In the begining . . .

Makkablue

New member
Hello everyone, pleased to meet you.

I am new to open relationships and Poly but upon looking at this site, I figure that I'd rather detail what I have experienced on my journey than what problems I inherently have with it.

I hope it serves as assistance to those that are like myself and perhaps good reading to the rest.

This is an accounting of how it started and part two will detail how we made it work and will continue from there.

I met my Annia just over three years ago now. We met, friend of a friend of a friend at a dive bar in Philadelphia. After a little this and that we went out on a date, a date that ended very well. But, what bears mentioning is the talk we pulled over at a closed CVS to have before we got back to my place.
"I'm poly. I just want to know before we continue if that is a problem." she tells me.
"I don't see a problem, I'm ok with that." I said, not really believing her.

So, fast forward 60 days and she is over at my place near everyday. We get along so well its at time un-nerving. At around this time, just before falling asleep, I tell her, "I think I'm falling in love with you." and she shares my sentiment adding, "just think of all the love we will share..."
At the time, I did not get it.

She started talking to me about poly. I found it an interesting subject and we went on at great lengths about it to each other. We were considering adding it to our budding relationship when Annia got in a car accident.
She seemed ok, a bit banged up but ok. Then I got in a simular one two months later. Why relevant? Simply because it shelved the poly talk for the next 2.5 years.

Annia and I took a long time recovering from the injuries and though I am 95% better, she is more like 60%. In that meantime we got married, I graduated college again and got a good job, we moved in together, met the in-laws, got a cat and found Netflix. We also began to resent the relationship as it had gotten stale around the constant of the debilitating injuries and the medical circus that moved in to stay.

After a time, Annia recovered enough to be mostly self-sufficient again. Little time was spared before poly came up again from her. Now, after all we had been through and the near resentment we had, this was a wonderful break in the stagnation that had developed. We agreed to try an open relationship and I went to work in a full on good mood for the first time in months. Until about 11 am.

Annia chats to me that she found a booty call and wanted to do it that afternoon, before I got home, on our bed. She even promised to wash the sheets afterwards!
I gave the ok through cold hands and white knuckles. It had not even been 12 hours since we agreed to try it out. And in less than a day my wife was fucking another man on our bed and I got to sit back and stew over it for hours before I ... went home to face it. I felt sick but, I did agree to do this, just did not expect such a quick ... turn of events.

I went home and she was finishing her clean up efforts, sheets in the dryer and all. She looked non-pulsed, I don't know how I looked. She asked if I was ok and of course I said yeah, sure no problem. I even believed it.

Three days later and she had another booty call with the same guy (I'll call him J) except this time at night so she asked me to be elsewhere. She advised me to go out and look for some tail so, I hit up a nice spot and started playing pool. Time passed, I got restless and the scene was dead. I killed the time and eventually go the ok to come home, she was done with her fuck session.

I expressed my feelings to her about how fast she jumped into it and what it all meant to her. Was it just sex? Is that all she wanted, lots of sex with various people? Also how I felt about catching up to her, the expectations.
"This is not a race, we are not competing against each other. Besides, I got tits, I'd win." She said.
The talk was nonetheless fruitful and I felt ok and secure once more in our course of action.

I attracted a few women and a few dates that did not pan out. I was finding that many were on weird terms with the whole open/poly idea and had problems being involved with a married man.
I had made a point of not hiding my status or intentions. I approached it as I felt I wanted to be treated, as of them, little if any luck and I still felt expected to . . . become involved or at least fuck someone else in order to even things out.

July 4th weekend came up, it was Friday and I was still at work. Annia got off of work early and brought ice cream to share with me while I waited to end my shift. We were discussing heading down to the shore for the weekend and I was getting all mentally set up for some quality time with my wife, just me and her and being intimate.
Her phone beeps a incoming text message.
She looks at it and asks me what time we want to start driving down to the shore. I say early, around 8PM and she looks uncomfortable. She wants to go around 10:30PM. I ask why. She giggles and my heart sinks. It was her fucking booty call wanting her this time, that night, last minute.

I was upset and she could see it. I tried to sit on it but it was growing, like a rising tidal wave that I was fighting a losing battle against. We went home and she started to get primped up for J, her now FWB. I studiously set about cleaning the entire house being passive aggressive the entire time. She finally asked me to spit it out, what was my issue?
"THE FACT THAT I SLAVE EVERYDAY TO TAKE CARE OF YOU AND OUR HOME AND ALL HE HAS TO DO IS SAY, "LETS FUCK" AND YOU HOP ON HIS DICK WHILE I HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS FOR ANYTHING!" I said to her stricken face.

I exploded. Years of suppressed emotions just flooded out and I could no longer keep it together. I cried long and hard, she quietly tried to comfort me and did not flinch away, a credit to her.

End Part 1.
 
Part 2

Despite my outburst, I insisted she go and get laid anyway. I said that, "it is not right of me to ruin what you have simply because I have a hang-up about us or something deeper."

She went. I cleaned. She came back, I was still upset in general. We talked all the way to the shore and it was good.

However, I began to become increasingly depressed. Everything became negative and I even looked at Annia with negative thoughts in my head. I brooded the entire weekend and in the end, though much talk and patience on Annia's part, I found my issues.

It was two fold. One, I was raised strict Jehovah's Witness by my Mother. I never got to participate in anything much and socialization was restricted. Going into adulthood, my inexperience developed into a growing awkwardness and low confidence in anything taboo.
I managed to convince myself I was ok with things when really, I was confused and loathing of my inability to catch up with my peers in relationships and in the bedroom.

So, given that, an open/poly relationship . . one where it is all consensual and there is few if any fingers to point at anyone for how you feel about something, I was lost.
Annia recommended a therapist to work though the parts she could not help with. Otherwise she listened to me and made very good attempts at being more tactful with her interactions. She put a pause to the booty calls and focused on us for a time.

End part 2
 
I'm glad for you. Polyamory never works if a primary relationship isn't satisfied first. If you are going sexually unsatisfied and she is getting it elsewhere that is something you definitely need to work through. Good luck.
 
We don't have her side of the story, and maybe you could have shared your feelings of disquiet earlier, but it sounds to me like she could have been way more considerations of your feelings in this new situation. I am so frequently surprised by how nonchalant people can be with their partners' feelings! She really could have slowed things down on her end before things got to the breakdown point on yours.
 
Wow, my husband and I have discussed and only in minor ways begun to explore polyamory. But, I never imagined it would look the way you and your wife have explored it. My personal reaction is that I don't think I could ever be ok with my husband getting "booty calls" with someone he doesn't have an established relationship. We're open to the other person being in another relationship, but we haven't even said sex is an option yet, because we're both new to polyamory and we have to make sure our relationship survives each step we explore further. I wonder if you were expecting something similar for her and for yourself, something more gradual.. a friendship that develops into a relationship.. and later on sex?
 
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