Poly-curious..1stTime4Everything's Story

Today marks a week since I joined this forum. I've posted two threads - one small introduction and one that I'm a little embarrassed for posting - as it was out of frustration and I realize now, isn't exactly a poly situation....I am far from it, and well on a soul searching journey now....and I've been inspired to start a blog thread of sorts to share that journey and get advice and insight along the way.....and I'd like to start with a second introduction....

I'm 25 years old, female, married to a straight male....I am bi-curious and have been for as long as I can remember.....I am poly-curious as well, but only recently did I figure this out....finding this forum and being able to read all the wonderful stories, life experiences, and discussions has made me re-examine my entire life.......all those times I had moments of deep caring and affection towards my friends - was I just overly caring of others or did I feel for them as if they were more than just a close friend? ....all those times I felt urges awakening within me, even with a few couples of whom I made friends with - was it just something sexual or was it a part of me who wanted to have a true relationship with them both? ...all those times I cheated on my exes and the only guilt i felt was that the mono-conditioned part of me felt the need to keep it hidden from the two parties involved - could this have been a sign that my heart lies within the poly world? that i was capable of loving more than one person at one time? I'm looking back....going through all those high school memories of mine....and even after high school....wondering was it just that I was bi-curious? or poly-curious also? which relationships were just geniune friendships....which, if any, were a bit more than that? which feelings were purely based on attraction?

so why now? what has changed to make these feelings more apparent within me....well, I've been blessed to have married a man who is comfortable with me just being me and with whom I'm comfortable enough to express myself with and hold nothing back...a type of bond and relationship that I never had with anyone else before him....it's allowed me to admit things I have felt forever and yet was too afraid to say out loud....

it started with threesome talk.....and as one poster mentioned in one of my previous threads, maybe right now this is just considered sport sex or swinging.....but this is how it started for me.....threesome talk...just talk....it made that bi-curious flame inside flare up little by little....I started taking notice to girls and realized, hey, I've been doing this for as long as I can remember yet never really admitted it to myself that what I was doing was scoping girls out the same way I would scope out guys before....if that makes sense? so basically, I just became even more aware of the bi-curious part of me...my actions never changed, it was basically an enlightment that those actions were like "you're bi for real, you can't deny it"......during this time, I was so caught up in the attraction towards both sexes, coupled with the fact that I was very much in love with an amazing man already, that I didn't really associate anything with "poly" until I started soul searching deeper.....

....particularly with a friendship I had with very close friend of mine, Lilly...

I've been friends with Lilly for about 3 years now....our friendship started casually, nothing big.....around the time that my husband and I started dating is when my friendship with her grew stronger.....we started hanging out more and more and developed a close enough friendship to where I started calling her one of my best friends....we have had so many memories within the last 1.5 years, she such an awesome person....and I have grown to become very aware that my feelings for her run a tad bit deeper than just a best friend....and it scares the hell out of me...and what makes it all the more harder is she has expressed her attraction for me to me, just nonchalantly....we are honest and open and yet I cannot bring myself to have a conversation with her saying....hey listen, I really really like you, how bout we go on an official date? maybe its rejection I'm scared of....maybe its not knowing if this is really what i want to do?? or maybe it's a fear of telling her how I feel, and then always knowing that she knows how I feel....who knows....

well, Lilly knows of my bi-curiousity....she is the first one (besides my husband) to know of its extensiveness....and of the threesome talks that I have with my husband....it was basically all in one conversation I had with her a few days ago....during that conversation, I admitted to the fact that i was struggling also with feelings I had towards her....or something to that affect....she did not express anything she felt, it was simply a conversation about me and my feelings and internal struggles as of late....the next day, she asked me if I'd go shopping with her....so we did....and then we went and had a late dinner..it started with just us two and then my husband met up with us....and while nothing happened to make it seem weird or any different from any other time we've hung out, I felt completely vulnerable on the inside...I felt exposed and worried that it showed....she even joked at dinner that she felt like she should hold my hand like we were on a date....i joked back and said no no, we don't have to make this awkward...I mean, unless you wanna call it a date but that's up to you....and we laughed....it was nothing different than our normal back and forth banter.....but my head exploded with even more over analyzing over that small little joke....maybe it was her way of dealing with it, her way of telling me she was okay with it.....or maybe she said it to see what I would say? which makes me think does she secretly want me to ask her out? or is she just making light of the situation? so much wondering and not enough guts to just ask her straight out.....

so from threesome talk....to Lilly...to endless social outtings where its just me and my husband and Lilly....(notice how i didn't say "dates").... to lunches and dinners and shopping and hanging out - things that are normal for two best friends to do, yet make my mind go bonkers with over analyzation of my feelings....I end up here....a person with a million and one questions as to where my heart truly lies......do I venture down the poly path?? how will it affect my marriage? will my husband truly be okay with a poly lifestyle?? how will it affect me? can I love two people at the same time? so so many questions.....

I suppose that's what comes with soul searching and trying to find yourself....

I'll leave with how things stand as of right now...she knows...and my husband knows.....and I'm left wondering where to go from here.....she hasn't expressed any desire to change the dynamic of our friendship, and I'm too scared and "new" to this whole thing to make a move.....and again, I'm not even sure its what i want....I'm left poly-curious, dreaming of a life where my marriage is happy, strong and stable and where Lilly and I share an actual relationship.....I'm left wondering if that dream is truly what I want or just a painted picture that allows me to actually explore my bi-curiousity without destroying my marriage....

as for the threesome talks with my husband, which have ceased to end, and in light of my last post about the whole situation - we are working toward finding some type of middle ground....he has made it clear that for him, it's just about sex....and taking poly out of the equation for a second, I have made it clear to him that me realizing I am bi-curious causes me to feel like it may end up being more than just about sex....we are still at a cross-roads in this area but are maintaining an open communication and working through it all...

three things i know for sure....
1) I love my husband and nothing will ever change that .....I suppose he is my primary, correct?
2) I am bi-curious and..
3) ...having spent a week reading all your stories, life experiences, and discussions, and not felt like I was in the wrong place, makes me wonder....

Thanks for listening. :)
 
Hi, Firsttime,
Sounds like you are doing a lot of "wondering" and questioning. That is a great thing, although it is kinda scary to face the unknown. You may feel like you want answers, and you want to tie it all up with a tidy little bow.... But I think it is a wonderful place right where you are! On the brink of self-discovery. I keep thinking of the Lady Gaga song, "I'm on the edge of glory, and I'm hanging on a moment of truth..."

I'm glad you are here. There are no easy answers, and many of your questions don't have hard-set answers, at all, anyway. You get to create your own life, wow, isn't that cool?! (I wish I'd done a better job of that at 25, myself). Enjoy the journey. You are right where you're supposed to be! :)
 
Hi, Firsttime,
Sounds like you are doing a lot of "wondering" and questioning. That is a great thing, although it is kinda scary to face the unknown. You may feel like you want answers, and you want to tie it all up with a tidy little bow.... But I think it is a wonderful place right where you are! On the brink of self-discovery. I keep thinking of the Lady Gaga song, "I'm on the edge of glory, and I'm hanging on a moment of truth..."

I'm glad you are here. There are no easy answers, and many of your questions don't have hard-set answers, at all, anyway. You get to create your own life, wow, isn't that cool?! (I wish I'd done a better job of that at 25, myself). Enjoy the journey. You are right where you're supposed to be! :)

Thank you Carma! It certainly has been scary and you are right.....there has been a lot of wondering and questioning going on inside me....

No wonder I love that song! ;-) Thanks again.
 
Hey 1st! Yes, in almost every case your spouse will be your primary. I've always thought this summed it up best (I'm paraphrasing) -- if your primary gets an amazing new job across the country you start looking at home prices, if it's your seconday you start looking at plane trip prices, and if it's your tertiary you say "Call me as soon as you get back into town to visit!" They're descriptors for the roles people play in your life and the degree of entanglement and prominence. I've probably erred in my blog once or twice in calling Davis primary to me... it would be simpler and more likely for me to get there with him than with Gia, but right now he and I are really still casual enough that it's not quite appropriate. Anyway, I hope that helps clear things up. :)

I think you're doing the right thing by doing a lot of reading here. Also, check out this site if you haven't already it's awesome: http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html

Poly situations can create so many complications, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, etc. Be careful, thoughtful, honest, and considerate, though, and you should be ok!
 
Hey 1st! Yes, in almost every case your spouse will be your primary. I've always thought this summed it up best (I'm paraphrasing) -- if your primary gets an amazing new job across the country you start looking at home prices, if it's your seconday you start looking at plane trip prices, and if it's your tertiary you say "Call me as soon as you get back into town to visit!" They're descriptors for the roles people play in your life and the degree of entanglement and prominence. I've probably erred in my blog once or twice in calling Davis primary to me... it would be simpler and more likely for me to get there with him than with Gia, but right now he and I are really still casual enough that it's not quite appropriate. Anyway, I hope that helps clear things up. :)

I think you're doing the right thing by doing a lot of reading here. Also, check out this site if you haven't already it's awesome: http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html

Poly situations can create so many complications, misunderstandings, hurt feelings, etc. Be careful, thoughtful, honest, and considerate, though, and you should be ok!

Thank you! That definitely makes a ton of sense :)
 
I have several things I'd like to talk about so I think I'm going to break them up....


In regards to Lilly, I had left off in my last post the mention of us going to dinner and her joking about holding my hand and calling it a date. Well, the next night we hung out again. We went late night swimming at her sister's house. It was just Lilly, my husband and I, and another female (platonic) friend of ours....the night was a lot of fun....but there was one point during the night where I had whisked Lilly into my arms in the pool and held a private conversation with her away from the other two....it was during this small conversation that we had a somewhat small break-thru....she expressed to me that she indeed was attracted to me but did not want my husband in that way.....my head immediately thought of the stories and examples of V-relationships that I have read on here and other sites.....but the conversation didn't continue because it was interrupted, and then the fun of the night continued on.......I really wanted her to come home with us that night......so much so that I cried on the way home because I had felt rejected in a way....and this was all new to me....having my husband there, driving me home, a wonderful, amazing person whom I love sooooo much.....and he was being so supportive and comforting and understanding of how I felt....I mean, he could just tell I guess? I'm not sure....but so many new emotions running through me, I just broke down in tears from the overbearing weight of it all.....

the following week came with a surprising turn of events...Lilly had applied for a job 2.5 hours away and was granted an interview....she went, the interview went great, they offered her the job and she accepted....and so began the last two weeks of her being here, near us....and I told her I wanted to hang out with her as much as possible since she was moving away....so we've gone to lunches, and window shopping, and even the movies.....went out last Saturday to one of our usual bars and then hung out again this Sunday at me and my husband's housewarming party and we had a "good luck" cake for her there, which was nice and she loved it...

I'm sad that she's moving away....at the same time I'm happy for her....I know she was really miserable about her job here.....I'm really gonna miss her though....but it's not like she's moving so far where it isn't a car ride away....and I will get to visit and see her so its not like this is her walking out of my life right away.....but moving away does change the dynamic of friendships, whether people admit to that or not, and for that, I'm sad too....we tend to leech onto those that are closest to us.....and that includes close as in distance.....it's easier to have a close relationship with someone whom you can see everyday....someone who can come right over if you need them too....someone whom you can meet up with after work on short notice.....she won't be that someone anymore because she'll be 2.5 hours away....now we have to plan visits in advance....and that makes me sad.....

I wonder if I should tell her flat out how I feel? I wonder if she would see our friendship differently if I did....In my mind I see this fairy-tale outcome where she admits feelings for me as well and we end up starting a long distance relationship, and I make plans to visit her up there and have amazing weekends with just me and her, and she makes plans to visit us and spends time with me and my husband....and its nothing different than the times we share together now 'cept that theres more passion, small things like a simple touch or look that shows that we all share a deeper relationship than just 3 normal friends....

but I also feel as though I can't be that selfish.....I can't allow myself to open up more to her when she's moving away....what if it makes it harder on her to leave? what if by me telling her, she feels even more homesick once up there? what she needs is support right now...not a confession from someone who is no longer going to be just 5 mins away.....

another part of me keeps telling myself that it's only 2.5 hours....there are friendships and relationships out there with much more distance involved than that....and so I shouldn't be taking it so hard, it's not like she's moving across the world....

I'll only have one more night to hang out with her and that's tomorrow night.....our usual group of friends are going to all go to spend her last night here with her...and I doubt I will confess anything to her during this time....

In regards to my Husband, we have been having more and more small conversations about what we are comfortable with, what we are not, my feelings towards Lilly, his views and feelings, etc.....talking more as certainly helped us become closer and stronger and I feel as though it has helped us reach an even more deeper love for one another...

He was approached by a woman to see if he wanted to go out for drinks....let's call her Jane....at the time, he told Jane that he was married and that if she was searching for something discreet, he would have to decline....after talking for a little awhile they decided to friend each other on facebook....i was aware that all of this was going on and he had no intentions of it being anything more than a platonic friendship....he is friendly and likes being social and its one of the things I love about him....so I didn't feel negatively toward the whole thing.....and so I friended her on facebook as well....now, I guess I should have realized that it would be wierd on her part since I myself have never met or spoken to her.....so after a week or so of no communication, my husband tells me she contacted him and asked why I had friended her....he told her I was just being friendly that I wasn't some kind of jealous stalker wife and that when we throw parties and such, it'd be easier to invite her to them, etc......which is true, it is a lot easier when his friends are friends with me on facebook so I can invite them to events and such.....well, anyways, he also ended up telling her about us opening our relationship, etc....she expressed that she was definitely interested in him but that she felt she holds traditional views on relationships......so I suppose it can be a safe assumption that she is monogamous...

this led my husband and I down one of our more deeper conversations about the path we are embarking upon......the more I analyze my emotions, the more I read into poly relationships, etc. .....the more I feel like I shouldn't be selfish and expect him to sit back and not explore as well.....how else are we to figure out if this is the lifestyle we want to live? i expressed to him that if at any point he would want to date or have a relationship with another woman that I would be comfortable with that......at least for now, thinking about it, I am comfortable with the idea of him dating....just as he is comfortable with the idea of me dating women.....I explained to him to many possibilities.....he could find that he'd rather just be involved sexually with myself and another woman, where as I would be the one in two relationships.....or he could find that he wants to have a secondary relationship.....or I could find that I'd rather just be in a primary with him while he decides to have more than one relationship.....it could end up blossoming in so many different ways, but that the key part was that we always communicate how certain things, actions, ideas, etc make us feel....that we don't hold anything back....and it includes having an open communication with whoever else becomes involved with us......it was such a great conversation....I feel as though he is open to the concept and perhaps no longer only views it as being about sex....or at the very least, he understands that even if for him it only begins as being about sex, that it could very well turn into a deeper relationship.....and I sensed that he was just as excited, nervous, and scared as I was....which in a way, was comforting....

As for me, I've been spending way too much time dwelling on the simple fact that Lilly will no longer be just 5 mins away....it has made this incredible sense of loneliness come over me, which when I think about it is completely silly, since I have plenty of friends and family in my life.....but I can't deny that it's what I feel....loneliness...and I have also been spending way too much time on the thought of dating other women...I'm stuck in a rut, and I know I should just stop thinking about what could happen, stop thinking of hypotheticals, and just let things happen as they should....maybe I'll be attending class one day and meet someone.....maybe I'll be at the laundry-mat or the grocery store....who knows....but I do feel that thinking, "will I meet someone here?" is creating so much pressure inside of me....it's making this whole journey a tad bit overwhelming....

I simply need to just live.
 
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I realize this is a very old thread, I found it via google. Not sure if the OP will ever read this response ... but nothing lost by saying it anyway.

Just had to say that I found this a very touching story, 1stTime. I hope you managed to work it all out in the end. My own polycuriousity story is really rather different in character, but none the less many of the things you've said about how you feel seem very familiar to me.

No doubt it's far too late now to issue much useful advice on Lilly, well over a year after your post. But the way I always approached these things is to ask "what would I regret?".

Personally if I really cared for someone, and they were moving away the thing I would *really* regret is if I didn't tell them and it turned out that they felt the same way and were just hoping for me to share my feelings with them.

I wouldn't regret it if I said how I felt and they didn't share my feelings. I wouldn't regret it if they said they felt the same but they really needed to move away and didn't want a long distance relationship. I wouldn't regret it if we tried the long distance thing and it didn't work out. I wouldn't regret it if it made our lives too complicated.

I once told one of my best friends that I cared for her as more than just a friend and she more or less didn't speak to me for the next few years. It was very sad, and it hurt lots, but I don't regret it.

I don't think it's selfish to say that you care about someone, after all maybe that's just what they want to hear. Maybe it isn't, but you don't know until you try. I don't think you can ever do wrong if you approaching the situation with open-mindedness, open-heartedness and honesty.

I also think you were perhaps over thinking things :) Speaking from experience, discovering that you may well be polyamorous can be quite an emotional rollercoaster. If you try and think through it all you can drive yourself crazy.

I believe you have to relate to the things you feel in a direct way. If you feel anxious then let yourself feel anxious, if you feel off balance then let yourself feel off balance. Everything we feel is fine, it's our tendency to spin a big story around it that gets us into trouble. If we can sit and be present with the uncomfortableness of it, we can start to find that feeling uncomfortable can actually be rather wonderful.
 
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MisterT,

Thank you for responding in this thread - which I might never have seen otherwise.

You are right - nothing is lost by responding - you brought this touching thread to the forefront by being touched by it.

At the end of her last post the OP says:

I simply need to just live.

In the end, that is all any of need to do...just live.

We don't really have any other option, do we? I love how you talk about regret. I am blessed in my life that have so few (a guy I didn't sleep with, a guy that I did, a concert that I didn't attend...that about sums it up for me.).

At the end of the day, I can be comfortable with my choices (my usual state) or I can be uncomfortable (which suggests to me that I may have a task for the days ahead).

Thank you for bringing this to the forefront.

JaneQ
 
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