Polyamory on IJ

Ah, man. I missed having a poly group on my F-list. Last time I had one was way back on LJ.

Anyway. hazumuchan mentioned posting here, and I thought "oh snap, how did I not find that group before?" so here I am now. Also: oh my god, you guys have awesome links on the group userinfo page. It will be so good to have a link to show any psych I encounter instead of having to run a freakin workshop for them.

I'm Andy. I'm 21, obviously poly, bisexual, genderqueer, and a million other things. Want to know? Check out my IJ profile. Can't find it there? Ask me. Seriously, there are very few things I'm not okay with talking about.  I'm not currently in any relationships, for several reasons. I'm lame enough to live in my mom's basement and play way too many video games. :P Love me or leave me.

The short version of my relationships is that I'm the hinge in a "V". My girlfriends have also started to become close friends. One thing that I've noticed lately is that when talking about future plans or events with one partner, she'll mention the other partner as well. It's so neat that we're becoming an ad hoc family. Most of my blood relatives disowned me when I came out, so having this happen between them means a lot to me.

Let me see how concise I can get the back story here (LOL!): I've been with my partner Allison for over 3 years now and our relationship is very stable. I had met Amy while in my queer women's choir and we showed interest in each other. As it turned out, Amy was married and her husband let her date other women. I had come out to myself and Al last spring as poly, and brought up the subject again once Amy and I had started talking. Despite her husband's initial confusion at the fact that I'm a male-to-female transsexual, he eventually came around and with permission from both primaries - her husband and my partner - Amy & I started forging a romantic relationship.

Shortly before we started dating, Amy came out to me that she hadn't really been attracted to any guys (save her husband) in years, and found herself increasingly attracted to other women.  I held her and over the course of the last couple of months, she's started taking more control over her life.  She is separating and divorcing from her husband and is looking at moving into her own place after the holidays.  So I find myself helping a chick to learn to fly as a queer person (and not for the first time in my life).

So since this all has started up and I'm relatively new to polyamory, I'm curious as to if being polyamorous makes us more open to questioning our sexuality or orientation?  In my own life, I've generally been pretty open-minded about stuff and am curious to see if this is the case with a lot of other poly people.

Recent drama in my circle of friends has brought me to a rather startling revelation. I've always found the only way to make my polyamorous relationships work is to employ radical honesty. That does not mean that I believe in losing my cool or throwing tact and kindness out the window, but it means that I feel hurts should be expressed and issues addressed in as straight-forward a manner as possible.

It wasn't until today that I realized I've been handling honesty in the exact same fashion in my non-romantic relationships as well--and that it is causing problems. I have heard repeatedly in the last few months that people don't want to bring up such and such with those they care about simply because of the drama it will cause, and remain miserable because of hurt feelings they're not expressing. I just don't get that, and for the first time I looked around today and wondered if I'm expecting people to deal with things in a way that may not consider normal.

Have any of you ever come up against this?

Time for my introduction. I'm K, involved with B&T (who are legally married to each other.) and married to D, who is involved with T. There are a couple of branches beyond that, but that's my family. I'm also new to poly; up until I met B&T I never even knew about the idea, even though my favorite author is Robert Heinlein. My husband and I were never monogamous, that was an understanding even before we were married. I also have a daughter, E, who is goddess daughter to B&T.

I joined the community because I wanted a place I could talk. Because I am new(ish) to the ideas, I don't really have anyone I can talk to outside of my relationship, and sometimes things come up I just don't understand how to handle. And while I know I can talk to them anytime, sometimes you just want someone outside of the situation.

Also, B&T were involved with the CAW group, and many pagan communities, so I know there's a possibility you might know them.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks for creating this community, and I look forward to learning more about all of you.

k