Partner vetting potential relationships

Derbylicious

New member
I've seen it discussed quite a lot here that people want to meet their partner's prospective love interests before things go further than friendship to be able to alert their partner to possible negative influences (cowboys/girls ect). It got me thinking that this isn't something that single people do. They don't have a friend to come along to offer an outside opinion before they decide to date someone. I don't know maybe you all have already thought of this but it was kind of a light bulb moment for me.

My partners have shown themselves to be responsible adults capable of making their own decisions. I'm pretty sure that if someone was destructive towards them or disrespectful towards me that it would be addressed with the new person that they were dating.

Poly is a fascinating journey. I keep thinking I have it mostly figured out and then I learn something new and re frame things in my head. I think that I will always want to get to know my metamours but from a place of wanting to meet the person rather than checking up to make sure that they are OK for my partner.
 
I find it respectful to my partners to let them know what is going on for me as soon as I know my self. It doesn't mean I HAVE to, its just considerate and as that is a value I hold high in poly, I act on it whenever I can. Each to their own I guess.

I certainly would want to know my partners journey regardless of where they are heading with it. I find it very disconnecting to suddenly have to catch up after something is already started. I like to know where they are, who they are meeting up with when and how its going. Not because I am control freak and want to monitor their every move, but because I would do that for them. Also because I have a really hard time with transitions and if they find someone and are in love, the transition of that is overwhelming to me.

Besides, finding new love and experiencing new things adds vitality and life to a relationship. Sometimes that can be really beneficial. Especially when the relationship is older and prone to getting in a rut.
 
I've seen it discussed quite a lot here that people want to meet their partner's prospective love interests before things go further than friendship to be able to alert their partner to possible negative influences (cowboys/girls ect). It got me thinking that this isn't something that single people do. They don't have a friend to come along to offer an outside opinion before they decide to date someone.
I don't know if I'd agree completely with that. It's not a totally foreign concept. Certainly many single folks, the kind that like to hang out in a crowd, want their friends to meet and give opinions on new potential romances. Probably lots of young single people do, as it seems nowadays young people sort of "date" in big groups. I never would have let a friend make a decision for me of course, but vetting... yeah, I did it when I was single. The ol' jab in their side when my date goes to the rest room and me saying, "So! What do you think?" And I do remember many conversations among my friends and me about new budding romances and how to watch out for this or that.

That being said, the whole idea of couples doing it and having veto power or one thinking he or she knows better than their partner does on who to have relationships with just rankles me to no end.
My partners have shown themselves to be responsible adults capable of making their own decisions. I'm pretty sure that if someone was destructive towards them or disrespectful towards me that it would be addressed with the new person that they were dating.

After reading some of the melodramas we see here so often, I sometimes I think there should be either a maturity test or a sanity test to pass before entering into poly relationships.
 
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I wouldn't say that mono people don't go through the "What is your opinion of him/her?" phase before they decide to give a relationship a serious try. Meeting the partner is something like meeting the family or friends, it just (normally) happens much earlier in a poly relationship than in a mono one. Because the partners is more involved in everyday life on every level than the parents or siblings normally would be. Not in a decisive/veto manner, but I think that it is in a way some kind of codetermination as the life of the spouse is or can be highly affected by a metamour.

And don't get me started on the maturity/sanity tests:mad: One for each relationship, one for each parent (I hate it when children are part of the personal mess of people who aren't able to handle their lifes); and this is regardless of the way the relationship is build or the children are received. I never understood why someone has to proof that he/she would be a good parent if an adoption comes into play and there aren't some kind of mechanism for raising children in any relationship/way out there.
 
I'm having this sort of problem with my current ex-partner. One of his 'conditions' to me being polyamorous is that he should vet all of my partners and the idea behind it is something that rankled me slightly. I tend to go for people who are complete opposites, so there is a definite chance that he will never approve.

The other issue is that sometimes there is just not enough time for him to meet them. We are both very busy people at times and I don't want to keep any potential partners waiting for something that could be a long time coming.

On the other hand however, at some point I would want them to meet but it's not something I'm happy having to wait on his schedule.
 
Because we're planning to get back together, once we've sorted out our problems. At this point, that doesn't seem likely though.
 
Because even though we have our problems, I do still like him 95% of the time. I don't plan to put up with bullshit though and have made that quite clear to him.
 
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