Best laid plans
sunnydee, it might take a while before you attach beyond friendship with someone else. It was a major adjustment for me when I first came out as poly and had permission to explore other relationships.
I like the way you phrase this. One of the things I've been exploring lately is how to have a primary partner without shifting my core strength from "me" to "us". Hmm, how do I explain this? Staying centered and grounded in my life while also accommodating the needs and emotions of another person. It's freakin' hard!
I'm coming from a unique circumstance, I think, that has made this possible. I was just dumped out of a long monogamous relationship at the end of summer, so I had no intention of attaching to ANYBODY. I was planning to be single, single, single (poly, while I had once considered such ideas, did not occur to me). Then, in my first real day of singlehood, through bizarre movements and alignments of the universe, which seems to take a keen interest in my love life, I met Super PolyGuy. Well, I thought, perfect, HE certainly won't want a "relationship." Ah, the best laid plans.... so a one night stand to kick off my new singlehood turned into a three day fling and then a three month LDR and... well, we'll see. won't we? The only reason this survived my initial horror at becoming attached is that it was long distance. Had he been local I probably would have run screaming, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. So I've had an amazing introductory intensive in becoming poly cradled in the loving attention of someone I didn't have to learn to live with so soon so that I COULD be "centered and grounded in my life." It's been pretty darn perfect so far. Now, adelante!
Ah, so, to bring it back on topic. This is the reason he's primary to me, having been so influential, but I'm not primary to him, because we live apart, etc.