Am I deciding too quickly?

Degeneratelove

New member
Hello, I am not new to the idea of polyamory. I've known about it generally and known several people who practice it singularly for 4/5 years. I personally never saw it as an option until recently. I've entered a relationship with a man who is poly and so I really started researching and reading. With every passing day I am more and more sure that this approach to relationships is right for me. Looking back at my serial mono relationships has only reaffirmed that this is how I am, I believe I am polyamorous. But am I deciding this too quickly? it's been two weeks since my partner and I got together officially and I've read more than two along with many online posts. I just wondered how long it took most of y'all to realize this is how you are. Thanks.
 
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Hi Degeneratelove,

I didn't hear about polyamory until 2005, but once I heard about it, I immediately decided it was right for me. Perhaps you were able to come quickly to that decision as well. If anything, the decision that would take awhile would be whether you and your current partner are good for each other. Sometimes with NRE people rush into new relationships -- not that that's all bad. :)

Hopefully Polyamory.com will help you out on your poly journey.

Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
Thanks

I just wasn't sure if this was something you could be/should be immediately sure of. I know theres not an objective answer, but thank you I feel more comfident in this realization. I'm extremely excited to explore, and this online forum is just incredible.

And i can definitely agree with that! NRE is euphoric but time will tell.
 
For me, it's less of an identity and more of a preferred relationship structure. I was perfectly happy with monogamy, but I'm even more happy with polyamory. It took a couple of days before seriously hashing it out before deciding to give it a shot and we haven't looked back.
 
I just wondered how long it took most of y'all to realize this is how you are.

I don't think of poly as being something I am, just as a name for a mindset that I've always been open to. I don't experience poly as a way of life that my relationships fit into (like being gay) but instead as an option when the situation and the individuals gel. To me, it's not a club or "lifestyle" that you're either in or out of. I think that monogamy is a beautiful option sometimes and that a person's amenability to poly can change over the course of a relationship. To speak to what you're wondering, I've been open to poly all of my life, I just didn't have a name for it until about three years ago.
 
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For me, it's less of an identity and more of a preferred relationship structure. I was perfectly happy with monogamy, but I'm even more happy with polyamory. It took a couple of days before seriously hashing it out before deciding to give it a shot and we haven't looked back.

For me it is an identity, something I always was. I just have a lot of love, caring and affection to give. I love variety. I have a high sex drive.

I didn't have a word for it for most of my life, I just thought, once I got to a certain age and situation, I should pick one partner and make it work, no matter how many crushes I got on others. Finally about 16 years ago, the book The Ethical Slut came out, I read it and had a huge lightbulb moment. I no longer felt slutty (in a bad way) or evil! It was so freeing and affirming and changed my life for the better.
 
It's definitely an identity thing for me, but I understand it isn't the same for everyone. When I decided to give it a try, I went in 100% and realized right away this was me.
 
I know that when I was in my first years of sexual activity as a teenager, I wanted to break all the rules. I remember feeling very sad once, there was a boy I adored, he broke up with me, over the course of a year or more after that as he dated others he still snuck over to my place to have sex occasionally...and one day he met "the one" (he did end up marrying her!) and I liked her too, and I wished that it could somehow be ok for us to still be a thing, if it included her, all the better!

But no. He was ending our friendship, even, because he had met "the one."

The whole thing just saddened me.

Then I was married a long while. I was monogamous, but...that relationship was so abusive on so many levels. And I was not always the victim...sometimes, I think, I was abusive to him, too. It was just completely toxic in a lot of ways. But I often told him, because he was jealous and insecure and always wanted to poke at me and ask "how would you feel if?" and I said to him so many times, "go ahead and cheat on me! I don't give a damn what you do!" And for the most part that was true, except that I would have lorded his hypocrisy over his head if he'd done so, because he was constantly scrutinizing me for signs of inevitable moral decay (I'm female therefore, no morals, according to him.) I, on the other hand, during that marriage, had a playful crush on a female friend at one point, but didn't dare look at another man.

So yeah, that crap happened.

So after that, I didn't know what I wanted other than to not get too serious too fast, not to get trapped into anything that might turn out to be dysfunctional. Keep it easy, voluntary, make no commitments. So when a man I'd started dating said he was interested in co-dating another couple (a married one) I was like, well...why not??

Now I'm mono again, but it's just what's working for me at the moment. I'd never say that poly doesn't or can't work...just maybe I don't have the time, energy, bandwidth at this time in life.

So I don't feel I had any sort of a major life decision to BE POLY FOREVER. Do what works for you, when and as it works for you. I don't believe this sort of thing HAS to be a lifetime declaration of personal identity, although for some it certainly is...and that's fine, too. Too fast, too slow...who cares? You do you.
 
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