nomonogamylove

Sharing my thoughts and experience about being in a poliamoric relationship

[nomonogamylove]

[nomonogamylove]

Ultraviolence

Recently I found out that Lana del Rey used to be a part of an underground sect while living in New York. Her song "Ultraviolence" is about her feelings towards Jim - the leader of the group, who believed, that in order to become a new person, one has to kill the old version of him/herself. Those are my favorite lines:

'Cause I was filled with poison But blessed with beauty and rage Jim told me that He hit me and it felt like a kiss Jim brought me back Reminded me of when we were kids

Jim raised me up He hurt me but it felt like true love Jim taught me that Loving him was never enough

I personally find the lyrics emotionally truthful, considering the fact, that she was trying to get rid of her alcohol abuse and thus was searching for help. During bad times any help seems to be beneficial, however, it's hard to differentiate a bad influence from a good one. Would you be able not to fall for ultraviolence?

[nomonogamylove]

Confidence is a key: you can drive an expensive car and still feel insecure inside or you can drive an old-school bike, but feel yourself on the top.

[nomonogamylove]

Evolution of feelings

Today I want to share some observations regarding how my feelings for Giulia evolved during the past 10 months.

Phase 1: Interest

When Rafael said, that he met a girl he got interested in, I had nothing against their friendship. Later he introduced her to me, she seemed pretty, intelligent, and polite. She also mentioned that she likes girls. That was one of my fantasies and I started dreaming about it while making love to Rafael.

Phase 2: Close friendship

It was summer 2020 and we've been spending a lot of time together, going on hikes, traveling around Austria, sleeping over, watching movies, having tee ceremonies, baking, meditating, and having deep conversations. She even introduced us to her cousin, at that time we decided to be together.

Phase 3: Affection

I fell in love with Giulia, though one would hardly see it like that because my love language is quite specific. It was a pleasure exploring the world of love between women and how it is much more fragile than the one between different sexes. We were showing affection to each other and she was doing a lot to make me happy. Unfortunately, I was blind to see it.

Phase 4: Jealousy

From the moment I saw how Rafael and Giulia look at each other I realized that there is no way back. Something rather innocent and childish turned out to be a radical change in our lifestyle and views on relationships. I found it hard to accept, it didn't feel like me and rather seemed like someone else is taking over my decisions. I felt hurt and unheard. I did one of the worst things one could do - I started comparing myself to Giulia and got very insecure. Jealousy made me blind to see all the efforts Rafael and Giulia were making in order to comfort me, I was constantly rejecting their love.

Phase 5: Break down

Jealousy destroys the relationship if you're not able to control your emotions. Back then together with my anger issues, I was like a machine gun. Feelings between me and Giulia were reaching their end, I couldn't understand her art of communication anymore. Almost every time we meet, we would have a fight. We all were getting very tired of this and soon decided to break up.

Phase 6: Dudgeon

Giulia left us with very hard feelings on her heart, she felt mistreated and disrespected by me. I felt incensed. Rafael lost his power and motivation to keep trying, I never saw him so down. It was February - the most depressive time of our relationship, no one knew what is going to happen next.

Phase 7: Rejection

After our break up I hoped that we can turn back to a monogamous life, but Rafael was persistent regarding his intentions. He found himself naturally loving two people and that was his final decision. I felt unheard again. They started to meet again, but this time without me, it did hurt me even more despite the fact, that it was my intention to break up with Giulia. So I decided to keep my eyes closed on the whole situation and pretend, that Giulia and everything that happens between her and Rafael simply doesn't exist. It was another attempt to deal with jealousy, however, it ended up quite unsuccessful.

Phase 8: Understanding

Slowly my wounds started to heal and I was able to have a proper conversation with Rafael. Since I decided that I am not going to leave him, I had to learn how to accept both him and Giulia. I started asking questions about his feelings and the efforts he put to build relationships with two women at the same time. I finally saw how hard it was for him. Moreover, I started to show my interest in Giulia again, I missed her but was still rejecting it.

Phase 9: Transformation

In order to understand my beloved one even better, I signed up for Tinder to find people with the same mindset as us. First, it was an attempt to find another open-minded couple and have a sexual experience with them, however, our excitement burn down pretty fast. Then I was meeting other people all alone, but it all seemed wrong because none of them had any experience close to what we were going through. On the other hand, I gained a lot out of this experience - I got proof, that traditional monogamous relationships don't work for too long. Willing or not people tend to cheat, divorce, or switch to polyamoric relationships in the end.

Phase 10: Acceptance

Right now when I went through the whole evolution of feelings and emotions I feel a completely different person: strong, assured, loving, responsible, and peaceful. All the rules I was setting to my partners and all the blame I was putting through anger on my beloved ones seemed pointless and was only showing my insecurities. There is still a great amount of work I have to complete, but the steps I made so far made me finally fully accept Rafael and Giulia. I feel love instead of pain, and even when I get sad, it's much easier to get off this feeling. What is more, I see Giulia from a different angle now, I want to put right the wrongs even though our relationship reached a completely another form. But this is part of the chain of events that led us to a complete understanding and acceptance.

[nomonogamylove]

Tinder dates

Lately, I am quite confused regarding my experience with Tinder which makes me question myself: "Why do people use it?". Why do some say that they are looking for a stable relationship, but in reality, seek a quick fuck? Why some would find their "true love" there and get married? Why do others pretend to be open-minded or in a polyamorous relationship, whereas they don't even know what they actually want?!

I am so tired of meeting people, talking to them, finding out that we have common interests, getting inspired by them, and in the end finding out that they are lost inside. Since when polyamory became a trend to hide from boring monogamous relationships? It makes me so sad about all the people, who are stuck in toxic reality regardless of the art of relationship they are in. It's unhealthy to destroy each other lives and still staying together just because we're used to it, so-called "love out of comfort".

My actual intentions on Tinder were to find people, who are sort of in the same situation as I am with Rafael and Giulia. Probably Tinder was never even meant for it.

[nomonogamylove]

Are we making a love revolution? Are we "The Dreamers"? Maybe it's only between the three of us, but that's just the beginning. I saw this love growing, I see this love maturing, it tastes different now. But it feels right and definitely much more honest than any other feelings the majority of people pretend to call a "relationship".

[nomonogamylove]

Preferences in polyamorous relationships

When both partners choose to transform their monogamous relationship into a polyamorous one, they aren't expecting the unpredictable outcomes they might need to cope with. But people change. In the beginning, I and Rafael were pretty sure that we can share love with the same person. Later it turned out to be just the two of them together.

A polyamorous relationship means that each partner can enjoy the freedom of sharing feelings with other people. In our case, Rafael knew that I am an amateur in open relationships, but then I gave him a delightful surprise. After endless attempts to find the sacred meaning of this freedom, I discovered something that arouses me at the mere mention of it. And I've decided to take a risk no matter what because this is something I felt right about for a long time.

It did hurt him, but he gave me all his understanding and support. Rafael - the talented Mr. Ripley, who always has a plan or can predict the logical outcome, failed to see that things I want might be much more dangerous than his. So what if it happens that your partner has different preferences in an open relationship and you weren't invited to join the game? This is the moment you and your partner have to give the best out of your communication skills and let them feel love from your side.

Switching to a polyamorous relationship we agreed that we'll do everything together, the so-called "partners in crime". But since the break up with Giulia, it doesn't work like this anymore. Rules changed and we changed. And all the time we've been working on our relationship by adjusting ourselves to each other and improving our communication. This is extremely hard work, but it has its fruits: our love is big, we didn't lose our trust, we rapidly grow together and our passion increased even more.

[nomonogamylove]

Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl. Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.

Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

[nomonogamylove]

Feelings under question

Some would say my life is damn interesting and exciting, why would I even complain about it? I have a man who loves me, he has a girl he likes and that makes him love me even more, because I don’t limit him in his wishes. And he does EVERYTHING for me. But then why do I feel this heavy stone of pain somewhere close to my heart?

Recently my mood goes up and down as a rollercoaster, some days I feel high about myself, some days I think about death. Sometimes I reach the point of wanting to kill him, her, myself, that’s how I would describe jealousy. And this bitch is sitting inside of me since the beginning, not letting me be fully happy and enjoy the moment.

I can go on dates (perks of the non-monogamous relationship), last week I had five of them and got to know some people, who are going through the similar transformations. But I often question myself:

“What the hell am I doing, huh?!”

“Is it what I wanted in my life?”

“Am I happy with this person?”

Rafael is the best man I ever had in my life, with him I open myself, grow and learn something new every day. I used to think that he will be the man I am going to marry, but right now I feel struggle. The way we decided to build our relationship caused a total change inside of my mind, I had to change myself to adjust to him. But I totally lost myself and my inner harmony, is it a sign of going the wrong path?

I need some time to reassume many things, so I have to go away for a while. I miss my small little space, where I could be on my own.

[nomonogamylove]

Feels like I am swimming in my own grief, enjoying these sad songs and finding myself in a constant state of blues.

Vera

[nomonogamylove]

What if everything that happens in our life is meant to bring us to our final destination? The reality doesn't always go together with our plans, instead it gives us challenges and makes us leave our comfort zone. As a result we grow and are able to see things from different perspectives. We start understanding what we couldn't understand before and thus our boundaries expand. I never really knew what I want to do in life, but apparently my life was always giving me a variety of choices to try. Now I can finally see, that all the difficulties I faced for the last few months are carrying a significant meaning for my future.

Vera

[nomonogamylove]

[nomonogamylove]

Do polys fight?

Of course they do and quite a lot. I would be surprised hearing someone that their ménage à trois works without any issues. If in a traditional relationship we struggle to deal with just one person, imagine how is it when you are three people. 

Lately we all had quite a difficult time with very little understanding. I started to be jealous and losing my trust, which consequently affected the trust of Giulia. Why her? Because our feelings changed. Particularly my feelings to her, which made her feel unwanted and cold. I fully understand it could brake her affection, but how could someone buy love? During the last months going through good and bad I was gradually realising, what I really want and how I feel. It appeared that my love towards Giulia is platonic and could be expressed only in a way of close friendship. But they wanted more, so what did I do?

I lost my temper and made them feel guilty for all they did, because it felt unnatural for me. Giulia appeared to be unprepared to deal with serious conflicts and escaped. But that’s not the worst she did. Do I regret? No. Do I respect her move? No. Do I blame her? No. She had a huge amount of pressure from other people and felt scared, people were telling her it’s a mistake. Hard to be with a couple without having an experience in relationships, that’s not honey and once you step into this challenge you should be aware of the difficulties.

I made my conclusions and I am still willing to continue the life we chose with Rafael. I love him very much and see us growing every day more and more. It was our first try and we learned from our mistakes.

Just feels somehow empty without her, I miss her, remembering our good moments together.

[nomonogamylove]

[nomonogamylove]

And how often do you fight in polyamoric relationship? How often do you show your real face or do you rather stay polite? What are your limits?

[nomonogamylove]

Why the majority won’t understand us?

This morning I’ve been discussing with Rafael, why the society has such a big influence on how the standard relationship should look like and why for the open-minded people like us it is harder to cope with it.

We found an answer in Maslow’s pyramid: all three of us are already between stage four and five, each of us still has to develop one or another need, but the first three needs are already achieved. When I first met Rafael, I was working on my need for belonging and love, now I feel it on the top.

The problem is, that the majority is craving for love, many people are pushed to be in a relationship, because else they won’t fit in the trend of successful couples. Others judge, gossip and throw weird looks, claiming that polyamory is an abnormal way of relationship, where people cheat and betray each other.

This is why people, who didn’t fully complete their stage three, won’t be able to understand and accept us. You have to master something first to be able to move on.

[nomonogamylove]

2020

I spent my last day of 2020 with the most beautiful and open-minded people on Earth! Thank you Giulia and Rafael for fulfilling my life with love, support, creativity, kindness and sexuality, with you I am learning a lot!