What are your experiences with polyamory, first or second hand?

My housemates are poly and pretty happy about it.

It's a bit of a logic puzzle:

• I live in a house with A, B, and C.
• A and B are married.
• B is also dating J, who lives in a big complicated house with lots of people, including their partner K.
• Separately, C is dating X.
• X is married to Y; X is also dating Z.
• I don't know Y or K well enough to know if they have other partners, but I suspect so.
• No, I am not dating anyone on this list.

As far as I'm aware, there's no current polycule link between AB and C; nor between any of them and me.

Everyone in this list is in their 30s or 40s, and almost all are some flavor of queer; at least two are also trans. There are no kids in the picture, although we know other poly people in the neighborhood who do have kids.

It's all quite cheerful and civilized. Compersion is totally a thing. Also, fortunately people's food preferences aren't complicated when everyone's over for dinner. If anybody starts dating someone who doesn't like mushrooms, that's gonna be a problem.

God, this thread is a breath of fresh air. Every time the topic came up on reddit, you had the same core of bitter whiny losers reciting the same archetype of the rejected and resentful guy stuck at home while his GF was out 'cheating' on him, and insisting that this was the reality in every single case.

I'm monogamous myself, but personally know two different polyamorous relationships. 1 is pretty damn good, and the other is rife with drama. Besides that, I tangentially know of others, and all of those are rough, though since I'm hearing of these from mutual friends and acquaintances, I could just be getting the juicy drama and none of the good parts. Could very well be that my info on those are bad

It does seem to mirror the general expectation, though, that most are unstable, and I wouldn't call it surprising. Relationships are complicated, and anything that has more moving parts is going to be more complicated. I'm not trying to suggest here that monogamy is the way to go by any means--different people have different wants and needs, and some people are just good for polyamory. I just think that a working arrangement like this is tough to pull off

Besides, this gets asked a lot about polyamorous relationships, but there are so many fucked heteronormative relationships, and you never see the argument that monogamy is wrong, so yeah. Just whatever makes you happy

Back when me and my wife started dating, it was a long distance relationship and we agreed that it's OK if we see other people too. Neither of us did, but I feel like "expanding relationship" should only happen when your primary deal is in healthy state and not to try fix issues in it by dating someone else.

Yep, same boat. We've been married for 20+ years, she's had a boyfriend for 5 years or so and occasionally plays with other people, BF's wife's as cool with it as I am, everything's chill.

She left her earrings on the dresser at her boyfriend's place a while back, he sent his wife to drop them back to her and it was just an omg hiiiiii moment for both of them.

I don't understand why it's such a big deal for most people, I really don't. It's so utterly low-stress and completely... ordinary, to my way of thinking.

I'm poly and am now in a monogamous marriage but was in a few poly relationships prior. I'm 99.5% okay with this.

Poly was fun but had high overhead - there's a certain amount of work required for any relationship and it seems to increase to some extent as you get closer with someone. Two partners was literally double the work, sometimes more. A lot of people thought I was a swinger which always pissed me off. A couple of non-poly girlfriends thought it gave them carte blanche to fuck around on the side while I was staying monogamous for them. Classy.

My very last poly partner was simply horrid and ultimately turned me off to poly. Successful polyamory requires trust and communication. We had been unintentionally monogamous for awhile and it turned out she was not communicating some unfulfilled needs. To be fair, they were valid needs, but I couldn't have known to fulfill them without being told first.

When she and I started dating, we were only seeing each other and had agreed that we'd only consider bringing new people to the relationship if our "core" relationship was solid. That was always my condition in every poly relationship. Years later, without any prior warning, she told me about the issues she had with us and mandated that the only way she'd be willing for us to stay together was if I were to support her starting a relationship with an absolute trainwreck of a human being. He was a socially awkward, late twenties, literally virginal fellow that had never been in a relationship of any kind before and he nailed the cocky, oblivious, "kind of an asshole but projects the blame on you" engineer stereotype on the head so hard you could feel it across county lines. I noped the fuck out so hard. Looking back, my ex had glaring warning signs you could see from space, but I was pretty young and nieve, plus I was madly in love with her even before we started dating. This and an earlier relationship with a narcissistic abuser are the only relationships I regret.

I met my now wife a few months after my ex and I split. She didn't want to do poly and I was pretty burned out on it, so I had no complaints. I do miss it sometimes. I'm a bit of a flirt and I really miss that, the excitement of hitting it off with a new person and all the chemistry and interesting things to learn about them. Still, I wouldn't trade what I have with my wife for all the dates in the world.

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I've never seen a healthy poly relationship and I've seen many but I still think that it could work given the right circumstances. People already suck at handling a single relationship so statistically handling more is just significantly more difficult not to mention all the externals like community and society as whole.

I'm poly, in a closed triad. Basically I live with my two partners and we are all dating eachother. Honestly, it just kinda works. Not much different than "traditional" relationships apart from the fact that even the biggest standard beds barely fit all 3 of us lol

I have 2 serious partners and I couldn’t be happier! These are the healthiest and most fulfilling relationships I’ve ever had. I love the freedom and autonomy that polyamory affords all of us. Since realizing I’m polyamorous, things have really fallen into place. It just feels right for me.

I’ve been with my wife and girlfriend for about 4.5 years. Gf has been married for longer.

Polyamory attracts trainwrecks and hands them a ton of rope which they promptly hang themselves with. We hear about them a lot because they’re loudly collapsing all the time.

We don’t hear about our types because what are we going to do, loudly announce stable long term relationships? Because I am judged as one of those people or a slut or a player or something I’m hesitant to loudly profess my polyamory. My coworkers don’t know that one day a week I don’t go to my regular home when I leave but to my girlfriend’s home where I hang out with her and her kids (whom I’ve been a stable adult fixture in their lives for years) until her husband wakes up for work when I either take her out to dinner, or get some alone time as he watches the kids, or he’s just there hanging out with us, then rather than it being an absolute fuckfest, we either have “I have work in the morning” sex, curl up watching tv, chat alone, or increasingly often chat with her kids because they’ve been needing more attention lately before going to bed. Then the next day I go to work from there. And they also don’t know that that evening my wife is glad that I was there because it’s good for me and she needs some alone time on a regular basis because while she loves me very much I’m a high energy extrovert and she’s a low energy introvert.

Hell my family is uncomfortable with my polyamory except my sister. They can accept that I’m gay and love my wife, but they don’t talk about my girlfriend and are clearly uncomfortable when I talk about her. So I shy away from it. And I don’t go to poly events because they’re full of train wrecks. I don’t filter through partners. I’ve never even had a romantic relationship that was under a year long.

And yeah I’ve had my drama. Casual sex has gone weird. My ex was actually monogamous but she started a triad because I wanted polyamory and that went just terribly. But also I was in my early 20s, similar situations for monogamous relationships aren’t blamed on monogamy but on dumb 20 somethings.

But yeah I’m happy and stable. And I know my wife, gf, and meta would all agree that’s our situation

I recently attended a polyamorous wedding where one pair of individuals in the polycule were formalizing their individual bond/commitment to each other (but both still remaining in the larger structure of the 5-6 person polyromantic/polyamorous constellation.) It was cute! All the other members of the group walked the bride and groom down the aisle and gave cute best-man-style speeches instead of a religious ceremony.

I enjoyed the event and they all seemed really happy.

I've been poly for over a decade. Met my now-wife at a poly event.

Other partners have come and gone for each of us.

A lot of people like to blame non-monogamy for issues between individuals, but, like, if some people can make poly work, that tells me whatever issues were likely caused by problematic individuals, not by polyamory.

My wife and I have been poly for going on a decade now and my girlfriend has been part of the equation since damn near the beginning.

My wife, girlfriend & I all jointly own our home together and things have been great!

I (male, cis-het) don't date outside the two of them (I don't have that kind of time!) ... both of the ladies have other partners though, mostly with the goal of them being long term, but like most relationships (poly or mono) they generally fizzle out for one reason or another. Wife has a partner that's been pretty stable for almost a year though and girlfriend has a LDR that's been strong for 5ish years.

We've all "come out" to our family and friends long ago, mostly with no blowback. I am not close with people at my current job, so they don't know, but, I also use the words 'wife' and 'girlfriend' so if they haven't picked up on it, it's not because I'm omitting, I'm just not telling people that don't need to know about my personal life the specifics about my personal life.

If you were to judge monogamy by the shit that pops up in relationship advice threads, people would have a bad impression of it as well!

Everyone always going to polyamory because of a bad relationship in there monogamous relationship is why there's so much bad negativity about it.

It's just consenting adults who love each other.

Still have the same drama and problems of monogamous relationships. But more problems and less problems, yet slightly different ,The same with anything

I shall say this though. DO NOT ADD ANOTHER PERSON BECAUSE OF YOUR FAILING RELATIONSHIP. it won't work. Ever.

I would want to add more but it's so incredibly much my brain can't process and type that much.

I've been in a polyamorous relationship with my wife for 23 years. We started poly and still are. Not counting relationships that lasted a date or two she has had three relationships that lasted between Hall a year and a year and a half. I've had one long term that lasted eight years.

We aren't the jealous types so it's been mostly good with the normal relationship ups and downs combined with the elevated logistical problems that are inherent in poly relationships.

Fori us it's great and we wouldn't have it any other way. I'll also say there is nothing like waking up on the weekend to the sound of your wife and girlfriend laughing in the kitchen while having coffee.

No real first hand experience. I kinda interacted with people that were /are poly, but wasn't part of their group.

But the thing I noticed about poly groups regarding the kind of stability that would be a success in any objective view, is that there's usually a core few that comprise the true group, with anyone else being kinda replaceable. It's usually either a "throuple", or two pairs, and those core relationships are what really matters when there's any trouble.

Imo, that makes sense. In a real world sense, nobody loves everyone equally. It might get close, but we as a species just aren't that controlled in our emotions. They're shifting and tied to so many different memories that it's barley possible to have comparable levels of love, much less exactly the same.

And, there's the issue of numbers and work. If a couple has X amount of work to maintain, a third person doesn't turn that into X+1, it turns it into X^3, because you have A×B, the first two, then you have A×C, B×C, and, A×B×C. The dynamics of each pair of individuals is the same, but you add the dynamics of the group to that. Add a 4th person, and you get X^4, and so on. So, the larger the group gets, the harder it is to actually maintain every relationship at all, much less equally.

But! I know two poly groups that have been stable for a long time. One since the mid nineties, the other since 2003 (officially, but they got together informally a few years before that). The older group stabilized out at five people back around 98, when a couple that had joined in decided it wasn't working for them.

The other group is essentially a foursome, though they tend to rotate through twosomes over time. Like, one couple spends a few months more focused on each other, then the other two people either do the same or float a little as individuals without as much group interaction. But they're all bisexual as well as poly, so there's that helping out a little; everyone is into everyone romantically and sexually, so there's less chance of someone feeling left out.

Both groups have kids, btw. Which can get a little tough on the kids in school, but damned if it isn't a plus at home. Like, those kids never lack for someone to help them, give them affection or discipline, or anything. The oldest boy from the longer lasting group is out on his own now, and doing well for himself.

The only other poly group I know well enough to have picked up details about their arrangements went back a lot further, back into the sixties when they met. Which is a success, if you ask me, but there's only the one lady left now, and that's fucking brutal to lose three partners that you love like that. I don't know if it's any worse than losing a monogamous partner or not, but holy hell has she been through some pain over the last two decades.

I call them a success though. They went through fourty-plus years together, raised kids, lived life, and stuck together. I didn't meet any of them until one of the guys had a stroke, back before I got hit with the disability stick and had to quit working. I was a CNA, and when he had the next stroke, they asked if I could come back, so I got to know them a good bit. But they'd lost one of their group between times to cancer.

For myself, I don't think I could handle that part. I know that if my wife dies before me, it's going to break me. I can't imagine going through that two or three (or more) times.

Which is probably not the most pleasant way to end this comment, being a bit less happy than maybe you were wanting. But I figure if one group of people can live poly together long enough for that, then polyamory is nothing to dismiss, and it's certainly proof that it can be satisfying and good.

My wife and I talked about it a lot before deciding we were both cool with the other having safe and responsible adventures. In over a decade it has never caused us any grief. Communication is essential and if your relationship isn't "stable" IMO it suggests a real communication problem - adding unrelated complications to the dynamic will never solve those.

All of my experiences are from the outside looking in.

1. was super destructive with a single domineering individual that led to a divorce and a suicide.
2. was fantasy fulfillment and led to a great deal of strife.
3. was kinda positive in that it lasted until the one partner passed and the relationship sorta dissolved. Which is sad but understandable.

So outside of highschool i have seen 3 kicks at the can with only one "success". The failed relationships did so in spectacular fashion which is why i know far more about them due to their violence.

So maybe not exactly a success story but I wouldn't call it a disaster either. I don't view my current experience to be negative even if it is extremely difficult for me.

I'm poly, technically have been most my life but most my relationships have been functionally mono until 3 or 4 years ago. I'm in a hard place right now, 6 months ago my polycule split, two months ago my anchor partner very suddenly broke up with me, my nesting partner of over 10 years has stopped physically interacting with me.

I thought I was insulated from heartbreak because I could fallback on other partners while I get back on my feet, and I did actually do that a couple times with non core partner breakups. Apparently the opposite can happen where all your partners drop away in rapid succession and you have to deal losing all the people who would have supported you.

I'm happy I'm poly. It is difficult but so is being mono in different ways. The love I had when the polycule was functioning I can't describe that to people who haven't had it before. I had a great run of about 3 years of memories I'm going to hold very dearly. I'll rebuild my relationships with new people and everything I've learned here will make things better for me in the future.

Married 13 yrs as of the end of October. We've played with others, and have standing permission to "get things going," but I find the wedding ring to (understandably) be a turnoff. My personal preferences mean that it's difficult to meet people I'm interested in and who are likely to believe any reasonable explanation for 'even though I'm wearing a ring, we are all on the same page.'

It is by definition much easier for my wife / both of us, to find a man who is both interested and dealing in good faith than for me to approach a woman successfully.

I don't harbor any jealousy or concern with regards to my wife, she simply has an easier time with it. One can blame that on the lies that cheating men have told over many centuries, I'm sure.

I've encountered a number of women in whom I'd be interested, but... I refuse to take my ring off just to have a chance at meeting someone. Not just because "reasons" and "ethics," but also because I know for a fact that up-front disclosure is the better path.

"No, I wasn't wearing a ring when I met you, but I'm married," is not the way to start off a poly relationship from where I sit. It is, however, an excellent way to scare off the folks who are open to the same.

Neither of us is looking for threesomes per se, and neither of us is willing to dissemble and then later ask forgiveness of the third party.

Haven't posted all that much on the topic, so... Fuckit. We've been married for almost fifteen years. We found a play partner around the five-year mark. That lasted as long as it lasted, and was a great deal of fun - both in person and via internet, subject to collective needs. That person could have handled things better, and I could have handled their less than ideal behavior better. I own my part, there. It wasn't intended to be long term, and that's fine - it introduced us to both the lifestyle and the risks, and I am cognizant of what I did right and what I did wrong at the tine.

We're in a more liberal town than where we spent much of our marriage, but it's still tough to meet people. Some of that is due to my WFH arrangement, as I don't get out as much as 'normal' folks, but I would absolutely not sleep with someone I worked with anyway - I'm a professional, it has the potential to get really ugly, and could very well ruin my reputation.

Dating sites have proven unhelpful, though much of that was while living in "Kettlecorn, KS" where my wife grew up. Trying to do this in the midwest is 'hard mode' to say the least.

I'm not even looking for women a fraction of my age (and I'm not that damn old to begin with), but any introduction brings with it the risk of judgement / 'If you weren't married...'

I consider it a damn shame that consensual poly is not more mainstream - people will meet people, and have chemistry, and have sex as a result. Advance consent, in whatever form the couple finds appropriate, prevents literally all of the unpleasantness, feelings of betrayal, etc.

Not an expert at this stuff, but also fairly sure my experience is not incredibly outside the norm.

Wife and I have always been open to the idea, tried it a few times, all positive experiences, even the challenging ones. We dated this single female friend together for a while, we've gone to sex clubs (there's a great, super positive one in my city). I feel like it's made us more honest and open with each other.

If I could recommend a book, "The ethical slut" There's good tips and info in there, I liked it, though it's a bit old. "More than two" is newer and great as well

I knew two groups of polys. One was a success story and did very well with a big family full of kids. The other one broke up when it was clear two of them cared more about each other than a third. So I'm guessing it's like every type of relationship- sometimes it works out well, sometimes it's a disaster.

My wife and I are poly. Neither of us have found a long term person yet (Wife isn't really looking because she is graysexual and doesn't really want any additional deep emotional connections), but we've met a few great people who probably could have worked but for one or two incompatibilities. I've seen enough over the past two years to see that it definitely can work.

I'm polyamorous myself, with a girlfriend of about 18 months and another of nearly a year. Both my relationships are stable and very fulfilling, and also relaxed and laid-back. It takes more communication to have it work but for me I can't even imagine living any other way, polyamory feels right for me and me and my partners are happier than we've ever been.

Granted, my relationships aren't a case of opening an existing partnership, but rather I talked about the fact that I'm polyamorous to each partner very early on before we even considered a relationship. Most drama I've seen in polyamory comes from one partner in a monogamous pair wanting "more" and so the decision is pretty one sided, and neither is willing to really put in the work and communication that healthy polyamory requires. Every polyamorous person I know that started their relationships as polyamorous is healthy and happy in their partnerships.

Personally I've only heard of very sad stories. Two out of three at best as you said, when not even one out of three. Of course, statistically it must work for someone. Call yourself lucky. :)

I have a family member in a throuple. They dated their partner for a few years before dating someone together, who later attended their wedding. They've been a throuple for about 8 years now and all seem pretty happy.

It caused way too much drama.

I've had a couple Poly experiences.

None of them are particularly happy memories, but it has nothing to do with Poly itself and everything to do with the fact that the only women that are attracted to me, or that are even interested in talking to me, seem to be abusers with a plethora of mental illness issues.

Not much. I'm what many might call a relationship anarchist and this can translate into polyamory, especially when QPR's are a part of the equation (same with my closest friends but in a more meta way), but I'm not in any and never have been. I was offered the chance though because a classmate in middle and high school began aspiring to a polygamist relationship (LGBT relationships were already a thing and I guess my class got ideas) and managed to appeal to a bunch of other classmates. The core classmate of the relationship then had to move though (the family's mom got a job somewhere else) and that created a weird sense of withdrawal among the participants.

I was involved in a nonconsensual, clandestine polyamorous relationship once. It sucked, broke my fucking heart.

I worked with a married couple many years back. Then they had a kid. So they split their shifts since daycare costs to damn much for 2 Perkins cooks. So they very little of each other. So they went to an open relationship model because "needs". One of the male managers known for hitting in and fucking all waitresses (because he controlled their schedule...) took the opportunity to start plowing her too. The husband... Thought he had game and thought he could get someone at work. He couldn't. So that had to be a fun dynamic. The husband and wife's manager working side by side with both of them and the manager was having a baby with one of his other conquests that also work there. Their marriage quickly fell apart and people's opinion of her and the manager and the husband took a leap off a cliff. Before all of that they were a very happy couple and great friends to be with. Afterwards they were all insufferable and the child pays for all this.

Knew another couple, married, with for kids. They moved to a open relationship model... Probably for plethora of reasons, Part of me believes that she misses her early twenties party girl that she used to be. Turns out being in mid-30s and having four kids and being married really limits the type of guys that you get. Her former husband moved on with life. And she now has a fifth kid with someone that was a temp boyfriend.

I tried (long distance) dating a poly dude in a situation where he had a long term live-in boyfriend and got me and a trans girl to start dating him around the same time. He wanted a polycule to work out and it seemed plausible-ish for a few months, but the communication was atrocious. Everyone liked the central poly dude and I tried getting along with the other two, but it was clear they were just interested in the main dude. Turned into a mega jealousy situation between all of us which blew up horribly and spectacularly.

In a good monogamous relationship now, but I wouldn’t even try a poly thing again. It requires a lot of communication, moving parts, and if someone is slightly less than truthful it’s probably doomed to fail lol.

I know of two couples that dabble in it to some extent. One as far as I know is unicorn-hunting, because their rules for it suggest a 3rd member genuinely capturing someone's heart would lead to relationship implosion of epic proportions, and I suspect that couple isn't mature or stable enough to be doing what they're doing without leaving people open for hurt. Not that I have any say in it, lol. But I feel sorry for any thirds that interact with them thinking there's even a chance of them being an equal partner.

The other couple has much better communication skills, and claim they're poly, but as far as I can tell from the outside "poly" has happened as an attempt to save the marriage. Maybe they'll make it work, but I've watched them make some dumb mistakes, and the wife has jealous behaviors when women interact with the husband and a history of bending to his needs before her own so I think even if she says they're poly she might have talked herself into it as a way to attend to him.

I think healthy poly is possible--but it requires extremely mature individuals with exceptional communication skills, and that's rare even in monogamous couples.

I've been in like, 3 or 4 of them so far. I can really see the value in a poly relationship but I find it, that it's incredibly challenging to maintain much less establish one. All of the ones I've been in, was where the individual wanting or orchestrating the poly relationship, was just a flat out cheater who wanted more than they can handle. My limit is no more than 2 other partners. The people I kept finding myself with, practically wanted like several partners too many and it just complicated things.

I'm open to being in a good one but I really don't know nor would I know anything or anyone that'd want a good stable poly relationship.

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Genuine question. Shouldn't there be love between you and her boyfriend for it to be polyamory ? otherwise isn't it just polygamy ?

I'm 40, two of my close friends married right out of high school. They started doing the poly thing about 8 years ago. Their marriage was kind of f'd from the get go as Wife has a medical condition that prevents penetrative vaginal sex. "Lots of handjobs" the Husband once told me. They started doing the poly thing as a way for him to get out and experience the one thing she couldn't give him I guess? Shortly after they both picked up girlfriends. His girlfriend moved in and was a real bitch I guess to Wife. Eventually the Husbands girlfriend says she isn't poly and breaks up with him. Husband realizes he caught feelings for the girlfriend big time because they are actually able to do the deed. He moved in with the girlfriend and is divorcing the Wife. RIP

you're delusional