Marie
1. What insight about open relationships do you wish you had when you started?
That each person is an individual. There are no hard fast rules on polyamory. One must work out the parameters of the relationships based upon their own merits and not on rules given by friends or experts.
I am in a bi-amorous situation myself, and my husband has 2 girlfriends and me. His girlfriends are married to other men.
I am married and about a year ago started dating a friend whom I left over a decade before, for my husband. I was also in a relationship at the time with a third man, which was not working out well, but I did not leave him right away.
I nearly did not have a chance at a relationship with my old friend due to some established polyamory rules I’d heard and read that a secondary partner (and we take issue with the term “secondary”, but I’ll leave it here for clarification purposes) should not have a say in possible tertiary partners. We worked it all out, but the “rules of polyamory”, as I’d heard them, were a major source of trouble in the beginning. To this day, my lover does not consider himself polyamorous, as he is monoamorous with me.
2. What has been the hardest thing about opening your relationship, and how have you overcome that?
The hardest thing has been time management and scheduling. Time is definitely the enemy. I wish to be with both of my men more and also to have a life of my own. It’s my own life that is suffering the most from lack of time attending to it.
My husband has made similar sacrifices for his ladies.
3. What has been the best thing about your open relationship?
I have the man back whom I love so much, from before I met my husband. And I didn’t have to shatter my world apart and leave my wonderful husband to get him back.
4. Anything else you’d like to add?
Keep communication open. Realize that people need to enjoy their new relationship energy. Keep loving those whom you love and remind them of this always.
