New poster, Old issues.

AwesomeSauce

New member
I'm made of awesome sauce, flesh, bones and an overactive brain. I'm going to be thirty soon and I cannot wait for that day to come (and go) so I can leave my twenties behind me. I'm a military vet and a mom. I spent 7 years in a monogamous marriage. It ended but not due to my lack of trying.

I'm now in a relationship with a most fantastic man. He was a friend first and I fell in love with him quite unexpectedly. He knows I am queer. I've had sexual relationships with other women since we've been cohabiting (with his prior knowledge and consent). For a little while now I have been corresponding with a woman I have developed feelings for. NRE caused me to focus too heavily on her on an inopportune day (his birthday). Thankfully, he expressed his feelings to me the next morning. I apologized profusely to him and communicated to her that I needed to step back.

She asked me what I needed, we set new boundaries that were agreeable with those I knew would please my non-poly partner while still meeting her needs for being in contact with me. We're taking it slowly again. We're keeping pace with the slowest moving person (my man) but our feelings for one another are just as strong as they have been.

A few days ago, I proposed to my man a hypothetical situation where I had an interest in another man (this was in response to a thread I read about "OPP" policies on a poly forum). I used the term poly. I labeled our situation. A situation I feel as though we're already knee deep in. It did not go well. I advised him to read, read, read. Learn. When I say "poly" I am not saying I have any desire to pursue a relationship with another man. I understand that his reaction is common. He suddenly has a million questions for me, wanting to define this and that and address every possible scenario that may arise. That's far too much for me because honestly, you just don't know what will happen.

We've been working through me being poly already. Communication. Honesty. Love. I trust and love him more than anybody else I have ever been with. We have been through some very serious tragedies together that most couples couldn't (and statistically don't) successfully overcome.

His response baffles me. He's set up a profile on a poly social networking site. I found that to be intensely erotic and positive.

Today he told me that he has to figure out whether or not he's poly and that if he isn't, we have to break up. We have always found ways to get on the same page in relatively short order. On this we aren't. Now I am afraid and regretting ever labeling what we already had.

So that's it. Opinions are welcome. I'd like to try to understand his mindset.
 
welcome

Im far to new to all of this myself to feel right about offering much advice, but I did want to say welcome and to be proud of being honest with yourself and your partners about they way you feel.
-Hourglass
 
Labels can sometimes be useful for facilitating communication...and sometimes they can hinder understanding of a situation when the label doesn't exactly fit.

But situations are fluid, and labels attached to fluids can fall off easily, so if the label you've applied no longer fits, it's very possible to change it, or remove it. My wife and I transitioned through several non-monogamous constructs before finally finding one that was comfortable for us...and even then, poly is only the closest we've found to what we want...but it's not an exact fit even still.

Welcome to the forum.
 
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