Is being polyamorous a real thing?

In poly, ‘to love’ means ‘to fuck’.

Most "monogamous" people have affairs.

I don't see why people wouldn't be able to love more than one person at once. What constitutes romantic love anyway? It's just sexual attraction and personality compatibility imo.Arguably it's just a romanticised idea to cement monogamy. I'm all for monogamy though, and am happily married. I think polyamory sounds messy, complicated and unsuited to family life.

How long have they been married?

But Romeo and Juliet became such a big timeless classic because of love as it’s central story. Love has always existed but much of human partnership throughout history was about practicality, family formation, access to sex. Love was a happy side effect but not the main point.

The older I get the more I realise that most things in life is just made up. Days of the week, economy and all the social “norms”

poly isn’t for me - but I can understand how it suits a lot of people.

At the end of the day we’re merely animals on a planet!

It's a lifestyle choice rather than a sexual orientation.

I genuinely don’t get why so many people struggle with the concept of human variety, not everybody being a monolith and different people being different.

Yes. It is a real thing.

Of course it is. Polyamorous people exist. Thus it is real.

I said ‘prevail’, meaning it becomes the majority opinion, and also said that it’s not an actual new thread title. A few random people bashing monogamy on a thread specifically set up to bash polyamory is not the same thing.

Its literally on this thread! This thread is only three pages long, so you can find these comments quite easily!

Their religion doesn't dictate it, but it allows it. No religion actually had a rule that polygamous relationships are mandated. Those women did have a choice.

Never seen that prevail on polyamory thread. Also never seen a polyamorous individual start a thread monogamy bashing.

Monogamy is the expected social construct, and that definitely works for most. There are quite a few neurodivergent people within the poly community, and that can be because they are wired differently and don't generally subscribe to social norms.

It can work really well for the right people. Open communication and full consent from all parties is vital. It's not necessarily about sex either, it's just not expecting one partner to be all things to meet all needs. Very different to swinging, which is generally how some people perceive it.

Oh god, this again.

Yes it's possible. Yes, plenty of people do it, and you only tend to hear about the unsuccessful ones, in the same way that you only hear about people's shit supposedly monogamous relationships on MN - almost nobody posts about how great and smooth their relationship is, they post when it's in trouble.

I've spent most of my life in "committed living-together primary plus one other deep emotional commitment" type relationships.
I don't think I have more or less love to give than others - what I do have is a lack of jealousy a good sense of security in my relationships, and an understanding that both I and my partners can very much love and be committed to each other, and also have similarly intense relationships with others.

Someone upthread said it's not the same as with parents, siblings, children, friends where you can love more than one at a time - well, for us, it is. I have never understood the mentality that just because you have a sexual/romantic relationship with someone, they must be the only one, whereas with all other forms of love it is reasonable to share that between multiple people.

Live your life however you want, but it's as ridiculous and judgemental to say poly relationships aren't as real or deep as others as it would be to say the same about same sex relationships, or age gap ones, or anything else you personally don't happen to approve of or understand.

And yes, I would also agree that there are many people who misuse the "poly" label to mean they want to fuck around, that their partner may not know or be coerced into it, or that aren't able to have multiple respectful relationships. But those things all occur in supposedly monogamous relationships as well - there are rubbish people in all strands of life.

And @ThisFluentBiscuit

"Part of me thinks it's all just a big joke and that it's just an excuse to get their leg over more than one person. But why not just have casual sex with others, then? Why get into a second deep relationship?"

How about because it's not in the least about "getting a leg over", but about the emotional intimacy and connection I have with a particular person?
I don't like casual sex, have had 3 partners in 15+ years, and value deep, committed and emotional relationships, as do my partners. It's just that apparently they're not in a format that you judge to be acceptable...

Lust is definitely a thing or the species would have died it but as PP said that’s about getting an infant through the first couple of years

And this! The nonsense in this! The baby and toddler years are often when lust stops!

Nearly all societies have created systems of long term pair bonding so multiple children are raised in a family group. If men bogged off every couple of years, the mother and toddler would have risked dying. Which is not good for gene survival. There was no welfare state to fall back on in nearly all human history. Just charity ( it’s why most religions encourage charity to ‘ the poor widow and her children because they were so vulnerable to starvation outside a family unit) So no, human society did not deliberately create the system you think it did where all women and children relied on ‘charity’ to survive when the H bogged off after two years, but instead we created a system where women and children had some material security with a husband and his family.

I agree - I think people often change immeasurably through their lives and sometimes people grow apart.

Yeah but on these threads you also get people bashing monogamy, with wild claims it’s a recent invention ( pair bonding is the bedrock of every society I can think of, save one, -except it’s often pair bonding plus bonding to the husband’s family- and all the iterations that give get out clauses to monogamy I know of, are to allow men to shag around whilst women must remain faithful to their husband, usually on pain of death). And wild claims that romantic love is a recent invention too.

I can only think poly fans invented this fictional narrative so that they can feel like they are throwing of the shackles of western modernity or something. But it is a fiction.

Not about Poly relationships but contains some interesting commengts that might relate to it in a way

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyngk3kk8go

Both couples had to spend long periods apart at times because of work commitments.
This is something they joke was perhaps part of the reason for their long marriages.
Tommy travelled, as a lighthouse keeper, while for much of her working life Violet was on the night shift in local hospitals.
Violet said: "My secret was I worked at nights, I was home during the day, and I was out every night.
"And my man worked during the day, and he was home every night, that was the secret - to avoid each other."

That's a ridiculous comparison. Most children also love their grandparents, parents have one, two or more children. None of those are partner love/a pair bond.
Think about the difficulties marriages get into if a spouse puts a parent first e.g. husband does whatever MIL wants and wife doesn't get a look in.