A hello from Los Angeles

MrSteve

New member
Hi all,

It's nice to see this forum. I've always considered myself to quite monogamous as I tend to fall fast, hard and heavy in love and become very emotionally involved with someone.

I've been married for 19 years to a very sweet woman and though we've had some rough years (she had problems with alcohol in the past), overall our marriage has been fine and if you use a bit of a loose definition, I've never physically "cheated" on my wife.

Though I have at least a few times had my attentions and emotions wander during periods when we had difficulties at home and in one case, I practically had an on-line girlfriend for about a year and a half.

To keep the story short, we wanted to meet but with me being married it seemed like there was no possible "happy ending" until she offered to come live with us ... that really caught my attention and over a period of quite a few months I tried to get my wife to consider it. At first she was hurt, but over time the two of them talked as well and became rather friendly.

In the end we went to see her and ... it was one of the best "vacations" in my entire life! :) They got along quite well and I was allmost the most uncomforable one there. It was more or less just a platonic visit but it became obvious that neither my wife nor her were particularly against more having ocurred, but I really wanted to retain a platonic relationship for a while.

I'll skip a lot of details, but things didn't quite work out for a few reasons though largely (and sadly) over a misunderstanding that hurt feelings, but this was 8 years ago and I've had another couple incidents where I was strongly attracted to someone, though I've tried not to get "sucked in" by the emotions, though I began to realize that this was and has been how I am and though my wife is very nice, I married her to settle down and have a family and she had never been someone I was head over heels for (I gave up on dating after losing a couple women like that).

Anyway, I've come to recognize that the best things in life are being with someone you love and building that closeness and intimacy and it's something beautiful enough that I can't keep letting it pass by. My wife has become open to allowing someone else into our relationship and I've begun really looking for that "special someone" ... or trying to recapture the muse that got away :)

Maybe I'll never find her, but I know I've got to give it my best shot or I'll end up 60 years old and regretting it ...

I guess that's my "story". Glad to see a site like this and I'll explore around the forum more.

Steve
 
Hi Steve and welcome !
What you expressed seems to be what's at the root of ......"poly acknowledgment". Although there are some (many?) who believe this is something new, examples such as yours illustrate how innate it is in our natures and why, in fact, it's existed in various forms since more than two people decided to take shelter in the same cave.
Good luck !

GS
 
Thank you, both

A couple things that occurred to me over time that are a bit unrealistic for a typical marriage are:

1) It's really expecting a lot of a partner to be able to support most of ones interests in a relationship (i.e. me and my wife work well together in terms of the home and children but don't share a lot of common interests outside that).

and

2) If you truly care about someone (which should be ideal in a marriage) then placing unnecessary chains or impediments on the person is only limiting and doesn't improve the quality of life for a partner.

I admit my wife is better in the second respect than I am in that she's very giving, though we've stayed together because we compliment each other well and don't expect each other to make lots of sacrifices, so it's a comfortable relationship, though I admit if she was very interested in having another man involved, it would take a lot of patience for me to get comfortable with that (then again, I have spent a lot of time trying to assure my wife I'm not going anywhere and she doesn't have much reason to not trust me, so that's why she's not too worried).

As a sidenote, about 5 months ago I met a woman from Canada on-line on a physics forum and began talking with her quite a bit. She's a very intelligent lady (too bad she lives so far away :() and for various reasons, one of which I know was due to the attraction to her, for weeks I was almost literally floating on "cloud 9" :D, though she also had some interesting spiritual views and it was just a life changing experience. (Here's a related link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_experience)

I love science, technology and mathematics etc. (and have received quite a few academic awards and worked in a variety of industries), but I realized that in the end it's really emotions that run the show :D and that's really where all the purposes and directions in life arise from, but it appears logic is neutered in some respects and some things can only be known or experienced personally and the sciences are in some ways limited to just providing some tools to use in life, but you've got to improvise your own way from there ... anyway, it was just a lot of personal insights that opened up a lot of new horizons in life and it's time to pursue them (and that's done best in good company :)).

Thanks again
 
Last edited:
Just want to add my voice in to welcome you to the forum, MrSteve!
 
Welcome to the forums. :)

Glad to see that you're understanding what it is you're looking for. I've found my experiences thus far to be extremely enlightening both intra and interpersonally.
 
My wife has become open to allowing someone else into our relationship and I've begun really looking for that "special someone" ... or trying to recapture the muse that got away :)


At the risk of sounding repetitive, this is a pet-peeve of mine.


A couple things that occurred to me over time that are a bit unrealistic for a typical marriage are:

1) It's really expecting a lot of a partner to be able to support most of ones interests in a relationship (i.e. me and my wife work well together in terms of the home and children but don't share a lot of common interests outside that).

and

2) If you truly care about someone (which should be ideal in a marriage) then placing unnecessary chains or impediments on the person is only limiting and doesn't improve the quality of life for a partner.

If these two items in fact hold true for you, I wish you wouldn't think in terms of "allowing someone else into [y]our relationship" with your wife.


That is not what it is all about. "It", meaning "poly" (and I don't need to hear "there is no one right way to "do" poly" and/or "my poly is not your poly") is not about "adding" people to your existing relationships. It's about adding RELATIONSHIPS to YOUR life. Yes, they all impact on each other in certain ways. But "adding someone to a relationship" smacks of accessorizing and assigns prescriptions to the "new" person before they even enter on to the scene.
 
Last edited:
Thanks again for the welcomes and reply (Awesome to see an FSPer here, Porcupine! Congrats on making the move too!)

Hi there, YGirl

I can understand what you're saying and if I was never married and didn't have a 19 year relationship with my wife, then things would be different, but I do have preexisting commitments to my wife that (currently) come before interests outside out marriage.

If someone else were a part of this for some time, then I'm certain it would be more balanced but currently my primary concerns are with regard to my wife with whom I have children as well.

Probably my main concern would be if someone else became a major part of my life, desired a long term relationship as well and I made commitments in that respect also but found later conflict arose between her and my wife (I don't think it's too likely, but still a real concern), then things wouldn't be as easy to resolve, but for now the truth is that yes, my wife could "pull the plug" to an extent, though admittedly it's not purely her decision but she has a large influence in it.

Of course, not all relationships are identical but that's basically the state of things for me currently. If I had always had intentions to have a polyamorous relationship then things would have been different all along (and yes, that's something I've thought about over time).

So there were at least implicit agreements and obligations made when I married my wife and those need to be respected if my wife is to retain any faith in me and value our marriage, but I do understand your recommendations and with more foresight I might have seen their value earlier.
 
Steve, what you speak of is not the same thing as what I was speaking against.

I am not debating the idea that setting priorities and boundaries are necessary and valid things to do. They are.

Let me try with an analogy:

If you invited someone to your home as a dinner guest, would you give them their own plate and utensils to eat with, or would you say "since I have been married to my wife for 19 years, you can eat off my plate using her utensils, or off her plate using my utensils, whichever you prefer".

If your answer is the latter, you have no business involving yourself in "poly" relationships. Find a drinking-buddy instead.

(And that was the GENERAL "you", not "you" with reference to specific individual(s) on this forum.)
 
Last edited:
I think we likely disagree on little, YGirl, and no it wouldn't be likely I'd do that dinner :), and especially in front of a guest.

On the other hand, it's quite likely that I might ask my wife if we had company over for dinner and in some cases I might even emphasize that situation was at least partly possible due to her generousity.

Again, I think we actually disagree on very little and I can appreciate you emphasizing the point too. Thank you
 
Steve, yes, indeed this is a pet-peeve of mine and i tend to point out these things whenever i see the phrase "add someone to our relationship", whether or not such input is actually warranted in reality.
 
Steve, yes, indeed this is a pet-peeve of mine and i tend to point out these things whenever i see the phrase "add someone to our relationship", whether or not such input is actually warranted in reality.

I'm similar with political issues ... it's like a minefield to most people :D and I know that most of the time I don't really have gripes with anyone specifically but more of the typical cultural mindset (and how frustrating it can be for people to see outside the box). Most the time I just try to avoid discussing politics instead. ;)

Thanks again, and have fun YGirl.
 
Polyamory Couples

Hi all,

I'm a producer at The Ricki Lake Show and we're working on a show about open relationships/marriages. We are looking for guests who would like to share their story. Our goal is to show others how a relationship can lead to a better marriage.

If you are not interested please reach out to others who may be. We are taping on Wednesday, December 12th here in our studio in Culver City, CA. Thanks so much.
 
Back
Top