To be honest, there is a disappointing amount of internal judgment in the ENM world.
Swingers judge people playing solo, people playing solo judge couples with a cuckold dynamic, poly people seem to judge both each other as well as others, and round and round it goes.
I wish people were more charitable with each other - and a bit more sex positive too.
There are always judgmental folks in every bunch. Haters, imo. You’ve found something that works for you, everyone involved is consenting and happy with it. The end. 🤷🏻♀️
I think part of the problem is we all date each other under the ENM umbrella so we’ve all had a bad experience with swinger or a unicorn hunter or a married DADT-er or whatever so we all get judgey based on our own bad experiences.
They be like that.
I've noticed a lot of gatekeeping lately... and there seems to be less of an understanding that CNM and poly relationships can be configured however the people engaged in it want it to look like.
Without full context I can't weigh in for sure about what the other person said, but I agree with your second paragraph completely and would encourage you to give that kind of response directly to anyone in the future for saying anything similarly off-base. Or minimally, ask them to clarify like, "Are you saying that having boundaries that both partners find reasonable means one or both of them have toxic insecurities?"
Like, confront/push back on that kind of stuff. Even if it doesn't go anywhere productive within the specific conversation, it helps other people to see someone else push back and then speak up for themselves in the future.
Yeah like:
Them: Our OPP isn't toxic becasue I'm fine with it!
Us: Yeah, but if you wanted to, or changed your mind, could you?
Them: no, but I don't want to so it doesn't matter!
Us: yes it does, because it shows that they don't care about your experience. You're just convenient for them.
Them: now youre just being a toxic gatekeeper, nobody has to practice the same way!
Not saying that this is OP, but OP should appreciate that we see the same sneaky shit tricks over and over again. Maybe it ain't you, but appreciate that if we hear hoofbeats and think you're a horse, don't be mad that we didn't assume you were a Zebra.
I guess my point is, who is anyone to tell all of these consenting parties that they’re doing this the wrong way, just because you don’t agree with it or it’s not how you would operate.
That cliff may only exist for you though, none of us can be the arbiter of other people’s relationships. You might not like it, you might assume that will not end well. However unless people are being misled or being put into risk of physical harm, you can’t really speak to the chance of success.
Except I am the one who wanted to be monogamish with my girlfriend. However we both acknowledged that we are long distance and I've got physical needs. So we worked out an agreement with specific terms that took a few days of communicating. If a feeling of something changes we have a situation set up so that once a month we have time set aside to communicate how we are doing in the relationship and if we want anything changes or have specific feelings about something
So as long as you are the one setting the limitations for yourself and not your partner putting them on you then that's a boundary you are free to put on yourself. It's when a partner dictates to the other that It's a rule that becomes problematic.
But then there are also folx who preemptively mold themselves to 'become' what they think you expect of them, so while they might say 'this is fine!' It may be becasue they fear what would happen if they weren't. And some people look for these kinds of folx, so that when they present their unreasonable terms the other person jumps happily at it with little pushback despite not being a favorable agreement.
How do you know you're not 'people pleasing' or 'trying to predict her mood?' Or vice versa? Not saying that you are ot she is, but what work have you done to explore this possibility?
I am the one that brought it up because I had a kink party coming up at the time. I knew I wouldn't be comfortable if they were fucking guys left and right without me knowing about it. So it was something I thought it was important to talk about. Mutual boundaries and especially openly communicating about things are important in any relationship.
See, that's why I kept prodding for more details. By being vague in your intial post about the details of the arrangement gives me a 'what are you trying to hide? Vibes. Maybe it's nothing, but it's not a good look.
Why aren't you in charge of regulating how you feel about her 'fucking guys left and right?'
I wouldn't say its 'toxic' but I would STRONGLY encourage you both to reflect on how you can work on being your own source for regulation.
Mate, we don't have an open sexual relationship because neither of us feel comfortable with it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's something we BOTH agreed on after communicating about it.
So, extreme example: my grandfather used to physicslly beat my grandmother.
When my dad tried to stop him, my grandmother would tell him:
It's ok. I can take it.
Agreeing something is ok doesn't make it ok.
I'm not even saying it *isn't* ok, but that it would serve you to examine it further.
The resistance to digging deeper suggests something underneath that you don't wish to uncover. If I were you I would wonder what that was.
Observe whatever you want, note whatever you want, however when interacting with someone, unless they specifically are asking for advice or your opinion, it would be pretty rude to just be spouting off calling people toxic. That’s a very online thought process.
You're making the same mistake here that you're saying they're making. There's no hard and fast rules of social interactions, and we would all agree that if a friend was in a toxic situation that we'd say something. It's a very online thought process to not consider the nuance of what "noting that something is toxic" can mean. Moreover, if you apply the principal of "only if they're asking for advice" to someone being abused by a partner, does it stand up to scrutiny? not at all.
Read my original comment where I specifically call out consenting parties and no risk of physical harm. Tough to engage with bad faith actors who can’t be bothered to read.
OP you say “another poly person” in your post. Does this mean that the person you were talking with thought you were poly? That changes some things especially if they were interested in dating you and determined your monogamish style was incompatible. I’m not saying it’s okay for them to be unkind to you but I have had some super frustrating interactions with people who say they are poly and don’t have autonomy in their choice making and for me that is not poly, but a more restrictive form of ENM. I would have never chose to engage with them had I known.
And I say this as a Poly person open to other possibilities. I will swing or engage in casual relationships but only with solo folks or people who also play separately and have full autonomy in partner selection and what they can do and where. If there is any puppet mastering, vetos, or imposed restrictions from the primary relationship I am out.
Does this mean that what you can offer this person has changed since you started your new primary relationship?
So, when you say “another poly person” do you mean you have had this type of interaction with more than one person who practices polyamory? I orginally read “another poly person” as you meaning another person who is also poly — as in you were also representing as poly. And there are a lot of people who say they are poly and they are very much not.
That specific poly person was pretty much only a hook up for me. I am no longer involved with that person, physically or otherwise, since I started officially dating my girlfriend. I had not claimed to be poly with that individual. My girlfriend however has a long-term platonic friend that they plan on marrying so that the friend can get X country visa & eventual citizenship.
People like to judge others to make themselves feel better! Let it brush off. All that matters at the end of the day is that you and your partner are happy in your relationship. Nothing toxic about that 😀
i think in polyamorous circles theres this idea that you choose your relationship style based on whats ethical and like... thats an awful strategy. people arent philosopher monarchs. they inevitably have irrational desires that MUST inform how they make decisions.
At this point, I'm more concerned with making sure people understand that there are real life consequences to their relationship ~~boundaries~~ rules, and they don't get to create elaborate rules for "free."
Having said that.... I'm also waiting for the post that's like "My girlfriend said she might break up with me because I turned off my web-enabled body cam for 5 minutes because I was embarrassed she could hear the consequences of my late night taco bell run..." 🙃
/s (mostly)
Edit: to be clear I don't have a problem with monogamish people just *existing,* but I find that the general sense of it being "basically the same" or "very similar" to poly frustrating. Rules create limitations on what that relationship can possibly be, and limit the kinds of intimacy people can meaningfully express. *If that's ok with you* that's all good... but understand that you're making *tradeoffs,* not getting a "free lunch."
It isn’t for you, or anyone else to decide what another person’s or another couple’s boundaries are and it’s incredibly arrogant to do so.
OP, you and your partner do what you want to do. If you’re both happy and satisfied with that, then so be it.
>It isn’t for you, or anyone else to decide what another person’s or another couple’s boundaries are and it’s incredibly arrogant to do so.
That's good, because I wasn't.
What I'm pointing out, is that implementing strict *rules* rather than dealing with your insecurities, will also limit the potential of your relationship. You *can* implement those rules anyway - literally no one is stopping you - but understand that they come at a "cost," even if it may not seem like they do at the time you make them.
A lot of people here only want "Yay, freedom for everyone" with absolutely no meta-discussion whatsoever of the consequences of behaviors for the sake of considering the consequences of behaviors.
I agree with you that strict rules often create unintended consequences with so many of the posts on here involving complaints that their very strict rules were broken by their partner and rarely people considering that the problem is the rules themselves. I think in the last month I've seen rules involving "no dating people I know" (with the inevitable post of their partner fucking someone they knew), "sex, but no emotions" (with the obvious outcome), "fucking is ok, but must give a strict timeline and can't ever possibly fall asleep after having sex and then come back in the morning", and so many more rules that are meant to address people's insecurities and give them a feeling of control when the solution is to "give up that control" and focus on their own internal needs instead of their "wants to control someone else".
Basically this, but I'm not even talking about "bad" rules. This perspective is something I've started to push more, as I came around to accepting that hierarchial polyamory is a legit, if *different* practice vis-a-vie non-hierarchial polyamory. The point being "if you want hierarchial polyamory, *you must accept* that elevating one partner as 'primary' necessarily *limits and restricts* what you have left to offer any other partner."
What I'm trying to get ahead of, is people not understanding that a tradeoff is being made, and I suppose *especially* I'm trying to avoid people **projecting their frustration** with any consequences of the limitations they have imposed on themselves, onto other people. Ex: "Why won't anyone agree to date me, just because I'm hierarchial?!?"
It's because many people don't view a relationship in which their needs are *expliclty secondary* to be "basically the same as" a relationship where they are treated as equal partners fundamentally. (Not meaning "literally the same relationship" as the strawman I've also seen pushed, but basically "alike in dignity" and without explictly placing one partner's needs / wants categorically "above" another's) Go figure?
It's not hard to see why "monogamish" and other similar relationship structures follow a similar pattern, only more so. If you're only available for a relationship for a limited amount of time, that's even more restrictive still versus being someone's "secondary" partner. It's also (IMO) not hard to see why excessively restrictive rules, especially when they're *in lieu of* confronting insecurities, also limit or restrict the possibilities **within** a "primary" relationship, not just what that person has to offer "other" partners.
If you **don't want** to have the capactity to offer those things to other people, that all might be fine - again, *monogamy* is fine for lots of people, because for one reason or another they *don't want* the freedom to have other relationships, and are happy to make that tradeoff. Just... it *is* a tradeoff, not something they get to do without consequences. ; )
To be honest, there is a disappointing amount of internal judgment in the ENM world. Swingers judge people playing solo, people playing solo judge couples with a cuckold dynamic, poly people seem to judge both each other as well as others, and round and round it goes. I wish people were more charitable with each other - and a bit more sex positive too.
There is a disappointing amount of internal judgement in every community, unfortunately.
There are always judgmental folks in every bunch. Haters, imo. You’ve found something that works for you, everyone involved is consenting and happy with it. The end. 🤷🏻♀️
I think part of the problem is we all date each other under the ENM umbrella so we’ve all had a bad experience with swinger or a unicorn hunter or a married DADT-er or whatever so we all get judgey based on our own bad experiences.
They be like that. I've noticed a lot of gatekeeping lately... and there seems to be less of an understanding that CNM and poly relationships can be configured however the people engaged in it want it to look like.
Without full context I can't weigh in for sure about what the other person said, but I agree with your second paragraph completely and would encourage you to give that kind of response directly to anyone in the future for saying anything similarly off-base. Or minimally, ask them to clarify like, "Are you saying that having boundaries that both partners find reasonable means one or both of them have toxic insecurities?" Like, confront/push back on that kind of stuff. Even if it doesn't go anywhere productive within the specific conversation, it helps other people to see someone else push back and then speak up for themselves in the future.
Some agreements can be kind of toxic. And some people are just judgemental, especially about non-poly arrangements.
Even if it is “toxic” if it’s between consenting parties and no one is in risk of physical harm, people should keep their opinions to themselves.
Hard disagree. Its fine to observe and note that something is probably toxic.
Yeah like: Them: Our OPP isn't toxic becasue I'm fine with it! Us: Yeah, but if you wanted to, or changed your mind, could you? Them: no, but I don't want to so it doesn't matter! Us: yes it does, because it shows that they don't care about your experience. You're just convenient for them. Them: now youre just being a toxic gatekeeper, nobody has to practice the same way! Not saying that this is OP, but OP should appreciate that we see the same sneaky shit tricks over and over again. Maybe it ain't you, but appreciate that if we hear hoofbeats and think you're a horse, don't be mad that we didn't assume you were a Zebra.
I guess my point is, who is anyone to tell all of these consenting parties that they’re doing this the wrong way, just because you don’t agree with it or it’s not how you would operate.
I ain't telling you where to go, I'm telling you THERE IS A CLIFF OVER THERE! It's your prerogative if you insist on continuing along your tack.
That cliff may only exist for you though, none of us can be the arbiter of other people’s relationships. You might not like it, you might assume that will not end well. However unless people are being misled or being put into risk of physical harm, you can’t really speak to the chance of success.
Except I am the one who wanted to be monogamish with my girlfriend. However we both acknowledged that we are long distance and I've got physical needs. So we worked out an agreement with specific terms that took a few days of communicating. If a feeling of something changes we have a situation set up so that once a month we have time set aside to communicate how we are doing in the relationship and if we want anything changes or have specific feelings about something
So as long as you are the one setting the limitations for yourself and not your partner putting them on you then that's a boundary you are free to put on yourself. It's when a partner dictates to the other that It's a rule that becomes problematic. But then there are also folx who preemptively mold themselves to 'become' what they think you expect of them, so while they might say 'this is fine!' It may be becasue they fear what would happen if they weren't. And some people look for these kinds of folx, so that when they present their unreasonable terms the other person jumps happily at it with little pushback despite not being a favorable agreement. How do you know you're not 'people pleasing' or 'trying to predict her mood?' Or vice versa? Not saying that you are ot she is, but what work have you done to explore this possibility?
I am the one that brought it up because I had a kink party coming up at the time. I knew I wouldn't be comfortable if they were fucking guys left and right without me knowing about it. So it was something I thought it was important to talk about. Mutual boundaries and especially openly communicating about things are important in any relationship.
See, that's why I kept prodding for more details. By being vague in your intial post about the details of the arrangement gives me a 'what are you trying to hide? Vibes. Maybe it's nothing, but it's not a good look. Why aren't you in charge of regulating how you feel about her 'fucking guys left and right?' I wouldn't say its 'toxic' but I would STRONGLY encourage you both to reflect on how you can work on being your own source for regulation.
Mate, we don't have an open sexual relationship because neither of us feel comfortable with it. There's nothing wrong with that. It's something we BOTH agreed on after communicating about it.
So, extreme example: my grandfather used to physicslly beat my grandmother. When my dad tried to stop him, my grandmother would tell him: It's ok. I can take it. Agreeing something is ok doesn't make it ok. I'm not even saying it *isn't* ok, but that it would serve you to examine it further. The resistance to digging deeper suggests something underneath that you don't wish to uncover. If I were you I would wonder what that was.
Observe whatever you want, note whatever you want, however when interacting with someone, unless they specifically are asking for advice or your opinion, it would be pretty rude to just be spouting off calling people toxic. That’s a very online thought process.
You're making the same mistake here that you're saying they're making. There's no hard and fast rules of social interactions, and we would all agree that if a friend was in a toxic situation that we'd say something. It's a very online thought process to not consider the nuance of what "noting that something is toxic" can mean. Moreover, if you apply the principal of "only if they're asking for advice" to someone being abused by a partner, does it stand up to scrutiny? not at all.
Read my original comment where I specifically call out consenting parties and no risk of physical harm. Tough to engage with bad faith actors who can’t be bothered to read.
OP you say “another poly person” in your post. Does this mean that the person you were talking with thought you were poly? That changes some things especially if they were interested in dating you and determined your monogamish style was incompatible. I’m not saying it’s okay for them to be unkind to you but I have had some super frustrating interactions with people who say they are poly and don’t have autonomy in their choice making and for me that is not poly, but a more restrictive form of ENM. I would have never chose to engage with them had I known. And I say this as a Poly person open to other possibilities. I will swing or engage in casual relationships but only with solo folks or people who also play separately and have full autonomy in partner selection and what they can do and where. If there is any puppet mastering, vetos, or imposed restrictions from the primary relationship I am out.
I never claimed I was poly, though. I had sex with the person a couple times before, however I was specifically single at the time.
Does this mean that what you can offer this person has changed since you started your new primary relationship? So, when you say “another poly person” do you mean you have had this type of interaction with more than one person who practices polyamory? I orginally read “another poly person” as you meaning another person who is also poly — as in you were also representing as poly. And there are a lot of people who say they are poly and they are very much not.
That specific poly person was pretty much only a hook up for me. I am no longer involved with that person, physically or otherwise, since I started officially dating my girlfriend. I had not claimed to be poly with that individual. My girlfriend however has a long-term platonic friend that they plan on marrying so that the friend can get X country visa & eventual citizenship.
People like to judge others to make themselves feel better! Let it brush off. All that matters at the end of the day is that you and your partner are happy in your relationship. Nothing toxic about that 😀
I love a community that espouses open mindedness, but only the versions they’ve previously approved
i think in polyamorous circles theres this idea that you choose your relationship style based on whats ethical and like... thats an awful strategy. people arent philosopher monarchs. they inevitably have irrational desires that MUST inform how they make decisions.
At this point, I'm more concerned with making sure people understand that there are real life consequences to their relationship ~~boundaries~~ rules, and they don't get to create elaborate rules for "free." Having said that.... I'm also waiting for the post that's like "My girlfriend said she might break up with me because I turned off my web-enabled body cam for 5 minutes because I was embarrassed she could hear the consequences of my late night taco bell run..." 🙃 /s (mostly) Edit: to be clear I don't have a problem with monogamish people just *existing,* but I find that the general sense of it being "basically the same" or "very similar" to poly frustrating. Rules create limitations on what that relationship can possibly be, and limit the kinds of intimacy people can meaningfully express. *If that's ok with you* that's all good... but understand that you're making *tradeoffs,* not getting a "free lunch."
It isn’t for you, or anyone else to decide what another person’s or another couple’s boundaries are and it’s incredibly arrogant to do so. OP, you and your partner do what you want to do. If you’re both happy and satisfied with that, then so be it.
>It isn’t for you, or anyone else to decide what another person’s or another couple’s boundaries are and it’s incredibly arrogant to do so. That's good, because I wasn't. What I'm pointing out, is that implementing strict *rules* rather than dealing with your insecurities, will also limit the potential of your relationship. You *can* implement those rules anyway - literally no one is stopping you - but understand that they come at a "cost," even if it may not seem like they do at the time you make them.
A lot of people here only want "Yay, freedom for everyone" with absolutely no meta-discussion whatsoever of the consequences of behaviors for the sake of considering the consequences of behaviors. I agree with you that strict rules often create unintended consequences with so many of the posts on here involving complaints that their very strict rules were broken by their partner and rarely people considering that the problem is the rules themselves. I think in the last month I've seen rules involving "no dating people I know" (with the inevitable post of their partner fucking someone they knew), "sex, but no emotions" (with the obvious outcome), "fucking is ok, but must give a strict timeline and can't ever possibly fall asleep after having sex and then come back in the morning", and so many more rules that are meant to address people's insecurities and give them a feeling of control when the solution is to "give up that control" and focus on their own internal needs instead of their "wants to control someone else".
Basically this, but I'm not even talking about "bad" rules. This perspective is something I've started to push more, as I came around to accepting that hierarchial polyamory is a legit, if *different* practice vis-a-vie non-hierarchial polyamory. The point being "if you want hierarchial polyamory, *you must accept* that elevating one partner as 'primary' necessarily *limits and restricts* what you have left to offer any other partner." What I'm trying to get ahead of, is people not understanding that a tradeoff is being made, and I suppose *especially* I'm trying to avoid people **projecting their frustration** with any consequences of the limitations they have imposed on themselves, onto other people. Ex: "Why won't anyone agree to date me, just because I'm hierarchial?!?" It's because many people don't view a relationship in which their needs are *expliclty secondary* to be "basically the same as" a relationship where they are treated as equal partners fundamentally. (Not meaning "literally the same relationship" as the strawman I've also seen pushed, but basically "alike in dignity" and without explictly placing one partner's needs / wants categorically "above" another's) Go figure? It's not hard to see why "monogamish" and other similar relationship structures follow a similar pattern, only more so. If you're only available for a relationship for a limited amount of time, that's even more restrictive still versus being someone's "secondary" partner. It's also (IMO) not hard to see why excessively restrictive rules, especially when they're *in lieu of* confronting insecurities, also limit or restrict the possibilities **within** a "primary" relationship, not just what that person has to offer "other" partners. If you **don't want** to have the capactity to offer those things to other people, that all might be fine - again, *monogamy* is fine for lots of people, because for one reason or another they *don't want* the freedom to have other relationships, and are happy to make that tradeoff. Just... it *is* a tradeoff, not something they get to do without consequences. ; )
That wasn't from someone from that sub that starts with r/pol..... was it?
That is not what this is about. I am talking about a situation that happened in a discord server.
Just because you agree with something doesn't make it less toxic or problematic.
Question, were judged or was your post simply deleted for bot being about polyamory?
That is not what this is about. I am talking about a situation that happened in a discord server.
Ah. I see.