explore polyamory

Feh. My primary partner, who had already seemed to be surprisingly okay with this, is suddenly not sure whether he can come with me being with anyone else after all. It varies a lot, sometimes he can’t see anything bad with the fact I love others and at other times it feels like a big threat to him. And he’s really afraid of losing me if he can’t cope with this, and I can’t really comfort him there.

Well, I said he’d been surprisingly okay with this, because I felt the whole time that maybe he hadn’t processed this to the level where it touches his emotions. I don’t want to compromise what feels like the sanest and healthiest way for me to live, I don’t want to lose my new lover, but I also don’t want to lose my primary.

There’s no way to really make it okay for him except to be there for him, support him and love him and assure him I love him even though I love other people as well. I’m hoping for the best and fearing the worst.

I can really say we’re fully polyamorous now! I have a second partner, my primary doesn’t but is free to any time he meets someone he’s interested in. Here’s hoping everything will go well!

I don’t know exactly when this goal is “done”, as it’s a process. But maybe when the situation’s stabilized a bit more and we all know we can pull this off in the longish term.

I’d say my partner and I are more than half way on our road to real polyamory: I have another love, even though we’re not really sexual with him just yet.

And everything seems to be going more or less perfectly, at least this far! Of course it’s hard to figure out our limitations and how to compromise so that everyone gets what they want and nobody gets badly hurt, but we seem to be doing all right. I love being mature enough to do something like this, and that both my parents are so grown-up and supportive, too!

This is beyond my wildest dreams. We’ve been taught from so early on that monogamy is the only option that it’s hard to follow your dreams if they point to another direction. But we’re doing exactly that: making dreams come true.

But I’ve been really thinking about it for ages in the back of my mind. It seems to make so much sense to me, even if it seems so nonsensical in terms of “regular society.” But I must proceed with caution! I don’t want to hurt the people I love.

I’m currently very frustrated about this. I want to go and see how it would be to have a polyamorous life, but my partner won’t say yes or no. And I’m afraid that might mean “no but afraid to say it”. I don’t know what to do if I can’t do it in this relationship. I really don’t want to leave my partner, but I also don’t know if I’m cut out for monogamy!

I guess I need some patience. But it’s summer, my hormones are racing, and I really need me some excitement. Not this stagnation.

Like monogamy, polyamory can be quite rewarding and fulfilling. And like monogamy, being poly takes lots of work. In fact, a lot of the things one can say about being monogamous, one can apply them to poly as well. Neither arrangement is easy - they both require lots of patience, determination, and of course love. And neither arrangement is for everyone - we’re all wired differently, we all need different things from others, including our dearest ones. So, one arrangement isn’t better or worse than the other, in objective terms, it’s just different. Both should be respected as valid and neither one should be favored above another. (Now if only the government could see it this way.)