Coming out

i have live poly for a while i jus did not what it was called.people would say you got it going on,or u aint nothing but a cheater ,or how you do that,you must be pimping those girls,but the one thing i have learned if im happy and my partners are happy than the ones that dont understand dont matter
 
Being Closeted vs. Being Private

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the subject of coming out - what it is actually, and of course how open I would like to be about my situation. As it is, very few people know about my poly situation and it feels like it is time to inform a few more people... Have come to the conclusion that I will tell first to those people I trust the most in order to have a support network for those times when judgemental people find out or when there starts to be gossiping about us in our surroundings... I see those as very likely to happen and want to be strong enough to handle it when it does.

In a more theoretical level I have been pondering about what is the difference between being closeted and being private... I think the important difference is whether there is fear involved in the thought that somebody would find out. You are in the closet if you are scared of being exposed. If there is no fear and you just do not feel the need to tell people about your life, you are being private. Any thoughts about this? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
 
I just talk about it as part of regular conversation as it becomes relevant. It isn't really relevant to my co-workers, but i'm not afraid of what they think should it ever become relevant. We have Open Relationship on our facebooks, and Spouse told me that their sisters were giving them "concerned" looks at Thanksgiving and asking if "everything is ok between you and BG" (because i was spending tg with a friend who had nowhere to go this year.. last year, whatever). I guess to a lot of people, "open relationship" is something you do when you are breaking up but still get along well enough to share a living space... Well we just celebrated our 10th/13th anniversary.

Anyway it doesn't have to be a big huge "hey sit down there's something i need to tell you" event unless you make it one.
 
Lately I have been thinking a lot about the subject of coming out - what it is actually, and of course how open I would like to be about my situation. As it is, very few people know about my poly situation and it feels like it is time to inform a few more people... Have come to the conclusion that I will tell first to those people I trust the most in order to have a support network for those times when judgemental people find out or when there starts to be gossiping about us in our surroundings... I see those as very likely to happen and want to be strong enough to handle it when it does.

In a more theoretical level I have been pondering about what is the difference between being closeted and being private... I think the important difference is whether there is fear involved in the thought that somebody would find out. You are in the closet if you are scared of being exposed. If there is no fear and you just do not feel the need to tell people about your life, you are being private. Any thoughts about this? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

why do it if your scared?privatice is your right.people change everyday oneday they like you the next they dont for whatever reason,jus b urself it will all be ok.jus remember this "keep ur head up and ur chest out ",most of all SMILE.
 
I got tired of being invisible at work - mostly everyone is catholic or orthodox, married, conservative. Since I'm married and my husband is catholic, I am assumed to be just like them.

So I started wearing a ribbon cuff bracelet with flags on it - the leather pride flag (black blue white, red heart), the rainbow diversity flag, the polyamory flag (blue red black, gold 'pi') and the bisexual pride flag (pink purple blue). I was sort of shocked that for months and months not one person commented, or even appeared to look at it twice. I figured even if no one at work noticed it, it was a good way to signal, to give other people I met a better glimpse of who I am. And a conversation starter, if they are into any of the above.

We hired some seasonal help - and one of them is a younger guy (who I had kind of a crush on) who started bugging me about what it meant. I told him he was too innocent to know if he didn't recognize the flags. He took offense (cause he really isn't that innocent, just young) and bugged me ridiculously until I told him what each one was. He admitted he had thought I was gay when he first saw it but was then confused when he heard I was married to a man. He asked some about polyamory, and I gave him the briefest sketch - his mind was utterly blown. "He [your husband] has sex with whoever he wants???" was pretty much the gist of his reaction. lol. So that was very embarrassing, but he's been calm and hasn't outed me to the rest of the office yet, so I suppose it went as well as it could have gone barring simply clamming up and refusing to tell him, which would have kind of defeated the purpose of wearing it anyway. :)

One of our regular seasonal people is a middle aged unmarried woman, who is very sweet, but also very catholic and very innocent. She started confiding in me the difficulties she's having with her current sort-of boyfriend, who she is in a long distance relationship with, and then started dismissing anything I said with an 'oh, you're married, you wouldn't understand'. I finally pointed to the poly flag on my wrist. She asked me to take off the bracelet and examined it. She asked what it meant - I only told her that one, as it was the only relevant one, and she asked even less questions than the previous guy. But it really opened her eyes that I didn't fit in the box she always assumed I fit into, and it seemed to really reassure her that she could talk about relationships with me, and I would try to understand and help, and that I might actually have relevant advice. So that went really well and wasn't embarrassing or weird at all, it seemed like she was relieved to have someone to talk to.

So basically I just let the bracelet talk for me; I'm still primarily in the closet, but the door is open, if someone wants to look in.
 
In a more theoretical level I have been pondering about what is the difference between being closeted and being private... I think the important difference is whether there is fear involved in the thought that somebody would find out. You are in the closet if you are scared of being exposed. If there is no fear and you just do not feel the need to tell people about your life, you are being private. Any thoughts about this? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

One way to think of it:

Private = I don't need people to know.
Closet = I need people not to know.

There are all kinds of reasons for each. Fear is a common motivator.
 
I had a *squee* moment last night- I'm taking a class that's supposed to help me with stress management (we'll see) and since some of my stress is due to the LDR nature of my partnership with TGIB, it's come up in class. However, my classmates and the teacher also know I'm married with kids, so I've been considering how to balance my desire to be honest about what is contributing to my stress so I can learn the best coping strategies versus my desire to not waste a bunch of class time dealing with people's potentially negative reactions (this is a more conservative part of CA. I'm sure there are people in the class who would tell me I'm going to hell, which *shrug* whatever, they're strangers, but it would be a waste of my time, the teacher's time, and the other students' time!).

So I decided to stay after class last night so I could speak to the teacher (an older LCSW, more of an educator now than a practicing therapist). I told her that, while I didn't feel the rest of the class needed to know, if she thought some of what I talked about sounded "off" or "odd" and she was uncertain what to suggest (I currently refer to TGIB as a "family member" in the class. Sometimes it gets awkward) then it would probably help to know that I was in a polyamorous relationship, and yes, I was married, but TGIB was also my life partner and like a spouse, so some of the recommendations about friends and extended family members wouldn't really apply. She looked confused for a moment, and then asked, "Does your husband know?" I assured her he did, and told her a little bit about the current effort to get us all living together, and she smiled and said, "Wow, your life must get pretty complicated!" I agreed, and we both laughed and left.

This is (I think, my memory is not 100% to be trusted) the first time I've come out to a medical/psychological professional of any sort, and the first time I've come out to someone who was not either a good friend or a COMPLETE stranger. I've been in 4 of her classes so far, and have 6 left to go, so I was unsure about coming out to someone who could make the remaining 6 classes very unpleasant and unhelpful. I'm so glad it was a positive experience!
 
I have a question for the Poly masses...
How do I come out at work gracefully and elegantly without jeopardizing my job and reputation?

I work for a company that engineers and manufactures material processing equipment world wide, and I am on a career track with my company to one day be the VP of operations... It is very important to me.

But I am tired of people thinking my significant other is or has cheated on me. I want people to know I am in a Poly relationship and I am happy and I love it, and that our relationship is just as healthy if not moreso than a traditional relationship.
 
I have a question for the Poly masses...
How do I come out at work gracefully and elegantly without jeopardizing my job and reputation?

I work for a company that engineers and manufactures material processing equipment world wide, and I am on a career track with my company to one day be the VP of operations... It is very important to me.

But I am tired of people thinking my significant other is or has cheated on me. I want people to know I am in a Poly relationship and I am happy and I love it, and that our relationship is just as healthy if not moreso than a traditional relationship.

Why do you need to?

In some cases, it's not even possible. You can be as graceful and elegant as you want, but they can always find reasons to fire you, or at least to stop you climbing the ladder.

Then again, being "dumb enough to stay with a cheater" could have the same results.

But if there are specific people that you know to be aware that your SO is dating other people, you could go to them privately and just explain the situation, but ask that they not turn it into office gossip. Whether or not they'll listen is another matter, and one you have no control over.
 
^^ This. People will have their own ideas no matter what. I find what works best for me is to just NOT be secretive. That means not exactly coming out but just being normal. I mean it's normal for me to talk about something and say "Boyfriend watches that show!" or "Oh yeah Hubby and I do that on weekends with the kids." Some people pick up some don't. If they ask, I clarify, if not, then not worried about it. I get most often "You mean ex hubby right?" Then I clarify. Making it just a normality in my own life does a pretty good job of letting others know that it is indeed just normal! At least for me.
 
I struggle with the idea of "coming out" as poly because I've never felt the need to announce my relationships to anyone before so I can't begin to imagine how or why I would now. I used to have a picture on my desk of me and a guy from a band that caused everyone who came in to ask if it was my husband. I figured that meant picture on your desk was the universal sign for relationship so I replaced it with a picture of me, my husband and my boyfriend. Oddly now no one asks about the picture...

Where would your co-workers have found out your SO was "cheating"? I guess I would go about spreading the poly information through the same pipeline.
 
I struggle with the idea of "coming out" as poly because I've never felt the need to announce my relationships to anyone before so I can't begin to imagine how or why I would now.

One of the girls in our local bi-group has a funny story like that. When she started dating her girlfriend, her mom was like "You have to tell Grandma that you're dating Kim." My friend was so confused, she was like "What? Why? I didn't have to tell her when I started dating any boys." She's like 19 now, was about 16 or 17 at the time, so she's grown up knowing that it's fine to be non-straight. But she couldn't for the life of her figure out why she had to tell Grandma that she was dating a girl.

She also wasn't "allowed" to tell her little sister... Dad didn't want her to set a bad example. At one point, my friend got grounded. Her aunt asked her, "Do you know why Jen got grounded?" "Because she's dating a girl." Not exactly true, just happened that this particular girl kept her out past curfew all the time and that got her in trouble... but as far as lil' sis was concerned, she was grounded because Dad didn't like her dating a girl :p
 
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Making it just a normality in my own life does a pretty good job of letting others know that it is indeed just normal!

My mother taught me when I was a little kid that "If you carry yourself like you are supposed to be there, people will just assume it's true". When I am comfortable about a part of my life and I share it with people it rarely makes them uncomfortable or prompts them to challenge me.

If I am still new to an idea or have not had the chance to express it to anyone outside of that particular viewpoint I can be clumsy or passive about it - which prompts challenge and discussion. The idea of discussing CV with anyone is still a little shaky for me and I've only done it a couple of times. I am sure people can hear it in my voice, that I'm still new to the situation and am hesitant to talk about it.

So I agree, how "normal" I feel about what I'm expressing has a big impact.
 
I'm not in the closet about being poly, not at all. That means I have no reason to not want people to know. Recently I've started a new job and a new hobby, so I've met a lot of new people in a short amount of time. Most of the people from the hobby are now my facebook friends and if they have been following at all, they should know. Most of them have also seen me with my girlfriend. But I've actually never mentioned my boyfriend to them, there just haven't been a situation where it would've come up. What annoys me is that we usually hang out in a big group and I feel more comfortable coming out to people one-on-one, but I just never have the opportunity to do that!

In the job it's a bit different, but equally difficult. I'm not facebook friends with any of them and I haven't said anything about my relationship situation to anyone. When my coworkers refer to their partners, I just sit there quietly. My problem is that I would like to mention both of my partners at the same time. I mean I don't like the idea that one coworker thinks I have a boyfriend, another one thinks I have a girlfriend and a third one knows I have both. I want to avoid confusion and be clear about it. I definitely don't want to be in the closet forever. I've only been working there for two weeks now, but I still feel like I should just get it over with.

I just feel like there are too many people that I hang out with at the moment who don't know the whole picture and that bothers me. I like to feel relaxed and I can't be totally relaxed if I have to hide a big part of myself.
 
How to you face "coming out"? do you not care and just come out? or do u share because u are so happy and dont want to hide it? im kinda in a tough spot. my mom doesnt know completly whats going on but knows there is something going on. pretty much told me that im a embarrasement. but i dont want to hide on my fb that im in a relationship with her. i dont want to hide her because i am not embarrased to say that i love 2 people. but i truely breaks my heart that my family is like that. i pretty much unfriended all my family and the ones i kept on i put on restricted. how does everyone deal with this?
 
i pretty much unfriended all my family and the ones i kept on i put on restricted. how does everyone deal with this?

If I associated with people who looked down on me for my relationship practices *and* had the balls to call me out for it, they'd probably get cut. I have no problem with having a discussion about my relationship choices, in fact I encourage it, but I won't be subjected to someones dogmatic bullshit (not more than once anyway).

Also do a search on the topic, this is a pretty common question.
 
Yep-I'm out. (or we are out I should say).
People have the right to any opinion they want.
But, they can treat our choice to be in relationship with respect or they can exit stage left. Just as some people we look at and think "wtf are they thinking?!?!?!" but we treat their choices with respect or we exit stage left.
 
It's a sad world when facebook status is more important than family.

I'm out, but not loud and proud. I mention it if it happens to come up in conversation ("You mean your girlfriend girlfriend, or like... your friend who's a girl?") I told my mom because we talk about everything and I couldn't keep something like that from her. I haven't told my dad because we don't talk that much and it hasn't happened to come up. I think I did mention my girlfriend last time I visited, but he's so laid back I wouldn't know if he noticed.

I find that if you go out in the world like what you do is perfectly normal, people are far less likely to openly criticise it. It seems to make them feel awkward for thinking there's something wrong with it when you clearly do not. So as far as the mom goes, just tell her that you're happy and isn't that what she wants for you?
 
I don't offer it up honestly, because I don't feel it is really anyone's business, but I don't hide it either, because I don't care.

That being said, I can see how this would be a slippery slope based on your background, family history and upbringing.

The basic rule I have is that if people can't love you for what you are then screw them, they really don't love you.
 
I'm pretty casual about our family. If I have something to mention regarding my girlfriend, I will, just as I would mention something about my husband. If people get confused and ask, I explain. But I don't broadcast it.
 
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