What brings people to polyamory lifestyle?

[lustylearning 705]

Wow. I just want to say thanks for all the thoughtful questions and responses put forth in this thread.

 

My husband and I have noted that, at least for us, there is a sort of hierarchical nature to the partners we've encountered: the fun fly-by-nighters, with or without the potential for more; the occasional couples we could meet 2-3X year and enjoy; and then there are the couples that we really, really like, of which some we'll meet monthly or even more often. Those frequent flyer couples have produced in us the most emotions, which is, I suppose, normal. It's difficult to spend a lot of time with people and not develop some sort of feelings for them.

 

Now I believe, personally (I won't even try to speak for my better half on this), that love is a choice. The concepts of "falling in love" and "soulmates" are, to me, mythical. And no, I don't have a romantic bone in my body (poor hubby::P:). So it is easy for me to understand what I would deem to be a decision to love more than one person.

 

So in reading this thread, I find myself questioning why, if I can understand it, I'm not the traditional "exclusive" poly. I do believe in the unlimited capacity of the human heart to love, after all. But I think that for me, it's a matter of practicality and experience. We have and will continue to enjoy a variety of sexual partners. Any exclusivity with others would diminish that. My husband is primary, and our commitment is born of love, time, and experience together. I know him and know how to work with him to achieve common goals. To introduce a new player or players to the team would be, at best, difficult. I also prefer being primary. I never want to have to question my husband's number one relationship priority. I need a certain amount of security and control in my life, and our marital commitment and family provide that. And aside from all that, I'm amazed anyone finds the time between the rat race and the primary relationship to bring anyone else so close. So I think these factors combine to create my choice to not seek the traditional poly relationship. They don't prevent me, however, from caring deeply for others, and as a couple, we would probably fall on the poly end, rather than the "use them and lose them" end of the spectrum.

 

Risk. Risk was mentioned. To care deeply for someone other than your partner is risky, indeed, because you stand to be hurt. But frankly, vanilla friends and family hold that same power. And there is a truth in the notion that where nothing is ventured, nothing is gained. So the question becomes, is life enhanced by caring for others? Well, for us it is. By the same token, not everyone is the same. And we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what works for us does not translate to everyone.

 

Again, thanks to all the other responders for giving me great food for thought.

[mixtupcpl 169]

lustylearning...

 

Great post. Very interesting insight. I think you captured a lot of what I'm feeling, but was unable to articulate

[gatorvol64 216]

Are you guys saying that in no case did actually falling in LOVE with another person and committing to them, making time, being a real family, etc, bother the original spouse at all? It seems hard to believe. Seems more likely that the other spouse realized pandoras box was open, had no way to close it, still loved their spouse more than anything, and just made room for spouse #2.

 

Again... Im not making judgments, just trying to understand b/c this is interesting and possibly cautionary. The poly stuff I read here to me feels like monogamy with 3 or 4 people.

 

No, I've never said that Gator falling in love with Kitten didn't bother me initially. I won't say it all again here but you may like to go back and read my posts. The suddenness of it was a huge factor I think.

 

I DID have a choice. Even if the Pandora's box was open I could have closed it. I chose not to. Yes, it was a tough decision and my love for him was a large part of my decision. However, if at any time, I thought it was going to be an end to he and I, I'd have stopped it. No matter the hurt feelings. If he hadn't been willing to "pull the plug" then our marriage wasn't what I thought anyway. Married couples face the same risk everyday. Monogamous or not. There is always the possibility that your spouse will meet someone else. Unlikely for most couples here I'll admit but, the risk is there.

 

Kitten brings things out in Gator that I don't. He gets to indulge some of his personality traits with her that he doesn't with me. I truthfully like seeing that.

 

Now, as to the 3 or 4 together monogamously. Well, its never been in doubt that I am still willing to swing. Solidifying our relationship has been more important. And frankly, while we still have to live 2 hours apart, it is difficult enough just finding time to be together. Some of the four are not interested in swinging at all right now. So, we will deal with this the same as each original couple did. Slowest pace goes. Maybe we'll swing again next week and maybe we won't swing again at all. And I'll only speak for myself on this. I'm more than willing to see both my men have a good time with another woman. And they know this.

 

Vol

[Guest rdy46227]

Him about her: She can form deep emotional attachments to multiple people, but was afraid/conditioned/sinning to say "I love you" outside a single relationship. Eventually she accepted that 1) it's OK to love more than one at a time, and 2) each relationship brings different things.

 

So she chooses a good marriage relationship and other relationships which supplement but don't challenge (create either/or choices within) her primary.

 

Speaking as her primary, accepting poly as OK provided her great internal relief, and let her blossom. In other words, she found poly triads as the solution to her emotional turmoil.

[Guest rdy46227]

Him about him: Exclusivity always seemed like an unreasonable/unnecessary restriction, imposed because someone was so insecure as to need to control another. In other words, healthy people should be able to conduct themselves rationally to create win-win relationships with many people.

 

Controlling what you do will not make me happy, and I certainly can't make someone love me. But I can make agreements/commitments that I can keep, and trust certain others to do the same, and communicate/renegotiate/evolve the relationship.

 

I've always tried to conduct any ongoing non-superficial relationship this way.

 

I've had simultaneous relationships where there was sexual chemistry, and have been fortunate that my then current web of relationships allowed bringing in sex without negative impact. And other times, I've had to refrain because I wanted to maintain some other relationship which I considered worth more than the sex I'd miss.

 

Yes, I'm weird and the vast majority of the population says that I'm either lying, crazy, and/or impossibly idealistic.

 

And yes, people like me are sparse, and I've found several who disappointed me by not being able to hold to my ideal, and I had to adopt the more common "defensive relationship" -- somewhere between "trust but verify" and "watch your back".

 

Bottom line: poly is a expected occurrence in my philosophy so it was a natural growth path for some of my relationships.

[horneinmo 15]

Be wary...the "Life-style" is not for everyone..Make sure you are both comfortable with each other,and can handle watching someone else fuck them...

[GoNatural 104]

2) each relationship brings different things.

 

So she chooses a good marriage relationship and other relationships which supplement but don't challenge her primary.

 

 

Yes, each relationship does bring certain things! That is a positive thing. The variety can be interesting, exciting, and fulfilling.

 

I dream of being a primary to such a woman someday.

[lustylearning 705]

I think it must evolve, naturally.

[ncmd_couple 597]

Except for a short period of one year being “single,” up until two years ago I had always been in monogamous relationships. At least outwardly so. Women had come into my life that I cared about. That level of caring in some cases I can honestly say is love. I was always in the position that I could not openly say what my feelings were because society’s norms said that I was not allowed to love more than one woman at a time. Those were emotional relationships, not sexual relationships.

 

So, over the years I internally explored trying to identify who I was. Serendipity came calling one day and I learned the word polyamory. Researching and reading I learned that polyamory is what really describes me the best. I love my wife very much, she is my “primary” and always will be. But I can now honestly say that there are other women in my life that I can love and care about whether or not there is any sexual relationship between me and them or not. And as swingers, we can have sex with others without emotional ties. For me, there is no direct connection between love and sex.

 

The other women in my life? Life’s circumstances prevent anything further coming of our relationship. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love and care about them. But our life paths are different. Will that change in the future? I don’t know. It is possible that my wife and I will always be a couple without a third or fourth in our lives. It is also possible that another individual or couple might find themselves walking beside us on the same path.

 

Being poly is who I am. Being emotionally honest with myself, my wife, and those that I care about at different levels. To me swinging is a social openness acknowledging what society keeps throwing sand on. People are sexual creatures. Swinging opens that door and says that it is ok to be who you are. To openly say that someone is attractive to you in a sexual way, and being able to honestly express that to your partner as well as the one that you find attractive on a sexual level, not on an emotional level.

 

S

[lustylearning 705]

ncmd, you mentioned serendipity came calling. My guess is that once you realized serendipity had made it's appearance, you were already down the poly rabbit hole looking out, wondering, "How'd I get here? Where am I? What am I doing? Am I different? Or are these individuals I'm involved with somehow different?"

 

I'm curious. Did you start as swingers? Or did poly introduce you to swinging? And how did one change the other for you, if at all?

[ncmd_couple 597]

Lusty,

 

You asked, but this is going to be a long reply, and can be put under the category of “how to be stupid and screw up because you aren’t honest with yourself or your partner.” You might want to have a full drink before you start reading it.

 

Before I met "L" I married at 18 (yeah, stupid thing to do) and during that 25 year marriage we had two events in life where others were in our bedroom, though at the time we didn't know anything about swinging. This was about 21 years ago. Heinlein is my all time favorite author, starting with his juvenile books as a teenager, and then discovering his more adult works in adulthood. So I was already corrupted to a certain extent. My ex-wife decided that cheating was her preferred way, a shame, because if she had been open and honest with me, things might have been different. Who knows?

 

After the divorce was final, I met “L.” She was very open minded sexually, and we enjoyed a lot of things together, we had discussed going to a swingers club, MFMs, FMFs, and FFMs, but I was concerned with her reaction to women that I had contact with from my past before her. Those were platonic contacts, but, well…. We did discuss a FFM, and as I had a good friend who was Bi, we discussed and arranged a FFM. The goal of which was “L’s” complete personal satisfaction and my friend and I planned it that way and we were both hyper tuned to “L’s” reactions. The night went well, but the aftermath was not what I expected. Or should I say, what I was afraid would happen. Jealousy.

 

So, not knowing what to do except from past experience which was limited, I kept my mouth shut, avoided topics that involved women in my past. And didn’t hide but didn’t openly contact women in my past. They were old friends, and I wasn’t going to ditch them. One I worked with, so “L” knew I saw her every day, but I didn’t mention it, but answered honestly if asked about her.

 

The years passed and my unhappiness grew. Why is it that she can still talk to her ex-husband, ex-lovers, and ex-boyfriends, but I got the evil eye if I had a “how ya’ doing” conversation with a lady that I knew, cared about, but wasn’t having a sexual relationship with? The double standard was making me even more unhappy. But I didn’t know what to do.

 

Eventually, I got to the point where I had decided that as much as I loved “L,” the relationship wasn’t going to work. I had discovered the poly concept and had done a lot a research on it. I felt that I had to find a woman who felt like I did. So, quite honestly, I started working for an exit stage left. It was a two part strategy, finding a job out of state, and looking to see if there might be a woman out there who felt like I did. Finding the woman was second in my efforts. Finding the job was number one.

 

By chance I came across a profile on an on-line vanilla dating site that perked my mental ears up. I asked some questions and she asked some questions that the replies told me, that she just might, so, I asked her directly. And yes, she and I did feel the same way about sex and love. By this time my frustration with living a lie had grown to the point that I hated everything about my life. I was lying to myself first, and living a lie. I hated it. I had already planned a personal trip to NY and jokingly asked her if she wanted to join me. She said yes, arranged to fly to my area, I picked her up at the airport, and we left for my previously planned trip together, instead of me by myself.

 

The funny thing is that other than the fact that I had company on that trip, there was only one thing different about this one from previous trips. It was January, I was going to NY, it was cold as hell and snowing, and I decided to stay in a hotel instead of my camp on the 15 acres that I have up there. The camp is great in the summer, but I wanted a hot shower and decided to stay in a hotel in town instead of freezing my ass off at the camp. I would have done that anyway whether I had company or not, but “L” keyed on that.

 

I had a great trip and got done what I needed to do and had a lovely lady along with me. When I got home on Sunday, everything was fine except for the snow storm. The next morning “L” started IMing me accusing me of meeting someone up there. I didn’t want to discuss it at work, but she insisted and I eventually turned IM off and told her we would discuss it at home. I was tired of living a lie. So, when she got home from work and accused me, I told her the truth. The complete truth.

 

At the same time, she told me some of her past and some of her truths. Not all, and she still hasn’t to this day, but, she will tell me what she wants to. I probe every now and then, but I won’t push her to be more honest with me than she has though I have been completely honest with her. It was several weeks of sometimes painful honesty between us. We started swinging and still do now. Not as often as we would like to because life’s challenges get in the way. We have gotten married. And we are working for both of us to move to warmer weather together and planning our new life together.

 

Will we ever live in a poly situation? I don’t know. But I am poly in that there are people in my life other than my wife that I love and care about. I will never change that. Who knows what the future will hold.

 

The poly lady that I cheated with will never be a permanent part of our life because I did cheat on “L” with her and that cloud over her will never blow away. The other lady in my life that the two of us are compatible with has life challenges that I honestly don’t ever see her being in our life other than someone that I love and care about. Help when I can, but also acknowledge that it was never meant to be.

 

So which came first, the chicken or the egg? I think the egg was fertilized many, many years ago. It has hatched, but I’m not sure if it is a chicken, a duck, or a goose.

 

S

[ncmd_couple 597]

I hate it when a post of mine is a thread killer!!

 

So what brought you to the concept or actuality of a poly relationship?

 

S

[dulciprajna 40]

I would say that for my wife and I, a poly relationship makes more sense than just random ppl. We have two routes to do this. One is starting w/a couple and making that long term, then turning that into true, co-habitation, polyamory type relationship.

 

The other idea is a roommate whom evolves into a poly type relationship with us. For us, the extra emotional baggage that is picked up is far out weighed by the drama and cause for concern that random individuals can bring into the situation.

 

I think the whole poly idea we became accustomed to when we were Mormon for a time and did research as to why poly relationships were not only supported by the early church, but very openly spoken about. The biggest tradeoff is that if anything catastrophic were to happen to one adult, the rest are still there to keep the family stable. Dunno. I know were are strange for this in most swinger circles we've been in.

[Agile_Galaxo 117]

 

I think the whole poly idea we became accustomed to when we were Mormon for a time and did research as to why poly relationships were not only supported by the early church, but very openly spoken about. The biggest tradeoff is that if anything catastrophic were to happen to one adult, the rest are still there to keep the family stable. Dunno. I know were are strange for this in most swinger circles we've been in.

 

You've presented a context (as others have) that motivated a poly approach. I don't think you are strange at all. I think poly appeals to people who find themselves at a certain situation in their life where poly just makes sense or organically unfolds within a context.

 

It could be linked to personality, environment (church teachings), location, loneliness, social life, and so on. And even specific combinations of these variable could create a 'perfect' slipstream into poly.

 

The reason I say all this is because I identified with your comment on some level. The wife and I are at a point where random couplings with people we'll likely never see again (or very rarely) is not a relational stimulant, mainly due to our somewhat lonely and busy lifestyle (context).

 

The quality of the emotional connection along with sexual attraction is becoming more appealing to us due to how our life is arranged and not because of an overt desire to lean toward poly.

[Palladin 36]

There doesn't seem to be an orthodox definition of polyamory, but it seems to me that some couples and individuals feel more fulfilled if there are caring layers of emotion, as well as long term friendships, combined with their desire for sharing recreational sex. Some couples could care less.

[WeMayTryIt 120]

We were drug into poly, against our desires. That sounds much worse than it is. After swinging on and off for about four years, always fastidiously avoiding any semblance of emotional attachment, we met a couple who was relatively new to swinging (a few months). Immediately, from the first night of dancing and chatting at the vanilla club, there was explosive chemistry on all parts. As we got to know each other sexually and personally, it became evident, quite quickly, that the chemistry was far beyond sexual. It was intellectual, emotional, biological. None of us had ever wanted anything like that with someone other than our spouses. But we were all at the mercy of what actually was. And it was extraordinary while it lasted. Life-changing in many ways.

 

Simply put, what brought us to poly was falling madly in love with another couple and they with us, seemingly beyond the control of any of us.

[lokisgirl 15]

Heinlein is my all time favorite author, starting with his juvenile books as a teenager, and then discovering his more adult works in adulthood. So I was already corrupted to a certain extent. S

- LMAO! Just had to say, I love this. Just finished rereading the uncut "Stranger in a Strange Land" for the third time.

 

I grew up in a house where male fidelity was a non-concept that was not hidden. Before I married, I had led a sexually open, non-committed life without guilt or secrecy. My husband and I married young - very young - and for the first years, he had extra marital affairs while I struggled to fill the role of stereotypical wife. After being disgusted by my dive into jealousy and insecurity, I tackled the self esteem issues that I felt prompted me towards hypocrisy since I knew I believed that monogamy was not a natural state for some people - myself included.

 

As I recovered myself from the latent garbage in my head, I began to open very honest communication between myself and my spouse. It solidified our relationship in an amazing way. As we grew up together we explored different possibilities and lifestyles both together and separately -always careful to approach the situations with respect for each other and discuss things first. I think it helped that I do not put much stock on physical attraction - he did - and am instead drawn in by personality or intellect so my own journeys outside the marriage were few and tended more towards extended FWB type relationships.

 

For myself, I had never thought of being in a poly situation. Nor had he. Several years ago, I met a man through a common interest and began to develop an strong attraction to him which was reciprocated. I discussed it with my husband and after that the relationship became physical. About a year and half in, my lover lost his apartment and needed a place to live. My husband offered him the spare room in our house and he began moving in the next day. We have been living together ever since.

 

As to fidelity to each other - it's really not an issue in our house. Each person is responsible for their choices but we all keep in mind that there are others who will be affected by our actions. So when someone meets a person of interest, we talk first. It's not so much approval or permission seeking as a "head-up" - lol.

 

I guess the strangest thing about the whole experience has been our "normal" friends. We do not hide our lifestyle and are openly expressive towards each other, so everyone in our lives knows and - I just can't get over this - approves - much to their own amazement. Half are even envious of what we have created and often express a wish for the same kind of connection in their monogamous relationships.

 

I never would have imagined myself in this situation but now, I couldn't imagine another way to live my life.

[km34 672]

That's an awesome story, lokisgirl. You all sound very lucky!

[M1F2KTJ 470]

, or are they playing and have affections emerge, then evolve into poly relationships?

[MeganWink 15]

WOW, reading this makes me realize that our experiences seem to be closer to poly than swinging....four of us being monogamous, but not the "type" of Poly that is known to ANYONE (besides those close enough to me I trust to confide in about it). Our children do not have a clue nor do any of our close friends or family! Definitely a close friendship with feelings of love between most of us shocking but comforting!!! I think!!

I know I love, love, love to love and even though my husband and I discuss almost(?) everything I would be assuming he knows I love them both as deeply as I do. There is no reason the way I feel would cause us harm as far as I am concerned as we are it for each other

[MeganWink 15]

That is so wonderful!!! I am happy you have such a great situation

[Tagurrit 18]

Well yes poly has many flavors. In my case I just made up my mind that I would be honest with myself (and others) about my "swinging". Eleven years ago I met an older woman (now 77), fell in love and have a wonderful relationship with her. I told her before we moved in together that I was a swinger and she was welcome to join me if she wanted. Although she had had MFM and FMF 3-somes in the past she declined. She didn't want to know any details about my extracurricular life but I had her, if not "blessing", permission. Her friend and I started a relationship a few years later. Her friend was older than both of us but she and I are, if not soul mates then sex soul mates. Emotionally we're not as close as my first partner and myself but sexually closer. I asked her to swing with me too and we toyed with the idea but in the end she declined because of her age (she's 85). Then a third person entered my life. Younger (45) more vital and we started a very intense relationship. So no secrets but not exactly poly either in that we don't live together. I maintain two homes in two different towns as a poly-quint (?) family. Living together at our ages 45, 66, 77 and 85 is quite out of the question. I realized that I've always been this way. I've always loved more than one person at a time and it's broken up many loving relationships. I just learned to be me and let the chips fall where they may. And I am a big believer in whats good for the goose is good for the gander. So my third partner, with whom I do swing, was living as a lesbian with her female lover when we started our relationship so really there were four women and me. My third partner, her partner and I slept together for awhile but her partner became jealous and left so we're back to four total. I know it sounds totally out of control but remember we're not talking about 20-somethings here we're talking OLD people (our average age is 68!). When it was the 5 of us it was 62 years average. Still not kids.