If you are truly committed to one person then why are you out pursuing other “relationships”?
First off, I’m not out pursuing other relationships.
Second, why do you think that commitment precludes having feelings for other people? Look up “commitment” in the dictionary and get back to me.
Diane’s questions:
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Do you worry about the possibility of your partner falling madly in love with someone else and having them exclude you from the relationship?
No, I don’t worry about that. Our relationship is far too strong for anything to come between us. -
If your spouse had a baby with one of their partners, would you feel left out?
No, but I would hope it was intentional and we’d discussed it beforehand. -
If your spouse wanted to stop the open marriage but you were in love with a third person, would you end the relationship with this other person?
Yes I would. This isn’t the sort of thing that works without both of us agreeing to it.
sidle’s questions:
1 - in our marriage, there isn’t a reason for it. It would be sort of stupid for us to put limitations on the way we feel and the way we choose to live our lives based on what other people felt and did with their lives [and I am saying that how it applies to this situation. Don’t someone come in and say “so what if you felt it was ok to go murder people…”]
2 - If one of us had some reason for the other to not date a particular person, we wouldn’t. We respect each other’s feelings.
3 - Hard to say, but with regards to my husband, it’s a very strong, fierce, momma-bear sort of feeling. My relationship and my love with my husband are unlike feelings I have ever had for/with any other person, ever, just as it is with my son. I don’t feel the way I feel for my son for any other person.
4 - yes, they are. They started out as friendships, they don’t cease to be friends when things get romantic. They become romantic friendships. I’ve never attempted to control how “far” a friendship goes… I could never have the bond I have with my husband with any other person. It’s just the way it is between us. It isn’t because of some rule or some limitations we have put on each other, it is just because that is the way it is between us. And it is partially because of that that we aren’t threatened by the idea of loving other people as well.
Kinsey requests cites for the statistic that over 50% of partners in monogamous relationships cheat, and that monogamy is not our nature, but imposed by morality.
Firm statistics on adultery are hard to come by, but self-reported surveys tend to report about 60% of men and 40% of women commit infidelity. Most experts tend to believe the overall average is even higher than 50%, perhaps as much as 70%. If you dispute those figures, please provide me a cite. But, here are some cites:
The first cite is not available online, but it is by Dr Alfred C Kinsey (any relation?) who reported in his 1948 book Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male that 50% of men had committed adultery.
OK. How about the nature of monogamy? From the same source I cited in my post to Lilairen:
This particular cite is copyrighted, and I hesitate to quote anymore of it, but it is relatively short and an easy read, so I suggest you read the entire article to get the context. Please note the section about primates relative testicular weight as biological evidence of humans natural inclination towards infidelity.
Then read up on our closest genetic relatives, the bonobos, and their sexual proclivities [url=http://songweaver.com/info/bonobos.html]here](]ROBERT WRIGHT[/url).
Then read up on Stephen J. Gould, who notes that human evolution provides bodily structures and biological potentialies, but not behavioral dictates. He suggests that biology sets constraints which permits a wide range of possible outcomes determined by cultural environments.
Also note the prevalence of non-monogamy in societies through history in the Robert Wright cite to fulfill your other cite request. Your attempt to break my statement into pieces to discredit it is not appreciated.
I did not say that two people committing to each other is an oddity. I did not say that monogamy could not be found throughout human history. Go back and read my original statement (which you quoted!).
Even in cultures where infidelity is punishable by death, it is nonetheless prevalent. If monogamy was our nature, how can you explain such odd and destructive behaviors?
Please note: In my post above, in my second quote, I misspelled the author’s name, which should be Robert Wright and not Robin Wright (moderators: feel free to edit to correct). I did get the name right on a later post.
Also for readers that won’t take the time to read that cite, here is another presentation of the orignal research of one of the particular points:
Tum te tum.
Diane’s questions:
1: I’m not a part of any of my partners’ relationships, and I don’t want to be a part of any of my partners’ relationships, so being “excluded” from them doesn’t strike me as being a problem. I’m not involved with them in the first place. I do happen to be friends with most of the people my partners are either involved with or interested in, but that’s our business, not theirs. So long as my partners are meeting their agreed-to obligations to me, what they do with the rest of their time isn’t something I feel I have a legitimate concern about.
2: I’m a little baffled by this one, honestly; what would I be left out of? I have my doubts that either of my marriage-equivalent relationships are with people who are liable to run out of sperm any time soon. . . .
3: I would be more likely to end the relationship with the person who insisted I make the choice. I grant no veto power, and particularly would not cater to the demands of someone who would so casually take it upon themselves to attempt to invalidate commitments I have made to other people. Besides: which spouse should have that power?
sidle:
I am committed to one person.
I am also committed to another person.
Where’s the “can’t” or the “don’t want to”?
AZCowboy:
Thanks for the welcome. :}
I would note that your cites are either referring to the cultural tendency to only look at the relationship patterns of men (as if women have no volition), or using the word incorrectly. “Polygyny” refers only to the practice of having multiple relationships with women; using it as a synonym for serial monogamy is specifically denying or ignoring the existence of people who take sequential male mates. (Usually I’m bitching on this account about the people who claim that “polygamy” denotes “single man with many wives”, which, given that polyandry is anthropologically rare, is actually supported by some dictionaries, unlike “polygyny” as an ungendered term.)
(The word thing is a pet peeve, both because I’m a raving pedant, and because so long as “polygamy” and “polygyny” are used in some way interchangeably, I believe that the concept of legalisation of any form of multiple marriage in my country is going to be flatly impossible; people will shout about the evils of polygamy, and the images are going to be of perpetually pregnant housewife welfare mothers trying to get by on the income of their single male provider divided up many ways. Talk about your political lead balloons.)
I don’t personally understand how a well-wishing over something such as a promotion can be said to exclude feeling jealous over not having received said promotion; can you explain to me why you believe that they cannot coexist?
It was tongue-in-cheek, but actually, I am damn well jealous of his thesis. It’s getting the time and attention which would otherwise have been given to me; what else is there to call it? (My dictionary defines “jealous” as “fearful of being supplanted”; my previously gifted time, given to the thesis – there’s a being supplanted for you.)
Tum te tum.
Diane’s questions:
1: I’m not a part of any of my partners’ relationships, and I don’t want to be a part of any of my partners’ relationships, so being “excluded” from them doesn’t strike me as being a problem. I’m not involved with them in the first place. I do happen to be friends with most of the people my partners are either involved with or interested in, but that’s our business, not theirs. So long as my partners are meeting their agreed-to obligations to me, what they do with the rest of their time isn’t something I feel I have a legitimate concern about.
2: I’m a little baffled by this one, honestly; what would I be left out of? I have my doubts that either of my marriage-equivalent relationships are with people who are liable to run out of sperm any time soon. . . .
3: I would be more likely to end the relationship with the person who insisted I make the choice. I grant no veto power, and particularly would not cater to the demands of someone who would so casually take it upon themselves to attempt to invalidate commitments I have made to other people. Besides: which spouse should have that power?
sidle:
I am committed to one person.
I am also committed to another person.
Where’s the “can’t” or the “don’t want to”?
AZCowboy:
Thanks for the welcome. :}
I would note that your cites are either referring to the cultural tendency to only look at the relationship patterns of men (as if women have no volition), or using the word incorrectly. “Polygyny” refers only to the practice of having multiple relationships with women; using it as a synonym for serial monogamy is specifically denying or ignoring the existence of people who take sequential male mates. (Usually I’m bitching on this account about the people who claim that “polygamy” denotes “single man with many wives”, which, given that polyandry is anthropologically rare, is actually supported by some dictionaries, unlike “polygyny” as an ungendered term.)
(The word thing is a pet peeve, both because I’m a raving pedant, and because so long as “polygamy” and “polygyny” are used in some way interchangeably, I believe that the concept of legalisation of any form of multiple marriage in my country is going to be flatly impossible; people will shout about the evils of polygamy, and the images are going to be of perpetually pregnant housewife welfare mothers trying to get by on the income of their single male provider divided up many ways. Talk about your political lead balloons.)
I don’t personally understand how a well-wishing over something such as a promotion can be said to exclude feeling jealous over not having received said promotion; can you explain to me why you believe that they cannot coexist?
It was tongue-in-cheek, but actually, I am damn well jealous of his thesis. It’s getting the time and attention which would otherwise have been given to me; what else is there to call it? (My dictionary defines “jealous” as “fearful of being supplanted”; my previously gifted time, given to the thesis – there’s a being supplanted for you.)
I’m also going to attempt to answer posted questions, because there are (obviously) a lot of flavors of poly lifestyles and the answers are different for everyone.
Diane’s questions:
Sure. Very little, mind you, but the thought does cross my mind. Polyamory is not a cure-all for personal insecurties. My reaction has always been to tell my partner something like “hey, I’m feeling insecure and lonely right now, could you give me some extra attention?” - so he does, and I feel better. Given that he has never shown any indication of being seriously unhappy with me or threatening to leave, I’m pretty much capable of acknowledging that my (occasional) fears are a product of my own mind. This is very different from classical jealousy, in that I’m not angry or resentful of the other wo/man or relationship, I’m concerned about the strength of ours.
Not really an issue for me since I am firmly opposed to having children myself, and my partner feels the same (and has had a vasectomy). If he wanted kids and had someone else to have them with, I would be delighted and supportive. I might even consent to babysitting (but not parenting, I’m not cut out for it).
You better believe I’d be almighty pissed if someone tried to pull this on me. (Note: I’m allergic to marriage, so there would not be a spouse/lover thing, but there could be a primary/secondary or primary/primary conflict.) I honestly don’t know how I’d react, and I’m sure it would depend on my partner’s motivations.
My lover and I have both had lovers the other didn’t particularly like (it’s not my relationship, it’s none of my business), but the ones that lasted have always been people we both really enjoyed and could hang out with. We’ve also claimed what we call “veto power”, so we can ask the other to abort a potential or short-term lover as someone dangerous, seriously unhealthy or extremely objectionable in some way. We’ve never had to confront the problem of a long-term lover being a real problem, but I would understand if that happened and my partner tried to end that relationship.
A side note here: what we have together is a relationship, and these change and grow and sometimes fall apart. They require imput and work. We are not just fuck-friends, and we don’t allow polyamory out of indifference. We both regard it as perfectly valid to respond to and fight threats to this relationship, because this relationship is a wonderful thing we’ve both worked very hard on and value. If my partner comes to me and says “hey, I think your relationship with Mr. E is harming our relationship because of X, Y, and Z, and I want you to change this”, be assured that I will do my best to change X, Y, and Z as well as re-evalutate my relationship with Mr. E.
So I guess what I’m saying is that if my partner wanted to exclude another relationship to save ours, I would respect and listen to his views (although I might work to salvage both relationships). If he’s trying to end polyamory entirely, I would regard that as a betrayal of the relationship we’ve set up and the person he knows me to be. Given that I’ve been with him for ten (happy) years and love him with all my heart, I might stay with him in a renegotiated relationship, but it would require a lot of soul-searching.
sidle’s questions (forgive me if they were meant only for OpalCat):
Currently, I am only committed to one person. However, I am naturally inclined toward multiple relationships and I would feel artificially bound by a monogamous relationship.
I think I dealt with how myself and my lover choose other lovers above.
Kinsey, you’re obviously not listening to what people are saying in this thread, so I’m not really interested in responding to you.
Lilairen, I appreciate your concern over the use of the word polygyny. I do believe, however, that it is a proper use of the term.
I don’t believe the cites are necessarily overlooking the relationship patterns of women. I think the point is related to our culture, where men in power tend to be able marry sequentially with younger (fertile) women, even as they grow older. Essentially, our culture, sexist as it is, has created a de facto acceptability of serial monogamy, and the result has many of the same effects as polygyny (where powerful men tend to dominate the available pool of fertile women).
I think our differences over the concept of jealousy are simply semantic. To me, jealousy is related to a fear of rivalry, and is normally directed toward the rival. When I used the word in my earlier posts, I prefaced it with emotional and sexual in parentheses. I was trying to limit its use to those specific instances (which seemed most relevant to this thread), and avoid connotations related to material objects of desire. FWIW, my dictionary, Merriam Websters Online, defines jealous as 1a) intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness b) disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness 2) hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage 3) vigilant in guarding a possession. I was trying to avoid reference under the third usage.
Diane, FWIW, my answers to your questions would be much more consistent with Lilairen’s than OpalCat’s. And on preview, probably even more in line with mischievous’.
And Kinsey, you responded to my post by ignoring my questions and requesting cites. I have provided the cites, so how about answering my questions. To refresh your memory:
Do you claim that “forsaking all others” is a moral goal?
And when you say, “To be truly committed to one person seems more mature”, could you clarify how it seems more mature?
And since you asked for cites, let me add a few more:
Do you believe that monogamy is natural (inherent in humans), and not culturally driven?
Do you believe that adultery is rare?
(Here’s hoping this doesn’t double-post, but at least it’s comparatively short.)
I figured that it was probably a commentary on the cultural tendencies of that sort, yeah. I still have some objections, because I’ve been smacked a lot with people responding to my multiple relationship status with, “How can you let your husband do that to you?” Apparently, the fact that I was the dominant influence on the relationship being open is a possibility that doesn’t occur to people – again, because of the cultural preconceptions.
It’s a bloody mess of a situation. It’s hard to talk about a lot of these issues, because there’s a lot of unspoken assumptions that are taken to be universal – the one that’s shown up in this thread most obviously, I think, is “commitment” being presumed by some people to mean specifically “a commitment to sexual/emotional exclusivity”.
I particularly appreciate your clarification of your concern. I do note that most of the poly advocates responding to this thread have been female, and none have come off sounding like they were somehow coerced by their husbands/primaries into the situation.
Even responses to the events in the OP tend to suggest that perhaps the husband manipulated Sifflers Mom’s friend into the arrangement. While I acknowledge that was possible, I tend to doubt that the month before disclosure means the man lied. Perhaps the relationship did not evolve to become intimate enough to warrant disclosure until that month was complete (seems a reasonable assumption to me). Somehow, it comes off, “oh, that poor woman”, while completely ignoring her complicity in the following 2 years and 11 months.
I’ve seen threads at the SDMB that as soon as polygamy is mentioned, the concept of the infamous Utah-style polygamists indenturing young girls into arranged marriages seems to pop into people’s minds. It’s a troubling situation.
However, the goal of this board is to fight ignorance, and I think many of the poly advocates here have made wonderful contributions to that end in this thread. If I may, I would like to take the opportunity to summarize a few points:
[ul]
[li]Polyamory is quite different from swinging, wife-swapping, free-love, and bdsm. While there may be cross-over among the various individuals, one should never assume that polyamory is about sex (factoid: studies have shown that polyfolk actually tend to have less sex than folks in monogamous relationships)[/li][li]Even within polyamory, no common model of relationships exist. Some relationships have primary/secondary/tertiary relationships. Some have equal and balanced dyads (pair-bonded) relationships. Some have group relationships, where all participants maintain bonded relationships (but not ncessarily sexual). There is no one standard.[/li][li]Hi Opal![/li][li]Poly folk, generally speaking, experience jealousy and relationship insecurity. While some polyfolk report not experiencing jealousy at all, most do have that emotional response, it is simply that their triggers and responses are different than what most mono-folks would expect.[/li][li]Poly relationships are not easy. Maintaining an intimate relationship requires work. Maintaining a second intimate relationship requires more than twice as much effort. Cultural mores make them even harder. It’s definitely not for everyone. If you are unsure, it is probably not for you.[/li][li]Despite the costs (see above), poly relationships can yield benefits. Group family units may derive greater economic power, better household efficiency, better access to childcare, a more satisfying sex life, and less likelihood of a break-up due to infidelity.[/li][li]Polyfolk are not always out looking for new relationships. People can be self-described as polyamorous, while not involved in any relationship at the time. These relationships often develop first as friendships, and evolve to beome more intimate or romantic. Polyfolk don’t typically hang out in singles bars looking to add a partner. Some groups actually have problems with others interested in joining the group, and assuming they just have to fill out an application and pass the interview! It’s generally much more complicated than that.[/li][li]Polyamory is not well-received or accepted in most western societies today. Therefore, they are most-often kept underground. And because of that, mono-folks tend to believe they are much less common than they actually are. One study reports that out of married (m-f) couples, 15% to 28% allowed for nonmonogamy. Rates of prevalence go up from there for cohabitating couples, lesbian, and gay male couples. It’s not as rare as you think.[/li][li]Polyfolks are not more or less happy than monogamous people. They are not more or less satisfied with their lives. While their relationships almost never breakup due to extramarital sex, their relationship stability is no different from monogamous ones.[/li][li]Poly relationships dissolve for many of the same reasons that monogamous relationships dissolve. When a mono-folk sees a poly relationship end, they often assume that the lifestyle was the root cause. Funny, they rarely attribute the monogamous lifestyle as the root cause of the failure of a monogamous relationship.[/li][/ul]
There’s my list in the effort to fight ignorance. YMMV.
AZCowboy, I think that was a well-thought-out and well-done summary.
Next person who comes in saying EITHER camp is more “emotionally healthy” is getting my imaginary knuckles all up in their imaginary faces.
shakes widdle fist, attempts to look menacing, fails.
Sorry, I haven’t been able to log on for a few days, I keep getting an error message.
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Yes, I believe that “forsaking all others” is a moral goal.
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I believe that to be “truly committed” to one person means being with that one person. It means to me being mature enough to say, “I am going to commit to this one person and we will build our life together, and I will not cheat on him or her.”
Being with many people seems immature in that it seems like you can’t make up your mind who you want to be with. Making a committment (i.e., getting married) seems to me a way of saying, “I chose to be with YOU, and not chase around after a bunch of other people.”
I don’t understand the point of getting married and saying you are committed if you are going to pursue other relationships. -
Yes, I believe monogany is both natural and culturally driven.
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I don’t think adultery is as prevalent as some studies make it out to be. I remember reading or hearing (and sorry, no cites) a few years ago that many of those “How prevalent is Adultery?” surveys are flawed, because when asked (for surveys), most men tend to lie about things like that, because they think it makes them look better if other men (the survey-takers) think they’ve had lots of sex partners. And that also because people tend to answer the questions the way they think the person asking the questions wants them to answer. So I don’t put a lot of faith in surveys.
That’s all I have to say. I asked a question about being “more emotionally evolved” which some people took to be a personal attack. That was never my intention. I wanted to know why someone in an open marriage was considered to be “more emotionally evolved” and that question never got answered.
There comes a point when I just drop out of a debate because there doesn’t appear to be any progress being made.
This is that point.
How convenient. Is it possible that your having trouble reconciling the facts with your worldview?
Now that’s not quite accurate, perhaps you should go reread the thread. But please note that not a single person posting in advocacy of polyamory suggested that polyamory reflects more emotionally evolved individuals. Not one. But you went even further, adding your judgement that “to be truly committed to one person seems more mature.” And you were (rightfully) called on it.
Further, the question was answered directly not once, not twice, but three times (and indirectly by at least two others).
So your statement that the question was never addressed is clearly false, and evidence that you are not reading the thread (or deliberately misrespresenting it - I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt).
Can you provide any logical or rational reasons to support this view? First, let me make it clear that I agree that if you make an exclusive commitment to someone, then it is moral to keep that commitment. My question relates to why it is moral to make such a commitment in the first place.
A recent article in my local paper in their “News for Kids” section explained that practically every world religion developed a moral guideline described generally as the “golden rule”, aka, the ethic of reciprocity. So that we don’t break down in semantics, my dictionary shows only one definition for forsake: to renounce or turn away from entirely, synonym abandon.
I certainly accept the golden rule as a moral guideline (do you?), but I struggle to reconcile “forsake all others” with it in any way. Are you able to reconcile it? If so, how?
Are you Christian? Many Christians judge the morals of their behaviors against the criteria of “What would Jesus do?”. Which model - exclusive commitment to one individual, forsaking all others, or loving more than one - do you think better describes what Jesus would do? (If your not Christian, feel free to skip this paragraph altogether).
These comments lead me to believe that you simply are not reading the posts in this thread. Many polyfolks commit to “this one person” (and those other people) to build a life together and not cheat on him or her (or them). It is often referred to as polyfidelity. Practically every person advocating polyamory in this thread has said they are committed to someone.
Numerous times those same folks pointed out that they are not out “chasing a bunch of other people” - they are simply not ruling out the possibility that they may desire to maintain more than one intimate relationship.
The second sentence from the quote above is the most troubling portion of your argument. Your argument reflects the fallacy of the false dilemma. The fact that someone may commit to two (or more) relationships does not imply that they “can’t make up their mind”.
Your continued emphasis on “to me” is your way to avoid disrupting your worldview, a way of saying that those concepts may be universals for everyone else, just not “to you”. The very essense of a closed minded position…
Can you offer any evidence that monogamy is natural? Or is it just natural to you?
Well, why the hell would you ask for cites if you are simply going to wave your hand and say you don’t believe them? Did the facts threaten your worldview again? For the record, you didn’t even address the question, which was “Do you think adultery is rare?”
Even your argument is quite suspect. In your first answer, you maintain that “forsaking all others” is moral. In your second answer, you maintain that a commitment to one person (exclusively) is mature. So your argument that most men would lie on adultery surveys to make themselves “look better” would imply that appearing immoral and immature makes them look better. What kind of reasoning is that? It certainly isn’t logical. It sounds more like the rationalization of someone whose worldview is threatened. It directly implies that, for men at least, they “look better” if they have had lots of sex partners. Yet somehow, monogamy is both natural and cultrually driven. How do you explain that little discrepancy? And how do you explain that 40% of married women would report infidelity? Are they lying too?
I’m now beginning to understand why the fight against ignorance is taking longer than we thought.
For what it’s worth, I think if humans do it, it’s natural.
Which would make monogamy natural.
It would also make a huge variety of forms of nonmonogamy natural.
My answer to the whole “forsaking all others” question is to quote Ringo Starr, actually. “I don’t subscribe to your religion.”
My husband told me years ago when I was asking him how he felt about the whole polyamory thing that one of the things he loved about me was my capacity to care about other people. He added that given that, he’d consider himself a hypocrite to insist that I only form emotional bonds with him.
So where’s mature?
I find the equivalence being drawn between “having more than one relationship” and “cheating” to be remarkably perturbing, but unfortunately very common. Apparently the idea that people make their own agreements, and “cheating” is breaking the agreements that are actually there, not the ones that third parties want to be there so they can harp on about moralism, is a tough one to swallow.
Lilairen, you are quite the reductionist, the moderator, and the peacemaker. Reminds me of someone I know quite well* …
To define nature in such a reductionist way is to completely remove any value from the word’s meaning. I thought it was quite clear that I was using the word natural in contrast to nurture. So allow me to define my use more clearly. From a behaviorist perspective, natural means everything of the human animal (as you have defined it), less the influence of any environmental factors (nurture, culture, societal mores, etc.). It is not the full set of potentials offered by our DNA and our biology, but the subset of the potentials that are or would be actualized if not for outside influence during our development.
Now, I don’t claim that polyamory is natural, just more likely to be natural than monogamy. At least there is some evidence that supports the argument. I’m just struggling to understand any evidence that supports the claim that monogamy is natural. Where’s the argument?
*[sub]Not Lilairen, for anyone confused by that comment[/sub]
laugh! The idea of me as a peacemaker would probably give most people I know the giggles. Perhaps my husband is rubbing off on me.
I would say the existence of people who only have, want, or are capable of forming one partnership-relationship at a time (and, in extreme cases, one relationship in their lifetimes) is evidence for the same. I know a number of the former and one of the latter; several of the former might be potentially serially monogamous, but are still involved with their first ever partner.
I’d hold that it’s much more likely to be the case than the existence of someone who is similarly “wired” to want two and exactly two partnership relationships, in fact. However, given that I know for a fact that people want two-and-exactly-two partners exist (given that I am such a being, and I have also encountered “one of each” bisexuals) I see no reason to believe that other people with similarly arbitrary orientations do not exist, nor any reason to presume that those people I know who claim monogamous behaviour as an orientation are incorrect or lying.
Sorry that I have been away from this post that I have started. My PC had a full system crash awhile back and I just picked up my fully restored box yesterday from Gateway. I didn’t want you all to think I got scared and ran away from this thread.
It looks like you all have been busy posting and offering some valid examples here. It is nice to see this discussion expanding.
I do want to clarify something that I read in a comment elsewhere. Somebody questioned that I posted this thread without the knowledge/consent of my friend that is discussed in the OP. That’s a cute ASSumption, but no cigar. Don’t question my “so-called” friendship without the facts. It really makes you look like a blundering twit.
My friend wanted information about other people in poly relationships. She wanted to know the pros and cons of people that make it work and the people that don’t, without being verbally attacked directly (I can’t say that I blame her). She has been and still is fully aware of this threads existence. I didn’t think it was necessary to post every personal detail about why this thread was created since, and I quote, “it’s none of your fucking business.” Thank YOU for that .50 phrase, m’dear. It fits nicely.
Anyway, thanks to all of you for clarifying certain areas that I could not (since I am in a monogamist marriage and naïve about this lifestyle). She has taken your advice/absorbed it/ and executed a solid decision. She has left him, as of last week, to persue a relationship that fits her grove.
Thank you all for lending a helping hand (indirectly). I appreciate everyone’s input on this subject and for helping my friend in areas that I had no knowledge in.
Feel free to carry on, but I am very done with this post.
Thank you all very much.
Everybody I know of forms emotional bonds with more than one person in their life, often extremely strong emotional bonds that most people would call ‘love.’
I think that part of what nags at me about those who say polyamory involves statements about monogamous people forming ‘emotional bonds only with’ one person.
In reality, I don’t know a single person who has formed emotional bonds with only one person. Does that make everybody on earth polyamorous?
If not, what is it that differentiates polyamorous people from all the other people who form solid emotional bonds with lots of people?
For example: I have an SO (male) and a best friend (also male) who I love very much and who I’d do anything within my power as a mere human mortal for if they needed it. I have driven 400 miles in an afternoon to give one of them a hug, I’d gladly cut my own kidney out if one of them needed it, and I’d be just as devastated at losing one as the other. The only real difference in the relationships is that I don’t have sex with the best friend.
If polyamory isn’t about who you have sex with, am I polyamorous?
I’ve been reading with interest, and…
OK, I lost interest a while back. Frankly, I don’t care one way or the other how many people one has relationships of any kind with. I’m a monogamist in my relationships, and so of course I don’t start relationships with women who find that problematic. But other people can do whatever makes them happy.
Cary Tennis had an interesting column about this on salon.com today, which summarizes my feelings on the matter better than I could have put into words (warning: link may take you to a flash ad before the story; if it does, just click “go directly to story”):
http://www.salon.com/sex/col/tenn/2002/10/30/sya_wed/index.html
As I say, though, if the participants are happy, I’m all for it; as I recall, that’s the point of all this relationship-stuff we get so wrapped up in.
Here’s a question that I tried to make sure wasn’t loaded: When monogamy is removed from marraige, (a)Why get married and (b) what is gained from being married that being an unmarried couple could not provide? Does an open marraige mean that the spouses fark other people but love only each other? As an aside, and if and only if the preceeding question is a yes, why would somebody want to polka with someone that they didn’t love (while in a marraige)?
Please don’t jump, I am just curious.