He has a point. When Dudes hear Mormon they think "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the Mormons" However, I’d take it better if he said "They’re not part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the Mormons" For example, if someone posted a expose about Catholic’s doing such and such, approved by their church; but it turned out they were really members of the “Melkite Byzantine Catholic Church”, then that’d lead to confusion. http://www.nervline.com/therock/sites/other.htm
That’s why I posted my lengthy explanation above, so no one would be confused
Actually, as one, I think it’s very different. We don’t have “rules”, except what we make up ourselves. We don’t have societal expectations (or at least, we’ve decided to ignore the only one there is, which is that we’re weird or damaged), and we don’t have any sort of legal obligations to one another.
Some polyamorists are involved in group marriages, and would have issues of how to share time and affection with equal (or not equal) mates, but others are commited to a primary partner, and all other partners are considered less in status, and expected to not interfere with the primary bond. This last is the sort of arrangement my husband and I have. In our case, we work out the time and attention (and sex, of course) issue like we work out any issue in our marriage - we talk about it and do what works for as long as it works. When it stops working, we talk about it again.
And while I like to think of myself as kind and generous, I’ve known some polyamorists who are assholes, as well. Takes all kinds. We’re not saints simply because we have multiple partners.
Sorry, this was worded poorly. What I meant was that some are in a group marriage of equals, where several people live together and may attempt to divide their time equally, and others live in a duo, and may have subordinate relationships outside the home. My husband may have girlfriends, but he doesn’t have to provide for them, and I don’t expect them to spend the night in our home. I may have boyfriends, but I’m not doing their laundry or cooking them dinner every night. I’m married to one husband, with other relationships which are less in status than my marriage.
One hotel in which I stayed in a Muslim country had beds that were absolutely vast. I can only assume that this was so that the man could sleep with all his wives. Five in the bed would have been too many, but the bed was more than big enough for three.
Not to pry, but does your husband have multiple wives? If so, I would consider you the most informed of this subject, which is something I have always been curious about myself (not in an extra wife, but in how it is handled in more detail).
Which is why I was using them to rebut the “One peron goes crazy, two people fight, three people align two against one” pop psychology. It’s a small point only tangentially related to the OP, but I have likewise heard the CW that groups composed of X number of people are inherently unstable, but I’ve never seen anything to back such claims up.
No. We’re in the US, so such a thing would be illegal, and it’s not what we’ve agreed upon anyway. We are married to each other and only each other. The vast majority of our time (when not working) is spent with each other and our children. A few days a month (usually on weekends, although sometimes during the week) either he or I will have a “date” with another person. That date looks like any date you’ve been on - dinner and a movie, or a concert, or just hanging out. Any sex outside our marriage happens at some place other than our home, and it’s always, always, with a condom. (And yes, we’ve discussed what will happen in the event of an STD or birth control failure on either of our parts.)
While we don’t have a formal “veto” system (that is, I don’t get to OK his dates, nor he mine), we respect each other as friends, and if a relationship bothered one of us, we’d stop seeing the other person. Our marriage always comes first.
You can see why I don’t agree with **devilsknew **that polyamorists are like polygamists. *Some *polyamorists have relationships that look like polygamy, with big extended families, but some of us don’t.
Please don’t let this spiral this thread out of control.
I agree with your statement. What bugs me is that they aren’t Mormons, because the “regular” Mormons say they aren’t, but Mormons are Christians, no matter what kind of protest you get from all the Catholics and Protestants and Russian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox and Coptic Christians…
[Whynot=QUOTE] You can see why I don’t agree with devilsknew that polyamorists are like polygamists. Some polyamorists have relationships that look like polygamy, with big extended families, but some of us don’t.
[/QUOTE]
I hope my comparison was innocent enough. I only meant that there was some common ground. I truly wasn’t making a blanket statement, they are seperate ideals but similar lifestyles.
Thanks for sharing! So it is definitely not polygamy, more like ‘swinging’, or a true ‘open marriage’.
Back to polygamy, does anyone know what happens if there is a fight amongst the women or men or household in general? Do they all have a sit down? If it were one womans day/night/week to be with the husband, will he push her aside and go to the next?
Also, how do the different children get along (from different mothers)? Is there a lot of “My Mom can beat up your Mom” going on?
The Melkites are also part of the Catholic Church, except they’re Melkites, not Latins like Roman Catholics are. So it’s not really a good analogy.
A better comparison would be to the Polish National Catholic Church – they are not in communion with the Catholic Church, but call themselves Catholic, and a lot of people looking in from the outside would be hard-pressed to tell the difference.
Innocent enough. No offense taken at all. Just that old fightin’ ignorance knee-jerk reaction again!
And yes, FormerMarineGuy, I usually refer to it as an open marriage, precisely because of what we’ve seen in this thread: polyamory is often confused with polygamy.
I’ve meet a couple of African Maasai people, and I’ve heard a little about their life growing up. For the ones I know about, each woman has a seperate hut, her own cattle herd, her own gardens and raises her childern seperate from the others.
The one who’s home I visited wasn’t even in sight of any of the other wives. The husband traveled from compound to compound. According to stories that one of the sons told me, there was definately favorites, both among the women and the childern. The women were the actual providers, raising cattle and crops. The father was more of an occasional visitor.
No. Mormons are the ones who follow the Book of Mormon, that was translated by Joseph Smith, who did so by dropping a magic stone into his hat, burying his face in the hat and reading the words that appeared to him in the darkness.
