Polyamory?
 

I have been away from Menewsha for a long while but I return to seek advice. From my experience Menewshans have always been very open people so I've returned to get some critical options.

I'm 25 year old woman and I'm just getting into my first relationship. I've known my girlfriend (man, I get so excited just typing that!) for about seven years now. Over the last few years I've gone back and forth between being content with being friends with her and wanting to date her over the last few years.

The thing that has been holding me back all this time, you may ask? She's been in a committed relationship with her boyfriend the entire time that I've known her. She really loves him, like to the point of being upset when he's away for just an evening but she's told me that even when she was young she knew that in order to be happy she would need to be in a relationship with both a man and a woman.

She's discussed the prospect of dating girls (I specifically haven't been brought up just yet) with her other and he has said that he is okay with stuff like kissing but if things were to get more intimate then he would want to be involved. I'm not sure how open I would be to being involved with him as well since this is again my first time in any sort of relationship and I don't really have any sort of emotional connection to him.

It's only been a week now since my first time kissing her so I'm not expecting to go rocketing into the deeper stuff yet but I'm trying to do research so I know where to head in all this. Most of these all say that communication is really important but I wanted to see what other people had to say. It's a little stressful having my first relationship be so complicated but she makes me so happy and I'm so thrilled after crushing on her for so long. [love]

Open communication is highly important for any relationship, especially in poly based ones. If you can't communicate with either of them, then the relationship is going to have issues.

The less relationship restrictions there are between you and your new GF, the better off things will be I think. If you have no interest in her BF and don't want him in any intimate situations, then you don't have to agree with it. However, you also don't want to do things behind his back and break any trust/respect between the GF, her BF, and you. This goes back to the communication aspect, you'll have to bring up this concern with them in a non-sexual situation and figure something out. Your interested in a relationship with her, not them both.

Continue to read up on how to have a successful poly relationship. Since you're really new to relationships in general, you're going to have a lot of stuff to learn. Take your time with this stuff and don't try to bottle stuff up. Work through any issues you guys have/might come up in the future.

Resources:
https://www.reddit.com/r/polyamory
https://www.morethantwo.com/jealousypractice.html (I think this is what I read about working through jealousy issues (if you come up across any in the future), but I can't remember :( )
Opening Up (It's a book, haven't read it myself)
Sex At Dawn (again, haven't read it, but I guess this one is more science based too on relationships and non-monogamy)
The Ethical Slut (I'm not a fan of this book and stopped halfway through it because it mostly focused on emotional aspects of the lifestyle, not advice on how to do it successfully. It also came off pretty hippy. However, this title gets thrown around a lot :/ )

Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice! I really want to have an open dialog between the three of us. She's OCD so she's a little worried about bringing up that she'd like to pursue me to her boyfriend. I really tried to encourage her to speak with him as soon as she could because the last thing I want is for him to think that we've been sneaking around behind his back.

I think it should work out because he is pretty easy going and I'm pretty easy going and I already came to the conclusion a while ago that he's always going to be her number one.

And thanks for the resource recommendations. They'll definitely help with my research!

Oh definitely. She's well aware that she is going to need to speak to him regarding this. I want to know what those rules are going to be. The last thing that I want to do is hurt anyone.

I'd really like my first relationship to be as positive as possible despite all the craziness.

The three of you should get together and discuss ground rules. After that, its all about being honest with your lovers and yourself. If they can't comfortably adhere to what you want from the relationship, or if you can't comfortably adhere to what they want from the relationship, then save yourselves the trouble and end things. Just feelings aren't enough for anything- If its clear that you guys don't suit each other's needs from the negotiation phase, then there's no point in going further. "But I love her." doesn't solve any actual problems- People need more than just an emotion to be happy in a relationship, they need it to be expressed in certain and specific ways. If you need something they aren't willing to give, then love doesn't matter, you will not be happy.

It doesn't sound like you want a polyamorous relationship. It sounds like you want an open relationship with this woman, where she has you and her boyfriend as partners of equal status and importance, kept separate from each other. That's not going to be possible with the conditions they've laid down. If you're not comfortable including her boyfriend in your intimate situations- Or if you're not comfortable knowing that he will be having one-on-one intimacy with this woman while you can't- Then this relationship's already failed in negotiations, and the sooner you're willing to admit that to yourself despite your feelings, the better off you're going to be.

Well! Things have been moving along since I last posted here! My girlfriend successfully spoke to her boyfriend about opening up her relationship to include me. He was very nervous at first but over the course of several conversations she was able to explain to him that I had no intentions of trying to steal her away. The talk has actually brought them closer as they're now more comfortable speaking about their feelings and it is my hope that we can establish a solid communication between the three of us.

My girlfriend and I have gone on a private date and I've also gone a date with the both of them as well. Her boyfriend was quite apprehensive the day we went on a date between the three of us but not for the reason I had expected! His main concern was that I would want to be intimate with him as well! It turns out he's actually just super shy! In the several years that I had known him he had always seemed kind of conceited which was why I was initially turned off by the idea of being involved with him. But seeing him in this new light I do feel a little more open to him now.

The date culminated in some smooching which was a little awkward at first but got a little easier as the evening went on. I only ended up kissing her but her boyfriend was super understanding since I'm so inexperienced. I'm thinking on our next date this coming Monday I'm going to give him a shot and see what happens.

I feel really good about the direction things are headed in. We've agreed to try and get all three of us together at least once a week while things are still getting started and try to fit in private dates when they can make it into the schedule. I'm really looking forward to Monday!