Our poly mono relationship

Norwegianpoly

New member
It is almost a year - 9-10 months to be exact - since my ex husband left us and my boyfriend/fiance and I have lived monogamously ever since.

I have dealt with the grief of the breakup, which was not mutual. And there has emerged a sort of honeymoon energy between me and my boyfriend. So it has been living in two very different energetic "spaces" at the same time. My grief ended in a sort of dissapointed indifference, where I cant really remember much of the relationship with my ex at all. And for the most part, my boyfriend go about this as though we are and always were a monogamous couple.

It is not that my boyfriend is jealous, he knows I have male friends and never looks to supervise what I do, but since the breakup he has had some episodes of getting jealous when I talk to friends of him, or his friends of friends. I think he wonders if I "have" to have two men and are looking to replace my ex.

I dont, in fact at some days even sustaning that one relationship that I do have is almost too much for me, as the breakup with me ex is eating its way into creating trust issues with my boyfriend.

My boyfriend has also raised the issue of possably having a threesome - "trying it", as he puts it. Which I would not be totally against. It is just that I took a lot of chances, starting up the relationship with him with limited poly experience (just one "sort of" relationship, plus my then husband having a "sort of" relationship). I would like to invite someone new into bed if I thought it would make him happy and could be fun for me too, but I am afraid that it will not turn out in a good way. I also dont know if he is serious or sort of testing me. It would also be new terrerory for me - he had a lot of casual sex in the past but I mainly had sex in relationships.

And I already feel like "the filthy girlfriend" after my ex left me - after all, poly was my idea and my ex said me living poly/keeping my boyfriend was part of the reason he left me. That he could not live with someone so "radical" . That the only option was us "loosing" poly and becoming "normal". But I would not know how to live monogamously with a man who kept falling in love with other women, without polyamory. I dont want to be the gatekeeper of any man. That is utterly boring.

So we live monogamously (the issue of weather of not we wil ever have a thresome remains open) but strangely I feel a lot of freedom in this seemingly restricted relationship. My boyfriend lets me do whatever I want and speak to whoever I want to speak to. He does not try to cencor me or my style. He lets me know I am beautiful in comfy outfits as well as an evening dress. He does not judge me or say anything bad about my ex, he just admits that he is sad about it. He even said that maybe he should have done something, sooner, to adress my ex. I just told him that it would have been nice, but that it was the responsability of my ex to raise his own issues (god knows I tried getting him to talk about things).

I admit that part of me thinks that polyamory is cool. But my way into it was that I simply fell in love, as I have done before, in more than one person. That part of it was real and genuine. And I tried to treat my men the best I could. I have to give to my ex that he has never spoken anything bad about poly or even told people that was the reason he left. My ex is taking some blame and he respects my wishes to not stay in close contact. We have a good cooperation about money and practical things, actually better than when we were dating. And from my passion from this poly relationship, came an involvement in our NGO which actually made history in my country. I am still a member (actually a member of the board, but I will withdraw for more local work in the spring).

A lot of people know it was a poly breakup, but some don't. They think that I am single and perhaps thinking to myself I can never date again. When the truth is that even through my depressive reaction to the breakup, I was still dating my other boyfriend (who lives out of town). In some ways it made things better (I had someone to comfort me, hold me, have sex and spoil me), in some things it made things worse (I had already a deep commitment to this person, while at the same time trying to dissolve another commitment, which made things confusing). I have decided that in about a year's time after the breakup (so in a few months), I will make dating my boyfriend more public, so that it looks like I "found love again" to those who are not informed. Otherwise, it would easily look as though I was the one breaking up because I found someone new while cheating. That's the sad bit of poly and secrecy. But anyhow, I have not felt like celebrating anything publically because of my grief.

Some have asked me, what if you fall in love with someone else, in addition to your boyfriend? I have dated my boyfriend more than 4 years now and normally it would be likely that I would fall for someone new as well. But I don't know. Maybe I will not fall in love again. Maybe I will, but I will not be interested in pursuiting it. My boyfriend told me long time ago: "I am fine with you dating your husband, but if I met you first, I would not let you take a lover". He is not that jealous. He just don't want to share. And he knows what he is talking about - his grandfather (now no longer with us) had two wives at the same time, one that came with a stepdaughter (yes, it was kind of illegal. But also at the same time public. He put his second "wife" in his testament and she inherited a share of the farm from him). So he knows it can be done, too. He just prefers to not be a part of it, as me starting to date a new relationship now. And I want to honor his wishes. Anyway, I don't think about other men as in starting a relationship with them. I feel lucky if I can make this one relationship work, maybe we can have kids one day. And there is family, friends, pets, all these who might need my love. It is not just a sexual need, but a social need. I have lots of friends and it gives me great pleasure to give from my heart to them. I don't know that the future holds. But who does?
 
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Thank you for updating us. I too came to poly because I fell in love with someone who lived in another country so I have been interested in how it has worked out for you. I'm glad your boyfriend has stuck it out and sad that your husband decided to leave.

Leetah
 
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