Uncertain and confused

memora

New member
Hi there

I am very new to polyamory...

I am a 33 year old woman who has always avoided serious relationships. Traditional lifestyles have always somehow scared me.

A few years ago I was dumped by S for an ex-girlfriend after a very short and intense relationship. And even though it was short it somehow changed how i viewed having someone in my life.

Two months ago we met up and the sparks were immediately flying again.

At the time I was juggeling a few unserious relationships.

He told me pretty much right away that he had been in an open relationship with the ex he left me for, something that had worked out very badly. He had ended up hurting the other woman involved and didn't want to have primaries and secondaries. But wanted to live polyamorously. I told him that I hadn't considered it. But it didn't feel off, after all I was living a pretty open lifestyle. I also told him that I didn't know if would keep feeling that way - I still don't - how do you know?.

He told me that he had a date arranged that he wanted to cancel because he felt like being monogamous with me right now. I had encouraged him to go out on the date so that I could "get used to it". But he didn't want to.

Even though he didn't want me to, I have discontinued the other relationships I had going.

This has fastly become much more serious than anything I have ever had in my life before. He has met my parents and friends already. After two weeks he asked me to go on a vacation with him. He practically lives in my apartment, we spend all our free time together.

I am happy but still uncertain. Even though he has been the one driving this relationship forward (I am still a bit burned from the last time we did this) he refuses to call me his girlfriend.

The first time and only time I have met som of his friends it started out disastrously. The girl who had been the secondary in his last relationship was there and she had not been warned about my existence. I walked right in on them talking and he introduced us as: "M(her) the one i was involved with while I was with my last girlfriend", and "A(me) the one I'm involved with now". She looked like she wanted to flee the room, and I sent him back to talk to her, while I stayed away.

In the situation my feelings went to her, and my first thought was that he wasn't ready to be poly if he handled things that badly.

He is giving me whiplash. But I am in deep.
 
Greetings memora,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

Huh. Things are going rather strangely, I must say. Mr. "Gotta-Be-Polyamorous" suddenly wants monogamy. And you have been dumped by him before.

I guess sometimes people do decide to transition from polyamory to monogamy, and that's fine, but I'm mostly worried about how consistent and dependable S will be. I would advise you to proceed really slowly and cautiously in this relationship. You need to know what to expect long-term.

Do *you* want monogamy? That's an important question to consider.

In any case, I hope Polyamory.com proves helpful to you and you're welcome to read and post on our various boards. I'll be following this particular thread, so you can always ping me here if you need to.

Hope the uncertainty and confusion recedes!
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

There's a *lot* of good info in Golden Nuggets. Have a look!

Please read through the guidelines if you haven't already.

Note: You needn't read every reply to your posts, especially if someone posts in a disagreeable way. Given the size and scope of the site it's hard not to run into the occasional disagreeable person. Please contact the mods if you do (or if you see any spam), and you can block the person if you want.

If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Thanks for the friendly welcome :)

I have been lurking for a while, and it feels like a forum of good people.

As to my own mono/poly considerations - I have never felt very comfortable with being mono. I never considered poly before, but mostly because I never needed to - until now.

As my sorrundings are all very much mono I realised I needed to find a place where I wouldn't constantly be answering questions about something I have just begun to dip my toe in...
 
Yeah, Polyamory.com is a good place to get help and support without people saying, "What? Poly? Why would you do such a thing?"
 
Hi Memora (cool username, btw),

Welcome!

So, in a nutshell - you and this guy had a "short, intense" relationship previously, until he dumped you for someone else. Then he shows up a few years later after his poly situation crashed and burned, with people hurt and very likely upset about how it turned out, and you find yourself attracted to him again. He says he wants to live polyamorously and be in a relationship with you, and you expressed to him that you're not against it but had never considered it. You were enjoying a few other casual relationships, and I'm sure you told him about them, so he suddenly changes his tune and says he wants to be monogamous with you - so, realizing that you possibly want things you never wanted before, you dump your other lovers and go along with it. Hmm.

In the two months since you reconnected with this guy, he's met your friends and family, taken you on vacation with him, and spends almost all his time with you at your place. Very fast!!! This is new for you, so it's a little scary, unfamiliar, and has you feeling unsure about certain things. He won't call you his girlfriend, and you've observed that he's rather self-involved and has done things that are inconsiderate to his former lovers, and put you in awkward situations. You have feelings for him, but are cautious because you remember old hurts from the last time, and yet you sit back and let him drive this relationship forward the way he wants it.

First thing that comes to my mind when I read your post is that you need to firm up your personal boundaries. To me, he seems a bit domineering and possibly a skilled manipulator, while you come out as quite wishy-washy in your story, letting yourself be pushed this way and that. Knowing what makes you happy and what you expect out of a relationship would be a good start in helping you to stand up for what you want more firmly. Maybe you don't really know what you want, or it's all muddled up in your head, but now is the time to give it a good think and figure it out - especially when rekindling something with a past lover. Whenever we get back together with someone from the past, even if it's the recent past, I feel it is important to establish that you are not the same person you were before, and will not play by the same rules (so to speak) as before. He also sounds like someone who doesn't know how to be alone and enjoy being alone - if it's not you, he would probably look for someone else to distract him from himself. That's just my intuitive "hit."

Each relationship should teach us something, so determine what you have learned from being with him before, and your other relationship experiences since then, and find ways to grow with that knowledge. Pay attention to the red flags! Listen to your gut instincts that something is off and needs addressing - and then address it! I get the sense that you have allowed your fears or lack of wanting serious relationships in the past to just sort of toss you around without direction. But where are you, in terms of self-esteem? How is your sense of self? Do you know who you are and can you say "No" to this man if he wants to do something or steer things in a way that doesn't sit right with you? If not, I think you may want to back away a little to take time to sort things out for yourself before continuing and getting in deeper with him. My sense is, if you don't do some inner work and learn how to advocate for yourself, he will just come and go as he pleases, convince you that you want what he wants, until he spins off in another direction, and maybe even breaks your heart.
 
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I too would be careful.

Like you, I've never been comfortable with traditional relationships. I find my life to be easy when I'm single and have spent large portions of my adult life that way quite happily.

I have a partner now - we've been seeing each other for 3 years and things are serious between us in that we are committed to each other. We don't live together and we maintain our own and shared friendships - our time together is often very limited because of these things.

My partner has been poly for years - he's a big advocate for it, feeling that it's a good way to live. When we got together, I was interested in it. Sounded pretty perfect for somebody like me.

So I started reading about it. I joined this forum. I spoke to friends who have been in poly relationships. I decided at the end of all of that research that I have zero desire to have more than one romantic partner and zero desire to be in a relationship where my partner has other partners.

I find romantic relationships a lot of work and effort. I'm happy with the relationship I have right now and so long as my partner is happy too, I don't see any reason not to continue it.

But it seems to me that having a relationship and being poly would feel like a massive burden to me. I feel that my usual freedom is limited enough by being in a romantic relationship and I have no desire to limit it further by allowing the amount of romances that directly impact on my life to multiply.

My partner tells me that he is happy to be monogamous and I check in with him regularly to make sure that remains the case. If it ever stops being that way for him, we will shift our relationship back to one of platonic friendship.

I'd be wary of thinking that because you don't want conventional relationships that poly is the way forward. It may be for you - for me it just feels like a multiplication of conventional relationships - something that makes me feel quite anxious.

It may be that if I were to be single again that I'd seek several FWBs as I think that might possibly work well for me. Or I may seek another mono relationship. Or I may choose once again to fill all of my time with friends, interests and being with myself. I don't know at the moment and it isn't a concern right now.

IP
 
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