Throuples (three-way relationships)

[Dagferi]

I only have issue with the unicorn hunters.

Heck people who want others to fill a certain role in their lives in general. Instead of allowing relationships to develop naturally. The people who want to saddle some else with rules and regulations in which they get no say.

[peabean]

Originally Posted by pulliman

But with all the questions, comments, pronouncements, and such, I start second-guessing what feels to me to be pretty normal and relaxed.

This is my problem exactly. Our relationship is normal, relaxed. We have worked through our issues by communicating, just like everyone suggests.

But in the beginning, as I was trying to find more information, there was so much negativity about triads in the online poly community I seriously questioned how we could manage it. I would second guess myself constantly. I wondered if I was some kind of unicorn hunter? Perhaps I was exercising couple privilege by not wanting to come out to people right away? My girlfriend is great, and we have an incredible sex life, was I treating her as a sex object by texting her all day and having lunch time rendezvous?

I'm fortunate that neither of my partners read these boards. When I would voice these concerns they would both laugh, and tell me to stop worrying.

I guess what gets me is that you see many people coming on here when they are just opening their relationships making the same mistake over and over. About 75% of the advice they get is helpful, patient. When people come on seeking a triad they get dog piled. It's tiresome.

Knowing how good a triad can be, I completely understand why people seek out this relationship type. Of course it's unrealistic, but so are a lot of the expectations newly poly people have.

[Ariakas]

Originally Posted by peabean

This is my problem exactly. Our relationship is normal, relaxed. We have worked through our issues by communicating, just like everyone suggests.

But in the beginning, as I was trying to find more information, there was so much negativity about triads in the online poly community I seriously questioned how we could manage it. I would second guess myself constantly. I wondered if I was some kind of unicorn hunter? Perhaps I was exercising couple privilege by not wanting to come out to people right away? My girlfriend is great, and we have an incredible sex life, was I treating her as a sex object by texting her all day and having lunch time rendezvous?

I'm fortunate that neither of my partners read these boards. When I would voice these concerns they would both laugh, and tell me to stop worrying.

I guess what gets me is that you see many people coming on here when they are just opening their relationships making the same mistake over and over. About 75% of the advice they get is helpful, patient. When people come on seeking a triad they get dog piled. It's tiresome.

Knowing how good a triad can be, I completely understand why people seek out this relationship type. Of course it's unrealistic, but so are a lot of the expectations newly poly people have.

Haha.. honestly thats part of the pitfalls to the online community. It is very cynical about those things it believes don't work. You have to take this world with a grain of salt.

On one hand there is the belief that relationships are short, shouldn't be tied down, and in the end every relationship is a success.

Except those evil unicorn hunts who have short enjoyble relationships.

Not every unicorn is mistreated, not every unicorn hunting couple does so in bad taste. I think most times whats happening is the aversion to swinging. Thats not a unicorn hunting problem, thats a fear of label. If most unicorn hunters that are the evils versions just realized they want to fuck and swing, it would save the loving unicorns a lot of heartache. (ps this happens outside of poly too.. this isn't a poly problem, this is an expectations problems)

It isn't malicious, its simply misplaced knowledge and acceptance.

Your partners sound like they rock for the record.. ..

I have a similar online life. I have my reality to check my online world. Its good to know what is really working for me and my friends/lovers, vs what people believe should be working, online.

*excuse any poor english, been working for almost 24 hours straight and need more coffee*

[pulliman]

I've really enjoyed going back into the archive and learning bits and pieces about your past, peabean, and this is really great to read, too. Thank you so much for posting here.

Originally Posted by peabean

This is my problem exactly. Our relationship is normal, relaxed. We have worked through our issues by communicating, just like everyone suggests.

I love that line - normal, relaxed. AM just left, after hanging out and holding hands with WI while chatting about things, giving me a soft kiss as she walked out the door. We don't live together (two of three wish we could... we'll see what it's like by next spring...), and it all feels so NORMAL. Hearing that this can work for others is really important. (And yes, yes, we spend a lot of time with communication and meta-communication, talking about our talking.)

Originally Posted by peabean

But in the beginning, as I was trying to find more information, there was so much negativity about triads in the online poly community I seriously questioned how we could manage it. I would second guess myself constantly. I wondered if I was some kind of unicorn hunter? Perhaps I was exercising couple privilege by not wanting to come out to people right away? My girlfriend is great, and we have an incredible sex life, was I treating her as a sex object by texting her all day and having lunch time rendezvous?

Like I said above, reading your posts from the past has been nice for me, for this reason. I can listen and learn, without feeling like I'm screwing up or doing the impossible. I mean, sure it's unrealistic that my wife would fall for a woman and we would stand around holding hands and talking away - but it actually happened, so what now?

Originally Posted by peabean

Knowing how good a triad can be...

Smiling at that. Yay.

[kdt26417]

Re (from Lottie):

"Would love to hear some success stories, advice, experiences ..."

I highly recommend the Life stories and blogs board, it has a lot of stories and experiences of all kinds (from the successful to the not-so-successful), and it will probably provide you with some helpful wisdom and perspective.

Re (from Murasaki):

"Does anyone have the stats for V’s? success versus ending within say a year?"

Success versus ending within say a year, I don't know that we have that. But Dagferi's relationship configuration stats thread can be found at ...
http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showt...137#post233137
... and it shows comparatively how many V's there are versus triads, etc.
Mind you, the poll is only accurate within the bounds of those who participated in it.

Re:

"Not all relationships last a lifetime, but that does not mean they were unsuccessful for the time they were there."

I guess you can call an ended relationship successful if the people who were in it consider it to have been successful.

I don't know if there's many (or any) studies out there that analyze success ratios for different kinds of poly configurations. Polyamory kind of isn't that thoroughly-studied of a subject yet. But if you find any studies like that, I'd be interested to see them.

[Dirtclustit]

is they are never what they appear to be. I couldn't agree more with what Ariakas said

Haha.. honestly thats part of the pitfalls to the online community. It is very cynical about those things it believes don't work. You have to take this world with a grain of salt.

When an "online" community has one thousand registered members, you have to realize that its one thousand profiles and not one thousand individual people who are registered members.

If you are talking about the individuals, you are talking about roughly half that amount, and realistically it's much closer to a third. So of that "online community" there are really only 300 people and not 1000, and of those 300 you might have 30 "special interest" individuals who have much stronger convictions about specific situations for whatever the theme is that the "online community" is centered on.

More often than not, those 30 "special interest" individuals are among the 50 or so who originally start the "online community" and due to their strong convictions, it can often appear that their opinion is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of those supposed 1000 members, however it's been my experience that that opinion is the opinion of "special interest"

you have to realize that online forums very rarely become the "rivers" of interaction between actual people in natural ways (which would be trickles of real peoples' opinion within a watershed and only when it rains) and ever since the "new deal" of advertising -- being that using the world wide web as the media for a sales gimmick is more effective than the previously dominant television, you will notice that there is much speculation about the hottest new "trendy" topic to dominate peoples real life conversations.

So what you end up with are rivers of artificial public interactions, forums that appear even semi-active are only 30 of the original 50 people who gathered in the infancy of the forum, and in order to attract other regular members those 30 will often post from three of more profiles until there are enough registered members to engage in conversation.

Which is NOT necessarily bad, however I feel it is a mistake for the majority opinion to appear to be the opinion of special interests. And I don't know what the worst type of special interest is, monetary, political, or when it is based on nothing other than online reputations which often corresponds to a bruised male ego.

I guess I should through out the disclaimer that none of this is fact, except for the part about the number of profiles to actual people typically being less than half when it is a social media type setting/forum.

[FindingMyselfInTheGrey]

Originally Posted by Murasaki

I
I like statistics.
Does anyone have the stats for V’s? success versus ending within say a year?
Oh and what Nycindie said, what is the success rate for people who “stumble” into a triad situation versus the previously described stereotype?

I don't have any big picture statistics...but my stats are:
We are not really a triad but a V: F-M-F, with me and Hubbs being together for 14 + years. He and His GF just celebrated their 1 year anniversary last month!

We are an 'accidental' V: Hubby and I divorced for 6 months. He and she started dating during that time. I was in a bad accident which made Hubby and I reevaluate our life choices. We decided we HAD TO stay together...But I had one caveat--He had to keep his GF!

The last year has had its ups and downs as we all learn to be in a relationship together and very day we learn more about each other and ourselves. There have been times when we have questioned if we were all right for each other. We've all learned to communicate our needs and our expectations, and we've all learned to compromise and trust and to share love even when apart. We're working on making our V good and strong and to provide value to each person.

Hubbs and I (and she and Hubbs) are really hoping for a lifetime commitment, and are all moving in that direction. We all get along well, have dinner together each month and can depend on each other for emergencies in the meantime. Hubbs is at her place 50% of the time and my place the rest of the time.

We are constantly working on ALL of the relationships, making them stronger and learning how to communicate as a V instead of as a couple and how to manage time and resources. We have a ways to go, but so far things are going good and the future, while uncertain, is looking really good for us.

[Ariakas]

Originally Posted by Dirtclustit

is they are never what they appear to be. I couldn't agree more with what Ariakas said




When an "online" community has one thousand registered members, you have to realize that its one thousand profiles and not one thousand individual people who are registered members.

If you are talking about the individuals, you are talking about roughly half that amount, and realistically it's much closer to a third. So of that "online community" there are really only 300 people and not 1000, and of those 300 you might have 30 "special interest" individuals who have much stronger convictions about specific situations for whatever the theme is that the "online community" is centered on.

More often than not, those 30 "special interest" individuals are among the 50 or so who originally start the "online community" and due to their strong convictions, it can often appear that their opinion is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of those supposed 1000 members, however it's been my experience that that opinion is the opinion of "special interest"

you have to realize that online forums very rarely become the "rivers" of interaction between actual people in natural ways (which would be trickles of real peoples' opinion within a watershed and only when it rains) and ever since the "new deal" of advertising -- being that using the world wide web as the media for a sales gimmick is more effective than the previously dominant television, you will notice that there is much speculation about the hottest new "trendy" topic to dominate peoples real life conversations.

So what you end up with are rivers of artificial public interactions, forums that appear even semi-active are only 30 of the original 50 people who gathered in the infancy of the forum, and in order to attract other regular members those 30 will often post from three of more profiles until there are enough registered members to engage in conversation.

Which is NOT necessarily bad, however I feel it is a mistake for the majority opinion to appear to be the opinion of special interests. And I don't know what the worst type of special interest is, monetary, political, or when it is based on nothing other than online reputations which often corresponds to a bruised male ego.

I guess I should through out the disclaimer that none of this is fact, except for the part about the number of profiles to actual people typically being less than half when it is a social media type setting/forum.

As a 25 year admin on all sorts of forums:

I would say you are being generous with your stats. 30% pickup on usage would be very high on most medium to large forums and would be quite happy with those stats (especially if they were monitized). 3% pickup on actual active users or special interest is probably close.

When I ran a forum with around 500,000 users of a far more popular topic than poly, our stats fell more in line with 1% and 20%.

This site if you look at the bottom under the usernames, has 112,000 users with 9700 active members at approx 9% active membership, which if I remember right included people who simply logged in (lurkers for lack of a better word)

There used to be a really cool backend way of getting stats for vbulletin. It was slightly skewed since it couldn't discern statistical difference between activity levels which is really important when monetizing a forum. I am sure they are further along now, its been a while since I was involved at the dev level.

You could sum up your summary by "take everything said on a forum with a grain of salt" haha..