Hi everyone,
I'm 27 and consider myself bisexual. I've been married to my husband a bit less than a year and we've been together for almost three years now.
Just recently, a friend shared an article about polyamory with me, and it brought up a lot of questions for me. When I was younger I made some attempts at "open" relationships, but no one involved was mature enough and they were all pretty disastrous. As a result, in the future I wrote off my attraction to other people outside my relationships as me simply being immature and not willing to commit. Now, though, I find myself a little older and wiser, and a lot more mature. Coming back and reading more, I can see the difference between open relationships and polyamory and I feel like I have a better understanding of the kind of commitment and communication necessary to hope to make a poly relationship work. In searching to try to figure out how to talk to my husband about this, I found this awesome place.
Here's my situation. My husband knows I'm bi and says he is completely comfortable with this, but has specified that if anything happens between me and another woman, he either has to be there or have video. We've discussed threesomes, and actually, it was him who first suggested a more serious relationship. I had never considered that, and was a little uncomfortable with it at first, but willing to consider trying it. Now I've come to realize that would probably actually be a lot more fulfilling for both of us. Unfortunately, unicorns being known as such for a reason, nothing's happened on that front. And for myself, I've always found that relationships just happen. I've never had anything come of going out and actively looking for someone, so I don't have a lot of hope there.
Now I find myself with a crush on a male friend. At first I just blew it off, hoping it would go away, but after a couple of months, it's still there at a simmer in the back of my mind. To complicate things a bit further, due to some possible medical issues, I don't have the most fantastic sex drive in the world, certainly a great deal lower than my husband's. I feel like because his sexual needs aren't being met already, the idea of me having sex with another man would come across as pure rejection.
After reading a lot of other people's experiences, I'm not entirely certain I even want to pursue a poly relationship involving another man. I don't feel like right now, it's absolutely necessary that I have that freedom in order to be happy in my marriage. However, since this wouldn't be the first time I've developed feelings for others outside of my relationships, I'm thinking it might be better to address the issue now with a little crush instead of risk the same thing coming up later and being more serious.
At any rate, I do feel like I need to at least talk to my husband about my feelings and do some real exploring to figure out what it is I do want and get a clearer understanding of his boundaries as they stand now, as well as future possibilities. (Before reading through posts tonight, I guess I'd always just assumed the traditional monogamy definition of anything intimate with anyone besides my husband was going to be strictly off limits.) I'm just really not sure how to go about bringing all this up without making it sound like some horrible guilty confession for having a crush and as though I just want to go sleep with my guy friend.
I'm 27 and consider myself bisexual. I've been married to my husband a bit less than a year and we've been together for almost three years now.
Just recently, a friend shared an article about polyamory with me, and it brought up a lot of questions for me. When I was younger I made some attempts at "open" relationships, but no one involved was mature enough and they were all pretty disastrous. As a result, in the future I wrote off my attraction to other people outside my relationships as me simply being immature and not willing to commit. Now, though, I find myself a little older and wiser, and a lot more mature. Coming back and reading more, I can see the difference between open relationships and polyamory and I feel like I have a better understanding of the kind of commitment and communication necessary to hope to make a poly relationship work. In searching to try to figure out how to talk to my husband about this, I found this awesome place.
Here's my situation. My husband knows I'm bi and says he is completely comfortable with this, but has specified that if anything happens between me and another woman, he either has to be there or have video. We've discussed threesomes, and actually, it was him who first suggested a more serious relationship. I had never considered that, and was a little uncomfortable with it at first, but willing to consider trying it. Now I've come to realize that would probably actually be a lot more fulfilling for both of us. Unfortunately, unicorns being known as such for a reason, nothing's happened on that front. And for myself, I've always found that relationships just happen. I've never had anything come of going out and actively looking for someone, so I don't have a lot of hope there.
Now I find myself with a crush on a male friend. At first I just blew it off, hoping it would go away, but after a couple of months, it's still there at a simmer in the back of my mind. To complicate things a bit further, due to some possible medical issues, I don't have the most fantastic sex drive in the world, certainly a great deal lower than my husband's. I feel like because his sexual needs aren't being met already, the idea of me having sex with another man would come across as pure rejection.
After reading a lot of other people's experiences, I'm not entirely certain I even want to pursue a poly relationship involving another man. I don't feel like right now, it's absolutely necessary that I have that freedom in order to be happy in my marriage. However, since this wouldn't be the first time I've developed feelings for others outside of my relationships, I'm thinking it might be better to address the issue now with a little crush instead of risk the same thing coming up later and being more serious.
At any rate, I do feel like I need to at least talk to my husband about my feelings and do some real exploring to figure out what it is I do want and get a clearer understanding of his boundaries as they stand now, as well as future possibilities. (Before reading through posts tonight, I guess I'd always just assumed the traditional monogamy definition of anything intimate with anyone besides my husband was going to be strictly off limits.) I'm just really not sure how to go about bringing all this up without making it sound like some horrible guilty confession for having a crush and as though I just want to go sleep with my guy friend.