I'm Poly!

I’ve never been one of those people only interested in one person at a time. It just never happened. I always fancied other people. I always developed crushes on other people. Until I met my husband, Nic, I never even bothered trying to control them. I bent the boundaries of fidelity with all of my partners. This is an impressive feat because I haven’t been single in over twenty years. (How did I get so old?) With one of my partners, Ben, I had what most would call an open relationship. We both made out with other people while we were dating. At one party we both spent the night in sleeping bags with other people in the same room. It always felt very normal, but I knew it wasn’t, not what most people think of as normal anyway. All the time I was dating I had never heard of polyamory, I just assumed I was a bit of a tramp and I hadn’t met the right person.

When I met Nic I was sure I would struggle with being monogamous, but I knew after six months that Nic was the guy I wanted to marry and spend the rest of my life with. At the back of my mind there was always a sneaking suspicion something would go wrong. Gradually, after a few years of being married I began to retreat into myself, to hide, to avoid meeting people I thought I might find attractive (emotionally or physically). I became miserable. My husband noticed, I noticed, my friends noticed. None of us could really get to the bottom of it. Then one day, through some strange google searches, I encountered the Wikipedia polyamory entry. I spent the next few days crying. I new instantly, deep in my gut, that my sexual identity was poly. Of course I hid it from everyone, including Nic, while all the time devouring everything I could find online.

A year later I met Paul. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, this is what I had with Paul. At least it seemed like it. We tried not to do anything, but we did. We spent 24 hours together, doing everything but vaginal or anal intercourse. After nine years of monogamy I had finally cheated.  Cheating is cheating, poly or not. I haven’t seen Paul since, and this happened over a year ago (it still hurts to think of what might have been). I told my husband I was poly immediately after the event. It took me a couple of weeks for me to confess everything that happened, but I did. I learnt about the importance of honesty and communication the hard way. For many months we had a difficult time, but we grew as individuals and as a couple, emotionally and physically. We went to a poly therapist and she helped us more than we thought possible. My husband forgave me. Most amazingly of all, my husband accepted that I was poly. If I had told him earlier, maybe I’d have never cheated, maybe Paul and I would still be in touch. But that is a thought for another day. In this blog I plan on elaborating on parts of my story, not only my poly story, but also my kink story. As my poly story goes, this isn’t a bad start.