Polyamory - why is it so difficult for people to live & let live?

[FreeSpiritPixie]

Long time lurker, first thread poster here…
so I have recently (in the last year) realised that I’m polyamorous. It’s been quite the journey to get to this point, and I’m extremely lucky that I have two wonderful men who both support me in this. Looking back all the signs were there and I’m also lucky that I had some poly friends to help
me navigate in all these realisations. My big question, aside from the two relationships that I have, is why is it so so so difficult for other people to be ok with it? I’m still in the process of coming out as poly to my friends and so far both myself and my partners have had the whole spectrum - certain people have been incredibly supportive and wonderful, some couldn’t get it but were happy for us as long as we were happy and some have pretty much cut all contact with us because of our choices… whilst I always knew this was likely to happen, I still struggle to understand why some people take such offence to my choice to live my life as I see fit. We are not lying to anyone, we don’t ask anyone else to enter this lifestyle as different things work for different people, and we don’t have/don’t plan on having children whereby there could be many more things to consider. So it’s quite literally me and my fiancée and my boyfriend. And we are all on the same page. So why is it so difficult for some people to at the very least be ok with us making different choices to them? I’d love to say that it doesn’t matter to us and in many ways it doesn’t, but the judgement still hurts, even if we work through it.

Nope not her mum. Thanks for checking. Are you my mum? Because you seem to be insinuating what I should or shouldn’t do.

“Coming out” as something that’s a lifestyle choice is not a thing. It’s also funny that you said “looking back all the signs were there”. 🤣🤣🤣

My BF has said that when he was younger he’d have been interested in a Poly relationship as he truly believes you can love more than one person at a time. When we met he was still in love with his ex and told me so. I ended things but we drifted back together.

He has very limited energy and a low sex drive so has said that if I wanted to look elsewhere for sex that he’d understand. This upset me a lot, and he couldn’t understand why, as he said he just wanted me to be happy and if I really wanted sex with someone else he wouldn’t want to stop that for his own selfish reasons. I just heard “I don’t care enough about you to want you for myself, and it doesn’t bother me if you shag someone else, rather than us spending intimate time together”.

I strongly suspect he is ND and he had an awful abusive childhood. He’s had shed loads of therapy along with shed loads of drugs and I think he believes this is a really evolved and mature way of seeing relationships, whereas I just see an emotionally unavailable man with some MH issues trying to punish himself for his past transgressions by sabotaging what could be a good relationship by encouraging his GF to sleep with other people so he can wrangle with his feelings about it. He said he knows he’d be jealous but he’d have to work on that. What a waste of everyone’s time and energy. If I want to shag someone else I’ll end it with him, remain friends hopefully, and move on. I’m not playing stupid games.

Yes, it's this. It's the fact that some people seem incapable of living their lives, be that involving multiple partners or none, that they have sex with or don't, dying their hair blue or being a bloke who wears lipstick, without it being 'who they authentically are' rather than just something they like to do; and offensively imagining themselves as marginalised and victimised because of it.

The relationships are not equal, and everyone involved knows that they are not equal - we have discussed it from the start and check in with each other periodically that we’re all still ok with how things are.

this is the bit thats important.
So you knowingly have an unbalanced relationship and your ok with that?
And somehow both men are ok with this. Colour me surprised.

Quote them then. My comment is about everything no longer being private not just sex

If you don’t wish to be quoted, don’t comment on the thread.

Thank you internet police 👍

Again with the ascribing motives.

Like with the recent poster mentioning private lives and you immediately went for sex life. And yet claiming people are “on about sex when the OP hasn’t mentioned it.”

I don’t give a toss if you want to spent the days responding to every single post on here - if that’s your idea of fun, or you want to be the quixotic defender of the OP, have at it, my chum. I have seeds to plant and weeds to uproot; we all have our hobbies.

It just seems weird for one poster to doggedly reply on someone else’s thread when they have no skin in the game.

Right, morning painkillers have kicked in now, time to get off MN and get practical. Have a good morning, all

Like with the recent poster mentioning private lives and you immediately went for sex life. And yet claiming people are “on about sex when the OP hasn’t mentioned it.”

but what else is it, if not sex? I’m sure there’s love and affection there too (hence the amory part) but it really is about multiple sexual partners. If it were just about having several close friends/housemates nobody would bat an eyelid. I could move another man into my house that I share with my BF and hang out, go to the cinema with him, have dinner together etc but if we’re not having sex then at most it’s best friends, otherwise just housemates. The polyamory bit is surely that you’re having sex with them - ie the one thing that distinguishes a relationship from a friendship.

“What I don’t understand though is the idea of ‘coming out’ as if being polyamorous is a thing that you can be- a difference in your brain like straight/gay/bi. Surely it’s a choice, a behaviour? Anyone could have multiple partners. Lots of people would probably like to. But many choose monogamy (some happily, some less so). Personally I wouldn’t have the time or energy for more than one partner, but if others do, it’s none of my business”

I agree with this. It is a lifestyle choice not an orientation.

I mentioned upthread that DH and I had an open relationship for a while and hardly anyone knew because hardly anyone needed to know. Another poster upthread mentioned being in a poly relationship but it would be invisible to most people.

People who aren’t directly involved just don’t need to know. There will also be friends who - wrongly of course (I assume) - will imagine it means that their partners are fair game. Or - perhaps more realistically - imagine they may come under pressure from partners who will decide they fancy a bit of polyamory. Which is yet another reason not to shout about it.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

@Dery

”I mentioned upthread that DH and I had an open relationship for a while and hardly anyone knew because hardly anyone needed to know. Another poster upthread mentioned being in a poly relationship but it would be invisible to most people.

People who aren’t directly involved just don’t need to know”

I do find this hard the longer I am actively in poly situations, though. I see the people I am dating reasonably often, so I actively have to avoid mentioning them if I’m asked “what did you do at the weekend?” or whatever. Obviously I’m not going to say “shagged partner X” any more than I would say “shagged the guy I live with” but if I went to dinner or theatre with a partner, then saying “I saw Mamma Mia with a friend” is a bit of a cover up.

(Which is why I thought the coming out analogy was reasonable, TBH)

I have told a couple of very good friends - and I have said absolutely nothing about the sex 😀 - because I wanted to be able to chat about my life freely.

One of the school gate mums announces she's polyamorous almost every time I see her. She not British if that has any relevance?

I could not care less and don't really know why she always talks about it.

Other peoples sex lives are their private lives, I couldn't be less concerned if I tried.

I'd have some fun with this. 'still poly then, Jill? Any new fellas? You've not updated me this week!'

I don't care what people do in their spare time but I don't want to hear about it.
Unfortunately the polyamorous community seem to think it's ok to share that with everyone they see.

Sounds more like an 'open' relationship tbh, with all parties encouraged to look for other people to have sex/go out with. What fun......

What community is that? Does this happen to you frequently?

I certainly don't, nor do other posters on here who are ENM/poly, nor do my partners, or their partners. And OP has talked about telling her friends, which is a bit different to 'everyone she sees'. So I am curious as to how many people are doing this to you, and why, as you clearly aren't interested.

Isn't it more that people don't really care/aren't interested?
If you were a close friend I would, but not an acquaintance/colleague/neighbour.

I would worry that someone within the group was being exploited or not actually getting much out of it because I feel (rightly or wrongly) sometimes these set-ups don't benefit everyone equally.
Being in non-monogamous permanent relationships isn't new, a read of the history books will show that many many men and women in power have had mistresses etc who they value as long term partners & families along with their official spouses.

I think part of the issue is people being a bit bored with people thinking they are 'special' or 'unique' and they have discovered a completely radical way of living, when really it's as old as humankind

Not just women/men in power of course, but the history books weren't often recording everyday folks lives/relationships in any detail

Don't care less how adults choose to live their lives, as long as nobody is being exploited and children aren't being harmed but I have no interest in hearing about it as it doesn't affect me. If you are talking about close enough to be socialising with then just bring one at a time and whisper in my ear who you have brought because I'm rubbish with names. I mean it, don't care but really don't want to hear about it, it's not my bag

“Isn't it more that people don't really care/aren't interested?
If you were a close friend I would, but not an acquaintance/colleague/neighbour.”

The OP is talking about friends; I don’t think she mentioned “lesser” connections. But I may have missed it.

It’s extremely simple. The replies to OP have been awful. They are dismissive, derogatory, and bigoted, and there is no way a poster facing similar or equivalent issues in a ‘conventional’ relationship would have been treated in this way. OP has been respectful and polite in all of her (few) responses.

So if you want to view my ‘hobby’ as calling that out, then ‘have at it, my chum’. I do not care one jot if you agree with the above.

Agree with @Didimum

And some of the “people can do what they want privately, I don’t want to hear about their sex lives” type responses, when the OP’s post was about relationships and not sex at all, have echoes of “I don’t mind people being gay, but do they have to kiss/hold hands with their partner in public?” which was fairly common to hear a decade or two ago.

Maybe those people feel sorry for your fiancé. You say you encouraged him to go out with other people but he doesn’t want to. Maybe because he isn’t happy with you being in the other relationship but doesn’t want to lose you.