Polyamory/open marriage questions [Formerly, "What Exit's polyamory question..."]

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Short answer, no.

Longer answer: there are certain groups, of course, like CAW , who I don’t need to 'splain anything to. They’ve all accepted it as a matter of course and are in no need of education by me. So that’s nice, to be able to hang out and relax and not have to stress about mentioning “my husband’s girlfriend” in passing and know a long explanation is about to come up.

VERY generally, the neopagan community has at least heard of polyamory before I got there, so I can at least say, “We’re poly” or “we have an open marriage” and not have to do a whole explanatory song and dance. BUT there are a lot of neopagans and people who hang out with neopagans who are very much threatened by polyamory. They tend, unfortunately, to give lip service to acceptance, but when push comes to shove (say, I get romantically involved with someone they know) all the judgment comes to the surface. LeVay was right about one thing - even when we think we’ve shed our cultural baggage, it’s still there, lurking in our subconscious, waiting to bite us in the ass. So it’s tricky. I’ve seen several communities implode due to people’s discomfort with polyamory in practice, when everyone was on board with it in theory.

The thing is, once I explain what’s up, nearly everyone is “accepting” of it at the very least on the level of, “Well, *I *couldn’t live like that, but if it works for you, great!” And really, that’s all I’m hoping for. I’m not out to recruit people into deviant lifestyles. In my real life all I want is to avoid drama by people who see me kissing a man not my husband and think they need to confront me or inform my husband or whatever. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out, but at least I’ve made an attempt to inform those who I think need informing, you know?

The only difference I’ve seen by religious denomination is that the Christians tend to be more comfortable with euphemism and subterfuge. A whispered, “We have ‘an arrangement’,” with a raised eyebrow gets a knowing nod and smile in return, and that’s all that needs to be said. The agnostic/atheist crowd always wants more details.

ETA: I’d be happy to reply to any questions or comments, but I will be away from the computer all day. Unfortunately, my grandmother just got moved into Intensive Care, so I have to go spend Mother’s Day in a stinky hospital. I might be back on tonight, definitely will be on tomorrow. So please don’t think I’ve abandoned the thread by not replying today.

2

Girl, you need a T-shirt:

“Save it, Ms. Noseypants – he already knows.”

3

OK,questions: have you always accepted this lifestyle,or was there a time when theory was easier than practice?

   How interdependent is the Paganism with being polyamory,or could they exist alone?

Sorry about having to spend the day in the hospital,but I hope your gran enjoys seeing you.

4

Withdrawing my original comment because it didn’t really answer the question.

5

The pagan/polyamory connection isn’t something inherent in either characteristic. I’ve been pagan and I’ve been poly, at non-coincidental periods in my life (I was Wiccan in my early 20s, poly in my early 30s(by which time I’d become agnostic)). Neither supervenusfreak nor myself are religiously active (I’m agnostic, he still thinks of himself as Methodist, but doesn’t attend) and we’ve been poly/open since the beginning of our relationship (4 years in July!).

Now being poly tends to be easier if you’re pagan, since paganism tends to draw a much more liberal crowd that’s more comfortable in general with non-mainstream life- and love-styles. Likewise, I think you’ll find more poly/open relationships among gay men than among straight folks (and among bears in particular, for some reason which I don’t quite comprehend). It’s a matter, I think, of thinking “I’m already done the hard social work of forging my way out of the mainstream in matters of religion or love or sex, why not try a different way of doing things in this niche, too?”

6

Jeez, there’s some pretty judgemental Google ads down there… therapy, divorce… :wink:
ETA- now they are ads for porn! :smiley:

7

HA! That’s awesome. I need one, you’re right. But think about how many threads there are around here that start off, “I saw my best friend’s wife in a bar hanging on some dude - should I tell him?” and WAY more than half the replies say that yes, he deserves to know about her behavior as she’s putting him at physical risk (STDs), financial risk (unplanned pregnancy) and he should know what a skanky ho he married. I really can’t blame folks who don’t know “we have an arrangement” who want to protect him, you know?

My husband is/was my first attempt at a poly relationship. Yes, I felt some awful butterflies early on, as did he (I was his second attempt), but we learned over time how to communicate “Goldilocks” - not too little, not too much, but just right. I’d say the first year was the trickiest. We’ve been together 8 now, I think. Mostly my problem was feeling jealous and then feeling guilty for feeling jealous, so I wouldn’t communicate how I was really feeling, but hide my gritted teeth under a smile. I learned to knock that off, and things got a lot easier.

As **jayjay **said, they are absolutely independent. Any overlap is because of proximity increasing curiosity, not because of any doctrinal reasons (neopaganism doesn’t have much in the way of “doctrine” to begin with!)

Oh, thank you, you’re so sweet. She seems to be doing better than I feared - at least, as well as an 80 year old women with a broken hip, blood clots in her legs and a heart attack can be doing. She told me she saw Grandpa (dead 10 years now) and he told her it wasn’t time for them to be together yet; he needs her to stay here and watch over the kids, so I guess she’s not giving up yet!

8

I have a polyamory question. Do you run into problems with girlfriends/boyfriends of a married person feeling “second-class”? I’m trying to imagine being the boyfriend of someone who also has a husband–I suspect the apparent inequality of the situation might give me a bit of an inferiority complex.

9

Wow, thanks for rescuing my question WhyNot. I appreciate the answers. I was trying to figure out why it was no big deal to me one way or the other and I was thinking it was because I grew up a huge fan of Robert Heinlein and group marriages were open and accepted and explained in several of his major novels; especially “Moon is a Harsh Mistress” and “Friday”.

I also wondered if my being agnostic made my outlook on marriage that much different from religious Christians and Jews.

Do you prefer the term polyamory to group marriage? I wasn’t sure of the preferred term and used the one I knew.

Thanks again,
Jim

10

Yep. No matter how often I am warm and welcoming, most of them simply can’t believe that I’m not the enemy. It doesn’t help that my husband, God love 'im, is a magnet for damaged goods and deranged loonies. Although, really, I can’t blame them. They ARE second class, in a very real way. We haven’t found anyone we’d consider asking to join our family. There is a real limit on how much time and energy either of us can devote to someone else while continuing to put our family and each other first. We are married to each other. We “date” other people - and we don’t date with the intention of proceeding to marriage. It *is *different, absolutely. I try to make every moment count and live in the moment and be very focused and devoted when I’m with whomever I’m with, but the bottom line is that he’s my husband and no one else is.

When I’m involved with someone else who’s married, it’s kind of a relief, actually. We both understand the limitations of the arrangement - which sort of makes those limitations go away, to some extent. Conversations about the future just tend not to happen, or are taken as dreams and fantasies, because we both understand that any real future is probably limited, and we’d best enjoy the present.

They are simply different things. Polyamory is a blanket term that can cover many different forms on non-monogamy, and doesn’t refer to marital status. Group marriage refers to a set of relationships where more than two adults are equal spouses to one another (Jack and Diane and Sally are all “married” to one another). Plural marriage or polygamy involves more than two people, some of whom are spouses to more than one person - but not everyone (Jack and Diane are spouses and Jack and Sally are spouses, but Diane and Sally are not romantically involved.)

And this thread reminds me that I REALLY have to go read all that historical info on polyamory so I can get to writing that staff report I’m supposed to be helping out on. :smack:

11

WhyNot, that’s a Staff Report I’m looking forward to reading. :slight_smile:

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Well, damn. Now I’ll have to write it! :smiley:

13

WhyNot, I’m sorry to hear about your gran, but glad to know she’s doing better than you anticipated.

I have a lot of questions and I hope they’re not insulting, so I’ll apologize in advance if they are. But I’m just very curious about this. I googled it and only found this wikipedia reference which didn’t answer many practical questions for me. In my mind, I just see the perils and not the advantages, but that’s probably just because I don’t have any idea about how it works.

So maybe we can start there. What are the advantages to this type of arrangement?
Do the partners outside of marriage generally last very long?
Are partners in this type of arrangement ever tempted to change the arrangement and leave their spouses for the other partner?
Are the connections primarily emotional or sexual?

One of the things I’d be concerned about would be that one partner has more of an ability to demand that the other partner be OK with it, if say, one partner had more money or more power in some way and forced the other partner to accept the lifestyle. Does this happen? Are there any safeguards that it doesn’t happen?

Does this practice lead to more or less emotional stability for long-term relationships?

You noted that sometimes it’s hard enough to get time with the primary spouse. Are there times when one spouse would say that the other can’t see anyone else unless they spend enough time with them first? Does this present problems?

I guess I’m just trying to envision how this works, so I appreciate any insight you can give. Thanks.

14

Heffalump, there are as many different “arrangements” in polyamorous relationships as there are polyamorous relationships. The distance from the mainstream tends to prevent a standard from developing, so everyone handles things differently. I can’t speak for WhyNot or any other poly person, but I can describe how my relationship with supervenusfreak works.

We have a completely open relationship. We can sleep with whoever we want, either each separately or both together. Our pact is to always play safely with other people. We are also open to having more than just us in the relationship (we did have a third for a short time back in the beginning, but he had some ex baggage that prevented him from giving our relationship enough attention to actually call it a relationship), but haven’t found any other than the one mentioned above who clicked with us and were willing to enter a triad.

There is very little to no jealousy in our relationship. I know a lot of people are rolling their eyes at that, but it’s true. In four years of some rather wild extracurricular activity, almost all of which has been known to the other partner, I’ve had only one instance of mild jealousy, and that was almost entirely because Dwight and the other person clicked with each other almost instantly. More often I’m slightly jealous because I’m the shy one, and in the early months of our relationship he’d manage to talk someone I had my eye on into bed before I could even get up the courage to say hello to the guy. This was always because I didn’t happen to mention to Dwight that I was interested in the guy, so he went for him without that knowledge and led him off somewhere. Now, if I’m interested, I tell Dwight and he ropes the guy in for both of us! :wink:

15

jayjay,

Thanks for all the info. about how your relationship works. In your relationship, it sounds like the draw is mostly sexual since that’s the part that you talked about most. So is the benefit that you get more variety? Is that the purpose of it?

16

Rhiannon8404 wrote this whole post only to find out that her “guest” membership has expired despite the fact that she renewed last week. Guess it hasn’t gone through yet. So I am copying and pasting what she wrote:

Obviously, I’m not WhyNot, but I can share my experiences with polyamory with you if you like.

What are the advantages to this type of arrangement? For me, the main advantage is that I have someone outside of my primary relationship, to do things with to talk to, to hang out with, to bounce ideas off of, etc. Basically, all the wonderful things of dating, but also the comfort and security of my marriage.

Do the partners outside of marriage generally last very long?I don’t know “generally”, but my first polyamorous relationship lasted 3 years. He had a girlfriend he lived with, and I had already been married and in a monogamous marriage when I met him. When I found that we were attracted to each other, emotionally, spriritually and physically. I spoke to my husband about it and he encouraged me to explore it, but to promise I would be honest with him. Unfortunately, this was not the case for my boyfriend and he was actually “cheating” on his girlfriend with me. The relationship was not balanced, but we cared enough about each other to make it last 3 years.

Are partners in this type of arrangement ever tempted to change the arrangement and leave their spouses for the other partner? I would imagine that in some cases they are. It has never happened to me. I love my husband more than anyone else on earth. I believe we were truly made for each other and will be married for life. However, I also believe that sometimes it takes more than one person to complete us and occasionally someone comes along to fill that need.

Are the connections primarily emotional or sexual? In my case, they were more emotional to begin with developing into a sexual relationship in much the same way a relationship would develop between two single people. My first relationship, we drew the line at no intercourse. We fooled around, made out and did everything else, but didn’t actually have sex. That was his rule and I was happy to comply. The relationship I am currently in is much more sexual, but also the emotions run much deeper. This is someone I’ve known for 20+ years and we are finally realizing that for our relationship to be complete we needed to take it further. Both our spouses are not only accepting, but encouraging it. They have actually developed a deep friendship, and if a deeper relationship develops between them, that is all the better.

One of the things I’d be concerned about would be that one partner has more of an ability to demand that the other partner be OK with it, if say, one partner had more money or more power in some way and forced the other partner to accept the lifestyle. Does this happen? Are there any safeguards that it doesn’t happen? This has never been the case for me. I would have dropped the whole thing like a hot potato if my husband had so much as winced when I told him what was going on. I made sure he knew that I would only pursue this if he was completely accepting and all he had to do was say so and I would break up with the guy.

Does this practice lead to more or less emotional stability for long-term relationships?I can only speak for myself and my husband, but the times in our 14 year marriage that he and I have been closest, the times that our marriage have been at its best, are the times that I have been involved in a secondary relationship. Somehow, it takes the pressure off of my husband in some areas and we can really enjoy each other.

You noted that sometimes it’s hard enough to get time with the primary spouse. Are there times when one spouse would say that the other can’t see anyone else unless they spend enough time with them first? Does this present problems? This has not been a problem for us. I only have one spouse and he is the most important person. He is my primary relationship and I have devoted to him first and foremost. My boyfriend (for lack of a better phrase “secondary relationship”) has the same priority as like my best friend would have. I see him when I can and enjoy the time we get together. In both of the secondary relationships I’ve had, we have made this perfectly clear and agreed that our primary relationships are way more important than the relationship between the two of us. Secondary relationships are just that…second in importance.

I hope this has helped you understand a bit.

17

Rhiannon8404 via Suburban Plankton, thanks for your comments. I have more questions but it’s getting late here, so I think I’ll sleep on them. Just wanted to let you know that I appreciate you taking the time to write this and for sharing so much of your life in it.

18

**How do you find the time?
**

I suck at time management, and I understand other people are better at it, but still the mind boggles. My last girlfriend I met while I was working part time and on summer break from college. We’ve broken up over a year ago, and since I’m out of school and have been working full time, I can’t even maintain normal friendships, much less find another relationship.

The idea that I could work, do chores, pay bills, not piss off my friends, have a wife, and a girlfriend just scares me. Let’s just say I work 9am to 8pm Monday through Friday with a 2 hour lunch break 12-2pm every day. Optimistic, but still. Throw in an hour for commute each day. Groceries, laundry, cleaning, dentist appointments, exercise, friends, relatives. Do you just not sleep?

19

I’m not poly, but - considering how many married/dating people find the time for an affair and all of the subterfuge required to cover it up, I’m not surprised that people in a polyamorous relationship can date. As posters above have described it as a “best friend” level of commitment, I guess it depends on how often you’d expect to see a best friend during a given week.

20

Brief aside to Groman:
Nobody can do everything.As you go along you (generic) get better at eliminating non-essentials and simplification.