Curious and scared

Finley

New member
So I am just looking for some non-judgemental people to share this with, as I do not have anyone in my life I feel like I could talk to about it and am not ready to explore face-to-face counselling. I am very grateful to have found this forum.

Some background on me...I am a heterosexual female in a very long term committed monogamous relationship that is awesome on every level. I am looking forward to getting married and living happily with my fiance D.

Enter my best girlfriend M of 6 years. I have never been attracted to a woman ever in my life until I met her. I have wondered about and struggled with my feelings for awhile and chosen to ignore them and just love her as a dear friend. I have no clue how she would feel if I were to disclose my feelings.

To make matters more complicated recently, enter my girlfriend's boyfriend C. The moment I met him I felt a connection with him also, and pushed those feelings aside because I felt that it was just not right having feelings for your best friend's boyfriend. Or any other guy for that matter!

So one year later they are in a very serious good relationship and I spend a fair amount of time with them and feel very close to them. I have been very torn lately as I admit that I am in love with, and attracted to, both M and C, and my fiance D! Yikes!

Realizing this has just really rocked my beliefs about myself and I guess I'm just hoping someone out there can help me with any advice at all.

Thanks!
 
I am a heterosexual female in a very long term committed monogamous relationship that is awesome on every level. I am looking forward to getting married and living happily with my fiance D.

Living a genuine life is my highest value. I don't have a perfect success rate at it, but it's my guiding principle.

The moment I met him I felt a connection with him also, and pushed those feelings aside because I felt that it was just not right having feelings for your best friend's boyfriend. Or any other guy for that matter!

Where is this judgment coming from? Do *you* think that your feelings of love are something to be ashamed of? Or is that just social baggage that you are living by without really thinking about it?

Try to move past the knee jerk judgment of what is right or wrong about your feelings and your life. Remember that it is your life - they are your feelings - and you get to decide what is appropriate for you.
 
Some background on me...I am a heterosexual female in a very long term committed monogamous relationship that is awesome on every level. I am looking forward to getting married and living happily with my fiance D.

How about some more background. If I read your post, you are walking right out of the "normative" or "vanilla" world into a poly forum looking for advice about how to discuss a potential poly situation with 3 other people who you have no idea how they would react to that notion?

What led you to the idea that you may have poly tendencies enough that you knew to come here? I guess what I'm asking is what is your background that leads you to believe you are poly-capable? What do your friends and fiance know of this background?

Enter my best girlfriend M of 6 years. I have never been attracted to a woman ever in my life until I met her. I have wondered about and struggled with my feelings for awhile and chosen to ignore them and just love her as a dear friend. I have no clue how she would feel if I were to disclose my feelings.

Well...is your friend straight or bi? From what you know of her would she be open to a loving girl/girl relationship in general?

So one year later they are in a very serious good relationship and I spend a fair amount of time with them and feel very close to them. I have been very torn lately as I admit that I am in love with, and attracted to, both M and C, and my fiance D! Yikes!

Realizing this has just really rocked my beliefs about myself and I guess I'm just hoping someone out there can help me with any advice at all.

I may be the last person to offer poly advise as I just realized I was IN a poly relationship after it had been going on 6 months! However I do like to think I'm pretty good at this relationship stuff.

Sounds like you need to make a choice between lifestyles. You have these feelings coming up and you feel drawn to the possibility of living a life where you can love openly and love many people openly. You also face marriage and a mono relationship. As I read it...you stand on a line between "every day mono marriage" and "telling everyone how you feel and possibly opening up those relationships to something else you truly desire".

I guess you have to choose which is pulling you more. The desire to be in open, loving relationships - or the desire to get married to one man and never share these feelings.

I agree with Marcus at this point in my life being genuine is the only way to avoid living a life out of integrity...which is to say "wanting one thing and living another".

Unfortunately living a genuine life can at times put you at odds with A) the norm and B) other peoples wants and needs. Hence the dilemma.

Which one draws you more? Which is your genuine desire? If you are to be true to yourself then the answer is clear...and I'm willing to bet that in your heart, you already know.
 
you don't have to id as poly or mono

it is OK to just Love others as you see fit. There is no need to conform to either club.

There is no rule that says you must have sex with everyone you love. I assume that what you are saying is you feel sexually attracted to these others, that is very common. It typically works out best if you and those involved figure out the best way to do so responsibly, as in whatever being sexually responsible means to all parties involved -- which is not going to be the same for all parties -- which is why you may want to discuss it with those who you want involved or else attempting to sort it out afterwards is just one huge pain

There is no "poly" club you have to join to live honestly and if there was, any club that would make you disown monogamy just because they are too ignorant to realize it is a choice for each and every person -- that there is no right or wrong way other than honestly -- and for others to choose to accept or reject your offer of love, sex, friendship, whatever relationship you are willing to offer them, you owe it to them to be honest and fully disclose what you are offering, so that they can make their own decision based on the as honest of truth as you can communicate

anybody who tells you that you cannot love who you are going to love, is controlling. Sex is a different matter altogether and it happens to be the one that most people have a problem with. So rather than imply what you don't mean, figure it out. If you need the freedom to have sex with whoever you want whenever you want without regard to your existing partner(s) then you may want that written into your vows, or more realistically, explicitly stated in clear terms before you make commitments to anyone.

You owe it to yourself to know what you want out of life, and to be upfront and honest about what you are willing to offer others in any relationship with you (whether it be friend, lover, or wife)

Some people appreciate sexual freedom in their relationships, it's not wrong or right in the act itself, but lying about it always makes it wrong. Whatever you choose to do, I would recommend you don't make being the genuine you de-facto wrong by needing to lie to those you are supposedly close to
 
What a confusing place you're in... in part because you don't know who to talk to. I don't know if any of our advice can help, but perhaps I can tell the story from my own life, and how hard it ended up being to do something simple. I'm watching my wife do the same, now, and it's hard on her, too.

It's hard to accept that you can deeply, truly love multiple people AND that it doesn't diminish your love for the others you love. You sound like you're falling for multiple people, and you wish you could express your emotions more openly. But up and saying to your best friend "I love you" or saying to your fiance "I love her," or saying to your best friend that you love her boyfriend... those are just hard things to say, because you fear rejection, and the loss of what you've built with all of them.

But the truth is, no matter what you do, things have changed. You can choose to swallow that up and hide it away and live a closet love (that will peek around the edges, at times) or you can choose to express it. Do you trust your fiance? Could you tell him all this? That's what I'd recommend. Share it with the person you've been closest to - or people. Be open about it. Try. And trust. Because starting the conversation is the only way to have it.

Expressing your love for people, touching them, feeling something for them, being that intimate... those are wonderful things. It sounds like you are feeling trapped in the world you're now in, but scared of the world you might go to if things go wrong. If they love you truly, they might not want to go there with you, but they'll listen, believe you, and honor your trust in them. It might not start that way, but if you stick to your honest self, it should work out...
 
Thank you for your replies. I guess I mostly needed to know that what I was feeling was OK. I've never known anything at all about poly. I've only recently heard the term and decided to Google it because of all these feelings I've been wrestling with. It is nice to know that there is nothing necessarily "wrong" with me and other people have had this experience too.

Pulliman, you have really highlighted exactly what has been going through my mind. I've considered talking to my fiance, but most likely I don't think he will understand it. I think he will be hurt and confused. The last thing I want to do is wreck our relationship. As for my friends, sometimes I think they might be into the idea, and other times I think it's just wishful thinking.

I agree with Marcus that living a genuine life is so important! I've always thought I knew who I was, and always thought monogamy was for me. I never thought I would be attracted to a female either, until I met my friend, and I'm still not interested in other women, at all. So I just brushed off my feelings as some weird phenomenon and didn't look too hard at it, for years. Now realising that I'm in love with her BF too is just too much! I've finally had to confront these feelings and ask "what is going on here?!"
 
There's nothing wrong with feelings.

Where people go wrong is in how they opt to ACT.

How you choose to behave going forward may be wrong or right for you and for each of those people (and what's wrong for one may be right for another of you).

But having feelings-that's not ever wrong. It's like weather. If it rains-that's not wrong, that's weather. But choosing to be out in it may be right or wrong depending upon your situation, needs, etc.
 
Hi Finley - gee, that sounds familiar. My wife is also not interested in women, except tonight she has a date with AM. Who has also never been interested in women. (They spent some time online looking at research about "mostly straight" women - interesting stuff, by the way.) Them slowly growing into their relationship has come with a lot of support from me - and they started in part because AM and I had fallen for each other, so there's a whole interconnected thing going on for us.

What we've learned is that getting STARTED with the talking is the hard part. What happens after is... well, it can go either way. It can be hard. Especially when I first "came out" as wanting another relationship (with EL, a long distance relationship...). For years, I didn't want to self-identify as poly. We had a truce about one non-monogamous relationship, no more. And then, slowly, with AM, things have definitely changed. And they've changed for both of us. (In case it matters, EL is enthusiastic and thinks we're kind of awesome for what we're doing.)

Talking is key. Being honest. But imagine the first conversation, imagine the combination of love toward you and fear that you're going to leave him, imagine that he might turn his back on you, or embrace you. It's scary stuff. I wept when I first talked to my wife. She could accept love, but not sex - that's changed now, for both of us. But it took years. And for you, it might be that talking about it with your fiance lets you not act on it, or find ways to be calm about it.

And it might just be that you've found a part of yourself that you don't want to hide away. That's how it was for me. I got lucky; my wife grew with me, and we're both in a different place than we once were. I wish you luck. Just don't hide it away. If you feel this, if you feel it this strongly, you'll end up feeling it again. Hiding that away from your fiance will only lead to trouble later on. Face the trouble now. It's the best choice, I think.
 
So what is it you need from yourself to gain peace of mind? You do not seem to say? :confused:

You know you can feel things WITHOUT acting on them right? There's nothing wrong with enjoying your friends and... leaving it there.

If you just want to enjoy the crushes -- enjoy them.
Tada. You are human. You will notice and appreciate beauty, attractiveness, and the qualities that make your friends wonderful. Could give yourself permission to update old beliefs (that you can't have feelings for others while dating a partner) because experience has told you otherwise. And that you can feel things without doing anything (if you believe that feelings something means you MUST do something.)

If you want to ACT on these feelings, then you need to update your belief AND consider how to approach your partner, and then your crushes if it is that you want to date THEM in particular.


If you want to share emotional intimacy with your fiancee and let him in on your inner thoughts and feelings?
Could do that. He can either hack it or not -- and since you are engaged? Prob something you could be doing in the Engagement Time anyway. If something as small as you having a crush on a friend turns his world inside out, your prob want to know that before he becomes husband, right? Nobody wants a flimsy life partner. A successful engagement can go one of two ways:
  • You find you ARE compatible for the long haul, and you move on to wedding planning.
  • You find you are NOT actually compatible for long haul, and you save yourselves wedding/marriage expenses/doom by canceling it and return to being friends. Or go for a loooong engagement to give both time to grow some more first. Nothing wrong with that either.

(Are you talking engagement/marriage prep classes anywhere? Place of worship? County extension? Online? )​


Maybe you want it all. Or something else I can't think of. Or some mix and match combo thing. Could spend some time thinking about what your desired outcome is at this time. Maybe you just want time to get ok with it inside yourself since it is a new self discovery?

You aren't "bad" to feel whatever it is you feel though. It's just emotion. Some are yummy to feel, some are yucky. In time, they all pass sooner or later and a new one floats up!

Galagirl
 
Last edited:
Maybe you do love them just as friends. Maybe the closeness you share with them scares you and you think it has to go somewhere else, like a romantic relationship. Why not just enjoy that you have these people in your life whom you love and are happy to know, and leave it at that? Not every crush or intimate relationship has to turn into a poly romance!
 
Aack! Just typed a huge response, and my computer ate it.

Anyway...

What Loving Radiance said. Ditto. Your feelings are valid and okay, and it's what you do next that matters.

You really need to tell your partner. He deserves to know who he's marrying, even if you decide you want to stay monogamous. Imagine if he found out twenty years from now that his wife was once in love with two other people and feeling tortured about it, and she never told him? Yikes. Hurtful.

Even if you're scared, you have to tell him. If you can't or won't, then what does that say about the trust you have for each other? If you can't weather this together, you're going to have a rough marriage. But I sense that you're strong, and you can do it.

Now, your friends..eeek! I do not envy that situation. Very complicated. You'll have to decide if it's worth risking the friendship to tell them. If your friend is straight, it is highly unlikely that she'll return your feelings. You risk losing her completely. However, if your feelings are so strong that you might one day have a couple of glasses of wine and end up blurting out your feelings for her, or her boyfriend, then you might want to just bite the bullet and do it. But it's up to you.

You just need to be ready for the possibility that even if by chance she IS attracted to you, she might not be ready/willing to admit that to herself or anyone else. And if she does, she still might not want to share her boyfriend. So yeah, that situation will be even trickier than the situation with your boyfriend.

Just try to be as fair as you can to everyone involved, including yourself. You have to decide if you can live your life monogamously, if your fiance doesn't want to go poly. Don't force yourself into a lifestyle that doesn't feel natural for yourself, or someday you might look at your fiance (husband) and resent him, even though you're the one who made the choice. You also want to consider, if he DOES want to try poly...are you willing to share him?

I, personally, cannot share my husband. I know I'm just not made that way. I would never, ever be doing poly right now if I thought he wanted to be open, too, because I know I can't handle that, and it wouldn't be fair for me to say "hey, I can have a boyfriend, but NO WAY can you have a girlfriend." I'd just stay monogamous instead. But then again...I feel at this point that I'm poly by choice, not by nature or need (I'm still discovering myself). It sounds like you might be naturally poly, to have fallen in love with two people, while loving your fiance. So you have a lot to think about.

Whatever you decide, make sure it feels right for YOU, and be as fair and open and honest as you can be. You might go through some serious "growing pains", but if you are open and honest, I think in the end you'll be living the life you were meant to be living--whatever that is--and be much, much happier in the long run.
 
Thank you everyone!

I do not know what I am going to do yet. I will contemplate it awhile.

In the mean time I feel much better knowing that I am okay to feel the way I do.
 
?

Aack! Just typed a huge response, and my computer ate it.

Anyway...

What Loving Radiance said. Ditto. Your feelings are valid and okay, and it's what you do next that matters.

You really need to tell your partner. He deserves to know who he's marrying, even if you decide you want to stay monogamous. Imagine if he found out twenty years from now that his wife was once in love with two other people and feeling tortured about it, and she never told him? Yikes. Hurtful.

Even if you're scared, you have to tell him. If you can't or won't, then what does that say about the trust you have for each other? If you can't weather this together, you're going to have a rough marriage. But I sense that you're strong, and you can do it.

Now, your friends..eeek! I do not envy that situation. Very complicated. You'll have to decide if it's worth risking the friendship to tell them. If your friend is straight, it is highly unlikely that she'll return your feelings. You risk losing her completely. However, if your feelings are so strong that you might one day have a couple of glasses of wine and end up blurting out your feelings for her, or her boyfriend, then you might want to just bite the bullet and do it. But it's up to you.

You just need to be ready for the possibility that even if by chance she IS attracted to you, she might not be ready/willing to admit that to herself or anyone else. And if she does, she still might not want to share her boyfriend. So yeah, that situation will be even trickier than the situation with your boyfriend.

Just try to be as fair as you can to everyone involved, including yourself. You have to decide if you can live your life monogamously, if your fiance doesn't want to go poly. Don't force yourself into a lifestyle that doesn't feel natural for yourself, or someday you might look at your fiance (husband) and resent him, even though you're the one who made the choice. You also want to consider, if he DOES want to try poly...are you willing to share him?

I, personally, cannot share my husband. I know I'm just not made that way. I would never, ever be doing poly right now if I thought he wanted to be open, too, because I know I can't handle that, and it wouldn't be fair for me to say "hey, I can have a boyfriend, but NO WAY can you have a girlfriend." I'd just stay monogamous instead. But then again...I feel at this point that I'm poly by choice, not by nature or need (I'm still discovering myself). It sounds like you might be naturally poly, to have fallen in love with two people, while loving your fiance. So you have a lot to think about.

Whatever you decide, make sure it feels right for YOU, and be as fair and open and honest as you can be. You might go through some serious "growing pains", but if you are open and honest, I think in the end you'll be living the life you were meant to be living--whatever that is--and be much, much happier in the long run.

Sorry for sounding ignorant. ... but if you can't share your husband. .. how are you poly? And again.... maybe you're mono but poly friendly, in which case I feel even stupider. Nothing says mono people can't visit the forums. :)
 
So what is it you need from yourself to gain peace of mind? You do not seem to say? :confused:

You know you can feel things WITHOUT acting on them right? There's nothing wrong with enjoying your friends and... leaving it there.

If you just want to enjoy the crushes -- enjoy them.
Tada. You are human. You will notice and appreciate beauty, attractiveness, and the qualities that make your friends wonderful. Could give yourself permission to update old beliefs (that you can't have feelings for others while dating a partner) because experience has told you otherwise. And that you can feel things without doing anything (if you believe that feelings something means you MUST do something.)

If you want to ACT on these feelings, then you need to update your belief AND consider how to approach your partner, and then your crushes if it is that you want to date THEM in particular.


If you want to share emotional intimacy with your fiancee and let him in on your inner thoughts and feelings?
Could do that. He can either hack it or not -- and since you are engaged? Prob something you could be doing in the Engagement Time anyway. If something as small as you having a crush on a friend turns his world inside out, your prob want to know that before he becomes husband, right? Nobody wants a flimsy life partner. A successful engagement can go one of two ways:
  • You find you ARE compatible for the long haul, and you move on to wedding planning.
  • You find you are NOT actually compatible for long haul, and you save yourselves wedding/marriage expenses/doom by canceling it and return to being friends. Or go for a loooong engagement to give both time to grow some more first. Nothing wrong with that either.

(Are you talking engagement/marriage prep classes anywhere? Place of worship? County extension? Online? )​


Maybe you want it all. Or something else I can't think of. Or some mix and match combo thing. Could spend some time thinking about what your desired outcome is at this time. Maybe you just want time to get ok with it inside yourself since it is a new self discovery?

You aren't "bad" to feel whatever it is you feel though. It's just emotion. Some are yummy to feel, some are yucky. In time, they all pass sooner or later and a new one floats up!

Galagirl

Galagirl I love the way you lay things out.
 
Sorry for sounding ignorant. ... but if you can't share your husband. .. how are you poly? And again.... maybe you're mono but poly friendly, in which case I feel even stupider. Nothing says mono people can't visit the forums. :)


I wasn't aware that there was a rule that you have to share your husband if you're poly. In fact, after a year of research into hot wifing/polyandry/polyamory lifestyles, I've never seen anyone say that. I've seen many, many poly stories where the husband has no desire to date outside the marriage, or one of the men in a V does, and one doesn't, etc. The one thing we've read over and over is that there is no one ideal poly dynamic.

What else would I call myself? I'm looking for a man to love--not just have sex with. That's not hot wifing, because I have no plans at this time to sleep around (not that that's a bad thing, I just don't feel like it's me) or have multiple relationships. I may come to the point someday where I have a boyfriend whom I decide I want as a lifelong partner, and when it crosses that line into a lifelong partner relationship, I'd identify more with polyandry. So until then, polyamory is the closest fit.

Also, regardless of whether I want to share my husband, he has no desire to date. He's gung-ho for me to date, but he's very happy with just me. I'm poly--he's not, but he's in a poly relationship with me. I guess that's the best way to describe it.
 
Sorry for sounding ignorant. ... but if you can't share your husband. .. how are you poly?

There are apparently quite a few mono people dating poly people and I'm told it can work out just fine.

I do find the concept of a poly person who will not tolerate their partner also being poly to be hypocritical and controlling... but it's still technically poly.
 
There are apparently quite a few mono people dating poly people and I'm told it can work out just fine.

I do find the concept of a poly person who will not tolerate their partner also being poly to be hypocritical and controlling... but it's still technically poly.

Yep. I'm poly and my husband is mono. So far, so good.

At the veeeeerrrrry beginning, I had a short-lived thought that I really wanted my husband to stay mono, because I wouldn't be able to handle him dating anyone. Then I looked in the mirror and said, yeah, I'm not going to be THAT person. If I believe poly is right and good, then why in the world would I deny it to the man I love most in the world? It's controlling and just wrong on so many levels. I honestly believe now I'll feel awesome compersion for him, if he decides to look for another partner. He has decided to stay mono so far, but not for lack of me encouraging him, that's for sure!
 
There are apparently quite a few mono people dating poly people and I'm told it can work out just fine.

I do find the concept of a poly person who will not tolerate their partner also being poly to be hypocritical and controlling... but it's still technically poly.

I don't see the problem with the position that Sweetone is taking in regards to her husband. My wife is also in the beginning stages of living a poly lifestyle as opposed to a monogamous one. She also is very possessive of me and does not want to open our marriage up so that I can see others. That is fine with me as I have no desire to see other people besides her. I am however quite supportive of her desire and need to be poly.

You can call it hypocritical, however I don't see it that way. I do not believe that all relationships need to be fit into a nice tidy mold, nor do I believe that it is fair to expect every person to be the same. We all have our idiosyncrasies, this is hers. I thought the poly community was supposed to be a very non- judgemental group of people. Comments such as this are not only judgmental, they offend me because they could just as easily be said about my wife.

If Sweetone is anything like my wife, I believe that she is just being honest about who she is. When this conversation first arose between my wife and I, she was very honest about her feelings and was very much relieved to find out that I was perfectly happy to open our marriage for her while remaining mono myself. She would have remained mono rather than put herself through the anxiety
That she would have certainly faced. Until you have walked in her shoes you have no right to challenge her on her insecurities. The same its true of Sweetone.
 
You can call it hypocritical, however I don't see it that way.

Hypocrisy: "the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense."

Do as I say, not as I do is hypocrisy. You can "see it" however you want.

I thought the poly community was supposed to be a very non- judgemental group of people. Comments such as this are not only judgmental, they offend me because they could just as easily be said about my wife.

If you find a general statement assessing the value of an ideal to be offensive and judgmental then perhaps you are being overly sensitive.

As far as I can tell we are having a perfectly adult and civil discussion about relationship configurations and assumptions. If you don't personally agree with an assertion someone else made, feel free to put forward your reasoning. You may find that it will be more constructive than telling someone they shouldn't be "judgmental".

Until you have walked in her shoes you have no right to challenge her on her insecurities. The same its true of Sweetone.

So in order to express a difference of opinion I must "walk in the shoes" of the person I am disagreeing with? Otherwise it is mean of me to even state a disagreement?

So it would be true to say that since you have never "walked in my shoes" that you are, in fact, out of line in saying that my description of "hypocritical" is "offensive and judgmental". Correct?

That is essentially saying "disagreement is bad, and it should not happen in any format" lol
 
It absolutely is controlling. The limitation exists. The fact that you choose to accept it is irrelevant - maybe not to the workings of your relationship, but it is a restriction on a liberty, nevertheless.

To point that out isn't being offensive.
 
Back
Top