Me and my wife (M W, 30's) met almost 10 years ago, and one primary thing we agreed upon on one of our first dates together was that none of us would be happy having only touched, fucked, loved, etc only one person for the rest of our lives. We're both pretty experienced what these things go and both feel like variety is incredibly important to us. The whole "monogamy" thing definitely wouldn't be on the table. We both agreed that if we were to be in a committed relationship, it could not be one that puts limits on such things.

Well cue to us a decade later, having ferociously ascended the ENTIRE relationship escalator, having barely touched anything ENM related for the entire time. The topic has always been open ended for sure, but aside from a casual make-out at a party or us openly discussing one of her crushes, we just were ... poly-saturated at one, i guess?

The past decade has been full of ups and some really difficult, heavy and intense downs. We both weathered a lot of shit... But always actively CHOSE to be together and actively working on our problems. We both just came out on the other side of a heavy storm. Call it a 7-year crisis? I don't want to elaborate on this but a lot of therapy was involved in resolving a lot of resentment, miscommunication, attachment issues and trauma.

Over the last year or so, our relationship started improving so much and we started realizing, our communication is absolutely incredible. We found ourselves with an over-abundance of energy, libido, and love. More than that, we started to develop a sense of comfort and openness that made us remember we're actually both polyamorous people.

So we finally started doing it. Actively looking for more partners. Actively engaging romantically with people outside our relationship. Taking it our kind of slow. By all means, we are still early in our progress. I'm only a few dates into it with an absolute treasure of a person, and she's had a couple love interests not go the way she wanted them. Very early.

We are both learning so much more about how to communicate. Small things. Big things. We are acting more loving towards each other. We are better at diffusing misunderstandings becoming disagreements becoming arguments becoming fights. We are much better at trusting each other.

But more than that, we are acting like a couple of crazy newly in love fools. Our sex drive was already at the NRE stage before. Now it's just amplified that.

Sure, it's not all been easy: A lot of insecurities, a lot of doing the work. A lot of things have needed a lot of effort from both of us. But underlying this work is a complete commitment to each other and to making this work for us.

I want to thank this community for being an invaluable resource. It's so full of real peoples journeys and so much learning is to be had engaging with y'all.