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

[Zeriel]

Addressed generally to Jodi, as an afterthought:

It really is hard to come to grips with moral guidelines that fall significantly outside your own. As an anecdote that you might find even more incomprehensible…

My wife and I, in addition to being polyamorous, are also to a certain extent swingers (that being the sexual-attraction-only variant, of course). While I’m not surprised to find that polyamorous couples are generally respectful of other couple’s boundaries, what has consistently pleasantly surprised me is how often a group of swingers, who are ostensibly only in it for the sex, will nonetheless ostracize any person in the group who’s been found to be dishonest with their spouse or cheating without permission.

The more I think about it, the more I think it’s probably that polyamory requires a good deal of honesty and clear boundaries in one’s primary relationship for it to function properly, and that seems to naturally translate for a good many people I know into respect for honesty and boundaries belonging to other people. As noted in the examples upthread, the only “poly” couples I know in which one or both participants is a homewrecker are also ones in which one participant is totally uncomfortable with the whole thing to begin with, which isn’t so much polygamy as it is emotionally blackmailing your partner into letting you cheat, IMHO.

[Lilairen]

[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo]
So the reason I asked the question was that if someone said that they had a 30 year marriage and a 15 or 20 year polyamory relationship, I’d have different questions, but I haven’t seen that portrayed here yet.
[/quote]

Given that I’m 29, it would be a real feat for me to have a 30-year marriage.

That first one-year relationship in my list? I was seventeen.

Just for a little perspective, since most seventeen year olds I knew at the time had a hard time holding together a relationship for a month.

I’ve mostly seen what I’d consider several limerence relationships with the backdrop of another partner who is doing the same thing. But that’s just my interpretation from my own experience based on my own beliefs.

My husband’s other relationships were very short when we were younger; once he found one that worked, he hasn’t broken up with someone since. That’s six years and two years, I believe.

If you want to talk to people my parents’ age, you’ll likely have better luck asking questions in the usenet newsgroup alt.polyamory than of whoever happens to buzz by the Dope. If you’re gonna stick with the vocal polyfolks here, you’re gonna have a hard time coming up with 30-year marriages, 'cause the names I remember are WhyNot and me, and I’m fairly certain that that just ain’t legal.

And now since I’m back in the thread, I do have a question. I’m wondering if any of you in this lifestyle have encountered others where the wife has the higher libido. Since men can only perform a certain amount during any given day, if the wife is not satisfied, are there relationships where only the wife is allowed to have the extra sexual relationships since any time the man is away, he would be taking away from his wife?

Assumption check: polyamory isn’t “this lifestyle”. There is no manner of living particularly associated with it, so it does not contain manner of living information.

I know plenty of cases where a woman has a higher sex drive than one or more of her partners. I do not know of any where this is the reason for having an open relationship, nor of any where the pricniple is “fuck someone else so long as I’m not around”.

[WhyNot]

[QUOTE=Lilairen]
If you want to talk to people my parents’ age, you’ll likely have better luck asking questions in the usenet newsgroup alt.polyamory than of whoever happens to buzz by the Dope. If you’re gonna stick with the vocal polyfolks here, you’re gonna have a hard time coming up with 30-year marriages, 'cause the names I remember are WhyNot and me, and I’m fairly certain that that just ain’t legal.

[/QUOTE]

Well, we *could *both move to Massachusetts, but I think we should, y’know, meet first. Or something.

[Lilairen]

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Well, we *could *both move to Massachusetts, but I think we should, y’know, meet first. Or something.
[/QUOTE]

I’m already here, but I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t have legally contracted for a marriage before I was born.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

[QUOTE=WhyNot]
Well, I’m only 32 myself, give me some time!
[/quote]

From what I’ve read of you here, you’ll find whatever you’re looking for. You seem to be very articulate and resourceful.

@WhyNot

One of my good friends has had two wives in a group marriage for over 20 years. My parents have been with their co-mates (another legally married couple) for…uh…ack, math…17 years now, I think.

They must have some interesting stories to tell.

@WhyNot

But frankly, most men are only limited in their prowess if limited to one woman. A man’s refractory period is amazingly short if you bring a new women into his sight.

Hmm. You’ve gained back my attention. Interesting stuff. I never thought of it that way.

Maybe spiritual growth is over-rated.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

[QUOTE=Lilairen]
Given that I’m 29, it would be a real feat for me to have a 30-year marriage.
[/quote]

That was somewhat of my point. Based on what I had seen of the thread, it seemed like a young person’s thing.

@Lilairen

If you want to talk to people my parents’ age, you’ll likely have better luck asking questions in the usenet newsgroup alt.polyamory than of whoever happens to buzz by the Dope. If you’re gonna stick with the vocal polyfolks here, you’re gonna have a hard time coming up with 30-year marriages, 'cause the names I remember are WhyNot and me, and I’m fairly certain that that just ain’t legal.

Ah, I wasn’t aware of who from the Dope was practicing polyamory before I read this thread.

And while I’m curious about it, I’m not so curious as to go to other websites to talk to others about it.

@Lilairen

Assumption check: polyamory isn’t “this lifestyle”. There is no manner of living particularly associated with it, so it does not contain manner of living information.

I’m not sure what this means. Is this like the distinction between being gay and having or not having a gay lifestyle (whatever that is)?

All I meant by “this lifestyle” was the style of life that included polyamory. There’s no other information contained in that phrase from my point of view.

But now I’m curious, what is your distinction?

[Lilairen]

[QUOTE=Heffalump and Roo]
I’m not sure what this means. Is this like the distinction between being gay and having or not having a gay lifestyle (whatever that is)?

All I meant by “this lifestyle” was the style of life that included polyamory. There’s no other information contained in that phrase from my point of view.

But now I’m curious, what is your distinction?
[/QUOTE]

It’s exactly the same point as there being no such thing as a “gay lifestyle”.

The word lifestyle means “manner of living”. You know nothing about someone’s manner of living from them saying they’re poly – not even whether they’re in one relationship in the moment, let alone more than one.

My manner of living is pretty typical for my region/social class, with the exception that I am not employed outside the house: I live with my husband, we have no children as of yet, he works a nine-to-five, we spend too much time screwing around on the computer, buy our music online, cook a reasonable amount of our food ourselves but order too much takeout for our budget, have a moderately active social life with a small group of friends. This is the basic lifestyle of pretty much every one we know well except for the couple of them who have kids and thus spend less time in the generalised social gatherings due to kidcare (and a fair number of them still have social gatherings and the kidcare gets distributed – I spent a while this past Saturday entertaining a baby, until he got offended that I had tits that were not providing him with milk and demanded his mommy).

This evening I wasn’t up to doing the big social gathering that happens on Thursdays, and someone else who wasn’t up for it said, “Hey, you want to come over, have dinner? I could use some help with my lawnmower.” Turned out when we got over there that it was too dark to put the lawnmower together, so we had noodles and watched the Discovery Channel instead. This event’s significance to my manner of living does not change depending on my relationship to the other person there: the lifestyle components remain as lawnmower (home-ownership), yuppie noodles from the fresh pasta store, cable TV.

As for the age thing – I’ve been being not taken seriously on poly forums for nine or ten years now because I wasn’t old enough to have a valid opinion. All of the people who were married for thirty years that hung out on the polyamory mailing lists kept telling me I was going through one of those young people phases and maybe I should come back in fifteen years to see if I was worth taking seriously. (At this point, due to a server reorganisation, I’ve lasted longer than several of the smaller mailing lists. And the main one isn’t exactly active anymore.)