a woman. I have met lots of women who ID as dykes or lesbians who are partnered with cisgendered men or transmen... they still ID as dyke even though most or all of their sex is with the opposite gender.

It's confusing. Your h IDs as gay even though most of his sex is with a woman! And all of his romantic loving feelings are with you. He just has casual sex with men. :confused:
 
We've gotten to the point that labels don't matter anymore to us, or to most of the people that care about us. Also, another reason it doesn't come up much. Kinda complicated to explain to people, and this is working so why question it?
Sometimes one is who one is and one loves who one loves regardless of the gender or orientation of the other person. Oddly enough, the only other person that my husband was in love with before we met was a straight man who loved him as a friend but not a lover (most of his other attachments have been platonic, while sexual encounters were brief). I've noticed gay men, particularly younger ones, tend to compartmentalize sex into its own, non-emotional box very easily because it is so freely available.
Or perhaps its just that we're still so young and busy living our lives (that work well for us) that its not something we've really stopped to think about since we got together, and one day it will be something he or we will have to really take the time to figure out again. Until then we'll continue on happily as we are.
 
We've gotten to the point that labels don't matter anymore to us, or to most of the people that care about us. Also, another reason it doesn't come up much. Kinda complicated to explain to people, and this is working so why question it?


Very well said. Don`t let anyone tell you any different, either. :)

Welcome to the board.
 
I figured I should update my story if I'm going to be posting; I've been reading a lot again. Mostly due to the fact that I've had time to. When I last was reading a lot on here, it was because I needed to.

The relationship with our boyfriend was supposed to have a 6 month expiration date, and after that he was definitely moving and we would be trying to move out of state. I was looking forward to enjoying the relationship, just riding it out for that time period because none of us wanted to pursue an LDR. The traid ended up only lasting about 3 months before the boyfriend checked out emotionally/physically due to issues in his life unrelated to myself and my husband. I was pretty upset about it ending early, particularly the way it ended, but that's another story. And in some ways I blame myself for expecting more from someone so much younger, and particularly that I had known that was the type of personality my lover had, and yet deluded myself into thinking things could have worked better and that if he had really loved me the way he claimed to, it would have been fine.

Husband and I are still quite happy together, though we've had our rough times like all couples do. We're still not looking but open to whatever we might find, but we're pretty unique, so finding someone we both want to have a relationship with when it took us as long as it did just to find each other, is a very tall order.

A month ago I got a job in another state, which I'm very happy with. Husband and child will be following in a few months so they can finish up the school year and some projects at work, and being effectively temporarily childless, I've had some time to think and read about polyamory again, and get to read others' stories.

So I guess my signature should read

Me- Straight(ish) thirty-something poly female married to
Husband - Gay(ish) thirty-something poly male
Not looking, not swinging, but open.
 
Thanks for that update; I'm sorry to hear that your boyfriend checked out sooner than expected. It is good that you and your husband have each other.

By the way, if you're logged in you can use the following link to edit your siggy:

http://www.polyamory.com/forum/profile.php?do=editsignature

Hope everything goes smoothly with your husband and son's upcoming move.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
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