So I know I don’t need a label but I’m trying to sort out some feelings I think conventional society doesn’t give us much room to think about. Pardon the rant. Would love discussion.
I know I’m Pansexual and enby and panromantic. I am in a long term monogamous relationship. But I can fall intensely in love with others, while still being intensely in love with my partner. My partner is monogamous, and I am happy to respect that. I think there is a lot of pressure in media to have to pursue every sexual and romantic desire. They press this message that if you “fall in love” with someone else than you must have also fallen out of love with the other. But I don’t find this to be true for myself.
I’m not sure where I’m going exactly why this. Still working through a nebula. Any thoughts?? Ty!
Edit: I just want to thank everyone for their input and advice. I truly appreciate it. I always figured I was poly I guess. But I don’t necessarily need to be in that kind of partnership. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to be at peace with my “outside” attractions, I’ll sit with it and experience while realizing that I’m not compelled to act on it unless it’s the right thing to do for me and my partner. My partner is definitely monogamous and needs to be the only sexual partner. I’m ok with it. I respect them and love them and I love our relationship.
Even so, I really would like to know more about this part of myself, so I especially appreciate the book recommendation and hearing other experiences.
I’m sorry I haven’t responded to comments, been very busy and will do so tomorrow most likely.
Love you all!
That’s poly. There’s many ways on how to deal with these feelings, but acknowledging them and knowing that these aren’t wrong feelings, nor signs of “wanting to cheat” is definitely the first step.
After that, it’s very important to speak about this with your partner, so they too can acknowledge that this is a thing and can understand ehen you talk about such feelings (in order to make sure they don’t think you’re wanting to cheat). Partners sometimes have a hard time dealing with it, been there, it sucks.
Once you’ve built that transparency, there’s many ways to go. Generally, people tend to try out more open ways of relationships, but there is no such thing as “a universal open relationship”, every has to figure things out by themselves, with their partner(s).
As someone who’s poly herself, I can tell you that anything related to relationships has just turned into “hardmode”.
Either you suppress your polyamory and continue staying in a mono relationship. Been there, it didn’t work out for me long-term.
You can try and open the mono relationship up a bit, defining key things you’re (both) allowed to do. This can include flirting, kissing, non-commiting sexual acts (one night stands), non-commited relationships (“dating” but without any commitment, “I might be gone at any time depending on circumstances with my partner”), dating with commitment (having 2 partners at the same time), in which you can also seperate between having a “main partner” and a “side partner”.
Throughout all of this, open, transparent and completely honest communication from everyone involved is mandatory, setting rules and boundaries and accepting them is essential, communicating clearly to new partners where you stand and how those rules are set is paramount.
Love is a strong emotion, it can make you fly over the skies, but it can also pull you into deepest, darkest depths. It’s your responsibility to ensure that the latter is being limited, for you and everyone involved, basically damage control. You will fail often, but that’s just how love is, in mono as well as poly relationships, although such failures hit you harder when in poly relationships.
One of the most important pieces of advice I can give you is to not be ashamed about this, about being poly, about falling in love with people randomly. It’s the same as with any other thing in the LGBTQ+ space, you can’t decide about it, you just are.
Oh right, and one of my biggest points of advice: never commit to more then 3 partners, ever. The time investment is too high to handle it and you will burn yourself out.
There’s a lot more things I could write, but I guess this is the “poly 101”. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out :)
This is an excellent explanation with so much information that I have learned the hard way! Especially the points about not being ashamed, emphasis on communication and boundaries, and not stretching yourself too thin with too many partners.
Depending on your needs, your partners’ needs, and your (possibly multiple) relationship style(s), I’d say even three partners can quickly become a “full time” endeavor, which could end up with nobody feeling fulfilled if you’re not careful (plus the burnout is a very real threat)
I’d also emphasize more that opening an existing mono relationship to become ethically non-monogamous is a very difficult thing, and it’s very easy for your partner to take it poorly for one of a million reasons/assumptions. The relationship must be very secure and both parties need to be very mature and experienced and open to new ideas for even the conversation about it to end well, in my experience.
I’m not saying to throw out an existing happy relationship when I say this, but I just want to mention that it’s significantly easier to start from the beginning by only dating people who have experience with polyamorous relationships, once you have decided that polyamory is right for you.
It’s the same as with any other thing in the LGBTQ+ space, you can’t decide about it, you just are.
This isn’t an opinion shared by everyone who is ENM! But it makes me personally really happy to read from someone else. Yes, being in a poly relationship is a choice, but at least for me personally, being poly is just as much a core part of my identity as being asexual and panromantic, and just as much a choice (that is… not at all).
For me, I always was and will be poly at heart regardless of being in a poly or mono relationship, and I’ll always feel “incomplete” in a sense unless I can share my love and my life and my passions and struggles with more than just one person. Maybe my anecdote will offer some insights into what you’re feeling, OP.
Having partners who love that you are poly is so much more fulfilling than just having partners who tolerate it begrudgingly or refuse to let you even acknowledge that aspect of yourself.
It takes a LOT of time and effort to manually tear down one’s learned assumptions about what relationships are and should be, and build your own set of relationship guidelines from the ground up, personalized for you and your partners’ needs and desires. But the result of that hard work is more beautiful and fulfilling and true to oneself than any relationship built on traditional assumptions and expectations. (that applies to mono relationships, too)
Good luck on your journey, OP, and I hope you discover what’s best for you and pursue it to live your best life ^^
opening an existing mono relationship to become ethically non-monogamous is a very difficult thing
Now to think about, I should probably also put out the warning that triangles are the “extreme” challenge, so to say. Seen it work out once, and only once, and I’ve seen it fail a few dozen of times, including my own attempts at it.
Tringles should reward an irl achievement ngl
Oh that’s definitely true hehe… it’s probably never a good idea to approach polyamory expecting a triangle relationship or even striving for it… it’s already difficult to find people accepting of polyamory that you are compatible with, let alone two people who you are compatible with who are also perfectly compatible with each other.
My partners are pretty happy barely interacting with each other currently, mostly due to lacking common interests. At best, my partners in the past have been good friends who support each other. Only once was the prospect of a triangle relationship even on the table but that didn’t end up working out due to people drifting apart before we even gave it a chance. and my one poly friend that was in a 4-person polycule only was for all of a month before two people left the relationship.
Realistically, V style relationships (of varying complexity and “chain length”) are much more common and stable in my experience, and I think anyone interested in polyamory should take that into account when setting their expectations.
Dropping a few resources here which touch on the topic of polyamory:
- The multiamory podcast an extensive, long running podcast with dedicated episodes to hundreds of topics on polyamory.
- Everyone classically recommends polysecure which is how to apply attachment theory to polyamory, but I think in this case polywise the newer release by the same author is more pertinent as it’s about navigating changes in relationships - opening up a relationship or changing in some fundamental way how you two (or more) interact with each other.
- The ethical slut which is more about non-monagamy than it is about polyamory (you could argue it can be about hierarchical poly of a particular flavor) but in general it’s good to help start deconstructing parts of the relationship escalator and just what is on or off limits in a relationship.
- Speaking of the relationship escalator, stepping off the relationship escalator is a great book on some of the tenets of relationship anarchy and continuing to help deconstruct them.
- There’s a lot of resources online such as this one on relationship anarchy if you just start searching the web.
Hopefully one or more of these resources will resonate with someone. Would also like to mention as a relationship anarchist and someone who’s been practicing poly for a long time that I’m around if you have questions as well 💜
