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.

Thanks for answering. 🙂

That’s not an answer to my question, then.

How disgusting that he doesn't even have the shame to hide this obsession with young female singers. Who does he think he is?? They certainly wouldn't be interested in him, something tells me.

William and Elizabeth Marston (the husband/wife creators of Wonder Woman) and Olive Byrne had a three-person relationship which lasted until William’s death, after which Elizabeth and Olive lived the rest of their lives together. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre shared a number of long-term lovers, at different times, during their relationship.

There are women out there who purposefully instigate or seek out these relationships without male coercion. I have two poly friends. Both very happy in their respective relationships and are very good at understanding and articulating their boundaries whilst respecting those of their partners. Although it's not for me, there are definitely things that I admire and could learn from their approach to relationships.

It’s definitely being promoted in popular culture. I quit reading the Psychology Today website because it felt like there was a piece about the benefits of polyamory or open relationships at least once a week.

The thing I find unnerving about people in non-monogamous relationships is that you never know if people in them are sizing you up as a potential sexual partner. Let’s say Andrew is married to Betty and Claire is married to Dennis. If there’s an understanding of monogamous relationships, and Dennis realizes he’s attracted to Betty, he knows he can’t act on it without risking anger from Andrew, Betty and/or Claire. If Claire and Dennis have an open relationship, the odds are high that he’ll go right ahead and ask Betty if she wants to sleep with him, and she’s not “allowed” to be outraged by the question because then she’s “judging other people” or “shaming other people for their sexuality.” Basically, there’s no assurance for women in monogamous relationships that everyone will recognize this as offensive behavior and be on their side if they complain. “Well, you know, Claire and Dennis have an open relationship, so…”

A friend of my husband’s (who I don’t dislike but never really warmed to) has open relationships, and once asked my husband if my husband wanted to watch this friend and the friend’s girlfriend have sex. (This was before we got married but after we’d been in a serious relationship for a number of years.) I found out when my husband told me and was like, “Fucking excuse me?”

But mono people just cheat anyway so there is never any guarantee

I think this works best for a person who is basically single and has friends-with-benefits type relationships with others in the same boat.

I think it would probably be quite a healthy , carefree choice for young people - teens, early twenties.

I think once there is the baggage of marriage, children, expectation of a long-term “couple” relationship from anyone involved, then that means it isn’t really working.

I've known it to work, but it's risky.

When it works there's good communication and honesty and both parties are genuinely OK with it. It will never work as, say, an ultimatum. I do get irked by this idea, which I hear quite often, that women are only ever just going along with it and can't possibly ever be OK with it and all secretely hate it, I think that's quite patronising to women.

I think that's how the man fondly imagines it. Then they go online looking for hookups and he sees the woman being inundated with ten times more offers than him...😆

If you're not hand-waving them away then you shouldn't be framing polyamory as something that benefits men (and should therefore be judged or disparaged on... pseudo-feminist grounds?)

"At population level" is completely irrelevant to any given person's individual sexuality. MN loves to trot out cliches about men and women being biologically programmed to want this or that as if that justifies dismissing and judging anyone who falls outside the stereotypes. (Personally I think treating "biological programming" as so pre-eminently important is just the flipside of incel evo psychology, which is the most fucking tedious stupid thing on earth. Yes tell me more about how men should be allowed to shag around because they're "biologically programmed to spread their seed")

It’s clear that op and many posters aren’t interested in expanding their understanding but just want to bully people into conforming with the norm so I’m not going to engage in good faith discussion further.

To those who were genuinely interested. I am someone with kids and for me poly is great in that respect.
None of my partners are parents (to my kids) or step parents.
That is never on the table as a relationship stage we may reach and this is made clear to potential partners.

For me the very exhausting feeling people keep saying about isn’t there because I am not responsible for my partners well being or welfare. I contribute what I choose to their loves because I want to but if I am not available (kids come first) then I know they can go and get their needs met else where.

I find it very freeing to know that if I don’t want to have sex for the next 6 months then my partners aren’t hanging around waiting for me to provide for them because they aren’t allowed to get that from anyone else.

I don’t organise their lives or buy their Christmas gifts for their families but I did arrange childcare and go running when my partner had to put his dog to sleep because I wanted to be there for them.

It works great for me and the posters calling it gross and saying I’m broken emotionally and doing it to please men can fuck off!

I have discussed my life choices with my therapist because people like you made me think the way I love is wrong and was perhaps a symptom of the childhood abuse I suffered.

Fortunately I worked out that there are plenty of poly people without that background.
Im not broken for loving the way I do and I am very careful not to get with people who are in it for what I perceive to be the wrong reasons.
Such as the poster above who feels not enough for her husband… you deserve better and I truly hope you realise that and sack him right off!

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?

It’s clear that op and many posters aren’t interested in expanding their understanding but just want to bully people into conforming with the norm so I’m not going to engage in good faith discussion further.

The fact you can't cope with a different opinion does not make me a bully. I've had a lot of sexual partners and enough understanding of what's healthy and what's not.

I am of the opinion that this pressure for people to let strangers into their intimate relationships has harmful effects on people in much the same way as porn does.

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.

@gannett I would argue that it's harmful to society and that for the vast majority of people, it is not a way to fix problems in a relationship.

I do not need your permission to have that view.

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.

@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.

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.

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.

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'm pretty sure I didn't call you gross.

What I object to is the way this 'lifestyle' is being promoted everywhere in popular culture.

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

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.

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.