To request mumsnet to add a 'polyamorous families' section under parenting?

[whycantwegoonasthree]

There's every other kind of family type, pretty much, and polyamorous families have some unique joys and challenges that it would be nice to share and discuss.

Or maybe we're the last frontier and even MN aren't ready to go there.

Yet.

Implying someone is living without dignity or self respect for being in a very loving , respectful, happy family unit is offensive.

There are many types of families.

And many children who live in a traditional 'one mum, one dad' household suffer terribly.

If it's a happy, healthy family then it's no ones concern :)

This is why I would not use the board. Am also leaving this thread now

Good luck OP. Hope you all have many more happy years together x

I can't get my head around the insistence that OP is somehow of less importance than the OSO because her children are not involved. The other children are teens, so better able to understand, and both of their parents are involved in the relationship, so no shitstorm from exes.

It seems to me its pretty obvious why it would be easier at this point to tell the other teens but why they have to be careful about the involvement of the OP's younger children, with another parent who will almost definitely react badly. That doesn't make them less important, it's just a different situation.

I totally understand why you would like a Poly board... This thread is a fine example. You've come here with one reason and have ended up defending your own relationship and lifestyle. That must be so draining to feel you have to do and perhaps wouldn't happen if there was a specific Poly board because if people didn't 'get' or agree with it they could be politely told they might be better not reading that board.

Indeed, it would be good to have a board where we didn't need to keep explaining what poly is. It would also be good to raise awareness as MN is such a powerful voice for women.. As this thread has shown, poly people face all sorts of ignorance, prejudice and ridicule which makes it hard for us to be open about our relationships, especially when kids are involved. I can't be "out" as I don't want my kids to be teased about their mother the slut.

It is particularly important with the growth of anti female cultures abroad moving to the UK with their old fashioned morals and desire to keep women down and control their sexuality (not that I think a woman who shares another woman's husband whilst not having other male lovers herself is really doing much more than fundamentalist mormons or muslims controlled by men sharing one men - it's not particularly liberating unless she were also exercising her right to have two men).

Maybe she finds an unconventional relationship incredibly liberating. Maybe not being constrained by societies definition of family is liberating.

Maybe the loving, supportive relationship she shares with these two people is incredibly liberating.

Why is everyone so focussed on who is having sex with who?
Why are people so obsessed with who is touching who with which genital? The same thing happens when people get all hung up on what LGBT people are doing to each other in the bedroom.

Why is there this thing that everyone except monogamous heterosexuals are all about the fucking?

It would seem to me that the 'normals' are much more obsessed with other peoples sex lives than the people actually having all the crazy wrong sex.

Who fucking cares? They love each other.

Applauds Clopy

The small-minded bigotry expressed on this thread is so depressing (though entirely predictable). I can only assume it is a failure of imagination that allows some people to believe that only one sort of relationship is acceptable. The fact that it is the sort of relationship that these posters are personally involved in (and which receives the stamp of approval from the wider society) is completely coincidental, of course. And we all know that traditional monogamy invariably produces a happy and healthy arrangement for all concerned.

I have no personal interest in polyamoury. But if it works for the OP and her partners, more power to them. I find the aggression, hostility, and arrogance in some posts on this thread quite appalling.

Clopysow I could hug you right now.

Exactly, Dot.

To be fair, it's mostly just a few pp, but, still shocking that they insist they're not judging while doing exactly that.

It may be that in many PA relationships one party gets a worse deal. But also in monogamous relationships. So many cases where one partner is treated poorly by the other and ends up holding the baby.

I really don't understand the need for the scrutiny the OP had to suffer here.

DirtyHarriet - why do you assume he secures me financially? I have said that we, the three of us, share finances, because that's the most equable way of doing things, for us.

Why do you not assume I support him?

I own and run my own business and have done for many years, I am comfortably off, more than able to support myself and my children regardless of any relationship setup.

The fact that you assume otherwise on the basis of no evidence to the contrary shows that the cause of sexual equality has a way to go.

We support each other. All three of us. In finances and in life.

ClopySow people care because children are involved

"ClopySow people care because children are involved"

And?...they're suffering how?

I posted earlier about being in a child's position rather than the adults...it's not something I tell many people tbh because it gets weird reactions, reactions like the ones on this thread.

Personally I wouldn't ever choose to be in that sort of relationship - not because it's wrong, but because it would be wrong for me.

But as a child for about 3 years I lived with my mum, my dad, another woman and her children...I have literally no idea what state the relationships were in, my mum and dad were married then after that time they split up and he married the other woman. (I say other just to differentiate, because clearly my mum knew).

If I tell people about it they say things like, that must have been weird or confusing or upsetting...but do you know what? It really wasn't.

We effectively had 3 parents and extra siblings and we never even really questioned it, we were children and it was our normal...in fact it was probably the happiest and most stable part of my childhood.

So while I do think the OP has to be careful about involving her children, actually it's because of other people's reactions rather than anything to do with her own relationship/s, reactions like - there are children involved, as if extra adults in their life is inherently a bad thing.

The posters claiming that this is about unconventional relationships are missing the point.

While there are some very conventional posters on MN, there are plenty of posters like me who are all for unconventional relationships, and finding idiosyncratic life solutions that work for the individual. I know for people whom they work excellently well, not to mention Bloomsbury and Rive Gauche.

Motherkat is in a genuinely PA relationship. But I think the OP is in an all too conventional set-up of being the bit on the side of a married man which she is glamourising. That was my conclusion from her original thread on Relationships, and this is just more of the same.

It's fine not to agree with me and other posters here who say the same, but don't falsify the terms of the argument.

Children are much more at risk of harm if their parents are in abusive relationships. Or their parents have substance abuse issues. Or even are in miserable unhappy relationships.

It wasn't so long ago it was unthinkable that same sex couples could adopt or foster or heaven forbid have their own dcs.

Just because the dcs are being raised in an unconventional relationship doesn't mean that they are at any more risk of harm than a traditional relationship. And its very insulting to the OP and any other poly family to suggest it is.

Do you suggest my lovely lesbian cousin and her dp stop their fertility treatment because their relationship might offend some people because it's not a traditional family unit.

Poly isn't for me or probably for most people. But it doesn't make it wrong or exploitative of anyone. People are exploited in relationships every single day
Women more than men. Being in a poly relationship doesn't mean anyone is automatically being exploited.

In fact the more I think about it the more sense it makes. I find it sometimes exhausting being in a relationship. When me and dp have an issue we only have the orher to share that problem with. Only each other to provide financial, emotional, physical and mental support. Imagine having another partner to take the burden. Another grown up to share with.

It makes sense to me I suppose.

And if more people openly lived in poly relationships and were able to normalise all living in one house it would go some way to solving the housing crisis at least.

Twinklestein - I didn't have an original thread on relationships. Perhaps you're confusing me with someone else and that's why you insist on your version of my relationship rather than acknowledging mine.

Twinklestein - so you'd be fine with it if we all cohabited, but because we don't, you're not? You're saying you have to all live in the same house t

Twinklestein - so you'd be fine with it if we all cohabited, but because we don't, you're not? You're saying you have to all live in the same house to 'qualify' as poly?

The best thing about being part of an unconventional arrangement, thankfully, is not bring obliged to do I not do anything which doesn't work for all the people involved in order to meet someone roses expectations of how it's 'supposed' to be.

Bimandbam

"In fact the more I think about it the more sense it makes. I find it sometimes exhausting being in a relationship. When me and dp have an issue we only have the orher to share that problem with. Only each other to provide financial, emotional, physical and mental support. Imagine having another partner to take the burden. Another grown up to share with. "

This is a big part of it, you're right. DPs OSO is quite as much of a support to me as DP - albeit in different ways. As I hope/believe I am to her.

And also, conversely, man other benefit is the chance to be alone have the house/ bed to yourself when you choose to! That's a biggie for me.

I think it would probably be fine if you got another boyfriend by the sound of things. That way you'd be less deluded and expoited and would be "proper poly" innit.

*exploited

Clopysow - looks that way. It's just frankly I'm having a better time doing yoga and with OSO and going to concerts and stuff right now. That said I didn't realise my membership of the poly club was at risk by my not choosing to fuck someone else. I also didn't realise that by not choosing to fuck someone else I was being exploited. Not sure by who though. Myself?

But evidently I need to up my game.

What are you doing later?!

I never said the OP's children were suffering (bit strange maybe that another man lives in her house part time and they have never met him.)

My dad has only ever been in polyamorous relationships, wasn't great for us and its not great for my three half siblings now. The adults are happy but the children aren't, in my case anyway.

I don't believe you OP.

It doesn't go down well on the 'relationships' section, lemme tell you. Over there either poly = cheating or someone's being taken advantage

I think you're speaking from experience, and that's why you've name-changed. There are plenty of threads in Relationships where PA is taken seriously and respectfully, but they are, on the face of it, genuine.

But I don't actually care either way tbh.

I'm scared that if you get a poly board then it might make me poly too, just like the time I touched a lesbian and now I'm bi

Can't believe this thread is still going! OP you're so patient!