This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a while. However, it is a sensitive topic, and other people are involved; some directly, some peripherally.
Please read with an open mind. This is about changing relationship models, and ever changing relationships within those new models.
As in my coming out messages to everyone – I’m just going to rip that bandaid off. Teresa and I opened our marriage in April, 2015, and became polyamorous (or poly for short).
For most of you, that term won’t have any real meaning yet. So, allow me a definition.
Polyamory: Polyamory (from Greek πολύ poly, “many, several”, and Latin amor, “love“) is the practice, desire, or acceptance of intimate relationships that are not exclusive with respect to other sexual or intimate relationships, with knowledge and consent of everyone involved. It has been described as “consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy“,[2] and may or may not include polysexuality (attraction towards multiple genders or sexes).
There are other definitions, but this one, from Wikipedia, will suffice for now. It should be very much emphasized that this is not polygamy. A practice largely associated with Mormon church, and almost always misogynistic.
Part of our move away from monogamy was precipitated by my change in sexual orientation. Part of it was from marriage troubles that have been ongoing. Part of it was because we both fell in love with another person (the same person). Part of it was because of my transition. And there were probably a dozen other factors that influenced the decision.
At first, it was something that was joked about or talked about very lightly. Things like, “Now that you like guys, I suppose you’ll want a boyfriend.” Or, “I’d really like to just have that guy experience once in my life.” Or, “It’s just puberty, you want everything that moves.” Or even Teresa saying from the very beginning of our relationship, that if I ever wanted to be with someone else, I just had to be up front about it.
It became more than a joke one night in April. We had mutually fallen for a particular friend, that we wound up having over for a long weekend. She was supposed to stay in the spare bedroom. We cleaned it, put all sorts of comfy, fluffy pillows out, but it never got used. She wound up sleeping with us instead.
And life was grand. Everyone was in love with everyone else. We had no idea how to ‘poly’ properly. We were flying by the seat of our pants, and it turns out, doing so many things wrong.
This triad (as we called it) didn’t last long, as the feelings weren’t all mutual. Yes, we all loved each other, but it wasn’t the same kind of love all around. I was the odd one out. She did not have that romantic spark for me. I had a bad reaction to this, but that’s another story. Eventually things got kind of smoothed out as 2 couples: Teresa and I, and Teresa and her girlfriend.
I discovered a couple things during this time. 1, I don’t really have jealousy issues in the classical sense. 2, I don’t do well when I’m alone, most times.
I had no problem seeing Teresa with her girlfriend. Had no problem being the third wheel at times (I was used to this from other friends). But, when left alone, I was suffering pretty bad depression. In hindsight, a lot of my issues were very likely hormone related – either caused by, or accentuated by. My estrogen levels were very low early on, combined with very very low testosterone levels, combined with elevated progesterone levels. That’s not a good mix, for anyone.
We made a lot of mistakes with this set up. We had no knowledge of what we were doing, thinking that we’d just figure out as we went, and it would work because: love. But that didn’t work out. We had not set up any boundaries, any rules, and especially did not have the required levels of communication that are essential to poly working. (of note, communication is JUST as essential for monogamy to work well).
Eventually Teresa and her girlfriend ended with hurt all around. None of us were in good head spaces for this. Depression, envy, neglect, more depression. It kind of imploded. Out of it, we kind of stayed friends, more or less. As time went on, my friendship with her strengthened. Teresa’s faltered for a bit, but is still there.
On the day that Teresa’s relationship ended, I wound up with my girlfriend.
Getting a girlfriend wasn’t supposed to happen. I was trying to find a boyfriend, at the behest of Teresa and her partner, I had an online dating profile and everything. The search wasn’t (and still isn’t) going that well, but that’s, yet again, another story.
I tried to find a few things to do, I needed to get away. I reached out to someone I’d been talking to online a fair bit at the time, and we seemed to be a lot alike. She was feeling rather lonely, so I asked if she’d put up with me for the weekend (it was a long weekend). She lives a few hours away, far enough to count as getting away.
She said yes, pretty much instantly, which made me very happy. I won’t go into details, but within that one long weekend, we wound up in love. A very strong love in which neither of us have dysphoria with each other.
After a few weekends together, I introduced my girlfriend to my wife. They hit it off quite well, much to everyone’s happiness. It was a similar feeling to our first triad. Eventually though, this too had to end. It was complicating things too much for all of us.
Our relationship has changed over the last half year. She was more tentative, than I, in the beginning. My expressions of love were making her doubt her feelings, and it took her breaking up with me to realize how much she does love me and what I mean to her.
Things aren’t easy for us, with the long distance, and her wife only being mildly accepting of our relationship the way it is. Her wife does like me though, and I like her. So, we respect each other as we go forward with this. The distance is the hardest part. It limits how often we see each other in person. And that will be getting harder as she moves even further away later this year.
My partner and I have been together for over 7 months now. My second longest relationship ever. We are looking for ways to keep the feeling of connection strong as we get further apart physically. We have some ideas going forward, and will make this work.
In the meantime, I’m still looking for that elusive boyfriend and Teresa wound up with another girlfriend for a few months, and then a boyfriend…
At a local get together, Teresa first met her now boyfriend. It took a few meetings for things to actually happen. He’s a great guy and they are very happy together. He and I get along great which is awesome. I can’t imagine what it would be like to not like a partner’s partner. That would make things very difficult.
Our version of polyamory is working for us. We communicate extremely well now and openly about our needs, wants, and desires. We work very hard to respect everyone involved (and seem to be very good at that now – I had some hiccups early on. Sorry Teresa.)
Teresa and I are working at rebuilding what we had. It’s tough. I think currently I’m the biggest problem with that. Or rather my feelings are the biggest problem. I’ve been experiencing something I’m calling ‘relationship induced dysphoria’. When we get too close, it starts to come up. All my memories are of trying to be a man with/for her. When we would get close, more and more often, these memories would come to the surface and make me feel incredibly dysphoric. To the point where I would push Teresa away and say, ‘no.’
Then Teresa would feel rejected, because that’s of course what it was. Not because of her, but how I felt, yet it was still rejection. Then she’d get depressed. Eventually we decided to become non-sexual to stop the hurt all around. For my part, this has helped immensely. I no longer feel pressured, or have this dysphoria, and I can slowly let my mind rework itself.
The other issue we have is miscommunication. We do both try very hard to communicate. There is often a disconnect between us though. This is something we are both working on. I’ve been working on not saying anything while I’m reacting to what’s been said. Teresa is working on not taking my reaction as a part of the conversation. Making sure we understand what the other meant is another part of it. Sometimes we think we’re saying one thing, but that’s not how it’s being received.
Having other people in our lives, is allowing us the space to work on ourselves and rebuild. We don’t feel resentment towards each other for the things we aren’t able to provide.
Many of you will ask why I felt the need to post such information about our private lives.
The simple answer for me is, I develop feelings of shame and guilt very quickly from having to hide aspects of my life. It’s a carry over from years of self denial and the shame and guilt I felt from being myself, and not being able to be out. I *am* proud of who I am. It was still a hard decision because other people are implicated. Especially Teresa, but also our partners are at a slightly increased risk of being outed.