Polyamory

Post Reply New Topic

I find monogamy difficult. Relying on only one person for all the love and support I need is draining.

I have only met 2 men in my lifetime that I could consider being polyamorous with, and not in the man on man way but rather comfortable sharing a partner with emotionally. This is something of a "Eureka!" moment for me too because I've been exclusively heterosexual the entirety of my life however there have been two instances where I've met individuals that triggered a sort of weird emotional response:

The first occurred when I was 19, his name was Grey. We were introduced by a friend at a party and then bumped into each other a few times in town. Each time we met I inexplicably treated him like a girl I wanted to date, we'd go to lunch, I'd offer to pay, I sort of "gazed" at him while we spoke, I found him very engaging but away from him it was very jarring. I related the sensation to a female friend and when she met him she asked point blank if he had a "guy crush" on me and he said "totally." When I heard that I just sort of shut down because I didn't know if that was going to cause my whole understanding of my own sexuality to spiral out of bounds or what, then we just stopped meeting and lost touch.

The next occurred after I joined the military at about 22. By then I was more comfortable with myself and I met a guy named Ian. He had a look and way about him that made me immediately think of offering to buy him dinner, I recognized the feeling but wasn't so put off by it because I knew (after all the self analysis previously) there was no physical attraction. We went on to our job training together and just became good friends.

For some reason, I sense that with those two specifically I would feel no sense of competition, perhaps because I would be just as concerned with their needs being met as my own or our partner's. As for women, it's totally sexist but the more the merrier. Honestly, I've been in a number of relationships where the girl found it frustrating to be so often confronted by my libido, perhaps if they were comforable with a poly relationship my "needs" would seem like less of a burden since they'd be sharing the load.

PS HAAA! Load...

I'm glad you think that's normal, when I was young I used to cover my cereal bowl when my mum walked by; she thought I was a freak! I want to point out that I didn't mean air going on my food as an analogy so much because that does sound crazily possessive but if a woman I'm with is carrying another guy's presence on some level I would feel like I'm also sleeping with him, it does seem like territorial marking but I don't want to mark her for myself just not to be carrying the presence of anyone I don't want to sleep with, maybe it's quite natural to feel that way or maybe not I don't know. I just wanted to say that for people who didn't understand others saying they could share a woman with another woman but not a man as they're not bi.

I can't really do monogamy. One person needing me to take care of all their emotional stuff whenever they demand. CAN NOT HANDLE. I have no idea how people do it. Also, I'm emotionally incapable of jealousy, which is nice.

Right now, I have a husband (we've been married a 1 1/2 years, together for 3 1/2 years) and a live in boyfriend. My husband and I share a room, we have a roommate, and my boyfriend has his own room (huge 3 bedroom place in chicago). My boyfriend isn't seeing anyone else seriously at the moment, but fools around with a girl my husband is seeing from time to time. My husband also has a budding relationship with a guy we know who lives about 2 hours away, and that seems to be going well.

For me, it's really nice to know that I have NO obligations to take care of people's emotions. If my husband needs a cuddle, and I need alone time, he has two other options. If I'm in a cuddly mood, and my husband isn't, I can always cuddle with my boyfriend in his bed.

My hubby has a dad and brother with aspergers, and has a lot of symptoms himself, but we're still not sure if he's on the spectrum or if it's just the result of being raised around aspies and only ever having dated aspies (I was his 4th relationship, all aspies before). My boyfriend has ADHD & OCD, and our quirks mesh very nicely. I love being in a house full of understanding, loving people, willing to give me all the space/cuddling I want.

^^^Likes the above post.

******************************************************************************

Check out my IMDB page!

Since my previous post, I have been contemplating proposing that my boyfriend and I have a more open/fluid relationship because I do not want to lie/cheat on him..we do not live together...likely never will...and I have been lonely...and have been playing in my band with my 2 exes, and on different levels, they are both kinda agressive..Pressure comes from the loneliness and the draw I have towards (mainly my good friend/ex)..absence makes the heart grow fonder..and all..My boyfriend is kinda distant...I have had some issues while adapting to this...and experienced some intense profound loneliness, as I am used to being closer to previous partners than i am to him...He admits to only needing to see someone just part of the time, while I notoriously tend to fixate a lot more..
Fixating seems to cause problems...it did in my previous relationship....If there were allowably something to divide my affections, then I would hopefully not be so plagued by my fixations....Also, it might take some pressure off of my boyfriend who may not be in love with me, even though he acted so strongly when I tried to bring up the issues that it seemed to establish to me that we could not ever talk about our relationship...and that caused me a good deal of pain...anyway...I resisted poly when i was poly..the circumstances just weren't quite right...lately i have changed my tune...
I am scared to bring this up with him, because I don't want to upset him/lose him..But I don't want him to feel like he is trapped in our relationship in particular if he not comfortable with it...not being able to communicate is tough...

That being said..How does one make such a proposal? When it was first put upon me, it caused me a great deal of distress...I would not wish to put that kind of distress on another person..
Bear in mind..I am a childlike person with a shoddy theory of mind...and the way that polyamory was presented to me was absolutely terrifying...I have a lot of chaos in my life, and while I am arguably not as rigid as some AS people, the concept initially seemed like an invitation for an uncomfortable level of chaos...I could not grasp how my business partner would want to be with me and another person...and not leave me for that person....it really freaked me out....

Because it freaked ME out, I don't see how I could make another person receptive to it without making them resentful of me the way I was resentful of my business partner.

When I first started dating my friend, I was at my wit's end with my business partner. My romantic feelings for him were rather broken...I had gone through an extreme amount of stress...and i felt very broken...there were other things going on..like our businesses which created a situation that there was no escaping from...

Anywhoo...um..

I had to fight tooth and nail to get to see my "boyfriend" (my good friend) on a regular basis...I could not follow his notion of having him as a "secondary"...my romantic feelings were for him...and my business partner meanwhile was fighting to mantain his posture as "primary"....but my feelings for him were reallly torn up...

Moral of story..there is a right and a wrong way to do "poly"...just like there is with monogamy......yaaar....dunnow...


it is a scary thing to risk hurting someone you care about over...at the same time if one's emotional/physical needs are not being met by one person, one must eventually have to make certain decisions...or reassess one's emotional/physical needs....

My head is wired a certain way because I had bad things happen to me when I was young.....so maybe my perception of things is totally off the rocker.....

I feel like I must be really crazy/screwed up sometimes....

The older I get, the more the concept of polyamory sounds appealing. I don't know if I would get jealous. I guess I wouldn't know a lot of things unless I actually tried it. Different people can complete you in different way. It seems inherently unfair to expect one person to fulfull all your needs for life

I'm too possessive and jealous to handle someone assuming my husband's affection. While I can laugh off someone flirting with him (it happens a lot), I'd have a problem if I saw him feed into it and respond in kind. I still have impulses and desires to act on my attraction to other people and I'm sure he must have the same impulses, but I couldn't act on it in good conscience and I know he couldn't either. He doesn't even like the idea of me dancing with someone else, which I think is a bit extreme but I can honor him by simply not dancing with other men when I go out with friends. We are definitely not the kind of people who could be polygamous the way it's supposed to be. We'd mess it up and end up divorcing.

The presumption being that "everything" necessarily involves wanting to be with other people besides each other?

That's obviously utterly-false. Claiming that monogamy is de facto not what any one person, or two people within a relationship, are desirous of is no more defensible than forcing monogamous behaviors on those who don't wish to be.

I as a quite Aspie female want monogamous marriage. Children. Cohabitation. Lots of physical affection. The whole nine yards.
As did my extremely Aspergian male ex fiance-
the implication that a non-typical neurology results in preference for polyamory is reliant on the presumption that the things you mentioned-
non-ambiguity, honest, and complete disclosure-
are somehow rendered impossible by monogamous relationships.

They're not.

Wow! A year-and-a-half after making this post, I may be on the verge of entering into a Polyamorous relationship!

At first i thought i might like being in a relationship with two people at the same time but when I really stopped and thought about all the hard work in maintaining the relationship there was, it really discouraged me. mostly because i'm lazy!

That's great! What kind of polyamorous relationship is it--are all the partners dating each other, or is it an open relationship, or is it a pyramid-type thing?

I'm too jealous a person to every be in a poly relationship. Even a closed one (poly-triangle I guess you could call it).

I have thought about it but I don't think I can maintain a polyamorous relationship.
I'm pretty monogamous.

You are not open to a poly relationship... you are open to a threesum...