When do you tell your partner you are pursuing someone else?

blacksofa

New member
Being new to this, I am curious at what point others tell their primary partner when they have an interest in someone else.

After the first date, before you pursue, first conversation...??

And when a good time would be to bring it up.

My main partner, boyfriend, basically...has expressed that he would like to know at first interest and I'm wondering how others do it. There is someone I am currently interested in but he lives about an hour away so I'm not sure I would actually pursue it. I am going to tell the boyfriend, since he expressed wanting to know, but I'm wondering what other people do in this case.

Would you tell your primary even if you weren't sure you were going to pursue...?
 
My boyfriend and I have the agreement that if either:
a) sexual encounters are going to happen more than once
or
b) an emotional attachment is going to form
then we will discuss it with the other one.
 
I tell my partners everything.
If I meet someone at school-and we say hello, I tell them.
If I have coffee with someone or I have a conversation with someone in line at the coffee shop, I tell them.
If I am even remotely attracted to someone I may never speak to-I tell them.

But-I damn sure tell them before I ever consider asking someone on a date or accepting an invite.
And
I keep them up to date along the way.

So for example, last October I met a lady at an event and for a joint interest purpose we exchanged email addresses. GG was actually with me and saw the sparks fly. But, I had told Maca about meeting her, before the event was over. We talked via text.
I talked with them in depth before I ever emailed her or made any remark to her about interest.
I kept them posted when I decided to ask her to go for a walk.
Also when I dropped a "thank you" card for her at her work after she helped me find some books I was looking for.
They knew before we went on any dates and when we went on dates, they knew how it went.
They were the first to know when I realized that she wasn't any longer a potential, just a friend.

I find that fully open communication is the level of depth I prefer in any relationship. I want to know my partners can tell me anything at all and vice versa. So, I keep them up to date with what is going on in my head from "WOW look at that hair" all the way through whatever else might come of the thought.

Keeping current relationships strong and fully involved is a critical component to being able to be free and easy. For me.
 
Like LR

I'm the same as LR.
 
Somewhere in between

I tell them as soon as I feel any potential interest with someone who is a reasonable candidate (meaning, not a woman I saw on the train but didn't talk to, necessarily, but definitely a woman with whom I felt an attraction and was considering asking out/hanging out with/meeting in a group/etc.).

I keep them up-to-date, but they don't get gory details. So, "we had dinner and a movie, and sex," yes. "We had dinner, ate sushi and I ordered the seaweed salad; we watched the latest Star Wars and she hated that everyone kept looking for Kirk and didn't care about the hundreds of thousands of people that just died; we went back to her house and did X sexual thing, Y sexual thing, and then WXZ thing that involved monkeys and chandeliers." No.
 
I am also like LR. I just share it all.

But this is new. And I love it. It is totally liberating. Then again, I'm poly saturated right now, with zero interest in new attractions. A wife, a local lover, a LDR?! I don't see myself being attracted anew for a long while...
 
Hasn't happened yet, so I'll know it if and when I get there...

Someone whom I call a partner (in my life, that's been only two persons - R., currently and for the last five years; and one other person for a few months during the year before I met R.) would already know about people whom I consider other close friends; so it would just be one additional step to take when I and another friend choose to call each other partners, too... I guess I'd probably mention it to R. more or less immediately if and when that label change happens.

For me, someone who isn't a close friend already won't be eligible as a potential partner, anyway... and to me, the difference between "close friend" and "partner" is mostly a question of labels to start with. *shrug*
 
I am new to this (met my boyfriend and afterwards found out about poly). So i told everything from the start.
Normally i also tell special things that happened during the day so i guess if i was in your situation my husband would already know i met the guy, and so he would notice himself also i like him. But again, it never happened to me.

By the way, i think it's funny you write that the man lives an hour away. My boyfriend lives in another country, another continent. For me it's sometimes easy, because it's two different worlds.
 
Me and my husband have agreed about telling each other before the first date. I have promised to my OSO (he is mono) to let him know if I get interested in another person - at the moment that is not very likely, have my hands full with these two loves.

My husband does not want to know each and every detail about my life. I am much more curious about what is happening to him and actually he enjoys telling me about who he has been chatting with, his friendships and potentials. So yes, I do know well beforehand if anything is to happen. And like it that way.
 
Guy knows everything going on in my life; we often talk in detail about everything. So he and I know very early on if there is any interest, potential interest, passing fancy, etc.
Morp and I share a lot; we're gradually getting to the point of sharing everything, because that's where my comfort level is, but that we don't yet is mostly a function of time.
 
I'm like LR too - Although I tell one partner 100% of that because we live together and see each other so much, another partner I'd tell 97% of that because we don't see each other every day so I can see a couple of conversations happening with a new person before we speak about it (so they may not be being told things in real time) or not hearing "omg that giant redhead bearded dude is so lumberjacky I want to walk up to him in the grocery store and tell him I like him but that's weird right?" My other partner I'd tell 80% of everything because I wouldn't tell him I was talking to somebody new before I saw him in person unless the conversation quickly escalated to a meeting request - I might or might not tell him if I was going to write to somebody, if knew I was going to I would, but I'd be spontaneous without running it by him.

I like the practice talking about new people and interest gives me with all my partners, it makes it less scary when a "what if?" becomes a reality. Now I happen to freely and comfortably share new relationship updates until things become whatever they are going to with those I'm involved with. I will say that if I look at my partners, they probably share 43-87% of the amount of stuff I do proactively. I know of the two % higher sharing partners, one was a bachelor for 40 years and wasn't used to sharing so much and startled by my sharing and interest, and the other was used to sharing >>> stress, so I see it's not natural for some people. The lesser % partner? Well he is very independent and our relationship has been somewhat compartmentalized, so although he will answer my questions if asked, he assumes it's "nosy" if he asks me what is going on, and so I don't talk in as much detail because he only shares important things (arranging a date with a new person, if sex is going to or has happened, new STI risks).
 
The "rule" in my relationships is that we are obliged to share any "game changers". Anything that will potentially affect the way we interact or change the method or frequency of our contact. In practical terms, this would mean if we were starting a committed romantic relationship with someone. However, we generally "gossip" about people we are talking to/meeting/fucking because we enjoy hearing about what we have been up to.
 
And when a good time would be to bring it up.

Similar to how I deal with friends and family, if I think my partner is curious to know something about my life and I care to share it... I share it. I don't have a guideline about this sort of thing because it's purely optional.

However, this is because my relationships are independent of each other and I am independent of my partners (and everyone else, for that matter). No one is entitled to know anything about my life, but I'm not stingy with information if a loved one wants to know what's going on with me.
 
I have always told my partner(s) about an attraction as soon as it became more than a casual 'hey, I'm going to meet that person I told you about from yoga class for coffee'. IMO, blindsiding leads to much poly hell. That's why I have never done it, and always advise against it!
 
I have always told my partner(s) about an attraction as soon as it became more than a casual 'hey, I'm going to meet that person I told you about from yoga class for coffee'. IMO, blindsiding leads to much poly hell. That's why I have never done it, and always advise against it!

I agree with this, and this is how we've done it. It works for us to know more than may be strictly necessary, but that's better than being surprised.
 
Well, Fly and my "rule" is after having sex 3 times with new person, on the idea that if it's gone that far, it's likely this person will be around for a while in whatever role (FWB, fuckbuddy, love) and may impact life and family stuff.

In reality, I tend to want to talk about people right away, as soon as I know I'm interested in them, because I'm a talker. :rolleyes: Fly is not, and pretty much sticks to the 3-times guideline. However, he's more into new and shiny, and leans toward the one or two-night-stands rather than ongoing things, and even his ongoing lovers are pretty strictly friends (in a real sense) with benefits and not romantic entanglements. So, we rarely discuss his partners, and they rarely appear in day-to-day life except as far as negotiating child/chicken care.

Moonlight and I don't really have anything clear about this, and it hasn't come up because I haven't been seeing anyone but Punk and Fly since i met her. I will probably tell her right away also, and it will probably be ugly because I'm pretty sure she's monogamous at heart. But I respect and love her, and in my personal code that means I have to be not only honest, but also forthright with her.

Punk really couldn't care less. :cool:
 
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I don't apply a primary/secondary hierarchy to my love relationships, and I fly solo, so I don't really have "partners." But I generally tell my lovers about other lovers if it feels appropriate to do so, and that probably would be after I've had sex with someone a couple of times and it seems that a relationship is starting to become established. I don't feel it's necessary to report back to anyone about every flirtation, interaction, or date I go on unless a conversation naturally happens where it seems appropriate to mention.
 
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