anyone else in a poly relationship?

[cakeymccakington]

new to it all and fancied a chat with people who have btdt!

I thought this thread was about larger partners (roly poly). I'll get my coat...

I have been thinking about this thread and I told my Dh about it while we were washing up earlier. Well it may be that I inflicted my own bias on it, but when I summed up your situation out loud, I couldn't help feel that really you are being taken for a ride Cake.

What I said to my husband was: "they have mismatched libidos so she said to him he could look for sex elsewhere. He went online and found someone but now he has developed a relationship with her so they have decided to have a poly marriage. She doesn't want to have a relationship with anyone else and has made it pretty clear to him that she probably won't but he says he would be fine with it if she did. They have 3 children under 9 and one on the way but she enjoys a quiet evening in having put the children to bed when he's off with the other woman."

I really have no problem with non-monogamous relationships per se, but in your case I really can't see what you are getting out of it. I see you have answered that question above - you feel a lot more relaxed because you are no longer needed to meet his "sexual needs". But what a thing to say - that you were a failure at meeting his sexual needs! Especially when you have 3 children under 10 and another one on the way which he is equally responsible for creating! It would be no wonder that your libido is shot to bits and you have probably been pretty knackered for the last 9 years! It has obviously been made pretty clear to you that you are not up to scratch sexually and on that basis all the other decisions have been made. And you don't mind because at least you're not being pestered for sex all the time now.

As I say, I really don't have anything against poly relationships and I am sure there is a place for them, but I don't really think that is what you have got. I think your DP is very much having his cake and eating it. Anyway I have said my piece. I am not meaning to offend you, only you can truly know what you feel, and if you are comfortable with it you won't mind my post. I hardly ever post on the relationships board and I feel that things can get a bit hysterical here with everyone crying "abusive partner" after half a post, but I do feel with you that you are being manipulated. I have been thinking about it on and off all day and I wanted to come back and say something though I don't think you will take any notice at the present time at least.

Good post saker

Interesting, if surreal, thread! Apart from what everyone else has added you (Cake) mentioned something about this not beig the right place within MN for this thread, that you should have put it in parenting instead. Why? As far as I can gather your husband has been in a very short term additional relationship. Are you planning on involving the children in your setup? Not sure I understand where your children come into this at all. Nor do I really think they ought to have a part in this anyway. Where you going to let the OW have parental influence on your children? Be brought in as daddy's special friend or something? If so would you explain it all to them? As in, mummy didn't want to cuddle daddy so much anymore so now daddy have some cuddles with mummy but mostly with his friend Shelby (sic). I'm sure they would accept the setup though I'm not sure why you would want to involve children. At least not at this early stage.

Apart from that I have to say I agree with pp who said she didn't think you were getting the best deal here Cake. I mean, if we leave the sex to one side we're still looking at someone who leaves the house of an evening, perhaps for a full night away, regularly. Do you get equal amount of time to do what you want? And no, sitting at home whilst the children sleep does not count. Right now your pregnant but later, presuming this goes on for years, won't you want to hang out with your own friends, do sports or whatever else sort of hobby you want to do. Would you be given space for that? And if you did would not both of you be away from home most nights?

Those questions are not meant to be rude but are meant to be direct. I'm sure you can gather that it's not for me what you have chosen, I'm more of a "expect some sympathy whilst experiencing lowered libido and I'll return the love when your down in the dulldrums as you surely will" type. But that's just me

There are huge great potholes ahead in the distance.

But why shouldn't the OP be happy living the way she is? We don't all want the same things. Some people would much rather spend more time at home alone, watching telly, than feeling any obligation to make conversations. Some people find sex for its own sake to be very important, others are less interested.
One partner in a relationship can be selfish and thoughtless irrespective of whether s/he practices monogamy or not. A partner who is out every night playing sport or studying photography is being selfish, yet a partner who is out one night a week pursuing a hobby is not.

Because her husband is out doing whatever he fancies. For as long as he fancies. With no real boundaries.

The likelihood of him liking, being committed and staying nearby to his wife and family longterm is next to zero imo.

But everything has already happened. No going back, even if she wanted to.

So while all may seem "well" right now.......

Personally I think I have said all I want to say on the subject. Best wishes.

Agree with SGB's last post.

126 -

But why shouldn't the OP be happy living the way she is?

Because her husband is out doing whatever he fancies. For as long as he fancies. With no real boundaries.

Leaving aside the fact that that's blatently untrue (we only know that her husband is not subject to one particular boundary that many other people take for granted - we know nothing about the couple's negotiation of boundaries in any of the other, many, important aspects of married life):

Do you think the validity of a happy relationship is contingent upon each partner's ability to stop the other from doing what they fancy and impose boundaries upon them?

Op your responses have been very calm and I have this nagging doubt in my head that, like my friend, you can explain it all logically, BUT one day your emotions will be illogical and you will want your man to only want you.

Because emotions and feelings aren't calm and logical and it's natural to want your man to only look to you for sex, especially when you're pregnant.

The other thing you're not getting from this is the emotional support from the 'other' woman which is something I've often admired and understood from poly relationships.

My experience of this type of arrangement is that it works whilst it works, but the minute one doesn't like it because of jealousy, it's game over. I hope and really mean that I hope it works as you envisaged

Hope the OP will check back. I registered to share my experience.

I'm in a relationship with another woman for 12+ years. This was my first serious long-term relationship and I was very happy I found someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. At the same time, I had very little experience sexually and I doubted I'd want to commit never to have sex with anyone else. Also, at the same time we were long-distance for professional reasons and when I started to fancy someone else we talked about it. I didn't know 'poly' etc, but it turned out we agreed this is something that could work for us. The gist of the agreement was we could ask to see other people, but we could always veto, without giving a reason. Our relationship and respective needs come first.

This was 6+ years ago, and so far, it has worked well. I have never had sex with anyone else but I don't feel restricted in my freedom. My partner has found a lover and I recently realized this has in fact turned into a relationship. To answer one of the questions in this thread - of course it's unpredictable and indeed, now it would be difficult to ask her to 'stop', even though that was an originally agreed-to rule. But personally, I prefer our agreement as we call it to not having it. I also much prefer her having sex+ love rather than just sex.

I don't find this threatening. Maybe it is my personality. I would not like the idea that I have to somehow shield her from the world or she would run. (I realize this may sound derogatory towards those choosing monogamy, but I am just trying to describe my feeling.)

For me, the biggest problems are: One, envy - I am picky and lazy/ shy and would still like to experience sex with more people in my life. At the same time, I know I am free to take steps if I choose and that is incredibly liberating. The other problem for me is when people infer from our choice things like the 'you must be a doormat' attitude someone had above. (We are very private about this, but after 6+ years it has become an important part of our lives and we share with some closer friends.)

Bottom line, the OP sounds like she and her partner are good at negotiating and communicating. Things can go wrong, in any relationship, but I would guess with these two ingredients chances at success are better than average.

But it simply isn't true that every woman will 'someday want your man to commit to you and you alone'. Some people just don't have that desire for ownership of another person's sexuality. It just doesn't matter to some of us.

It's reasonable to get narked if your partner is leaving you with all the domestic work and childcare, night after night, to pursue his/her own interests, but that would apply whether it's sex or regular meetings of the local chess club. But there is no reason specific to rejection of monogamy that means a relationship is bound to go wrong.

This thread has amazed me. I can imagine it 20+ years ago being about a same sex relationship.

What works for you in your relationships doesn't work for other people. Even amongst the people on this thread who horrified at the OP's relationship don't all have the same relationships. Some people will be into BDSM and some will be horrified that it's abuse.

What really annoys me is all the "how do you explain it?" questions - it's like the conversation last week where someone had to tell their son what gay men do to tell him why he was at risk of public toilets. Let me ask you something, how much detail do you go into with your children, friends, family etc? Do you tell them that your OH likes to tie you to the bed? Do you tell them about the stick you use? Compare toys?

One thing always makes me angry about relationships is jealousy, personally I have no time for it. Either you trust me so don't be jealous or you don't trust me so what are you doing with me? If I'm cheating why would you want to be with me? When I found out that someone had cheated on me my biggest anger was that he had lied about it. I was fine about him seeing someone else and he actually knew that but honesty was a big issue. I had a friend who unfriended me on Facebook last year, he started talking to me a few weeks ago and said it was because his GF who he'd just split up with had made him unfriend all his female friends. What was she doing with him if she thought he was going to cheat?

Oh and the twitch over "permission to cheat" what an oxymoron! Reminds me of the rule in Munchkins "it's only cheating if you get caught" (every move is legal unless challenged). Cheating is breaking the rules, the rules in your relationship are that you only have sex with each other, in OP's relationship they are that he can only have a secondary relationship with the person they have agreed on. Definition of cheating (from Wiki sorry)

Cheating is the getting of reward for ability by dishonest means or finding an easy way out of an unpleasant situation. It is generally used for the breaking of rules to gain unfair advantage in a competitive situation. This broad definition will necessarily include acts of bribery, cronyism, sleaze, nepotism and any situation where individuals are given preference using inappropriate criteria. The rules infringed may be explicit, or they may be from an unwritten code of conduct based on morality, ethics or custom, making the identification of cheating a subjective process.

Just want to say, I love the OP's "family" and SGB! I am looking at something at the moment which I don't want to go into detail about as I don't want to get into a debate on someone else's thread over my relationship set up.

If the OP, her DH and the OW are happy with it then I can't see what the problem is tbh. Its not as if she is here saying DH is cheating or being unreasonable. Maybe she's not very sexual and just wants companionship. & DH isn't doing anything without her knowledge or consent, is he? It doesn't seem as if he wants to leave. If he's having his cake and eating it then he was given the cake, wasn't he? Why should he say No? Different folks different strokes. I don't think he is necessarily wrong.

The 1 thing that makes me re. the situation is him forming a relationship with the OW. I know even monogamous relationships have no guarantee of lasting (humans like to think they're as swans and its a 1 mate for life thing but in reality, a lot of struggle & issues relate to people simply not being able to stay the course for life and needing to divert whether temporarily or permanently) but - when you bring a 3rd person into the equasion it brings far more difficulties.

OP what you feel is him 'just having sex' with OW, could result in him developing feelings, wanting a life with her, and then leaving you. In which case you will be single. Not sure if you've thought about or even want that. But sometimes what we think suits us, can turn into something entirely different based on other people's actions. You could feel you are in control of a situation but in reality you aren't in control at all. The only way that would be possible is, to have control over another's feelings. & that - we do not have.

I could deal with my DH having meaningless sex with someone much better than i could having a relationship

I would be the other way around I think. If dh were having meaningless sex with women, it would feel to me that he was using them, like they were disposable, with no feelings & there for his satisfaction. I couldn't be with a man who thought it was OK to use a woman like that.

If he were having a meaningful relationship with someone else, it would be about love, commitment, respect.

meaningless shagging = might as well see a prostitute. Right down to the lack of respect!

You don't need a forum load of people in the same situation to justify your choice She isn't asking for anyone to justify her choice, she is looking for like minded people to chat to. You know, like parents who do baby led weaning, or baby wearing, or home schooling.

This is a huge online community, so it figures that there must be others who share the lifestyle or who are thinking of going into the lifestyle. As it is, op has answered everything (to this point, I am still reading) that has been put to her, in an honest & open way. People here don't seem to like that [her honesty] and the usual
"he must be pushing you into this"
"he wouldn't be happy for you to do it"
"he is justifying an affair"
comments have been thrown out or at least heavily implied by the usual suspects.

Roughy so how did you know about this thread yet you don't know the OP? Perhaps her partner told her?

I do want to say that it I was pretty upset by the attitude demonstrated towards non-traditional relationships even being allowed to be discussed on mn Here here.

It's even slightly concerning that came onto MN to discuss it and up pops your OH Op said that her dh may pop up on the thread because he is on MN & will probably spot it. I think it is great to have both sides, personally. There is NO reason that the dp shouldn't join a thread where he is being discussed. This isn't a delicate DV situation thread, where the dp is being abusive, so no reason for him not to be here.

Your post is just another example of posters trying to find the op's partner at fault..

I know someone who grew up with her parents in an 'open' relationship and it really messed up her family. And I grew up in a family with parents who had a monogamous relationship, (yet my mother was a serial cheat & cheated on 3 of her husbands) and that messed my family up. It isn't about the relationship definitions, or lables, it is about the people in those relationships & how they handle the relationships they are in & themselves.

Did you read all the thread to the point you posted, 126sticks Because I don't think you did, as your pot has a lot of inaccuracies in it that the rest of the thread would have cleared up.

nkf Grow up. This has been a pretty honest & open conversation, don't lower the tone.

It has obviously been made pretty clear to you that you are not up to scratch sexually Has it? Because that isn't what I have read at all & it isn't what op has posted. How patronising that YOU think you know her marriage/situation better than her!!

Because her husband is out doing whatever he fancies. For as long as he fancies. With no real boundaries. Bollocks. perhaps read the thread again!

Oh and the twitch over "permission to cheat" what an oxymoron! Agree. Surely if he has permission, it isn't cheating!

if it doesnt bother her, it doesnt bother her. Whats wrong with havjng cake and eating it, if everyones actually genuinely ok with it?

Branleuse Well exactly.

Have read this thread with great fascination and have identified my own insecurities and beliefs about fidelity and monogamy.
OP what strikes me is that this whole adventure is triggered by somehow having to compensate your partner for your change in libido. No shit, you have small children and are pregnant and don't feel like being a sex goddess every day.
I believe that a mature relationship accepts that libido and opportunities for sex wax and wane with all the phases of parenthood. This is a choice that couples make when they decide to have DC. There are a few years of madness when you are having babies and surviving the early years, when the quality and frequency of your orgasms is laughably low on the priority list. For me this is part of the fabric of a long term relationship and something you can be rueful about together.
It bothers me that your partner is not prepared to accept that this change is a direct consequence of your mutual decision to have DC. Somehow his libido has to have top priority in your relationship in order to keep him happy. What other areas of your life are full of special concessions for him?

I believe that a mature relationship accepts that libido and opportunities for sex wax and wane with all the phases of parenthood. This is a choice that couples make when they decide to have DC. There are a few years of madness when you are having babies and surviving the early years, when the quality and frequency of your orgasms is laughably low on the priority list. For me this is part of the fabric of a long term relationship and something you can be rueful about together

Saffonwblue - this is exactly what I was trying to say upthread! It's not the actual set up of their relationship that bothers me at all, but that his "sexual needs" are taking such a high priority in a situation with small children.

differentnameforthis - The reason I said that the OP was obviously not up to scratch sexually was because of the following post made by her. I don’t think she would say she was failing at meeting her DPs sexual needs unless she had been told that or had it strongly implied by actions.

the biggest surprise to me was that once I knew that DP was not solely reliant on me to meet all his sexual needs (which i was failing at!) I suddenly wanted more intimacy with him. I no longer feel pressured or scared of things leading to sex.

just wanted to say I am still reading responses and there are a lot of things I want to say to people who've raised issues/asked questions since my last response

busy day today though, so I will prob get on later.

haven't disappeared from the thread though

But, again, this is just patriarchal, puritanical, logic-free bullshit.

'I believe that a mature relationship accepts that libido and opportunities for sex wax and wane with all the phases of parenthood. This is a choice that couples make when they decide to have DC. There are a few years of madness when you are having babies and surviving the early years, when the quality and frequency of your orgasms is laughably low on the priority list. For me this is part of the fabric of a long term relationship and something you can be rueful about together'.

It's like all this whinyarses who insist that you can Never Have Any Fun Again Ever or you are a Bad Mother; the squealing and fingerpointing if anyone wants to leave their young baby with grandparents and go to a gig or a rave. As long as the man in such a situation is not shirking his fair share of domestic work, WTF does it matter if he is using is leisure time to have or seek sex rather than watching a football match?

The OP has not once said that her H is skiving off childcare and housework in pursuit of sex, just that she doesn't want to engage in much sex at present and wants to use her leisure time to watch TV.

I think it would be better if you knew this other woman, you know your own opinion on all this but what if she decides she wants to be the most important one to your partner? Or wants kids with him, or just gets jealous and makes him choose. It would be very easy to chose the 'fun, exciting, free woman' over the one that represents the day to day boring stuff.
And sex can always lead to babies so that would concern me, what would happen if she got pregnant? I doubt she'd be ok with him being with you most of the time then. Maybe she is ok with all this but I'd want to meet her to make sure.
Could never do this myself, too insecure I'd just be comparing myself all the time, but if it works for you then it works for you

SGB, I have no problem with either parent pursuing leisure activities if there is someone else to take care of the children. I have no problem with open relationships, polygamous relationships etc if everyone is happy. I have no problem with this relationship if the OP is genuinely happy with it. But thinking it over I felt that the OP may have been made to feel inadequate by not being able to "meet her DPs sexual needs" as if he is some sort of animal with urges that cannot be controlled, and is now relieved that they can have a cuddle safely because she has agreed that he can get sex elsewhere. That sounds more like emotional blackmail.

Tbh what you are saying sounds a lot more patriarchal - let the little woman stay at home and watch TV while her bloke gets his sexual needs met elsewhere or watches football with the boys.

mspmsp Your questions have been answered in several of the posts by the op & her partner, should you care to read them.

The op IS getting to know her partner's new partner too.

Tbh what you are saying sounds a lot more patriarchal - let the little woman stay at home and watch TV while her bloke gets his sexual needs met elsewhere or watches football with the boys. SGB hasn't said that all, she is asking why is it a problem is op wants to stay in, while her dp is out, regardless of what he is doing (with the full consent of his partner)