Poly

I feel like I've really done myself in. Last night, I got really drunk and I'm still feeling the effects of it at 3 in the morning. I don't know how to tell my boyfriend that I'm capable of loving more than one person at a time because he's threatened by someone I am very much attracted to, and it feels like this is the only place I can even talk about it without fear of what could be said or done. I once asked him, "If I get involved with a woman partner and we fell in love, what would you do?" He told me that I would have to choose between him and her. I went and ordered some books on polyamory, hoping it'll get me some resolve, but in the mean time I'm going to have to just listen to some of the folks around me and then decide some things for myself. But it's very scary, because one of the things he's told me is what he pictures as a worse case scenario, one where he leaves the place I live in without even saying good bye. It seems that one of three things are going to happen: he could accept what I want, I could accept his way of things, or we part ways. I want to keep him in my life while forming other relationships, but I feel like I can't rush into things headlong. I got myself into a funk today just thinking about it, but I'm hoping the days get better and a solution presents itself for me. It just seems like I'm going to have to invest a lot of time if I'm going to try to make him feel secure about the feelings I have for him before I think about breaking it to him that I might be polyamorous. I wish this wasn't such a difficult thing to do, and it hurts, but he feels like he's been emotionally replaced by the person that he feels threatened by and I feel stupid for making him feel that way. I need to school myself on what it means to be healthy and attentive to partners when an attraction occurs, because I feel like I fucked things up a little bit. I can't wait for those books to come in, but it's not going to happen until later in the month. I don't know what he'll think if he sees me with these titles, but I definitely don't regret getting them because I need more information and this is worth it.

Further update (beyond the comment below): Today I feel more certain of my feelings and I'm much more willing to admit being poly. But there's frustration because there are things preventing me from moving forward. My plan has some stuck cogs in it. Like money, which I need to get a couple's therapist because no one wants to take my insurance. And there's also the fact that I'm trying to avoid us parting ways while also allowing him to consider the possibility of me dating other people. But during this time, it leaves me feeling left out. I don't know how much longer I can put off my desire to just go for it.

I'm always surprised when my partners genuinely want me to go do something with them, or are happy to see me, or make any sort of proposal about future anything involving me. I learned early on in my poly life to assume that I am a burden to be taken off the shelf and addressed as it is convenient and no other time. I've taught myself to stop having needs, or at the very least to squish them down in my brain and not express them. It's forced me to rely on myself for the majority of things, and strengthen my independence. I receive a lot of love from my partners, and I love them in return, but I'm with them expecting they will hurt me, and that the second I become inconvenient or difficult, I'll be kicked aside or replaced. But there's something about accepting this reality that takes the fear out of it. As much as it could hurt, there's a feeling on invincibility that the pain will never destroy me, because it hasn't yet. And I would never go back to monogamy.

Just discovered polyamory around September or October and have been having a poly conundrum between two people, one who is poly and one who isn't, ever since. And now to add to it I have a new found attraction to someone else who is poly. Well actually it's not so much new as it is more shall we say a growing attraction. However, I don't think I should say anything to this new person about it as he is already with someone else and has been for quite some time, and I don't want to interfere with anything or make our new friendship (at least I would hope and think that we are friends now) awkward or uncomfortable for him. Yeah it may seem that way for me but I'm used to it by now and can deal with it. Wouldn't be the first time I've had a crush/attraction on someone who was taken, however this is the first time it's been with someone who is poly. This just really sucks though because it doesn't make my current problem any better but I don't wanna stop being friends, and seeing and talking to each other because then I'd be sad.

I don't know what to do here. I need help sorting everything out.

I'm a big supporter of polyamory. I am friends with no less than five "couples" that are three people in a polyamorous (or poly) relationship, and I've been in relationships both with girls that had other boyfriends at the time (who were and still are good friends of mine) and with multiple girls at once (who were and still are friends with each other). And despite the prevalence of culturally-enforced polygyny (vocab word, kids! that means multiple-women!), all of the ones that I can think of are between one woman and two heterosexual men. Some of these people are married, some have children, and all seem far more healthy and loving than the average mainstream relationship. Seeing it in action, it seems like a very natural way to live. As one of these friends put it, "You wouldn't say that I'm only allowed to love one of my children, would you? Then don't say that I'm only allowed to love one of my boyfriends." But it's obviously not prevalent enough to get anything but absolute shock from the average person. "What do you mean you have two daddies and one mommy?" The way another friend (whom I'm in a polyamorous relationship with) puts it, there's nothing healthy about a desire to keep a loved one from being in relationships with other people. If the bond between you two is genuine, then it won't be threatened. Another friend that I was once in a polyamorous relationship with dropped out of it, breaking up with both me and her other boyfriend (who had another girlfriend whom he was married to, who herself had another boyfriend), citing that she liked the idea of polyamory, but that she discovered that it wasn't for her. She wanted to be able to depend on a single person, 100% of the time, instead of having two people giving her their divided attention. While I agree that it's a very personal decision what kind of a relationship you get into and you should leave any situation that you don't feel completely comfortable in, I think that her reasons for changing things came out of unhealthy motivations. I don't think that it's mature or compassionate to seek out a relationship that maximizes your ability to take. Just speaking from personal experience, my lifelong depression started going away and I started becoming a much happier person once I unlearned the habit of depending on people and started fully appreciating the great people that I have in my life, even if I infrequently get to spend time with them.