Why and how did you get into poly?

What type of poly origin did you have?

  • I've always had poly tendencies and never really took to monogamy

    Votes: 42 12.7%
  • I've always had poly tendencies and tried to be monogamous before

    Votes: 119 35.8%
  • I fell in love with a poly person and have adapted to the lifestyle

    Votes: 50 15.1%
  • I read or heard about someone else's poly experiences and thought it could work for me

    Votes: 42 12.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 79 23.8%

  • Total voters
    332
I have never felt truely "normal" in the sense that I from an early age fell in love with people easily and often with more than one. I thought that was just a phase though. I married and it felt like a phase. Sure, I was very flirty but I had little problems being monogamous.

Then after that relationship fell apart, I started to date my now husband. I was curious about polyamory but also found it a bit weird. Right before I was about to marry him I fell mutually in love with another man who was also in a committed relationship. I married my now husband anyway. Then the other man got engaged. At his engagement party he came up with a sort of love decleration for me, in front of his fiance. A weird situation followed. She was a sort of friend. They were both into Osho and the whole don't put boundries on people thing, but life is not so easy. I think she preffered mono. He preffered to not decide. To cut a long story short, he was not what I was looking for. It took me four years to fall out of love with him.

I had no idea if poly was for me beyond him. Who would I fall for anyway? Then I met the least likely person on holiday and we are a good enough match for me to believe I can do poly, and we have done it for two years :)
 
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Long story short: I had always conformed to monogamy because, well, the church said so, and, because it just never occurred to me to do it any other way. In 2005 I fell in love with a married woman, and while both of us were technically monogamous at the time, we found out about polyamory, and asked our spouses for consent. After nearly a year, they gave their consent, and I've been living in a poly household ever since.
 
"Always was mono, because I didn't know any better... until I had an epiphany" would have been my vote if it had been an option.

I think there are probably as many ways to "come to poly" as there are variations in how to structure a poly relationship.
 
The idea fascinated me for any ways, however it was clear that there was no way in my relationship to even consider it seriously. Until my wife fell in love ...
 
I don't fit any of those descriptions , i like it and just searching the place i can find other like me
 
I chose "I've always had poly tendencies and never really took to monogamy" because it is close enough. Monogamy has never made sense to me, but for a good chunk of my life, I believed that cheating or sticking to casual relationships were the only viable alternatives. I didn't want to cheat on anyone, so I mostly avoided relationships unless I managed to date someone who was open to non-monogamy, which didn't happen often. I did agree to exclusivity once, very reluctantly. I was 20 at the time, and it was at the insistence of my then girlfriend after almost a year of an open relationship. Two weeks later, I found out she was cheating on me with at least four other men. I haven't tried monogamy since, and I doubt I ever will. It doesn't interest me. pretty much everyone I know keeps telling me that I'll give in eventually and relationship like a "normal person," but they underestimate how profoundly, remarkably stubborn I am.
 
I've always had poly tendencies, but "settled down" into monogamy for 30 years because I met a guy who was better for me than the others I had dated up til that time. I never cheated, but I got crushes easily and my husband could always tell, and it hurt him no matter how I tried to hide it, feeling guilty and "evil."

Then we broke up for a few reasons (after 30 years!), my poly nature being just one of the reasons.

So, monogamy was never a good fit, but I did not cheat or practice serial monogamy. I just tried to adapt to what I thought was the norm.

Finally got a clue, thank god for the internet!
 
About a year before my ex-husband and I split up, I'd worked on a project with several people I hadn't met before. One of them was a woman who had a blog about being poly, kinky, and a swinger. I thought what she wrote about was fascinating, but a little crazy. When my marriage fell apart, I began to rethink what I wanted in my relationships and I remembered that woman's blog. I knew I wasn't interested in swinging, but I started reading whatever I could find on the internet about polyamory. It seemed logical and appealed to me, so I embraced it. I could happily be monogamous again sometime, but for now, poly just seems right for me and where I am in my life.
 
I've had two major relationships of a "romantic" and sexual kind in my life -- both with my best friend. Both with males. The "both with males" part may well be a matter of chance, as I enjoy persons of both sexes (flavors?) about equally.

Both were long lived. The first was just over a half a decade. The second has been going for about two decades. I'm nearing fifty years of age, and so most of my adult life I've been in committed, long term relationships.

When my relationship with my first love, my first living-together companion, dissolved, I was burnt toast -- charcoal. He and I had pretended together -- to ourselves, each other, that we were Good Boys, and thus monogamous. It was our social training -- or culturally derived notion of what it means to be "in love".

The story of my transition from monogamy to non-monogamy is much longer than I want to write out today. The essence of the story is that I eventually discovered that I had been sold a bill of goods, that "real love" can just as well involve multiple partners as contrasted with just one (or two, depending on how one counts one's self as a part of things).

I deeply, genuinely doubt I could ever be monogamous again. I may have just one lover in my life. Sure! But never again -- I suspect -- could I imagine that love must necessarily add up to a pair, two, a dyad.
 
I guess I've always known I have poly tendencies, although 20 years ago I couldn't name it correctly. But by the time people started their first "serious" relationships as teenagers, I always felt like I don't fit it. I've been a bit anarchistic towards usual mono relationships ever since.

Over 10 years ago, after I met my primary significant other, I started googling things up and figured out a lot about myself and why the usual relationships weren't my schtick.

Things started to make sense. Why I suddenly felt "whole" when I had huge crushes outside my primary relationships and on the other side felt like something was missing from my life when I had just my fiance. Weird thing is, my fiance is exactly the same, a thing I didn't know when I met her. When we both have our things, our own relationship always works better. Strange.
 
I read stuff here thats much more complicated than what me and the 2 girls seem to have (they are both 17) for a couple years weve just been a group of best friends that only ever have sex as a threesome. Not really sure how else to put it.
 
Im definitely in the 'other' category. I've never had poly tendencies, but every experience I've had personally and witnessed around me has indicated to me that monogamy, for whatever reason, simply doesn't work in the specific context of the culture, generation, and time period in which I live. It might have worked in others - I don't know - I do know it very seldom works in mine - seldom enough in fact, that I no longer found it to be a feasible lifestyle, not because I personally couldn't be with only one person, but I became sufficiently convinced that I could no longer expect any allegedly monogamous partner I found to have the capacity to "play by the rules" of monogamy over a long period of time.

In other words, for me, I wanted a relationship, and to that end, polyamory fits the context of my environment best.

In other other words - I simply ran out of options.
 
love more

I started my sexual career fairly early. I usually had a number of male friends that I was sexually active with but cheating in a relationship was repugnunt and I carried around great guilt because of it. My husband and I got married early and we both decided that extra people for sex was ok and exciting as long as we were honest and it didn't affect our marriage. So many friends with benefits later I met my girlfriend. Life was upended and we started our life with the three of us. She is a long complicated story for another post.
 
I said other because none of those really worked for me.

I've always been poly-friendly, even before I had any idea what that was. I decided to live polyamorously when I realized that my reciprocated love for my friend Rachel was such that we wanted to share our lives together, and I considered her to be equal to anybody else I was dating.

I wrote about it more in depth here:

https://learningmanyloves.wordpress...entary-chapter-1-starting-the-journey-part-1/

Sadly, that relationship transitioned over time into a more average friendship. I've been wondering lately if it might build up again into something bigger again, but...sigh...Rachel, love her much as I do, has some serious emotional shit that she really needs to work through, and just won't. Her non-romantic life partner is also a rather controlling, manipulative person. It's a shame, because her romantic partner is one of the awesomest people I know. But I'm not sure if rebuilding a relationship with her with her not working through her shit would be healthy for me. Also, dealing more with Jessica again (Rachel's manipulative other partner) is just not something I'm up to, especially with the way things just ended with Lora.

It always fascinates me, the number of people who seem to come to poly because of a partner. We get so many of those messages here. I wonder how many people either always felt poly (Jon has always felt poly and practically always been poly) or decided to take the plunge solo like I did, versus the "opening my relationship" start that seems to be written about the most here.
 
I posted earlier "always poly, never mono" - thought I would expand a bit. (Full story in my "Journey" blog here.)

The "monogamy ideal" NEVER appealed to me. I had read Heinlein from a very young age and had a (fictional) model of non-monogamy that made a lot more sense to me. I never planned on EVER falling "in love" (whatever THAT was) or finding a "one and only", etc. So I had to kind of make my way in a world that felt differently than I did about love and sex, etc.

When I got together with MrS - it was to be a purely FWB relationship, which was the only type of "relationship" I was interested in. At that time he was in a sexual relationship with an ex (who wanted him back) and with another girl (who thought he was her "boyfriend" even though they never discussed it!) I had no issues, ex had minimal issues (I was sleeping with her too), new girl was pretty put out. I think that MrS is probably inherently poly (his prior mono relationships all hit a point where he said "We should see other people." and the girl declined, and then cheated on him).

So, I fell in love with MrS about the time I realized that I was bisexual. Having already experienced men (and having found the BEST ONE EVER!) my attention turned to women...which was fine with both of us.

When Dude came into the picture, he had never heard of poly but had some experience with "open" relationships (as the "added person") - focus on sex and maintaining the "primary" relationship. Didn't take long for him to take to poly like a fish to water though!

Lotus and her husband had more of an "open" arrangement (I believe) but now that she is dating us I think that poly is a good fit for her as well. (I think her husband, that I play with on occasion, is more "poly sexual".)

So, of all of the people in my "poly-tangle" - none of us has, strictly speaking, ever really been truly "monogamous" in nature even though a few of us (not me) have been in monogamous relationships for periods of time.

JaneQ
 
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Looking back over my life, I have always had poly tendencies. However, I was raised with the belief that monogamy was the only acceptable relationship. Because of this I ended up being a serial monogamist. I didn't know that was what it was at the time. I found that, while I was in monogamous relationships, I would still find myself attracted to other women. I mean that both sexually and emotionally. While I always felt there was nothing wrong with loving two (or more) women at the same time, they never felt that way.

Fast forward through a series of relationships...the closest I came to a poly relationship was with T, my current ex (though we still talk). I first met her while she was in an open relationship with her then husband. They were more polysexual than polyamorous. Things did not work out with her husband. She and I moved in together. To my dismay she decided she wished to become monogamous with me. We did that for most of 20 years, until recently. We opened up our marriage to include others, but she wanted to place too many restrictions, which sort of made the whole thing pointless.

I started working in a different state, having previously traveled extensively for work. Here I met a wonderful gal and started an east coast-west coast sort of poly relationship. However, neither girl wanted to be "second" and neither could quite grasp the idea of being equal.

I found myself being put in the position of choosing between the two. I chose to finally be true to myself and explore poly full time.

That's the Reader's Digest version.

I believe that it is human nature to be polyamorous. I believe that monogamy was a concept hatched to control society.
 
Short version, very similar to vinsanity0, serial monogamist but I had a wake up call when two women I loved very much at the same time created an impasse.

This led to what can only be described as a manic, passionate delving into poly philosophy. Being in a small town I was mostly on my own in figuring things out.



Long version HERE
 
I guess I have always been poly. I experienced divorce first hand as a child. Watching my parents marriage fall apart was extremely hard. Growing up I understood that 50% of all marriages failed. Mostly due to infidelity. I was conflicted by society telling me there was only 1 for me and I had to find her. But if there was only 1 why was there so much infidelity, divorce, heartbreak? I never knew there was such thing as being in "open-relationship", not quite sure if anything really existed like that back then. I just didn't get monogamy. I have this analogy, I'm sure everyone has heard the breakfast one.

We grow up with a variety of breakfasts. Cereal, oatmeal, Bacon and eggs, etc. But as we grow, society starts telling us we need to search out and find just one breakfast that makes us happier than all the others. Then one day we decide that fruit loops is the only breakfast we will eat. Every day. Then 5,10,15 years goes by and suddenly you wake up and meet some pancakes. You see them, you smell them, you want them. But you have chosen fruit loops. You love them. What are you supposed to do when that happens? Sneak around and have pancakes? Hurt fruit loops's feelings?

Life is full of variety. There are billions of people on this planet. If we humans were supposed to be monogamous then we would be. We aren't designed that way. I didn't know there was another way. I fell into the "norm" got married and had children. My wife, who is BI, came to me one day and said she wanted to start dating women again. I kinda knew this would happen one day. Shes BI. I couldn't say no to her. This is a part of who she is and as her husband I will support her. Plus the idea of seeing your wife with another woman.......I agreed and off she went. She found OKC and put up a profile. This is when we discovered the "poly community". Holy shit. Our eyes were opened. I couldn't believe how big the community was. Tons of people all across the country practicing open relationships, productively in-fact. The more we learned the more I felt comfortable with asking to start doing the same. We discussed it did some educating of ourselves and went full poly. What a fantastic day.

Being poly is HARD. There is so much work that needs to be done daily. I love the challenge of it all. You work to build and maintain these wonderful relationships, which in turn, enhances the others. Its like a concert of strings. Each different but coming together to form a beautiful melody. I'm super happy I can be myself and feel free.

Monogamy isnt for me. It never really was. I really think if more people were honest with themselves they would be honest with their partners, spouses, friends, etc.

So that's my story. Have a wonderful day.
 
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