Talking about relationships

[KenRachel]

TNT's question about arguments dovetails with something that I have been thinking about.

Who do you talk to about issues in your relationship? Just having someone outside of the relationship as a sounding-board can be a good thing. Of course they need to have some understanding of poly.

I've been finding that a lot of times I do not have anyone who understands poly to talk to.

The close male friend that we have. Well, he joins Rachel and I for threesomes, just friendship and sex, but still not as quite an outside party.

The close female friend. Well after her last breakup Rachel told she was free to borrow me at any time. She hasn't done anything with that, but again not quite an outside party.

What does everyone else do?

Ken

[Menage_a_Trois]

I understand what you are saying, most people, even lifestyler's who are suppose to be "open minded" don't get our relationship. So it is really difficult to turn to someone outside of our relationship to talk too about things.

For us we really just turn to one another.......we are our best sounding board.

The Ménages

[WesternSwing]

Turning inside and working it out is really the only thing you can do. I feel that involving anybody outside your relationship, especially if you play with them once in a while, is just throwing your spouse/primary partner under the bus. It's like talking about them behind their back and then when everyone is together it makes the situation uneasy because you've aired your dirty laundry to them.

I can only describe it as when I was having trouble in my first marriage and I confided in my family. When we tried to work stuff out my family never accepted her the same again, even though she'd been part of the family for 14 years. It definitely contributed to the final shipwreck or our relationship.

[Menage_a_Trois]

Exactly WS - that is why we treat our relationship as we do and hold it so close to the vest so to speak.....

[avid]

We're quite open about our relationship, and we're "out" to most of our good friends. Yes, we've got some wonderful friends!

Anytime I need to talk to someone, it's usually just about the typical annoying things that men do (make no mistake, I don't think I'm perfect!), so I usually just talk to a girlfriend. They understand that our relationship is solid, but sometimes you just need to kvetch.

For the big stuff, we talk to each other.