hi everyone!
I am new to this forum and I have been struggeling with poly-stuff now for quite some time. so I decided, I would share my story with you and ask for your opinion.
my relationship situation: I currently have a boyfriend (let's call him B) with whom I have been poly for about two years now. the relationship started out as poly, since I was in a longterm relationship with someone else at that point, which I opened up to be with B. this longterm relationship of almost 6 years (let's call him L) did not survive the transformation to poly, which was also due to other reasons, but I have to admit that poly had its part in this breakup with L.
B has another girlfriend for about 10 months (let's call her E).
I have been monogamous for almost all my life (I am now in my early 30s) and started out as poly two years ago with B (who is four years younger), when I finally decided that my serial monogamy doesn't make sense to me anymore. I do not fall for people easily but when I do, it almost always comes down to ending the old relationship and starting a new one. I have not been single since I was a teenager, but I sometimes, during my longterm relationships (all of them were 3+ years), have had feelings for other people. situations like that then always came down to one of the two alternatives: forgetting about this new person or ending the old relationship and pursuing a new one.
I became poly to get out of this serial monogamy, to make my longterm relationships even longer, to be committed to someone, even though I have feelings for someone else. poly seemed like the obvious solution to this problem, but it is obviously not that simple.
with B, a lot of stuff is going right, that was sometimes missing in my previous relationships. we connect on so many levels, that I wonder, if I can have feelings like that ever again, not only during this relationship but also if it would end: would I ever be able to find someone with whom things just feel so right? for the last two years, I have had a few very short connections with other people but I don't really feel the need to be with someone else at the moment.
it is different for B. he quite often meets people spontaneously and sometimes this becomes more, but he is never that emotionally attached in the beginning. for me it is quite the opposite. the people I fall for, I usually know months before I even start thinking about them in an emotional/sexual context. I knew B months before I fell for him and it has been like that with all my previous relationships.
during our relationship, B has been sexually involved with a number of people and emotionally involved with some of them too. this has sometimes been easy for me and sometimes hard, depending on a lot of things. but right now I don't know, where I stand anymore. B and I have a non-hirarchical model, but right now this is making me very sad (so sad that I started therapy recently to learn how to cope with my feelings). he has been with E for about 10 months now. in the beginning he was not emotionally involved, but they somehow have grown together and now he is.
and there my problems start: never in my previous relationships has the tought about having children been an issue. but when I first met E, about 9 months ago, she already brought up the subject of her wanting to have kids at some point and that she is not sure about poly and how this will work out. in all of our following meetings, she has always brought up her wanting to have children (though not in the context of "I want to have children with B", but more in a "this is my lifegoal" kind of way). I actually don't know where I stand on children. I imagine I could have children at some point but the thought of not having any also seems alright. I always imagined that this would be something that I would discuss together with my partner in a relationship and then we would come to an understanding on how to proceed.
but now I don't feel like this is possible anymore. I have brought up the subject with B (which is very very strange for me, since I really don't want children at the moment and he is still studying, so he also has no interest in having children right now), but the thought that he could want children with E at some point bothers me to the extent that I am sometimes not sure if I can continue with this relationship, knowing that I would not be able to stand the fact if he had children with someone else.
the thing he has said on this subject so far is: he can imagine having children with E at some point. this makes me go crazy. I can't even stand the thought of him moving in with her. we all live seperate and I could deal with never being able to move in with him if he also would not move in with anyone else he is involved with.
I know that this might sound awfull and possessive to some poly people, wanting to control what future is possible for him and his girlfriend, but I really don't know how to cope with all of this. the thoughts about the future are torturing me 24/7 at the moment. triggered by something that really has little to do with all of this, I have been crying on and off now for the past 5 days.
I don't want to be standing there at some point and either being forced to accept that he moves in with someone else/has children with someone else and be very unhappy (the thought alone makes me physically unwell) or to end the relationship. I want to know that pursuing the relationship with me is more important to him than future plans with E and that he will not force me to either accept their plans or leave me.
I really don't know how to deal with all of this. I can't stop crying. it has been bad in the past, but I have been away for a week now and during this week this problem has grown inside me to an amount, where I can't think about anything else anymore. but let me clarify that B has no concrete plans on having children or moving in with E right now, all of this is at the moment only in my head.
if anyone of you has some wisdom for me how to cope with all of this, please let me know but be sensitive. I have tried to change the way I feel about this, but it is just not possible. I am in this deep dark hole and don't know how to get out by myself.
I am new to this forum and I have been struggeling with poly-stuff now for quite some time. so I decided, I would share my story with you and ask for your opinion.
my relationship situation: I currently have a boyfriend (let's call him B) with whom I have been poly for about two years now. the relationship started out as poly, since I was in a longterm relationship with someone else at that point, which I opened up to be with B. this longterm relationship of almost 6 years (let's call him L) did not survive the transformation to poly, which was also due to other reasons, but I have to admit that poly had its part in this breakup with L.
B has another girlfriend for about 10 months (let's call her E).
I have been monogamous for almost all my life (I am now in my early 30s) and started out as poly two years ago with B (who is four years younger), when I finally decided that my serial monogamy doesn't make sense to me anymore. I do not fall for people easily but when I do, it almost always comes down to ending the old relationship and starting a new one. I have not been single since I was a teenager, but I sometimes, during my longterm relationships (all of them were 3+ years), have had feelings for other people. situations like that then always came down to one of the two alternatives: forgetting about this new person or ending the old relationship and pursuing a new one.
I became poly to get out of this serial monogamy, to make my longterm relationships even longer, to be committed to someone, even though I have feelings for someone else. poly seemed like the obvious solution to this problem, but it is obviously not that simple.
with B, a lot of stuff is going right, that was sometimes missing in my previous relationships. we connect on so many levels, that I wonder, if I can have feelings like that ever again, not only during this relationship but also if it would end: would I ever be able to find someone with whom things just feel so right? for the last two years, I have had a few very short connections with other people but I don't really feel the need to be with someone else at the moment.
it is different for B. he quite often meets people spontaneously and sometimes this becomes more, but he is never that emotionally attached in the beginning. for me it is quite the opposite. the people I fall for, I usually know months before I even start thinking about them in an emotional/sexual context. I knew B months before I fell for him and it has been like that with all my previous relationships.
during our relationship, B has been sexually involved with a number of people and emotionally involved with some of them too. this has sometimes been easy for me and sometimes hard, depending on a lot of things. but right now I don't know, where I stand anymore. B and I have a non-hirarchical model, but right now this is making me very sad (so sad that I started therapy recently to learn how to cope with my feelings). he has been with E for about 10 months now. in the beginning he was not emotionally involved, but they somehow have grown together and now he is.
and there my problems start: never in my previous relationships has the tought about having children been an issue. but when I first met E, about 9 months ago, she already brought up the subject of her wanting to have kids at some point and that she is not sure about poly and how this will work out. in all of our following meetings, she has always brought up her wanting to have children (though not in the context of "I want to have children with B", but more in a "this is my lifegoal" kind of way). I actually don't know where I stand on children. I imagine I could have children at some point but the thought of not having any also seems alright. I always imagined that this would be something that I would discuss together with my partner in a relationship and then we would come to an understanding on how to proceed.
but now I don't feel like this is possible anymore. I have brought up the subject with B (which is very very strange for me, since I really don't want children at the moment and he is still studying, so he also has no interest in having children right now), but the thought that he could want children with E at some point bothers me to the extent that I am sometimes not sure if I can continue with this relationship, knowing that I would not be able to stand the fact if he had children with someone else.
the thing he has said on this subject so far is: he can imagine having children with E at some point. this makes me go crazy. I can't even stand the thought of him moving in with her. we all live seperate and I could deal with never being able to move in with him if he also would not move in with anyone else he is involved with.
I know that this might sound awfull and possessive to some poly people, wanting to control what future is possible for him and his girlfriend, but I really don't know how to cope with all of this. the thoughts about the future are torturing me 24/7 at the moment. triggered by something that really has little to do with all of this, I have been crying on and off now for the past 5 days.
I don't want to be standing there at some point and either being forced to accept that he moves in with someone else/has children with someone else and be very unhappy (the thought alone makes me physically unwell) or to end the relationship. I want to know that pursuing the relationship with me is more important to him than future plans with E and that he will not force me to either accept their plans or leave me.
I really don't know how to deal with all of this. I can't stop crying. it has been bad in the past, but I have been away for a week now and during this week this problem has grown inside me to an amount, where I can't think about anything else anymore. but let me clarify that B has no concrete plans on having children or moving in with E right now, all of this is at the moment only in my head.
if anyone of you has some wisdom for me how to cope with all of this, please let me know but be sensitive. I have tried to change the way I feel about this, but it is just not possible. I am in this deep dark hole and don't know how to get out by myself.