I’m a bit older than my wife, but your point rings true - we also met fairly young, and went through some stuff. That’s probably a meaningful part of how and why we are who we are.
Meeting my wife fairly young meant that I got the raw, unfiltered version of her feelings and was able to compare/contrast that with my behavior - and improve it. That led to trust allowing discussion of involving others, and an understanding that neither of us is going anywhere / associated trust.
While I wouldn’t necessarily go to bed with all of them, there are a number of people who have deeply impacted my life in distinct ways, and from whom I have learned a great deal. Hell, I don’t even like all of them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not a meaningful part of my life.
Agree with your take on adding another person to solve problems - always a terrible idea.
My idea of ‘consenting adults’ has morphed significantly between, say, 21 and… my current age. Even the subsets of ‘consent’ and ‘adult’ have morphed. But at the end of the day, honesty is all that we have.
I adore spending time with my wife - whether we’re ‘doing’ something’ together, or doing individual things we can talk about later.
Poly means never running out of topics of conversation, or ways to understand each other.
‘Why her?’ really means 'Our relationship evolves, as all relationship should, what interest you about her and how can I support you?"
That “how can I support you?” question is critical, and we’ve been married long enough that I never doubt the legitimacy of the question.
If you were to judge monogamy by the shit that pops up in relationship advice threads, people would have a bad impression of it as well!
That’s the truth.
My day job is FinTech/tax adjacent, so I have to give you collectively (and your collective web of relationships) credit for making the home ownership work. The overwhelming majority of humans can’t make tenants in common between two people work.
Personally, I’'m not particularly close with my family for other reasons, so being ‘out’ isn’t a real concern - given a wife and girlfriend in that long-term context, I’d write the requisite will / medical POA to be fair, and to ensure that blood relatives aren’t executing either.
I’m somewhat close with folks at work, but I WFH for a company that’s fairly progressive. One of the people I started with recently asked us to address them in a specific way, and I couldn’t be happier for them. If I called my boss “Joe,” and they asked me to call them “Mr. Smith”, that’s no different.
I very much like your strategy of “truthful but no obvious” There isn’t a need at work for a full-fledged explanation of my home life, but I also work with good people who don’t blink at the miscellaneous terms I (or they) use to describe the people who are important to us. That’s how it’s supposed to work - we all share what we feel comfortable with, and other people share in our joys/sorrows regarding the same. Only the level of detail changes, really.
Thanks for the input - I agree that poly isn’t the problem, people are the problem.
This particular person had to learn the hard way how to say ‘I love you, I will not leave you, and with that in mind, I’d like to fuck _____’ More difficult than it seems, but hardly a torpedo to the relationship - barring a random announcement out of nowhere.
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.