Hello!

CabinLife

New member
I want to first say that I am new to this, and have been nervous about posting here or anywhere else.

I dated my wife throughout most of High School, and we married our freshman year in college. We just recently celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary this past Spring. We have been monogamous our entire marriage. Throughout, however, I have always felt the need to have a couple to a few very close friends. I have almost always ended up developing very close ties (read love and infatuation) with those people during the time that their lives interacted with mine. My wife used to playfully tease me about my work spouses, or girlfriends or boyfriends...but we were monogamous and I was faithful. Eventually our lives would no longer intersect and those people weren't close any longer.

All things change with time, I still love my wife deeply (she is my oldest friend), but we have both come to personal realizations in recent months. Though I have known for a long time, I admitted to my spouse this Summer that I am not straight. I am attracted to both women and men if the conditions are right for attraction. Additionally, in reflection on past friendships, crushes, and my physical/emotional need for affection (even platonic touch) from multiple people...I am polyamorous. During this same period of discussion, my wife realized/admitted that she is aegosexual, and has struggled to want to engage in sex for quite some time. After much discussion and soul searching, we decided that our marriage needed to be redefined (in an interpersonal sense) to a platonic partnership. With that boundary shift, we have additionally opened up our relationship to allow me to seek out the emotional and physical needs that are no longer part of our relationship going forward.

I just don't exactly know how to find/befriend the people that I need. I live in a very rural and conservative state (West Virginia), and my family would not be accepting of the knowledge of me being bisexual or polyamorous. I am a 40-yr-old person who presents as male (though I have felt more in realm of non-binary for some time), who has only ever been with one woman aside from a few short relationships with girlfriends in High School. Due to the small community I live in, everyone knows everyone else's local business. Using dating apps or something similar would really be out of the question. As said in the first sentence of this post, I have been very anxious posting and/or opening up anywhere about this. I have not been able to locate any sort of polyamory network within the state of West Virginia. I am sure there are people here that are in open relationships. I just don't know how to find them. Any help or advice from others would be very much appreciated.
 
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Hi CabinLife- and welcome to the Forum! We have a good number of experienced poly folks here who are generally helpful and friendly, so please do not hesitate to post your specific thoughts and questions. The Poly Relationships Corner and General Poly Discussion sections are quite active, and you are certain to get some feedback there.

Regrettably, I do not have any immediate suggestions for your rural situation, other than to say that long distance relationships (LDR's) are very common in the poly community, so you may want to think about how open you might to that scenario.

Best of luck on your journey! Al
 
Greetings CabinLife,
Welcome to our forum. Please feel free to lurk, browse, etc.

This might sound a little extreme, but have you considered the possibility of moving to a state/city where poly is more prevalent? You can find a list of poly-friendly cities at http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?p=295157

Another approach might be to make platonic friends in your area without screening for poly. You could do this by joining a group or club of something you are interested in such as a hobby. Then if and when you trust a friend enough, you could tell them about poly. This would be before any romantic feelings developed, so that they could decide how they feel about poly without any pressure to agree. If they do agree, then if romantic feelings develop later on, you have already had the poly conversation.

Another way to find poly-friendly people is to attend events outside the mainstream: indie concerts, Ren faires, sci-fi conventions, stuff like that. There you have a chance to meet some poly people and get to know them. But I don't know if you'd have to do some traveling.

It might even help to do some searching on FetLife. Polyamory is accepted there kind of as a kink in its own right, and you can look for poly people in your area.

Here's a few more links for finding poly groups and people:

Hopefully that helps.
Sincerely,
Kevin T., "official greeter" :)

Notes:

There's a *lot* of good info in Golden Nuggets. Have a look!

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If you have any questions about the board itself, please private-message a mod and they'll do their best to help.

Welcome aboard!
 
Just checked out FetLife. Am wondering if you're right about traveling. Moving isn't an option. There are only 6 people on there from my state, and none of them specifically mention poly in their profiles.

*Edit* I did find many people on FetLife from WV. That said, I don't think that is what I am looking for.
 
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Just checked out FetLife. Am wondering if you're right about traveling.

Fetlife is primarily a BDSM - Kink oriented site. Nevertheless, it is often a good place to look, because many people (but obviously not all) who are into BDSM are also in to poly.

While you may not want to be too specific about what part of the state you live in on a public forum like this - I do note that there are several large metro areas surrounding the State: DC/Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia,Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville (all apparently within a few hours drive depending on where you live in the state). You might want to Google Polyamory and the cities closest to you to get some ideas. Al
 
CabinLife,

An organization called New Culture offers poly themed events in West Virginia. I've gone to several and really enjoyed them. You are not likely to meet people who also live in WV at these events but you will meet other poly folks.

https://www.cfnc.us/

If you would like more information on what it is like at these events, please feel free to PM me.

Good luck!
 
Thanks opalescent,

I have seen those events. Found them when I was looking for poly groups in WV. Have been considering it, they might be cost prohibitive for me right now. I know they have a weekend coming up in the end of December.
 
The thing you are doing right is the open communication with your wife.

You just keep that up, it is going to serve you well.

Best of luck, and warm regards.
 
Thanks MayDecember. It feels very lonely at the moment. I have no idea what community I fit into right now. Yes, we are keeping communications open. Communication is key.
 
Hi CabinLife, welcome to our board and to polyamory.

I feel bad for you living in the South as a non-binary bisexual or pansexual person. I'm also non-binary (use she pronoun), and pansexual. But I've lived in the Northeast all my life, raised on Long Island NY, college in Philadelphia, then the Boston area since college.

I'm sorry you feel moving out of state isn't an option. Why is that? I have a good friend of 4 years, a bisexual mostly lesbian transwoman (fully transitioned). She was born and raised in Tennessee and had a life that was just hell down there.

She moved to Massachusetts 4 years ago, when she was 49... and her life has totally turned around. She's now a transactivist, a teacher in a public school, has a ton of friends, and is an amazing athlete (as she always has been). She makes a point of telling everyone she meets that she is transgender, and is accepted everywhere she goes. By contrast, she was fired from several jobs in TN after she came out. And her evangelical family disowned her.

She's had a couple less than pleasant incidents here because of her gender ID, but the huge majority of her interactions have been accepting and affirming. She has her own TV show/youtube channel about trans issues, she is a public speaker on trans rights, she helps trans and gender non-conforming kids at her school, and has worked at a camp for transgender youth in New Hampshire.

She doesn't happen to be polyamorous, but that's besides the point.

Just want to give you an example of what a difference it makes for marginalized minority people just to live in our progressive state.

My partner Pixi and I are both female and we don't get any flack from anyone being in a seemingly lesbian relationship and living together. We aren't out as poly to the neighbors, per se, but we are out to our good friends and some of members of our families. We have no trouble finding queer and poly friends on Fetlife and OK Cupid and at parties, at the camp for transgender kids. etc.

People live busy lives here, and so we haven't felt scrutinized or gossiped about.

I wish you growth, joy and fulfillment as you start to venture out into places safe for queers and polyamorous people!
 
Magdlyn,

WV is not really too far from anywhere on the east coast, but it has a way of keeping you here. I've moved away a few times. Something always drags me back. Economics is a lot of it. The cost of living has been pretty low here until recently. I own a house (cabin) here that I built with my own hands (and the help of a couple other people). It used all of my savings and is on family land. Hard to leave it behind. The downside is that it is rather isolating to be leftist and any form of not mainstream individual here.

I'll find my way, I am sure. My spouse is very communicative and understanding.
 
I hear you. My friend misses the beauty of the mountains of Tennessee like hell.

But she was dying down there. Almost literally. She delivered pizzas for a living and the people kindest to her were the crackheads in her squat.

Now she's thriving. She is her authentic self. She's still a country girl and has chosen to live in a small town, as rural as possible. While being close enough to things to get to the TV studio and her job at the middle school, which has a rainbow flag outside alongside the American flag, and welcoming stickers on every door inside.
 
Thanks opalescent,

I have seen those events. Found them when I was looking for poly groups in WV. Have been considering it, they might be cost prohibitive for me right now. I know they have a weekend coming up in the end of December.

Oh good, I'm glad you were aware of them.

They do offer reduced cost/work exchange options. If you want to go, contact them and ask for what's possible. The people who organize the events work really hard to make events accessible for those with less access to resources.
 
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