How many poly ppl tell their family?

ellneek remove

Unless you want to be some kind of pioneer, do you have to disclose the details of your relationship to church and the office? What business is it of theirs? As for family, you might just need to introduce the apex of your V or one of your lovers.
 
I come out when asked about Murf. Frankly my family has done nothing for me the last 12 years. They are not paying my bills they do not need to know the dirty details of my life.

As for people interested in dating you.. Be honest from the get go. New friends that is up to you. Coworkers it is non of their business.

But I am a private person I feel no need to wave the poly flag from my roof top.
 
How do I explain Poly to people who's religion condemns it as sin?
Same way you would to anyone else. Poly means having romantic relationships with more than one person at a time with everyone's consent.

Or are you really asking how to 'explain it' in such a way that you'll convince them to approve of sex with multiple people, and sex outside marriage? If this is what you want, it's not likely going to happen. You don't want them telling you your beliefs are wrong and that you must change your mind on matters of faith, so give them the same respect.

And on that note, What is an appropriate way/time to come out as poly to people who are interested in dating you? To new friends? How about coworkers?

I'm also not clear on the need to tell anyone and everyone about your dating life or sex life.

Are you married or in a committed relationship? If so, who are those who are interested in dating you and how have they let you know if they believe you're not available?

Or do you mean when you meet someone for a first date, say off Okcupid or that sort of thing? If that's what you mean, I would suggest considering putting it in your profile so they know from the start. This way, you'll draw people looking specifically for poly people. And you won't run into the problem of people being turned off thinking they're going for a standard date with someone looking for a monogamous relationship only to find out the two of you aren't a match and never will be--I can see someone feeling they wasted their time in that situation and feeling like they had a bit of bait and switch pulled on them.
 
If I am remembering correctly from her other post, PolyPaulie is 20 years old, openly dating more than one person, and has just divested herself of a transphobic boyfriend who was not thrilled with her being poly. (Yay!)

Therefore, it sounds like a lot of people in her life already know she is poly and that she's having no trouble explaining it to people she dates. So I will just talk about being open with family & co-workers.

Co-workers: depends what kind of job and what kind of social environment. In my ideal world, one's co-workers would know nothing at all about one's personal life. In reality, though, people chat & ask questions and there is no way to avoid that friendly office banter. With a full time job, you might spend the MAJORITY of your time with co-workers, more than with other people in your life! In my own new office job, I have managed to avoid answering any questions about my dating life so far, but my co-workers already wonder why I'm so weird and secretive. This is a job I'm planning to stay in for years, so I haven't figured out what to do about that yet. :(

Family: I alternate between wanting to be more open with them and wanting them to know nothing at all about my dating life. I am not yet sure what the balance is.

So I don't really have any advice for you. Keep reading on this site, especially in the Life Stories & Blogs section. Lots of good stuff there.

PS: I congratulate you for being independent and out of your parents' house at such a young age!
 
Interesting subject.

When and how to come out as poly to friends and coworkers is something that I'm wondering about too. How do you bring the subject of open marriages up? I have a couple women friends with whom I'd like to tell about my open relationship. I'd ask them out, but I wouldn't want them thinking that I'm cheating. I would keep my poly a secret and stick to women I meet online, but the women I've met in person are much more interesting to me and have more in common with me.

As for coming out as poly to a religious family, I'd just let them be. The athiesm thing was probably hard enough on them. Introduce them to one boyfriend and if they have to meet one of your other partners for any reason, just tell them that he or she is a friend. They don't need to know the intimate details of your sex life.
 
If you are really friends with these women and hang out with them, don't they ask you where your wife is or what she's doing? You can use that to OMG bring up the open relationship. I do this all the time, although i so far have not been interested in dating any of the people. People often ask, "where is S?" and i'll say "on a date" or "with K" (if they already know). It normalizes it, instead of bells going off and confetti dropping from above. Then word gets around in a way that isn't dramatic as long as you project authenticity and don't act like you are looking for approval. Of course, since you want to ask these women out on dates, you will be projecting that, so you might as well figure out what you need to do to get comfortable with yourself, then just say to them (one at a time), "you know my wife and i see other people right? Would you ever consider being in a non-monogamous relationship that isn't cheating?" if they like you, it will get personal from there. If they don't like you that way, it will either get all philosophical and academic, or awkward and you will notice.
 
There is no need to expose yourself to persecution

Unless you are ready to take a stand. By far the absolute best thing you can do is always speak up when you hear of anybody trash talking LGBT or Poly or any form of non-monogamy for being who they are.

If everyone spoke out every time they heard a bigoted slur, it would be the bigots who needed to closet themselves and not those who just want to be free to live

If you choose to become an activist, that's great, get with an organization so that you know you are helping and not hindering the movement to rid the world or wrongly discrimination.

Speak out whenever you see instances of people afflicting others with hardships or when their speech is obviously meant to belittle or intimidate. If you do that, the coming out will take care of itself, and when enough people do it, you won't have to worry any more about persecution, people won't allow others to try to intimidate or shame you when it is them who are wrong and flawed.
 
You have no need to come out to anyone, esp. if they can negatively impact your career, family or life in anyway. We don't reveal all of ourselves to all people, particularly co-workers, because we work with people from all walks of life. Gay is just starting to gain acceptance & Poly has a very long way to go. Be very very careful who you tell. I have told my closest friends b/c I have great friends but not my family & would never tell a co-worker or colleague unless I was sure they could accept it & keep their mouths shut. And I am an incredibly open & honest person. Why would you feel the need to come out to everyone? What are the benefits & more importantly, what are the consequences? Being honest doesn't mean you have to disclose everything to everyone. Proceed with caution. You can't untell.
 
Just one

I recently told one sister. About AM and WI and me.

She wasn't surprised at all. (She knew about EL.)

She said, probably second sentence after I told her about us three, "you must be loving this." I said, "well, I've found that I'm not always necessary..." and she stopped laughing about give minutes later.

What a total sense of peace and acceptance from her. What a total sense of being KNOWN. What an incredible feeling.

What did she want to know? How it came to be. And that we are doing well. Communication, sex life, a round robin of attention and listening - those were icing on the cake. Our creation story made sense, even with an outwardly straight wife, and that's what she needed to know.

And it really does feel amazing to have her know, have her understand me, and feel safe. She's the only family member to know about me and poly. I'm totally in the closet with family and all but a few really close friends. To feel this safe is an incredible feeling...

For what it's worth, WI has told one sister as well. It also went really well. Sometimes things work out fine, I guess. But we're nervous to tell anyone else...
 
I told everyone. I told my last girlfriend on the third date, before we were a couple. It was hard, but the last thing I wanted was her mistakenly assuming that I had eyes only for her. During our 1 year relationship, I never really did much with anyone else, although even with the few times that I did a few things (a casual online relationship, a neighbour who I really liked), she didn't do so well with it. I think things really went south when I dispelled her parent's illusion that I was monogamous minded.
 
Haven't read the replies.

But-we definitely told our families asap and we are out to anyone who inquires. He's the other love of my life. It would be disrespectful to him, to keep that in the closet.
We are not secretive about our other loves.
 
my family, my ex's family and DH's mom knows (she lives with J). The rest of his family mostly dont know because it's never come up as they are out of state.
 
I have only read the responses on this page.

I told them years ago and took it back recently. The maternal side knows not to mention it or my ex. The paternal side knew about the relationship and the end, but they learned today what happens when they bring up a forbidden topic. DH's family now views us as a mono couple. He is mono, and they hated me flaunting (not hiding) my extramarital relationship. It caused some serious problems. We are still feeling the undercurrents. If DH ever reaches a point of tolerance again and I ever want to get in to another relationship, he has made it clear that he refuses to be out to family, friends, or co-workers. I cannot force him to be outed because of formerly my poly tendencies, so I have no ground to argue with him on this.

I have sincere regrets about coming out to our families. If I knew now what I knew then, I would have stayed in the closet and kept it to myself. Dirty little secret, disrespectful, or not, it was not worth the hell, strain on most relationships, and rifts created. Lesson learned. :)
 
My best friend knows and one of my brothers (and his wife) knows. The best friend worries a little about it thinking that my wife might decide she's not OK with it after all and I lose access to my children.

My brother is not down with it and refuses to discuss Susan ever. It really hurts because I've supported them in lots of non-conventional thinking. And if his attitude is like that, I have no idea how I'd ever tell my parents. Also, Susan and Kay would both hate it if I did.
 
Guy - both his brothers know he's poly, but so far they only know about our attempted triad with our ex-girlfriend J. He's leery about telling them about my current relationship with Morp (because he's a man, and that would be more frowned on than a woman). His sister would never speak to me again if she found out about Morp - not that she does now, anyway, but it would be even more of a stone wall. His parents also know about J; but while his mom pretty much ignored it, his dad stopped talking to me until the end of the relationship - and now pretends I never sent him a long letter with reference articles etc (probably a stupid move, but I was trying to help him understand it, since he wasn't talking to me) or that J was ever in the picture. Again, if Morp was mentioned - it would be worse. Now that his grandfather is moving in state - he wants to keep it even quieter. On the other hand - he found out the ethnic community he's part of actually has an active swinger contingent - which is so very funny, and makes him a little less terrified of the prospect of the (very tight knit) community finding out about us.

Morp - the sibling he's currently roommates with is very very strict religiously - she would hate me, and kick him out for dating a married woman. So, she's not getting told. He's told his kids about me, though, since he's divorced and they were pestering him to date again. Other people in his life know.

I told my parents separately (they're divorced) - she was more worried than I expected, about stds and the kids' perceptions. My dad thinks it's all about sex, which I guess makes sense - he cheated on mom, and then they sorta-kinda tried poly - his famous words "I liked my mistress so much I brought her home to meet my wife" - but after that broke up he just stuck to regular cheating. My middle sister knows (she bought me Sex at Dawn when she found out, cause she's awesome like that), and my eldest and youngest will know next time I have a chance to really talk to them.

The kids haven't been told in so many words yet - when J was staying weekends she was "mommy's friend who is having a sleepover" (just like they have sleepovers at their friend's houses). I've talked in general about the theory of poly - more in the; 'it's fine for people to have multiple relationships as long as everyone agrees'. Which is reassuring to my second daughter - she and her best friend both have a crush on the same boy in their class. (yikes). And I refer to Morp casually in conversation sometimes - like in a conversation we had about movies the other day - his tastes are different than Guy's - but they haven't met yet.

I wasn't out at work until Morp took me to lunch one day and when he dropped me back off he and I were kissing in the truck when a coworker came out to leave for the day. So I introduced him to her - I didn't want her to think I was cheating. She was a little weirded out - but I'd brought up poly before, mostly cause of the dating website our boss was on that he wanted to give us updates on his (lack of) success all the time. After I quit that job I was at a client's office and had to leave by a certain time so was rushing to get done, and running late - he asked about why I was rushing and I told him I had a date with my boyfriend. If anyone would have taken it badly I think he would have - very conservative, religious, etc - but he'd already started bugging me to tell him about my book (erotica) and I'd warned him I had "non mainstream relationships" which he insisted didn't bother him - so I up and told him. He did a double take at the mention of boyfriend - and I reminded him 'non mainstream, remember?' and breezed out the door. So - at this point - I'm just about completely out.

It definitely helps though, that I'm not tied to a job any more. Cause while I don't know if my former boss would have taken it badly - he could have, and he's very arbitrary, so I could have found myself fired. (Tiny firm, no real recourse.) And my current biggest client - I haven't told yet, but his son is gay, so it's less likely that he'll freak out when he finds out.

Oh - and I started wearing a bracelet about a year ago (most days, not every day) when I was tired of being invisible (it's pretty easy to mistake me for a heterosexual mono vanilla woman) - that has the leather flag (red heart, black, blue and white), the diversity flag (rainbow), the polyamory flag (gold pi sign, blue, red and black), and the bisexual flag (pink, purple, blue). Most people don't know what it means and therefore ignore it, but I feel more comfortable knowing that I'm "out" without being in-your-face, and if someone else recognizes one or more it enables a softer approach, conversation starter.
 
I told my family the moment I realized I see absolutely no reason what so ever to "try" to "stop myself" from loving more than one person.~

I get discouraged by people who "like to keep it in the closet" because it seems to me like they are "ashamed" of who they are and what they are doing.~ The same goes for every thing: showing affection in public, letting people know about their multiple relationships, not hiding their sexuality or lack there of, etc.~

I am an "open-book" and I am NOT "private" in ANY sense of the word, so I don't like to be with people who are like the above.~

I don't believe you can control who you love, so why try to fight it?~

Love isn't about convenience, schedules, lists, time, rules, or logic: it just "is" regardless of every thing.~

That's not to say you CAN'T make schedules for "quality time" and what not, but make no mistake: love is going to be love no matter what you do, some times you don't want to "go with the schedule", just chuck it all, and do what you feel like doing.~

Love,

ColorsWolf
 
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My husband's family (his mother) knew but she died this year. My family... I'm not sure. I barely ever talk to them and never told them directly but never hid it either, and I'm out on Facebook and all. So they might know, they might not, and I don't really care either way.
 
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