I’m exploring the interesting world of polyamory. Reading books. Reading discussion forums. Messaging a couple of pretty fascinating people (very far away; nice and safe). I’m noticing a recurring theme, possibly because it seems to fit my situation.

Persons A and B enter into a long-term committed relationship, generally marriage. This relationship is implicitly or explicitly predicated on the assumption that both persons are attracted to each other and want to have sex with each other. Other implicit assumptions include things like gender, sexual orientation, and desire for sex at all.

Then person B says (or otherwise indicates) something like, “Guess what. I don’t actually want that kind of relationship with you.” This almost always includes not wanting to have sex with person A, or with people like person A. It often also includes the (horrifically painful) revelation that person B might never have wanted anything like that, in the first place. At some point after this, person A, who has decided they don’t want to dissolve the relationship for whatever reason, concludes that polyamory, ethical non-monogamy (ENM), or something like that is a potential solution to the problem of how to stay with this person and meet their unmet needs. They might say they’re “opening the marriage,” that they are “monogamish,” or that they’re poly.

Examples: Me, of course. A friend from across the pond whose husband revealed, after 20 years of marriage and constant gaslighting that, no, he was not attracted to her and never had been, and didn’t ever want to have sex with her, or possibly with anyone. Another person I know was married for several years to someone who later said they were trans, and probably always had been. I’ve read several stories like this in forums. Common elements seem to be:

• “Yeah I never felt about you like you thought I did, or like the marriage context assumed I did”
• “Sorry for completely misrepresenting how I felt about you all those years”
• “You were right when you kept thinking I wasn’t attracted to you”
• “I’ma need to take one or more other lovers so you should maybe think about doing that, too”
• “This an identity thing: I’m trans/bi/poly/gay/asexual”

Someone I know calls this being “accidentally poly.” A few months ago one of DP’s confidantes apparently said I was “generous” for supporting DP in pusuing other relationships and beginning to own this side of her sexuality. This made me angry. I certainly don’t feel generous, most days. I feel backed into a corner. Yes, I could just start divorce proceedings; other than that, though, I do feel stuck: I obviously can’t make DP feel differently about me. 15 years of trying haven’t made a dent in her feelings for me. I also can’t in good conscience be an ass to her about her feelings and identity. I could simply ignore it all, go about my life as if she didn’t exist, or as if she were straight, or as if she were a roommate I didn’t feel anything special for, but that would be a version of the inaccurate presentation that got us here in the first place.

So I guess I’m poly.