Just as a bit of an introduction: My girlfriend and I have been together for nearly eight years. While we don't quite feel the need to get married just yet, we may as well be. We share everything together and, despite a few bumps here and there, our relationship has always been happy and healthy.
Now, the bumps that I mentioned have pretty much always involved our feelings for other people. I've had quite a few times throughout our relationship where I have begun to develop feelings for other people around us, although I never acted on them and would eventually get over them. The thing is, those feelings for others never got in the way of my feelings for my girlfriend, and that's what interested me the most. I never once thought that I didn't need her love anymore, I just found the idea of sharing love with yet another person to be very fulfilling. And as time has passed, I've really strongly developed in that direction. I wholeheartedly believe that I will have more enjoyment in life by sharing love with more than one person. I guess, until more recently, I never really knew what that meant, but as I've looked into it, I've discovered polyamory and eventually this wonderful forum.
Now, to get to the situation at hand: She and I have had a best friend for a few years now. This friend does nearly everything with us, and we both love her very much. She is a wonderful person and it didn't take long for me to develop strong feelings for her. I love how happy she makes my girlfriend and the dynamic that she brings to our relationship. The possibility of taking it further and actually bringing her into our relationship has become my number one interest, but I just haven't been sure of what steps to take.
Interestingly enough, the three of us recently had a few drinks and my girlfriend decided to go to bed early, so our friend and I stayed up and talked. She revealed to me that she had been dealing with strong romantic feelings for both of us but she had no idea how to approach them because she feels that non-monogomous relationships "never work." At that point in time, I had not done anywhere near the amount of research as I've done now, so I sort of agreed to her that it seemed as though it might not work if we tried it. I told her that I've actually been struggling with the same feelings and that it was, at the very least, a relief to hear that she felt the same way. However, she seems to feel that we should both try our hardest to get over it because she doesn't think a relationship of three can ever work. I wish I knew as much then as I do now (I've done a lot of research in the last few weeks), because I would have definitely convinced her otherwise by explaining that triads are more common than she might think and that there are many ways to deal with some of the hardships that come with them in order to keep all three participants very happy and healthy together. Now I have no idea how to bring the situation up to her again without seeming like I don't respect her feelings on the matter, but that's a seperate issue entirely.
The major concern I have here is that I'm unsure if my girlfriend will ever be willing to consider bringing our friend into the relationship. Both she and our friend are openly attracted to women, and while I know my girlfriend finds our friend to be beautiful and she enjoys her personality, I'm not entirely sure if it crosses into the realm of actual attraction. I do think she has been exhibiting some behaviors related to attraction, though. For instance, if any longer period of time passes without our friend touching base with her in some way or another, she'll pretty much always mention it. "Where has she been? She's not responding to my texts. I hope she's not mad at me." That sort of thing. And that's definitely been a more recent development, despite the fact that they've been best friends for years. If I had to evaluate things there, I'd say that she does get some emotional satisfaction from our friend, on sort of a relationshipy level, without realizing it. However, she's incredibly focused on our relationship and her love for me, so some part of me feels as though she would feel threatened by the love for another, but I do think she's capable of it. I just need to help her get there.
I have no idea how to bring this up to her. I get the feeling that she won't understand. She'll most likely think she's not enough for me and that I just want to get into our friend's pants. I very honestly feel that there is a great deal of emotional fulfillment she can achieve from this, and she won't realize it due to fear and confusion. I'm wondering if maybe there's some way I can perpetuate the growth of her feelings for her friend. Perhaps the stronger she feels about her, the more likely she may be to consider this.
I just hope that people with more experience can help me figure out what to do here! Please let me know if you need any more information at all to help you get a feel for this situation. I'm sorry if my paragraphs are a little big and my thoughts are kind of scattered. I've never been the best writer.
Thank you very much for reading this.
Now, the bumps that I mentioned have pretty much always involved our feelings for other people. I've had quite a few times throughout our relationship where I have begun to develop feelings for other people around us, although I never acted on them and would eventually get over them. The thing is, those feelings for others never got in the way of my feelings for my girlfriend, and that's what interested me the most. I never once thought that I didn't need her love anymore, I just found the idea of sharing love with yet another person to be very fulfilling. And as time has passed, I've really strongly developed in that direction. I wholeheartedly believe that I will have more enjoyment in life by sharing love with more than one person. I guess, until more recently, I never really knew what that meant, but as I've looked into it, I've discovered polyamory and eventually this wonderful forum.
Now, to get to the situation at hand: She and I have had a best friend for a few years now. This friend does nearly everything with us, and we both love her very much. She is a wonderful person and it didn't take long for me to develop strong feelings for her. I love how happy she makes my girlfriend and the dynamic that she brings to our relationship. The possibility of taking it further and actually bringing her into our relationship has become my number one interest, but I just haven't been sure of what steps to take.
Interestingly enough, the three of us recently had a few drinks and my girlfriend decided to go to bed early, so our friend and I stayed up and talked. She revealed to me that she had been dealing with strong romantic feelings for both of us but she had no idea how to approach them because she feels that non-monogomous relationships "never work." At that point in time, I had not done anywhere near the amount of research as I've done now, so I sort of agreed to her that it seemed as though it might not work if we tried it. I told her that I've actually been struggling with the same feelings and that it was, at the very least, a relief to hear that she felt the same way. However, she seems to feel that we should both try our hardest to get over it because she doesn't think a relationship of three can ever work. I wish I knew as much then as I do now (I've done a lot of research in the last few weeks), because I would have definitely convinced her otherwise by explaining that triads are more common than she might think and that there are many ways to deal with some of the hardships that come with them in order to keep all three participants very happy and healthy together. Now I have no idea how to bring the situation up to her again without seeming like I don't respect her feelings on the matter, but that's a seperate issue entirely.
The major concern I have here is that I'm unsure if my girlfriend will ever be willing to consider bringing our friend into the relationship. Both she and our friend are openly attracted to women, and while I know my girlfriend finds our friend to be beautiful and she enjoys her personality, I'm not entirely sure if it crosses into the realm of actual attraction. I do think she has been exhibiting some behaviors related to attraction, though. For instance, if any longer period of time passes without our friend touching base with her in some way or another, she'll pretty much always mention it. "Where has she been? She's not responding to my texts. I hope she's not mad at me." That sort of thing. And that's definitely been a more recent development, despite the fact that they've been best friends for years. If I had to evaluate things there, I'd say that she does get some emotional satisfaction from our friend, on sort of a relationshipy level, without realizing it. However, she's incredibly focused on our relationship and her love for me, so some part of me feels as though she would feel threatened by the love for another, but I do think she's capable of it. I just need to help her get there.
I have no idea how to bring this up to her. I get the feeling that she won't understand. She'll most likely think she's not enough for me and that I just want to get into our friend's pants. I very honestly feel that there is a great deal of emotional fulfillment she can achieve from this, and she won't realize it due to fear and confusion. I'm wondering if maybe there's some way I can perpetuate the growth of her feelings for her friend. Perhaps the stronger she feels about her, the more likely she may be to consider this.
I just hope that people with more experience can help me figure out what to do here! Please let me know if you need any more information at all to help you get a feel for this situation. I'm sorry if my paragraphs are a little big and my thoughts are kind of scattered. I've never been the best writer.
Thank you very much for reading this.