I've never really opened up about this to a whole lot of people before, but here it goes.

I guess it's always good to start with a backstory.

I have been with the same man for almost 4 years. For most of those years it was just he and I. Basically monogamous. We walked into the relationship aware of poly being a part of me. We have always been honest with each other and gave each other full disclosure. At some point during the second year or so, we tried being poly with 2 girls. It didn't work out in the end and it was a bad experience. After that, we weren't sure about it for a while and we didn't go looking for a third person or anything. We just let it go.

For me, being poly is an ability. I have this great big heart that can hold more than one person close to me and I feel like not a lot of people get that. I feel like this horrible slut of a woman because I can be in love with more than one person at a time and that kills me.

Well, recently me and my boyfriend entered our second try in a poly relationship with someone completely new. For the sake of keeping things not confusing, let's label my first boyfriend "Boyfriend A" and my newest one "Boyfriend B". Boyfriend B entered my life very unexpectedly. He started out as one of my managers at work. He was also in the process of a very messy divorce and had a lot of emotional damage inside. We started out as friends but connected so well that we fell in love over the span of what felt like a week. It was a bit of a blurr to be honest. I had always said that I wouldn't date my co-workers, let alone my boss, and that was also the rule at work. Don't date co-workers. I couldn't help myself though... I felt like Boyfriend B was a new kind of light that I had never seen before. Like nobody I had ever met. It was one of those surreal moments. I know this is going to sound crazy, but Boyfriend B turned out to be everything I had ever dreamed about in an ideal mate. Down to his physical appearance. That shocked me to my core. I started to think that he wasn't real. That it was all a lie. After I got to know him, I realized that it was all true. I had a hard time accepting it since we live in a world where dreams rarely come true unless they're meant to happen. Once I accepted that, I allowed myself to fall in love with him. It turned out that he had been in love with me for a while before that. We admitted our feelings for each other in a romantic park while we were slow-dancing to music and talking about random things. Our first kiss was absolute magic. I felt like I was somehow in a fairytale because, in my opinon, that stuff doesn't happen in real life.

I was so scared to tell Boyfriend A about it. Worried that he would take it the wrong way and shame me for how I felt. The night that I decided that it was time to tell him (not long after the night in the park with Boyfriend B), someone else had already blabbed to Boyfriend A about me and Boyfriend B and our hidden and forbidden love. We were hiding it from the whole world by this point. We weren't sure how we could work unless we were poly with my current relationship. All I knew was I loved both men. Boyfriend A was in shock when he looked at me and I didn't deny what he was told. He was told the truth, but in such a way that it was surprising him with it instead of me sitting him down and talking to him in a way that he might be able to understand. It was sprung upon him. I immediately broke down into tears. Boyfriend A walked out of the house for a smoke or two and left me there upset beyond all reason. I couldn't blame him. Boyfriend A is monogamous. I sobbed and talked to one of my best friends and had a nervous breakdown. It was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I felt just about as terrified as I did when I came out to my parents about my sexuality not being straight. Boyfriend A come back after a few smokes as expected, and at first he was distant and wouldn't talk to me. I decided to give him his space and just talk to Boyfriend B on Skype and fill him in on what happened. Boyfriend B comforted me as best as he could that night and ever since. He's basically my rock through all the problems that have arisen since his arrival into my life.

After a day or two, a huge fight, and some other stuff that I don't want to mention, Boyfriend A finally came to me and offered a compromise in the form of me being able to be poly if I can give him the space and freedom to cope/heal in any way he needed. I accepted, seeing it as a reasonable offer. I just want to be happy. I never wanted to ruin our relationship. I felt bad for a while and still do. Since that day, there has been tension and struggle and more fights between me and Boyfriend A while me and Boyfriend B are very happy and keep making each other smile and laugh and just bring out the best in each other. I feel like somehow I have fucked up in my bond/relationship with Boyfriend A. His attitude is different when we're at home than when we are out doing stuff away from home. Part of me thinks maybe he knows that I talk to Boyfriend B a lot when we're at home and he feels like that's his territory or something. I don't want there to be any kind of "pissing contest" between the two of them but I also know that I love them both equally. They are both part of me and I don't know how to make it work with tension and fighting with me and Boyfriend A. Boyfriend B is totally okay with Boyfriend A's presnece and doesn't want to be anyone's enemy. He gets it that I am a shared woman. I feel like being poly is something that a monogamous man like Boyfriend A can't possibly understand because it's not part of him. Like a straight person trying to understand what it's like to be bisexual. You like both, but the second it comes up as a possibility, the one who was there first is offended. That's basically how I feel.

I'm sorry I have a small novel in here. This is my first time reaching out for help with something like this and I don't know what to do. I feel like I need help from someone who gets what it's like to be in the middle like this. I've been told that the key to being poly is to make sure everyone's happy and that sometimes that means losing someone, but I don't want that to happen. I don't want to lose anyone if there is something I can do to make everyone happy with each other. The stress of it is draining enough.