Why and how did you get into poly?

What type of poly origin did you have?

  • I've always had poly tendencies and never really took to monogamy

    Votes: 41 12.5%
  • I've always had poly tendencies and tried to be monogamous before

    Votes: 119 36.2%
  • I fell in love with a poly person and have adapted to the lifestyle

    Votes: 50 15.2%
  • I read or heard about someone else's poly experiences and thought it could work for me

    Votes: 42 12.8%
  • Other

    Votes: 77 23.4%

  • Total voters
    329
I've always found myself loving more than one person, even against my own desire to do so. How did I know I wanted to pursue the poly lifestyle? I was already in love with my husband, then fell for my (now ex) girlfriend. And he, unlike any other person I was in a relationship with before, supported me.
 
I've always found in difficult to love just one person. I'm not sure if this means I am ultimatly poly. I figured the best way to find myself or what I am all about or looking for is to read everyone elses stories, and ask for plenty advice. I want just want everyone else does from life, to be happy. I just have to figure out what it is that makes me happy I guess. I'm open to explore what I may enjoy, and finding out what I truly desire.

I am in the same boat right now :)
 
how did i know?

hello everyone... this is my very first posting.

i used to believe there was something truly wrong with me deep inside. i always had feelings for more than one person, even as a teen i would form multiple relationships(not many sex based) . in all there was intimacy but not always sex. im still that way. i just love ppl.

for years i was confused and miserable. society tells us we should be monogomous, that we should only love one other, yet how can that be the way its meant to be? we can love more than one child, or more than one sibling, why not fiends/lovers?

i met someone a few years ago online.. and we hit it off very well.. and i broke down pone day and cried because i felt so lost.. i remember hearing him say , "honey, its not you thats messed up, theres many ppl just like you. i myself am polyamorous."

i was like huh? whats that? so he sent me a few sites to look at and i spent some time reading.. and it felt like such a hug weight had been lifted from me. i am normal... theres nothing wrong with me.. at least not where this comes in . lol.

so, i believe i always knew, i just wasnt aware there was a name for it.
 
I'm new here. But wanted to respond.
I have always known I could love more than one person at a time. When I was young it was easy and no big deal-I always had 2-3 "best friends" but at that point sex wasn't a part of my life.
When sex came into the picture things got more complicated. I've only dated one man who was ok with the idea of poly relationships (though we didn't know that word when we dated).
I have always had "someone on the side" for intimacy and most of my relationships were ok with that as long as they got the promise I wouldn't have sex with that person.
Then I got married. :( The man I am married to isn't agreeable to poly relationships but knows I am madly in love with him AND my best friend. It's been a nightmare for years now trying to figure out where we draw the lines etc. At first I tried to conform, but that doesn't work well and now we're "re-negotiating" our relationship.

I think some people "knew" they were different all along-but like me just didn't know that it was OK.
 
My first inkling was with my very first boyfriend, at 16. I loved him very much. But after six months of dating, I suddenly got this unexplained, unmistakable sense of panic about being with him. I felt trapped and suffocated. I took space from him and missed him so much. But, being with him felt so restrictive.

While on vacation, away from him, I met a bunch of cute guys and considered going out and partying with them. I didn't though, and had trouble coming to terms with my excitement about the prospect because I was such a loyal, loving girlfriend.

That dynamic returned for every relationship I had afterwards and I dreaded it. I thought there was something wrong with me, I thought I just had to work on my character. I didn't know what...
 
I'm still in the exploratory stage, so I'm not sure it counts yet, but I can say what feelings I've had, which I sort of see shared by various people here. After getting married, my wife's best friend lived with us for a few years, and something about the dynamic of different personalities living together felt so right, to the point where we wondered how well we'd do without her. She eventually left, we got divorced and I had this feeling that I still have. It would take an extraordinary person to make me feel secure enough again to be as serious as I once was. When I was dating my 2nd post divorce person, I started thinking that 2 women who are different, yet similar would fill such a need, but being monogamous my whole life, being with 2 people just didn't make sense, and I thought something was wrong with me, and still wonder about that. After dating some more, I still feel like being with 1 person would require me to sacrifice part of myself. I stumbled upon the poly term and read a bit, and realized that I'm not the only person that feels that way, and maybe this is what I was looking for all along. Now I'm trying to form something, without rushing too quickly into things. Who knows if it will work out or not, but it feels so right in my mind on so many levels. I've also felt no guilt about caring for more than 1 person, and in fact something felt quite right about it. So even if I never find my way into a loving poly relationship, at least I know how good the dynamics can possibly be, even when you take out the sex part. This feeling is something I can tell won't go away either, since it's been under the surface for a long time, but just never understood or embraced.
 
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I actually don't get monos. I know there are mono peeps out there and it seems they are "hard-wired" or ingrained with the mono culture but I still just feel like... I've always felt that humans share some basic experiences and I think of love as one of them.

When I'm happy and full of love, I just want to share it with most everyone around me. Things may hold me back such as the constraints of social norms or an understanding of the people and thier particular preferences (some people's personal bubble is bigger than others) If any of those people around me reciprocate then I tend to gravitate toward them more. I actually got in trouble, well not trouble so much but found myself in what I considered a ridiculous situation the other day because I was being affectionate with another person and we were basically told to stop.

IMO poly is what happens when ppl let go of loving inhibitions and open themselves up to the love that is in thier own hearts and all around them. Not just romantic relationships but all interactions.

Maybe it's not just poly but poly, or MY definition of poly is ingrained in this as a holistic sort of approach to life.

Argh. words are failing me. ummm a little quiz/trivia/contest. Who can give me a word that means "a thing that cannot be extracted or removed from the whole." Something like "Ingrained" but an antonym.
 
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I actually don't get monos. .

I don't get polies..we're even! :D

I just accept that there are different types of people, different wiring, different aproaches to life.

I do get finding common grounds to be together and share however.
 
I never just *realized it*

I always knew, but honestly, the social stigma in my former location would not let it permeate.

My wife always chalked it up to bringing other people into our lives was too complicating. Though I think both of us always were interested.

What we've realized now that we're in a more comfortable environment, is that the complication may in fact be worth it.
 
My first inkling was with my very first boyfriend, at 16. I loved him very much. But after six months of dating, I suddenly got this unexplained, unmistakable sense of panic about being with him. I felt trapped and suffocated. I took space from him and missed him so much. But, being with him felt so restrictive.

While on vacation, away from him, I met a bunch of cute guys and considered going out and partying with them. I didn't though, and had trouble coming to terms with my excitement about the prospect because I was such a loyal, loving girlfriend.

That dynamic returned for every relationship I had afterwards and I dreaded it. I thought there was something wrong with me, I thought I just had to work on my character. I didn't know what...

I'm with you on this one rolypoly! I too had that sinking feeling after being exclusive with someone for awhile. The rules were to constricting for me and I would become resentful and eventually had to leave... only to repeat the whole thing over again. I loved who I was with but found excuses to leave them that made sense to the outside world, but I would be dieing inside because they weren't true. I still loved them. I just had to get out!

I tried being more casual in my dating approach and dated many people and just ignored the fact that I loved them... that hurt me too because there was no depth.

It has only been since I realized I am poly that I have felt like I can at least talk about it and only since the last three years or so that I have felt that I can be okay with myself like this... it's okay to love many and it's okay to let them know that and be open about it. All of it is okay, no matter how you love... just loving is all that is required in my book
 
Exactly, redpepper!! Thanks for relating your experience.

I have also done the casual thing and it was painful because I really loved certain people, but hid it. And I also have done the break-up after break-up, finding something "wrong" with the person.

It's such a relief to realize one's true nature, eh?

Even my recent experiences with polyamory were mostly defined as one, primary, committed relationship and others on the side. This caused similar problems. I get sucked into expecting way too much from one person.

I really want to explore having relationships without the "anchor" of a primary. If something more serious were to develop with someone, I'm open to it. But, right now, I need to not be tied down to being the main squeeze of one person.

roly
 
How does Polyamory start?

Hey you all,

sometimes I read on this board that people are dating, using the internet to meet new partners, searching for a secondary relationship...I have a questions about this.

To make me understand, I´d like to tell you that I´m in a polymorous relationship because there are two men that I love. One of them is my husband since seven years and the other one I fell in love with two and a half years ago. It´s been a very short while since I know there´s a name for it.

Now, my questions is: Can there exist the wish to live a polyamorous life which is not linked to a special person? In other words, do people feel like "oh, I´d like to have another partner, let´s get out and find one?"

I always tgought that it´s like in my case: First, there are the specific people, and then there´s the relationship. How wrong am I?

Interested in your experiences and opinions
Anne
 
I am like that. I am not specifically looking for anything in particular, but I would like to find another partner.

I think many people discover polyamory through accident once they find out they can love more than one person. I am hoping that polyamory will one day be a common enough word that people can decide on it instead of fall into it.
 
In my case, it was a desire on my husbands and my part to learn and grow sexually. We both had no previous sexual experiences before each other so we thought it would be fun/interesting to 'date' other people. We established boundaries and expectations and then just went to dating sites to find people we wanted to get to know.
We weren't familiar with 'poly' at the time, thought maybe 'swinging' was what we wanted to try, but neither one of us was comfortable with the idea of that. I easily found men to chat with and met 2 in person but there was no attraction or connection. Those men wanted casual sex but it didn't appeal to me. Then I met my boyfriend *sigh* ;) I wasn't expecting to get so involved with him, but when my husband and I realized that I had I found a real connection with someone else, we soon learned what polyamory was and the rest is history! It was much more difficult for my husband to find a woman to date and he got very discouraged for the first few months. But then he found his girlfriend :)
From what I've read on the forums, there's no specific way to begin a poly journey, as with all things poly, the possibilities are endless! Some people have someone in mind, some people have affairs then are able to establish a more open and honest poly relationship out of the aftermath. And some people talk about the idea of poly and pursue it 'from scratch'. I don't think I would recommend the 'affair' route, but being able to talk about it beforehand is a good foundation to start :)
 
I knew what poly was--and that it accurately described me--for quite a long time before I was actually involved in a poly relationship. I had broached the subject with my husband multiple times over the years, though I always backed down and stopped short of being insistent that it was a part of who I am and something I needed him to seriously consider. Part of what finally gave me the motivation to do that was a developing situation with my now-boyfriend, but that situation was far from the first thing to make me realize I was poly-inclined.
 
I'm sort of in the middle between the two potentials you suggested. There were several people that I had interested in throughout my relationship with my husband, but I didn't decide that I was poly to pursue one of them. I ended up with someone I met online once I started looking.
 
I think that there are people for whom poly is very specific to the people, and there are still others who are out looking for another. I tend to fall in neither of those categories - I have known from my teens that it felt right to love more than one at a time, and didn't see why, when I started a new relationship, I wasn't allowed to say I still loved my "ex".

Now, I am in a situation where I am open to whoever comes into my life, be they friend or lover, but don't go out searching for another person.
 
Now, my questions is: Can there exist the wish to live a polyamorous life which is not linked to a special person? In other words, do people feel like "oh, I´d like to have another partner, let´s get out and find one?"

I always thought that it´s like in my case: First, there are the specific people, and then there´s the relationship. How wrong am I?

Hi Anne. I came into polyamory when I met a man who introduced me to it. I had been single for two years, so I was definitely not opening up an established relationship. I had always felt very strongly that I was a loyal, faithful partner and never entertained the idea of an open relationship, cheating, more than one partner - none of it, so I was very hesitant.

Over time I came to realize just how poly I am and always have been. Not because I necessarily desire another partner, but because it's how I'm wired and I love the lifestyle. I love so many people in so many different ways. I can love people without wanting to be with them and without being in love. I need the freedom to love as much as my heart wants to. Poly allows me to explore grey areas with people that would be inappropriate in a monogamous relationship.

There are subtleties and dynamics that I have grown to love about being poly. In groups, I like to flitter over and connect with someone and then flitter over to someone else and connect with that person. And then come back to my love(s) all rejuvenated and full of love.

Compersion, for me, is sometimes more fulfilling than being in love. My love for a partner extends into my metamours and I feel bonded with them.

I like being part of a "tribe" or a family. Relationships can be challenging and when you have a solid group of mature, honest, communicative people, the amount of support there is for all involved multiplies. I care a lot about what happens in the other relationships and feel motivated to support them.

So, yes it's definitely possible for polamoury to develop outside of the scenario you've experienced.
 
For me, I always identified as poly - though closetly so. I always knew I had the capacity and desire to love more than one person, and be with more than one partner at a time - but never actually thought it was a potential reality. My husband and I have known eachother since we were 6, I always knew I would marry him. I did. 2 years after we got married I met A. Within months I knew I liked her, within a year I was deeply in love with her - and was so conflicted about the whole thing. It was my husband and her opening up their relationship, sexually, that dove me into practicing polyamory.

Even though I identified with it, and wanted it - I still struggled quite a bit at the beginning. But im glad I stuck with it, and worked through my feelings.
 
Can there exist the wish to live a polyamorous life which is not linked to a special person? In other words, do people feel like "oh, I´d like to have another partner, let´s get out and find one?"

I always tgought that it´s like in my case: First, there are the specific people, and then there´s the relationship. How wrong am I?

I'm profoundly uninterested in monogamy, so 'polyamory' started for me by avoiding monogamous relationships, and that's not "linked to a special person".

That said, I don't ever think "I'd like to have another partner" (well, perhaps I thought something like that the last time I was single). I don't go out deliberately looking -- it's always about the specific person.

Some people definitely do just that, however. Sometimes I get a little judgemental about it, because it sounds to me like they're fixated on fitting some new person into some role in their lives that they feel is necessary to have. In other cases, it sounds like they're just really optimistic that there are a lot of people out there that would be great to connect to, and how would you know if you don't look. Which I guess says something good about their opinion of strangers.
 
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