RickPlus' story - Start.

RickPlus

New member
Hi all,
I'm going to temp the fates, tempt the gods of irony, tempt both Murphy and Jinx - by saying that my wife and I are pretty much ideally set up for a polyamorous relationship. You can follow this blog and see if the gods mock me and my over confident hopes in the future.

Me: Male 47 years old, bi-curious.
My wife Red: Female 57 years old, also bi-curious.

We come from a Science Fiction background and she has a anthropology degree. We know deep down that there are lots of sets of rules that humans can live under, and the rules of our society are in many ways arbitrary. There are many cultures that are less hung up about sex and love.

Further, Red was in the SCA, and she knows several people who have had successful poly relationships for many years. I know of a couple poly people from Science Fiction. Three fairly close friends are in open relationships (either poly or swinging). We have living examples to model and some poly experienced people to ask for help.

Poly has been in the back ground of our thoughts for a long time. On our wedding night she told me that it wouldn't be a big deal if I had an affair. I was a bit shocked, but did the polite thing and told her the same thing. We agreed we would talk over, any thing like that first. So for our 15 year marriage, we were polyamorous (non-practicing) in a real sense.

When we decided to open up, I decided to prepare. I started reading this forum (including all posts in the 'new to polyamory' section) and reading books on polyamory.

Finally we live in a fairly liberal community. Nor do I have to worry about people in power over me giving me a hard time if I come out. There is one friend we have who might take a sanctimonious attitude about us opening up, but if worse comes to worse, we can tell him to not discuss it or end the friendship. (I don't think it will come to that.)

So if ANYONE has good chances of making poly work, it is us...

Warm regards, Rick.
 
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What prompted us to actually open our marriage.
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For 15 years we COULD screw around but neither of us bothered. The reason was partly that we are heavy people and so sexy young things were not throwing themselves at us. But mainly, we were just very, very happy. The years of our marriage were the happiest time that Red and I have experienced in either of our lives. Also the sex was very good, we were not afraid to experiment. Finally, everyone knew we were married, and society stepped up to support monogamy by keeping those who might have been interested in us, at a polite distance.

After perhaps 10 years for me and maybe 12 or 13 years for Red, we started to want more however. First we were both bi-curious and that is not something we could try within the marriage obviously.

Second, my sex drive was about 3 times Red's. Often I would masturbate and she would hug me and keep me company which is loving and sweet. But I jacked off a lot on my own, and after 15 years I was bored with the mental fantasies I played in my head during this. I REALLY wanted some variety. She did too, maybe to a lesser extent.

Third, we both wanted children but we were not able to have them. Expanding our family to adopt one or more adults with kids, or finding a young woman who would like to have a child with us felt right.

Fourth, we lacked very close friends near by. We had time and love to spare, but most of Red's intimates were 3 hours away and across an international border. My circle of friends were close, but not that close.

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Some things conspired to knock us out of a rut. Some friends we knew were poly in Seattle started inviting us to their tribe's get together when we were down there. It was nice seeing the warmth and intimacy of this group when we played games or watched movies. We learned more about polyamory and we both read "The Ethical Slut" which was recommended to us. And we started getting close to another couple locally who had an open marriage and seemed a bit interested in us.

This couple, we had started to hang around with because I was hoping that we could make more local friends for Red. It was a bit of a surprise when we found that they had an open marriage. I will call this couple, C1 (male) and C2 (female).
[[ By the way, I rolled a die to see if the guy or the gal would get the C1 spot. No superiority of the C1 or C2 position was intended or can be assumed.]]

Poly suddenly seemed to be much more in our mental space than it had been.

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This February, C1 & C2 invited us and some of their friends to a dinner party. No big deal I thought. A chance to play some of the great German board games & visit. During the party, a striking young woman with great boobs, got a massage, naked. And after that, was walking about the house unclothed. 8-o

This was something Miss Manners had not prepared me for. Trying to be suave, I decided that staring at her was right out, obviously straining myself to NOT look at her likely would not be polite. So I settled on giving her (well deserved) appreciative glances from time to time but mainly paying attention to what I was doing. SELF GRADE: Passed with style.

Then C2 (the wife) and 2 of the guests disappeared. We were playing Rock Band with C1. I was very curious what was going on. Was this an intimate, sexual play party??? We hadn't been told it would be! Instead of asking C1, "Is this a party where people are screwing each other?" I wimped out and asked, "Where is C2?" His answer was a cross "I don't know!". Whoa! Is he pissed at me for asking an awkward question, for being stupid about what is going on, or is he mad because he doesn't approve of what she is doing? SELF GRADE: Failure - not at all suave.

Rest of the party I was polite, friendly & cool. Picked up a couple good points I think.

At the end of the party, everyone else left and C1 and C2 asked if we were poly. I was nervous and blathered on a bit about how sophisticated we were, how many poly families we knew, etc. A simple "Yes" would have served far better, but, in my defense, this is something I wanted to talk to Red about before answering. SELF GRADE: Failure - completely not suave.

Anyway, we made a date with C1 & C2 in a week, at their place again. I was very interested, but Red and I needed to talk.

If we were REALLY going to be poly, we had a sudden unexpected deadline.
 
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The next week - Do we WANT to be poly?
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Red and I talked about that party a lot in the next week. Red was a bit put out. If people are going to be naked and screwing at a party, it is only polite to let ALL the guests know. She told me not to beat myself up. I didn't do bad considering the social situation.

We talked a LOT about our marriage and if we wanted to open it up.

Did we want to screw C1 & C2? Sure. We liked them and they are both gorgeous people a bit younger than me.
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This is when the magic of polyamory started to first really affect us. We were talking about hopes and problems in our marriage that had been half forgotten for a long time. We had been in a pretty good place. Did we want to risk that for the dream of something that might be better?

I don't want to say that I was appreciating Red more. But I was paying more attention to her. She took on a glow for me as talked about our hopes and fears of poly relationships. Her thoughts were sensible and courageous.

There was one thing she said that hurt me. We are both into BDSM and switch for each other. Both of us really enjoy being subs, but I always felt that I made a fair dom. But Red is not into pain (so SM is out) and when I dom her, there are a few things she likes - which I do. Everything is fine, right?

But she said that she wouldn't mind finding a 'real' dom.

What??? What would a real dom do that I was not willing to do??? No answer to this when I asked her. I'm not sure that she really knows herself, she says she can't express it. I was a bit miffed, but part of poly is finding people who fill different needs. Ah, well. Looking on the bright side, if we do find a real dom, I might learn some things on how to please her better.

A good dom is hard to find, but I thought that C1 was a dom and C2 a sub. This might work out.

We decided to open up our marriage. I started reading more on poly and eventually found this forum. Red finished reading "The Ethical Slut".

The day of the party with C1 & C2 came. We dressed up nice and packed a discrete toy bag with condoms, latex gloves some towels etc., just in case.
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At the party we had a great time, played a game, had a nice meal. Then when I thought that the time was right, I mentioned that I hadn't really answered their question last week. But that Pasha and I had opened up our marriage and we would be honored to play with them if they wanted.

They said that they had changed their minds.

So for another 3 or 4 hours we sat around and talked with them on all sorts of things. BDSM, mores of the European upper class and how nice and laid back the upper crust are about sex, their past, our past, etc. Then we went home.

We had asked them to host this party because we were renovating our kitchen. (They had hosted more often than us so we certainly owed them.) We would host the next visit. So we OWED them a visit at our house.

But I was pretty put out.

Well being hurt is OK, but acting hurt is something I can control. Do we want to pay off the social debt and then dump them? That seemed a bit stupid, we liked socializing with them before these last two parties. They are interesting people and we had enjoyed their company. Dropping them felt like cutting off my nose to spite my face. But no question the relationship had changed.

Red and I decided C1 & C2 or no. We were opening up our relationship.

I sent a polite, "thanks for the dinner, sorry if things were awkward" email. Then C2 replied saying things were a bit complicated for them right now, maybe later they would change their minds. Years ago, I had spent some time waiting for some young sweet thing to change her mind and decide she did want to fuck me after all. Screw that, I had better things to do. We would be proper towards C1 & C2 and try to keep the friendship.

But we would not wait around, we would start dating.
 
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The joys of poly dating.
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Dating was something Red and I were not looking forward to. We are both heavy, (she more than me). She has a harder time meeting strangers than I. We are both fairly old. Also, most people are not looking for a couple.

We had decided we ideally wanted to find people who would want to play with both of us. Ah! Unicorn hunting! Well, not quite, we hoped we were more flexible than looking for just a single, unattached hot bi-babe (of either sex) with no other connections to 'complete' us.

The main concern was that we didn't want one of us feeling left out and lonely while the other had a grand old time. At least at first, we both wanted to feel wanted. (At least I was determined Red would feel wanted. It would not be an absolute deal breaker if I was left out, but it was not something I was looking for.)

I joined up to okCupid (Rick_Plus) based on good reports from this site. Red joined up a few days later (Red_Plus).

I found a couple that were both bi-sexual I thought we would like and started up an online conversation with them. Red mostly got spam and scams but there were a couple guys who wanted to just connect with her. I also sent out a number of other, 'we are interested', messages but not much resulted.

This bi-couple didn't want to meet us at our home, they wanted the first meeting to be in a public place. Fine with us. He said, "How about at a meet and great with our local swingers club. We had tried out poly, but found that we preferred swinging. You guys should join ITL (Into the Lifestyle), our swinging website / club."

Swingers? Red and I didn't want anonymous sex with strangers. Time to slow down and think things out.
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It boiled down to that we were looking for close friends we could have sex with. There are a couple ways we could come at this. We could take existing friends and eventually add a sexual component. This is what we though C1 and C2 wanted. None of other other friends were at all likely to have this happen. We could try to find someone who was into long term dating us as a couple and see what happens. We could find someone who wanted to have casual sex and see if it developed into something deeper. Or we could put this adventure on the back burner and see if we eventually lucked into something.

We had been on the dating site and we had not been buried with people looking for couples.

I was cool with starting with casual sex and see if a friendship developed. I've had nothing but good experiences from casual sex - usually the one night stand turned into a nice relationship. (This is close to how Red and I met but we didn't have sex until the _second_ date.) Red was more ambivalent about casual sex. She had had some good experiences and some crummy ones.

As we talked over these things; again and again I was impressed with Red's courage. I was seeing a new side of her. I had been expecting to have to go slow to give her time. But she was not holding back. Having decided to do this, she DID it.
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I talked to the bi-couple about swinging / poly. (Let's call the fellow Jack and his wife Jill.) He explained that their swinger's group was a small group of friends who mostly swung with each other. Occasionally they swung with strangers, and occasionally they got together for non-sexual things like a barbecue or something. But mainly they were a group of intimate friends / friends with benefits / fuck buddies. A few were close friends.

Again we see the fuzzy line between swinging and poly. (A post for another day.)

Well... Friends with benefits was not far from what we were looking for... Their group of friends who swung with each other sounded a lot like that loose poly - tribe we visited in Seattle...

With some misgivings, Red and I signed up on their swinger site (P_and_R) and planned to go to their meet and greet.
 
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The swinger meet and greet:
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I don't want this blog to be a blow by blow of our dating history so I'll make things march. We went to the swingers party to meet Jack and Jill, and had a pretty good time. Almost all of the people there were interested in hanging out with old friends rather than meeting or greeting newcomers. I consider this par for the course - of COURSE people would rather hang out with friends than meet strangers.

However, the trick is to have fun even if everyone ignores you so Red and I danced, played pool and had a good time. We spent some time with Jack and found him to be charming and friendly. Jill didn't have much to say to us, she was mostly wrapped up in her old friends.

Later we invited them to our place to play a board game.

Eventually we heard that she didn't feel any chemistry with us and was not interested. Jack was still willing to continue the relationship, and he is a sweet, caring man. We let him know we are still interested.

After this, I was talking to a fellow on the swinger site. I had asked the question, "is it a faux pas to say we want friends as well as lovers" and he said no of course not.

We went for a coffee date with him and he turned out to have been swinging for 30 years. A fascinating man that is the most dominate personality I can remember meeting. I'll call him Dom. ;-)

We eventually ended up in bed with him and had a wonderful time. I can now say that I am no longer bi-curious. We have met his main lady friend and she is nice enough to us, but things are a bit cool. We will see how things go after we meet her a few more times.

And that is where we are now (2010, March 27th). I didn't feel like starting this blog until we had something to report (so I guess the first success was a given). But I will try to do at least brief updates as important events happen. I do hope to do a post on what we are feeling now that this adventure is actually rolling for real.

Warm regards, Rick
 
The Jealousy Thing:
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When we had decided to open our marriage, neither of us were greatly concerned with feelings of bad jealousy. I had a good reason to think I would be cool.

A long time ago, a couple years after we had just got married, Red and I went to an SCA event. No fires on the ground allowed, they had to be in braziers. It was late evening, and we were sitting around a fire. Some one complained that a log that was too big had been put into the brazier. It wouldn't burn up by morning.

I said, "I can make it burn."

So we stayed up late talking, and I did the 'manly art of fire poking'. I kept a good bed of coals around the log, did what I could to keep flames licking up it, and eroded it so that it would break up quicker.

I glanced over to see that Red and a male friend of hers was cuddling. With his hand, under her shirt. Fondling her tits. 8-o

I was shocked, 'that man is feeling up my wife!'. But then I decided it was no big deal. It was great that she had such a close friend. They were hardly sneaking around behind my back.

So I went back to my task. But now I knew that the 'manly art of fire poking was not so manly an art as female groping'.


Joking aside, I felt good for her. This was my first experience of compersion, at least, as a married man re his wife.

Both of us have tonnes of respect for the other as people. Neither of us has felt that marriage means we own the other in any way. She can like or love someone independently of myself and that does not affect my relationship to her. The period of my marriage with Red, has easily been the happiest time of my life. So I feel very, very secure in our relationship.

When the three of us jumped into bed with Dom I didn't feel the tiniest shred of negative feeling. She was so beautiful making love to him. I thrilled to see the fun she was having.

It is easier to feel compersion when you are right there taking part, I think. Perhaps, if later one of us is off doing things (sexual or otherwise) with a friend and the other is sitting at home, then we will see some of the jealousy thing come up. But so far, it is a non-issue.


EDIT 2010, April 1.
Dom and Red had a romantic afternoon while I was at work yesterday. I heard about it in a call, just as I was heading home. On the trip home I was wondering how I felt. A bit disappointed that I was not there. I thought, "My wife was screwing a guy." (Didn't seem right.) "Red was screwing a guy." (Better.) I thought, "Red and Dom were making love." (That felt best.) No major or minor jealousy other than I was a bit envious that they were having fun and I couldn't join them.
 
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Moving too fast?
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We have only known Dom for 3 weeks and have really strongly connected with him. (We've only slept with him 3 times counting Red and his solo flight.) He has helped us clean up the yard and throw a bunch of stuff into the big dumpster we rented so I've seen a fair bit of him in the last couple days. He is not really happy about his current room mate and we are thinking of having him move in with us.

I do have some mixed feelings on this. It would be great to see more of him. On the other hand, he is really dominant (read pushy in this context) and I wonder how we will get along when we are seeing him on a day to day basis. He is about midway on the swinging / poly spectrum and has other lovers so a fair number of evenings Red and I will be on our own. I do think that Red and he have connected more strongly than me and him. (Not a surprise in a poly relationship of course.) Red wants this to happen. And I... do too...

It seems that things are moving fast. That is not unusual for me. I've gone from friends --> lovers --> deep relationship very quickly before. Tho this is the first time I've hit roommates so quickly.

Red was referring to him as her other husband and I'm told that he is thinking of her as a wife. This is all in that joking way that people use when they are really serious.

Red and I have talked about this a lot in the last couple days and I sense that this will go forward within the week. I'll see how it goes. If he really gets on my nerves we can always ask him to move out again. After all, it is not like it is a REAL commitment...

Reading over the last couple paragraphs, I sound more ambivalent than I really am. I do want to try this but I do have a bit of worry deep down - is this wise? Not that the heart and New Relationship Energy (NRE) is known for being wise.
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We are going to a BDSM / swinger's party tonight with him. I'm not looking for new and exciting sexual relationships right now - my life feels exciting enough. So I am mainly looking for some SM play.

My life is WAY more interesting than it was 2.5 months ago. 8-o

Warm regards, Rick.
 
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