How and at what stage in your relationship did you get started in the Polyamory life style

With Sigel and I it was a very early start in our married life...he had his hands up my girlfriend's shirt the night before our wedding. He had a very very bad childhood, you know the kind you read about in novels that have only one goal: to shock you to your bones and make you want to throw up. Needless to say, he was never faithful to me sexually but emotionally he has ALWAYS been mine.

While I clung to the idea of the 'perfect' marriage in which a man loves his wiffe too much to EVER see anyother woman in a sexual manner, I knew all along that this was a silly thing to aspire to. You want your partner to want to be with you and seeing them notice other women but choose to be with you is an amazing affirmation. The worst part was I loved when other women wanted and admired him...I loved watching him having sex with other women. I didn't like being on the outside looking in, when he realized this and changed his approach everything changed for us.

We had many encounters before I met our life partner and again everything changed again. I found that I had the capacity to love more than one person deeply, fully and completely. I also have the capacity to balance more than one relationship...though I am perfectly happy with the two I have currently. I would love anyone the two of them might love in the future (or at least try to) but for now we're happy.

One thing I would caution is that if you are looking to "spice" up your sex life be VERY sure you explain this to any potential sex partner or partners. They are people with dreams and desires of their own. Now I'm not saying it'll help, mind you, because we have found nothing is more attractive to a single woman than a man who is married and willing to have sex with them. Unicorns are magical creatures precisely because they are so rare! (A 'unicorn' is a single woman who is able to have casual sex without strings.)
To be fair I don't do casual sex well either...the last guy I tried it with I had a son over a year later with and he is very much still a very large part of our lives!

We have had some swinging experience and it's ok but I had a very low self esteem and found it hard to get naked with strangers...or hell even people we were otherwise comfortable with. Sigel prefers sex to be a physical thing, except with me, and I need some emotional closeness to really enjoy the physical act. For us a triad works because he is free to pursue a more swinging lifestyle which if requested I am free to join in with and I flat out love being between two men who love me and whom I love. Our life partner was a virgin when we met and is figuring out what he wants in the safety of our loving relationship.

Being in a triad or quad demands the same skills as being monogamous but the skills are absolutely necessary when dealing with three or more people. You MUST treat a poly relationship the way you SHOULD treat a monogamous one. You must have good listening skills, good interpersonal relationship skills and the stick to it attitude that trumps everything else. You have to WANT to make it work. Since there isn't a socially acceptable model for how this is "supposed" to work you have the luxury of carving out for yourself a relationship that fits and makes you feel safe, loved and fulfilled.

If you are interested in swinging only I would highly recommend that you contact a local "club" and interview them to see if they might fit with what you need...are they safe sex motivated? Do they have rules that make you feel comfortable and welcome? Do they meet in places where you are unlikely to be harassed or worse? Do their goals meet with your own?

If you are interested in Polyamory you can also join groups. You must really date your third just as you did your wife! Rememebr you are looking to build a relationship with this person (or persons) and you need to be sure that their life and love goals meet with your own. So first know yourself and your relationship so you know what you are offering! For us we were offering the full monty...kids, finance sharing- a marriage for lack of a different word. Other couples may not offer that. They may be offering a deep friendship that includes sex but where the other players (playmates) have their own lives and prefer to live them. Some couples prefer a more structured type of style where their marriage is paramount to them and all others take a backseat to the original coupling. As long as the secondary or tertiary players are aware of the situation it can work great...this is where you have to know your firm stops, however, as things can go south real quick with these types of relationships. It all rests in how committed you are to making sure everyone is on the same path!
For us it was important that both men have their place as equals...though of course each relationship is unique and has different needs. The woman that enter this relationship are made aware that they aren't going to be a primary from the beginning as that takes time for us and a level of commitment from them that ost women aren't ready to give. We are very family centric...since we have three children we screen the people who have contact with them pretty harshly.

Take is slow and careful and keep working on your primary relationship in the meantime. You want that relationship to be as strong and healthy as it can be so that when problems arise (and they will...) you can deal with them head on and with as little drama as posible.

Kris has an amazing sugestion! Opening Up by Tristan Taormino is an amazing resource.

Good luck and much love to you and your lovely wife.