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

I’m aware that I’m really lucky and unusual in that my partner has taken all his annual leave right after his paternity leave so he’s had months off after both my babies! He’s also very good at doing everything then handing the baby over to me to feed.

I'd love to have a girlfriend as well as DP but I wouldn't want him to have one haha

I don’t think acknowledging those women and saying they’re in the minority is hand waving them away. Are we meant to pretend this isn’t a lifestyle that has appeal for a greater number of men than women?

Everyone’s sexuality is individual but at a population level there are clear patterns of difference between male and female sexual behaviour. If that is not the case, why is it that poly women can take their pick, while men can’t?

‘A few people have made the point that poly is beneficial to women because poly women can have their pick of men. While poly men have to take what they can get.

Yet the reason poly women can take their pick is because a large proportion of men enjoy sex with anything that moves. While far fewer women are like this. Being able to shag anyone and everyone is only beneficial to you if you actually WANT to shag anyone and everyone! ‘

👏🏻 👏🏻👏🏻

One husband has been enough for me for the last 50 years. And I'd never have had time to spare for anyone else. Busy lives, working, children etc.. We're very content as we are and always have been.

I think MN is particularly judgey about this, and especially does not take well to polyamorous posters.

I'm not sure what business it is of others and why anyone would think about it much.

They weren’t renowned for contentment , though, were they? It’s a bit late ( in terms of lit hist) for me, but I seem to remember that there were several broken hearts, an exile and a suicide involved.

Who takes the mental load? Because I sure as hell don't want to think about 3 sets of family presents at Xmas, the birthday cards, the dentist appointments.

But there's no point speaking in general terms and dismissively hand-waving away the women who want that as "exceptions", because no one is arguing that polyamory is, will be, or should be the default mainstream practise.

It obviously does align with some women's sexuality (newsflash, not all women - or men - share a "typical sexuality"). It doesn't have to work for you, or even for most other people, to still be a valid lifestyle that benefits them.

There are all kinds of different variations on non-monogamy, and they don’t all preclude a deeper level of intimacy with one person than is extended to others. Some people do try to maintain a throuple where they have equality of emotional intimacy and romantic love between all three people. I can’t speak for those people, or how they manage it, or whether they find it exhausting, because I’m not in a throuple. I have a husband who I love in a different way to how I love my girlfriend. She has a husband who she loves in a different way to how she loves me. We all have other things going on with unconnected people at unconnected times. None of us have any expectation that everything about our feelings and emotions is entirely parallel and all completely the same and equal. We have something that works. Other things will work for other people.

Yes how do children fit into this? The poly couples I know don't have kids.

There's a reason why cheating men tell their wives ' it was just sex'. There's a reason why wives want to believe ' it was just sex'. Its because knowing your husband has had a deep emotional connection with another women is much more deeply painful and harder to recover from than knowing it was just sex.

This might not be your unique experience, but it is the common experience.

@Silkinside

Raising children is costly in time and resources and both sexes want those resources spent on their own children

This is also a really good point. If you are raising children together with someone you want to feel they properly have their shoulder to the wheel.

As someone who brought a child up alone because the child’s father couldn’t be arsed, and who knows how much fucking work and time goes into it, I would feel faintly resentful if my partner found time, money and energy for an extramarital liaison. Aside from the more obvious reasons.

I'm a monogamous person who just doesn't recognise this in my own experience. Intimacy doesn't have to involve powerful emotions, and even if those emotions are powerful it doesn't mean that having intimacy with more than one person isn't possible? That might be true for you, but it clearly isn't for all other people.

A few people have made the point that poly is beneficial to women because poly women can have their pick of men. While poly men have to take what they can get.

Yet the reason poly women can take their pick is because a large proportion of men enjoy sex with anything that moves. While far fewer women are like this. Being able to shag anyone and everyone is only beneficial to you if you actually WANT to shag anyone and everyone!

Poly is a set-up designed to align with the way typical male sexuality works IMO. Obviously lots of exceptions, including posters here whose experience i don’t doubt. But I am speaking in general terms.

I think monogamy isn’t that great either, btw. But of the models available I consider it probably the least bad for a large portion of women.

interestingly, with the couples I know who have opened up their marriage (admittedly not many) it has very much been driven by the woman. In most cases because they wanted to separate from their respective husbands but were too cowardly to just make the leap.

obviously in all cases it has ended in complete disaster 🤷🏻‍♀️ so from my anecdotal experience OP I fully agree it’s a recipe for disaster and is really just a means of prolonging the inevitable

@ComtesseDeSpair

I’m always surprised when people talk about marriage as a compromise, because I don’t find my marriage a compromise at all; nor do I associate feelings like exhausting with my other relationships

I can only talk from a personal perspective: of course other people have other experiences. I personally did find marriage to be a huge compromise (which is one reason I will never do it again). I appreciate not everyone sees it like this. I find the whole concept of marriage needlessly restrictive and stifling.

But to me the whole idea of a committed relationship with anyone, whether you are married or not, necessitates a degree of emotional intimacy which is deeper than that extended to other people. That doesn’t preclude other deep friendships or possibly even occasional sexual encounters. But the idea of maintaining two parallel relationships with that level of intensity just seems exhausting.

Most people feel sexual jealousy though, and that feeling has obviously evolved in humans for a reason. Raising children is costly in time and resources and both sexes want those resources spent on their own children.

A person I spoke to who have spent time on Polyamory type boards say an awful lot of posts are from people struggling to cope with their feelings of jealousy.

DW (who happens to also be bi) was poly when we first met.

We married and lived monogamously for around the first 10 years of our marriage. Subsequently learned that in the last 5 years she also had an affair (which I knew at the time was an EA, but didn't know was more).

She has now, since HRT, and reconnecting with an old friend (male), decided she needs to be poly again.

Currently working out whether I blow up our marriage, or seek a FWB or more myself.

I would be more relaxed if it wasn't very apparent that she is not (and has not) lived up to the principles of the 'Ethical Slut' (a book on how to practice ethical non-monogamy) which she had me read when we first started dating.

i've only got a basic view of this but I think people need to question what they're looking for in another sexual partner - if it's anything emotional then I fear the main relationship is doomed.

I wouldn't call myself a swinger but i've been with other partners, totally consensually, but it's not a need, more of a want for both of us and the day it stops, it stops.

I think we have a unique-ish situation as in spite of the above I think it's a disaster ending most of the time.

I think the idea that historic values around monogamy were ever meant to benefit women is a convenient myth. It’s been socially conditioned - often with violence and force - into women that they should be monogamous and faithful and desire only one person; but monogamy has rarely - in any culture, at any time in the past - truly been expected of men; for whom the idea of having mistresses, courtesans or visiting prostitutes has been anything from quietly accepted to expected to encouraged in virtually all cultures and societies across the ages. Men being expected to remain monogamous is a very recent (and very Western) development. Monogamy has never been about looking out for women, but about trying to assure a man’s paternity of his children and, when we’re talking about marriage, the conveyance down the male line of family wealth.

@knittingdad sorry, I didn’t mean to be nasty. But independence and the potential to do other things really cannot include other intimate relationships. Other intimate relationships always, always involve powerful emotions. Powerful emotions can’t be kept to one side or controlled with rules.