Spreading the love around: does love lessen with more partners.

I think people who think with that mono perspective tend to forget that you already give some of your time and/or attention to other things and people. You spend time at work, you spend time sleeping, you spend time enjoying your hobbies. You spend time with your family, with your friends, or on an Internet forum. It's quite possible to be mono and have much less time and attention to give your one partner than a poly person does with each of theirs.

Yeah you've hit the nail with the hammer here I think. Mono people just immediately jump to some romantic notion in their head, like you're always on the beach at sunset sipping wine with your loved one and a new person is taking time away from that.

But as you say, you don't really WANT to spend every living moment with one person. Most people need alone time to formulate their thoughts. I think anyone that was so needy and attached that they would get the shakes if I went to the toilet and was away from them is someone with some issues.

And then sometimes there is a quality aspect to it as well. When you're together, especially for a long time, not all time spent together will be quality time. It could be spent doing the laundry while your partner is in the next room, or things like that. Yet when you have more partner, it's possible that the quality time is simply condensed. You spend less time with each partner, but it's also much more intense than it used to be. Things like that.

Ultimately, it will depend on the situation, the people involved, the type of relationship, but it's not as easy as "dividing" the amount of love by the amount of partners.

There are a lot of activities in life which are just "group" activities that won't matter if you're doing them with one or two people. Once it goes past two people though, I can see where people can realize it can take things away from you.

An example would be watching a movie. I can hold two girls on me when watching a movie and they both feel loved. I couldn't fit a third. Some poly people would say "yeah but one of the other girls could cuddle the third" and that would be true, however if someone wanted to cuddle me they couldn't in all group activities. This is never a problem with only 2 partners. I can also see where quads can work here, but they suffer from the needing to swap rather than the group being able to be contained within itself at all times if it wanted.

But there are many group activities where you could have say 3-10 loves actively involved. Eating. Talking. Playing sport. Sex. Driving. Cafe. Bars. etc.


I'd like to know how many "serial monogamists" there are in the poly scene compared to people like myself that are actively involved with more than one person at all times. Because I think a lot of "love is infinite" talk comes mostly from the serial monogamists. Where you have one or two partners you see most of the time (with boundaries), but have a boyfriend/girlfriend every month type situation.

Once you live the nitty gritty of handling multiple people at the same time you realize that there is no way you could handle an infinite amount of it on anything approaching a close relationship.


*HEAVILY OPINIONATED GENERALIZATIONS FOLLOWS*

To me at least, people that compartmentalize their relationships and are only with one love at a time aren't poly people as I define them as you're only using monogamous skills in the relationships. In essence it's all about finding base partners that are ok with their addiction to NRE. I can see how people that constantly taste NRE can think thoughts similar to that of other drug users. A NRE addict "love is infinite man" . A 1960s hippy on LSD "make love not war man". ;)
 
No, one can not handle an infinite number of partners. That would be absurd.

I have two lovers, a kid, and some close friends. I don't have the time or energy to fuel any more than that.
 
The comparison of one love to another is like apples to oranges.

That's a very good way to put it. If I eat an orange, it doesn't mean I like apples any less. And I can eat a fruit salad that has both. But fundamentally, apples and oranges both have something the other doesn't. And people are all different, but it's not really a "lack". I can love how one of my partner is tall, and I can love how another partner is short. Neither could be both at once, even though I love both things. In cases like that, it's not about one or the other not being enough, but how they both have good things about them.

I'd like to know how many "serial monogamists" there are in the poly scene compared to people like myself that are actively involved with more than one person at all times.

Well, my ideal relationship would involve several live-in partners with the possibility of other partners. Right now I only have the boyfriend I live with. I used to have two primaries, my husband and my boyfriend but one living in Canada and one living in the US meant that I pretty much didn't see both at once, except on some trips and over the Internet.

I can see how it's completely different if you never see your partners at the same time. Then your time is much more "divided" between them, as time with one of them requires time away from another. But as you pointed out, it's possible to spend quality time with several partners at once.
This being said, I would personally also want one-on-one time with each partner, as I think time spent as a group and time spent one-on-one can have different dynamics to them.

*HEAVILY OPINIONATED GENERALIZATIONS FOLLOWS*

To me at least, people that compartmentalize their relationships and are only with one love at a time aren't poly people as I define them as you're only using monogamous skills in the relationships.

I think it's about different types of poly. There is that book that explains that different kinds of poly can be as different from one another as they are from monogamy. If I recall, it spelled "polys" this way:
P: primaries that have secondary partners, similar to serial monogamy but with a steady primary partner on top
O: a group that all lived together and form a loop, could be a triad (A dates B who dates C who dates A) or something longer (...C who dates D who dates E who dates A). Could also be four people who each have two partners out of the three others, or people who are all involved with all the others, etc.
L: a vee (L and V are basically the same shape with a different angle... although I like how in V both branches are the same length)
Y: more networky configurations (for instance one person has 3 partners, making them the middle of a Y, these partners have other partners as well, etc)
S: Like an O that's not closed or crossed, so could be an N for instance.

It seems to me it's mainly the P form you think isn't really poly. I would say that to a mono person, it definitely isn't mono! But I would take it as it not being your poly. I still think it's polyamorous and I still think it requires poly skills. I think it's rare for it to be a complete double life with metamours never interacting, for instance. And compersion is definitely a poly skill.
 
Supplement or Complement.... Or Both?

I would say both.

But wait, you cry, does that make your soul-mate lacking??!!???

No, and I'll explain.

Everyone's different. There's music my wife likes that I generally don't see the appeal to. There's books I read that she doesn't care to tackle. There's certain sexual activities that one or both of us could care less for, both the other can't get enough of.

This doesn't make me love my wife less. In fact, the idea that it would be a problem to the relationship, because we have differences, or because we've developed different interests over time, is the reason many people jump into serial monogamy.
OMG, I found this chick that likes to play WoW, and my sweety doesn't. I must have made a terrible mistake!
I prefer to focus on the enduring love we have, and take those differences as being inevitable, and they are usually trivial compared to our groovy long term love.

There's a guy, for instance, she had been smitten with not long ago who was a heavy duty rockabilly enthusiast. There's a guy who she's attracted to now that is way heavier into native American spirituality than I, which she digs. I know that they'd have a lot more to share on those topics that I would. Doesn't make me less important to her.

The one thing that we have that never is lacking is love and affection for each other, and that's a hole that doesn't need filling. It also doesn't mean that if she were to receive more love and affection that it makes what we have somehow less. I would hazard to venture that it would actually make it more.

Then there's the occasional business trip I might take, or project that consumes most of my time, or worst case my untimely death or serious illness. In those situations there's definitely gonna be a dent in the romantic love and affection department. Nobody could replace me, but it would be a good thing if romance didn't decrease to little or none.

So as far as romantic love and affection, I'm in the Complement camp in most cases.

But there are assuredly many supplementary bonuses to the poly lifestyle as well.
 
The love that you share is immense. If anything, others that come in will be more of a supplementary relationship.

Interesting....can you explain that more? When I think of supplements, I think of something that we need because we are missing it. It is something that needs to be added because we are lacking in it.
As a college student, quite often I have had textbooks that also came with a supplementary "workbook" volume. Usually, the textbook is all that's required to meet the goals of the course. The supplement is often optional and simply gives the student more opportunity to work on specific exercises, and grasp certain concepts from another perspective. It's not that the main textbook is lacking, but that the supplementary volume rounds out our studies or gives us different ways to think about the topic. Our learning is increased.

So, to correlate, to say that an additional relationship is "supplementary," one could mean that it is like that workbook. It augments (ie., intensifies, grows, enlarges) the totality of the person in relationship with him or her, but does not signify a lack, necessarily, in any other relationships with which one is involved. Like another viewpoint or perspective; it is just another path to the heart. A supplementary relationship can fulfill the same needs, or different needs, as a primary or established relationship, but in a way that just offers another viewpoint, experience, etc. and rounds out the person in often unexpected ways.

So... basically, as I see it, allowing in love from multiple partners potentially enriches one's life, but need not be a replacement or at the expense of any of the other partners.
 
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Well I'm one who definitely got burned on this concept of infinite love....love begetting more love...when it comes to poly. A guy I met through an online site introduced me to the idea of poly. I'd never heard of it before. At first I was "No way! Fine for others. Not for me!" One of the concerns I had expressed was that I had always found it challenging enough to find time for my former husband, my children (when they were young), my job and my "self", much less trying to add anyone(s) else to our lives. (I'm currently divorced, single and my children are now adults.)

He was living with a female partner at the time we "met". He and I are heterosexual and she is bi-sexual. They were raising her 8 year old son from her prior marriage. They had the idea that they eventually hoped to form a poly family of sorts. He sought to reassure me that there was enough love to go around...that love was infinite.

I did a lot of reading and discussing of poly with him. Eventually I moved to live closer to him and his partner. (We had lived 7 hours a part) This move was agreed on by all 3 of us. I lived with them the first month until I found my own place...which had been the plan all along. We all did activities together as a "family" and separate activities as a "couple" occasionally. I met some of their friends and became friends with them. The one glitch was that I often felt like I was being treated as a "secondary" when it came to decision making, etc. and had told him that more than once. He told me more than once that he didn't mean for me to feel that way and that he didn't see me that way.

After moving into my own place, I saw less and less of him. We lived an hour a part, so I certainly didn't expect to see him daily. But, he had said prior to my moving that he thought we'd be able to see each other a couple of times a week/on a weekend. I was willing to make the drive to where they lived and to include other family members as part of "our" time together. (I had already gone out with him, his other partner's son and her mother to various events when his other partner had to work, so that wasn't anything new. I even babysat for her son when both of them had to work on a Saturday one time.)

Three months after I moved into my own place and after several discussions, he tells me that he's very busy with his new job, he's tired, busy co-parenting, she's busy finishing up college and starting a new job, etc., and that "No" he couldn't commit to seeing me once a week. But...he still loved me and wanted me as a part of his life...and so on and so on. (The only factor that had changed since we had discussed my moving to live near them was him getting a different job. All the other factors were the same.) He said he was willing to see me and spend time with me "whenever it worked out". (He didn't like it when I expressed it as "Oh, so what you're saying is that you still love me and want me in your life, and that you'll see me if and when it's convenient for you?" :rolleyes: )

I broke it off at that point in time. I had said from the beginning that I would consider being in a poly relationship with him as another "primary", but that I had NO interest in being a "secondary" with him. I recently heard that he and his partner are mono for the time being until things get settled down better in their lives. I wish they'd figured that out before he involved me in their lives! It would have saved me an immense amount of pain and loss. "Love" in theory is infinite....but "Love" is also an action....a verb...not just a noun. In my situation, "love" wasn't infinite in terms of an action. It's been 3 months since I broke it off with him...and I still cry myself to sleep some nights over this loss.
 
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dragonflysky, I think it's a sad and unfortunate situation, but it seems to me it's an example of how time isn't just used on other partners, since apparently he stopped having time to see you due to his job and parental obligations and not due to "using up" all his love on the one partner.

My boyfriend has only me currently, but he also has a very demanding job. He gets up at 7am and has been at work as late at 4am at times, although the usual is closer to 11pm. When he gets back home, he doesn't have much time to do anything other than sleep, and if we didn't live together at the moment, I wouldn't see him at all during the week.
Then during the weekend, everything that he has to do catches up with him since he couldn't do any of it during the week, and I tag along but here again, we probably wouldn't be able to make plans for dating if we didn't live together.

I'm sure some people have a much less demanding job that takes less time out of their schedule, and they can give their partners more time and attention, even if they have more than one, even if they don't see them at the same time.
I'm satisfied with the situation as it is because I'm someone who also likes having a lot of alone time, and I always fall for the busy guys, so I know if he stopped being busy it might work less well between us. But I can see how that wouldn't work at all for some people, and it doesn't have much to do with polyamory. If your friend didn't have his current girlfriend, it's possible he would have told you the exact same thing.
 
It happens often that the new person, the "secondary," gets the shitty end of the stick timewise. It's a bit the opposite in my relationship because of my husband's stupid work schedule.

With my boyfriend, he knows the kid comes first and that I have obligations that I can't avoid.

After taking care of life business and the kiddo, I have to make sure that I spend enough time with Thumper and T-Rex individually, both to meet my needs and theirs.

Thumper's work schedule tends to make our alone time difficult. T-Rex keeps me company twice a week when Thumper works overnight. We spend Thursday nights and Sunday morning and afternoons together, all three of us.

Theoretically, Thumper has the rest of the time, but too much of that gets eaten up by life stuff. We are trying to work out a better schedule of date nights and times for sex and cuddles alone together.

Time management is hard. Sometimes Thumper is bothered that he gets more sex and cuddles when there's the three of us together than when it's just he and I alone. and that's a legitimate beef. We're working on it.

Still, our relationship has grown closer since we opened our marriage. We communicate better, are more intimate and loving, and have more and better sex. We still need to work on some stuff... can't be together for 11 years without picking up some baggage...

Which is another point... being with T-Rex is teaching me, slowly, how to jettison the baggage. I have been with Thumper long enough, it's like I need remedial loving lessons. With T-Rex, it's a fresh start with no baggage. I learn how to love and be intimate without all the baggage, with a fresh perspective on it and able to bring into it everything I've learned over the years. Then I am able to bring that fresh perspective on loving back into my relationship with my husband, which enriches it.

Being with T-Rex unblocks me emotionally so I can be a better wife to Thumper. It's not an instantaneous thing. The lessons take a while to transfer over because they are very different from each other in many ways, but Thumper and I are feeling much more hopeful and connected. There was never any question of us ever breaking up, but entering into poly has given us experiences that have shown us how we can make our relationship better.

We are learning to see in what ways we are blocking and sabotaging our intimacy and working hard to dismantle the barriers that have grown up over the years. I credit poly with much of this. The emphasis on open, honest communication and how poly forces you to monitor your relationships and tend to them rather than just letting them grow wild... this builds skills that have benefited all my loving relationships.
 
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Once you live the nitty gritty of handling multiple people at the same time you realize that there is no way you could handle an infinite amount of it on anything approaching a close relationship.

Nicely put and completely agree.
 
Maybe you have to think of it from the other side of the fence too? For example, with Jen being the poly one in our marriage, I feel pretty stretched thin thinking of her having more than one BF. Different situation, sure, but I think it's pretty applicable.

Not to mention, I think Jen feels the same way... But that could have more to do with the time thing. While I don't think time and love go hand in hand, time is a factor no matter what, especially with the busy schedules most people have these days.
 
Does love lessen with more partners? Not necessarily. Sometimes the opposite happens!

However, it is true that there are only so many days in the week, hours in the day, etc.... Time is limited, and very busy people almost certainly cannot manage several (or many) "romantic" relationships simultaniously.

There are so many variables in this question. Love itself doesn't divide, like pie does. But time does -- and there's no getting away from that. But some people are okay with only a few hours a week, while others really do need a lot more together time with each of their partners.
 
you are talking time no? In my experience it is time that limits my love, or tries too. I can feel love and not express it because of time... that doesn't limit love though.

If there is a time limit on love, then how would you know you have infinite love? You haven't been able to reach the point of saturation yet due to time constraints.

As I said though, when I think of one of my girlfriends and trying to remember everything I know about them for even 5-10 people would be incredibly difficult for me. Tell me how many people you could handle in a close relationship? You seriously believe if time was infinite your brain could hold all the information needed for 20, 50, 100, 1000 people? Let alone an infinite amount.

Not only would time need to be infinite, so would the brain's storage. Basically saying love is infinite is a cop out in my opinion because it will never happen while we are humans and have a 4th dimension called time. "Love is infinite" seems like the war cry of NRE addicts trying to rationalize why they need to have a new boyfriend/girlfriend every month. Not that I'm necessarily saying addiction to NRE is bad, at least it's a natural and internal drug compared to other more deadly and costly forms of addictions. It's very similar to adrenaline junkies. However I think it would eventually take a toll on any long term relationships that person had, as most addictions tend to.

logical? maybe to you my friend. yes, more people seems to increase more potential for drama or mishaps as you put it.

It's logical in that one or two extra partners over monogamy can actually increase your time with your loved ones. Anything over that usually will decrease the time spent with any particular loved one.

My point was simply that adding a new boyfriend/girlfriend to a monogamous relationship can paradoxically give you MORE time with your first lover. Whereas most people think the exact opposite "I now have half a man".
 
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Time is Finite, but Shareable

As I said though, when I think of one of my girlfriends and trying to remember everything I know about them for even 5-10 people would be incredibly difficult for me. Tell me how many people you could handle in a close relationship? You seriously believe if time was infinite your brain could hold all the information needed for 20, 50, 100, 1000 people? Let alone an infinite amount.

No. Nobody's brain can handle the number of people you're talking about here. However, the likelihood that you'd find that many people compatible enough to build substantially deep relationships with seems a long shot bet. But that's just me, I'm picky.

Not only would time need to be infinite, so would the brain's storage. Basically saying love is infinite is a cop out in my opinion because it will never happen while we are humans and have a 4th dimension called time. "Love is infinite" seems like the war cry of NRE addicts trying to rationalize why they need to have a new boyfriend/girlfriend every month. Not that I'm necessarily saying addiction to NRE is bad, at least it's a natural and internal drug compared to other more deadly and costly forms of addictions. It's very similar to adrenaline junkies. However I think it would eventually take a toll on any long term relationships that person had, as most addictions tend to.

For some, yes. For some, no. Some who value the second more enduring phase of a romantic relationship may be shooting for it, though they may still enjoy the NRE while it lasts!

It's logical in that one or two extra partners over monogamy can actually increase your time with your loved ones. Anything over that usually will decrease the time spent with any particular loved one.

My point was simply that adding a new boyfriend/girlfriend to a monogamous relationship can paradoxically give you MORE time with your first lover. Whereas most people think the exact opposite "I now have half a man".

Of course if you restrict time spent to romantic lovers to one-on-one time, then the practical time limits are reached much sooner than if you allow for spending time as a group.

Some are comfortable with spending group time together, some are not.

Even if it's the non-sexual activity time, spending time as a whole can offer the opportunity to enjoy the company of more romantic lovers as well as forge new friendship bonds and further open up the channels of communication that are so critical to any relationship.
 
For some, yes. For some, no. Some who value the second more enduring phase of a romantic relationship may be shooting for it, though they may still enjoy the NRE while it lasts!

Yes NRE is great, and I look back on the NRE I had with my first girlfriend with fond eyes. However to me there is more to life than having that NRE feeling over and over again, the benefits I get from having 2 permanent lovers far outweighs anything I could get from 1 permanent and many short term lovers.

Of course if you restrict time spent to romantic lovers to one-on-one time, then the practical time limits are reached much sooner than if you allow for spending time as a group.

Some are comfortable with spending group time together, some are not.

Even if it's the non-sexual activity time, spending time as a whole can offer the opportunity to enjoy the company of more romantic lovers as well as forge new friendship bonds and further open up the channels of communication that are so critical to any relationship.

Agree mostly with this. Most people want at least some one on one time, I've never met a girl that would be ok with only having group time, not that they don't exist but I'm thinking it's rare.

If you factor in the amount of time even the least demanding partners in the world want you're still going to reach a theoretical limit around 5-20 people at any one time I think. Hardly infinite.

When it comes to traditional relationships as you see in most monogamous circles I think a triad is the most beneficial when it comes to one on one time. Monogamy isn't the optimal solution if you want to be mainly with one person, a triad is. As ridiculous as that sounds. I like a good paradox though.
 
Don't I Know It

If you factor in the amount of time even the least demanding partners in the world want you're still going to reach a theoretical limit around 5-20 people at any one time I think. Hardly infinite.

Very, very true.

Not that it's entirely related, but LONG, LONG AGO when I was a bachelor, I had an experience trying to date multiple people at the same time.

I tend to think analytically, and I figured that there's X amount of time one must invest before one can determine if a person will be compatible. There was also a pretty low percentage of the population that I would find compatible (picky). From a practical perspective, I reasoned that if I could date multiple women simultaneously, it would increase the odds of finding a compatible mate.

I am also a programmer, and knew that I would need help sorting it out and scheduling things. So I wrote a "Date-a-Base" application. It was pretty thorough, with logs of dates, scheduling module, ranking of women on many levels (so rude, I know) and money spent.

O.K., so I was young, so forgive the rather mercenary approach, but I knew that I would forget things or mix them up between dates. Therefore the Date-a-Base allowed for logging "factoids" from every date, so that before I went on a date I could spin up a printout and prep, so that I could make conversation like, "How did you do on that exam you were studying for?", or "Did your mom's surgery go well?".

Even worse yet, based upon the rankings that were entered, and the money spent over time, if a scheduling conflict were to occur, the scheduling module would calculate a "Bang for the Buck" ratio and choose a victim for rescheduling.

The end result was that the program worked too well. I kept things straight, and went on MANY dates. I think the max was actively dating 6 or 7 girls at the same time.

It.... was.... exhausting.....

I only lasted for a couple of months on that system. I was a zombie. There are practical limits. Of course, these were all separate women individually being dated, not cooperatively dated with group activities.

Long story short, I *really* see your point. :)
 
I tend to think analytically, and I figured that there's X amount of time one must invest before one can determine if a person will be compatible. There was also a pretty low percentage of the population that I would find compatible (picky). From a practical perspective, I reasoned that if I could date multiple women simultaneously, it would increase the odds of finding a compatible mate.

I am also a programmer, and knew that I would need help sorting it out and scheduling things. So I wrote a "Date-a-Base" application. It was pretty thorough, with logs of dates, scheduling module, ranking of women on many levels (so rude, I know) and money spent.

Well we are very similar then. Not that I have wrote a date-a-base before but I have written similar things. ;)

Being able to tear away the emotional things and think logically probably makes us able to see reality a bit easier than some. Though it may appear "cold" to those people. You can actually see a pattern to most relationships if you look closely enough, not that it diminishes what it brings you at all.
 
Confusion over resources and poly love

In reading through this thread again something occurred to me.

It seems fairly common to point to various time and resource conflicts as a "weakness" of polyamory. It's legit of course to take a particular example where one person has more time (or more needs) than another that seem to be going unmet and underline that as a problem with the logistics of poly.

Now my thought was that the weakness is also the strength !

It seems to really become the biggest problem when one of the parties are mono or stuck in some mode where their options for meeting their needs/desires is limited. So they want to point the finger at a love/partner and the model (poly) in general.

But think about this.............

'Where' really is the problem/weakness ?

Assuming they profess to embrace poly, why is it that they aren't reaching out to find ways to meet their desires from multiple sources themself, rather that sitting back crying foul about shortcomings of a preferred (primary?)partner or the poly model as a whole ?

Is this just our natural selfishness coming out ? We want what we want when we want it. And if it involves someone else and their needs/desires/schedules are conflicting with our desires, it MUST be THEIR fault !
Or anyone/any things fault except our own...........

Choices, choices...............

GS
 
New here, so don't know my way around the software yet. I don't think that it is a question of love or about love being less or more etc. Love is infinite. As the population grows, have you noticed children born without the capability of love?

That being said, as you add more partners, have bigger families, etc. Sometimes, not always, but sometimes the stress also goes up. It may not be a question of love becoming less, but stress becoming more.
 
'Where' really is the problem/weakness ?

Assuming they profess to embrace poly, why is it that they aren't reaching out to find ways to meet their desires from multiple sources themself, rather that sitting back crying foul about shortcomings of a preferred (primary?)partner or the poly model as a whole ?

Perhaps it's finding people that they find attractive. If they have spent many years finding the right partner they will of course be upset if they have no alternative or lesser alternatives. Your conclusion that all lovers are equal is quite politically correct but doesn't have much association with reality in my mind.

That's even to say that all people want to have multiple "secondary" partners, or people they don't trust down to the bone. Every random or semi random sexual encounter you have puts you at risk of numerous diseases, regardless of protection used.

"Open poly" people in my opinion seem to have a rather low barrier to entry. "You're ok with my lifestyle and my existing partner(s)? Wassup new boyfriend, let's have sex and see how it goes". Wooo NRE!!! A month later it's someone new. That's just my experience though.
 
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