To think that consensual non-monogamy is usually a recipe for disaster?

There's a massive community of swingers out there, just because it's not your cup of tea and you ideology of what's normal differs doesn't automatically mean it can't work...

It's also getting quite crazy as a trend. I was on Tinder and for a whirl I chatted to a man looking for a woman for an open relationship. He was adamant that it had to be with a female. We got into discussion and I questioned the equality i.e why not possibly a man. He said if that sounds like having his cake and eating it then he's okay with that.

Those were the terms from the start 🙄

It often seems to be done because the couple want to stay together for financial reasons but also for whatever reasons want sex with other people. I actually dislike it for this reason- the third wheel person can often be someone with quite low self esteem, the couple may shower them with affection, pay the hotel. All a bit wierd.

Often when people say they have it and it's great they'll go on to say there was a thing about someone developing feelings or doing something, it all seems a bit unsustainable, a lot of having to discuss and analyse to make sure no one's feelings are hurt. But if you bring a third person in you have a third person! So you either fully consider and involve them or you don't. I just don't see how it's not explotative.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea but I think threesomes are for single people.

As for two consenting couples i feel that's different. I imagine it's tricky to find a couple you both find attractive. Also god the admin.

I don't think it's for me, but I know of successful poly relationships and less successful ones, as with monogamy.

I admire those friends who have done it successfully for their clear sightedness about what they are looking for and ability to communicate, but I am quite happy with one intimate partner and have never wanted more for myself and therefore I see myself as benefiting from monogamy!

From observation, I think it's tricky, even as a woman, to succeed with poly for a while after children if you want your second relationship to be much more than sex, because your first necessarily demands more as a coparenting relationship, so it is harder to find a partner who wants something that is longer term but where they will come second to the primary relationship in which the kids are being raised. Unless you raise the kids together from the outset. But that doesn't mean that it can't work out, or that a poly couple couldn't hit pause by mutual agreement for a time. The first intensive years of child rearing are a short period of time and people change over their lives.

I can see what another poster said that, as a single parent, having a range of less intense relationships in which partners would not expect to meet your kids would be much less pressured than trying to find and vet "the one" who would fit into your family life. If you can do it, it's much better and healthier than introducing your kids to someone you've been dating too early because they expect commitment from you.

I don't get it but at the same time I don't care about other people's sex lives as long as it's consentual.

If you want to sleep with others, sleep with others. No issue. But I don't understand why anyone would want to be in a relationship where they want to sleep with others. Stag single, shag whoever you want. Why have a relationship and technically do the exact opposite of a committed relationship.

I'm not even the jealous type. If my partner ever wanted to sleep with someone else, fine off with him but that's the end of us.

women find it much easier to arrange dates/hook ups and men usually find their dating pool very small
Which is particularly satisfying when you do see a man who has manipulated his female partner into opening the relationship only to find he’s sat at home while she’s off out dating

haha! This reminds me of a now famous reddit thread that went viral whereby a man was complaining that he had talked his girlfriend into opening up their relationship (and she was reluctant) and then was supremely pissed off that she was going out on dates every night having a wonderful time with different men whilst he couldnt even get one date. He was asking reddit how to broach ending the agreement and got his arse handed to him. It was beautiful.

I've known two separate couples do this and both had the exact same experience: husband wants to do violent shit he's seen in porn, wife says no, husband convinced her to open the marriage so he can get it out of his system, wife gets inundated with offers and husband none, husband jealous, wife realises most men she's meeting are looking for someone to do violent shit with and becomes disillusioned, husband becomes romantic and non violent with his one hook up offer and claims to fall in love - lots of pain all round, then divorce.

I'm sure some people are enjoying it but it's being sold as a solution to other problems (like porn).

Yeah I was gonna say - every poly couple I know the women gets lots of sex/options and the man has zero and doesn't like it 😂

I don’t buy that it’s possible to be with one person and have all your emotional needs met and judging by the threads on here that isn’t what is happening for most people

I agree with PP, it can work, but in my experience of friends who have done it, it has always been relationship ending. I suspect the main problem is that it's usually driven by one person and the other goes along with it to keep them happy. If they both want it, it might work better but from the people I know who have done it, its always been one person pushing for it and the other being reluctant and thats a recipe for disaster.

That Lindy West video was a hard watch.

I can kind of see a scenario where two people in a relationship would agree to having casual sexual partners outside that relationship. I can understand wanting to sleep with different people but keeping your primary partner.

But I just do not buy the idea that it's possible to have multiple romantic partnerships going on at the same time and everyone involved in that dynamic gets their emotional needs met.

Having sex is really simple. Sharing your life in partnership with someone is so complex, it's difficult to do with just one partner, let alone multiple. I don't understand why you'd even want to bother. I struggle to find a free night to go to yoga. Fuck having to factor in a whole polycule's schedule.

A friend is in a poly relationship, his wife has her boyfriends living in what used to be holiday cottages on their land, she is easily bored so tends to get new ones every 6-8 months. To be honest it just seems like too much effort to me.

An ex colleague is in a longterm throuple, three fulltime incomes and no kids, they’re loaded.

It wouldn’t be the right thing for either of us, but I don’t get when people poo poo things they either don’t understand, or like to feel superior so enjoy putting other options down.

I think this is the aspect that seems so exhausting to me. What if I fall in love with a person whose preferred iteration of poly is different from mine? Say I’m happy as an exclusive throuple but one of my partners realises they need to go to sex clubs in order to be their most authentic sexual self? Or what if partner A falls out with Partner C but wants to stay with Partner B? What happens when the rules and boundaries need to change? Just seems like the more people involved the greater (exponentially!) the potential for conflict and drama and endless conversations about feelings and rules, not to mention complicated logistics and admin.

I take my hat off to anyone who has the energy for it all.

I was more thinking from a poly relationship of three rather than just one person having multiple partners.

It’s not a way for anyone to fix problems in their relationship and who exactly is pressuring you to let strangers into your relationship?

I’ve literally been called gross here for choosing to live my life in the way that suits me and my partners.
I can cope with that, I have to or I wouldn’t be able to be openly poly but that doesn’t make it any less of a shitty way for people to behave

I know nothing about this but they were together for a long time.

I do think same sex throuples (sp?) seem to be more likely to work.

I have a (100%) lesbian friend who’s always getting involved with heterosexual couples, which seems stupid to me but what do I know. Anyway it’s yet to work out well.

There are different ways of being non-monogamous. There's a big difference between having three people living together, a couple who go swinging, a couple where one or other has a boyfriend girlfriend on the side. And that's just 3 ways of doing non-monogamy. Some things will suit some people, others won't. Some people are interested only in monogamous relationships.

It's all fine as long as you're not coerced into something you don't want, and as long as people are open and honest about it.

Monogamous relationships are often far from perfect- I'm not sure they're better than poly relationships, but they are better for some people. I suspect the most successful relationships of any configuration are those involving people with a good level of self-awareness who communicate well. People like that can be missing in monogamous relationships as in poly ones.

@ComtesseDeSpair Yes, very true. It's years since I read her memoirs but I do remember getting the impression that she groomed young female students for Sartre. Though she may have simply introduced them to him.

Pass, I don’t know the answer to this either. I suppose it’s the problem really with holding up any sort of relationship as an example of anything, particularly when it comes to famous people: only the people involved know what’s going on, and how they feel about it, but plenty of people will have a go at having an opinion.

What's healthy and what's not for you.

You still don't seem to have grasped that people are not homogeneous and what may have be harmful to one person may be beneficial to a different person.

I got the impression there was something unsavoury about the Beauvoir/Sartre situation, in that she seemed to have groomed some of her students for him. Or have I got that mixed up with someone else?