New fun and stuffs

[Ember]

I will copy the start of the story from the introduction thread...

"My husband and I have been together nearly 7 years. We have 2 small children at home that I care for full time. We started swinging in October so I could have relations with women, which I'd been missing. I'd always known I love a big family. I enjoy the old way of a lot of adult family members living together. I'm a care taker and have a lot of love to share. I had offhandedly mentioned this to my husband and he never had a problem with it that he mentioned to me. In the course of our swinging we've found a couple that we are so compatible with it's nearly crazy. It's like we've met a mix of ourselves in this other couple. I mentioned direction of our 'relationship' to my husband last night and he stated he wouldn't mind growing a long term loving relationship with these folks and I agreed that it sounded like a good idea. We have entered the poly mindset I believe and I've come here for guidance and support for our journey."

And I will continue. After my husband and I spoke of our preferences we decided to bring it to the other couple. We didn't want to lead ourselves somewhere with complacency and them not have any idea what was going on. I discussed it with the Other Husband (OH) so he would discuss it with the Other Wife (OW). OH declared that he'd rather have us as 'vanilla' (non sexual) friends than go toward romance. OW said she was satisfied with our 'friends with benefits' situation. Though I'm a little hurt by OH's preference to loose the little closeness we have now I'm glad that OW would like to keep our benefits going.

I'm hoping I can contain my emotional attachment and keep it at a more platonic level through this experience. My husband has been quite supportive and understanding of this journey and I think it'll go super if we can actually find folks that have the same interests/ideals AND are willing to find love along with the sex.

So on to my question. While most of our swinging is very separate from our lives we have a couple friends who share two circles, such as the a fore mentioned couple. Should we seek poly love outside the Swing Scene or is that a prime place to cultivate such relationships as long as we honestly present ourselves?

The first step is always the hardest.

-Ember

[Funk2Lopez]

It seems to me that love finds you no matter where you are.
I found our girlfriend accidentally. I clicked on her profile instead of the link to the last thing posted on a different forum. She saw that I had looked at her profile and so she looked at mine. We (her, me, and my husband) are now in a FMF Triad and it's great. We are just now looking into the swinging scene, just to have some fun. Our gf we meet on a free dating site that we joined when we first opened our relationship before we even knew what polyamory was all about.
So my advice is "yes" be honest and do what makes you comfortable. If you don't think you can find your match swinging then change it up and try an online free dating site. www.okcupid.com worked for us and it is a poly friendly site. It's the first place I had even heard about being poly.

[cosand]

Originally Posted by Ember

I will copy the start of the story from the introduction thread...

"My husband and I have been together nearly 7 years. We have 2 small children at home that I care for full time. We started swinging in October so I could have relations with women, which I'd been missing. I'd always known I love a big family. I enjoy the old way of a lot of adult family members living together. I'm a care taker and have a lot of love to share. I had offhandedly mentioned this to my husband and he never had a problem with it that he mentioned to me. In the course of our swinging we've found a couple that we are so compatible with it's nearly crazy. It's like we've met a mix of ourselves in this other couple. I mentioned direction of our 'relationship' to my husband last night and he stated he wouldn't mind growing a long term loving relationship with these folks and I agreed that it sounded like a good idea. We have entered the poly mindset I believe and I've come here for guidance and support for our journey."

And I will continue. After my husband and I spoke of our preferences we decided to bring it to the other couple. We didn't want to lead ourselves somewhere with complacency and them not have any idea what was going on. I discussed it with the Other Husband (OH) so he would discuss it with the Other Wife (OW). OH declared that he'd rather have us as 'vanilla' (non sexual) friends than go toward romance. OW said she was satisfied with our 'friends with benefits' situation. Though I'm a little hurt by OH's preference to loose the little closeness we have now I'm glad that OW would like to keep our benefits going.

I'm hoping I can contain my emotional attachment and keep it at a more platonic level through this experience. My husband has been quite supportive and understanding of this journey and I think it'll go super if we can actually find folks that have the same interests/ideals AND are willing to find love along with the sex.

So on to my question. While most of our swinging is very separate from our lives we have a couple friends who share two circles, such as the a fore mentioned couple. Should we seek poly love outside the Swing Scene or is that a prime place to cultivate such relationships as long as we honestly present ourselves?

The first step is always the hardest.

-Ember

All 3 of us (myself, my wife and my girlfriend) are in the swing scene, and I can tell you that it makes a complicated situation even more complicated. (Although the women handle it better then I most of the time) In addition to issues between the three of us, we also have to deal with issues concerning relationships with others as well. Don’t get me wrong, we have all 3 worked our asses off and shared hours of discussion , laughter , hugs and tears to carve out what has become an awesome arrangement, and we enjoy and embrace the swing scene, but there is no doubt in my m in that it all would be so much easier without the swing lifestyle component, so DO proceed with extreme caution

[Quath]

There is overlap in poly and swinging. However, if you are looking for a romantic relationship, you may want to try to go to more poly oriented activities (as well as swinging since you like that as well). I think that once you are open to the idea of poly, you may find new opportunities coming up since you are looking for it.

Once thing I have learned about being poly is that a relationship is not in a well-defined label. You can have very close, intimate friends or an occasional lover. Maybe you can enjoy the closeness you have with OH and OW as it is and let that relationship seek its own level. It doesn't stop you from experiencing other relationships and letting them develop as they may.

[Ember]

Honestly, I'm not sure I want to seek out poly. If it falls into our laps, as it feels it has, I will be a happy girl, but with two small children and the demanding lifestyle we have right now I'm not sure I have time, energy or emotional output to devote to a search. I probably ask too much, but mayhap when the children are a bit more independant we can go searching for what might fill our lives.

[Penny29]

I think there aren't many people who really want to seek out polyamory. It happens when you don't even think about it at all. I caught my boyfriend surfing on various dating sites and he had to admit that he was looking for other girls. But he explained to me that he would prefer an open relationship and didn't dare to talk with me about that. That's the way things go ... I only hope that our agreement won't ruin our good relationship.

[Ember]

Well, we've joined OKCupid and are now 'hooked up' with locals in the area. There is a dinner once a month I'm going to head to. If nothing else I'd love folks to talk to. I'd love to explore the ins and outs of the lifestyle along with wiser folks giving me advise on how best to avoid conflict and keep the loving life from being overwhelming.

*nervous* I've met some nice folks already and they're giving me information. I just hope we either find what we're looking for or make some great friends.

[Danny40179]

Originally Posted by cosand

All 3 of us (myself, my wife and my girlfriend) are in the swing scene, and I can tell you that it makes a complicated situation even more complicated. (Although the women handle it better then I most of the time) In addition to issues between the three of us, we also have to deal with issues concerning relationships with others as well. Don’t get me wrong, we have all 3 worked our asses off and shared hours of discussion , laughter , hugs and tears to carve out what has become an awesome arrangement, and we enjoy and embrace the swing scene, but there is no doubt in my m in that it all would be so much easier without the swing lifestyle component, so DO proceed with extreme caution

I couldn't agree more. Being new to Poly has plenty of ups and downs already without throwing in the random sex partner. LOL

I also agree that finding the right person just happens. Really it's like any other type of relationship. Happens when you least expect it. Both of our gf's have been people that I just said Hi to on various websites and before we knew it, we were going for a visit. The rest, as they say, is history.

Good luck and I wish you all the best!

[River]

Originally Posted by Penny29

I caught my boyfriend surfing on various dating sites and he had to admit that he was looking for other girls. But he explained to me that he would prefer an open relationship and didn't dare to talk with me about that.

I think you deserve much better treatment from him than you appear to be getting. What does it mean to you to have a "boyfriend"? Isn't a boyfriend someone special? How special is he treating you as a "girlfriend" when he won't open up enough with you to be willing to discuss so important a matter as this?--who he's seeing or sleeping with? I'd let him know that you feel that you deserve better treatment in this respect than you're getting. Also, do look at whatever self-esteem issues you've got which might lead to your cow-towing to such behaviour on his part.

[Danny40179]

Originally Posted by JRiverMartin

I think you deserve much better treatment from him than you appear to be getting. What does it mean to you to have a "boyfriend"? Isn't a boyfriend someone special? How special is he treating you as a "girlfriend" when he won't open up enough with you to be willing to discuss so important a matter as this?--who he's seeing or sleeping with? I'd let him know that you feel that you deserve better treatment in this respect than you're getting. Also, do look at whatever self-esteem issues you've got which might lead to your cow-towing to such behaviour on his part.

Yikes JRM!! I don't want to have to take back my comment about you being awesome!! I understand and can appreciate your passion in this matter, however you're making some bold statments without knowing all of the facts.

My wife and I started this lifestyle through swinging. My point there is that she came to me one day and said I'd like to watch you with other women from time to time. I thought she was setting me up and told her as much. That wasn't the case, obviously, but this isn't a traditional lifestyle and one NOT accepted by most of society. Therefore I can understand (doesn't mean I condone what he did) where her bf was coming from. Not to mention, we're all human and make mistakes.

My wife and I have a level of communication now that we didn't have when we first started dating. I think it's pretty safe to say that most couples are like that. He didn't feel comfortable coming to her because he didn't want to lose her. Is that so bad? (Again, please don't think that I condone his cheating IF that's what he did. I don't know as that wasn't in the post, therefore I can't make ANY assumptions)

Also, I don't think it's fair to say that she has self esteem issues because according to YOU she's cow-towing to his behavior. How do you know that she didn't give him a good tongue lashing? Is it cow-towing because she didn't leave him?

I still think you're awesome JRM, but that response was a bit harsh especially without knowing all of the facts of their PARTICULAR relationship. I'm pretty sure they're the only ones that will have all of those facts. Hope you're not upset or offended by my response.