How many is too many?

I am currently facing a quad situation that may be amazing. I am giddy with NRE and very excited about where things might go! If my exbf comes around to giving things another try (hubby is very sceptical about things, so that might be something to take very slowly) then maybe I would be open to that possibility in the future, because we have spent so much time working on things and there are definitely positive things that I get out of the relationship with him. There is this woman that both hubby and I are very interested in. I am giddy when I am around her.

How many is too many?
Am I just going crazy with this new way of being?
I am I going to burn out if I take on too much?
Has anyone else had this rush of excitement and wanting it all at once?

How many is too many?

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That completely depends on how many relationships you are functionally capable of maintaining with the amount of time and resources (emotional, physical, psychological, and possibly financial) you have available to utilize. I couldn't have that many lovers. I definitely don't have the time. But I also have four kids. So with a husband and a boyfriend, that's six primary relationships in my home, not including my sister, who lives with us, or any outside friends.

Am I just going crazy with this new way of being?

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Probably. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but definitely something to be aware of.

I am I going to burn out if I take on too much?

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Only you can know for sure. But if you are trying to start so many relationships at once, it might be good to remind yourself that maintaining an already-established relationship takes less time and attention then is required to start and stabilize one. I would be wary of starting many all at once. There are inevitably complications, misunderstandings and details that need to be ironed out in the beginning of a relationship, and if you have too many starting at once, either they will all move very slowly to get to a place of stability, or you will suffer unnecessary drama in one or more of them, due to not putting enough attention into them, or both.

Has anyone else had this rush of excitement and wanting it all at once?

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Yep, my husband Maca did, and it only took two months for it to blow up in his face and force him to slow down and recognize that each new relationship, experience, situation and major dynamic change requires a good deal of time and energy to be established and become stable. Also, each one changes something about you and/or opens up something hidden within you that needs to be addressed and attended to, to be sure you move to the positive and not drop down a negative path.

Good luck! Hope some of that helps, or at least gives you food for thought!

PickMoreDaisies said:

How many is too many?

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9.7

PickMoreDaisies said:

Am I just going crazy with this new way of being?

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Why not?

PickMoreDaisies said:

I am I going to burn out if I take on too much?

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Not if you remember to stop drop and roll!

PickMoreDaisies said:

Has anyone else had this rush of excitement and wanting it all at once?

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This is the answer that you can actually take seriously.
Yes.
And rushing is a great way to stub toes or crack heads open on low doorways. Take your time.

Hopefully others will have more complete and useful answers for all your questions.

I usually refer to it as the "kid in the candy store" phase of discovering polyamory

Oh, the possibilities out there, once you begin this journey of open loving. And it's so difficult to pick and choose, once you don't have to anymore.
Each of us probably has our own individual limits on how much time and energy we have to devote to multiple relationships, and no one can really tell you what yours is.

Through trial and error, I've come to believe that my own limits are probably two "primary-type" relationships at the same time, with the possibility of maintaining a couple of less daily-life-entwined love connections.

I do want to echo LovingRadiance's take on starting multiple relationships at the same time, though. My personal experience has been that each relationship is better served by having its own time to develop. I feel the need to know that each relationship has a solid foundation before adding others to my life, and that takes time to establish.

kid in a candy store

I DO feel like a kid in a candy store lol. I actually didn't imagine that we would be presented with so many options all at the same time! I thought it would be a struggle to find people that were open to it at all.

I know that establishing trust and stability is important, as my husband and I have done that for eight years before opening up our relationship. So I will try to keep in mind the advice to take it one at a time.

Glad that others have had the same giddy stupid feelings. I feel like amongst all the struggle that poly has brought, there is a silly joy in being allowed to just be who I am.

Thanks for the posts.

Stay grounded, with my head in the clouds, perhaps.

I agree with constlady. Taking the time to develop each relationship is key. For me, two primaries and a couple of tertiaries is more than enough.

At one point, I was trying to juggle a husband, a male OSO (Mono), a tertiary woman and two tertiary men, AND be an attentive mother. It was far too much.

What it meant was no one got quality time with me, and most of all, I had no time to attend to my own time. I still struggle with that last one and I have two less now in my life.

The thing with having NRE, or what some people call limerence, about poly, is that it makes us feel unstoppable and on top of the world. It works out fine to have many relationships at once when the relationships are new, because the depth isn't there yet. The trouble is that eventually the next level of relationships is to work on depth, and that's when it gets hard not to be spread too thin.

In my circumstance, I found that I had to drop a couple of people in order to make way for depth with the other three. I don't regret dropping them at all, but it was hard to say to them that I couldn't spend time with them because I wanted depth with others. I am still friends with the woman, and the man and I are still negotiating speaking terms. I would've avoided all that by not jumping into sexual and intimate relationships with them both from too early on. My version of poly was different from theirs, too, and I wished I had negotiated all that before getting involved with them.

Thankfully, there was another man at the time that I didn't become intimately involved with, and he ended up being the closest to me in the end. We don't have a sexual relationship, but our friendship is deeper because I didn't sleep with him, and decided at the last minute to take it slower and work on the relationships I had.

Enjoy your time, my friend. You are in an exciting time. Keep your eye on what you want out of it, because in no time at all it will die down and you will be sorting out who stays and who goes. Give a lot of thought and time to everyone concerned. Draw it out as much as you can, in order to make the right choice. That's what I wish I had done. It worked out well for me in the end, however, as I have just what I need and just as much as I can handle.

I have three lovers, all of whom are very important to me. I'd say they are all primary, but I hate the term.

I was aiming for two, but then the third popped into my life unexpectedly and I did not want to turn him away. I am coping with three at moment, but having to be very careful how I split my time and energy. It is hard work, rewarding but difficult.

I would not have more than three relationships. I would maybe take a more casual lover. But in reality, I probably couldn't have any more sex than I am currently having. I think I might break if I tried. My body would be complaining.

How many is too many?
It depends on what kind of relationships you are looking for, how you split your time, and how much energy each relationship needs.

Am I just going crazy with this new way of being?
Yes, probably, but that's ok.

I am I going to burn out if I take on too much?
You are likely to get exhausted.

Has anyone else had this rush of excitement and wanting it all at once?
Yes, I guess I have, and do. I have to think seriously about what's important.

If my very novice opinion counts, I would say that 'too many' is when you start to feel over-stretched. The capacity for love may be absolutely infinite. But the ability to spend adequate time and affection on each lover is something that will vary from person to person and lifestyle to lifestyle.

My mother would say that anything that is supposed to be a pleasure should STAY a pleasure. At the point at which is becomes a stress, it's no longer doing what it should be doing. Not to say that at the first sign of stress one ought to bow out of loving relationships. But if I were you I'd look not just at 'how much love can I give?' but 'can I maintain these relationships in high quality with the time, strength, energy, and responsibilities that I have?'

Hope I didn't sound like a downer there. LOL

question for poly old timers

I am, of course, a newbie to all this, but I was wondering (from things I have read on here) if there was a tendency on the part of people who felt themselves to be naturally poly, to progress into ever more complex relationships just for the sake of it.

For instance, a poly person in a primary relationship with a mono person might first be happy with a second partner in a v or triad. But as soon as they felt they could handle it, might they want more and more partners just for the emotional buzz?

Another example: a poly couple might be happy at first with a unicorn, but pretty soon feel more fulfilled in a quad. Their secondary partners might have primaries or secondaries of their own, and so on and so forth. Sorry, but my head starts to spin here.

Can love for each stay just as strong or does it get diluted down? What is the practical limit for a poly?

Something tells me you haven't looked at this thread yet:


Master Thread - links to other threads worth reading

I think you'll find a lot of answers to your questions there, and if you still have questions, you can add them to one of those existing threads. This way, when other new people read this, they can find all those questions in one place and benefit from the question you maybe will have asked.

In other words, one big thread on a topic is better than 20 little threads on one topic.

To me, my 2 boys are quite enough!

I used to say I could probably see myself having maximum 3 lovers. But then I was thinking my husband, plus maybe 2 secondaries (or secondary +tertiary). Now that my boyfriend is quickly becoming my second primary instead, I feel that my time and energy will not suffice for more people. And I feel saturated, very unlike when I was with my sort-of-secondary for 4 years and was having small flings on the side.

My boyfriend does not want me to have any more, and neither my husband, I think... my boyfriend for emotional reasons, my husband for more practical reasons. Also, we are considering kids, and there is work and hobbies.

I guess having lots of lovers could be a bit like having friends, only with a sexual/romantic part. I love spending time with my many friends, but I just could not do it like that.

Personally, I find that 4 steady partners is the max a person can handle, plus the, well, meaningless (I can't handle any of these). I never had more than 2 at the same time, so I can't really say much. Hubby agrees. My perfect picture at this moment is hubby+1 lover.

My 2 partners are enough. I have a pretty full plate between work, school, family, and friends.

For us, the dynamic we have now is all that we can handle. There are 3 adults and 7 children between all of us, plus 2 of us work full time, and one goes to school full time, while being the stay-at-home parent. Our resources are used up. There would be nothing left to give to another relationship, at least not in the way we would want to. Could one or all of us possibly find something within ourselves to give another person? Sure, we probably could. But it wouldn't be fair to anyone involved.

Re: vodkafan's post ... a polycule can steadily accumulate more partners, and some intimate networks are quite complex. But I don't know whether those networks formed by a process of gradual accumulation, maybe they mostly formed all at once. In any case, it's not necessarily true that poly groups tend to grow larger and larger. Quite a few stay at three (maybe four) adults pretty much for life.

In fact it can go the other way. Many poly groups shed members here and there, as people change and compatibility consequently changes. It's rather common, for instance, for a group to start out as a quad, then shed a member and turn into a triad or a V.

I don't think you could assign a number to the title "Most Poly Partners Allowed." Everyone is different, and different people have different ranges of how much quality time they want to put into each relationship. Heck some people need less sleep than others. I think "two partners" is a very common limit for a lot of people; yet I know of many poly tangles with 7-10+ adults, often with kids.

In short, the answer to, "How many is too many?" depends entirely on who you ask.

What sucks is when you think your partner has too many partners, but he doesn't realize he is spreading himself too thin until it's too late.

My situation. One gf, one bf. Gf has one bf. But my (now ex) bf had his wife, and me, and was FWBs with my gf, and kept on dating others as well (once his NRE with me and my gf wore off)! In 12 months he dated 6 others, ending up with an ongoing relationship with a married MF couple, who had 3 kids, and wanted only spontaneous last minute dates (which threw off the routine I'd had with bf).

Add to that, the new male partner was jealous of his wife being with my bf. This guy made a rule for only threeway sex, although he was allowed to come over whenever and have sex dates with my (now ex) bf one on one. Bf's head was spinning with the work at keeping things on a somewhat even keel in this new relationship, and ended up neglecting me and my gf.

He finally admitted to being in over his head. But by that time, I was so hurt and angry at his neglect of me over the previous year, I was ready to break up with him. And I did.

How many is too many?

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However many that goes beyond your resources.

Am I just going crazy with this new way of being?

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NRE high. Plus "OMG I am poly shipping for real!" High.

I am I going to burn out if I take on too much?

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That is the definition of burning out: taking on too much.

Has anyone else had this rush of excitement, and wanting it all at once?

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Yes. Maybe these pitfall articles could help you. Enjoy the rush, but keep it doable so you do NOT burn out.

http://www.practicalpolyamory.com/images/A._Wagner_-_Avoid_the_Pitfalls_of_Polyamory.pdf

http://www.kathylabriola.com/articles/are-you-in-poly-hell

Galagirl