Not very long really, about 2 years I think since we started that road. Not with her anymore, but I feel like personally I am starting to get my head, heart and hands around what works for me.

One thing that makes it work for me is remembering to take the space I need when I need it.

I found myself knowing how I felt at a very young age but not knowing how to define it. I felt bad, like there was something wrong with me. Like I was a bad person for feeling this way, being utterly unsuccessful in mono-relationships. It was not until about 4 years ago that I actually discovered Polyamory and I haven't been happier since ^.^ I have had both good and bad poly relations but what makes it work for me is that I decided long ago I don't want to be property and there was far to much love inside me and no good reason not to share that with more than one. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Love and Light

I think about 8 or 9 years ago my wife and I opened up a previously monogamous relationship to poly. It's mostly been fantastic. Sure there have been some growing pains and jealousy along the way, but we are way stronger and communicative as a couple now and it's brought so many wonderful people and experiences into our lives. What makes it work best for me is being open, honest, low drama and having a healthy sense of humor, all things that help me navigate the rest of my life with ease, as well as poly.

I read Stranger in a Strange Land at fourteen.

Stop looking at me like that, I'm serious.

I've been poly since 1993 - 15 years now. Its been a good ride, sometimes totally 'white knuckles'. But once I started using my close women friends to help me choose women to date, it got a lot easier - they keep me out a lot of trouble.

What makes it work? Communication, communication, communication. Also we are in a very supportive community that has really good information and a solid framework within which people play.

We are pretty 'old school' - we don't play with anyone unless everybody (me, my SO, you, your SO) has first met face to face, and everybody involved agrees up front- ie I won't date her until I've talked directly with your SO and gotten their unreserved agreement. Anybody says 'no' and all action stops - actually if someone doesn't say "yes!" all action stops.

And we are very strict about safety.

At thirteen I realized I didn't feel the traditional jealousy that so many teens complain about. "Oh my gawd, i saw your boyfriend flirting with another guuurl."
"really? oooh, where!" :)

At 20, I met my fiance, and we were like this from day one. We're 23 now. It had its very low at one point, but monogamy just doesn't make sense to me in any way, shape, or form for my personal affairs. I love how we are.

I have known about poly relationships for about five years since my last girlfriend introduced me to the concept. Before that my wife of twenty years and I had simply had an open relationship that had evolved from a "don't ask, don't tell" relationship after that became too problematic for us.

I have never spent too much time looking back and when the girlfriend and her new boyfriend unceremoniously kicked me out of our triad I picked myself up from the wreckage and moved on. It doesn't hurt to have one if the authors of The Ethical Slut as a counselor, by the way.

Now I am in a much healthier, more honest and transactional relationship with a polyamorous woman that my wife has met and gets along with respectfully.

Polyamory works for me because I can love more than one person at a time and accept love from multiple partners in return. The benefits are well worth the pain, hours of communication and problem solving, and scheduling difficulties.

Almost six years.

It is the best thing we could have done for our marriage!

Best,
Jenny Block
Author of "Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage"

www.jennyonthepage.com

I got exposed to it when I was 17 and started practicing it when I was 19 and in my first LTR.

I've personally been subconsciously open to it my whole life. It's only been in the past two or three years that I've embraced it myself. My wife also has always "felt" it, but due to social norms and upbringing never really acted on it. Together we have.

For me, as a male, having another man in our life has been a breath of fresh air for me, and has greatly improved our relationship as a married couple because I am no longer expected to "be everything" and have to fulfill every need, both emotionally and physically, of my wife. And she no longer feels she has to for me either. I can have friendships with women outside our marriage, some of which have been sexual as well as emotional, others that have been purely friends, and it is not a threat to our primary relationship.

The downs? It's hard to find a male third. There are lots that want to simply have sex, but few that want anything past that. And for us, and me in particular, having a male third is more appealing right now than a female third simply because my life is too busy to tend to the needs of an additional person right now. That could change in the future, but right now I'd be happy just having a third for my wife.

Well I realized that I was poly upon reading Stranger at 15.

Sadly, although my wife and I are philosophically poly, no practical experience to back it up.