the story of a secondary

Hi there! When I saw that you had posted, I got real excited. I expected the first words in your message to be "Gia had the baby!!" Sorry, but reading about Davis first was a bit disappointing, LOL.

I don't think you need to pressure yourself to say the words to Eric. I think he is "getting it" via all the other things - your physical expressions of affection, the ways you help out, all that stuff. I have a feeling the words will just bubble out of you when the time is right and you won't even have thought about it in advance. So, give yourself a break. It sounds like things are going well for you -- don't go looking for a problem, now! ;)

Congratulations on little Bee!
 
Hi there! When I saw that you had posted, I got real excited. I expected the first words in your message to be "Gia had the baby!!" Sorry, but reading about Davis first was a bit disappointing, LOL.

I don't think you need to pressure yourself to say the words to Eric. I think he is "getting it" via all the other things - your physical expressions of affection, the ways you help out, all that stuff. I have a feeling the words will just bubble out of you when the time is right and you won't even have thought about it in advance. So, give yourself a break. It sounds like things are going well for you -- don't go looking for a problem, now! ;)

Congratulations on little Bee!

I actually typed the bit about Bee first, then went back and reordered things to make the post flow better. :)

I think your advice about Eric is probably right on target. I just get so antsy sometimes! I want everything with the two of them to move faster, to be clearer, to be as deep and full on the outside as it feels to me on the inside. But I know that things don't work that way. Hell, we're talking about a woman who'll just had her life thrown into disarray by the arrival of her first child and a man who has explicitly said to me that he doesn't want a relationship. And still they let me in, still we three (now four!!) give each other the gifts of our caring. I am ever more excited than afraid, and always cognizant of how lucky I am and how lucky they are (thinking of you when I typed that last bit, Mr. FFR). :)
 
Progress! I managed to say it in the least threatening, most laid back way possible. Eric sent an email to me and to Gia's best friend K, thanking us for all of our help and saying what a difference it's made (it was very sweet). I wrote back and said "Hey, you know that both K and I love the three of you very much and we're here to back you up however you need. Don't hesitate to reach out." So yeah, I actually wrote the words, albeit couched in terms of the love of a friend and love for a child.

Maybe some day, in the words of Dr. Horrible, I'll make "a real, audible connection" with him on the subject. :) But for now, even though he probably didn't even take notice of exactly what I wrote, I at least feel like I've opened up to a new level of honesty in this situation.

I get to see them again tonight!! I can't wait to hold Bee and to see how Gia is holding up.
 
I've been feeling a little lonely lately. :/

I've visited Gia, Eric and Bee twice since I last wrote here, and and will see them again on Saturday. It's been wonderful spending time with them, it really has. Bee is just like a magic engine of cute! But he's fussy, like just about any new infant, and he doesn't have his latch perfect for nursing, which causes Gia a lot of discomfort (she's always had painfully sensitive nipples but she's committed to breastfeeding). She's in a lot of pain still overall, her body feels weird to her, her usual issues with anxiety are being exacerbated by being trapped in her room on bedrest and by worrying about this huge responsibility she now has before her, and on top of all that she's beginning to suffer some postpartum depression. So, it's not like she exactly has any energy to send my way. Don't get me wrong, I actually really enjoy taking care of her and helping out. But I miss her too, so much. I wonder, often, what our relationship will morph into once she's healed up and settled into her new role a little more. Will we, at any point, be lovers again in the physical sense? It'll have been a year in October since we were last intimate. Growing closer to Eric has been one silver lining - we cooked together the other night, which we'd never done before, and he continues to go out of his way to tell me how much he appreciates my presence.

As for Davis, we were spending a LOT of time together for a couple of weeks there and lately he's been wanting to take a little more space for himself. Nothing drastic, and he's always there when I need him, but I can feel the shift and combined with everything above it just leaves me feeling a little unsettled and melancholy now and then.
 
Just thought I'd give y'all a quick update. Bee is almost a month old now. He's big and healthy and pink. :) Gia is well but has been having a tough time, struggling with giving Bee all the care he needs while not going crazy. Eric is holding things together and is great at his job as Dad.

I visit a couple of times a week and always focus on doing helpful things like cooking or holding Bee. Right now it feels like this stage will never end. I miss my physical connection with them so much sometimes that I don't know what to do. I care for the three of them so much though that, ultimately, I just want to spend all the time with them that I can. One nice thing -- Gia and Eric are both so independent that this is probably the one time in our lives that they can easily let me just take care of them, which I like doing.

Next week we'll all be at a big camping event. Gia and Eric have been working their butts off to go, even though they know it'll be tough with Bee. Gia's parents will be there too. She's finally telling her dad about our relationship (her mom already knows) so that he doesn't get surprised while we're there, which is cool. Last year we went to the same event, sans baby and sans her parents. I stayed in their tent and slept with them every night on their big air mattress for a week straight. We had awesome sex and lots of good conversations. This year will be very different, we may not even camp terribly near each other for logistical reasons that make sense but would take a while to explain. I expect to have a great time, I just hope I don't get too wistful.
 
Hi Anna! I just spent most of my morning sitting in bed reading your entire story....wow, just oh my gosh....you are such an inspiration to me....your thought process, your experiences, just everything...im extremely, extremely new to the whole concept of polyamory lifestyles....your story is by far my favorite on this forum....as of right now, I am married and bi-curious and I suppose I can wven consider myself poly-curious....in some ways I picture my husband being like Eric....if I ever decided to explore a poly lifestyle, he would be understanding and supportive and appreciative as Eric has been in your life..I can picture it all happening for him and I as it has been playing out for you, Gia and Eric, though if our life were ever to venture down the same path, I could only pray and hope that it turns out as beautifully as yours has....its so reassuring and inspiring to hear of love and happiness, even through all its complexities.....

You may have mentioned this before, but could you talk about your thoughts and experience when you first decided to live a poly lifestyle? Was it something you thoroughly thought about or just something that you gradually found yourself in? As someone who's only just becoming aware and is learning, but has been in a mono relationship her whole life, I'd love to hear your perspective when it all "began" for you....

And a huge Thank You for sharing your thoughts and life experiences... :) And congrats on little Bee!! ;)
 
Hey 1stTime, welcome to the boards and thank you for your kind words! It's really nice to hear that reading my story has been a positive thing for you. :)

As for your question, it began for me in high school. I'd dated people monogamously before. One summer I had a big crush on a female friend of mine and was planning to ask her out, but instead she started dating a guy friend of mine. This particular guy had long had a crush on me. I was so jealous of both of them, and so attracted to both of them! It just drove me crazy. There was some fooling around and a lot of flirting, but things didn't work out between the three of us. During this time I did a lot of reading online about polyamory.

Later that year, I ended up dating two guys at the same time... that didn't go well, they tried to be cool with it but ultimately weren't and I ended up breaking up with both of them. Then, shortly after high school ended, I got into a serious relationship with an older guy, we'll call him Ziggy, who had a five-year, live-in relationship with another woman who knew about him and me. So, in fairly rapid succession I went through a variety of different poly situations... pining after a couple, being the hinge of a V and then being a wing of a different V.

After things fell apart with Ziggy, I started dating Davis. He and I were monogamous together for three years, aside from one incident where I cheated on him with Ziggy (I've talked about this a little in earlier posts). I was monogamous with Davis initially because he wanted it and I wanted him and it seemed like an easy thing to give him. At least it seemed that way until it wasn't and I cheated and we eventually split up over it. *sigh*

Poly feels very, very natural to me. Why should what I do with one person have any impact on another person as long as I'm being honest and safe and considerate? Like, if Gia and Eric and I spend an hour playing video games, how does that affect Davis any more or less than if Gia and Eric and I spend an hour having hot, safe sex (*siiiiigh*)? I have fairly compelling proof that loving one person doesn't stop me from loving another person -- if it did, Davis and I wouldn't have broken up in the first place.

In my heart, ever since that first couple I fell for in high school... hell, maybe since before that, when I first realized I was bi... I've always thought that being with a guy/girl couple would just be amazing. And reading about poly stuff, seeing poly situations depicted in a positive way, just makes me so *happy*, the way seeing depictions of women loving each other made me feel happy and validated when I was young and still does now.

So, I didn't exactly "decide" to start living a poly lifestyle again post-Davis, but it was something that was natural to me. When Gia suggested that we date I didn't see any reason not to and, in fact, saw the situation as something close to my m/f/f triad ideal even though it's not exactly that.
 
I visited G and E and B again yesterday. I spent the whole day there, actually, chilling and helping with things so that they could finish prepping for the big trip. On two different occasions, I managed to get Bee to fall asleep in my arms while soothing him. I was so proud. :) I'm feeling more and more tender towards him as time goes on. I mean, duh, you're always going to love a baby who belongs to someone you love. But every time I'm holding him and he looks up at me with big, concerned eyes and I whisper to him and he mellows out and squeaks at me, I feel all the more like I never want to let him go, even during the many other times when he's screaming and crying and pooping and spitting up.
 
So good to have you back, Annabel! It's a delight to read about someone in a (recently even more) similar situation who handles it with the grace and honesty you do!

I wonder, often, what our relationship will morph into once she's healed up and settled into her new role a little more. Will we, at any point, be lovers again in the physical sense? It'll have been a year in October since we were last intimate.

I posted a question a while back on the poly with kids thread about how common it is for couples to retire on poly while having on kids. I've heard a few stories on how the new mothers just don't have the energy needed to keep up even one relationship to the co-parent of their child, much less multiple ones, and how the physical connection is often the first to go :(.

Right now it feels like this stage will never end.

A huge surprise coming up; babies grow up shockingly fast! Before you know it, Bee is insisting on vacuum cleaning every little bit of hazardous waste on the floor with his mouth, not long after he'll be constantly teeter-tottering on his way to harm, and you start missing the times he just mostly slept :p!

I'm feeling more and more tender towards him as time goes on. I mean, duh, you're always going to love a baby who belongs to someone you love. But every time I'm holding him and he looks up at me with big, concerned eyes and I whisper to him and he mellows out and squeaks at me, I feel all the more like I never want to let him go, even during the many other times when he's screaming and crying and pooping and spitting up.

I think you are starting to love Bee the Person and not Bee the Baby of Gina and Eric, which is going to be one of the glues that sticks the four of you together in the years to come, even if the precise relationship form changes :). So happy for you.
 
WOAH. O_O

So, I mentioned a while back that Davis and I hadn't yet resolved what he was comfortable with regarding me and Eric being sexual at present. He had suggested maybe no penetrative sex, maybe if I let him know before anything happened, etc. I wasn't very happy with those options and it's not like sex was happening with Gia and Eric anyway, so Davis and I just tabled the discussion for a bit.

Even though there's realistically very little chance that anything will happen at the big camping event this week, I figured it'd be good to revisit the issue with Davis and come to an agreement before I left (he's not going, for reasons of money).

To my shock, he simply said "I've given it a lot of thought and I've decided that I'm ok with whatever you want to do with them. If it doesn't affect you and me, and you're happy and stuff, then it's alright."

I believed him when he said that he was going to be working on these issues, but I'm so surprised and impressed that he's come so far in less than two months! Heck, what he said was almost exacly the same as what I said in my last post about my feelings on the situation.

I pressed him a little more and we talked about how things went down in the situation with Ziggy, and his leftover fears regarding all that, but ultimately it was clear that although he was still struggling he'd meant what he said.

I'm in no way getting my hopes up, but it makes me very, very happy to know that on the off chance something sexy does go down with G and/or E during the coming week, I won't have to worry about holding back or upsetting Davis.

Davis and I have had our issues here and there since we re-started our relationship... he's going through some stressful stuff, we are sometimes very in tune and other times all snappish with each other... but I'm proud to have picked a man who can be so brave and open-minded. This is still all VERY new territory for him.
 
Wow! That's fantastic!

It sounds like Davis is an internal processor, just like my Indigo. I remember when we first opened our relationship, it was only to other women. A couple of months later, I made an offhand comment about guys and he said, "Yeah, go for it. I realized that since you're bi, there's just as much chance you'll run off with a woman as a man and there's nothing I can do about it."

I was also floored. I asked him when he figured that out. He said he does a lot of thinking at the gym. :p

To me, it was the most significant example of how differently we think. If I was wrestling with something, he would certainly know! I need to talk things out. But he just went about it quietly, and yeah, what a shock!
 
So good to have you back, Annabel! It's a delight to read about someone in a (recently even more) similar situation who handles it with the grace and honesty you do!

By the way, thank you for this. :)
 
What a week! The camping trip was wonderful and tough at the same time. As I mentioned previously, G&E&B camped separately from me (for logistical reasons that made perfect sense but would take a while to explain) -- we were about 20 minutes apart walking distance, at a huge festival with lots of activities, classes and parties in the evenings. I was camped with other friends. Gia's mom and dad stayed at a hotel nearby and visited the campgrounds during the day to help with Bee.

I had a full but flexible schedule. We rarely specifically made plans to hang out, but I usually ran into them at least once a day and stopped to spend time with them when that happened. Several times I walked them back up to their campsite and then hung out to help out with things. Once we met up at a party in the evening (G&E had left Bee with Gia's parents for a few hours, the first time they've both been away from him), and once they met me at my camp with the baby in tow and chilled for a bit. Usually they were too tired to stay out past dark, but they did manage to get out and about every day.

Spending time in the company of Gia's parents was interesting. They were very polite and friendly to me, which was awesome.

We also got time away from them, usually at G&E's camp. Gia and I had a couple of very long, significant conversations, with Eric generally doing his own thing in the background, quietly interjecting every once in a great while.

The first big talk started because I noticed that when I'd offer to walk them back to camp or to help with something, Gia would often say something like "oh, you really don't need to" or "we won't be much fun" or something else polite but discouraging. I couldn't tell if she was just being nice or if she didn't want me around. It was starting to freak me out, so I brought it up.

"Y'know," I said, "I don't need it to be fun."
"What?"
"Our time together. I don't need you to entertain me or anything. I genuinely want to be here and help out. Your life is pretty hard and frustrating sometimes these days, and I don't plan to skip out on that. It would be so easy to just slip out of your life right now and I don't want to do that."

And we went from there. Basically, she felt uncomfortable about accepting so much from me, and worried that it was too unbalanced. She explained that accepting help is a form of trust, and that she has major trust issues. That while we've certainly grown a lot together as a couple, there are things she can relax about and show Eric that she still doesn't feel she can show me yet. Having another person around can be an added burden on her attention and time, even if they don't want to be and especially if she cares about them, so having me there can make things harder in one way even if I'm helping in another.

We ended that conversation with me asserting that 1) I get to decide if I'm comfortable with what I'm putting into the equation (although she doesn't have to accept it), 2) I won't be upset if she tells me she needs time away from me and would much rather have that clarity than feel like an imposition, and 3) I understand that letting me in is a big trust thing and that I appreciate all the work she's doing to try to do that. I asked her to please tell me if she wants space from me for any reason at any time, but not to push me away for my own good.

INTENSE. Phew. I felt like I needed a nap and some cookies after that one.

I think I'll leave it at this for now and post a little follow-up later.
 
A little follow-up!

The other big conversation that Gia and I had while camping was about what it's like for them to be in new parents and what it's like for me to continue to try to be part of their lives. Eric said to me once, early on, that having the new baby was like being in space, because day and night had no meaning. I had given this some thought and I used this metaphor in trying to explain to Gia what it was like for me.

"It's like the two of you have become astronauts," I said. "You're floating up there in space, monitoring the controls and they're very delicate so of course you can't come down to earth right now to visit me. If I want to see you I have to come to you and when I do you're very busy. But I admire and believe in what you doing, so basically what I'm asking is to be a volunteer trainee astronaut and I know that takes a lot of trust because, as I said, the controls are very delicate."

Something in all that must have worked, because I noticed her relax after that and just let me help more.

A side note: I have some kinky friends, and while I was at the camping trip one of them asked if she could try out an idea for an all-rope corset on me -- basically, tie me up. I'm kind of kinky myself so I was into the idea, but I told her that I needed to ask my boyfriend. I didn't want to cross any boundaries with Davis. It seemed for a minute when I called him that he might say no just to say no, sort of to prove to himself his power in the relationship. Which I would have understood, frankly. But we talked about it some more and, happily, he told me to go ahead and go for it with the simple caveat that nothing overtly sexual happen . :)
 
When I came over their house yesterday evening, my two lovers were chilling in bed with their sleeping baby, watching funny internet videos. Gia motioned for me and I curled up behind her, spooning-style. We stayed that way for... 30 minutes, 60? Not sure. It was, I think, the most time we've spent in close physical contact in months. She had fretted, during the pregnancy, that a needy baby would use up all her reserves of cuddling ability. So good to see that wasn't true.

Normally a very talkative person, I chose instead to stay quiet and just enjoy our bubble in time together.

Bee is so big and chubby! Sometimes he grunts and squeals in his sleep and waves his little arms.

Eventually Gia and I made dinner, sat together quietly and read, chatted about things small and large. Just like one of our usual evening in-house dates. For the first time since Bee arrived, not counting their one night without him while camping, it was like Bee was just a part of her life, not her whole life. It helped that he slept a lot.

Gia mentioned that she's talking to her doctor about what birth control is safe to use while breastfeeding, implying pretty explicitly to me that she and Eric haven't resumed sex yet. I figure once the two of them are on firm sexual footing with each other again, I can safely put energy into rebuilding a sexual intimacy with her/them/him and myself. Want.

At the end of the evening, I went back into their bedroom to say goodnight to Eric, like I usually do. I nuzzled his shoulder, he made an "mm-hmm" sound of quietly pleased assent. It was a lovely little sound.

Davis was waiting for me in my bed when I got home (he has a key and I'd told him to go ahead and come over when he'd messaged me near the end of the evening). I was so glad to see him. It was like all my good feelings from my night with my others spilled over and enhanced things with him. We had scads of hot sex and fell asleep pressed against each other.

In one of my dreams that night, I was out shopping with Gia and Eric. While Gia looked at clothes, Eric and I curled up together in a chair, waiting. He wrapped himself around me, protecting me and holding me. I woke with the image and the feeling still vivid.
 
Epilogue: I noticed, the next day, that Eric had posted an FB status update that night about watching Bee breathe, "listening to music and to Gia and Anna chat in the next room," and about loving being a dad.

Thoughts:
- I love that he is so relaxed and happy and that my presence is a piece of that picture
- Being mentioned by him like that in a public forum makes me feel validated to a silly degree
- I sometimes forget that, because they've been so tightly glued together this last year, Eric ends up hearing almost everything I say to Gia... when I make myself vulnerable, when I laugh with her, he's a part of it too even if he's not participating
- I must be more comfortable and relaxed about him than I used to be, otherwise I wouldn't have forgotten that he was there and potentially listening to our conversation
- I still want to just tell him, straightforwardly, that I love him
- Ideally, I'd like to talk to Gia about it again before doing so, to get her advice, but when will I see her apart from him?

Stupid beautiful Eric, stupid beautiful dream, stupid fear of rejection. No, more than rejection, I fear that words will break this peaceful equilibrium we've achieved. What if I say it to him and he doesn't react well? Things being awkward with him would probably seriously impact my relationship with Gia.

Take sex, for instance, since I brought it up earlier. I already know that Gia is much more comfortable opening up sexually with Eric there. If he and I are in a weird place, it could delay/complicate my relations with her in that regard. Argh.

I've gone this long feeling it and not saying it, why not continue? Why risk screwing things up when everything is so damn good? Because it's a problem for me, like or not, and it isn't going away. I just wish I could trust him not to have an issue with it. But I don't, he was burned before and took it way too much too heart, he's so fucking skittish about emotions.
 
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Have you told Eric that you love him as a friend?
 
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