u/AspireNWriter-1

I am not actively dating right now, but spending this time thinking about lot about what I want. i want to do the work to be ready and be as safe and reliable as I can. I want to have my shit together… and I want to have it together to build a family. but I am not in the relationship I think will bring me that family, and plan to date at some point in the next year to see if that family is even possible. any experience or advice you have will be invaluable.

Im a cis woman (36) with a 13 year relationship with a cis man life partner who is my absolute rock and best friend. we are currently closer than ever and love each other at such a deep level. he is my family, my lover. but we have never really felt right as parents together. i have never been inspired to have kids with him. it just is not us to have kids as a two person couple - he isn’t as enthusiastic about it, and I am fully happy with our relationship being childless.

over the past few years, however, I have been deeply drawn to a feeling of raising kids with another woman. im like a different person entirely around attractive women (cis or trans, usually somewhere with gender fluid or butch to femme expression) - I suddenly want to have kids and a family and do hard stuff with them. and so of course I have this perfect fantasy that I can find someone who would be interested in doing that with me as a hinge - and my current partner being like a supportive uncle. I could see him wanting kids with me if hes around my kids, and so maybe that turns into a kid with him, and a couple kids with this mystery woman.

i know Im extremely new to this idea and at a late stage in parent life (bio clock is winding down a bit!), and so I am trying to just get started thinking about dating - giving it a shot that someone might be that perfect person for me. of course I am excited to also find out what I will need to change to fit them into my life, and that won’t be easy but, if it is good, it could be amazing - right?

I don’t think I’m too naive to imagine someone is out there, because I know I may never find them even if they are. I’ve done a lot of work on myself over the years and am always trying to improve - but I know Im also far from perfect and can end up going down the wrong road even if I’m trying not to. so having some community input would be so helpful.

so a few questions:

- has anyone here ever dated explicitly with family building in mind, and if so what did you learn and how did it go? were people open to these kinds of relationships?

- when looking for a partner who is truly invested and wants this type of family structure, what questions should I be asking? how should I be presenting this idea in a way that explains my desires, and circumstances, without closing off some genuine flexibility about how those desires look in practice (e.g. setting some expectations so that the other person is fully informed but also feels safe and fully included in shaping the life we have).

- has anyone built a family like this? and what don’t I know about this kind of life? what should I be reading or learning about to think through logistics, legalities, healthy parenting dynamics, and relationship challenges and generally prepare? I know that if she is bi or pan, it could become a situation where my existing partner and my new partner also fall in love. that could get complicated - we have never been in that type of situation. and how do child care responsibilities discussions go?

- how do you navigate conservative families…? minimizing trauma… but equitably - so no hiding of partners of children etc obviously. is it even possible? my family isnt really part of my current relationship - which is straight passing and looks pretty monogamous to my parents - so that tells me it won’t feel good navigating anything poly and especially queer.

thank you for your thoughts

hi everyone, just want to say, I am bi and poly, and I love that Brenda Howard who was a huge advocate for equity and rights, and who helped organize the first pride march (along with a wider group!)in 1970, was a bi polyamorous queen.

here are some info links:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZX9nczGqTa/?ig_mid=1D4563A5-2273-417C-859D-55E125020715&utm_source=igweb

https://reflections.live/articles/26596/woman-who-created-the-first-pride-parade-by-vidosha-sheth-30989-mqme35v8.html

I have been having LOT of feels after having a fallout with a woman i love who was struggling a bit with framing poly as “selfish”, as well as a bit of biphobia, and this awesome lady is really grounding.

happy Pride!! 🌈

ps. this post was removed from r/polyamory which really stung to be honest… hoping to find a friendlier audience here!

Edit:
I also would change the post title if I could because “mother of pride“ isnt a title that seems to reflect the collective movement and history - but I did use it because it’s Whats the two sources used :/ poops sorry all. But she was still extremely important in this history and a badass

i am looking for some perspective on my actions in a friendship that I just essentially ended because I laid down boundaries with someone, and I am trying to understand where I might be in the wrong. this is a polyamory post because I am in a 15 year very happy relationship with a man. I am a bisexual woman. and this friend is a woman who I am attracted to and who was aware of my poly relationship style. I am always open to learning from my mistakes and accepting that I am flawed even while I genuinely try to do my best. however I think I am frequently perceived by others as not genuine and not really putting my best effort forward. this is so complicated - I could have posted to the ptsd or other thread because I think my actions are still driven by trauma, but I chose the poly thread because Im curious about how relatable this situation is for others in the community and how people recommend handling situations like this.

Context:

this woman and I already discussed a strong attraction twice in the past (she told me first when she learned I was poly, and we didn’t speak for two years after that largely because when I tried to meet up to talk her weird cancelations made me think she didn’t want to see me after I had told her I didn’t think she and I were a good idea… two years later I came back because I felt I missed her friendship and did have feelings for her and was open to exploring It - but while she was enthusiastic to see me again she told me she was monogamous, so I never mentioned it again and chose to prioritize the friendship. she had a very stressful few months and was very busy, but I continued to be present as I could and did my best to be there for her as a friend. she has abandonment trauma, and I have extreme childhood social isolation trauma that I believe has led me to poly in many ways as I feel healthier feeling being connected and available to people (but I’m concerned I have some lingering social skills and communication shortcomings that make this problematic - namely not immediately knowing how I feel in social relationships and not feeling entirely safe putting up boundaries in friendships specifically).

Event:

she started canceling our plans a lot over the past month. I was very flexible and understanding for a whîle knowing how busy she is, but I eventually said I didn’t want to make solid plans because canceling was triggering for personal reasons (i have issues interpreting social cues like this as signs that I am not worth being around and it is isolation ptsd trigger that can lead to panic - very old trauma that I have healed a lot, but it is hard to communicate the nuances to others and she doesn’t really get it) - and as soon as I messaged that she started calling me selfish and that I was not being honest with her because I should have told her I was angry about canceling. she claimed to know I was angry - even though my emotional state was closer to irritated and confused. Then she admitted the canceling had been on purpose to push me away - she was having some trauma about abandonment and she didnt believe my friendship could be real (That I kept being there for so long while she was used to be people leaving).

we were supposed to go to a wedding together and I had put eveything on my credit card. But given the weird canceling I asked her to meet up and talk. She canceled that and didnt prioritize meeting to talk - it was clear this wasn’t her priority (Probably because she was still pushing me away). Unfortunately we did meet up with friends - she’s moving away soon and I was trying to get a chance to talk to her - and things happened. there is a lot of physical attraction here and beer plus unstable emotions are bad combinations. This was technically fine for me - Im poly - but she is monogamous and has said previously she wasn’t interested in a relationship. while drunk she said things would happen anyway at the wedding… so the next morning I messaged (unfortunately due to a panic attack I had I left early), and confirmed she wanted to not have this happen at the wedding.… where we had one room together for three days. I asked to talk about it, but she refused talking saying talking wasn’t necessary we would just move forward.

After giving it a day to think, I decided to unilaterally cancel my plans to go to the wedding with her. I told her I would cancel the flight after she booked her own ticket (the prices were the same), and I wouldn’t cancel the hotel (which it turned out was no refundable anyway). Ideally i would have wanted to talk with her friend about it, but given all the canceling I was done trying. I told her genuinely it was because I felt 1) weird about her pushing me away and canceling on my leading up this (i felt she had lost my trust - I didn’t feel safe emotionally because I felt that she wasn’t there for my friendship anymore), 2) i didnt feel confident we could maintain her boundaries at the wedding given this recent night and I can’t afford a separate room. I emphasized that Im here to work on the friendship, just that we should try to do that at the wedding. She immediate told me to get away from her and never come back - super intense. She said cancel everything… Clearly super trauma triggered. I listen to and respect people’s boundaries - which I suspect she my interpret just a sign that I never cared for her and easily disappear, when in reality it’s the opposite. I have gotten away and won’t ever contact her again.

my questions:

clearly no one is necessarily at fault for this messiness. We are humans, we have emotions and imperfections. but I also think my trauma-based willingness to put up with her behavior despite trying to also accommodate her busy schedule for weeks might have been an issue leading her to perceive a dishonesty from me - even though from my perspective I was genuinely just trying to accommodate. I also wonder if my decision to cancel the wedding trip was premature sand I should have tried again to talk to her… especially after her telling me her actions were based on trauma - pushing me away and being fearful of people leaving. I essentially did that. It’s sad because no one should go through the clear pain she is going through - but I also dont Know how to balance my own self respect and safety with caring for a friend.

finally, as a poly person, how often are friendships messed up because of having open sexual and relationship boundaries?? How do you protect friendships and make sure that you don’t put yourself and your friends into bad situations - and is it even possible when the person refuses to talk?? Or should I have not tried to talk? Should I have just gone to the wedding and pretended it would be fine? (It wouldnt)