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

[Xaviera]

I know some people say it’s great fun and improves their relationship but I have real trouble believing that the majority of people don’t feel at least a bit of angst and jealousy. And if you don’t, do you really love your partner?

Also, I think it’s usually being driven by the man and the woman is afraid to leave her partner.

The ones I know about ended in tears. One situation, the man invited his friend into his and his gf’s bed and a year later the gf moved in with the friend.

Other one was driven by the man of a married couple but the woman went along with it until she realised that she didn’t like having sex with seedy men (because most swingers are not great looking). So they stopped but the husband carried on thinking about it, ended up cheating with sex workers = end of marriage.

i feel like people think it’s cool or something 🤷🏻‍♀️ we can all have fantasies but actually doing it is usually a shit idea imho.

but if two people in a relationship don't begrudge each other the time they spend on hobbies, or platonic relationships, then is time spent cultivating a second intimate relationship really that different?

@knittingdad

I am really very surprised that you believe that cultivating an intimate relationship is similar to a hobby. Intimate relationships are the absolute core of our emotional lives. Have you not noticed how strongly people feel about the people they are intimate with, that emotional connections trigger incredibly powerful emotions? This has been true since the beginning of time. People who have sexual or romantic relationships are intimate. If you are intimate you might lose your appetite, not be able to sleep, might be prepared to sacrifice things, even become violent when faced with loss. Most people know this and they protect themselves from the turbulence by limiting the relationships they get into.

Intimate relationships are NOT hobbies and if you honestly think that then you should ask yourself why you lack these feelings yourself and wonder what harm you may do to those around you.

Those are insightful comments @gannet and perhaps I need to go away and think about them. Thanks.

I think it sounds great, honestly. I always think living with two partners would be really nice. Everyone’s different!

I'd like a tradwife for sure. Someone who doesn't mind doing wife work.

I don’t gender chores in my current monogamous relationship!

It's like any relationship - if the boundaries and what you do works for both parties it works well. If they don't it doesn't.

I've met swinging couples where you can tell right away one of them isn't into it, but equally I've met monogamous couples where you can tell one is the selfish one and the other one runs around after them. One of the big differences is that it tends to blow up quickly in non-monogamous relationships, rather than people plodding along unhappily for 20 years.

I benefit more than DH from our set up - it's massively easier for me to find guys and other women to have fun with than it is for him to find women to meet with purely because of the fact there are much more men and bi women at clubs/on swinging sites looking for women than there are women looking for men.

There's also an imbalance in how many non-monogamous relationships break down compared to how many people think break down - most swinging couples don't share the fact they swing with all and sundry.

So whilst you think two of the two relationships involving non monogamy that you know failed, you quite possibly know several more. You just know, or need to know, what goes on in everyone's relationship or bedroom.

It's a disaster when people use it as a hail mary to fix an unhealthy relationship or if one party pressures the other.

This is so true.

It's as effective as a sticking plaster baby!

You just know, or need to know, what goes on in everyone's relationship or bedroom.

That should be 'don't know'

Unfortunately I haven't figured out how to non gender childbirth and breastfeeding and maternity leave!

Asking "do you really love your partner" is a weird question. Do you really love your kids if you have more than one? Of course.

Relationships you have with your children are (should be!) not comparable with romantic ones. But you know that!

I cant help feeling that so much of modern day liberalism conveniently benefits men.

Indeed.

Wow. No need to be nasty about disagreeing with me. I do have strong and appropriate feelings for my wife and care for her deeply.

I'm not saying that relationships are a hobby. The comparison is about a person's intimate partner remaining an independent person, and so there existing the potential to do other things.

I don't think that makes me a danger to people I'm in relationships with.

@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.

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.

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.

Exactly. I can see why people would find certain aspects appealing as a fantasy, but I don't think it is in our human nature to deal with, long term, all the difficult emotions that will inevitably arise from situations like this.

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.

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.

@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.

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

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.

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.

@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.

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.

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