A series of confusion..

starlight1

Active member
I wanted to post a bit about how confused I am feeling recently and try to gain some better understanding in myself by putting pen to paper, as the saying goes. Even though i dont know the technicologic analogy equivilant.

Anyways, as I have mentioned in previous posts I am LDS, or mormon, and this has colored my views on life a lot, as does most spiritual, religious or cultural beliefs in a person. That being said I have never ever once been involved with a good standing monogomous relationship that worked.

My confusion comes to this. I have suffiently healed from my past to start dating, and recently met two very different amazing men. One of them will be named L and the other M. L is a very wise, patient man, who understands my past and we have a very strong connection. We have a history of knowing each other distantly but only just connected recently so we can really relate about past events and there is a bond long term friendship.

I met M through him, although M is long distance. I connected with L more than friends around the same time as meeting M.

L is very tolerant of my poly nature and bi-sexuality. However M has past baggage from a previous marriage, that makes him distrustful of poly people as he views such things as cheating no matter how many times i try to tell him i love many not less, and its all open and consensual.

L originally didnt want me to be involved with M, but as he was very open-minded and patient and we discussed the topic, and eventually he decided he would agree because having me in his life at all was more important than pushing me away because of my desire to be with others. Plus he also was able to care a great deal for M.

L and M ironically have had a few daliances with each other physically, but, they do not view themselves as Bi-sexual, although L cares a great deal about M and this makes him more tolerant of the whole thing.

Now I know this is all strange to bring my religious views on this matter into play here, but seeing as my beliefs only allow me to marry and be with one man, and I still want to stay in my religion, I find that M is asking me to be more exclusive with him. That he doesnt want me dating anyone other than L and M, and I dont know if I can agree to this. First of all the whole concept seems hypocritical to me as L and M have been intimate, and M doesnt seem to mind if I am with women, just if I am with other men!

But I have been very clear with L and M, if M asked me to choose I would choose L, L has been the "rock" in all this and in my life. He was there when I went through my abuse with my ex., he was there during the time with my past issues with my mother, and in all things I needed him in.

Where we stand now is that M describes himself as Mono, and unwilling to bend. If I want to date or see others he doesnt want to continue a relationship with me. This hurts a lot as I care a lot of him as a friend and more and would like to try and make it work. Also it would hurt L as L cares a lot about him too. I am just not sure how to make this all work. I have never before had one decent guy interested in me, and now I have two, and not only that I get on so well with both of them. They are both very easy to communicate with and its all very natural and peaceful when I am around them.

By the way both M and L are part of the same religion, but L simply feels that if I married him eternally (as is such the belief system in our religion) I wouldnt be made to choose between him and M.

Don't even get me started about my bi-sexual female friends in the LDS faith either, thats a whole other post required. /sigh
:confused:
 
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Just occured to me something else as well...

I realise all this is rather fast. I am not concerned about my relationship with L as that will always be there no matter what. But what I am concerned is that my original intentions were just to date a few people to see what kind of person i wanted to be with, not to choose marriage partners already. So i need to make these things known that i'd like to slow things down. It doesnt help that M is making such silly ultimatums such as one month to decide if I can be with him or not. Well I only just started dating, I dont want to commit to anyone or anything as quickly as all that. :)
 
One of the important mantras you often hear when discussing poly-style relationships is that you have to go at a speed at which everyone involved is comfortable.

This means two things - the person who isn't comfortable with the speed that things are progressing needs to speak up, and the others need to listen and respect and not make the other feel bad because they said anything.

This can be frustrating, but as long as everyone knows that each of the people are acting in good faith towards making it work, it can be done.
 
Where we stand now is that M describes himself as Mono, and unwilling to bend. If I want to date or see others he doesnt want to continue a relationship with me.

This is the big issue in my opinion. If this does not change than everything else seems moot to me.

Sorry you are in this place of confusion.

Take care, Mono...but with a little flexibility :eek:...(just a little...don't get your hopes up Redpepper)
 
Wow.
I think it might be of great benefit to slow down as well.
I think it all sounds VERY confusing.
Having a clear idea of where you want to go in your life is critical in making decisions of this nature.
It's one thing to have a lover-entirely another to marry-much less to marry "eternally".
I wouldn't be committing to anything such as that without a good amount of time and thought in it.

Good luck.
 
When you talk about keeping your religious beliefs, do you mean specifically LDS or more generically Christian?

I was in a poly relationship with an ex-Mormon. She was involved in non-monogamy while she was married to a Mormon man. However, he started lieing and having sex outside their agreement. This along with some other issues, and they separated. The other Mormons she was having sex with told everyone she tried to have an affair with them. (This hypocracy is what broke the camel's back and she left the church as well.)

I am not saying this to diss Mormons. I think a lot of what happened was considered extremely taboo. So people may have a lot of hidden guilt if their religion is telling them that their lifestyle is un-Godly.
 
Two thoughts come to mind.

My first is that I have a personal policy that whenever someone gives me an ultimatum, they lose. I've only had to put this policy into effect once. With good communication, I've been able to avoid situations that might have resulted in ultimatums (ultimata?)

My second thought is that if M is monogamous and he can't handle sharing the love of his life with someone else, that sounds like something you'll just have to accept and move on from. Some people just aren't wired with the capacity for polyamory, and nothing you say or do can change that. While some people are wired monogamous and fall so in love with a poly person that they overcome that hurdle, but that has to be his decision. It is curious that he would say he's monogamous while simultaneously loving you and sleeping with L, but no one ever said humans had to make sense... So there might be some room to "probe" him on how monogamous he truly is, i.e. ask him why, if he's monogamous, is he also sleeping with L while in love with you. But at the end of it, you may just have to let him go.
 
Two thoughts come to mind.

My first is that I have a personal policy that whenever someone gives me an ultimatum, they lose. I've only had to put this policy into effect once. With good communication, I've been able to avoid situations that might have resulted in ultimatums (ultimata?)


My second thought is that if M is monogamous and he can't handle sharing the love of his life with someone else, that sounds like something you'll just have to accept and move on from. Some people just aren't wired with the capacity for polyamory, and nothing you say or do can change that. While some people are wired monogamous and fall so in love with a poly person that they overcome that hurdle, but that has to be his decision. It is curious that he would say he's monogamous while simultaneously loving you and sleeping with L, but no one ever said humans had to make sense... So there might be some room to "probe" him on how monogamous he truly is, i.e. ask him why, if he's monogamous, is he also sleeping with L while in love with you. But at the end of it, you may just have to let him go.

On the first part, I completely agree. I also felt the ultimatum was very unfair and strange. I had originally made an agreement with him to date him for 6 months while seeing other people (casually dating) but he wanted me to just date him, then he dropped it down to one month because he realised i wasnt saying i wanted to date him exclusively those 6 months. A bit of miscommunication there.

I also have asked him how monogmous he feels he is. But he is having issues with it being the same religion as me. And therefor in his mind he isnt poly because he commited a "sin" having sex with L, because to him thats a challenge to overcome, not a poly lifestyle to lead....because it might ultimatly lead him out of the church...

I also recently found out that in the church a woman can be sealed (married eternally) to more than one man if that first man is dead, but they must get special permissionship. I wonder if at the time polygamy and such was practiced if the US had not threatened Utah with war we might have seen a different take on marriage in the us now. More poly friendly perhaps/ And in the future does this bode well to poly people or is it against it???

Many curious thoughts on the subject...
 
Another Update...

After telling M that if he made me choose it would always be L first and foremost, he left then came back. He is really struggling with all this.

On one hand he wont bend too far from his religion, on the other he says he has never met anyone like me before and is completely head over heels. Maybe we shoul wait for NRE to wear off a bit and he's able to get his head around me being Poly. I always will be poly no matter what religious beliefs I have. I always will love L, these are givens in my life. What I chose to do with those statements are entirerly up to me though.

But having cut the strings with M made him realise he wanted me more, and really wants to work around this some how. But I said I didnt push him away he pulled away because who and what I am.

Now to clarify a bit about the religion I state in my last post...
We believe in eternal marriages in heaven. On one hand we have the current prophet telling us that gay and lesbian relationships are not good and God doesnt approve of them. So that is in church doctrine. On the other, we have the fact the mormons did indeed in the past pratice polygamy. There is also not concrete evidence that the women were with each other or not as the women usually swore and oath of secrecy about the relationships, to not talk to people about it (although they all were concensual in their own agreements of all being with one man) because of the persecution at the time and being driven from state to state and eventually out of the US as it was then.

On that same tangent I then find out very recently that in "certain special circumstances" women can be sealed to more than one man and then "God will sort it out later". But it needs direct approval from the prophet and is incredibly rare.

This leads me to wonder a lot on this subject...because technically the church still practices polygamy in the "after world" sense but not in this life. They still let men marry more than one woman if for example the woman is dead, and i have heard stories of women who know they are to die soon for whatever reason telling the husband it is ok, you can love someone else and i approve. But if you publically ask the churchs stand on it, they will say they do not practice polygamy.

On that train of thought, I do think one day, when the women are truely treated equally (which is coming around in terms of abuse and not sweeping issues under the carpet) then we may see that the LDS faith is actually poly friendly....it would be an interesting thought nonetheless.
 
When you talk about keeping your religious beliefs, do you mean specifically LDS or more generically Christian?

I was in a poly relationship with an ex-Mormon. She was involved in non-monogamy while she was married to a Mormon man. However, he started lieing and having sex outside their agreement. This along with some other issues, and they separated. The other Mormons she was having sex with told everyone she tried to have an affair with them. (This hypocracy is what broke the camel's back and she left the church as well.)

I am not saying this to diss Mormons. I think a lot of what happened was considered extremely taboo. So people may have a lot of hidden guilt if their religion is telling them that their lifestyle is un-Godly.


I am talking specifically about LDS people. :)

The issues in your second and third paragraph are part of a strange phenomena in the church. They tell us that everyone is intitled to a personal loving relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus and that every person on earth is able to recieve their own personal revelation. That being said we're suppose to do this within the dictates of the church and follow the current Prophets wisdom guidance and advice.

So you get people who feel God says its ok for them to have sex with more than one person, but then faced with the possibility of losing their reputation in the church or in being excommunicated because of the dictates of the religion they then take the cowards course out blaming it on "that evil woman/man".

I have felt no guilt in loving two men. God directed me to both, and I love them both. But if God asked me to chose one, i would chose L. M knows this, but he also has felt no guilt in being with me because I love two men. So...in the end I go with what I feel is right, in my own belief system, rather than always the dictates of the church, although I try to live as closely to them as possible simply because a lot of them are good common sense!
 
Wow.
I think it might be of great benefit to slow down as well.
I think it all sounds VERY confusing.
Having a clear idea of where you want to go in your life is critical in making decisions of this nature.
It's one thing to have a lover-entirely another to marry-much less to marry "eternally".
I wouldn't be committing to anything such as that without a good amount of time and thought in it.

Good luck.

I too dont understand why i cant just be lovers with him and when it ends it ends, but he wants some one who can be sealed to him, for many reasons. One he as CF, the other, being it is quite common for a man in this relgion and woman to fall in love and within 6 months get eternally married. I dont even know if its possible to find the right person to be eternally married to, nonetheless with in 6 months! It seems to me this religion does dating all backwards...

I hae taken 3 years and sorting out my life (divorice and other issues) to realise that polymory exisited, what it meant for me, and only just getting to the point of..."what do I do now"....I dont want to commit eternally yet... :rolleyes:
 
I too dont understand why i cant just be lovers with him and when it ends it ends, but he wants some one who can be sealed to him, for many reasons. One he as CF, the other, being it is quite common for a man in this relgion and woman to fall in love and within 6 months get eternally married. I dont even know if its possible to find the right person to be eternally married to, nonetheless with in 6 months! It seems to me this religion does dating all backwards...

I hae taken 3 years and sorting out my life (divorice and other issues) to realise that polymory exisited, what it meant for me, and only just getting to the point of..."what do I do now"....I dont want to commit eternally yet... :rolleyes:

Hi Starlight,

Well, first off, being a non-theist I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in having much to say about how your particular theism plays into your confusion and struggle. For example use of the term "sealed" is totally foreign to me so I don't know how that factors in.

But I can offer one view that is held by large numbers of people - people who you would no doubt consider 'spiritual'.
It is this...........

When two people bond at a 'soul' level (whatever that term means to an individual) it is recognized that that bondIS eternal ! It the root that love springs from. But there's no implication in that whatsoever that there's any earth-time requirement attached. The understanding is that BECAUSE of this bond - this connection - that there's an unvoiced understanding that you are both there to support each other's journey - be it physically together or apart - for whatever 'time' is the right time for each.

At that point & level, topics like marriage - and maybe this 'sealing' (?) etc become secondary and just operational concerns. The fundamentals remain - forever. It nothing we even have control over so the idea of discussing them or writing them or anything else is a moot exercise. It is what it is, and one of the biggest wonders of the universe !

Don't know if that will even make sense to you......

GS
 
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