Full-Out Transparency and Nothing Less

Many of you already know that I am in a new, polyamorous relationship with an amazing man!  And, even for those of you who are not poly and have no intention of ever being poly, my blogs about my relationship(s) are applicable to monogamous relationships as well.  The same issues- of jealousy, transparency, time challenges, communication, and S.E.X. come up.

This is going to be the start of a “mini-series” of blogs about our recent experiences with starting to date others for the first time since getting into relationship about five months ago.

My partner was the first of the two of us to go on a date.  It was the week before he left for Japan.  This woman, I’ll call her Jane, had reportedly been pursuing  him on Facebook ever since she found out he was getting a divorce.  I knew they were going out on a Monday night.  I hadn’t had any contact with him all day, and thought I felt fine about the date, until I was home alone that night and suddenly realized:  they are on a date right now.  Having no idea what time the date was, what they were doing, or when I’d get to talk to my boyfriend, I started to feel scared and insecure.  I imagined all the most horrible things a woman like me with a good imagination would imagine.  (Maybe he’ll like her better than me, bla, bla, bla.)  I didn’t want to interrupt his date by texting or calling him, but I was really feeling a need to touch base with him. Eventually, I texted him and asked him to call me when the date was over, but got tired of staying up and finally shut off my phone and went to sleep.

In the morning, I woke up to a text he’d sent me just minutes after I’d shut my phone off, letting me know generally how the date was and what had happened.  I immediately felt better.  I was all set.  That was all I’d needed.

Later that day, we had a phone conversation about the experience.  He told me he’d had a good time, but that he wasn’t sure he’d be interested in having a relationship with her and that she’d probably just be a friend that he saw once in a while. He also said he’d told her about me, and that I was his “primary”.  (“Primary” is a word used by polyamorous people to mean the person they’re in the most important or valued relationship with.) This was news to me.  We had never discussed this before.  I told him I wanted us to be each others primary, but didn’t know that he considered me that.  So we agreed to make it official.  Yay!

Then I ‘fessed up about the misery I’d created for myself the night before.  We decided that in the future he would plan to touch base with me at the end of any dates he went on.

I’d learned from the experience.  What works for me is being well informed so my “good” (that’s a relative term) imagination doesn’t take over, being totally transparent with my partner about my thoughts and feelings, and asking for what I want.  Also, I was getting the feeling that more communication ahead of time and less flying by the seat of my pants works better for me, although I accept that in polyamory, not everything is able to be anticipated.

“Stay tuned” to hear about the dating adventures we both had while my beloved was away for over a month in Japan!