A friend sat me & my partner down about 10 years ago and told us she was polyamorous. She had a boyfriend and a second love interest at the time.
I'd never heard the term before and didn't think much of it.
But as time went on I realised this is how I felt as well. I have been fighting it off because I'm in a happy, monogamous relationship that I don't want to upset, but I also feel in some ways a little restricted by that. I love my partner and will stay 100% loyal to her as that is the loyal relationship we have.
I'm sure anyone reading this will immediately think 'you want to be physically intimate with another person'. This isn't my concern. My concern is surrounding the notion of freedom, actually to be more accurate, the palpable feeling of restraint or restriction that I feel single person relationships hold over individuals in society's unwritten 'Rulebook of Expectation'. You know the one, that everybody signed (accept, nobody has, they just go along with it without question??).
If it was a physical thing I could just go out and cheat and be a dishonest person. But I have no interest in breaking the love and trust of my partner. It is much more nuanced than that. It's the feeling of freedom to know and share love and care with whomever I feel it towards. I feel that deeply. This isn't about physical intimacy, this is about philosophical freedom.
Just wondering if anyone else feels this way?
As I say I'd never heard that term before, but within my circle of family and friends I don't know anyone else that follows this way of thinking. It would definitely be frowned upon and seen as 'weird' or similar, and although I am growing into my unmasked unique self, the idea of being open about things like this that can so easily be mischaracterised and life changing in the most important relationships I know, is frightening to me