Hello Everyone, pleasure to meet you all!

Clover

New member
I'm probably as new as a polyamorous newbie can be, and just happened to stumble upon this site after googling "Polyamory". (Thanks, Google!) I apologize in advance if I misuse any terminology or do anything considered taboo. What I've read so far has already allowed me to let out a giant sigh of relief; I'm not alone, and I think I've come to the right place to find some much needed answers.

Anyway, about me.... I'm a 32 year old registered nurse living in the San Diego area. My fiance and I have been together for approximately 6 years and are very much in love, however neither of us has been at all successful with monogamy - in either this relationship or any of our previous ones. It's a fact that has caused both of us tremendous amounts of heartache, jealousy, and frustration. We've broken up over it, lied, cheated, fought, then in the end gotten back together after realizing that neither of us can be happy without the other in our lives. It's been truly maddening, and after his most recent indiscretion we were both finally honest enough with ourselves to say, "We can't do this anymore... it's insane." And it was. Neither of us was happy, and no matter how much we struggled to keep all of our respectful sexual and romantic feelings inside the relationship we kept failing. I thought I would never truly be happy; that I'd either be condemned to a monogamous relationship that couldn't fully satisfy me and in which I always felt trapped as I fought to take the high road, or that he and I would just continue on in our deceptive charade.

He had brought up the idea of polyamory about six months ago, and it seemed so outlandish and self-serving for him that at the time I totally dismissed it. You see, I really thought he was just looking for an excuse to sleep with other women. I felt like he was asking for a hall pass, and that pissed me off to no end. After all, I didn't want to run around being promiscuous, nothing about that appealed to me in the least. When I had cheated on him in the past, it was way less about the sex and way more about the way these men had made me feel about myself. I loved it, I was intoxicated on that feeling. It was cool to see how my character and intellect fit in with someone else's, and I genuinely cared for these outside partners of mine.

After much heartfelt discussion we revisited the idea of an open relationship, and decided we really want to at least give it an honest, ethical try. We have nothing to lose at this point, really. I hope that doesn't sound as though we're disrespecting this lifestyle choice by turning into our last resort. It's really more like we both had a big "aha" moment, and honestly the more we discuss it the more I feel like we made a really sound decision that we probably should have made years ago... we both could have avoided a hell of a lot of pain.

Of course, I have many questions and concerns because I'm so naive to the ins and outs of this whole thing. I'm sure everyone here felt the same way when they first realized that polyamory was a part of who they were. I worry about jealousy... how I'm going to deal with knowing he's with someone else while I'm at work and trying to focus. (I work 12 hour night shifts) I worry about how and when I'm supposed to tell prospective partners about our arrangement, and what their reaction will be. I don't have any idea what the "rules" or social norms are in this arena. Well, hopefully I've come to the right place to educate myself a little. I look forward to chatting with all of you and am really, really happy I've discovered this forum. Cheers, everyone!
 
That's a very cheerful introduction! Welcome. Sounds like you've come to the right place. There is a vocabulary and there seem to be quite a few recommendations. But there's not one, single, right way to do poly, every poly tangle has to work it out with each other (or so I read, I only have mine, so that's all I know).
 
Hello Clover,
Welcome to our forum.

There's glossaries at http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1720 ... and http://polyamoryonline.org/smf/index.php?topic=4321.msg43140#msg43140 ... just to let you know.

Re: "how I'm going to deal with knowing he's with someone else while I'm at work and trying to focus" ... that may just be a matter of getting used to it over time. Hopefully whatever you're working on will tend to "take up" your focus.

Franklin Veaux has a couple of good pages about jealousy at:
http://www.morethantwo.com/jealousytheory.html
http://www.morethantwo.com/jealousypractice.html

I also know of two good pages about jealousy on Polyamorous Percolations:
http://polyamoryonline.org/smf/index.php?topic=2780.msg23980#msg23980
http://polyamoryonline.org/smf/index.php?topic=2783.msg24026#msg24026

Re: "I worry about how and when I'm supposed to tell prospective partners about our arrangement, and what their reaction will be."

My personal preference is to tell prospective partners *before* they become prospective partners -- that is, when I'm still just platonic friends with them, and the possibility of a romance hasn't come up yet. Generally speaking, it's better to tell someone sooner rather than later. Otherwise you run the risk of making them feel like you were just leading them on.

You can't really control someone's reaction to it; the best thing you can do is try to be in an environment where you're more likely to meet people who are more open-minded in the first place.

"As for where to meet poly people, if by some chance you are interested in anything alternative like renaisance fairs, goth culture, sci-fi conventions, indie music, bdsm, or any small fringe group, you will be more likely to meet people who have at least heard of poly and are accepting of it."
-- SpaceHippieGeek, http://polyamoryonline.org/smf/index.php?topic=5412.msg57394#msg57394

And obviously if you have any poly organizations close to you geographically, that might be a good place to meet people who would be open to poly.

Some poly-friendly sites to try:

http://www.okcupid.com/
http://polyamory.meetup.com/
http://www.polymatchmaker.com/
http://www.lovemore.com/locallinks.php
http://polyevents.blogspot.com/#localgroups
http://www.polyamorysociety.org/localgroups.html

And of course this site (polyamory.com) has a "Dating & Friendship" area. Go to the "Forum Jump" menu (bottom of this page, right side) for that.

Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Kevin T.
 
II worry about jealousy... how I'm going to deal with knowing he's with someone else while I'm at work and trying to focus. (I work 12 hour night shifts) I worry about how and when I'm supposed to tell prospective partners about our arrangement, and what their reaction will be. I don't have any idea what the "rules" or social norms are in this arena.
Well, you take things slowly at first. Just because you've chosen to embrace polyamory doesn't mean either of you has to boink someone else right away. Keep talking, reading, and figuring out what you want, then negotiate boundaries before moving forward.

Some good worksheets for figuring out this negotiation shit are here, at Tristan Taormino's site (she wrote Opening Up, a book I highly recommend. It is a good one to read together):

http://openingup.net/resources/free-downloads-from-opening-up/
 
Hi Clover,

I'm Kiran from San Diego. Looking for new friends and prospective partners and exploring the world of polyamory.
 
Back
Top