I am posting this here because my experience accepting myself as polyamorous mirrors the process of acceptance and coming-out that was required by my other queer identities.
Just as our culture coerces heteronormativity, so too does it coerce mononormativity- the idea that love should be monoamous. We are taught that love can only exist between two people, that to love more than one person is wrong.
Why? Why should we feel jealous if our lover loves another? To love is the greatest joy in a human life; I would never deprive one I love of such joy. Nor could I be with anyone who would so deprive me. How vile a thought, to look upon two people and say, "Your love is wrong; I will not allow it."
For years I thought I was going to hell because I fell in love again after getting married. Today, I am with both of them, and I am in heaven.
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Don't develop feelings or don't feel shitty about it?
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I mean it's not really a situation, I just don't act on those feelings and my partner and I have discussed it. The fact that I feel shitty about it kinda irrational, I know there's nothing wrong with polyamory, nothing wrong with having feelings outside of a monogamous relationship but so many years of enforced mononormativity makes it hard to remember sometimes
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Oh no, what I mean is it's irrational to feel bad for something I haven't done and have no intention of doing, and that cis het society is what makes me feel like I've done something wrong by thinking about polyamory as an option.
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Feelings aren't so easily controlled. You can't just say "well this feeling is bad to have, therefor I will not have it".