Perhaps because I am single....

I think I could have lived my whole life without getting married. To be honest, the reason we did was in a big part for legal reasons of immigration and residency.
However, I think it's also a turning point, a ceremony to show the world you love each other. A way to make it more official. I want to marry a man I love to say I want to spend my life with him.
For me it doesn't have to be just one person, that's a monogamous thing, and I'm not monogamous. For me a marriage has a significance of commitment and investment, and you're saying you're here for the long run.
I don't think marriage is necessary, but I don't see it as meaningless either.

I want to have a ceremony for partners other than my legal husband. They'd be my husbands too, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm really not too worried about the fact that they wouldn't be equal before the law, since the law isn't really what matters.

Hope that helps you understand my position here.
 
Everything that I would've said has been said. So I'll reiterate ...

A little of this:
So why marry? Because I wanted to. And he wanted to. And no matter what, he's my chosen family.

Some of this:
I got married because Maca needed marriage for a sense of security. If that piece of paper helped, so be it.

This:
An excuse for a really big party?

...

We couldn't see a downside to doing it, and the benefits were many.

This too:
It changes nothing, other than we have found that we like referring to each other as "husband" and "wife" as it is a good shorthand for the degree of our commitment to the outside world.

And last, but not least:
We designed our vows to indicate that we were not exclusive. ... We fully knew the likelihood of others coming into our lives and our common goal was to raise a child or two with loving chosen family.


So yeah. Married a week and we're still the same people we were, the same good, the same bad. But our commitment is something the world at large recognizes, now. If all my relationships can't eventually be recognized that way, then I might as well have one.
 
But our commitment is something the world at large recognizes, now. If all my relationships can't eventually be recognized that way, then I might as well have one.

This! Some of us value this. We feel it and can't explain it. It's like trying to explain an emotional response to puppies and kittens for some...we some people adore them and imediately want to hold and pet them...other people see them as pests. Who knows why?
 
This! Some of us value this. We feel it and can't explain it. It's like trying to explain an emotional response to puppies and kittens for some...we some people adore them and imediately want to hold and pet them...other people see them as pests. Who knows why?

It's strange ... overnight Indigo has more authority with regards to things in my life. For example, I'm changing gyms and need to cancel at one gym ... Indigo goes to that one, and I asked if he could do it, since he's my husband ... weird. Nothing has changed from the inside! :p
 
So what I have as my foundation in this poly relationship is, essentially, my marriage. It is the solid ground on which I stand, when I reach out for new experience

I like this statement, mainly because my BF just told me that is how he feels about our relationship and I agree with him. He said I was the rock he could anchor himself to so that he could reach out for more adventurous experiences. I loved that. I could totally see being married and open/poly.
 
I like this statement, mainly because my BF just told me that is how he feels about our relationship and I agree with him. He said I was the rock he could anchor himself to so that he could reach out for more adventurous experiences. I loved that. I could totally see being married and open/poly.
That anchor analogy is becoming a recent way of saying primary/secondary it seems. I have seen it on other sights before. It is a way of getting away from the nastiness of saying "you are my secondary" "you are my primary" instead the thought is that people are your anchor instead.

Interesting... I used to subscribe to this point of view. But no longer. I don't subscribe to a hierarchy but time, depth of relationship and the connection I have with my partners... secondaries and primary relationships seem to of gone by the wayside for me and I hadn't realized until recently that that transition had happened... I think its just part of becoming an old poly lady ;):D

I put a post on another thread about this if you are interested in reading.

http://www.polyfamilies.com/polysecondary.html
 
Interesting thought. I began as mono. I was taught mono, believed mono, etc. We became swingers, but still carried the mono mindset (to us, sex does not equate with love). And ultimately, our poly relationship was a serendipitous result of swinging. So what I have as my foundation in this poly relationship is, essentially, my marriage. It is the solid ground on which I stand, when I reach out for new experience

I can understand your question. I guess if I were single when I began in the poly world, I might be asking it as well. We all have different journeys:)

What we experienced is something similar to you, Jade. My husband and I have been together for 12 years, married 10. I'd always been bi-curious but afraid to explore it, but after we were married I got drunk at a party while my husband was on an alcohol run. He came back to find a friend sucking on my toes and encouraged me to keep exploring. We started swinging at first, though only with women (I'd never met a man who could truly satisfy me sexually until my husband so I didn't need another man), until about 2004 when a friend was going to Iraq and he, his fiance, the hubby, and I had a foursome that changed everything as he asked us to take care of his fiance while he was gone. The rest has been a bumpy road from swinging to LD poly to the relationship(s) we have now.
 
I have to second the rock analogy. My husband is my other half, my shelter from the storm, the one I can count on no matter what, who will ALWAYS be there. No matter how crazy and chaotic life gets, I can count on him to hold me and make me feel like it will all be alright. He would be this if we only had sex with each other, if we had weekly orgies, or if we never had sex at all. None of that affects the emotional support he offers.

My boyfriend is ALSO the love of my life. I also intend to spend the rest of my life with him. But, even though our love and commitment is just as strong, it IS a tiered system. Should there ever be a situation where supporting or helping his wife meant leaving me, then that would be the choice he had to make. I can only imagine this coming up in some crazy far fetched scenario (like going into witness protection or something), but we still know that in that crazy, hypothetical situation, his marriage comes first.
 
I have to second the rock analogy. My husband is my other half, my shelter from the storm, the one I can count on no matter what, who will ALWAYS be there. No matter how crazy and chaotic life gets, I can count on him to hold me and make me feel like it will all be alright. He would be this if we only had sex with each other, if we had weekly orgies, or if we never had sex at all. None of that affects the emotional support he offers.

I haven't really kept up with this thread, but this post was in my email box this morning and it caught my eye.

My boyfriend is my rock. He has been my rock emotionally for nearly 18 years. He's been a financial rock when I needed him-which admittedly wasn't often until he became a part of our household nearly 8 years ago. He's the one I know will always be there no matter what. It didn't matter when I married Maca, it won't matter if I have a dozen lovers, nothing will change the fact that he's there for me, in any way I need him-always.

I hope that someday Maca will manage to reach a point within himself that I can honestly say I believe that to be true of him as well. But so far, things have told me that emotionally he's "in and out" and not dependable. I don't doubt that he would be there financially for me and the kids no matter what. But I have yet to see that he's willing to push through anything to be there emotionally and personally.
 
What we experienced is something similar to you, Jade. My husband and I have been together for 12 years, married 10. I'd always been bi-curious but afraid to explore it, but after we were married I got drunk at a party while my husband was on an alcohol run. He came back to find a friend sucking on my toes and encouraged me to keep exploring. We started swinging at first, though only with women (I'd never met a man who could truly satisfy me sexually until my husband so I didn't need another man), until about 2004 when a friend was going to Iraq and he, his fiance, the hubby, and I had a foursome that changed everything as he asked us to take care of his fiance while he was gone. The rest has been a bumpy road from swinging to LD poly to the relationship(s) we have now.

I suppose I should also add that we are no longer with them as anything more than friends.... their relationship imploded in the last couple years over whether or not they would have kids. She medically can't have them but refused to consider surrogacy or adoption and he absolutely has to have them to feel like a complete family.
 
Pepper,

I understand what you're saying, but I thought, by way of explanation, that I'd mention that my poly relationship doesn't subscribe to primary, secondary either. My bf's other gf is by no means "secondary". She is just going in a different direction in life than my bf. She is Christian and one day wants to settle down and get married. If my bf wasn't poly, and was interested in marriage, I'm sure she'd want to marry him. But since she has an opposite agenda in life, their relationship seems to have a pre-set time limit of some sort. Regardless, they are very much in love and see one another almost every day and have a very sweet and committed relationship. Same with my other partner. He is not a step below my first bf, just different in almost every way, but both of these relationships have the potential to last a lifetime (as much as any mono marriage or long term relationships does).

The term "secondary" has always creeped me out. And I don't think I engage in the kind of relationships that fall neatly into those categories/hierarchies. Thanks for your input. I often enjoy reading your posts :)
 
Sometimes people are married or engaged prior to meeting another person. Everyone loves everyone differently. Maybe you have enough history and commitment with one partner to marry them, but not the other.
 
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