More on the failed experiment that we had several years ago with poly...and, though I didn't know it at the time, the genesis of our own pursuits of light BDSM as well.
So growing up I moved around fairly frequently. The longest stretch of time I spent anywhere was about six years in one particular state on the East Coast, and even there we changed houses three different times. I got there shortly after the start of my 5th grade year, and ended up completing 10th there before moving. The last three years there I made friends with a couple of girls in the grade behind me. When I moved, I tried to keep up with them, but ultimately lost track of them and pretty much all my other friends in rather short order.
Fast forward about ten or eleven years later, and, having nothing better to do, I set about looking up various names of my childhood friends and seeing if I could track them down. To my amazement, I actually managed to find one of the two girls I was closest to, and not only that, she was only living about three hours or so away...not a bad drive at all. I got in contact with her, and she revealed that she was seriously dating a guy (might as well throw identifiers in here, Erica for her and Daniel for him.)
We met up with them a few weeks later, and got caught up and everything. Ten years plus had done a lot to change her, in my eyes at least, and I'm sure that time had done similar work to me for her as well. Meanwhile, Daniel and my wife hit it off fantastically. Finally, we all met up and the topic was broached regarding extending Daniel's and my wife's relationship to a more personal one.
Approval was granted all around, with some hesitation on my part at the very least, but the weeks passed and Daniel and my wife definitely used their time well. To my knowledge (or at least lack of memory), they never had full intercourse, but she did experience him tying her up at one point during a solo trip out to him, and they had regular webcam discussions, with all that entails, when they couldn't meet up.
Everything was going well until a trip to their house where we all watched a bad movie on their bed together, and there was some unspoken and subtle pressure for myself and Erica to come to some sort of arrangement as well. Neither one of us was feeling it, and it wasn't too long after that incident that Erica decided to rethink the whole poly situation on their end. Shortly after that, I fell out of contact with her once again.
I'm not exactly sure what I could have done to make things easier. They did live far enough away that it wasn't a simple task for anyone to jump in a car and just meet up for an hour or two, or lunch, or dinner, or whatever. Add a very young kid to the mix (about two years old or so at the time) and the logistics got even worse. I gave my wife enough freedom to do what she felt she needed to do, and during this time she also got at least a little involved with the local poly group and even attended a very interesting party that one of the group's founders threw at her house.
I tried to get with that same poly group...but I just didn't like the vibe that I got from them. There's more to it than that, but suffice to say that none of the people were our age, or even within a decade of it, and there were a couple of the guys that I would not be surprised to know were, shall we say, registered somewhere. In the end, we both decided to table the poly discussion for a while, and the realization that she was pregnant with our second child certainly helped that along.
That brief sojourn into the realms of poly were enough to start the ball rolling, however, and I think we both learned a lot from that experience. Hopefully, we'll be better equipped to handle situations in the future, especially if a member of another couple becomes involved with either of us.
So growing up I moved around fairly frequently. The longest stretch of time I spent anywhere was about six years in one particular state on the East Coast, and even there we changed houses three different times. I got there shortly after the start of my 5th grade year, and ended up completing 10th there before moving. The last three years there I made friends with a couple of girls in the grade behind me. When I moved, I tried to keep up with them, but ultimately lost track of them and pretty much all my other friends in rather short order.
Fast forward about ten or eleven years later, and, having nothing better to do, I set about looking up various names of my childhood friends and seeing if I could track them down. To my amazement, I actually managed to find one of the two girls I was closest to, and not only that, she was only living about three hours or so away...not a bad drive at all. I got in contact with her, and she revealed that she was seriously dating a guy (might as well throw identifiers in here, Erica for her and Daniel for him.)
We met up with them a few weeks later, and got caught up and everything. Ten years plus had done a lot to change her, in my eyes at least, and I'm sure that time had done similar work to me for her as well. Meanwhile, Daniel and my wife hit it off fantastically. Finally, we all met up and the topic was broached regarding extending Daniel's and my wife's relationship to a more personal one.
Approval was granted all around, with some hesitation on my part at the very least, but the weeks passed and Daniel and my wife definitely used their time well. To my knowledge (or at least lack of memory), they never had full intercourse, but she did experience him tying her up at one point during a solo trip out to him, and they had regular webcam discussions, with all that entails, when they couldn't meet up.
Everything was going well until a trip to their house where we all watched a bad movie on their bed together, and there was some unspoken and subtle pressure for myself and Erica to come to some sort of arrangement as well. Neither one of us was feeling it, and it wasn't too long after that incident that Erica decided to rethink the whole poly situation on their end. Shortly after that, I fell out of contact with her once again.
I'm not exactly sure what I could have done to make things easier. They did live far enough away that it wasn't a simple task for anyone to jump in a car and just meet up for an hour or two, or lunch, or dinner, or whatever. Add a very young kid to the mix (about two years old or so at the time) and the logistics got even worse. I gave my wife enough freedom to do what she felt she needed to do, and during this time she also got at least a little involved with the local poly group and even attended a very interesting party that one of the group's founders threw at her house.
I tried to get with that same poly group...but I just didn't like the vibe that I got from them. There's more to it than that, but suffice to say that none of the people were our age, or even within a decade of it, and there were a couple of the guys that I would not be surprised to know were, shall we say, registered somewhere. In the end, we both decided to table the poly discussion for a while, and the realization that she was pregnant with our second child certainly helped that along.
That brief sojourn into the realms of poly were enough to start the ball rolling, however, and I think we both learned a lot from that experience. Hopefully, we'll be better equipped to handle situations in the future, especially if a member of another couple becomes involved with either of us.
