This is my experience as well. I was talking about it with some of my partners recently, and we all agreed we’d never go back to being mono, even if we were only with one person.

Also, the official poly flag

For sure! I think in a lot of ways, my first partner and I got lucky on the compatibility front. We’ve just always vibed super well, and usually come to the same conclusions about stuff, even if it’s by different means. I think we were also both pretty inclined towards multiple relationships, even though we didn’t really realize it until we’d been together for a long time.

Communication is definitely key, though. There are a lot of things that are kinda implicit in a monogamous relationship that you need to talk about more explicitly when it’s open. I think we’re also lucky in that we’re both friends with each other’s partners.

Honestly, the biggest hurdle was at first was insecurity, both about the relationship and myself (and herself as well). Getting over the idea that your partner may ditch you for another person they have NRE with is hard, despite assurances. Obviously, that never happened. These days, I’m so far from that version of myself these days that it’s kinda funny to look back on, at least.

My partner and I met as young, straight, and monogamous. We’ve been together for 18 years, and married for 13. We opened our relationship about 10 years ago, and now each have two other partners we’ve been with for several years (with some dating in between). We love where our lives have ended up, and are very glad we started dating multiple people. It’s definitely more complicated to manage multiple intimate relationships, but worth the effort if you’re inclined that way, I think.

Edit: just because I’ve seen other comments, I figure I should say that we tell people we’re polyamorous as shorthand, but we all mostly practice some form of relationship anarchy.

Here’s hoping they help! I waited until just last year to get diagnosed at the ripe ol’ age of 36. It took a whole to get the right meds figured out, but they’re helping a ton. They also have the side effect of severely reducing some chronic pain I had.

I will say that I kinda had to convince my psych that I actually had ADHD despite it being super obvious to all my friends. I scored too “well” on a computer aided test (oops, all video games). The thing that convinced her was making a spreadsheet of all the symptoms if both types and making a tick for each day they adversely impacted my ability to get stuff done.