Honest opinion

[Bramblethorn]

You in the Eastern Hemisphere???

Australia, yes.

 

[Seadog777]

Australia, yes.

OK.

 

[Rob_Royale]

My wife and I married and told each other that YOU ARE ALL I WANT. She came from a family with nearly NO successful marriages. Lots of crazy drama, cheating, sleeping around, etc. She expected I'd cheat. It took her over fifteen years before she stopped worrying about it. She finally figured that if I hadn't done it when I was young, fit, and handsome then I wasn't going to.

As for sharing, we are both selfish by nature. We aren't the type to share our toys. I never thought I'd get a woman like her. Purposely putting her in the arms of another man is the stupidest thing I could think of, even for just one night. You could say that I'm not confident enough in myself or our relationship but you'd be wrong. I'm the sort of over-thinking fella that adds the question, "What's the worst that can happen?" to EVERY decision. In the sharing category, the worst thing would be, "Your life could be completely destroyed." I've seen it happen.

My wife does it for me, in every way. Emotionally, sexually, etc. I do my best to do the same for her, and I have. No need to look elsewhere. Our marriage hasn't always been a bed of roses. We've had our troubles. But, thirty-one years later we still tell each other, in our looks, our touches, our kisses, that YOU ARE ALL I WANT.
It's a wonderful place to be.

 

[Lifestyle66]

...
I've been in poly relationships, and I've been in FWB situations, and I can confidently say they're not the same thing. The exact nature of the commitment varies from one poly relationship to another - there isn't really a standard model - but when somebody breaks that commitment, it's very different to FWBs dropping the benefits.

And it's fine to have that preference. We all have to figure out what works for us and go for that. Where it becomes an issue is when people go beyond relating their own preferences and experiences, and start declaring other people's relationships invalid because they don't have quite the same priorities.

As I said before, I don't judge others. Some people are good with different types of relationships.

I find these forum discussions interesting and enlightening BECAUSE we each come from such different backgrounds which made each of us who we are. And describing our RL experiences helps (at least helps me) understand how others think.

I find it just as annoying when others come here saying "my lifestyle is the best way, and the world would be a better place if EVERYONE choose to live my way." And my annoyance is directed even at those who claim a polyamorous lifestyle is utopia for all humanity. Again, in my experience, I see the dangers of pushing that type of relationship on everyone else. I know from experience many others can't handle it.

By that logic, my parents and also my great-grandparents weren't committed to each other because they lived in different countries from each other for years! Like many of their generation, g-grandpa went to make a life in America, collecting his wife and child eight years later back from Eastern Europe, settled down and had six more kids. When I was a kid dad became an expat so as not to have the house repossessed Mum mostly stayed home. They did what they had to do.

Living together is a luxury not all partners can have. Urban UK housing isn't set up for large groups (large houses can be found rurally but then there's few jobs). Remote working may make more people able to live with their partners in future, but in the meantime, claiming people's relationships can't be committed just because they don't live together is frankly insulting.

I didn't intend to offend.

I mentioned in another post that my current wife was given an opportunity for a better job 2,000 miles away, and that I offered to move with her. (BTW: I couldn't work remote for my job. I offered to quit and find a new job.)

Your parents and grandparents were in committed relationships with kids and finances to consider. But they seem to have made long-term plans to remain together.

My first wife and I had two year-long and one 6-month separations in our living arrangements due to jobs in the military and afterwards as a contractor. I know the pitfalls of such arrangements. This is why I also know getting back together is even tougher, because people change over time and establish different habits. Doubts and suspicions come into their minds. When the wife I reunited each time, she was slightly different than the one I married. Eventually, it was just the feeling of my obligation to my kids which kept us together, ... until they were out of the house.

Looking back objectively at my own parents and grandparent's relationships, I've realized they remained together more out of necessity over the long-term. They did things differently in the past.

Maybe I'm just obsessed with choosing a life together with just one other person. And if she feels like exploring with others, so be it! Let's have FUN together, ... as long as we both understand it's us, together for the long-term.

In some of my stories, I have the couple saying to each other:
"At the end of the day, who are you going to sleep with?"
"You!"

 

[Bramblethorn]

I find it just as annoying when others come here saying "my lifestyle is the best way, and the world would be a better place if EVERYONE choose to live my way." And my annoyance is directed even at those who claim a polyamorous lifestyle is utopia for all humanity. Again, in my experience, I see the dangers of pushing that type of relationship on everyone else. I know from experience many others can't handle it.

With you 100% on that. Polyamory is something that works for me, but it's not absolutely not for everybody, and I roll my eyes when I hear people saying poly is "more evolved" etc. etc. (Which I don't think anybody in this thread was saying! But it's a thing that does happen.)

I think there's a certain percentage of people who just have to have A Thing that they can feel superior about. It can be veganism or Crossfit or some variety of religion or polyamory, it doesn't really matter, as long as they can tell themselves it makes them one of the Special People. If you check in on those people five or ten years later, quite often they've ditched the old thing (because the novelty wore off and they realised it was too much work) and found some new way to be irritating.

 

[Comshaw]

With you 100% on that. Polyamory is something that works for me, but it's not absolutely not for everybody, and I roll my eyes when I hear people saying poly is "more evolved" etc. etc. (Which I don't think anybody in this thread was saying! But it's a thing that does happen.)

I think there's a certain percentage of people who just have to have A Thing that they can feel superior about. It can be veganism or Crossfit or some variety of religion or polyamory, it doesn't really matter, as long as they can tell themselves it makes them one of the Special People. If you check in on those people five or ten years later, quite often they've ditched the old thing (because the novelty wore off and they realised it was too much work) and found some new way to be irritating.

Agreed. It seems some people can't be satisfied with just being who they are, they need to feel better than others. My opinion is that some need that to justify that which they would otherwise feel guilty about. That's on them and has nothing to do with how others live their lives.

I've heard that "more evolved" stuff too. It is, to put it in the vernacular I grew up with, bullshit. It's not better, not worse, just different. Some can live that way, some can't. Got a mate you are loyal to and don't need anyone else? Kudos to you! Part of a large circle of polyamory friends? Fabulous! Neither one of those is the absolute right way to be. If it works for you, hurts none else and makes you happy, then it's the right way to be for you. It ain't none of my business and shouldn't be anyone else's either.

Comshaw

 

[Kumquatqueen]

've heard that "more evolved" stuff too. It is, to put it in the vernacular I grew up with, bullshit. It's not better, not worse, just different. Some can live that way, some can't. Got a mate you are loyal to and don't need anyone else? Kudos to you! Part of a large circle of polyamory friends? Fabulous! Neither one of those is the absolute right way to be. If it works for you, hurts none else and makes you happy, then it's the right way to be for you. It ain't none of my business and shouldn't be anyone else's either.

Precisely, and the whole world could do with a dose of that.

Poly isn't easy - sure the benefits are great but when you're feeling divided between not being able to support two people having a hard time, well, ask any parent of multiple children. There's been a fair few times I'd have quit the whole idea, except I'd have had to dump one of my partners (not to mention a couple other people who would have been disappointed). On the plus side, you can get more people supporting you when you need it.

I didn't mean to get into poly relationships, either - but there was this girl who this guy went out with, then she went abroad for a year, had a bad time, guy introduced me to her, me and her got together, then she went abroad again. Guy and I got together. She returned. There was an obvious solution.

It's interesting seeing how many people get interviewed in my uni alumni mags, aged over 80 with no more fucks to give, and how many casually mention a wife in one city and a decades-long female companion in another.

There used to be a uk-poly mailing list which was thriving, until a group of people claiming they were as evolved as dolphins (ie more than us mere mortals) turned up and lectured everyone about how you had to be poly to reach pure dolphinhood... I think they claimed poly people were more intelligent, too. Eventually the admin figured out how to ban people, but the group never really recovered. I think they took over alt.polyamory for a while, too.

 

[XerXesXu]

My wife doesn't understand the difference between a polyamour and a concubine. She wouldn't tolerate the former and I won't have the latter, though she keeps suggesting it.

 

[ronde]

I think it's being very egotistical to judge the actions of others, even in fiction, by using your own set of morals. It is probable the people you're judging won't tell you their history so you have no idea of why. If the wife is basically ignored by her husband is she justified in taking a lover? Is the same true for her husband if she ignores him? What if one of them has always had an attraction to the same sex, but married the opposite sex out of the appearance to others. Before same sex couples were generally accepted, marriages of convenience were rare but not unheard of. I once had a music teacher who was married, but he took his vacations with another man. I only know that because he was staying at the same fishing resort as my family was and my mother told me what was going on. He was married to a woman because he'd never have been hired as a teacher if it was known he was gay. Most people knew or at least suspected, but the fact that he was married made everything all right.

The important thing in any type of couple's relationship is that both agree on how and when to expand that relationship. In a polyamorous situation, all parties must agree. I would think that's relatively difficult to achieve mostly because most girls are still taught from a young age that the "right" way is one woman/one man.

By the way, one man having more than one wife hasn't "evolved". It's been practiced for centuries by both Native American tribes and by some tribes in Africa. In some cases having more than one wife was an expression of the man's wealth. In others, it was a way for the tribe to care for a woman who had lost her husband.

 

[Bramblethorn]

There used to be a uk-poly mailing list which was thriving, until a group of people claiming they were as evolved as dolphins (ie more than us mere mortals) turned up and lectured everyone about how you had to be poly to reach pure dolphinhood... I think they claimed poly people were more intelligent, too. Eventually the admin figured out how to ban people, but the group never really recovered. I think they took over alt.polyamory for a while, too.

Don't get me started on bonobos.

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm of the "if it works for you and your partner(s) and nobody is getting hurt, it's fine with me" school of thinking. That said, as someone with absolutely no experience with polyamory, it's hard for me to imagine. I realize that speaks to my lack of experience and imagination rather than the reality, but I find it hard to imagine navigating the potential problems of jealousy long term. And I'm not a jealous person. I need to read some more stories here about it to get a better sense of how authors think it can work.
At the same time, I have little difficulty imagining people in "wife-sharing" marriages, because that doesn't involve romantic sharing, just sexual sharing. It's the concept of romance with more than one partner that's difficult to fathom.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I'm of the "if it works for you and your partner(s) and nobody is getting hurt, it's fine with me" school of thinking. That said, as someone with absolutely no experience with polyamory, it's hard for me to imagine. I realize that speaks to my lack of experience and imagination rather than the reality, but I find it hard to imagine navigating the potential problems of jealousy long term.

Kudos for recognising that distinction. IME this is one of those areas where a lot of people mistake what comes instinctively to them for universal human truth.

As far as I can tell, there are at least three different things called "jealousy" in the mix here. I'm going to make up some terminology and refer to these as practical jealousy, learned jealousy, and innate jealousy.

Practical jealousy is about when my partner's involvement with somebody else incurs some tangible cost to me: I wanted to cuddle up with X tonight but I can't because they're out on a date with their other partner. Here, it's not the "with another partner" bit that's a problem for me, just the consequences for me - it'd be much the same if I was missing out on quality time for some other reason like them working late. (And very often it ends up being a combination of things.)

Learned jealousy is what people have absorbed from the culture they live in. People get taught various attitudes about what a partner's duties should be and how they should feel if those duties aren't satisfied. They might also get taught that it's humiliating, emasculating, etc. etc. to have a partner (or a child) who breaks those rules, especially if it's done flagrantly.

Innate jealousy is whatever comes naturally, independent of culture. Hardwired reactions. It can take a lot of work to figure out where innate jealousy ends and learned jealousy begins. My personal suspicion is that a lot of people over-estimate the innate component and under-estimate the learned component, but that's just a guess.

(And of course there can be complicated interactions between those and other factors, but let's leave it at that for now.)

For myself: being neurodivergent and various other things, I've had plenty of opportunities to learn that cultural expectations are often bullshit and I should only follow them if they make sense. This can go the other way - some ND people work extra hard to fit in - but I get the impression the overlap of autism and polyamory is quite high. And as a kid I'd encountered the concept of consensual nonmonogamy in fiction (Joe Haldeman's "Worlds", maybe others?) so even though I wasn't thinking about it as something for me in particular, I was prepared for the idea.

So the "learned" component isn't very influential for me. I do have to think about how employers/neighbours/family might react to poly stuff and decide how much they get to know, but that's about other people's emotions, not mine.

The innate component just isn't a big thing for me, don't think it ever has been. It's funny, because there are areas of life where I'm a very competitive kind of person, but not this one. If I love somebody, I want them to be happy; if having another partner contributes to their happiness, great. I'm not sure whether other people have a higher component of innate jealousy, or if a lot of that is learned jealousy masquerading as innate. If they're not able to unlearn it, the distinction doesn't matter much.

Practical jealousy, OTOH, is something I definitely do get in the 'right' circumstances, and I expect most poly people would. But usually it's something that can be managed. Even in a monogamous relationship, it's something that needs to be managed - between work, kids, other family, health, and non-shared friends and hobbies, nobody can expect to get 100% of their partner's time/attention, and I suspect most people don't want 100%.

(There's a joke about three male academics who were arguing about whether it's better to have a wife or a mistress. I forget what the physicist and the economist said, but the mathematician's answer was: "Both, because when the wife thinks I'm with the mistress and when the mistress thinks I'm with the wife, I'm off in my office doing mathematics!")

If people have good communication skills and are trying to do right by one another, it's often possible to figure out something that works for everybody.

And I'm not a jealous person. I need to read some more stories here about it to get a better sense of how authors think it can work.
At the same time, I have little difficulty imagining people in "wife-sharing" marriages, because that doesn't involve romantic sharing, just sexual sharing. It's the concept of romance with more than one partner that's difficult to fathom.

I will say that many non-monogamous stories here are more fantasy than realistic portrayal.

 

[jehoram]

By the way, one man having more than one wife hasn't "evolved". It's been practiced for centuries by both Native American tribes and by some tribes in Africa. In some cases having more than one wife was an expression of the man's wealth. In others, it was a way for the tribe to care for a woman who had lost her husband.

Not to mention all those Old Testament patriarchs.

 

[Bramblethorn]

By the way, one man having more than one wife hasn't "evolved". It's been practiced for centuries by both Native American tribes and by some tribes in Africa. In some cases having more than one wife was an expression of the man's wealth. In others, it was a way for the tribe to care for a woman who had lost her husband.

Polygamy has been around forever, but that's very different to polyamory.

Polygamous systems tend to have very restrictive expectations about what kinds of relationships people can have. A young woman in something like a Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints community is expected to marry a male elder and share him with his other wives. If she decides she'd rather marry a bunch of younger men, or another woman, or stay single, there's no room for her in that community.

Polyamory starts from the premise that consenting adults should be free to choose what kind of relationships they want with one another, and that the rest of society doesn't get a say in it.