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Polyamory (part 2) - Page 3

post #41 of 56
8/5/05 at 11:31am
Well...EnviroBaby we are on the same coast, which almost never happens, LOL. I am in CT.

Sharlla, I don't ever go out looking for others. We tend to run into people in everyday life. Our dream is isn't a triad so that may be why we are so easy going. We like networks - loose connections that allow everyone to do their own thing within reason.

Dh currently has 2 girlfriends who he sees very rarely because of everyone's schedules and I have been cultivating a new friendship that is very promising and looks like it will move in a new direction as time goes by.

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post #42 of 56
8/5/05 at 6:06pm
Hello..this is one place I have never posted!!! We have been poly for awhile..My husband is hetro and i am bi..we currently have another couple we are involved with..we had a very sweet friendship with the two of them and she and I were lovers off and on..at some point I formed a close realtionship with her husband and DH formed a realtionship with her.. this has been going on for awhile (over a year) and it works very well for us.. we love them both very much and consider them family...
post #43 of 56
8/25/05 at 3:30pm

Hi from Colorado

Hi! DH and I are both bi and poly. We were more active in pursuing partners before we had kids. While we were TTC, we were temporarily monogamous. We haven't had any outside partners since our youngest was born--too much going on in our lives (moved, got married, I started WOHM-ing again). But we have two couples we're friends with that may become lovers as well. One couple we have "played with" before, we sort of lost touch while I was pregnant and recently started getting together occasionally again. The other is a couple we met through our local firespinner/BurningMan community (we're Burners, and DH firespins). They are in a very nicely functioning quad. Both "couples" are legally married, and each has kids, and they all live together in a too-small house in the country. Eventually they'll add on to the house. They aren't poly-fi and other lovers get brought into the "family", but usually they just have sexual relationship(s) with one or two members of the core quad.

Right now, my libido is lower than normal, between BFing and general lack of sleep. DH would really like to pursue poly more actively now, and I have no objection, but I'm not really up for doing a lot about it myself. I don't really want to have a live-together quad or triad sort of setup--I have a hard time living with just DH and kids! But I'd like to have some steady partners ... and I would really love for DH to have a steady male lover, something he misses, but it seems to be rather more difficult to find that a bi female lover for me/us!
post #44 of 56
8/29/05 at 8:33pm
glad to see this thread is still active. We're going to be getting more equal in our relationship now that the baby is here and we're settling in. Just waiting on a place of our own where we can be ourselves.....
post #45 of 56
8/31/05 at 10:55pm
bi and poly here, and married. i feel shy talking about it here, but after seeing so many pages, i thought "go for it." we're TPE as well (includes BDSM) and the BDSM Tribe got shut down after a post on polyamory, so i was worried it's something we can't talk about here. but it's who i am, as a woman and as a mother.

our third moved back to her home state to complete her education, and i miss her! it was so wonderful going through most of my pregnancy with another woman, my husband was understanding but there are some things only a woman can feel, you know? i also miss her because she was a nanny, can't find a more perfect girlfriend than that i would be so happy in a triad, i'm not one to find something on the side.
post #46 of 56
9/2/05 at 3:02pm
Wow, this is a great thread. I am also bi/poly, though I've been pretty vanilla since I was pregnant with my now-7 month old. DP is perma-vanilla (haha) but open to me being with females. Right now that's plenty good enough for me, I just don't exactly have opportunities popping up all over the place when I'm WAHMing with a young baby and am generally a pretty quiet, timid person. Any good suggestions, anyone? Surely I'm not the only one whose hit a brick wall (right? right? oh dear...)

:
post #47 of 56
9/2/05 at 4:38pm
I just wanted to say hello in here. I've posted on one of the poly threads before, but there's a bunch of new people here!

We've been poly 3 years. I've been in an LDR with a guy in Toronto for 2 years. Dh has had a couple of attempts at relationships with women who turned out to be various shades of unhinged, plus some unserious flings. He has bad luck, and I'm shy, so this all hasn't been going quite as planned. Of course, the utopian plan is to find a woman who's near my bf that we all get along with and form the perfect quad, but I don't believe life's gonna throw that at us anytime soon.

bjorker: try okcupid.com? It's the best matchmaker site I've found so far, and even if you don't find someone on there, the quizzes are lots of fun.
post #48 of 56
9/3/05 at 1:22am
paquerette-- thanks for the suggestion, but I'm already on OKcupid, haha. and I love the quizzes and all the match questions too. :P I have seen some pretty interesting sounding people on there, but I always get a little intimidated just reading what they have to say about themselves and what they're looking for :P
(sigh)
I'll get there... it's a slow process.

Thanks though Good luck in your quest!
post #49 of 56
9/7/05 at 4:24pm
Heyo, Poly-Curious here *If there's any such term lol if not I just invented it*

I'm married, love my DH to bits. But....you know???

He's not open to it...

It's hard to explain...really....

I am bi-curious, and have had a few experiences with females, enjoyed it....

Argh...

: I dunno...I'm wierd....I can't articulate it properly because I don't know how....
post #50 of 56
9/7/05 at 6:26pm
my fiance and i have been together for 4 years. meeting him was the first exposure i ever had to either polyamory or bisexuality. (he is bi.) personally, i have never known other bi, gay or poly people. i have been bicurious for about 23 years, but never actually knew there was a term for it. i thought i was just weird. since i have never known anyone else in my position, i have made it a point not to ever become close to any women. i have never had a female friend, let alone a girlfriend. the only person i know in real life who knows about my attraction toward women is john. i expect it will stay that way.
one thing that makes me sad is the fact that john considers himself poly, and would like to have a poly family, with BOTH of us being involved. i just don't see it happening, but i don't want to squash his dream flat. i mean, i'm 45, and have never met any real-life bi women or men. i have no interest in men at all, with the exception of john. and not a soul is ever going to know about my interest in women, least of all any women.

roxanne
post #51 of 56
9/10/05 at 1:01am
Hi all,
Glad to see this thread as well. Dh and I are both bi and have made attempts at relationships in the past but nothing has ever worked out. We've found that lots of folks talk about relationships but all they really want to do is play. Also, its hard to find others with kids and for us anyway, its hard to relate to non-parents.

We stayed in the scene, but slowed down, while I was pg with dd and just recently have started to get back in the swing of things. Dh met someone, a friend of a friend, and they have really hit it off. This guy and his girlfriend came over for dinner and brought their ds night before last and we all had a great time. The kids hit it off and she and I got along great! I've already met the guy and he's wonderful. So, we'll see. If nothing else, we've found some great, like-minded friends.
post #52 of 56
9/13/05 at 1:40am
Thought I'd try and go beyond our stories here and try to get some discussion going. I've so wanted to talk about this with some like-minded folks. My poly friends are mostly childless so I can't talk with them about many aspects of our life.

I'm wondering about how folks have become active after having babies. Like I mentioned in my previous post, we'd very much like to find a couple who we click with, a regular thing. But we also do like to just play some. We are members of a local private club and enjoy evenings out there.

We went out once together when gma was in town a few weeks ago. Had a fabulous time, danced, talked, played, just really let loose. It was incredible. Then last Saturday I went by myself. It was a fetish night and I got all dressed up in my finest. I felt incredible heading out.... I only stayed for about an hour. I felt lonely and woefully out of place. It was such a bizzare feeling. I'm one of those people who can walk into a room full of strangers and make friends instantly. I was with people I've known and enjoyed for at least a couple of years and felt so out of place. When I got home dh was waiting up for me and I just broke down crying. After talking through it I decided that I simply wasn't ready to go out on my own. I felt like I should be home with my baby but I wanted to be out.
And so that leaves me torn....

I'm so ready to be active again. My sex-drive and desire are as high as ever. Including others in our life hightens the intimacy between the two of us - I'm sure you can all understand this. Dd is just too young for us to go out, which is really fine as clubs aren't our favorite way to be involved with others, but it is fun and sometimes the only alternative.

So....anyone want to share some experiences on keeping your non-vanilla lifestyle alive after a baby break?
post #53 of 56
9/13/05 at 10:07am
Well, Umm I'm TRYING to get it moving again. See, DH is the first guy I've been with since DD was born. *DD's bio-idiot is NOT DH* And we've had discussions about bringing others into our lives. He said, point blank *And I was soooo suprised because he has come off as amazingly vanilla* "I wouldn't mind it, but not right now, we are still in that newlywed phase and we really need to get used to each other a bit better first, before bringing in other people"

So, He IS open to it. heck his opening line to the convo was "Let's address this elephant in the room shall we?"

:
post #54 of 56
9/13/05 at 3:39pm
John and I have only been together for 4 years. Before I met him, I never knew anything about "lifestyles" or "swinging" or "polyamory", etc. Never realized that people actually BOUGHT "toys" and used them.... had never seen an adult movie.... heck, when my older kids were little, I never let a movie into the house unless it was rated "G".
It appears that my ignorance has caused/is causing John to suffer. I am open-minded, to be sure, and want him to feel free to explore however he wishes. But it's been very hard for me to get into any of it. I feel like my sexual development was arrested at 14 or so, when you giggle and snicker at anything to do with sex. Like it's just for adults, and I don't feel like I'm an adult yet. (I'm 45.)

Anyway, the point of my post is to say that John wants to get into some of this stuff, and I want him to have the freedom to do so, but I don't feel like I can be part of it. Having a 2 year old, not being willing to use babysitters, and having a small trailer to live in rather complicates things in that respect. And we're getting older and less functional; John is 52, and having some issues with impotence, so I feel like he doesn't have a lot of time to wait until I'm "ready". Has anyone else ever felt like this? I love John, and want him to be happy and enjoy life. He's poly at heart; me, I don't think I'm capable of it.... I've only ever been in love once in my entire life, and that's with him.

Roxanne
post #55 of 56
9/26/05 at 3:30pm
Quote:
Including others in our life hightens the intimacy between the two of us - I'm sure you can all understand this.
For me, having had an "adventure" makes sex in general more exciting for a while. It's possible to have that feeling of adventure w/my longterm partner, but it doesn't happen much. For him, knowing that another man he likes/respects/admires finds me attractive is very exciting! He likes to hear about what happened, and I like to tell him...but it can get tricky for me if the other partner doesn't want me to share details. Another thing that happened in my last serious other relationship was that spending a weekend w/my other guy enhanced my appreciation of EnviroDaddy and the way he and I agree on almost everything! Not that I was arguing a lot w/my other guy, just that we didn't have the same feeling of harmony, and he had some living habits that would've driven me crazy in a longer period of time.

Maigheach, it isn't unusual for one partner in a relationship to have additional relationships while the other doesn't. It's worked out that way for us by circumstance, but we know some couples in which (as one of them put it) "If you draw a diagram, he's an intersection, and I'm an endpoint." It's a fine arrangement as long as both of you are happy. If you are comfortable being supportive of John's involvement w/other women, tell him to go for it!
post #56 of 56
9/26/05 at 6:39pm
Hi All! Glad to see this thread getting active. We had a lot of baggage to work through, but we are back to a peaceful, loving triad. C is doing alot better health wise, and I credit that to getting out of the factories and away from the chemicals and the stress... and that has eased a bunch of stress from all of us.

Miss Emma is doing beautifully. Right now she's dozing in her bouncy seat while I peruse *my* boards and catch up the laundry. She truly is blooming and is such a peaceful, loving baby. Just holding her takes away all the stress and makes the world feel more right. And I'm not the only one who says so, so it's not all mamma pride. She is just as comfortable and happy as can be most of the time. Except maybe at her four am feeding. That's the one that usually takes us a while to wake for. {i'm not blessed with mama radar and don't pop awake the minute one of the girls rolls over or whines} The other girls are doing alright. They are having adjustment issues due to the rapid changes, but now that we are in a more peaceful enviroment, they are starting to make alot of progress.

As for our tri-union... as I said, we've resolved alot of our issues, and things are going so much better. We need to talk alot more, but things are on the right track. I'm in the process of trying to find vows for to dedicate to them, or at least ideas... C and I are still planning to divorce legally, since it's not a matter of *if* Tony is going to get deployed, but when. His hitch isn't up til 2008, so we know it's going to happen. And when it does, he wants the kids and I protected. Which to him means making our union the legal one so that the girls and I are entitled to TriCare, and if the worst happens, that we'll have enough to get by on and put the girls thru school...

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Mothering › Mothering Discussion Forums › Parenting › Life as a Parent › Queer Parenting › Polyamory (part 2)