…and of course, there’s a book for everything.
Just as long as you treat the third person like a person and not some sort of youth serum for your relationship or unpaid escort. Some couples who want a threesome just end up paying an escort to avoid having to find someone they both find attractive, convince said person to fool around with both of them and lessen the risk of relationship drama afterwards.
But clearly you’re not quite looking for a wham bam thank you sir and ma’am. It’s great that you can talk about it. I wouldn’t think any less of you if you were my friends – would probably get a bit of a vicarious thrill if you were nice enough to go into detail.
Absolutely. My introduction to the poly/open relationship scene was when I got involved with a couple (I’m bi and female, he was straight, she was bi, and it was an equal 3-way relationship). Without going into too much detail, they had some issues in their relationship that they really needed to work out on their own. I ended up getting a lot of it dumped on me, either because one wanted to vent at me about the other (instead of talking to each other like they should have been), or because they were using me to get back at each other for various things.
Right now my husband and I have an open marriage, although the open part is “on hold” right now because we’re expecting our first child so we’re focusing on us and our new family. We’re open to the idea of forming a serious relationship with a third person or a couple if we meet the right person/people, but it’s not something we’ve actively pursued.
The most important rule we have is: if one of us feels uncomfortable with a situation for any reason, we stop. No explanations required. It’s only ever come up once, when my husband just “felt weird” about a guy I wanted to fool around with. Sure, I was a bit disappointed, but in the long run his comfort and our relationship was more important than getting laid.
Edit: One thing I wanted to add as a warning. No matter how open and up front you are with people you get together with, I think everyone who’s ever had an open relationship has run into this situation at least once. At some point, someone will think that one of you and he/she are meant to be, and will want to steal you away, and wind up accusing you of “leading him/her on”. It sucks. The only thing you can really do is say “I’m sorry you got hurt”, and then cut off all ties. Some people just hear what they want to hear, instead of what you’re actually saying.
This is exactly the way we’re approaching it. I’m very glad you took the time to respond to this thread because I was honestly hoping for some people a little more experienced in this type of relationship than Arachne and I. I’m glad to see that we seem to be doing things right. In all honesty, right now we’re both uncomfortable with bringing any men into the picture out of gut reactions, though we’re not against the idea in concept.
This is a situation we’ve ended up in already… I suppose it’s more a matter of the maturity of the other party, as we were very upfront about what we were proposing. Good to say, though, it never got far at all to begin with so there was relatively minor damage on all parts.
If TME doesn’t mind me expanding on the OP a bit, does anyone have any “Non-traditional relationship” stories (of either success or horror)?
I ran a search for posts by WhyNot containing the word lover. There were things like cooking recipes, but I think this thread for example may contain some of the stories you’re looking for.
Arachne and TME,
I have some experience with open/poly relationships–both of my marriages have been poly, though not very actively so (I don’t find partners easily!). I’m happy to share advice/details, but not here. Feel free to private message me. FWIW I think you sound like you’re on the right track (and I totally agree on the bonding over checking out the cuties).
Sorry but I’m having trouble PMing, it’s possibly somethign wrong with when my account was created. Would you mind PMing me shy_kat? 
PMing with contact info I mean.
Personally few, but I’d be willing to say that most of my friends prefer them.
Specifically, they prefer the ability to sleep around without restriction and they get phenomenally jealous of their primary partner when they do the same.
I’m convinced that with the right people NTRs could work, but that 99% of them are doomed to failure by the people in them - much like 99% of TRs.
If everyone’s happy, great, but my external observation is that NTRs tend to be shorter-term and have much more spectacular flameouts than TRs.
YES. Totally dead on. Some NTR can and do work… but both people in the relationship have to be VERY mature in their relationship skills…that’s kind of rare overall. It does seem like some (note I said SOME) people in NTR are the types who still have a lot of issues with realationship skills, or who believe that sex represents their worth in the world. (ie if I don’t have sex with a lot of people I’m nobody)
I had a somewhat open situation. I’m bisexual and my ex (a male) wasn’t. I still wanted to continue having sex with women (there are things a woman has that a man doesn’t, obviously). We had decided that I couldn’t have sex with other men, but I could with women, whether he was present or not. (Usually he wasn’t.) Ultimately, he couldn’t stand the thought of sharing me with anyone, male or female, and at that point, that was something I couldn’t negotiate. And, what do you know, I’m in a monogamous relationship with the man I’m marrying. But I still long sometimes for the soft curves of a woman…
I don’t know if that’s necessarily a positive or negative story, but it’s out there.