What are your experiences with polyamory, first or second hand?

Rakqoi, 1 year ago

I’m polyamorous myself, with a girlfriend of about 18 months and another of nearly a year. Both my relationships are stable and very fulfilling, and also relaxed and laid-back. It takes more communication to have it work but for me I can’t even imagine living any other way, polyamory feels right for me and me and my partners are happier than we’ve ever been.

Granted, my relationships aren’t a case of opening an existing partnership, but rather I talked about the fact that I’m polyamorous to each partner very early on before we even considered a relationship. Most drama I’ve seen in polyamory comes from one partner in a monogamous pair wanting “more” and so the decision is pretty one sided, and neither is willing to really put in the work and communication that healthy polyamory requires. Every polyamorous person I know that started their relationships as polyamorous is healthy and happy in their partnerships.

LegionEris, 1 year ago

We opened up an existing relationship, but it was more my idea for her to have a boyfriend. I knew she romanticized affairs and infidelity. I knew that her experience of being with a man romantically and physically is meaningfully different from how we are together. And I’ve just never been that sort of possessive, so I encouraged her to seek out something I couldn’t give her

Rakqoi, 1 year ago

I’m really happy it’s working out for you! I’m not saying that all existing partnerships opening to polyamory are doomed to fail or are inferior in any way, just that from what I’ve seen they’re much harder to pull off, possibly because people tend to open relationships for the wrong reasons. But when it does work out and everyone involved is entirely on board and is willing to put in the work, they can absolutely be beautiful and healthy relationships.

drmoose, 1 year ago

I’ve never seen a healthy poly relationship and I’ve seen many but I still think that it could work given the right circumstances. People already suck at handling a single relationship so statistically handling more is just significantly more difficult not to mention all the externals like community and society as whole.

LegionEris, 1 year ago

People already suck at handling a single relationship so statistically handling more is just significantly more difficult

I guess that’s a fair point. My wife and I were the stable thing in each other’s lives for years before this started. We have a love that can’t be stopped and have navigated more together than most couples ever will. Neither of us would have considered a second partner if we thought it could have weakened our foundational relationship. That is what has freed us to have these experiences.

IonAddis, 1 year ago

I know of two couples that dabble in it to some extent. One as far as I know is unicorn-hunting, because their rules for it suggest a 3rd member genuinely capturing someone’s heart would lead to relationship implosion of epic proportions, and I suspect that couple isn’t mature or stable enough to be doing what they’re doing without leaving people open for hurt. Not that I have any say in it, lol. But I feel sorry for any thirds that interact with them thinking there’s even a chance of them being an equal partner.

The other couple has much better communication skills, and claim they’re poly, but as far as I can tell from the outside “poly” has happened as an attempt to save the marriage. Maybe they’ll make it work, but I’ve watched them make some dumb mistakes, and the wife has jealous behaviors when women interact with the husband and a history of bending to his needs before her own so I think even if she says they’re poly she might have talked herself into it as a way to attend to him.

I think healthy poly is possible–but it requires extremely mature individuals with exceptional communication skills, and that’s rare even in monogamous couples.

____, 1 year ago

Married 13 yrs as of the end of October. We’ve played with others, and have standing permission to “get things going,” but I find the wedding ring to (understandably) be a turnoff. My personal preferences mean that it’s difficult to meet people I’m interested in and who are likely to believe any reasonable explanation for ‘even though I’m wearing a ring, we are all on the same page.’

It is by definition much easier for my wife / both of us, to find a man who is both interested and dealing in good faith than for me to approach a woman successfully.

I don’t harbor any jealousy or concern with regards to my wife, she simply has an easier time with it. One can blame that on the lies that cheating men have told over many centuries, I’m sure.

I’ve encountered a number of women in whom I’d be interested, but… I refuse to take my ring off just to have a chance at meeting someone. Not just because “reasons” and “ethics,” but also because I know for a fact that up-front disclosure is the better path.

“No, I wasn’t wearing a ring when I met you, but I’m married,” is not the way to start off a poly relationship from where I sit. It is, however, an excellent way to scare off the folks who are open to the same.

Neither of us is looking for threesomes per se, and neither of us is willing to dissemble and then later ask forgiveness of the third party.

Haven’t posted all that much on the topic, so… Fuckit. We’ve been married for almost fifteen years. We found a play partner around the five-year mark. That lasted as long as it lasted, and was a great deal of fun - both in person and via internet, subject to collective needs. That person could have handled things better, and I could have handled their less than ideal behavior better. I own my part, there. It wasn’t intended to be long term, and that’s fine - it introduced us to both the lifestyle and the risks, and I am cognizant of what I did right and what I did wrong at the tine.

We’re in a more liberal town than where we spent much of our marriage, but it’s still tough to meet people. Some of that is due to my WFH arrangement, as I don’t get out as much as ‘normal’ folks, but I would absolutely not sleep with someone I worked with anyway - I’m a professional, it has the potential to get really ugly, and could very well ruin my reputation.

Dating sites have proven unhelpful, though much of that was while living in “Kettlecorn, KS” where my wife grew up. Trying to do this in the midwest is ‘hard mode’ to say the least.

I’m not even looking for women a fraction of my age (and I’m not that damn old to begin with), but any introduction brings with it the risk of judgement / ‘If you weren’t married…’

I consider it a damn shame that consensual poly is not more mainstream - people will meet people, and have chemistry, and have sex as a result. Advance consent, in whatever form the couple finds appropriate, prevents literally all of the unpleasantness, feelings of betrayal, etc.

Not an expert at this stuff, but also fairly sure my experience is not incredibly outside the norm.

CaptPretentious, 1 year ago

I worked with a married couple many years back. Then they had a kid. So they split their shifts since daycare costs to damn much for 2 Perkins cooks. So they very little of each other. So they went to an open relationship model because “needs”. One of the male managers known for hitting in and fucking all waitresses (because he controlled their schedule…) took the opportunity to start plowing her too. The husband… Thought he had game and thought he could get someone at work. He couldn’t. So that had to be a fun dynamic. The husband and wife’s manager working side by side with both of them and the manager was having a baby with one of his other conquests that also work there. Their marriage quickly fell apart and people’s opinion of her and the manager and the husband took a leap off a cliff. Before all of that they were a very happy couple and great friends to be with. Afterwards they were all insufferable and the child pays for all this.

Knew another couple, married, with for kids. They moved to a open relationship model… Probably for plethora of reasons, Part of me believes that she misses her early twenties party girl that she used to be. Turns out being in mid-30s and having four kids and being married really limits the type of guys that you get. Her former husband moved on with life. And she now has a fifth kid with someone that was a temp boyfriend.

Hugin, 1 year ago

I’ve been in a polyamorous relationship with my wife for 23 years. We started poly and still are. Not counting relationships that lasted a date or two she has had three relationships that lasted between Hall a year and a year and a half. I’ve had one long term that lasted eight years.

We aren’t the jealous types so it’s been mostly good with the normal relationship ups and downs combined with the elevated logistical problems that are inherent in poly relationships.

Fori us it’s great and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ll also say there is nothing like waking up on the weekend to the sound of your wife and girlfriend laughing in the kitchen while having coffee.

DingusKhan, 1 year ago

It caused way too much drama.

shinigamiookamiryuu, 1 year ago

Not much. I’m what many might call a relationship anarchist and this can translate into polyamory, especially when QPR’s are a part of the equation (same with my closest friends but in a more meta way), but I’m not in any and never have been. I was offered the chance though because a classmate in middle and high school began aspiring to a polygamist relationship (LGBT relationships were already a thing and I guess my class got ideas) and managed to appeal to a bunch of other classmates. The core classmate of the relationship then had to move though (the family’s mom got a job somewhere else) and that created a weird sense of withdrawal among the participants.

Jaderick, 1 year ago

I tried (long distance) dating a poly dude in a situation where he had a long term live-in boyfriend and got me and a trans girl to start dating him around the same time. He wanted a polycule to work out and it seemed plausible-ish for a few months, but the communication was atrocious. Everyone liked the central poly dude and I tried getting along with the other two, but it was clear they were just interested in the main dude. Turned into a mega jealousy situation between all of us which blew up horribly and spectacularly.

In a good monogamous relationship now, but I wouldn’t even try a poly thing again. It requires a lot of communication, moving parts, and if someone is slightly less than truthful it’s probably doomed to fail lol.

captainlezbian, 1 year ago

I’ve been with my wife and girlfriend for about 4.5 years. Gf has been married for longer.

Polyamory attracts trainwrecks and hands them a ton of rope which they promptly hang themselves with. We hear about them a lot because they’re loudly collapsing all the time.

We don’t hear about our types because what are we going to do, loudly announce stable long term relationships? Because I am judged as one of those people or a slut or a player or something I’m hesitant to loudly profess my polyamory. My coworkers don’t know that one day a week I don’t go to my regular home when I leave but to my girlfriend’s home where I hang out with her and her kids (whom I’ve been a stable adult fixture in their lives for years) until her husband wakes up for work when I either take her out to dinner, or get some alone time as he watches the kids, or he’s just there hanging out with us, then rather than it being an absolute fuckfest, we either have “I have work in the morning” sex, curl up watching tv, chat alone, or increasingly often chat with her kids because they’ve been needing more attention lately before going to bed. Then the next day I go to work from there. And they also don’t know that that evening my wife is glad that I was there because it’s good for me and she needs some alone time on a regular basis because while she loves me very much I’m a high energy extrovert and she’s a low energy introvert.

Hell my family is uncomfortable with my polyamory except my sister. They can accept that I’m gay and love my wife, but they don’t talk about my girlfriend and are clearly uncomfortable when I talk about her. So I shy away from it. And I don’t go to poly events because they’re full of train wrecks. I don’t filter through partners. I’ve never even had a romantic relationship that was under a year long.

And yeah I’ve had my drama. Casual sex has gone weird. My ex was actually monogamous but she started a triad because I wanted polyamory and that went just terribly. But also I was in my early 20s, similar situations for monogamous relationships aren’t blamed on monogamy but on dumb 20 somethings.

But yeah I’m happy and stable. And I know my wife, gf, and meta would all agree that’s our situation

A_Random_Idiot, 1 year ago

I’ve had a couple Poly experiences.

None of them are particularly happy memories, but it has nothing to do with Poly itself and everything to do with the fact that the only women that are attracted to me, or that are even interested in talking to me, seem to be abusers with a plethora of mental illness issues.

FlyingSquid, 1 year ago

I knew two groups of polys. One was a success story and did very well with a big family full of kids. The other one broke up when it was clear two of them cared more about each other than a third. So I’m guessing it’s like every type of relationship- sometimes it works out well, sometimes it’s a disaster.

ArmoredThirteen, 1 year ago

So maybe not exactly a success story but I wouldn’t call it a disaster either. I don’t view my current experience to be negative even if it is extremely difficult for me.

I’m poly, technically have been most my life but most my relationships have been functionally mono until 3 or 4 years ago. I’m in a hard place right now, 6 months ago my polycule split, two months ago my anchor partner very suddenly broke up with me, my nesting partner of over 10 years has stopped physically interacting with me.

I thought I was insulated from heartbreak because I could fallback on other partners while I get back on my feet, and I did actually do that a couple times with non core partner breakups. Apparently the opposite can happen where all your partners drop away in rapid succession and you have to deal losing all the people who would have supported you.

I’m happy I’m poly. It is difficult but so is being mono in different ways. The love I had when the polycule was functioning I can’t describe that to people who haven’t had it before. I had a great run of about 3 years of memories I’m going to hold very dearly. I’ll rebuild my relationships with new people and everything I’ve learned here will make things better for me in the future.

NinjaFox, 1 year ago

I’m poly, in a closed triad. Basically I live with my two partners and we are all dating eachother. Honestly, it just kinda works. Not much different than “traditional” relationships apart from the fact that even the biggest standard beds barely fit all 3 of us lol

SoleInvictus, 1 year ago

I’m poly and am now in a monogamous marriage but was in a few poly relationships prior. I’m 99.5% okay with this.

Poly was fun but had high overhead - there’s a certain amount of work required for any relationship and it seems to increase to some extent as you get closer with someone. Two partners was literally double the work, sometimes more. A lot of people thought I was a swinger which always pissed me off. A couple of non-poly girlfriends thought it gave them carte blanche to fuck around on the side while I was staying monogamous for them. Classy.

My very last poly partner was simply horrid and ultimately turned me off to poly. Successful polyamory requires trust and communication. We had been unintentionally monogamous for awhile and it turned out she was not communicating some unfulfilled needs. To be fair, they were valid needs, but I couldn’t have known to fulfill them without being told first.

When she and I started dating, we were only seeing each other and had agreed that we’d only consider bringing new people to the relationship if our “core” relationship was solid. That was always my condition in every poly relationship. Years later, without any prior warning, she told me about the issues she had with us and mandated that the only way she’d be willing for us to stay together was if I were to support her starting a relationship with an absolute trainwreck of a human being. He was a socially awkward, late twenties, literally virginal fellow that had never been in a relationship of any kind before and he nailed the cocky, oblivious, “kind of an asshole but projects the blame on you” engineer stereotype on the head so hard you could feel it across county lines. I noped the fuck out so hard. Looking back, my ex had glaring warning signs you could see from space, but I was pretty young and nieve, plus I was madly in love with her even before we started dating. This and an earlier relationship with a narcissistic abuser are the only relationships I regret.

I met my now wife a few months after my ex and I split. She didn’t want to do poly and I was pretty burned out on it, so I had no complaints. I do miss it sometimes. I’m a bit of a flirt and I really miss that, the excitement of hitting it off with a new person and all the chemistry and interesting things to learn about them. Still, I wouldn’t trade what I have with my wife for all the dates in the world.