Along Came Poly

I figured I’d give a little background and current context for my poly relationship(s).

When I was in college, I met an “older man” who identified as poly (I was 21 and he was 34). He was married and he was pretty cool, and so I decided to enter into a secondary-type relationship that was more of a friends with benefits type deal. This suited me fine at the time because I had no deep emotional investment and didn’t really have to deal with any particular feelings of jealousy. I also had no desire to ride ye olde relationship escalator with him.

Eventually I met another a guy, who was monogamous, and I broke things off with Mr. Poly. He was a little upset about it, but I was searching for my relationship escalator guy and most of them are monogamous.

I’ll point out here that I’d consider myself poly-flexible in nature. I’m perfectly happy in either a monogamous relationship or a poly relationship because the pros and cons of each, for me, are about equal. Whatever relationship model works best for everyone to be happy is fine by me.

Anyway – relationship with monogamous guy failed, eventually. Mismatched priorities, long distance, other crazy shit, etc.

So after that failed spectacularly, I wasn’t looking for anything serious. A few months went by with various casual relationships, including a very volatile FWB situation that I should’ve bailed on much earlier (but that’s a story for another time). Eventually, I stumbled across a man on OKCupid who was poly, engaged and who lived an hour and a half away. I figured “Why not? I can do the secondary thing again, and he seems cool.”

That turned out NOT to be the case, as it didn’t take me long to develop some ridiculously deep feelings for him. And at a certain point I realized I was going to have to tell him that I wasn’t able to continue the relationship as it was – I either needed the relationship to be monogamous, or I was going to have to move along before things got more serious. I was honestly expecting us to go our separate ways, because he identified as “naturally” poly (whereas I identify as learned poly).

Luckily (for me, as you’ll see), around that time, his friends had finally started to clue him in on the fact that they had tried for over a year but could not stand his fiancee. Further, if he went through with marrying her, they would likely continue to distance themselves. He was rightfully pissed that no one had told him they felt this way – including his best friend of 15 years! They were also simultaneously saying how much they liked me, and were a huge fan of having me around. I’m not sure if that was just in contrast to his fiancee, but I’d like to think that there was some realistic understanding of how well I meshed with the group.

After much consideration, he broke off his engagement. We continued dating.

Things after that were pretty much a whirlwind. About 2 months after he broke off his engagement, I lost my job (on his birthday), and moved in with him. A month after that, I proposed. 10 months after that, we got married.

We’ve been married for 5 and a half years now, and were monogamous for almost 5 of them, and I can say that throughout that time, I’ve never been more happy and content and less annoyed by any single human being ever. Many couples fight and bicker and argue – but we just don’t. We trade playful insults if the other person isn’t living up to their adult responsibilities, but there’s no malice or resentment there. Before we opened up in January of this year, the biggest disagreement or “argument” we ever had concerned EGGS. Not even kidding.

Our opening up got off to a rocky start. I don’t want to go into those details just yet – I think that deserves its own post or two – but I realize now that I should have gone to a poly-friendly counselor around that time to help me make sense of what I was feeling. After some distance and reflection, I believe that a lot of what I was feeling was not actually caused by the opening up process, but by the mental illness that my meta possessed, which has a tendency to confuse and wreak havoc on the emotions of the neurotypical people around them (Borderline Personality Disorder). My husband was not really affected in the same way, because he’s not actually neurotypical (a little bit on the spectrum).

Anyway – long months of weirdness and ups and downs has led me to where I am today: I have my amazing husband, and I now have my amazing boyfriend.

I feel like I won the lottery for a second time. AND, I met him on OKCupid, too. (Way to go, OKCupid. You’re crushing it!)

The boyfriend and I are not in the “I love you” stage yet – but I feel it building toward that. I honestly haven’t felt this kind of deep connection since I met my husband over 6 years ago.

In contrast, I had a brief, yet passionate, relationship with my best friend when my relationship first opened up in January. Looking back, that seemed more chemical and fanciful. It was meaningful, and one of the more exciting and fulfilling relationships of my life up to that point – but it burned brightly at both ends, and was ultimately doomed by the monogamous nature of my best friend.

This relationship I’m building with my boyfriend seems more permanent. It’s still amazingly exciting, and the NRE is definitely there, and there’s giddiness, but there’s this undercurrent of intense connection that cannot be accurately described.

I’m going to steal from Twilight here (don’t judge me), but my best friend was more like a drug to me, and my boyfriend is like the sun.

With my husband and my boyfriend in my life, it looks like I’m a regular Tatooine over here.