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.
I was in the exact same situation. I developed feelings for someone; I hoped they would go away if I ignored them. The feelings got more severe. My brain started doing horrible things to itself to hide those feelings. There’s entire gaps in my memory as my mind blacked out anything that would betray the truth that I had fallen in love. Eventually I confessed to that friend, and thank god I did. While I was relieved my feelings were reciprocated, I realized had our mutual love ambushed us in an intimate setting we both would have cheated.
It is okay to acknowledge your feelings. It is okay that polyamory may be an aspect of your romantic orientation. While we cannot decide who we fall in love with, we can decide who we love (verb). No one else controls who I love.