Wow I haven't been to EF in a long time!! Forgot how fun this site is.

Anyway, I'm back with an actual thing I want to discuss.

My husband and I decided to become poly about a year ago. And it's actually turned out to be a great decision for us. It's going very well, and both of us feel that this was definitely the right choice to make for our marriage.

We have our own separate partners. We don't share our partners at all. My husband and I are both straight so there's never any crossover or sharing of partners. Which is fine, and works great for us. My husband has two casual partners, both of which I am good friends with. They are wonderful ladies. My husband is just looking to have casual partners.

I have only one partner. And I am very much in love with him. I am so much in love with him that I have closed myself off to my husband and him only. He is exclusive with me, and we have taken up the "titles" of boyfriend and girlfriend. I want him in my life for a long time and I seriously cannot see my life without him.

Which is where I am worried.

I'm already married. Legally, this man who is now my boyfriend cannot marry me. I know he wants to get married sometime in his life. I can't give him that. And it scares the crap out of me thinking about the possibility that our relationship has an expiration date. I mentioned this to him, because I think it's something I need to be cognizant of, and he just said "Well, we will figure that out together. I'm not going anywhere. You'd have to get rid of me. I love you."

So, has anyone else dealt with something like this? Any married poly couples who have serious second partners? How do you deal with the fact that you can only legally be married to one person at a time? If anything, how do you keep your fears down and handle your feelings, and live in the present to enjoy the goodness of the relationship as it is?

I talked to my husband, and he said he would love the idea of having my boyfriend live with us in the future. So I know he's okay with that. Which is great, but I don't know how he'd feel about the idea of a brother husband. less

Wow I haven't been to EF in a long time!! Forgot how fun this site is.

Anyway, I'm back with an actual thing I want to discuss.

My husband and I decided to become poly about a year ago. And it's actually turned out to be a great decision for us. It's going very well, and both of us feel that this was definitely the right choice to make for our marriage.

We have our own separate partners. We don't share our partners at all. My husband and I are both straight so there's never any crossover or sharing of partners. Which is fine, and works great for us. My husband has two casual partners, both of which I am good friends with. They are wonderful ladies. My husband is just looking to have casual partners.

I have only one partner. And I am very much in love with him. I am so much in love with him that I have closed myself off to my husband and him only. He is exclusive with me, and we have taken up the "titles" of boyfriend and girlfriend. I want him in my life for a long time and I seriously cannot see my life without him.

Which is where I am worried.

I'm already married. Legally, this man who is now my boyfriend cannot marry me. I know he wants to get married sometime in his life. I can't give him that. And it scares the crap out of me thinking about the possibility that our relationship has an expiration date. I mentioned this to him, because I think it's something I need to be cognizant of, and he just said "Well, we will figure that out together. I'm not going anywhere. You'd have to get rid of me. I love you."

So, has anyone else dealt with something like this? Any married poly couples who have serious second partners? How do you deal with the fact that you can only legally be married to one person at a time? If anything, how do you keep your fears down and handle your feelings, and live in the present to enjoy the goodness of the relationship as it is?

I talked to my husband, and he said he would love the idea of having my boyfriend live with us in the future. So I know he's okay with that. Which is great, but I don't know how he'd feel about the idea of a brother husband. less

So, this situation worked itself out.

I am now exclusively seeing and living with my boyfriend.

My husband and I are divorcing for reasons unrelated to this. Thanks for replying though.


I do feel I need to say one thing though, Lvstoplay:

I am not Mormon, or Muslim. And sorry but it's erroneous to say that either of those religions allow multiple spouses.

The Mormon church, when it was founded, allowed only men to have multiple wives. Not the other way around. This was Joseph Smith (the founder of the Mormon church) who wanted multiple wives so he made that a rule allowable in his church. Today, the modern Morman Church does not do that. The only places you will find polygamy practiced among Mormons is within the radical groups in states like Utah. The Mormon Church as a whole does not identify with these groups, because of their extremism.

It is also a stereotypical fallacy that Muslims have multiple spouses, and the rumor also goes that it is only men who have more than one wife. Women having more than one husband would not be allowed. There are some extremist factions of Islam (same as there are extremists in the Christian religion) that have huge double-standards when it comes to female sexuality. A woman having multiple partners is severely frowned upon. With men, not so much. It's seen as natural. (Extreme Conservative Christianity and Conservative Islam have that in common.)

In any case, it doesn't matter because Islam believes in monogamous marriage the same as Judeo-Christian religions. It's kind of a falsehood about Islam that is widespread in the US that Muslims have harems of multiple wives. (I have close friends who are practicing Muslims and they really dislike this image.)

I am agnostic. I don't believe in the doctrines of either of these religions, so none of that would apply to me.

Thanks for the reply, but just be careful when you bring religion into a discussion about sexuality and number of partners. It's shaky ground when it comes to that stuff. less