Weigh in, please. Healthy or not healthy? I'm with this guy again. We've been on-and-off for 10 years or so. The sex is fun, the conversations we have are great. We have the same stupid sense of humor. Last time we broke up because I had a dating profile on a gay website. He found it and thought I was using it to cheat on him with guys. (Truth is, I never even met up with anyone on the site.) When I explained to him that it was a gay website, he was, I don't know. Intrigued instead. He said he wanted to get back together again, if that was the case. I told him I was sorry for the deception, but I'm still trying to figure out what I am and what I need. He says it's OK, so long as I'm bi that would mean I'm still attracted to him, and so long as I "use a camera" if I sleep with any girls. Like it was OK if I cheated on him, so long as it was with a girl because gay sex doesn't count? <- He didn't say that, but that's what it felt like. Does this have any chance in hell of being a healthy relationship? It does feel nice to have a heterosexual relationship that I can bring home to my gay-hating family. And I do love him. I'm still not sure of myself or "us" though. :help:
As you said you've been off-and-on for about 10 years. How many times have you been off, for how long, and for what reason? Those are all important for analyzing the relationship (in addition to everything else above)
This is why most lesbians HATE it when a woman tries to take them home to her boyfriend or husband--we feel like we are not being taken seriously. The man seems to think that what's going on between the two women is really somehow about him. I mean, if you are with a woman, don't you want it to be something intimate between the two of you, rather than putting on a show for him? It will be difficult for you to find a woman willing to go along with that. There are bisexual women who would love to have both a male and a female partner, but they almost always already have boyfriends and are looking for another unattached woman. And the original hetero relationship is almost always the privileged "primary" relationship--sometimes, they are even legally married, and expect the additional woman to be totally fine with the fact that she will not have the same legal rights as the other two people. (A woman who is fine with that is probably not emotionally stable.) Also, given that you think you are a lesbian, you should probably try actually dating women before getting back together with him. If the feelings you have when dating women are vastly more powerful than you have had with him or any man, you probably shouldn't get back together with him at all.
We've been off because of: - Religious differences (he's atheist, I'm not - or wasn't then) and - Distance (we live in different states). Ianthe, is there no way to have a serious relationship with 3 people?
It is possible to have healthy polyamorous relationships, but they are generally a very special bond between the 3 or 4 or however many people in the relationship. In most cases, the polyamorous cohort lives together and share their lives together, though there can be many configurations. But it sounds like what you're talking about is you having two separate and distinct relationships that are mutually exclusive from one another, at the same time. As Ianthe said, that's asking an awful lot, not only of any woman you'd find, but of your male partner. Without knowing more details, I would wonder if there isn't something deeper going on here: Some form of fear of emotional closeness. The difficulty (on both of your parts) on being willing to commit, either to making the relationship work, or to ending it, is often symptomatic of people who have difficulty with emotional intimacy. And if so, adding a third person to the mix isn't going to help; it's only going to further exacerbate the existing problems that the two of you already have (if I'm correct) surrounding this issue. I'd suggest that this might be something to explore in therapy before plunging into either a same-sex relationship, or a polyamorous one. You owe it to yourself, as well as to any prospective partner, to get some clarity in your own mind about what you want, and what's going on for you.
Not healthy. Sorry, but it is like he thinks gay sex is not real. I don't have a problem with polyamorous relationships, but with the way he's treating this.
