My wife and I have been poly from the start of our relationship and it’s been great. That said we’ve also long held a commitment to healthy emotional management
How do people have the free time to have multiple relationships? It sounds exhausting.
Let alone having A relationship. I still have to sort my own baggages before I enter into one.
It can also be very rewarding.
I had a partner where we could post-sex pillow talk for hours. It was very relaxing, and it’s the thing I miss most about hooking up with them. We’re still friends, but their life got too full and we had to call off romantic involvement.
Which is to say that, yeah, the time involved can be an issue. Maybe one of you needs to step back. The time you do spend with them can still be worth the effort.
It’s only risky business if your relationship is defined by sex. People who would stay together even without the sex (because they like each other that much anyway) are generally going to be fine.
Somehow, the traditional model makes the rich richer, and that’s why they push it so hard. That’s all I know.
Why do people want so badly to have their government legally recognize their relationship? The legal contract does nothing but make it harder to separate when the relationship runs its course, whenever that may be. Have the ceremony, go on the honeymoon, get “married” but don’t include a legal contract in it. You don’t need it.
You don’t need it.
Actually, you kind of do for all kinds of things.
Stability of partners and income makes it more predictable to pay for rent and taxes. That’s pretty much it.
Over the years, monogamy meant predictability and trustworthiness. Generally speaking that’s true. When there’s fewer emotions in the pile, there’s more predictable results. More emotions and people? More unpredictability. Landlords and banks don’t like that when it comes to loans or rental situations.
There are absolutely legal and tax benefits for a legally recognized marriage.
Primarily administrative privileges, at least from a practical standpoint.
It can be done without declaring it a marriage legally, with wills, medical proxies, etc. if you prefer granular control.
I just want my partner to not go through the nightmare of probate court and legal headaches should something happen to me, or be able to see me in the hospital without pushback. If one piece of paper covers 90% of that then I’m reasonably willing to sign it. On the flip side of that, I hate weddings and would prefer to spend that money on a more material investment lol
Everyone is different though, and there should be alternative options that aren’t such a huge hassle, so I do agree with you.
I went through the process of doing the wills and trusts stuff with my GF and it was about $500.
A marriage license is like $60.
Being hopeless romantics we did both.
Who the fuck gives a shit anyway.
I’ve dated two women. Two. And you know what I’ve learned?
Jack fucking shit. The first woman abused me for a decade, the second was only one date.
The idea of people dating is one thing. The idea of people hooking up is a different one. But The idea of people fucking outside of their committed relationship is so vastly foreign to my simple experience I’m beginning to wonder if the universe is conspiring to isolate me from humanity.
No conspiracy, let me shed some light. First, open and poly relationships don’t work if anyone involved is especially possessive. I don’t mean like a little jealous, or slightly insecure (that can be worked through) I mean one person expects a fair bit of say over one or multiple others lives.
Assuming you now only have a pool of a few reasonably well adjusted emotionally people (well adjusted socially is nice but not requisite) you can now just have N people agree they like each other and want to be together, but like occasionally hook up outside the group either under some arbitrary rule such as being in different zip codes from everyone else or just in general so long as proper precautions are taken. You have a core group of N people who are emotionally and financially intertwined and N+X people who happen to have all hooked up.
It’s a fine system, have almost never been monogamous, and it’s just like the times I was monogamous except no one is going to be upset about random hookups unless there was a generally accepted rule broken. I also personally find a core group of N=3 to be the roughly ideal number, but everyone’s mileage will vary.
Though I suspect that societal normalization will be informed by the economic situation. The reality is if you can’t afford to live without 3 incomes everyone will eventually organize around 3 person core households and society will defend the new tradition or whatever.
Of course somewhere in there a lot of people have to give up on religious and social hangups but that’s already in progress if the number of articles like this coming out is steadily increasing (it is)
That just sounds like a bunch of friends with benefits. The thing that defined a relationship imo is the valuation you put on your time spent with someone. If you enjoy being with them more than anyone else, its worth pursuing a relationship. And I simply dont see how thats possible with mutliple people unless youre “dating” the group and not any individual member. Or unless you have nothing but free time on your hands. As an austist, i find it difficult but managble to handle my personal hygene, work responsiblilities, and sleep on the same day. Adding in social time and r&r time or “me” time, and it becomes extremely difficult to manage my time daily. Add in a relationship, and my life would be maxed. I cant imagine handling multiple relationships, which is what it sounds like youre describing.
To be clear, im of the mind that is people want to be polygamous, there is absolutely nothing I have to say about it. Its not my thing, but I’d like to understand it. I don’t need to to support its existance indirectly by not speaking out against it. But I would still like to, hence having discussions with people whose views differ. This just feels like the type of topic people are going to get heated about.
I don’t disagree necessarily, I would describe the woman who’s part of a different poly that we hook up with occasionally as a friend with benefits situation, though I’d be open to changing that dynamic if she was. But very much the stable and lasting poly relationships I’ve been in were effectively group dating. Like not to say there was never separate dates here and there, but very much most things are communal. I’m with you on barely having enough spoons to maintain the minimum required hygiene and meet general social expectations, I couldn’t handle a situation where I’m going on multiple dates with different people every week. Been there. Tried that. It wasn’t sustainable. But a core group where individual members just happen to have FWBs is perfectly manageable in my experience, though keeping track of paramours can be a pain since I’m really bad with names.
Having that close core group also comes with benefits such as someone almost always being available and even if not all interests are mutual you’ll share some with one, some with another, and a lot more time can be spent together with someone your close with working on projects or getting way to deep into philosophy or lore.
And to be clear I’m of the mind that people can be monogamous if they want, I just don’t get it. It feels to possessive and limiting. I don’t want to and literally can’t be someone’s everything and don’t expect any one other person to be my everything either. Probably helps no kids are involved nor can they become so biologically with who I’m currently with. Kids seem to complicate the fuck out of relationships from what I’ve seen. So at least in our case that can’t become a thing without mutual agreement. Not to say kids require monogamy, that’s not true, I’ve seen it work without that being the case, but only twice.
Why would you say its possessive? Its more about avoiding drama and just having one person you know you can count on. There’s enough drama in a mono relationship without having to pick sides.
I tend to view telling someone what they can and can’t do as being possessive. Demanding monogamy is therefore possessive. It’s taking away agency not as bad or as possessive as saying you can’t have friends who are X. Which is probably the most commonly recognized form of such behavior, but it’s on the same continuum in my mind.
And then there’s my autistic ass that just sees a fuckton of socialization rules there and I’m already panicking
Bro I’m with you I’m not even autistic and this shit just seems emotionally exhausting.
Right there with you buddy. I struggle bad enough trying to figure out wtf I’m supposed to be doing in monogamous relationships. This polygamy shit is crazy to me.
You really don’t need a lot of rules, I know a lot of people swear by stuff like relationship contracts and the like. But realistically that’s never been something I’ve pursued and that does seem incredibly overwhelming. Current relationship the rules are as follows: don’t bring STDs home, don’t bring people over during normal sleeping hours without approval, preferably a couple days of notice; and don’t become emotionally unavailable otherwise it’s not really a relationship. That’s it.
i dunno how i feel about this. on one hand, i wouldn’t mind having a fuck buddy, but on the other hand i just feel like committal relationships are better because im a emotional person. i dunno but i don’t have to worry becuase i know ill prolly be single and involuntary celibate for the rest of my life!
If you’re not exclusive you’re fuckbuddies. Maybe it’ll stick, or eventually something better comes along for either. Then it ends.
Tomorrow we will cover how to determine whether you are being hit on by gays.
Can’t speak for anyone else but I will never do an open relationship. Either you are with me or you aren’t. Your choice.
And that’s totally fine to have your preference. It’s not just a “your choice” situation. Communication at the onset and throughout a relationship should help weed out others who are not monogamous.
I chose to be with you.
You’re not a weirdo are you, SatansMaggotyCumFart?
Now kith
uh oh, now you two are stuck together
Leave those two love birds be <3
Like two knotted dogs.
I guess it was a wet SatansMaggotyCumFart
K
Oh young people.
The silents and boomers tried this crap too.
Raised a generation of angry Gen-X kids through weekend visitation rights.
I had very few friends whose parents hadn’t been divorced from some form of this (cheating or swapping).
Some couples survived but the marriages were strained.
“Traditional” meaning “the last 2,000 out of 300,000 years”… Not to mention how it was only the norm because it was forced thru powerful organizations and not everyone just choosing it.
Monogamy and Abrhamic values are nothing but a fad on the timeline of human existence.
We ain’t built for that shit. Some people are and that’s fine, some aren’t and that’s cool too.
There’s a reason we’re not all built the same.
Abraham himself wasn’t monogamous.
Nor all muslims, who are following an abrahamic religion
It’s almost like everything in nature is random
Less random and more “shotgun approach”.
I’d rather be alone thanks
Casual hookups have always been a thing, why pretend they are a relationship?
Because when they stretch past the multiple year mark and households blend, why pretend they are a hookup?
If you want an open relationship just date around like everyone else. Committed open relationships is a recipe for disaster.
That’s just like, your opinion, man.
What if you like to be in a committed relationship with one person and build a life together, developing deep emotional bonds over many years, but also enjoy having sex with many different people?
I would love to have multiple partners so that more incomes are coming into the household
What’s more interesting to me is that every single human society has had the opportunity to allow open relationships and instead settled on some form of hardlined partnership regulation function. To put it another way, every person in every setting in every culture in every era have all come to the conclusion that it is better to have a rigid structural partnership contract of some kind than it is to even attempt to tackle the societal issues open relationships present.
It’s not the first time humans have asked this type of question. Is this really a modern shift, or is this an ongoing historical fad whose waxing and waning phases have been glossed over in favor of more exciting history?
That is just literally not true. There was never any grand consensus. There was religious persecution.
Religions don’t just pop up out of a vacuum. They reflect and reinforce the predominant cultural practices of the time.
No they don’t. They are a social power structure that enforces cultural practices by claiming it’s the norm.
Also claim you burn eternally in hell if you don’t follow the said norm
Interesting that you think what you said is any different from what he said…
Yes. And I still maintain that it is, despite your apparent belief to the contrary. A cause is not an effect.
Explain the French then.
