AppleCrumble
New member
... and I don't even know if poly is the right word! I don't know if poly(amory) is exactly the right word to describe what I'm new to because I personally feel uncomfortable about *loving* someone outside my primary relationship. I guess it also depends how you define love, because I do think it's important to *care* about non-primary partners on some level, and perhaps some people would call that love.
However, I've been lurking about for a little while, reading a number of threads from that Master Thread, and I do feel somewhat at home here. It looks like a pretty awesome community.
My Relationship Background: I've been with my partner, Mr. W, for four years and we've been living together for two. A good friend of mine introduced me to the concept of open/poly relationships, and she armed me with a copy of The Ethical Slut. As many of you have also mentioned, it's not a perfect book, but it helped me formulate some of my ideas and opinions about what my ideal relationship could be. I aired this idea to Mr. W about 1.5 years ago. He's been so positive about it, but since this is a new concept to us, and we value each other so much, we're stepping out into it very carefully.
After six months of exploring how we felt and careful planning, and another six months of searching, we finally caught a unicorn! (who I will call Sabina) She also had no prior experience with poly/open relationships before, but she's an excellent communicator, so respectful of our primary relationship, and everything was amazing until a couple weeks ago. Sabina and I had started becoming close friends as well as sex partners, and she recently opened up to me emotionally in rather an intense way. I didn't feel like I could be so emotionally supportive (which I feel goes into "love" territory), and still have casual sex with her. So Sabina and I decided put sex on hiatus for now (we agreed we're friends first, sex partners second), while I figure out with Mr W how much emotional attachment we're comfortable with in a secondary relationship (this is probably a whole nother thread, so I'll stop getting into details now).
My point is that even after so much thought and careful planning, I/we still feel a bit like we're bumbling about and sort of making things up as we go along, based on how we feel... and I suppose this is an important thing to do. I must say, it is such a relief to see other people here struggling with similar issues, and having a wide variety of ways of doing things. Other than my friend who introduced me to the concept of non-monogamy, I have had very little basis for comparison until now. I look forward to picking your brains about my various bumbles, and I hope I can offer my two cents once in a while, too!
However, I've been lurking about for a little while, reading a number of threads from that Master Thread, and I do feel somewhat at home here. It looks like a pretty awesome community.
My Relationship Background: I've been with my partner, Mr. W, for four years and we've been living together for two. A good friend of mine introduced me to the concept of open/poly relationships, and she armed me with a copy of The Ethical Slut. As many of you have also mentioned, it's not a perfect book, but it helped me formulate some of my ideas and opinions about what my ideal relationship could be. I aired this idea to Mr. W about 1.5 years ago. He's been so positive about it, but since this is a new concept to us, and we value each other so much, we're stepping out into it very carefully.
After six months of exploring how we felt and careful planning, and another six months of searching, we finally caught a unicorn! (who I will call Sabina) She also had no prior experience with poly/open relationships before, but she's an excellent communicator, so respectful of our primary relationship, and everything was amazing until a couple weeks ago. Sabina and I had started becoming close friends as well as sex partners, and she recently opened up to me emotionally in rather an intense way. I didn't feel like I could be so emotionally supportive (which I feel goes into "love" territory), and still have casual sex with her. So Sabina and I decided put sex on hiatus for now (we agreed we're friends first, sex partners second), while I figure out with Mr W how much emotional attachment we're comfortable with in a secondary relationship (this is probably a whole nother thread, so I'll stop getting into details now).
My point is that even after so much thought and careful planning, I/we still feel a bit like we're bumbling about and sort of making things up as we go along, based on how we feel... and I suppose this is an important thing to do. I must say, it is such a relief to see other people here struggling with similar issues, and having a wide variety of ways of doing things. Other than my friend who introduced me to the concept of non-monogamy, I have had very little basis for comparison until now. I look forward to picking your brains about my various bumbles, and I hope I can offer my two cents once in a while, too!
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