Love Like This: The Broken Road That Led This Gay Man to Polyamory
Before I could find the love I needed, I had to lose the one I thought I’d built.
Author’s Note: I didn’t plan to end up in a polyamorous relationship. I wasn’t even sure I believed in them. But here I am — figuring it out in real time. This is the first of several stories I want to write about how I got here, what broke along the way, and what I’m still learning to carry. I’m not Dossie Easton and this isn’t The Ethical Slut 2.0. I’m just telling the truth as I lived it — and like a lot of queer love stories, mine starts somewhere that doesn’t feel like love at all.
“I really miss Spencer… I need to talk to Spencer.”
So that’s what a gut punch feels like.
My husband, Julian, just told me — while we were on a quiet little couple’s weekend in Buffalo — that he was too depressed to function… because he missed his fuckbuddy and couldn’t handle not texting him for 36 hours.
That sentence said a lot.
And none of it was about me.
Are you hooked? Good.
Let’s rewind to 2014.
I was a very different man back then. I was 450 pounds and lacking anything that even resembled confidence.
No, hold on — you don’t get it.
I actually paid my landlord to take the mirrors out of my apartment. That level of body dysmorphia.
So when this skinny, hot nerd with a pierced dong nicknamed “The Bear Ripper” showed interest in me, I was ALL about it. It was supposed to be a hookup. So… fuck it. Literally.
But then something weird happened.
We clicked.
We laughed at dumb memes from ICanHasCheezburger, sang along to the same songs, played video and board games for hours, and debated Dungeons & Dragons mechanics like our lives depended on it.
One night became a weekend… became a month… became a drawer in my bathroom… became a move-in date.
Then came the L-word.
Yes, lactation.
…kidding. (Though my man-boobs were a full cup size bigger than my sister’s at the time.) No — love. Julian told me he loved me.
When I say I was “all in,” I mean life savings, job connection, pets, and a goddamn knee on a restaurant floor in front of all our friends kind of all in. And I knelt in a blob of chutney. Never got the stain out of those pants. Foreshadowing? Sorry, I don’t know her. But yeah… now he’s working at the same company as me AND we have cats together. What bond could be more sacred?
We were open from the start. I’d never done that before. But Julian had a high sex drive, and I — well, I still couldn’t look at myself in a mirror, let alone fuck daily.
So it seemed to make sense. He got his needs met, and I got to pretend I wasn’t afraid he’d realize I wasn’t enough.
BUT. We had rules. Structure. Boundaries.
- No sleepovers.
- No unplanned hookups (my self-defense clause — so I could mentally prep and keep myself busy).
- The power of veto. If one of us felt weird about a potential hookup, we could say no.
We told ourselves it worked. For a while, I even believed it.
Then came Kris.
Hot, flirty, bear-shaped.
For the first time, someone wanted both of us.
We brought him home. Repeatedly.
He rocked our worlds in all the right ways for weeks and blended into our lives easily. Julian and I even joked about what it would be like if he joined the relationship.
Until one day, out of nowhere, Julian announced:
“I’m done with Kris. I don’t want to see him anymore.”
Just like that.
What fuckery is this?
He wasn’t even going to tell Kris — he said I should.
I was stunned. And while I tried to make sense of that emotional whiplash, Julian was already on to his next adventure: a couple named John and Spencer.
Yes, that Spencer.
I barely remember when Julian met them.
I was still dealing with the fact I thought I liked Kris and was trying to salvage that. All I knew was Julian was pulling further away from me.
He started suggesting I hang out with John and Spencer, like we were all going to be this fun poly Brady Bunch.
I tried.
Spencer was politely disinterested. John felt manipulative — and had the subtlety of a brick to the face. On our second meeting he was already talking about putting me in nipple clamps. …what kind of lady do you take me for, Sir?
Julian is disappearing.
He doesn’t touch me anymore.
He’s over there afternoons. Nights after work.
We don’t listen to music or tv together anymore.
He spends time alone in the spare bedroom.
I try to kiss him… he wipes his face where my lips had been.
I was bleeding from somewhere, but I couldn’t find the wound.
Somewhere between hello and goodbye, I lost the man I married — and didn’t realize it until he was kissing someone else.
I planned a trip. A weekend in Buffalo. Just us.
He’d always said we never traveled like John and Spencer. So, I booked the hotel. Packed his favorite snacks. Made a playlist of songs we used to sing (anything where Johnny Craig was the lead singer). I was trying to bring him back — one last Hail Mary drive to Buffalo.
The whole car ride up?
Silence.
Not just awkward silence — stonewalling. I tried questions, jokes, music, snacks.
Nothing.
I might as well have been riding with a mannequin in Walmart cargo shorts.
By the hotel room, I broke.
“Fucking talk to me,” I snapped.
And that’s when he said it.
“I really miss Spencer… I need to talk to Spencer.”
CRACK.
I cancelled the rest of the trip. We drove home in silence.
And when we got home, I gave him the choice. Me or Spencer. I’m not proud of the ultimatum. But when you’re emotionally bleeding, sometimes you throw the whole tourniquet.
He left that night.
I served him divorce papers four weeks later.
“I started falling out of love with you the day we got married.”
Casual. Like he was telling me the printer was jammed.
I swore off polyamory. Swore off open relationships. Swore off men, if we’re being honest. My marriage, my backup plan, my future — all gone.
But here’s the thing: polyamory didn’t fail me.
Julian’s inability to communicate like an adult did.
This didn’t fall apart because we were open. Or because of polyamory.
It fell apart because Julian wasn’t happy anymore — and I wanted nothing more than to love him enough to fix it.
Because that’s what love does, right?
It’s supposed to be enduring. Powerful. Unbreakable.
Love conquers all — that’s why Rose throws a gem the size of a raccoon’s brain into the fucking ocean.
Julian had time to fall out of love with me, slowly, quietly.
Meanwhile, I stayed. I showed up. I held on.
I was alone on a desert island.
My only companion had died of starvation —
and I blamed myself.
When your husband vanishes from your life — completely, suddenly —
it can wreck a psyche already hanging on by a thread. “You’re already disgusting,” the reflection in the mirror said. “But now you can add marriage killer to your resume too!”
It took a long time to unlearn what that relationship taught me about my worth:
That love is a prize.
That touch must be earned.
That I was a bad partner.
When love finally came back, it didn’t knock.
It didn’t apologize.
But it told the truth.
And this time, I believed it —
when it said I was enough.
Not just once — with a darling trash panda from the pet play community.
Not just twice — with a burly, fuzzy forest creature disguised as a man.
But three times now — most recently with a gentle soul who spent his whole life being the adult in the room… and just wanted to be someone’s little wiener puppy.
I didn’t seek polyamory. Each one of them found me and then slipped into my life easier than a toy coated in Astroglide.
