Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Telly addicts

Related: Film discussion forum.

Original poster

Did any Poly people watch Louis Theroux last night?

119 replies

PolyAnnie · 05/11/2018 15:46

Just wondering what peiple thought of it as a representation of poly families.

I liked it.

I thought it showcased a lot of happiness and family ties. It showed that kids can be happy within poly families but it also showed the realities of it too. Such as a new person coming in to the fold or one person wanting a different living set up (experienced both)

I liked it because it showed normal poly families through good events and struggling just as all mono couples do too.

OP posts:
AbsintheFriends · 05/11/2018 18:24

Selfish was the word that summed it up best for me. Being selfish, or accommodating someone else's selfishness.

I actually felt angry on behalf of Joe's wife, who was implying that at 50 and having had kids and staring down the barrel of the menopause her libido isn't what it was. So she feels she has to accept perky Heidi into her home and pretend she's happy with the set up.

Petalflowers · 05/11/2018 18:29

I watched it and found it fascinating. I thought afterwards that it allowed you to have affairs, one night stands etc, all in the name of poly.

The three people sleeping in the same bed was a bit bizarre. The beds looked really narrow.

What I did find unusual about thenprgramme was the lead the women were taking. Often in polygamous marriages (which I know are slightly different), there is a patriarchal figure, and the women are the subservient ones. In this,programme, the women were as active of bbeingmpoly as the men.

I did cringe during the sensual touching experience. I was wondering whether there was a Mrs Theroux, and what she must have thought of that (%off to google Mr T marital status). It was very bizarre.

Kewcumber · 05/11/2018 18:30

How many people in healthy monogamous relationships really feel the pressure to be the ultimate partner though? I know I get different things from my friends and family to what I get from a partner. I don't need to have sex with my friends to get something from the relationship!

spareusername · 05/11/2018 18:32

I didn't watch because TV and poly is always a train wreck, and I know of some people who were turned down for this show for being too boring.
Sounds like the only useful bit from this show was demonstrating that if you have a couple and then one of them wants to try poly, it usually doesn't go well. And anyone who has kids who goes on this kind of telly, I question their judgement. As far as my kids are concerned, we have various good friends who stay over regularly, and sometimes come on holiday with us, and they like extra adults being available to provide attention (or to tell them off...)

Whitney168 · 05/11/2018 18:34

I did cringe during the sensual touching experience. I was wondering whether there was a Mrs Theroux, and what she must have thought of that

He did say he had run it by his wife. I would imagine any reservations she might have had would have been counteracted by his palpable discomfort and it being so obvious he would rather be just about anywhere else! Grin

FesteringCarbuncle · 05/11/2018 18:36

LT said during the programme that he checked his wife didn't mind him going to the grim eating/massage

shiningstar2 · 05/11/2018 18:37

Most didn't look happy to me. The woman with two men in her life had a history of self harm and was on medication for depression. The children of the bearded man whose girlfriend came to their home to sleep looked sad and his wife seemed very insecure.

newtlover · 05/11/2018 19:07

very true that there are unhappy people in monogamous (or supposed to be monogamous) relationships, that's because people fuck up sometimes- but I dispute the idea from the pro-poly people that monogamy is doomed because 'you have to provide ALL of your partner's needs'. Don't think I know any successful relationships where this is an expectation.

EdWinchester · 05/11/2018 19:07

God that eating/massage bit so was awful, I could barely watch it.

Haffdonga · 05/11/2018 19:25

The obviously unhappy members of the groups seemed almost brainwashed, the way they all insisted they were happy for Heidi (or whoever was enjoying the current shagfest) when asked. It felt a bit like the whole compersion/compursion (sp?) ethos of being happy that the person you love is happy didn't actually allow any honesty. If anyone broke the rules and admitted to actually feeling jealous or hurt then they would somehow be shunned in the poly family/group.

AbsintheFriends · 05/11/2018 19:31

If anyone broke the rules and admitted to actually feeling jealous or hurt then they would somehow be shunned in the poly family/group

Yes to this. I also got the impression that there was an element of competition (as is the norm in romantic relationships) and admitting jealousy would immediately be a strike against that partner, and give the shagger a legitimate reason to favour the other. ('Heidi's just a bit more easy going, you know? I'm finding you quite uptight and difficult to be around').(

FekkoThePenguin · 05/11/2018 19:34

Sooo - in the relationships, was it one ‘alpha’ with 2 partners, or were they all, err, sharing nicely?

TheOneWith · 05/11/2018 19:39

Jerry’s face when he mooted the idea of a threesome with Heidi and Joe, and Heidi was like
Noooooooooo

What was with the rails of clothes all over their house? Poor Jerry looked clinically depressed. As did the self harm woman with 2 male partners.

And I thought pretty much all of them looked like they needed a good bath.

RandomlyChosenName · 05/11/2018 19:40

They used a world- I forget what is was now, I think it began with C? That meant doing something that made your partner happy.

I couldn’t work out how that fitted with Heidi and Jerry. Jerry seemed to being doing everything to make Heidi happy. Heidi wa not happy to make Jerry happy- ie wouldn’t entertain the idea of him joining in with her and Joe. And it’s a shame Louis didn’t ask Jow what he would think of that.

RandomlyChosenName · 05/11/2018 19:42

Also it would have been interesting if there had been a 4 way 4 person relationship. Does that every happen? It would seem fairer than the 3s, where basically one person had 2 partners, but they each only had one.

Howtodeal · 05/11/2018 19:43

I felt so sorry for Jerry, he just seemed desperate to hang onto Heidi at all costs. I found it so sad when she said something like 'I am not responsible for Jerry's loneliness, Jerry is responsible for his own loneliness'. Being in a happy marriage (which she claimed it is) should mean that she should care if he is lonely, she should want to help him etc. Only Joe and Heidi seemed really truly happy the whole program, I found it all quite depressing.

rachelfrost · 05/11/2018 19:58

Oh it was so sad. But I think a lot of monogamous relationships are full of loneliness, manipulation and despair too so it’s not necessarily the polyamory that’s to blame. Smile

TheFaerieQueene · 05/11/2018 20:06

I thought they all looked vulnerable and/or sad. It made depressing viewing.

PawneeParksDept · 05/11/2018 20:06

I have to agree that it really came across in every scenario that someone was sacrificing their own happiness to an immense degree to keep their SO placated. It was like a cognitive dissonance between all the buzzwordy insistence of “chosen family” and other cult like jargon and actual realities not being confronted.

I also found the involvement of the children and their knowledge of it and the way they were almost gaslighting each other as well as the kids really quite grotesque and I had to wonder if it had impacted the children socially.

I mean, there was a kid at a table at one point, Louis is talking to the wife on the verge of divorce, they are clearly shagging in another room, she comes out to go home and the child is told “Say Goodbye to Mama” ?!? Utter fuckery. I would not be happy to send a child to either of their homes to play or spend the night.

Cocolepew · 05/11/2018 20:09

It was awful, a bunch of navel gazing narcissists only thinking of their own needs and happiness.
Jerry was just fucking miserable.

Pissedoffdotcom · 05/11/2018 20:19

I find polygamy difficult to get my head round. Somebody within the (usually appears to be) threesome is making more sacrifices than the other two. I always get the impression the 'lead' person is usually the happiest & stuff what anybody else thinks

Whisky2014 · 05/11/2018 20:19

In a happy, respectful relationship you dont need to be the "ultimate" partner. That's just weird.

TheFatberg · 05/11/2018 20:22

Isn't it supposed to be 'polyam' instead of Poly, as this is appropriation of the term used to signify Polynesian people?

rosieposey · 05/11/2018 20:47

The camera kept lingering on Jerry who looked miserable.

His wife was transparent, she was clearly shagging her preferred man and keeping jerry in the back burner just in case.

Joe's wife Gretchen was bitter and miserable too. Their kids Sad.

It was all a car crash. I didn't see anybody particularly happy bar Joe and Heidi. Did they get engaged?

Laska5772 · 05/11/2018 21:03

Yes poor Jerry, he seemed so sad , and Gretchen also seemed to be (quietly desolate) .. When Jjerry was 'sent upstairs' to bed (because 'he looked tired' ) , and horrible Heidi and Joe made up the bed down stairs I kept thinking of the Hatties Jacques /John le Mesuirer , biography /documentary , Where she had a lover sleeping with her in t their old room and he was consigned to a room upstairs .

No one has mentioned the younger pregnant ones yet..The would-be father was also struggling I thought, and I wondered how the set up of all of them living together in the co house ( for lots of Uncles and aunts she said) would work that once the baby arrived.. given what its like with babies waking., co sleeping and also having to maintain a relationship with several others , many of then not bein g the childs parents .( and none of then who seemed to have any children.. ) then they decided not to assign it a gender.. either .. .

V.sad programme ..