Dipping our toes in the water

vixtresses

New member
Hi! I'm a newbie here. :D

My fiance and I have just had our first serious discussion about possibly going poly. I've recently developed an attraction to a friend of mine. I don't think that will likely turn into anything serious, though. He's nice, and there's definitely chemistry there, but I don't think he'd be up for a poly relationship (I guess you never know, though). Anyway, this recent attraction is not the first attraction I've had to people outside my 6 1/2 year relationship with DF. Actually, the first year and a half to two years of our relationship were pretty rocky due to some indiscretions and wanderings on both our parts. We worked through that, though, after doing the whole break up, get back together thing a few times, and have been pretty stable (and monogamous) for the last 4 years or so. We've been engaged for 2 years, not sure when we'll tie the knot though (I was postponing wedding planning until after I finished nursing school, which I just finished, so I guess we'd better get planning soon).

Anyway, about this latest attraction. We've known eachother for about 2 years, since he did some yardwork at my mom's house and I ran into him almost daily there. We ran into each other here and there since then, never spent much time together, but always had pleasant conversations. I guess there was always a mild attraction, but I pretty much dismissed it and denied it immediately, since I didn't want to stir the pot after DF's and my rocky period. We started spending more time together early this year when we started a jogging program together. We found we liked each other's company so much we spent more and more time together, watching movies, talking, grabbing coffee, and of course, jogging. I pretty much kept on denying the attraction, though, didn't think about it, didn't talk about it, etc.

Well, we started getting a little playful. Innocent things - pokes in the ribs, pillow fights, that sort of thing. He also gives me massages (totally OK'd by DF; I was under a lot of stress from school and such, and this guy's awesome at working out tension knots). Oh, and I didn't mention - his apartment consists of a bedroom and a bathroom, and the bedroom is mostly taken up by a king-sized bed... so that's where we hang out. No sitting furniture. I guess all that physical contact and proximity (and all in a bed!) kind of was a recipe for a growing attraction. So, the attraction grew. We started cuddling, but still telling each other that it was platonic friend cuddling. :rolleyes: Last week, though, we were cuddling during a movie, and it became apparent that he was, eh, well, his nether bits started poking me. I didn't do anything about it, just sat there thinking "OMG! Uh, this kills the whole platonic thing, doesn't it?" and getting kind of hot and bothered myself. I rearranged myself to avoid the poking and continued watching the movie, but the hot and bothered feeling remained.

After the movie, I stayed for a couple of minutes trying to think of what, if anything, I should say. Clearly, we needed to DO something, right? We were no longer in the platonic friend zone, and if anything continued, it would be cheating, since DF and I had not talked about going poly and I was entirely sure DF was totally mono anyway. I never got around to saying anything, though, because we were abruptly interrupted by the guy's roommate, who has always thought we needed to "hurry up and do it already". I was feeling awkward and got out in a hurry. I asked him about it later, though, particularly the erection business, and he claims he's "like that about 80% of the time", it's a testosterone thing, doesn't mean anything. I'm not sure I'm buying that one. He also said he knew I was aroused... he said my smell changed, my heart started beating faster, and I started radiating heat. Whoops. But despite that, he still seemed convinced the status quo hadn't been changed and that we were still platonic friends. LOL.

I wasn't so convinced of that, and my mind has been kind of spinning since then. I've been worrying about whether to tell DF, what to tell DF, if I needed to just break up with him since he wasn't ever going to understand the fact that I seem to always end up growing these new attractions... but I finally decided to just bring it up today. I started off by telling him that I've been reading about the poly lifestyle for a while now (there's another forum I'm on that has a thread about polyamory, it's always fascinated me), and told him a little bit about poly as I understand it, the different relationship arrangements, the need for very open communication and understanding in these typs of relationships. I also told him about NRE and mentioned it would be nice to revisit that feeling. Much to my surprise, he seemed very open to the idea. He was a little hesitent, but when he saw that I was serious, he admitted that he'd been struggling himself with the temptation to pursue something with other women. He says there aren't any particular women, and it's not that he's unhappy with me, it's just a need for something new and different. We discussed how it would be relationships, not just swinging, not just casual sex, and I even told him about my growing attraction to this guy.

The discussion went great! We got giggly and playful and excited, and we're going to start looking into resources about poly and seriously consider opening up our relationship. We agreed that we probably would prefer each of us having our own other relationships, rather than "sharing" someone or several someones. We're not jumping in just yet, and I've yet to even begin to broach the subject with my latest attraction, but we're going to start reading about it and talking about it to see if we can make this work.

I'm really excited! I am honestly not too hopeful about my latest attraction, sadly, as he's mentioned before that poly's not something he'd be into (I mentioned it in passing once, since it is something I've been fascinated by for a while), and that he isn't the kind of person who would be OK with sharing someone. He's also a rather conservative Christian, so I really doubt anything will happen there. But still... this is a new and exciting phase of my relationship with DF, and even if the new attraction guy doesn't work out, the possibility exists for someone else, someday.

I'm still really shocked that DF was into the idea, though. I've always thought of him as sort of a good little Catholic boy. I guess even if we never do end up with a poly relationship, we're already getting to know each other better, and that's always a good thing, right? :)
 
Back
Top