Polyamory in my 30’s vs 20’s

I never have been the traditional type. In anything in life.

As a kid I was never someone who stayed in one group of friends, I hung out with everyone. I never wanted a boyfriend in High School, I just dated whoever seemed interesting. So it wasn’t a surprise when I took this approach to my life as an adult.

I’ve been polyamorous since I was 18. So for 15 years now? Before it was trending. And one would think that by now I may have mastered the art of balancing relationships, but in reality, the older I get I feel the messier I get in the whole thing.

Initially I got into being poly because I expressed to my then boyfriend (who was much older than me) that I was interested in women as well as men. He said he didn’t want to hinder that in my life and we opened our relationship.

I didn’t really act on this much then though. Poly at 18–21 for me was really just an excuse to have group sex and threesomes. And while that was fun, I didn’t really have many deeper connections. Hindsight I’m not sure if it was an age thing or the fact that my primary relationship turned out to be toxic, and perhaps I didn’t have the capacity to love anyone because I could barely prioritize myself. Either way, the relationships I had at the time were for the most part purely physical.

I dabbled in monogamy from 21–23 for a few months here and there and realized it really wasn’t for me. I did fall fast and hard for my first woman. She was tall and gorgeous. She was magnetic and funny and had eyes that lit my heart on fire. But she wasn’t able to commit to anything and I wasn’t stable enough to really want commitment anyway. So we dated.

During this time I met a guy with a similar graveyard schedule as me. We bonded over great sex and a love for quirky movies and late night antics. He fell for me and it wasn’t till years later that I would fall for him.

And even though I had these two great partners, I still managed to find a third one. By happenstance. This girl I waited tables with and I fell for each other. It started off as drunken convenient sex, but she eventually became one of the greatest loves of my life.

And so in my early to mid 20’s I saw a combo of these three people with some new ones sprinkled in here and there. I’d have breakups. I thought I was in love a bunch. But it wasn’t until my 30’s that I wonder how deep a lot of that really went. How much of myself I really shared and exposed. And how much I still kept to myself.

When I was 26, me and the graveyard guy went to a burn in Austin. He actually went with another partner, and I went solo. I wanted a trip of self discovery. And during that trip we fell for each other again, and conceived a child.

This wasn’t a commitment he wanted- and I understood that. So I had my kid alone. Pregnancy was the one period in my life I was 100% single. Honestly, it was amazing. I was able to have my daughter on my terms- and she became the greatest love I would have.

When she was 8 weeks old I started a new job, and I met my now husband. He was extremely traditional in many ways: white, Christian, monogamous, a small town country boy. It was funny to me that he pursued me a queer hippie (who was also a single mom of an infant)-but he did, and we created a life together. I remained poly, I told him from day 1 that I couldn’t do monogamy- and he agreed to it, but said he would most likely only be with me.

After a couple years of life together (and another kid), I had some other flirtationships but nothing else of substance. I kept picking fights with him because I didn’t feel whole. And so I opened up an old dating profile online and tried to see if I could find a new partner.

Within a few days of reopening it, I matched with a cute girl from a town a couple hours away. I messaged her thinking that with the distance between us it wouldn’t be anything serious. But I was wrong. Man was I wrong.

We spent the first few months texting. And then the moment I met her I was hooked in a way I have never been before. I’m unsure if it’s because I was missing women for so long, if it was that it’s being older now, or if it was something metaphysical, but we felt like we were meant for each other.

I finally felt this completeness I had been looking for all these years. A balance I had longed for. I had my daily life with my husband and I had this passionate, soulful, love with with amazingly beautiful woman.

But everything grew to be too much too quick for her- or something like that and she ended it.

And even though I’ve been broken up with so many people so many times in my life. This breakup in my 30’s hits different than all those others. I didn’t realize how superficial my love was in my 20’s until I experienced love (and then lost it) in my 30’s. With this break up I felt broken. I felt physical heartache. I felt like a temporarily lost myself to obsession and depression over it.

I feel like I finally am at a point in my life where I feel ok showing my vulnerable parts. And I know exactly the kind of balance and love I want and now have the confidence to ask for it.

So here goes the next round of shopping for a partner. We’ll see how this goes.