Hi from Sunny Southern Calif!

SNeacail

New member
I am a 41 year old mother of 2 boys 15 & 10 and wife to my husband of 19 years (tomorrow :)), living in Orange County, CA (near Disneyland). For a good many years, I have come to the conclusion that I could easily love more than one man and look forward to an opportunity in the future to do so. I do NOT want casual sex or just an open relationship, it needs to mean much more. I want someone that can share my interests (especially those that I don’t currently share with my husband). I also believe that my husband (who I’ll call Radio Geek – RG), could be converted to a poly lifestyle.

For nearly 9 years RG has had a good female friend (not sexual) that others have mistaken for his wife, more than once. The running joke is that she is his “other wife”, which their LDS friends find incredibly funny. They are heavily involved in Boy Scouts and tend to work on numerous very time consuming projects together. She is married with kids and we interact as a family quite a bit. For a while she saw more of him than I did. The more I thought on this relationship, the more I realized that I was OK with the multiple partner dynamic. While this person would not be a sexual partner for RG (for so many reasons), if he found someone I connected with and could be friends with, I would be more than willing to share him.

Both RG and I grew up in VERY conservative Christian homes. He still enjoys going to church, but I am struggling with this quite a bit. I have started to question so much of what was slammed down my throat as absolutes and realized that most of it was simply not true. I believe in God and Christ and in Christ’s teachings, beyond that it is all man’s interpretation of how things should be. As I grow older, I realized how judgmental my mother is in the name of Christianity and that it makes me extremely uncomfortable when I have to listen to it.

RG and I have been struggling with our marriage for a long time and we are currently working on it and making a lot of progress, with the help of a counselor. Some book recommendations I found on this site has been extremely enlightening and helpful. I highly recommend “The 5 Love Languages” by Gary Chapman. I imagine we have a lot of work ahead of us before I even bring up the poly issue (min a year). I really want our relationship super strong before bringing in new people and new challenges. I will spend that time learning about the many pitfalls and mistakes and how to avoid them or at least get out of them without losing a limb in the process.

I really feel at home on this site even though I am in a mono relationship. Even if RG and I never go poly, I want to learn as much as I can and be able to pass on that understanding to my kids. I would not want my kids to disregard a certain lifestyle because social culture says it is wrong or immoral.

Sharon
 
Welcome aboard.
 
Welcome! I'm new here, too. Learning is always a good thing!!!
 
A couple things I have learned or observations I have made since hanging out on this board.

Poly is HARD work

Poly is NOT a way to accomodate a cheating spouse

If you are currently in a mono marriage - make sure your marriage is SOLID before adding additional partners. Spend some time working on learning to communicate better as it will be even more important later on.

The original spouse/partner will have feelings of jealousy in some form in the beginning, while there is NRE between the other and the new addition

No one has it all figured out

Set boundries - don't expect your partner to just know what lines can't be crossed
 
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