40 year old Gay Male - First true love relationship

heh. That was pronounced 'ess cat', not 'scat'!

no need to get scatological on us!
 
Maybe a good way to begin to address the challenges and difficulties you both are facing is to agree to be monogamous for now?

I generally support the notion that a new couple planning a lifelong partnership can benefit from being monogamous while they figure out how they work as a couple before throwing the complications of other partners into the mix.

My concern with the above suggestion is that it can be too easy for the mono partner to "get comfortable" with it being a monogamous relationship, while the poly partner gets more and more antsy waiting for "for now" to be finished.

Perhaps a definitive time frame, say 18 months, would help remind both partners that this is only temporary and changes are in the works. It gives the mono partner time to come to terms with the ideas, and gives the poly partner assurance that this is only a temporary measure.



Aside, S-cat doesn't bother me the way "scat" did :p The hyphen makes it clear that I'm not poopies ;) ... I think "SC" was used already in this thread to refer to the OP, so to avoid confusion, I think something else was used for me. Either way, thanks for the pat on the back!
 
I agree with you, S-Cat. A definitive date after which the monogamous period concludes sounds like a fine idea.

Honestly, I think couples who are good with and for each other should be able to make this transition -- but only if the more resistant partner comes to understand certain facts about polyamory which the general population doesn't "get". For example, they need to understand that love is not made less by sharing with others. One can only really--or fully--know this in experience. Or maybe it just needs to be confirmed in one's own experience before it can be believed. But it is a fact, nevertheless. It is a fact of many people's experience.
 
We did agree to be monogamous for now in the main and in truth he said he would only want something to happen in a blue moon anyway. He opened up a lot more about things and said a lot of things that speak volumes. He remembers the last time he fell hard for someone in infatuation and he got horribly depressed and it turned him off on the intensity of feeling so strongly for someone and them not returning it. I think he's doing a lot of emotional guarding and is only hedging the exclusivity issue as more of a safe notion of not being completely tied down to one person yet . But he also expressed wanting that too.

I'm fairly convinced now that in truth he's NOT polyamorous. One thing he doesn't do is think about doing things with others when he's away from me. He very rarely watches porn and he doesn't like to "set up" things like online hook ups, even together. He wants the spontanaeity to be real and to let things just flow. He also said he would prefer, and find it hotter to do things with me involved as long as I'm into it and not hurt and jealous by it because then it would ruin the mood anyway.

The theme I seem to see among truly polyamorous people is a natural desire to share themselves with other people emotionally as well as sexually and this he's made quite clear is not what he's looking for. He once expressed while a little drunk the idea of a three way relationship appealing to a degree, but then as someone else commented the thought that came along with it about it being a buffer if one person leaves seems to be a little incongruent with satisfaction in one relationship as secure. I think it's more guarding against emotional hurt and loss. He is scared someone who loves him is going to fall out of it and leave. He's had bad experiences in the past. He finds it difficult to even talk about them.

All I can do is just live day to day with him and give him all the love and support I can along with the trust that we aren't going to move any further on the extra play part until and unless I am really game for it. Since he has no problem with that, it seems that he wants something also demonstrated on my end. That I'm really going to be there in the long run and do not display any definite needs for somebody else either. He's obviously not completely comfortable with "sharing" me with others in a full way since he does not ever want me sharing a night with someone else instead of being home with him in our bed. Again. Doesn't truly sound like a poyamorous person from what I've read.

All I know is I love him deeply and I DID fall for him strongly with infatuation and no holds barred. So it makes me a bit more vulnerable, but it also enables me to use that intensity of devotion to show him that I really want him only and that's all I'll ever need. Maybe in time it will be more then enough for him and the superfluous spice of a third will become even less of an attraction in his mind. Or maybe conversely I'll be a lot more secure and stable with him and adding some extra people for fun will be just a fun pastime once in a while and we'll both be completely fulfilled and satisfied. Time will tell. :)

The only important thing anyway is that I made myself completely clear. I am not hard wired in any way to accept open relationships. I simply cannot enjoy or even tolerate the idea of him pleasuring or being pleasured by someone else with me nowhere in the picture. It's absolutely impossible for that not to deeply hurt me and feels like it's cheating and a betrayal of our couple relationship. In that sense I am definitely nominally monogamous. I told him if it ever came to the point he felt he needed that, then it's a certainty that it's the end of our relationship. I would rather not have him at all then to have to share him in that way. It would kill the love I have for him. It's just too much of a threat to my principles and needs when it comes to somebody being my lover.
 
For whatever it is worth, S.O.C., you may not always feel as you do about monogamy and non-monogamy / polyamory. People change--often dramatically--over time. I'm one of those. I was very mono oriented during my first long term relationship, which lasted six years. Later (when that ended), I had been invited to form a relationship with a poly guy, and refused mainly on the basis that poly didn't appeal to me. But now my head and heart definitely work in a very poly way. It is perhaps among the biggest internal shifts I've ever gone through.
 
For whatever it is worth, S.O.C., you may not always feel as you do about monogamy and non-monogamy / polyamory. People change--often dramatically--over time. I'm one of those. I was very mono oriented during my first long term relationship, which lasted six years. Later (when that ended), I had been invited to form a relationship with a poly guy, and refused mainly on the basis that poly didn't appeal to me. But now my head and heart definitely work in a very poly way. It is perhaps among the biggest internal shifts I've ever gone through.

Fair enough. People change. Maybe with the initial flush of serious infatuation that starts off love relationships, especially to those who are experiencing it for the first time, it's something that is very difficult to look beyond and in the future as something not absolute and exclusive because you. People usually seem to tend towards the idea of an unbreakable, special bond between two people that says "I am yours and you are mine". There's a very strong comfort level in the idea that someone has chosen to give themselves completely to you and while living, you can count on you and them being a solid unit with no threats to that cohesion.

But maybe a less selfish and demanding kind of love naturally arises with people completely secure that a primary relationship is going to last and remain strong and binding irrespective of other people occasionally being part of the picture. As my partner says, any sexual play with other people is not going to touch his love and desire for me. He claims it can't even begin to be an issue because he has given his heart to me, he's chosen me and isn't interested or looking for someone else to replace it.

Again, the comfort I can take from this kind of viewpoint is the message that at heart he isn't truly polyamorous. He doesn't sound like he really wants to share any of our deep emotional and companionship exclusivity. He just wants to keep the option of extra sex spice on the table. I guess there could be much worse things. The one big bonus with a gay couple is that you share the same natural desires toward the same sex and therefore can indulge in a physical act with others together and not have to swing in a truly "separate" way that heterosexuals have to cope with when swinging.

So my task is to strengthen my love and security of our partnership and not feel threatened by the purely physical acts going on. It's not truly easy for me because I admit freely that I don't get any feelings of compersion watching him pleasure or be pleasured. I have managed to accept, participate and sometimes feel ok with it at some moments. The biggest standout to me was when we once had a foursome and paired off temporarily. I started feeling apart and separate from him and started losing any interest in the person I was engaging with and when turning back to watch him getting it on with someone where he was focused directly on them and I wasn't even beside him, touching him and being involved, I felt like it was truly separate and dividing.

I see that he can easily disconnect the purely physical act with fun and not let it bother him in the respect that it's not involving me and at heart I find that notion hurtful because I still want it to be just an extension of our sexual partnership, not a separate tryst. I guess that's where the limits of my monogamy are drawn. I don't know if they can change? But I can't honestly say I wish them to.
 
I'm fairly convinced now that in truth he's NOT polyamorous. One thing he doesn't do is think about doing things with others when he's away from me. He very rarely watches porn and he doesn't like to "set up" things like online hook ups, even together. He wants the spontanaeity to be real and to let things just flow. He also said he would prefer, and find it hotter to do things with me involved as long as I'm into it and not hurt and jealous by it because then it would ruin the mood anyway.

That doesn't make him not poly. That makes him like a certain rush of finding certain types of relationships. Different strokes for different folks. I am a searcher, online, in life, looking for connections. Other people are more apt to letting love fall in their laps.

Its just a different method.

The theme I seem to see among truly polyamorous people is a natural desire to share themselves with other people emotionally as well as sexually and this he's made quite clear is not what he's looking for.

Again, this is not wrong but it is generalizing. Not all poly people are like this. Not all poly people want to find connections, sexually or otherwise. Some are more apt to just remaining open and loving and letting things find their ways.

Not all poly people are love in's and pagan lovers
Not all poly people are communal living lovers
etc...

I was actually out the other day with a friend who is poly. She asked me more about me in regards to poly. Was I a pagan etc...well no I am a conservative by many stretches, communal loving kind of creeps me out etc. My wife is a hippy and communal loving suits how she grew up. etc...there are a lot of different flavours in the poly world :)

He once expressed while a little drunk the idea of a three way relationship appealing to a degree, but then as someone else commented the thought that came along with it about it being a buffer if one person leaves seems to be a little incongruent with satisfaction in one relationship as secure. I think it's more guarding against emotional hurt and loss. He is scared someone who loves him is going to fall out of it and leave. He's had bad experiences in the past. He finds it difficult to even talk about them.

Thats kind of sad. Being poly as a protectorate wall...unfortunately it will never help the hurt. My ex and I broke up and I still had to mourn that loss, even though my wife was there by my side :)

Best of luck with your continued journey. One thing I have learned since starting this is to avoid having expectations. If you begin to expect something based on what you are seeing, you may end up disappointed.

Ari
 
Best of luck with your continued journey. One thing I have learned since starting this is to avoid having expectations. If you begin to expect something based on what you are seeing, you may end up disappointed.

Thank you. But realistically, the whole concept of planning and sharing a life together HAS to be based on expectations. A commitment involves a promise. A promise engenders expectations you are supposed to be able to count on. It's very simple. He can expect me to be with him, and happy with him because I am in love with him and am truly satisfied sexually, emotionally and in all respects wanting to be a companion. If there is anything lasting, meaningful and enduring about such emotions and they certainly seem to be borne out as realistic and normal for the great majority of people when they get married and stay together as a couple then most love relationships of serious significance last because of the satisfaction that comes with being happy with that person and not needing new and separate commitments. At least thats the nominally monogamous way. True polyamorous people seem to be a little more needy in terms of how many people are involved to fulfill them. If you are hard wired that way, then that's cool but obviously you need someone else to be the same way or at least competely accepting of someone being polyamorous even if they don't require it. I imagine that's even rarer, but still there for some.
 
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