Opening up to myself...

mushaboom

New member
I've been on here a few weeks and I've found myself starting posts and then not finishing them because I'm not necessarily looking for direct advice (although I welcome it) but more just support, community and a place to feel safe exploring my own feelings. Hence this here blog. :)

I started realizing that I have always wanted/needed (not sure which it is yet) a poly lifestyle about a year ago when I fell hard for a girl that I worked with, even though I was also engaged to a wonderful guy who I am crazy in love with as well. It first started as a silly drunken confession to my partner to be and slowly over months and months turned into potential triad on its own...he and I knew nothing about what we were doing and we really ended up burning that relationship with our friend mostly because I was just too terrified (and I mean literally TERRIFIED) to ever really bring it up for fear that she would think we were disgusting, awful people. Self-hate much? Yup! There were other issues there too, she hated intimacy in general, hated being touched, hated having anyone do anything for her, which in my head reinforced that everything I was feeling for her was 'wrong'. I ended up telling her how I felt in a text, I know its not very brave or nice but I just couldn't stand it anymore. She ended up taking it worse than I thought - said something about how she would never hide being 'afflicted' with gayness like I had been. It was an especially strange response since she isn't at all religious or conservative and never seemed intolerant of other people being gay. I seemed to have hit a sore spot.

I have been struggling with my sexuality my whole life, not feeling accepted in the gay or straight world, feeling I don't belong anywhere and not having the self-confidence to tell the world to F off. But, I have always always known I was queer and I think I started to stuff those thoughts and feelings in my early teen age years because I didn't think anyone could understand or accept me. I actually did try to reach out to gay friends of mine and they we're just as uncomfortable with my confessions as I was. I was introduced to the perilous perch of the dreaded fence sitter. I would later come out to my long-term boyfriends, one very short lived girlfriend whom I wasn't really attracted to, and a few close friends but it was always a secret.

My friends brutal response was a turning point for me, before her I had always been able to explain away or devalue my attractions to other women, but my attraction to her was just so intense it was impossible to deny. I am really grateful for that experience even though it was pretty painful, falling for her finally got me to confront my sexuality head on and if it wasn't for her I don't know how long it would have taken for me to finally 'come out'.

To be continued...
I hadn't expected to write much about all that but I guess it really needed to be said. But I'm still a year behind in my story. :)
 
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More back story...

I have so much I want to write about and I am having a hard time figuring out how to divide it up into semi-comprehensible blocks. I want to write about my own relationship and understanding of poly. I want to write about my relationship with my partner, A, and how we came to this place in our lives. And I want to write about this new budding relationship we have with our friend K...

The 'failed' friendship I wrote about in my last post was such an eye-opener for A and I. When I told him that I had a crush on our friend, he wasn't furious, he said he thought it was sweet. We started to hang out more and more and more and eventually A admitted to having feelings for her too. There was so much push and pull with her, sometimes it seemed so obvious that she was interested too but then she would completely retreat only to come back again. I really regret not having the internal confidence and external vocabulary to deal with the situation in a more mature way. If only I had found this place then, I know for sure you guys would have whipped me into shape. ;)

Another thing that I did not at all expect was that A and I's mutual interest in her brought us so much closer as a couple. It was so liberating, being able to be honest with each other and enjoy each others autonomy together...(I think that makes sense). It was so intense and there were so many more feelings there than I thought possible. I truly do love him more for it.

After I had finally broached the long over-due subject, the friend immediately went out and got a boyfriend (after seeming entirely uninterested in 'dating' for 9 months or so), we saw each other less and less and now we hardly talk at all. This was three months before A and I's wedding. We went thru a bit of a recovery period during that time but we would talk about how amazing it would be to find something like that again, preferably with someone who was actually interested. ;) Honestly, I felt it was pretty impossible but I daydreamed about it a lot. There is so much stereotyping about "gross" couples looking for threesomes that I just didn't think we could ever get past it. This is when I started doing research into open relationships and learning about poly. I luckily live in a really poly friendly area but couples looking to date together still seem pretty frowned upon.

During that three months before the wedding and the four months after I've been thinking a lot about what my ideal life would be and I'm coming to the conclusion that I would be most happy if I could have both a man and a woman in my life. We'd also done a lot of talking together and we both felt that the most ideal way for us to be in an open relationship is if we could be close with each others metamours (new wold for me) but we really most wanted that experience of being able to share that with the same person. I've been pretty skeptical about the reality of this, I mean what are the odds that we can find someone that we are both interested in thats also interested in both of us, right?...

And then there was K. ;)
 
What to do with the fear? (envy)

Ah!... with the holidays I have been so busy and there has been no time to continue with my tale. I have read so much on here that poly only works when your existing relationships are healthy...and that totally makes sense. What I didn't expect from trying poly was that my primary relationship may not be as healthy as I thought? Or maybe I am not as emotionally healthy as I thought? I think at this point the latter is pretty much a given.

Originally, while he and I both liked the idea of an open relationship, we came about it from different places. He liked the idea of sexual open-ness but was wary of emotional open-ness. And I wanted emotional open-ness and with that comes sexual open-ness (for me). And to be honest, I think I was willing to glaze over the differences to get what I wanted (namely the original girl). He was not at all comfortable with the idea of us dating separately. I didn't necessarily like it but I accepted it as a reality of our relationship.

After our first attempt I had lost all hope that we would find someone who was interested in dating us both. We tabled it for awhile and then my husband started feeling confident that he might meet someone in his new casual work circle. I was still so jaded I don't think I really took him seriously and I lost some good processing time because after about 3 months he had not one crush but two. His first crush moved away for school rather quickly and it was never really a consideration. His second crush, K, came into the picture about two months ago.

A decided he would like to try hanging out outside of work with her and we had her over a couple times. They had a very flirty relationship which A had interpreted as sexual interest on her part and he broached the subject pretty early on. She responded by saying that she wasn't interested in casual sex and she wouldn't be interested in something like that but maybe if she got to know us better. She seemed intrigued for sure. We continued hanging out and the group chemistry started building. It didn't take too long for me to get interested in her too. I think she is fun and cute and actually a really sweet and deep thinking person and I find that really attractive. But she likes to play coy and that really messes with my head sometimes. Also...

Almost immediately, I was on and off fixated on how they knew each other better and had better chemistry than I do with her and very quickly found myself in the FAIR vs EQUAL internal debate. She and I have gone on a few 'dates' alone in my hopes of even things up a bit but I think that I just need to start accepting the fact that I may be on the lesser equal end of our little group. I am so stressed about this that I often have a really hard time being present when I am around her and I am sure that is adding to things. I overanalyze every freakin thing. Right now I feel like A is the fun and flirty one and I am the uber serious, quiet weirdo and I won't lie, I resent that sometimes. I realize that so much of this thinking isn't healthy and that my low self-esteem is to blame but I just don't know how to shake it. (Wow, that was quite a vent.)

Ahh, lol, this isn't finished by any means but I need to get ready for my yoga date with K. Here's hoping I make some more head way with my shyness.

Thanks for listening poly interwebs.
 
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