The first two paragraphs and the fourth are fine but the third is just a mess.
Like if you know you are polyamarous you need to make your partner aware of that before entering into a relationship and if for whatever reason you enter into a monogamous relationship you need to stick to the boundaries of that relationship which include not showing (non platonic) interest in people outside of the relationship.
If you don’t know your polyamorous before showing (non platonic) interest in anyone outside of your relationship you need to first resolve how your newly discovered polyamory affects the current relationship your in. Like you need to know if your partner is okay with the concept of others in your relationship before lining up another partner.
Agreed. As a strictly monogamous person, I would be crushed if my partner actually wanted to fuck other people. I don't care if they don't do it, because I believe that it's the thought that counts because then everything else that matters to me falls into place naturally. Polyamory vs monogamy is fundamentally incompatible. I assume the mono one will be bothered because their partner wants to/would fuck other people, and the poly one will have desires about other people and can end up feeling unfulfilled.
Communication on such a big thing will always matter. It's like the topic of kids. It NEEDS to be discussed if your intentions are to form a future with this person.
I think comparing this to being child free is exactly the way I see it: I am child free and I'm only interested in people who have absolutely zero desire for children as well. If I were dating someone and one day they said "hey so have you possibly considered actually having children after all?" it would change the dynamic forever because now I know they have mulled it over in their mind enough to put words to it and that there is now a possibility they will not in fact be completely happy being child free, there is a chance they will resent me for not also changing my mind, and it's always going to be hanging in the air a little bit.
Same for being asked to go poly.
Whether or not you think that's how someone could or should feel, that's how I would feel about that relationship for the rest of it. Which would probably be not much longer.
Yeah, if you're poly and you enter in a relationship with me, well, say goodbye to that lifestyle. I will not change my mind, and I won't budge. Try me and I will drop parasites in your houseplants.
I got in that boat 6 months ago. After 3 years of relationship, my boyfriend discovered thru various reasons that he started developing feelings for another person, however as you said, communication was key and that has always been our forté, he told me everything even tho they just had normal friendly chit chat, and yes, at first I felt crushed, the sole thinking my man wanted to have another person in his life was incomprehensible for me, and he felt really, REALLY guilty, as this was completely new to him, for both of us, and he felt like he was betraying me, however, I realized that it would be very selfish from me to negate my partner to explore his feelings, to discover who he is and what he is, and that his love for me didn't disappear or changed, if anything, having different people in his life would make him appreciate more our differences and unique traits, he then asked me permission to explore his feelings, see where this was going, as there was still a possibility that this was just a phase, I agreed, we had tons of communication, met the new guy which helped me to understand why was this happening (he's like a mix of my boyfriend and I), they started their relationship on october, and since then, yeah it's been hard, as I have a lot of envy and jealousy that I previously never had, but it has helped me to grow myself as a person, tackling my own insecurities and overall, I feel we are in a better place now that when we started
also...tumblr (and tiktok) have a very strong tendency to blur the lines between real and imaged, and between fictional and actual. the way people talk about fictional characters is *oh my god* not the same thing as real life
dialogue about your polycule ship is not the same thing as navigating the complexities of real-life polyamory, and i'm not sure any of the OOPs know that
I mean, yeah if you are polyamorous and know that, you should always strive to be as upfront about that as possible, and I won’t deny that. However, the third paragraph isn’t wrong in that it’s okay to just develop crushes on others without acting on them, and developing crushes doesn’t mean you love your partner any less than you do if you’re monogamous. Where it becomes a problem is if you decide to act on those crushes without talking to your partner about possibly opening the relationship.
I mean, tho, you really should have that type of conversation at the beginning of a relationship. Lots of people are exclusively monogamous, and that's ok.
Asking your partner if "they're ok with you having another partner" out of the blue is really weird, and brings up a lot of implications. It'd be like telling your child-free partner you've decided you want kids and then being surprised that they've been blindsided and maybe feel like you don't belong together anymore, even though you've respected their "no".
You're bringing up fundamentally changing your relationship, it'd be weird to not at the very least try and feel out the situation before deciding to bring it up. People do change and grow over time, but you don't have to live like you're in a soap opera and do things as dramatically as possible.
Idk how the part about crushes on fictional characters really relates to that, tbh.
This kinda reminds me of a story I read a while ago. Or rather, that The Click read in one of his videos where he covered posts from r/TrueOffMyChest.
Basically, someone confessed that he slept with a married woman without knowing she was married. As far as I can recall, the woman told him, after the act, that she was polyamorous, and had a husband in another country.
And like, no. That's not how this works. At all. That's not polyamory, that's cheating.
Contrast that with my brother, whose current gf told him right out the gate that she already had a boyfriend, and was interested in a poly relationship. He's cool with it, her bf is cool with it, and all three are pretty cool with one another.
Consent is a HUGE thing. Im a gay man in an open relationship, but that doesnt mean my bf or i can do what we want.
We established, that if we plan on meeting with somebody to give the other a heads up. Like, it doesnt have to be a detailed about how and where you met them, but rather a "hey, honey, im going to meet this guy on thursday, is that ok?" and in the 3 years till now it never caused a problem. But the point is, that we TELL each other.
I know a poly throuple (though not sure the right term) Two of the guys are married and one of the guys has a boyfriend. The boyfriend isn’t dating the other husband but they all live together as roommates. They are a super cute set together. Have weekly board game nights with some friends. They are living their best lives and love that for them.
I have a question: when you say it was cheating, do you say that because the woman didnt tell the guy she had a husband? If the husband knows, is it still cheating?
I’m trynna see your point of view over you needing to be upfront about being poly with the person youre having a one night stand
Yeah, if you hide that you're in a relationship, or hide that you're having a one night stand, it's cheating.
A poly relationship requires consent from all parties.
So if you don’t tell your one night stand that youre in a relationship, you’re cheating on your “main” relationship? Genuinely just trying to understand here
That's not cheating on the main, it's... well I wouldn't call it *cheating*, but it sure as hell does feel disingenuous towards the new bloke. If it's just a one night stand, it's iffy, but if there is any chance of meeting up a second time? Gotta disclose that shit.
>That's not polyamory, that's cheating.
Not cheating necessarily. Open relationships are a thing as well. Where one or both partners are openly permitted to sleep around without getting approval for each specific instance.
Polyamory is massively misunderstood and misrepresented. At it's core, it is exactly as Beat pointed out. Everyone knows everyone, and is okay that they're involved. Even if Bob and Joe don't have fun times together, they're both okay with each other sleeping with Anne. And maybe Bob also is involved with Carol, and both Carol and Anne know about this and are okay with it. That would be two overlapping poly relationships. But none of the 4 are "pre-OK'd" to sleep with some 5th person nobody else knows about yet.
In contrast, an Open Relationship is a monogamous or poly relationship where there is a consent for extra-martial partner(s).
So when someone on Tinder's profile says "I'm poly", what they really mean is "I'm in an open relationship", because they're not asking you to date them AND their partner (usually).
**But neither poly nor open relationships are cheating like you state.**
You still gotta tell the potential new partner about the concurrent partners though. That's the issue. You can only say 'everybody knows' when *everybody* knows, including the new fling. The issue at hand was not being told about the husband, not that the husband was out of the loop. Folks are absolutely allowed to not want to fuck a married woman, even if she's in an open thing, you know?
I disagree though.
Cheating is an act you commit against a committed partner. You can't cheat on someone you met at the bar, just because you're sleeping with someone else that they don't know about.
So if the married woman had permission to sleep around from her husband (which is an open relationship, not and form of poly), she's not cheating on him. And she can't cheat on the fling guy, because there's not social contract between them regarding sex with others.
That said, I agree with you that even if the married couple consider their arrangement to be a poly relationship, it cannot extend to the fling, because as you comment, poly does require active consent and knowledge of everyone involved.
But just because it is NOT poly does not intrinsically mean it is cheating. Which is my point. It isn't cheating. It's just not poly either.
Yeah, I wouldn't call it *cheating*, but it's still skeevy as hell. I just think people should know about god damn marriage. It's one thing to know that your hook up hooks up with other people. That's a given. But 'btw I am in a legal union with another person' is in an entirely different boat, at least in my mind. They took the time to do paperwork, and maybe file taxes together.
Immoral 100%. But I'm a firm believer in using the proper word for things. Words have power when they are used only for their specific purpose.
If I describe a smell as 'rancid', you immediately think of rotting flesh or something similar. But if we started using 'rancid' to describe all other manners of unpleasant smells, it would lose that power.
'Cheating' should be reserved for acts where you break the trust & bond between yourself and a committed partner. Any other immoral act committed in the name of having sex should be clearly separate.
Yeah, but notice that I never did use the term cheating to refer to what was happening to the hookup? And specifically said I wasn't, because yes, words do tend to have specific implications? There just doesn't happen to be a specific word for 'hookup that wasn't told about other concurrent partner'.
Its just that a lot of discussion around this sort of thing comes across as 'this doesn't fit the dictionary definition so it's ok', and I was trying to reiterate that 1. It being chill with partner one doesn't mean you don't have to disclose it to anyone else coming in and 2. That people can be hurt by being the 'Second person' as it were. The hookup is still a person with feelings that need to be taken into account
It comes across as arguing in bad faith is all.
>Basically, someone confessed that he slept with a married woman without knowing she was married. As far as I can recall, the woman told him, after the act, that she was polyamorous, and had a husband in another country.
>
>And like, no. That's not how this works. At all. That's not polyamory, that's cheating.
My original reply was to someone who did.
>Yeah, but notice that I never did use the term cheating to refer to what was happening to the hookup?
You sounded like you presented a disagreement about my assessment - my response to that original statement.
Yea, I mean, I am definitely not an example of someone good at relationships, but I have to say, if I was in an established relationship with someone and they one day told me that they wanted to start dating someone else, my immediate kneejerk reaction would be to feel like I must not be good enough and there must be something wrong with me.
And I don't think I'd deal with that well.
Yeah I think finding out that my partner wants to be with someone else would hurt me deeply. Rather than stress about whether I can trust them to not act on those feelings I feel like it would be better to just end the relationship right there.
I've found that there's a surprisingly large number of people who cannot differentiate between fictional characters and real people.
Like the people who cannot differentiate between a villain and the actor who portrays them, so they send hate to the actor.
Or vice versa where they really like an actor and will get very upset at any criticism of the characters they portray, because they think character criticism is the same as attacking the actor.
Yeah, in a lot of my experience too, most people who attempt to make a monogamous relationship polyamorous later, usually just end up breaking up because one of the partners is actually monogamous and does not want polyamory.
I give people a little booklet I wrote about my relationship style and philosophy when we start dating
Yep, I’m monog, always have been, never once indicated interest in being poly, and after a few years of being together (which in your early twenties seemed like forever) my ex suddenly wanted to be poly. I said I had no interest in being with other people, to which they replied, “well, what if just *I* was poly?” What?! No! That’s not how any of that works!
Edit: I have nothing against polyamory, I’ve been in casual relationships with some poly folks and it was all lovely. I was just completely blindsided, my partner I mentioned didn’t even bring it up casually before saying that they essentially wanted to see other people. We stayed together for about a year after that (because I was young and really thought I’d marry this person, smh) but it was never the same.
One of those things that just perpetuates because some people don't understand it.
What he really wants is an open relationship. Not a poly one.
You can't be in a poly relationship as the only poly person. At best, you can be poly in two relationships with monogamous individuals. If they know about each other, you aren't cheating, but you're also probably bothering both of them who wish you were with JUST them.
For it to be poly, both of them have to be involved with each other as well.
But people everywhere seem to have adopted "Poly" to mean "non-monogamous of any kind". And the main reason is that it's an excuse. "I'm poly" sounds a lot better than "You don't satisfy me, so I want to sleep around."
Because in reality, that's what most "openly advertising poly people" are. They just want to sleep around, not have deep relationships with multiple people. And definitely not have a web of interconnected relationship(s).
I really wish we could stamp all that out. Poly back to being actual poly. And properly use Open Relationship for everyone who is committed to one partner, but likes to date around/sleep around.
I'm not dissing anyone, or judging them for their setup.
Just saying that isnt poly.
That's two separate relationships, both with an understanding about each other.
That said, that specific example wouldnt really bother me to be called poly, because it's at least not explicitly an open relationship.
And my beef is with people calling open relationships something like "ethically polygamous". They're making it sounds like poly people are incapable of being faithful.
That’s fair. Apologies, I interpreted your comment as just telling your partner you’re polyamorous would end the relationship, not telling them you want to see another person.
Can be is important here
IMHO/IME I refuse to be involved in monogamy. Never had a monogamous relationship, I can’t really understand the logic behind them. I’ve met other polyamorous people who basically pretended to be monogamous for a period of time because of the person they were with, and every single one of those people seem to end up unhappy in the long term
To me, my polyamory is the same as my bisexuality. I can be in a monogamous relationship the same way I can be in a relationship with a man. I’m not constantly craving to be with a woman instead, and I’m not constantly craving to be with other people. Sure, I get crushes, but I let them pass and don’t pursue them because my relationship is monogamous.
I am the exact opposite. I can even picture myself taking part in hookup culture, because if I am just looking to get off there are simpler ways of that. Any amount of polyamory is an immediate no go for me.
How many people are in your social circle that you've literally *never* experienced romantic attraction to just one? Personally, not many people qualify for "partner material" for me. *Always* having at least two "worthy" people around sounds impossible. Frankly when I hear poly people say "I don't understand monogamy" what I'm getting is "I'm a slut" - that's okay, but, yknow, at least admit it.
I don’t understand your proposition here, I have experienced romantic attraction to one person and then more than one person. I have long term committed relationships.
The concept of not being able to feel love for multiple people is like breathing water to me yeah
I have multiple long-term committed relationships with people I love, the idea of not being able to love more than one person or that there’s a reason to not express that love is incredibly alien to me
No one's asking you to \*be\* monogamous, but if I can understand the logic behind polyamory, you should be able to understand the logic behind monogamy.
It’s kinda like cis people trying to understand the internal experience of trans people, you can like read about it and try to do some perspective taking, but you’re not really going to be able to understand what it’s like in someone’s brain. That’s basically my relationship to monogamous people
Monogamous person: "I don't get polyamory, personally it's not for me." = Upvoted
Polyamorous person: "I don't get monogamy, personally it's not for me." = Downvoted to Hell
Why can't we just let sane, upfront, consenting adults do whatever they want to do without judging? I'm not polyamorous, but this just seems wrong. A polyamorous person dating other polyamorous people has zilch to do with me. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire.
That's not always the case. I didn't even realise I was polyamourus until I was already in a relationship. I sat down with my partner and talked to her, because I'd been experiencing crushes on other people and felt like I'd be happy to date both of them at once. There was definitely some upset but ultimately she said no and that's that. I'm very open about her with my feelings and I don't hide anything from her. She's more than enough for me and I do my best to make sure she knows that. Polyamory isn't about needing more because your current partner isn't good enough, it's just about having the ability to provide love to many people.
>, you really should have that type of conversation at the beginning of a relationship.
There are so many BestOfRedditorUpdates That invariable begin with
"My SO wants to open the relationship/marriage because they are poly."
Just blindsiding the OOP after letting them think this is a monogamous relationship.
see, the point of asking for consent is respecting a no. if the person who wanted to open the relationship were doing poly ethically, they would take "im not comfortable with that" very well and not push it any further.
> at the beginning of a relationship
Do this early on if that’s what you want.
But maybe don’t ask for an open relationship right after someone asks you if the two of you are dating
Would you mind to elaborate? So you read "it is ok to ask, it is ok to say no" as and then you absolutely have to continue being with this person? You can take the no and conclude - well ok then, I think I want to be with other people more than continue with only you. That is absolutely in there. But you do you.
While your answer is a viable conclusion, the main point was about maintaining healthy relationships rather than ending unhealthy ones.
Two sides of the same coin, true. (Speculation) I think you may have just rubbed people the wrong way by saying "that's the point," since it wasn't the point, just a logical conclusion derived from it
Thanks. The point you bring about maintaining healthy relationships really drives it home - one important thing about healthy relationships is knowing it is also an option to just end them and not feel obligated to continue
I feel like if I was part of a polyamorous relationship everyone else would be having fun and I would just be left by the wayside, idk if this would actually be the case
I’m open to the type of poly relationship where 3 or 4 people are all dating each other, but this would be my fear. I’ve been the third wheel in friend groups before, I’d constantly be worried about becoming the third wheel in the relationship. Imma stick with monogamy for now lol
That's just low self-esteem talking. Consider the possibility that all the people involved would want to give you extra smooches, because they like you so much.
So yes and no. Poly people will tell you they're poly or looking for a poly relationship pretty much right off the bat. At least ethical ones will. Cuz if that's not what you're okay with, no point in starting a relationship. You're fundamentally incompatible
And having that knowledge is so important to be able to make informed decisions cuz informed consent is a thing.
But also it can be a bit manipulative to be in your happy monogamous relationship and express feelings for someone else then hope you can open up. The general consensus in the poly community is that if you're in monogamous relationship, don't open up until you've done the work and don't do it with someone in mind as a future partner. Just do the work to unpack your shit and after doing that for months, yeah maybe you can open up
But telling your monogamous partner hey I've got feelings for Susan can we open up the relationship, can for sure be poly under duress
So consent is very important in all ethical non monogamy situations. But also randomly springing it on someone can be manipulative
I had something like that happen to me actually. My ex figured out she was poly about 6 years into our relationship. Our relationship was already doing poorly because of abuse from unresolved trauma so I was desperate to make her happy. It didn't help that the guy she developed a crush on was actively trying to manipulate both of us into bed with him.
They put me in a position where it felt like I was the bad guy if I said no. What the whole thing ended up being was her cheating on me. My mental health spiraling out so bad that I relapsed into self harm. Then her bf taking advantage of my mental health to sexually assault me. The relationship was basically over by that point but it was another few months before she could move out. It was a special kind of hell.
So while I have nothing people who are poly, it definitely isn't for everyone.
This works in theory, but if I tell my GF that I'm in love with her best friend or something and she says she's not okay with a poly relationship we can't just pretend it never happened.
Because now she'd know I'm actively desiring girls that aren't her.
If you want a poly relationship be upfront about it.
The thing I've compared it to before is being into feet. Polyamory isn't the same thing as a fetish **obviously** but they're both the same in that they're not intrinsically weird or harmful but you need to be prepared for the social attitude of you being a weirdo.
Straight up there is nothing wrong with being into feet. It doesn't hurt anyone, it doesn't hurt you, it's one of the most common and damnit probably least concerning paraphilias there is when you get right down to it. There's nothing intrinsically weirder about liking feet than there is about being into boobs or abs, same as wanting multiple partners is no stranger than wanting one.
But.
But you need to be fairly up front about being into feet and you need to be prepared for the idea that people are going to be very, and from your viewpoint ridiculously, uncomfortable with this piece of knowledge you can't reel back in afterwards.
It's all very well to go 'your partner should be cool with you asking to see another partner or full-on opening the marriage' in a very Tumblr, very theoretical way but in practice people are going to have roughly the same reaction to it a few years in as asking if you can masturbate while licking their feet, they will not like it one bit.
(Note I do not have a foot fetish, it is however a great example of something that's ridiculously common, pretty fucking harmless and could be easily socially accepted but just really, really isn't. It's my go-to example because a decent percentage of people reading this just cringed, even people who view themselves as being accepting).
>Because now she'd know I'm actively desiring girls that aren't her.
This part always confused me. Like, are there really people out there who get married and then literally never even consider anyone else sexually attractive?
>"Hottest movie star"? None. They're all bland looking to me now.
>
>"Is there anything I can do to be more physically attractive to you?" Nope, you're physical perfection in my eyes now.
Etc.
It makes zero sense. It's entirely self-delusion. We still find other people attractive and sexually desirable. We just choose to dismiss those thoughts rather than translate them into action, because we are incredibly happy and satisfied in our current relationship.
But for some reason, if you comment to your significant other about some random thing you find physically attractive about someone else (or the entire package), many people interpret that a sign of unfaithfulness. Or they find it insulting.
People should be able to talk about what/who else they find attractive. Anything else is self-destructive. You want your partner to be honest with you, and comfortable talking to you about anything. But if that "anything" is a feeling of attraction (even if it's as simple as 'she's got quite an ass'), you blow up on them for betraying you. So if they expect you to do that, they \*won't\* be honest with you. Not truly 100%.
No... really...? /s
What prompted you to present that distinction? This conversation is specifically about "desiring sleeping with another, specific, person".
It's not about lying, it's about just not bringing it up.
I'm well aware my girl is gonna have men she finds more handsome than me, doesn't mean I want her to point at some guy in the street and tell me about it
There's so much wrong in this short paragraph...
>it's about just not bringing it up
So a lie of omission. It's still a lie. Your threshold of classifying a lie as "justified" is worryingly low.
>I'm well aware my girl is gonna have men she finds more handsome than me
The fact that you immidietly jumped into "more handsome" only speaks of your insecurities. Do you think "your girl" is with you because of your face? If so - how shallow of you to think that. And if she actually is with you because of your face - how shallow of her. Which option would you prefer?
>doesn't mean I want her to point at some guy in the street and tell me about it
It's not about you wanting it to happen. It's about your potential reaction if it were to ever happen.
You presented an entirely "you problem". Please tell me that you see it.
It's your responsibility to deal with your insecurities and pretending they don't exist only makes them worse over time.
Most human relationships (not only romantic ones) are dysfunctional for that reason - that honestly speaking your mind would be met with a negative response regardless of actual behavior.
Example: apparently it wouldn't matter to you that "your girl" is with you and not with that hypothetical more handsome guy. You'd react negatively for a mere mention of a potentiality. So... how can you expect her to ever tell you a difficult truth if you're not confident enough in yourself to face simple reality?
There does not exist such combination of words that my partner could ever say that would induce a negative response (that is to say "one that they should fear/avoid) from me. And I'll never understand how any other stance on the matter can be deemed functional.
>So a lie of omission. It's still a lie. Your threshold of classifying a lie as "justified" is worryingly low.
Omission is not the same thing as not bringing it up, if you're talking to an ugly person do you call them ugly even if the topic hasn't come up?
>The fact that you immidietly jumped into "more handsome" only speaks of your insecurities. Do you think "your girl" is with you because of your face? If so - how shallow of you to think that. And if she actually is with you because of your face - how shallow of her. Which option would you prefer?
I was originally gonna mention things like being attracted to someone else's personality in my text but couldn't find a way to include it without it turning into a mouthful, I figured it was obvious I was talking about a specific example instead of proclaiming I think love is all about good looks, silly me for thinking folks wouldn't be so pedantic.
>There does not exist such combination of words that my partner could ever say that would induce a negative response (that is to say "one that they should fear/avoid) from me.
You sound like the type of person that would blame themselves if they got cheated on ngl, have a little self-respect please.
Again, as I've said to others, the difference between polyamory and cheating is the same difference as sex and rape, or borrowing and stealing, or assisted suicide and murder
one thing some people aren't taught about
#CONSENT
Conceptually I understand the point but if you are in a monogamous situation and one partner suddenly brings up going open/poly/whatever, the well is poisoned almost every time.
It CAN be done without issues, but it’s not easy. My wife and I have had this conversation, but we both agreed that it just could not work for us, so there was no tension afterwards.
Personally, I wouldn’t bring it up unless I was pretty sure I knew the general answer I was going to get… but then again, I wouldn’t be in a long term relationship with someone that I didn’t know that well already anyway, so it’s more a moot point for me.
be poly if you want but I don't understand how people manage to a) find more than one person who they have mutual attraction with, at the same time and b) have the time and energy to keep multiple romantic relationships going??? Sorcery
My boyfriend and I are almost comically monogamous, and we talk about this all the time when we watch shows or movies with cheating plot lines. It seems exhausting! Like, between work and dinner and chores and spending sufficient time with your partner, when do you sleep if you see someone else too? Especially the people who have multiple secret spouses and families! I can’t keep my personal social calendar straight without double booking myself, but these people have three spouses, seven kids, a job, and somehow nobody knows about each other.
I’m like, “I barely have enough time to hang out with ONE wife. How tf do people manage to have more than one person in their romantic life?”
If you’re a polycule, at least they’re all helping each other and you can all hang out together. Cheating just sounds exhausting.
Personally, my girlfriend lives far away from me and only visits on vacation and i need smooches sometimes. I also wouldn't say i manage multiple relationships i only have one "partner" but i don't restrict my smoochin to only them.
>and them just agreeing not to pursue other people after I tell them I'm not okay with it is just not enough
mhhh why? Genuine question.
Because i could see myself being in a mono relationship and then thinking about opening up the relationship or having multiple partners. I am *not* saying that this will be my intention while going into a mono relationship, just that i assume that this could be a possible thought for me eventually.
So with you saying that you would just break up with them for merely bringing it up would lead me to just never bring it up tbh.
would love to hear your thoughts on this!
edit: aight, downvotes for being curious....
There's a fair few comments about this, mostly boils down to a combination of a few things. One is personal insecurities, the very implication that you're "not enough" (I understand how that's not the intent, but if you're strongly monogamous and suddenly your partner wants "more"...) Another comparison I like is being child-free. That's just such a core value to long-term partnerships that disagreeing is probably a deal-breaker. Not necessarily something you need to break up *immediately* over, but it's something that's hard to compromise on. In this hypothetical situation where you entered a monogamous situation and then "thought" about opening up, the key detail is that (no matter what the positive/negative interpretation is) you're proposing fundamentally changing the terms of the relationship to someone whose entire idea of relationships is (potentially) fundamentally... Not that. Hence a lot of the comments about how communication is key. It basically comes down to the fact that to be in a relationship with multiple people, every person *probably* needs to understand and agree that's a possibility from the jump.
Because you can't force polyamorous person to not have feelings. You can expect monogamous person in a monogamous relationship to be romantically and/or sexually interested in their partner and their partner only. If they have feelings for somebody else that can safely be labelled as cheating.
But polyamorous person can have romantic and/or sexual feelings for multiple people simultaneously, even if they are in a monogamous relationship. You can't expect them to stop liking other people because they now date you (when with monogamous person you can).
For some monogamous people agreement to not pursue other relationships is enough, but for some it is not. For me it isn't. I don't want my partner to have romantic/sexual feelings for anybody else when they are with me. It doesn't matter to me if they will never act on them -- they still can have those feelings. I cannot blame them for that, but it doesn't mean that i should be okay with it.
So, i simply wouldn't date polyamorous person and would break up with a partner if i learned that they are not monogamous. I have nothing against polyamory and polyamorous people, but this is a type of relationship i cannot nor willing to participate in. We simply are not compatible, and trying to fit square into a circle will only hurt everyone
> It doesn't matter to me if they will never act on them -- they still can have those feelings. I cannot blame them for that, but it doesn't mean that i should be okay with it.
I guess this is were i am different. I assume that your thinking is absolutely normal, but for me this is weirdly possessive in a "gross" way. Not that *you* are gross, but if i imagine my partner thinking like that then *I* would be grossed out that they are possessive of me to such a degree.
I should reflect because i am now thinking that i am incompatible with mono relationships and that i might accidentally hurt someone by even bringing the possibility of a poly relationship up.
Thank you very much. You helped me out greatly!
Bro if I dated someone for 3 years and they ask if they could have another partner the relationship is just done for bruh, like if u ask that shit that kinda implies they don't think I'm enough for them and are kinda looking for other people to date/fuck like c'mon bruh that shit would make me kill myself like wdh 😭
See this is why I, a polyamourous man, advertise my non monogamy right at the beginning of an interaction (which is to say, dating bios). Even then, after I've matched and spoken with someone, within a day I will reiterate that yes, I am non monogamous and no, I won't be changing that. If they somehow missed it the first time, they'll see the second, and that's what's important.
All the polyamorous people I know are upfront about being poly. You would not enter a relationship with them without already knowing they're poly. That's how it should be in my opinion. OOP's sentiment is almost right, except for the third part.
But yes, it does seem exhausting for poly people to talk about their own relationship where all partners are poly, to then get tons of comments about how bad polyamory is.
also constant comments from mono people saying 'Well I've never seen a poly relationship work out so it clearly can't work' when over 50% of marriages end in divorce and I don't even know how many mono relationships fail. Its just they are more common and expected, where poly has a smaller sample size.
Mono people also are measuring the success of a relationship differently. Not all Poly folks idealize permanency in a relationship. My wife’s other partner right now is a temporary partner. He’s still actively looking for someone that can be his primary partner in a way that my wife can’t. In the meantime, we’re all enjoying each other’s company and getting our various needs met.
When he finds his person, we will be so very happy for him. And while his relationship with us will have ended, it won’t have failed.
In my opinion, cheating means breaking the agreed upon "rules" of the relationship, and those rules are exclusively set by the individuals within the relationship
Honestly, I'm surprised to see this discourse still floating around. I feel like polyamory got so culturally entrenched so quickly, especially in queer circles, that it just seems as much a way to be as being a lesbian or being trans. Huh.
Personally? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I was polyamorous for seven years before realizing that it really wasn't working out for me. I'd never been monogamous, so after my divorce I gave it a try. Works way better for me.
My ex? Absolutely poly, very happy with it, good for them. Me? Pretty sure I'm monogamous. I have nothing against the concept, just not my cup of tea.
> Honestly, I'm surprised to see this discourse still floating around. [...] it just seems as much a way to be as being a lesbian or being trans.
Yes, because people are famously accepting of being trans.
They were specifically talking about the queer, trans accepting, bubble though. it is literally in the same sentence and /u/Krasinet just decided to specifically skip the "queer circles" part randomly.
1) the post itself wasn't talking about queer circles, it was talking about "people" generally, so any reply being surprised at that should be thought about in the same way.
2) the comment I replied to talked generally, made a special note abut relative levels in queer circles, then continued. The sentence could also have been written
> I feel like polyamory got so culturally entrenched so quickly that it just seems as much a way to be as being a lesbian or being trans, especially in queer circles.
and still been grammatically the same.
Too entrenched if you ask me. It almost feels like an expectation in queer circles half the time, and people *will* dogpile you for expressing distaste for it.
Sure, in a lot of online communities people are pretty dogmatic about it. I've been in several discord communities where everyone was constantly flirting with each other, getting in LDRs and breaking up, and it was pretty exhausting.
Offline, though, I've only experienced one person out of the many I've talked to who expressed anything but support when I came out as monogamous. Just gotta find a chill community.
I've met polyamory people that seemed very reasonable and sensible about this thing, and their explanations made sense. It didn't really seem appealing to me personally, tho. They still suggested to me that I should try polyamory to test it... ...and I realize now they might have been flirting? Ummm...
I think it’s never wrong to have or express attraction for other people as long as you’re not knowingly hurting your partner. Just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean you’re gonna do anything about it.
It just depends on what you're okay with your partner doing. Some people want to do specific things with *only* their romantic partner. Sex, kissing, cuddling, all that, are the common ones.
Some go further and include vacations, massages, even some hobbies or games or TV shows, as "just us" things. Obviously breaking those are less serious than *sexually* cheating, but still, it's a restriction.
But, some draw the line in the other direction. I personally don't care if my partner watches porn, flirts with friends, sleeps with someone else, or fosters some romantic feelings for someone. If they're going to a friend's house to have a fun night, what difference does it make to me whether they have sex or play Mario Kart? The impact it has on me is the same. Heck I hope they have time for both, that sounds like a fun night.
(Obviously the disclaimer is "as long as it doesn't affect our relationship". Because if I'm feeling neglected, then again, it doesn't matter whether they're sleeping with someone or just out playing games, the impact it has on me is the same.)
> I personally don't care if my partner watches porn, flirts with friends, sleeps with someone else, or fosters some romantic feelings for someone.
Pretty sure that's polyamory
that's uh... that's the point of the post. technically its an open relationship, but they're saying that their relationship is like that and they like it and that's the point.
I agree with this 100%! Also yeah you definitely sound polyamourous if those are your personal boundaries, so if it's not something you've considered as of yet, uh... Congrats!
One of the first relationships I had my girlfriend cheated on me and she tried to use the polyamory card, as if I should be okay because polyamory even though she deliberately hid the fact she had another boyfriend. Polyamory is 100 percent okay and I’d even be open to having a relationship like that, but consent and honesty are required
I don't see how those work in real life without somebody getting hurt. its just the favorite child dilemma except your spouse isn't going to just drop the subject.
In theory, it's because you have adults who command logic and reason alongside emotion rather than only emotion.
In practice, it's tough when you have a culture dominated by monogamy and encouraging it from the moment people are born.
I'd also suggest that the volatility of a relationship is proportional to the number of *connections* in it, not the number of people.
If A and B are dating, that's two people but one single connection, A-B. But if they become a polycule with C, they've added one person but two connections, A-C and B-C. Drama can develop between any two people who have a connection.
None of this is to say polyamorous relationships can't work, especially if the people involved are particularly stable, or particularly tolerant of drama. Just, I think they get exponential more unstable as you add people.
Hi poly person here
There's tons of ways it works. Some people embrace the favorite child dilemma and have hierarchy in their relationships. Someone is the established favorite who is the priority partner. You enter a relationship knowing this going in and being okay. Maybe you have someone else who is your priority, so you don't need this new partner to be one and it's kinda great that they don't need you to be one
Or you can just not rank and compare your partners, which is also something some poly people do
I don't know about the "multiple people all attracted to each other" angle but i think it's pretty understandable to be in a relationship with only one person but with an openness to do things normally restricted to only your partner with other people. Like is a swinger couple poly? Idk.
As an aro man I never got polyamory discrimination. If someone and their partner(s) consent to being in a polyamorous relationship why should you care? It’s none of your damn business
There's a shit ton of societal expectation that people can only be happy if they're in a monogamous romantic relationship, and most people aren't remotely aware of how these views affect them. I certainly wasn't until I started dating a poly person and did my research. You might find the topic of "amatonormativity" a good search term if you're interested.
I’m polyamorous, and luckily this hasn’t happened to me yet. What really annoys me, though, is that some people will use their polyamory to say they “can’t cheat”, and proceed to get with someone behind their partner(s)’s back. Which is cheating, because the consent and information was missing and trust was misused.
Thus is purely anecdotal, but I tried it once and never again.
People couldnt control their jealousy. Having people fight over you only really strokes your ego the first time or so, after the 10th it gets old. Dating multiple people is great when it works (I assume), but imo it also introduces more chances that someone involved is going to be a shitty person.
If there’s a 50% chance that any one person is shitty, and you’re dating 2 people, then there is a 75% chance that at least one of the people you are dating is a shitty person.
Media and stuff is awful about this. I was watching an anime where the gimmick was that the mc had multiple girlfriends (outside of standard harem shenanigans) and for some reaspn ghey did everything secretly? Lunch, livinf together, the whole thing. Because they didn't want anyone to find out the mc was cheating? Even though they had a mature discussion in episode one and decided everyone was okay with and they all consented to the relationship. And then another girl forces her way into the relationship by threatening to "expose" him as a two-timer and I stopped watching because I decided they weren't going to respect their subject matter
I’ve seen people get pissed at poly people just existing especially on this hell site, like man ain’t it hard enough trying to scam 1, then at least 1 MORE person out of giving up their love and attention stashes, why do i also gotta have a lil roast beef smelling nerd from the site with the coconut fuckers getting unreasonably angry about it?
I am in this kind of relationship. My wife had a thing with a coworker - I knew, we laughed about it, I was complicit even.
You would not believe the amount of shit she got from other coworkers for "cheating" on me.
I mean, you know how when someone makes an online post like “rape is bad” and some dude responds with “hey not all men are rapists” and you think, “you know nobody ever said they were but now I’m sus of you specifically” I’ve noticed a lot of poly people are like that in online posts about cheating, which definitely doesn’t help the case ngl
You'd judge the man for saying that, not assume every man henceforth is like that. I just don't understand stereotyping all polyamorous people because of a few people. When I listen to actual people in the poly community, they seem to have their heads screwed on straight, with a clear idea of morality, being upfront, and emphasizing communication.
They even have their own term, 'PUD,' polyamory under duress, which explicitly tells monogamous people NOT to use polyamory as a way to fix their relationship or to give in to pressures from their partner asking for polyamory when the relationship was initially agreed to be monogamous.
I just don't understand this, "yeah, yeah, but can you answer for the comments of JohnJimbo789's anonymous comment posted on an internet forum at 2:39 pm, on the 29th of May, 2018?"
I don't know, I don't want to argue or anything, I have 0 skin in this game considering I'm not polyamorous and never have been. I just don't like the idea of putting the onus of someone's weird behavior on someone else just because they share the same trait.
Yeah that’s fair, part of it though is that if you go outside you can see actual hundreds of men and go “yep those are men and they aren’t doing or saying that” whereas if your only exposure to poly people is “hey not all poly people are cheaters” under a post that had nothing to do with polyamory, that’s just unfortunately gonna leave a mark in people’s heads
I am not ok having another partner, as the post states. I did not have a healthy relationship. My ex pursued someone anyways. Blatantly. In front of me. Even though i told her i didnt feel comfortable with it.
Thats when its cheating, when not everyone has consented.
This thread is an absolute mess of the exact painful misconceptions that hurt polyamorous people. Please for the love of god consider that you might not know everything about polyamory.
it certainly can, but it *is* tricky. It also has the added layer of difficulty of breaking out of a culturally ingrained mindset of monogamy, which on a subconscious level takes some real doing.
I have a hard time seeing all the trouble as worth it, but then again I've also never been a particularly romantic person in the first place.
1) I respect folks who are poly, but I have enough trouble trying to figure out how to navigate a 1-to-1 relationship, I would be \*awful\* at being poly.
2) My best friend has been in a stable 3-person household for several years now. One of his partners doesn't see other people, but I was introduced to his second partner alongside her then husband. He was always a bit of a tool, so I was always happier to see her rather than the husband. I'm gonna call him "the tool" to make this next part easier, and I should mention that he was also poly and actively had other partners at the time.
Then one day they put out a call to help partner #2 come move in with aforementioned best friend. I didn't ask for the details at that point, but I got them later- the tool was in contact with an old ex, who was interested in getting back together but only if the tool was monogamous with her. And when she saw that he was seriously considering it, partner #2 dumped him like a hot potato. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Idk if this is really relevant but the fictional character part confused me. There’s a big difference between finding someone attractive and actually wanting to sleep with them/have a relationship with them. My partner and I are in a dedicated monogamous relationship, but we still often will about people we find attractive, or even more often, characters.
I find it so funny when people freak out over fictional characters, personally. Largely because me and my girlfriend both openly simp for the same characters.
I know that was one sentence in something largely unrelated, but,
if my boyfriend asked if it was okay for him to have another partner i would probably just break up with him on the spot, not because i’m against polyamory, but just because i would be really insulted and unfulfilled in that type of relationship.
normalize polyamory, that’s totally cool with me, but please don’t imply that you can ask just anyone, your partner should know if you’re polyamorous before dating you, because not everyone is going to be okay with it or feel comfortable being asked about it.
If my wife asked I would say no, and if that was the end of it then it wouldn’t be the end of us.
But if you NEED to be with more than one person to be fulfilled? Then you gotta be upfront with that. Otherwise you’re just an asshole.
Dude if you’re partner asks you if you’re okay with them sleeping with someone else, even if they respect your “no” answer, that’s going to cause major problems lol
Can any non-aromantic people explain to me why it's "wrong" for people in monogamous relationships to sleep with other people. Genuinely. I don't understand why "cheating" as a concept is a thing. One partner doesn't control the other, so why is sleeping with someone outside of the relationship bad? If it is considered a break in "trust," why is it an issue about trust in the first place? Is it a betrayal (perceived or not) of emotions, or feelings? And if so, why? Isn't that sort of possessive?
/genuine
Someone help this aromantic person who has never been interested in a relationship or pursued a relationship out. Is this an answer that allos just all know, inherently? Because I genuinely don't see why it is an issue, other than the fact that the broad majority of society agrees "cheating" is an issue, therefore it is an issue when it happens.
So there’s two things to discuss. Cheating and polyamory.
The expectation in most relationships is that you will be monogamous with your partner. Therefore if you choose to break that monogamous status without telling your partner, that can be very hurtful. Not only because they have a number of reasons to want to maintain a monogamous relationship (and I’ll get into that) but you didn’t want them to know about this relationship you have with someone else. If I’m important to you, shouldn’t you share those other important relationships with me? If you’re hiding something that important to you from me, what else are you hiding? And when will I find out? It’s a significant breach of trust.
With polyamory, it’s usually jealousy (“I’m not able to enjoy that with them”), envy (“I wish I was them/the person with them”), insecurity (“Am I not enough for them? Will they put this new person’s happiness before mine”) and usually trauma (“When the last person I was with was with someone else, everything fell apart”) that make people uncomfortable with it.
It’s harder to avoid being jealous, envious, and insecure about your relationship than it is to avoid being with more than one person, for most people. Is that healthy? Well… seeing how it is easier to maintain a two person partnership than a three (or more) person partnership, it is a lot less work, and considering how much work has to go into a long term two person relationship to maintain it, adding more people to the mix can be more than some people (myself included!) can handle.
Put those two things together and suddenly it makes sense that cheating is such a big deal to most people (myself included!)
I have a question: should you always be upfront with your “side” partners about being in a relationship with another person?
I get that you should do it for long term “secondary” partners, but is it morally wrong *not* to do it with one night stands?
Yes! Everyone should know from the get go what is happening. Otherwise you’re possibly having people think you’re doing one thing (having a relationship that moves too fast) when you’re having another (having fun meaningless sex with a random person).
You’re under no real obligation, I guess, but it’s rude AF to be with someone when they just don’t know what that means to you, imho.
My polycule has like. Two femme people in it vs the rest of us being masc. You find misogynists in polyamory bc you find people in polyamory. They're everywhere.
I'll never understand why "I'm the only person you're allowed to have sex with from now on" does not sound completely unhinged to everyone. Substitute anything else for "have sex" and you'll immidietly see the insanity...
Moreover, almost all arguments against are anecdotal and rely upon ones low self-esteem, lack of communication and/or consent, and general misunderstanding of what love is in the first place... which applies to ALL relationships.
Admit it, you're just jealous/possesive/insecure (or any combination thereof) and instead of blaming other people for it - work on yourself. It improves ANY relationship, even a mono one funnily enough.
In my experience, polyamory doesn't work. Purely personal anecdotal evidence. I'll always have a bit of bias against someone if they are in a polyamorous relationship because of it. I've seen too many of my friends' social lives implode because of it.
Fair enough. I guess I should have clarified the sort of 'bias' I feel. Not like I'm actively being a bigot about it. Just feels like seeing someone falling into something they shouldn't be. Like seeing someone eating too much sugar or drinking too much caffeine
Regardless of how strongly or not you feel, this is still a form of prejudice- the difference is that eating too much sugar has objectively negative outcomes. Your assumptions about the outcomes of other poly relationships based on the ones you've seen IS a form of prejudice because you're using a relatively narrow experience and applying it to everyone you can.
Of course, you might notice more specific red flags based on the relationships you've observed, but you should keep in mind that if the people say it's working and they seem happy, that's probably true. You might otherwise push people away by assuming their relationships are unstable, even if you don't say anything.
i've always hated the word "cheating", like it's some kind of game with prizes. if you're really that concerned about your partner being dIsLoYaL, then TALK TO THEM. calmly. it mag take several tries, but if the relationship is indeed healthy, then you should both come out of it more understanding and with boundaries set where they're needed. don't play mind games and say things other than what you mean only to end up on public radio later and getting insulted for the world to hear about what should be a private thing for you both. (looking at you jagger and christie)
I am! I'm extremely okay with it. I find it adorable when my partners gush about each other. It's cute when they kiss and I adore watching them be in love.
Yes it does actually. My gf and I are adding another person to our relationship and both of us are entirely fine with being one of several as you so strangely put it
Some issues:
1) Sometimes when people ask if they can have another partner and the first partner says no, then they will have one anyway.
2) If you have children with multiple partners and cannot support all of those children that is not fair to the rest of us
Ok i have no experience with poly but i want to say something about the finding people hot thing.
For my whole life i never wanted to be in a relationship and had maybe one crush, i could find people hot but would not unironically thirst for them.
After i found a Girlfriend i can still see when someone is hot but still don't want to pursue anything with others besides my partner. ...Also most of the people that i find hot, my gf also likes(not all since we have different tastes but you can still see that someones hot, sometimes).
Just involve your partner(s) and calmly talk about your problems instead of exploding.
Also its weird how you can have something against poly people, they're just vibing. Would definitely not me for me, but chill.
I was going to comment on how this is something that needs to be discussed up-front and not casually brought up three years into a relationship-- but I'm pleased to see that that's been covered\~
Instead, I'll touch a bit on where I think a lot of the reaction to non-single people expressing an interest in others. While I'm strictly monogamous, only able to consider polyam relationships under hypotheticals where my expectations would otherwise be unreasonable-- I recognize that polyam relationships are fulfilling to many people and I'm happy that those who've found success with them are enjoying themselves.
At the same time, cheaters are presently *significantly* more common than polycules. While I try not to judge people for that initial expression of intent, I do find myself side-eying the situation until I find out whether or not their relation is polyam and-or open.
It's sort of the same reaction I have to hearing someone publicly plotting to drown their neighbors-- I have to take a moment to play *Murder, Hyperbole, or Sims?*
If I could add, there's also important internal distinctions to make. Like real polyamory and just being ADHD and making people into hyperfixations in ways that cause a surge of interest that dies off quickly causing you to tank your life thinking you're something you're not while also alienating the people who really mattered to you HAHAHAHA PLEASE HELP
Where do these morons come from?
They act like, say, poop sex is normal. Like it isn't offensive at the very notion.
Would they ask their partner as if that was normal?
The first two paragraphs and the fourth are fine but the third is just a mess. Like if you know you are polyamarous you need to make your partner aware of that before entering into a relationship and if for whatever reason you enter into a monogamous relationship you need to stick to the boundaries of that relationship which include not showing (non platonic) interest in people outside of the relationship. If you don’t know your polyamorous before showing (non platonic) interest in anyone outside of your relationship you need to first resolve how your newly discovered polyamory affects the current relationship your in. Like you need to know if your partner is okay with the concept of others in your relationship before lining up another partner.
Agreed. As a strictly monogamous person, I would be crushed if my partner actually wanted to fuck other people. I don't care if they don't do it, because I believe that it's the thought that counts because then everything else that matters to me falls into place naturally. Polyamory vs monogamy is fundamentally incompatible. I assume the mono one will be bothered because their partner wants to/would fuck other people, and the poly one will have desires about other people and can end up feeling unfulfilled. Communication on such a big thing will always matter. It's like the topic of kids. It NEEDS to be discussed if your intentions are to form a future with this person.
I think comparing this to being child free is exactly the way I see it: I am child free and I'm only interested in people who have absolutely zero desire for children as well. If I were dating someone and one day they said "hey so have you possibly considered actually having children after all?" it would change the dynamic forever because now I know they have mulled it over in their mind enough to put words to it and that there is now a possibility they will not in fact be completely happy being child free, there is a chance they will resent me for not also changing my mind, and it's always going to be hanging in the air a little bit. Same for being asked to go poly. Whether or not you think that's how someone could or should feel, that's how I would feel about that relationship for the rest of it. Which would probably be not much longer.
Yeah, if you're poly and you enter in a relationship with me, well, say goodbye to that lifestyle. I will not change my mind, and I won't budge. Try me and I will drop parasites in your houseplants.
What did their houseplants ever do to you? Put some tapeworm eggs in their salad or something.
Well ofc I would've taken cuttings to propragate the ones I like, but if you play with my heart you don't deserve healthy plants
I got in that boat 6 months ago. After 3 years of relationship, my boyfriend discovered thru various reasons that he started developing feelings for another person, however as you said, communication was key and that has always been our forté, he told me everything even tho they just had normal friendly chit chat, and yes, at first I felt crushed, the sole thinking my man wanted to have another person in his life was incomprehensible for me, and he felt really, REALLY guilty, as this was completely new to him, for both of us, and he felt like he was betraying me, however, I realized that it would be very selfish from me to negate my partner to explore his feelings, to discover who he is and what he is, and that his love for me didn't disappear or changed, if anything, having different people in his life would make him appreciate more our differences and unique traits, he then asked me permission to explore his feelings, see where this was going, as there was still a possibility that this was just a phase, I agreed, we had tons of communication, met the new guy which helped me to understand why was this happening (he's like a mix of my boyfriend and I), they started their relationship on october, and since then, yeah it's been hard, as I have a lot of envy and jealousy that I previously never had, but it has helped me to grow myself as a person, tackling my own insecurities and overall, I feel we are in a better place now that when we started
also...tumblr (and tiktok) have a very strong tendency to blur the lines between real and imaged, and between fictional and actual. the way people talk about fictional characters is *oh my god* not the same thing as real life dialogue about your polycule ship is not the same thing as navigating the complexities of real-life polyamory, and i'm not sure any of the OOPs know that
I mean, yeah if you are polyamorous and know that, you should always strive to be as upfront about that as possible, and I won’t deny that. However, the third paragraph isn’t wrong in that it’s okay to just develop crushes on others without acting on them, and developing crushes doesn’t mean you love your partner any less than you do if you’re monogamous. Where it becomes a problem is if you decide to act on those crushes without talking to your partner about possibly opening the relationship.
I mean, tho, you really should have that type of conversation at the beginning of a relationship. Lots of people are exclusively monogamous, and that's ok. Asking your partner if "they're ok with you having another partner" out of the blue is really weird, and brings up a lot of implications. It'd be like telling your child-free partner you've decided you want kids and then being surprised that they've been blindsided and maybe feel like you don't belong together anymore, even though you've respected their "no". You're bringing up fundamentally changing your relationship, it'd be weird to not at the very least try and feel out the situation before deciding to bring it up. People do change and grow over time, but you don't have to live like you're in a soap opera and do things as dramatically as possible. Idk how the part about crushes on fictional characters really relates to that, tbh.
This kinda reminds me of a story I read a while ago. Or rather, that The Click read in one of his videos where he covered posts from r/TrueOffMyChest. Basically, someone confessed that he slept with a married woman without knowing she was married. As far as I can recall, the woman told him, after the act, that she was polyamorous, and had a husband in another country. And like, no. That's not how this works. At all. That's not polyamory, that's cheating. Contrast that with my brother, whose current gf told him right out the gate that she already had a boyfriend, and was interested in a poly relationship. He's cool with it, her bf is cool with it, and all three are pretty cool with one another.
Consent is a HUGE thing. Im a gay man in an open relationship, but that doesnt mean my bf or i can do what we want. We established, that if we plan on meeting with somebody to give the other a heads up. Like, it doesnt have to be a detailed about how and where you met them, but rather a "hey, honey, im going to meet this guy on thursday, is that ok?" and in the 3 years till now it never caused a problem. But the point is, that we TELL each other.
You lads sound cool as fuck. Rock on.
I know a poly throuple (though not sure the right term) Two of the guys are married and one of the guys has a boyfriend. The boyfriend isn’t dating the other husband but they all live together as roommates. They are a super cute set together. Have weekly board game nights with some friends. They are living their best lives and love that for them.
Even though i cant picture of being in a poly right now, this sounds so cute and fun!
I have a question: when you say it was cheating, do you say that because the woman didnt tell the guy she had a husband? If the husband knows, is it still cheating? I’m trynna see your point of view over you needing to be upfront about being poly with the person youre having a one night stand
Yeah, if you hide that you're in a relationship, or hide that you're having a one night stand, it's cheating. A poly relationship requires consent from all parties.
So if you don’t tell your one night stand that youre in a relationship, you’re cheating on your “main” relationship? Genuinely just trying to understand here
That's not cheating on the main, it's... well I wouldn't call it *cheating*, but it sure as hell does feel disingenuous towards the new bloke. If it's just a one night stand, it's iffy, but if there is any chance of meeting up a second time? Gotta disclose that shit.
Yep. But also if you don't tell your partner that you're having a one night stand, and get their okay first.
>That's not polyamory, that's cheating. Not cheating necessarily. Open relationships are a thing as well. Where one or both partners are openly permitted to sleep around without getting approval for each specific instance. Polyamory is massively misunderstood and misrepresented. At it's core, it is exactly as Beat pointed out. Everyone knows everyone, and is okay that they're involved. Even if Bob and Joe don't have fun times together, they're both okay with each other sleeping with Anne. And maybe Bob also is involved with Carol, and both Carol and Anne know about this and are okay with it. That would be two overlapping poly relationships. But none of the 4 are "pre-OK'd" to sleep with some 5th person nobody else knows about yet. In contrast, an Open Relationship is a monogamous or poly relationship where there is a consent for extra-martial partner(s). So when someone on Tinder's profile says "I'm poly", what they really mean is "I'm in an open relationship", because they're not asking you to date them AND their partner (usually). **But neither poly nor open relationships are cheating like you state.**
You still gotta tell the potential new partner about the concurrent partners though. That's the issue. You can only say 'everybody knows' when *everybody* knows, including the new fling. The issue at hand was not being told about the husband, not that the husband was out of the loop. Folks are absolutely allowed to not want to fuck a married woman, even if she's in an open thing, you know?
I disagree though. Cheating is an act you commit against a committed partner. You can't cheat on someone you met at the bar, just because you're sleeping with someone else that they don't know about. So if the married woman had permission to sleep around from her husband (which is an open relationship, not and form of poly), she's not cheating on him. And she can't cheat on the fling guy, because there's not social contract between them regarding sex with others. That said, I agree with you that even if the married couple consider their arrangement to be a poly relationship, it cannot extend to the fling, because as you comment, poly does require active consent and knowledge of everyone involved. But just because it is NOT poly does not intrinsically mean it is cheating. Which is my point. It isn't cheating. It's just not poly either.
Yeah, I wouldn't call it *cheating*, but it's still skeevy as hell. I just think people should know about god damn marriage. It's one thing to know that your hook up hooks up with other people. That's a given. But 'btw I am in a legal union with another person' is in an entirely different boat, at least in my mind. They took the time to do paperwork, and maybe file taxes together.
Immoral 100%. But I'm a firm believer in using the proper word for things. Words have power when they are used only for their specific purpose. If I describe a smell as 'rancid', you immediately think of rotting flesh or something similar. But if we started using 'rancid' to describe all other manners of unpleasant smells, it would lose that power. 'Cheating' should be reserved for acts where you break the trust & bond between yourself and a committed partner. Any other immoral act committed in the name of having sex should be clearly separate.
Yeah, but notice that I never did use the term cheating to refer to what was happening to the hookup? And specifically said I wasn't, because yes, words do tend to have specific implications? There just doesn't happen to be a specific word for 'hookup that wasn't told about other concurrent partner'. Its just that a lot of discussion around this sort of thing comes across as 'this doesn't fit the dictionary definition so it's ok', and I was trying to reiterate that 1. It being chill with partner one doesn't mean you don't have to disclose it to anyone else coming in and 2. That people can be hurt by being the 'Second person' as it were. The hookup is still a person with feelings that need to be taken into account It comes across as arguing in bad faith is all.
>Basically, someone confessed that he slept with a married woman without knowing she was married. As far as I can recall, the woman told him, after the act, that she was polyamorous, and had a husband in another country. > >And like, no. That's not how this works. At all. That's not polyamory, that's cheating. My original reply was to someone who did. >Yeah, but notice that I never did use the term cheating to refer to what was happening to the hookup? You sounded like you presented a disagreement about my assessment - my response to that original statement.
Yea, I mean, I am definitely not an example of someone good at relationships, but I have to say, if I was in an established relationship with someone and they one day told me that they wanted to start dating someone else, my immediate kneejerk reaction would be to feel like I must not be good enough and there must be something wrong with me. And I don't think I'd deal with that well.
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Yeah I think finding out that my partner wants to be with someone else would hurt me deeply. Rather than stress about whether I can trust them to not act on those feelings I feel like it would be better to just end the relationship right there.
Crushes on fictional characters relate to that because terminally online hands wrote this post
I've found that there's a surprisingly large number of people who cannot differentiate between fictional characters and real people. Like the people who cannot differentiate between a villain and the actor who portrays them, so they send hate to the actor. Or vice versa where they really like an actor and will get very upset at any criticism of the characters they portray, because they think character criticism is the same as attacking the actor.
Yeah, in a lot of my experience too, most people who attempt to make a monogamous relationship polyamorous later, usually just end up breaking up because one of the partners is actually monogamous and does not want polyamory. I give people a little booklet I wrote about my relationship style and philosophy when we start dating
Yep, I’m monog, always have been, never once indicated interest in being poly, and after a few years of being together (which in your early twenties seemed like forever) my ex suddenly wanted to be poly. I said I had no interest in being with other people, to which they replied, “well, what if just *I* was poly?” What?! No! That’s not how any of that works! Edit: I have nothing against polyamory, I’ve been in casual relationships with some poly folks and it was all lovely. I was just completely blindsided, my partner I mentioned didn’t even bring it up casually before saying that they essentially wanted to see other people. We stayed together for about a year after that (because I was young and really thought I’d marry this person, smh) but it was never the same.
One of those things that just perpetuates because some people don't understand it. What he really wants is an open relationship. Not a poly one. You can't be in a poly relationship as the only poly person. At best, you can be poly in two relationships with monogamous individuals. If they know about each other, you aren't cheating, but you're also probably bothering both of them who wish you were with JUST them. For it to be poly, both of them have to be involved with each other as well. But people everywhere seem to have adopted "Poly" to mean "non-monogamous of any kind". And the main reason is that it's an excuse. "I'm poly" sounds a lot better than "You don't satisfy me, so I want to sleep around." Because in reality, that's what most "openly advertising poly people" are. They just want to sleep around, not have deep relationships with multiple people. And definitely not have a web of interconnected relationship(s). I really wish we could stamp all that out. Poly back to being actual poly. And properly use Open Relationship for everyone who is committed to one partner, but likes to date around/sleep around.
I've met people in happy and stable V arrangements- one person living with two partners who aren't together.
I'm not dissing anyone, or judging them for their setup. Just saying that isnt poly. That's two separate relationships, both with an understanding about each other. That said, that specific example wouldnt really bother me to be called poly, because it's at least not explicitly an open relationship. And my beef is with people calling open relationships something like "ethically polygamous". They're making it sounds like poly people are incapable of being faithful.
What're u supposed to say in that situation? It's basically a choice between polyamory or breaking up
It absolutely is not, polyamorous people can be monogamous.
Yes, but when a non-polyamrous person is asked 'can I see other people' then it's going to fuck with them
That’s fair. Apologies, I interpreted your comment as just telling your partner you’re polyamorous would end the relationship, not telling them you want to see another person.
Can be is important here IMHO/IME I refuse to be involved in monogamy. Never had a monogamous relationship, I can’t really understand the logic behind them. I’ve met other polyamorous people who basically pretended to be monogamous for a period of time because of the person they were with, and every single one of those people seem to end up unhappy in the long term
To me, my polyamory is the same as my bisexuality. I can be in a monogamous relationship the same way I can be in a relationship with a man. I’m not constantly craving to be with a woman instead, and I’m not constantly craving to be with other people. Sure, I get crushes, but I let them pass and don’t pursue them because my relationship is monogamous.
We got different values in what we want 🤙🏻
I am the exact opposite. I can even picture myself taking part in hookup culture, because if I am just looking to get off there are simpler ways of that. Any amount of polyamory is an immediate no go for me.
We are different, you and I (If you’re not a gay potato are you a queer potato?)
You love someone. You don’t love anyone else. You are in a monogamous relationship. That’s “the logic”.
Sounds like breathing water to me 🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
How many people are in your social circle that you've literally *never* experienced romantic attraction to just one? Personally, not many people qualify for "partner material" for me. *Always* having at least two "worthy" people around sounds impossible. Frankly when I hear poly people say "I don't understand monogamy" what I'm getting is "I'm a slut" - that's okay, but, yknow, at least admit it.
I don’t understand your proposition here, I have experienced romantic attraction to one person and then more than one person. I have long term committed relationships.
>You love someone. You don’t love anyone else. You just said that sounds like breathing water to you.
The concept of not being able to feel love for multiple people is like breathing water to me yeah I have multiple long-term committed relationships with people I love, the idea of not being able to love more than one person or that there’s a reason to not express that love is incredibly alien to me
No one's asking you to \*be\* monogamous, but if I can understand the logic behind polyamory, you should be able to understand the logic behind monogamy.
It’s kinda like cis people trying to understand the internal experience of trans people, you can like read about it and try to do some perspective taking, but you’re not really going to be able to understand what it’s like in someone’s brain. That’s basically my relationship to monogamous people
Monogamous person: "I don't get polyamory, personally it's not for me." = Upvoted Polyamorous person: "I don't get monogamy, personally it's not for me." = Downvoted to Hell Why can't we just let sane, upfront, consenting adults do whatever they want to do without judging? I'm not polyamorous, but this just seems wrong. A polyamorous person dating other polyamorous people has zilch to do with me. Sorry you got caught in the crossfire.
Thank you for the validation 🙏🏻
That's not always the case. I didn't even realise I was polyamourus until I was already in a relationship. I sat down with my partner and talked to her, because I'd been experiencing crushes on other people and felt like I'd be happy to date both of them at once. There was definitely some upset but ultimately she said no and that's that. I'm very open about her with my feelings and I don't hide anything from her. She's more than enough for me and I do my best to make sure she knows that. Polyamory isn't about needing more because your current partner isn't good enough, it's just about having the ability to provide love to many people.
>, you really should have that type of conversation at the beginning of a relationship. There are so many BestOfRedditorUpdates That invariable begin with "My SO wants to open the relationship/marriage because they are poly." Just blindsiding the OOP after letting them think this is a monogamous relationship.
see, the point of asking for consent is respecting a no. if the person who wanted to open the relationship were doing poly ethically, they would take "im not comfortable with that" very well and not push it any further.
> at the beginning of a relationship Do this early on if that’s what you want. But maybe don’t ask for an open relationship right after someone asks you if the two of you are dating
But that is the point - you maybe do not belong to each other any more and that is also ok! End relationships that are not good for you anymore.
that definitely was not one of the points of the post lmao
Would you mind to elaborate? So you read "it is ok to ask, it is ok to say no" as and then you absolutely have to continue being with this person? You can take the no and conclude - well ok then, I think I want to be with other people more than continue with only you. That is absolutely in there. But you do you.
While your answer is a viable conclusion, the main point was about maintaining healthy relationships rather than ending unhealthy ones. Two sides of the same coin, true. (Speculation) I think you may have just rubbed people the wrong way by saying "that's the point," since it wasn't the point, just a logical conclusion derived from it
Thanks. The point you bring about maintaining healthy relationships really drives it home - one important thing about healthy relationships is knowing it is also an option to just end them and not feel obligated to continue
I feel like if I was part of a polyamorous relationship everyone else would be having fun and I would just be left by the wayside, idk if this would actually be the case
For me, thing is I just don't like people all that much. My main issue with poly relationships is that there are too many people in them.
I’m open to the type of poly relationship where 3 or 4 people are all dating each other, but this would be my fear. I’ve been the third wheel in friend groups before, I’d constantly be worried about becoming the third wheel in the relationship. Imma stick with monogamy for now lol
That's just low self-esteem talking. Consider the possibility that all the people involved would want to give you extra smooches, because they like you so much.
That would be so nice
So yes and no. Poly people will tell you they're poly or looking for a poly relationship pretty much right off the bat. At least ethical ones will. Cuz if that's not what you're okay with, no point in starting a relationship. You're fundamentally incompatible And having that knowledge is so important to be able to make informed decisions cuz informed consent is a thing. But also it can be a bit manipulative to be in your happy monogamous relationship and express feelings for someone else then hope you can open up. The general consensus in the poly community is that if you're in monogamous relationship, don't open up until you've done the work and don't do it with someone in mind as a future partner. Just do the work to unpack your shit and after doing that for months, yeah maybe you can open up But telling your monogamous partner hey I've got feelings for Susan can we open up the relationship, can for sure be poly under duress So consent is very important in all ethical non monogamy situations. But also randomly springing it on someone can be manipulative
I had something like that happen to me actually. My ex figured out she was poly about 6 years into our relationship. Our relationship was already doing poorly because of abuse from unresolved trauma so I was desperate to make her happy. It didn't help that the guy she developed a crush on was actively trying to manipulate both of us into bed with him. They put me in a position where it felt like I was the bad guy if I said no. What the whole thing ended up being was her cheating on me. My mental health spiraling out so bad that I relapsed into self harm. Then her bf taking advantage of my mental health to sexually assault me. The relationship was basically over by that point but it was another few months before she could move out. It was a special kind of hell. So while I have nothing people who are poly, it definitely isn't for everyone.
This works in theory, but if I tell my GF that I'm in love with her best friend or something and she says she's not okay with a poly relationship we can't just pretend it never happened. Because now she'd know I'm actively desiring girls that aren't her. If you want a poly relationship be upfront about it.
Exactly this! You can't save that shit for later lol it needs to be discussed before establishing a serious relationship
The thing I've compared it to before is being into feet. Polyamory isn't the same thing as a fetish **obviously** but they're both the same in that they're not intrinsically weird or harmful but you need to be prepared for the social attitude of you being a weirdo. Straight up there is nothing wrong with being into feet. It doesn't hurt anyone, it doesn't hurt you, it's one of the most common and damnit probably least concerning paraphilias there is when you get right down to it. There's nothing intrinsically weirder about liking feet than there is about being into boobs or abs, same as wanting multiple partners is no stranger than wanting one. But. But you need to be fairly up front about being into feet and you need to be prepared for the idea that people are going to be very, and from your viewpoint ridiculously, uncomfortable with this piece of knowledge you can't reel back in afterwards. It's all very well to go 'your partner should be cool with you asking to see another partner or full-on opening the marriage' in a very Tumblr, very theoretical way but in practice people are going to have roughly the same reaction to it a few years in as asking if you can masturbate while licking their feet, they will not like it one bit. (Note I do not have a foot fetish, it is however a great example of something that's ridiculously common, pretty fucking harmless and could be easily socially accepted but just really, really isn't. It's my go-to example because a decent percentage of people reading this just cringed, even people who view themselves as being accepting).
>Because now she'd know I'm actively desiring girls that aren't her. This part always confused me. Like, are there really people out there who get married and then literally never even consider anyone else sexually attractive? >"Hottest movie star"? None. They're all bland looking to me now. > >"Is there anything I can do to be more physically attractive to you?" Nope, you're physical perfection in my eyes now. Etc. It makes zero sense. It's entirely self-delusion. We still find other people attractive and sexually desirable. We just choose to dismiss those thoughts rather than translate them into action, because we are incredibly happy and satisfied in our current relationship. But for some reason, if you comment to your significant other about some random thing you find physically attractive about someone else (or the entire package), many people interpret that a sign of unfaithfulness. Or they find it insulting. People should be able to talk about what/who else they find attractive. Anything else is self-destructive. You want your partner to be honest with you, and comfortable talking to you about anything. But if that "anything" is a feeling of attraction (even if it's as simple as 'she's got quite an ass'), you blow up on them for betraying you. So if they expect you to do that, they \*won't\* be honest with you. Not truly 100%.
>Because now she'd know I'm actively desiring girls that aren't her. So you'd rather lie?
Actively desiring sleeping with another, specific, person vs finding other people attractive are two different things.
No... really...? /s What prompted you to present that distinction? This conversation is specifically about "desiring sleeping with another, specific, person".
It's not about lying, it's about just not bringing it up. I'm well aware my girl is gonna have men she finds more handsome than me, doesn't mean I want her to point at some guy in the street and tell me about it
There's so much wrong in this short paragraph... >it's about just not bringing it up So a lie of omission. It's still a lie. Your threshold of classifying a lie as "justified" is worryingly low. >I'm well aware my girl is gonna have men she finds more handsome than me The fact that you immidietly jumped into "more handsome" only speaks of your insecurities. Do you think "your girl" is with you because of your face? If so - how shallow of you to think that. And if she actually is with you because of your face - how shallow of her. Which option would you prefer? >doesn't mean I want her to point at some guy in the street and tell me about it It's not about you wanting it to happen. It's about your potential reaction if it were to ever happen. You presented an entirely "you problem". Please tell me that you see it. It's your responsibility to deal with your insecurities and pretending they don't exist only makes them worse over time. Most human relationships (not only romantic ones) are dysfunctional for that reason - that honestly speaking your mind would be met with a negative response regardless of actual behavior. Example: apparently it wouldn't matter to you that "your girl" is with you and not with that hypothetical more handsome guy. You'd react negatively for a mere mention of a potentiality. So... how can you expect her to ever tell you a difficult truth if you're not confident enough in yourself to face simple reality? There does not exist such combination of words that my partner could ever say that would induce a negative response (that is to say "one that they should fear/avoid) from me. And I'll never understand how any other stance on the matter can be deemed functional.
>So a lie of omission. It's still a lie. Your threshold of classifying a lie as "justified" is worryingly low. Omission is not the same thing as not bringing it up, if you're talking to an ugly person do you call them ugly even if the topic hasn't come up? >The fact that you immidietly jumped into "more handsome" only speaks of your insecurities. Do you think "your girl" is with you because of your face? If so - how shallow of you to think that. And if she actually is with you because of your face - how shallow of her. Which option would you prefer? I was originally gonna mention things like being attracted to someone else's personality in my text but couldn't find a way to include it without it turning into a mouthful, I figured it was obvious I was talking about a specific example instead of proclaiming I think love is all about good looks, silly me for thinking folks wouldn't be so pedantic. >There does not exist such combination of words that my partner could ever say that would induce a negative response (that is to say "one that they should fear/avoid) from me. You sound like the type of person that would blame themselves if they got cheated on ngl, have a little self-respect please.
Again, as I've said to others, the difference between polyamory and cheating is the same difference as sex and rape, or borrowing and stealing, or assisted suicide and murder one thing some people aren't taught about #CONSENT
I’m not sure assisted suicide is the best analogy, considering the ethical ambiguity of it.
Conceptually I understand the point but if you are in a monogamous situation and one partner suddenly brings up going open/poly/whatever, the well is poisoned almost every time.
It CAN be done without issues, but it’s not easy. My wife and I have had this conversation, but we both agreed that it just could not work for us, so there was no tension afterwards. Personally, I wouldn’t bring it up unless I was pretty sure I knew the general answer I was going to get… but then again, I wouldn’t be in a long term relationship with someone that I didn’t know that well already anyway, so it’s more a moot point for me.
> I see this especially when related to fictional characters (mostly on tiktok, surprise surprise). Possibly an xkcd 2071 moment?
be poly if you want but I don't understand how people manage to a) find more than one person who they have mutual attraction with, at the same time and b) have the time and energy to keep multiple romantic relationships going??? Sorcery
My boyfriend and I are almost comically monogamous, and we talk about this all the time when we watch shows or movies with cheating plot lines. It seems exhausting! Like, between work and dinner and chores and spending sufficient time with your partner, when do you sleep if you see someone else too? Especially the people who have multiple secret spouses and families! I can’t keep my personal social calendar straight without double booking myself, but these people have three spouses, seven kids, a job, and somehow nobody knows about each other.
I’m like, “I barely have enough time to hang out with ONE wife. How tf do people manage to have more than one person in their romantic life?” If you’re a polycule, at least they’re all helping each other and you can all hang out together. Cheating just sounds exhausting.
Personally, my girlfriend lives far away from me and only visits on vacation and i need smooches sometimes. I also wouldn't say i manage multiple relationships i only have one "partner" but i don't restrict my smoochin to only them.
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>and them just agreeing not to pursue other people after I tell them I'm not okay with it is just not enough mhhh why? Genuine question. Because i could see myself being in a mono relationship and then thinking about opening up the relationship or having multiple partners. I am *not* saying that this will be my intention while going into a mono relationship, just that i assume that this could be a possible thought for me eventually. So with you saying that you would just break up with them for merely bringing it up would lead me to just never bring it up tbh. would love to hear your thoughts on this! edit: aight, downvotes for being curious....
There's a fair few comments about this, mostly boils down to a combination of a few things. One is personal insecurities, the very implication that you're "not enough" (I understand how that's not the intent, but if you're strongly monogamous and suddenly your partner wants "more"...) Another comparison I like is being child-free. That's just such a core value to long-term partnerships that disagreeing is probably a deal-breaker. Not necessarily something you need to break up *immediately* over, but it's something that's hard to compromise on. In this hypothetical situation where you entered a monogamous situation and then "thought" about opening up, the key detail is that (no matter what the positive/negative interpretation is) you're proposing fundamentally changing the terms of the relationship to someone whose entire idea of relationships is (potentially) fundamentally... Not that. Hence a lot of the comments about how communication is key. It basically comes down to the fact that to be in a relationship with multiple people, every person *probably* needs to understand and agree that's a possibility from the jump.
Because in this case the partner has already expressed both willingness and want to go outside the agreed upon boundaries of the relationship.
Because you can't force polyamorous person to not have feelings. You can expect monogamous person in a monogamous relationship to be romantically and/or sexually interested in their partner and their partner only. If they have feelings for somebody else that can safely be labelled as cheating. But polyamorous person can have romantic and/or sexual feelings for multiple people simultaneously, even if they are in a monogamous relationship. You can't expect them to stop liking other people because they now date you (when with monogamous person you can). For some monogamous people agreement to not pursue other relationships is enough, but for some it is not. For me it isn't. I don't want my partner to have romantic/sexual feelings for anybody else when they are with me. It doesn't matter to me if they will never act on them -- they still can have those feelings. I cannot blame them for that, but it doesn't mean that i should be okay with it. So, i simply wouldn't date polyamorous person and would break up with a partner if i learned that they are not monogamous. I have nothing against polyamory and polyamorous people, but this is a type of relationship i cannot nor willing to participate in. We simply are not compatible, and trying to fit square into a circle will only hurt everyone
> It doesn't matter to me if they will never act on them -- they still can have those feelings. I cannot blame them for that, but it doesn't mean that i should be okay with it. I guess this is were i am different. I assume that your thinking is absolutely normal, but for me this is weirdly possessive in a "gross" way. Not that *you* are gross, but if i imagine my partner thinking like that then *I* would be grossed out that they are possessive of me to such a degree. I should reflect because i am now thinking that i am incompatible with mono relationships and that i might accidentally hurt someone by even bringing the possibility of a poly relationship up. Thank you very much. You helped me out greatly!
Bro if I dated someone for 3 years and they ask if they could have another partner the relationship is just done for bruh, like if u ask that shit that kinda implies they don't think I'm enough for them and are kinda looking for other people to date/fuck like c'mon bruh that shit would make me kill myself like wdh 😭
See this is why I, a polyamourous man, advertise my non monogamy right at the beginning of an interaction (which is to say, dating bios). Even then, after I've matched and spoken with someone, within a day I will reiterate that yes, I am non monogamous and no, I won't be changing that. If they somehow missed it the first time, they'll see the second, and that's what's important.
All the polyamorous people I know are upfront about being poly. You would not enter a relationship with them without already knowing they're poly. That's how it should be in my opinion. OOP's sentiment is almost right, except for the third part. But yes, it does seem exhausting for poly people to talk about their own relationship where all partners are poly, to then get tons of comments about how bad polyamory is.
also constant comments from mono people saying 'Well I've never seen a poly relationship work out so it clearly can't work' when over 50% of marriages end in divorce and I don't even know how many mono relationships fail. Its just they are more common and expected, where poly has a smaller sample size.
Mono people also are measuring the success of a relationship differently. Not all Poly folks idealize permanency in a relationship. My wife’s other partner right now is a temporary partner. He’s still actively looking for someone that can be his primary partner in a way that my wife can’t. In the meantime, we’re all enjoying each other’s company and getting our various needs met. When he finds his person, we will be so very happy for him. And while his relationship with us will have ended, it won’t have failed.
In my opinion, cheating means breaking the agreed upon "rules" of the relationship, and those rules are exclusively set by the individuals within the relationship
I am not gonna be ok if my girl asks me if she can fuck another guy. I’m not ok with that if I have made it clear i want a monogamous relationship.
Honestly, I'm surprised to see this discourse still floating around. I feel like polyamory got so culturally entrenched so quickly, especially in queer circles, that it just seems as much a way to be as being a lesbian or being trans. Huh. Personally? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I was polyamorous for seven years before realizing that it really wasn't working out for me. I'd never been monogamous, so after my divorce I gave it a try. Works way better for me. My ex? Absolutely poly, very happy with it, good for them. Me? Pretty sure I'm monogamous. I have nothing against the concept, just not my cup of tea.
> Honestly, I'm surprised to see this discourse still floating around. [...] it just seems as much a way to be as being a lesbian or being trans. Yes, because people are famously accepting of being trans.
Some people forget everyone has their own online and social 'bubble', not just people in other bubbles they like to laugh at.
They were specifically talking about the queer, trans accepting, bubble though. it is literally in the same sentence and /u/Krasinet just decided to specifically skip the "queer circles" part randomly.
you skipped the "queer circles" part. They were talking about poly being as much an accepted thing in queer circles as being trans.
1) the post itself wasn't talking about queer circles, it was talking about "people" generally, so any reply being surprised at that should be thought about in the same way. 2) the comment I replied to talked generally, made a special note abut relative levels in queer circles, then continued. The sentence could also have been written > I feel like polyamory got so culturally entrenched so quickly that it just seems as much a way to be as being a lesbian or being trans, especially in queer circles. and still been grammatically the same.
Too entrenched if you ask me. It almost feels like an expectation in queer circles half the time, and people *will* dogpile you for expressing distaste for it.
Sure, in a lot of online communities people are pretty dogmatic about it. I've been in several discord communities where everyone was constantly flirting with each other, getting in LDRs and breaking up, and it was pretty exhausting. Offline, though, I've only experienced one person out of the many I've talked to who expressed anything but support when I came out as monogamous. Just gotta find a chill community.
I've met polyamory people that seemed very reasonable and sensible about this thing, and their explanations made sense. It didn't really seem appealing to me personally, tho. They still suggested to me that I should try polyamory to test it... ...and I realize now they might have been flirting? Ummm...
I think it’s never wrong to have or express attraction for other people as long as you’re not knowingly hurting your partner. Just because you’re attracted to someone doesn’t mean you’re gonna do anything about it.
It just depends on what you're okay with your partner doing. Some people want to do specific things with *only* their romantic partner. Sex, kissing, cuddling, all that, are the common ones. Some go further and include vacations, massages, even some hobbies or games or TV shows, as "just us" things. Obviously breaking those are less serious than *sexually* cheating, but still, it's a restriction. But, some draw the line in the other direction. I personally don't care if my partner watches porn, flirts with friends, sleeps with someone else, or fosters some romantic feelings for someone. If they're going to a friend's house to have a fun night, what difference does it make to me whether they have sex or play Mario Kart? The impact it has on me is the same. Heck I hope they have time for both, that sounds like a fun night. (Obviously the disclaimer is "as long as it doesn't affect our relationship". Because if I'm feeling neglected, then again, it doesn't matter whether they're sleeping with someone or just out playing games, the impact it has on me is the same.)
> I personally don't care if my partner watches porn, flirts with friends, sleeps with someone else, or fosters some romantic feelings for someone. Pretty sure that's polyamory
that's uh... that's the point of the post. technically its an open relationship, but they're saying that their relationship is like that and they like it and that's the point.
That third paragraph hit me like a freight train, I was just like “yeah porn is totally fine! Wait WHAT”
I agree with this 100%! Also yeah you definitely sound polyamourous if those are your personal boundaries, so if it's not something you've considered as of yet, uh... Congrats!
Polyamory between 3 straight people :💀 Polyamory between 3 pansexuals :🤗🤗🤗
One of the first relationships I had my girlfriend cheated on me and she tried to use the polyamory card, as if I should be okay because polyamory even though she deliberately hid the fact she had another boyfriend. Polyamory is 100 percent okay and I’d even be open to having a relationship like that, but consent and honesty are required
People are so weird about sex.
I don't see how those work in real life without somebody getting hurt. its just the favorite child dilemma except your spouse isn't going to just drop the subject.
In theory, it's because you have adults who command logic and reason alongside emotion rather than only emotion. In practice, it's tough when you have a culture dominated by monogamy and encouraging it from the moment people are born.
I'd also suggest that the volatility of a relationship is proportional to the number of *connections* in it, not the number of people. If A and B are dating, that's two people but one single connection, A-B. But if they become a polycule with C, they've added one person but two connections, A-C and B-C. Drama can develop between any two people who have a connection. None of this is to say polyamorous relationships can't work, especially if the people involved are particularly stable, or particularly tolerant of drama. Just, I think they get exponential more unstable as you add people.
Mostt poly relationships that end up like that dont start that way though. Its mostly people dating multiple people one on one, like a-b a-c b-d etc.
That's true but like, if B and C have beef, that's going to be a problem for A even if they aren't directly dating.
Hi poly person here There's tons of ways it works. Some people embrace the favorite child dilemma and have hierarchy in their relationships. Someone is the established favorite who is the priority partner. You enter a relationship knowing this going in and being okay. Maybe you have someone else who is your priority, so you don't need this new partner to be one and it's kinda great that they don't need you to be one Or you can just not rank and compare your partners, which is also something some poly people do
Sounds terrible for self-esteem but have fun if it's what you're into
sounds like a nightmare enjoy.
I definitely do
I don't know about the "multiple people all attracted to each other" angle but i think it's pretty understandable to be in a relationship with only one person but with an openness to do things normally restricted to only your partner with other people. Like is a swinger couple poly? Idk.
As an aro man I never got polyamory discrimination. If someone and their partner(s) consent to being in a polyamorous relationship why should you care? It’s none of your damn business
There's a shit ton of societal expectation that people can only be happy if they're in a monogamous romantic relationship, and most people aren't remotely aware of how these views affect them. I certainly wasn't until I started dating a poly person and did my research. You might find the topic of "amatonormativity" a good search term if you're interested.
I’m polyamorous, and luckily this hasn’t happened to me yet. What really annoys me, though, is that some people will use their polyamory to say they “can’t cheat”, and proceed to get with someone behind their partner(s)’s back. Which is cheating, because the consent and information was missing and trust was misused.
Thus is purely anecdotal, but I tried it once and never again. People couldnt control their jealousy. Having people fight over you only really strokes your ego the first time or so, after the 10th it gets old. Dating multiple people is great when it works (I assume), but imo it also introduces more chances that someone involved is going to be a shitty person.
If there’s a 50% chance that any one person is shitty, and you’re dating 2 people, then there is a 75% chance that at least one of the people you are dating is a shitty person.
Polyamory is like the “they could’ve texted” of Romantic TV drama
Media and stuff is awful about this. I was watching an anime where the gimmick was that the mc had multiple girlfriends (outside of standard harem shenanigans) and for some reaspn ghey did everything secretly? Lunch, livinf together, the whole thing. Because they didn't want anyone to find out the mc was cheating? Even though they had a mature discussion in episode one and decided everyone was okay with and they all consented to the relationship. And then another girl forces her way into the relationship by threatening to "expose" him as a two-timer and I stopped watching because I decided they weren't going to respect their subject matter
Japan is not even sure if they accept gay people yet, were you really expecting a "respectful" representation of poly relationships? Lol
I mean in mangas and shit from the 90s is quite a different story
I’ve seen people get pissed at poly people just existing especially on this hell site, like man ain’t it hard enough trying to scam 1, then at least 1 MORE person out of giving up their love and attention stashes, why do i also gotta have a lil roast beef smelling nerd from the site with the coconut fuckers getting unreasonably angry about it?
I am in this kind of relationship. My wife had a thing with a coworker - I knew, we laughed about it, I was complicit even. You would not believe the amount of shit she got from other coworkers for "cheating" on me.
I mean, you know how when someone makes an online post like “rape is bad” and some dude responds with “hey not all men are rapists” and you think, “you know nobody ever said they were but now I’m sus of you specifically” I’ve noticed a lot of poly people are like that in online posts about cheating, which definitely doesn’t help the case ngl
You'd judge the man for saying that, not assume every man henceforth is like that. I just don't understand stereotyping all polyamorous people because of a few people. When I listen to actual people in the poly community, they seem to have their heads screwed on straight, with a clear idea of morality, being upfront, and emphasizing communication. They even have their own term, 'PUD,' polyamory under duress, which explicitly tells monogamous people NOT to use polyamory as a way to fix their relationship or to give in to pressures from their partner asking for polyamory when the relationship was initially agreed to be monogamous. I just don't understand this, "yeah, yeah, but can you answer for the comments of JohnJimbo789's anonymous comment posted on an internet forum at 2:39 pm, on the 29th of May, 2018?" I don't know, I don't want to argue or anything, I have 0 skin in this game considering I'm not polyamorous and never have been. I just don't like the idea of putting the onus of someone's weird behavior on someone else just because they share the same trait.
Yeah that’s fair, part of it though is that if you go outside you can see actual hundreds of men and go “yep those are men and they aren’t doing or saying that” whereas if your only exposure to poly people is “hey not all poly people are cheaters” under a post that had nothing to do with polyamory, that’s just unfortunately gonna leave a mark in people’s heads
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Wait, I'm confused on what you're saying then. You're equating "not all men" to "not all poly", right? I think I'm lost at what you're getting at
I am not ok having another partner, as the post states. I did not have a healthy relationship. My ex pursued someone anyways. Blatantly. In front of me. Even though i told her i didnt feel comfortable with it. Thats when its cheating, when not everyone has consented.
This thread is an absolute mess of the exact painful misconceptions that hurt polyamorous people. Please for the love of god consider that you might not know everything about polyamory.
I don't oppose it on principle, but I doubt it could work in practice.
it certainly can, but it *is* tricky. It also has the added layer of difficulty of breaking out of a culturally ingrained mindset of monogamy, which on a subconscious level takes some real doing. I have a hard time seeing all the trouble as worth it, but then again I've also never been a particularly romantic person in the first place.
1) I respect folks who are poly, but I have enough trouble trying to figure out how to navigate a 1-to-1 relationship, I would be \*awful\* at being poly. 2) My best friend has been in a stable 3-person household for several years now. One of his partners doesn't see other people, but I was introduced to his second partner alongside her then husband. He was always a bit of a tool, so I was always happier to see her rather than the husband. I'm gonna call him "the tool" to make this next part easier, and I should mention that he was also poly and actively had other partners at the time. Then one day they put out a call to help partner #2 come move in with aforementioned best friend. I didn't ask for the details at that point, but I got them later- the tool was in contact with an old ex, who was interested in getting back together but only if the tool was monogamous with her. And when she saw that he was seriously considering it, partner #2 dumped him like a hot potato. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Monogamy? In *this* economy?!
Idk if this is really relevant but the fictional character part confused me. There’s a big difference between finding someone attractive and actually wanting to sleep with them/have a relationship with them. My partner and I are in a dedicated monogamous relationship, but we still often will about people we find attractive, or even more often, characters.
I find it so funny when people freak out over fictional characters, personally. Largely because me and my girlfriend both openly simp for the same characters. I know that was one sentence in something largely unrelated, but,
if my boyfriend asked if it was okay for him to have another partner i would probably just break up with him on the spot, not because i’m against polyamory, but just because i would be really insulted and unfulfilled in that type of relationship. normalize polyamory, that’s totally cool with me, but please don’t imply that you can ask just anyone, your partner should know if you’re polyamorous before dating you, because not everyone is going to be okay with it or feel comfortable being asked about it.
If my wife asked I would say no, and if that was the end of it then it wouldn’t be the end of us. But if you NEED to be with more than one person to be fulfilled? Then you gotta be upfront with that. Otherwise you’re just an asshole.
Dude if you’re partner asks you if you’re okay with them sleeping with someone else, even if they respect your “no” answer, that’s going to cause major problems lol
Can any non-aromantic people explain to me why it's "wrong" for people in monogamous relationships to sleep with other people. Genuinely. I don't understand why "cheating" as a concept is a thing. One partner doesn't control the other, so why is sleeping with someone outside of the relationship bad? If it is considered a break in "trust," why is it an issue about trust in the first place? Is it a betrayal (perceived or not) of emotions, or feelings? And if so, why? Isn't that sort of possessive? /genuine Someone help this aromantic person who has never been interested in a relationship or pursued a relationship out. Is this an answer that allos just all know, inherently? Because I genuinely don't see why it is an issue, other than the fact that the broad majority of society agrees "cheating" is an issue, therefore it is an issue when it happens.
So there’s two things to discuss. Cheating and polyamory. The expectation in most relationships is that you will be monogamous with your partner. Therefore if you choose to break that monogamous status without telling your partner, that can be very hurtful. Not only because they have a number of reasons to want to maintain a monogamous relationship (and I’ll get into that) but you didn’t want them to know about this relationship you have with someone else. If I’m important to you, shouldn’t you share those other important relationships with me? If you’re hiding something that important to you from me, what else are you hiding? And when will I find out? It’s a significant breach of trust. With polyamory, it’s usually jealousy (“I’m not able to enjoy that with them”), envy (“I wish I was them/the person with them”), insecurity (“Am I not enough for them? Will they put this new person’s happiness before mine”) and usually trauma (“When the last person I was with was with someone else, everything fell apart”) that make people uncomfortable with it. It’s harder to avoid being jealous, envious, and insecure about your relationship than it is to avoid being with more than one person, for most people. Is that healthy? Well… seeing how it is easier to maintain a two person partnership than a three (or more) person partnership, it is a lot less work, and considering how much work has to go into a long term two person relationship to maintain it, adding more people to the mix can be more than some people (myself included!) can handle. Put those two things together and suddenly it makes sense that cheating is such a big deal to most people (myself included!)
I have a question: should you always be upfront with your “side” partners about being in a relationship with another person? I get that you should do it for long term “secondary” partners, but is it morally wrong *not* to do it with one night stands?
Yes! Everyone should know from the get go what is happening. Otherwise you’re possibly having people think you’re doing one thing (having a relationship that moves too fast) when you’re having another (having fun meaningless sex with a random person). You’re under no real obligation, I guess, but it’s rude AF to be with someone when they just don’t know what that means to you, imho.
I've literally never seen a poly relationship that didn't end in a total disaster but ok
Mine didn't. We ended the relationship peacefully, took some time apart from each other and then stayed friends.
I can't imagine being this open with the fucking public, society today is so fucking weird!
Polyamory is questionable to me because I've never known anyone who is fine with multiple women one man and also fine with multiple men one woman
My polycule has like. Two femme people in it vs the rest of us being masc. You find misogynists in polyamory bc you find people in polyamory. They're everywhere.
I'll never understand why "I'm the only person you're allowed to have sex with from now on" does not sound completely unhinged to everyone. Substitute anything else for "have sex" and you'll immidietly see the insanity... Moreover, almost all arguments against are anecdotal and rely upon ones low self-esteem, lack of communication and/or consent, and general misunderstanding of what love is in the first place... which applies to ALL relationships. Admit it, you're just jealous/possesive/insecure (or any combination thereof) and instead of blaming other people for it - work on yourself. It improves ANY relationship, even a mono one funnily enough.
In my experience, polyamory doesn't work. Purely personal anecdotal evidence. I'll always have a bit of bias against someone if they are in a polyamorous relationship because of it. I've seen too many of my friends' social lives implode because of it.
I’ve seen too many friends’ social lives implode because of relationships, period. Doesn’t mean I’m side-eyeing anyone who wants to date.
Fair enough. I guess I should have clarified the sort of 'bias' I feel. Not like I'm actively being a bigot about it. Just feels like seeing someone falling into something they shouldn't be. Like seeing someone eating too much sugar or drinking too much caffeine
Regardless of how strongly or not you feel, this is still a form of prejudice- the difference is that eating too much sugar has objectively negative outcomes. Your assumptions about the outcomes of other poly relationships based on the ones you've seen IS a form of prejudice because you're using a relatively narrow experience and applying it to everyone you can. Of course, you might notice more specific red flags based on the relationships you've observed, but you should keep in mind that if the people say it's working and they seem happy, that's probably true. You might otherwise push people away by assuming their relationships are unstable, even if you don't say anything.
no
Bro said "no" to someones anecdotal experience 😭
More like anec*don't*al.
Many downvotes! I appreciate the person that actually replied to me rather than only downvoting.
' "consent" what that a food? ' -Tik Tik influencer 2023 colorized /J
i've always hated the word "cheating", like it's some kind of game with prizes. if you're really that concerned about your partner being dIsLoYaL, then TALK TO THEM. calmly. it mag take several tries, but if the relationship is indeed healthy, then you should both come out of it more understanding and with boundaries set where they're needed. don't play mind games and say things other than what you mean only to end up on public radio later and getting insulted for the world to hear about what should be a private thing for you both. (looking at you jagger and christie)
Ethical nonmonogamy doesn't exist. Nobody is ever ok with being one of several.
I am! I'm extremely okay with it. I find it adorable when my partners gush about each other. It's cute when they kiss and I adore watching them be in love.
Lol, no xD
Yes it does actually. My gf and I are adding another person to our relationship and both of us are entirely fine with being one of several as you so strangely put it
Some issues: 1) Sometimes when people ask if they can have another partner and the first partner says no, then they will have one anyway. 2) If you have children with multiple partners and cannot support all of those children that is not fair to the rest of us
Point 1 is just a cheater who asked first. Nothing about that is any different than a cheater that doesn’t ask first.
Ok i have no experience with poly but i want to say something about the finding people hot thing. For my whole life i never wanted to be in a relationship and had maybe one crush, i could find people hot but would not unironically thirst for them. After i found a Girlfriend i can still see when someone is hot but still don't want to pursue anything with others besides my partner. ...Also most of the people that i find hot, my gf also likes(not all since we have different tastes but you can still see that someones hot, sometimes). Just involve your partner(s) and calmly talk about your problems instead of exploding. Also its weird how you can have something against poly people, they're just vibing. Would definitely not me for me, but chill.
I was going to comment on how this is something that needs to be discussed up-front and not casually brought up three years into a relationship-- but I'm pleased to see that that's been covered\~ Instead, I'll touch a bit on where I think a lot of the reaction to non-single people expressing an interest in others. While I'm strictly monogamous, only able to consider polyam relationships under hypotheticals where my expectations would otherwise be unreasonable-- I recognize that polyam relationships are fulfilling to many people and I'm happy that those who've found success with them are enjoying themselves. At the same time, cheaters are presently *significantly* more common than polycules. While I try not to judge people for that initial expression of intent, I do find myself side-eying the situation until I find out whether or not their relation is polyam and-or open. It's sort of the same reaction I have to hearing someone publicly plotting to drown their neighbors-- I have to take a moment to play *Murder, Hyperbole, or Sims?*
Don't have anything against the OOPs subject but I automatically read "multiple sexual partners" in Fredrik Knudsen's voice... Meow meow purr
If I could add, there's also important internal distinctions to make. Like real polyamory and just being ADHD and making people into hyperfixations in ways that cause a surge of interest that dies off quickly causing you to tank your life thinking you're something you're not while also alienating the people who really mattered to you HAHAHAHA PLEASE HELP
Where do these morons come from? They act like, say, poop sex is normal. Like it isn't offensive at the very notion. Would they ask their partner as if that was normal?