I do think we’re in agreement on this point.
That’s odd… I thought it rests on the fact that she’s said she can’t and won’t exercise restraint in her emotions?
Isn’t her being in pain a separate issue, namely that she’s not content to be alone with him?
I think that’s a misrepresentation of the case.
From what you yourself have said, she is unhappy if she is alone with him because she can’t have other lovers, or another specific lover.
Thus, how can she claim that she is unhappy being alone with him, and then that she’s happy being alone with him?
~baffled~
You don’t see why not being happy being alone with someone would mean that you’re not happy being alone with someone?
Would it be appropriate for her boyfriend to be distraught because he couldn’t be with all of his ex girlfriends? Would it be appropriate for him to express just how sad he was cuz he couldn’t keep being with jessica, and suzy, and patty, etc…? Doesn’t agreeing to be in a couple mean that the rest is just fluff and not essential?
Because you breaking up with your boyfriend is not the same as someone staying with her boyfriend? They are similar, they are not identical.
From what you’ve said, it isn’t her breaking up with him to be single. It is her losing a lover and being unhappy because she’s just with him and not another lover too.
I’m confused.
You spent last night talking with him?
And you’re going to strangers to find out what he thinks/where he’s coming from?
Did he not tell you what he thinks, or can you not ask him what he thinks?
This is just weird. If you don’t know what he thinks/where he’s coming from, even after talking to him, how can you hope to present his position at all?
Why on earth wouldn’t she be unhappy to have lost a lover? and why would that have anything to do with her boyfriend? Does the fact that you have other friends keep you happy if for some reason a valued friendship was lost? Would you be sad that you ‘only had them, not the other friend’? Of course not, the relationship is seperate and has its own value apart from any other friendship. It is simply a matter of degrees, at least, to those who are polyamorous.
I still fail to see how “not happy being alone with you.”
Is made any different by anything you said.
If I claimed I was happy having someone as my only friend, and then was unhappy becuase I didn’t have other friends…
Finn, think about it this way–you have exactly two friends in the whole world. They’re all you want and all you need. One of them dies. The other friend is still enough to fulfill all your wants and needs, or at least enough of them for you to be happy. Does that mean you can’t grieve for the loss of your other friend? If something were to happy to the illustrious KellyM (still waiting on those baby pix, btw, missy), lee would be very, very unhappy. She would be in pain. There would be a gaping hole in her life. It wouldn’t mean that she’s not happy or satisfied with her husband, just that she misses her girlfriend. I have some trouble quite fathoming it, myself (part of that whole not-really-getting-polyamory thing, you know), but poly folks just don’t look at the whole issue the same way monogamous folks do.
The issue isn’t that she can’t or won’t restrain her emotions (and I can’t find anything where the OP has indicated the girlfriend said any such thing), but rather that the fellow in question seems to think she can’t or won’t. Near as I can tell, he’s based this conclusion on the fact that breaking up the triad would hurt his girlfriend more than it would him. Because she feels more deeply for the OP than he does, her love is “unrestrained” and “inappropriate” and thus an issue for him. Note that no one has ever hinted that she feels more strongly for the OP than for him, just that she feels more strongly for the OP than he does. See my comments about the cookie jar and them being “even”.
See also my above comments about not understanding poly on the gut level. That’s pretty much all of the problem, IMHO.
No, it certaintly doesn’t.
But again, if you tell one of your friends “I only want one friend, I only need one friend, etc…” and then you talk about how you need other friends, have you contradicted yourself?
I’m not debating the poly lifestyle, it’s perfectly valid. I’m simply pointing out that you can’t claim to want monogamy and be content with monogamy if you are also only happy with being poly.
Well, I have to claim some more knolwedge about the situation than was in the OP. Suffice it to say, she has, and nevermore left that detail out of her post and I can not figure out why.
Again, this is due to y’all not being given the whole story. Knowing everybody involved, I know that she’s said that she can’t and won’t restraint her emotions in this case and doesn’t recognize anything as being over-the-line. Why nevermore neglected to include this fact, I do not know.
I understand the cookie analogy. But again, nervermore neglected to include essential details.
When the couple started out, the girlfriend was busy saying how she wasn’t poly. In fact, she demanded that her boyfriend give up being poly if he wanted to be with her. Her boyfriend was already with another woman who he loved, and was told that it was absolutely impossible to be with both of them. So, they decided to be monogamous and he gave up a woman who meant a lot to him.
However, as soon as the girlfriend found someone she perfered, her stance on others being poly, indeed, her status of being mono changed.
And while it isn’t about cookies, it is a valid statement that if the relationship started and was predicated as monogamy-with-a-side-of-just-sex, and then the deal is changed, and the girlfriend isn’t willing to control her emotions, there is a problem.
Further…
If you are with a partner and want an assurance that they’ll be with you and only you, having them fall in love with anybody who catches thier fancy pretty much dooms monogamy. If you’re ready to settle down, you’re ready. If you’re not, you shouldn’t pretend that you are.
WhyNot:
thank you; it’s always very helpful hearing from others with experience in polyamory. I agree with you—there are no rules for what’s fair or right in these situations; we only have our feelings to guide us, and every feeling is as valid as the next. Every argument used to justify a feeling is not, though…
CCL:
I’m not sure what to think about his being polyamorous or not, anymore. You (and others) make good points in that yes, true polyamory does include not being upset when your partner loves another person, and overcoming the monogamous instinct that one love necessarily diminishes any other love (the cookie jar analogy is a very apt one, btw). But then there are situations like WhyNot’s, and people just being ok with certain aspects and not others…sigh who knows. I think you’re right about it not really being about me, though… it’s hard not to feel like I’m to blame when they’re fighting about the threesome, but I guess in all reality I haven’t done anything but what they’ve asked me, so the consequences are only the ones they’ve chosen, and it’s taken this thread for me to see that.
FinnAgain:
ok, assuming that’s the case…
this basically translates to, I’m in love and there’s no way I can turn that off.
should she be able to do this? is this an ability that normal people have?
if one is truly in love, should one be able to turn it off like a lightswitch when it becomes inconvenient?
it seems to me that if he has this ability, he is most likely the exception, not the rule… in which case I believe it’s unfair for him to expect the same of her.
Actually, what I said was that she’d be unhappy because she lost a lover, not because she was with him alone. The two do not equate. Yes, if she loses me as a lover, she is then with him alone. It is not the being with him alone that distresses her… it’s not being with me. If for some reason, the rules of the restaurant that I go to dictate that I can no longer have a baked potato with my steak (the essential part), I might be like “damn, I wish I could have that baked potato too,” but that doesn’t make me any less happy with my steak. Having both is preferable… but I’d certainly still go home satisfied as long as I had my steak.
Or how about this: if I had a husband who was allergic to cats, and I had to give up my terrorist bloodbeast, hell, I’d be devastated. The cat isn’t necessary to my overall happiness, but I certainly enjoyed having it, and I’d miss it. Does that imply that I’m no longer happy being alone with my husband, sans cat? No… it means I miss my cat, because I love it. Does it mean I resent my husband for being allergic? No… it’s just a shame.
I’m not coming here to find out what he thinks… I just find it helpful to have other, uninvolved people look at it objectively and give me their thoughts. I know what he thinks; I simply don’t understand/agree with his motivations for thinking thus, in the face of everything she tries to tell him to contrary.
Venoma and CCL… you echo my sentiments immaculately. Now I feel a little less crazy. =P
This is what I’m talking about. Why be selective with the details you give out to the Dope? What good does her saying thing to the contrary mean if she later says things to the afirmative, why pick and choose only one and not report the whole story unless you’re trying to present a position that leads to a foregone conclusion?
How about the times she contradicts herself, as I know from having seen the conversations?
People aren’t steak and potatos. Your cat is not another partner.
If your husband told you that he wanted to marry you, wanted to be with you and only you, and then he said that he wanted the girl down the street, and wouldn’t stop lusting after her even though he was married to you… ~shrugs~
…
I wonder how you can honestly believe that.
If she is with him alone, then she doesn’t have another lover.
Can you even debate that?
Thus, if she’s alone with him, and unhappy becuase she doesn’t have another lover, she’s not happy to be alone with him.
So, regardless of which factoid distresses her, isn’t the end result that she’s distressed to be in a couple and not a threesome?
If you feel I’m being unfair in my presentation, please, by all means correct it. I’ve presented the facts as I know them and as I find them to be relevant to an outside person’s understanding. I obviously can’t tell every detail of the relationship or every conversation we’ve had, which is the only way not to be selective with details. If you think there are important things to be said that I’ve left out, fill them in where you deem necessary… if I’ve been misleading, it was not intentional, and my humblest apologies to all.
Yes…they’re analogies, just like the one you used a few lines down. They’re not the situation, but I think they’re useful tools for comparison and getting a fresh perspective.
My cat is not another partner, but she is something I love very much and enjoy having around, and don’t want to give up, and would be in pain if I lost. I think that has enough in common with the way his girlfriend feels about me to be a useful comparison.
Let’s make this (otherwise utterly inapposite) analogy a bit more comparable to reality and say that my husband and I had the girl down the street involved basically from the beginning of our marriage. He initiated bringing her in, but we both fell in love with her. How could I then be upset at his inability to fall out of love with her at the drop of a hat, and tell him what he felt was inappropriate because he couldn’t?
You are quite good at ignoring every argument I make and repeating yours endlessly. You keep insisting that being unhappy at losing one lover equals being unhappy at being alone with the other; that missing someone means being unsatisfied in your relationship with someone else. You fail to acknowledge the possibility of being upset at one aspect of life, but happy in another. Her happiness in the threesome, and her preference for that situation as evidenced by her feeling pain at its conclusion, does not detract from her happiness in her relationship with him. They are, as Venoma pointed out, separate things, and have separate intrinsic value. I daresay you are simply wrong, and bullheaded, and would argue your position to the point of asphyxiation in the face of everything we know about human emotion, and if that is the case, you and I simply have nothing more to say to each other on the matter, once you’ve had your much-coveted last word.
No, I’ve heard all of your arguments.
You still insist that being monogamous and being poly are not diametrically opposed. Being happy alone with one person means being happy being alone with one person, no matter how you evade the issue.
A prefrence for a threesome doesn’t negate a prefrence for monogamy?
What logic exactly am I ignoring that would make this truth?
And as I have pointed out, if you want polyamory, you don’t want monogamy, and vice versa.
Please tell me what knowledge of human emotions means that someone who doesn’t want to be monogamous wants to be monogamous?
Guess you.
Desire for polyamory =/= desire for monogamy, no matter what you say.
Being one partner of a threesome does not mean that you are any more satisfied in the triad than you were in the dyad. It makes life more interesting, and confusing. My husband and I were completely monogamous for a while, to the best of my knowledge. Another person is now included in our life, for affection and sexual encounters. If for some reason, that were to be denied, especially her friendship, I would be very upset - but I am exceedingly pleased with my husband. My satisfaction with our relationship would remain as it is now, if we were to return to monogamy. I do not have a NEED for more than one partner, but I do not rule out the fact that I may grow to care for other people, as I have in this case.
Monogamy and polygamy are not mutually exclusive - a polyamorist, like myself, can be perfectly happy in a monogamous relationship. That seems to be something you either don’t quite believe or don’t understand.
Well, first of all we don’t have a universally-accepted set of rules for polyamory. We are still working through a lot of this (various versions notwithstanding).
What has worked for us in the past, when we have had disagreements and hurt feelings therefrom is:
All three (or more) of you have to sit down together. No one is left out, all point of view are equal.
Remind one another what “love” means: that you want the bst and the happiest situation for the object of your love.
Then examine each persons’ position and determine how that fits into the universal definition of love. I.E., how is this showing me your love? how is this making me happy.
Work for a way where what each of you does adds to the happiness of all your loved ones.
It’s not necessarily easy, but it will sort out who really loves whom.
SnakeSpirit
Venoma, not only do you see my point exactly… you’re a living example of my rightness. This of course means that you officially rock.
Like, with a golden seal of rockage and everything. ;D
But one thing you said–
–demands that I correct myself (‘cause I’m anal and perfectionist and crazy weird like that). I previously stated that “Her happiness in the threesome, and her preference for that situation as evidenced by her feeling pain at its conclusion, does not detract from her happiness in her relationship with him.” I realize now I should not have said ‘preference’, because her feeling pain at the conclusion would not indicate a preference for that state of things, just that it was something she enjoyed and that satisfied her, and the same would be true of a monogamous relationship with her boyfriend. A niggling detail to most, I’m sure, but inaccuracy bugs me. =P
Of course, these points are all essentially moot now, as the three-way relationship is nonexistent as of last night… pretty much what I thought would happen long time ago finally did; they made the decision that this was causing too many problems between the two of them and it needed to end. I’m just glad that it didn’t tear them apart and they are able to finally have peace together after all this chaos…
sigh
what a loooong, strange trip it’s been.
I’m sorry things turned out the way they did, nevermore - thanks for the seal of rockage 
I hope everything works out for you in the end.