full image - Repost: Advice for navigating personal reactions around new/first metamour (from Reddit.com, Advice for navigating personal reactions around new/first metamour)
Mining:
Exchanges:
Donations:
Hi y'all. This seems like something that probably comes up a lot, and I spent some time digging around the subreddit for it, but couldn't really find anything, so I guess here goes.I(30NB) have been with my current partner (29M) for about a year and a half, long-distance, with an extended period of friendship first. We both have been happily poly for several years, with differing specific experiences but similar levels of experience at it, if that makes sense. I've had numerous FWB-level metamours, and was in a full triad for a while that all came together at once, and feel like I've pretty well worked through the vast majority of my monogony-conditioning, with only the occasional brief twinge that typically doesn't take more than a moment of sitting with it to recognize/deal with whatever feelings are going on.My partner has been loosely connected with another guy around our age, also long distance, for probably almost as long as we've been together. But recently, they said I love you, and have shifted gears to "boyfriends." I'm very happy for my partner, and it's really adorable to see how excited and giddy he is, and I'm really looking forward to navigating all this together. This is the first time either of us has been in our respective roles in this particular situation, and we've already had a few conversations about how we were feeling, and what we think we might need in the near term, including about what I'm making this post about.But there's one thing I've been struggling with - not in, like, a "relationship in jeopardy" way but just in a "this is an unexpected growing pain that's proving the first real nee Polyamory Hurdle I've been faced with in a while": I'm feeling unexpectedly antsy about the idea of having potentially limited "access" to my partner.I'm generally a pretty solitary person, and keep a lot of alone-time in my schedule. And I have a good support network and other friends, so I definitely don't rely on my partner as like, my only source of social interaction or support. But I'm discovering that I have gotten very used to the idea of them just, like... Being there, any time I reach out. It's become deeply comforting to me to have that anchor. And I know that, like, expecting that from someone constantly is not reasonable, and I have no intention of trying to demand it. But I was wondering if anyone around here had any experiences to share or advice to give? I love him more than I've ever loved anyone else, and I don't think I realized until this shift just how much I'd interwoven his presence into my, like, default assumptions about my day to day life. Just feeling a little lost as to where to begin to unravel this particular tangle of Stuff™.
Social Media Icons