relationship-opening ruining relationships

Has anyone had the experience of bringing up the issue of open-relationships with a partner and losing them as a result? What about a partner who agrees to try out poly relationships and then the relationship fails once you begin seeing other people? In general, would you ever recommend avoiding pursuit of polyamory in the interest of maintaining the security of monogamous closure?
 
Has anyone had the experience of bringing up the issue of open-relationships with a partner and losing them as a result? What about a partner who agrees to try out poly relationships and then the relationship fails once you begin seeing other people? In general, would you ever recommend avoiding pursuit of polyamory in the interest of maintaining the security of monogamous closure?

Quite simply, you have only to decide you are going to live with integrity - or not.

You are either poly - or not.

Playing games to be something other than what you truly are for some possible net gain is only using people. Experience has shown that that always crashes in the end anyway - sooner or later.

GS
 
Quite simply, you have only to decide you are going to live with integrity - or not.

You are either poly - or not.

Playing games to be something other than what you truly are for some possible net gain is only using people. Experience has shown that that always crashes in the end anyway - sooner or later.

GS
I've read so many posts that make it seem like anyone who doesn't act on all their impulses is somehow living a lie. Being human is, imo, about balancing desires with reason and the freedom to make choices. I believe everyone ultimately has the potential to desire partnership with more than one person. That does not mean that it is necessary to choose to be with more than one person (at a time) in a romantic relationship. You may say that making choices that defer satiating (all) one's desires is repression but so is not putting everything you see at the supermarket in your shopping cart or not ordering everything on the menu you find appealing.
 
In general, would you ever recommend avoiding pursuit of polyamory in the interest of maintaining the security of monogamous closure?

If you're polyamorous, certainly not. It would be like cutting off your left hand to be sure the right one always have enough blood... okay, my analogy is weird, but my point is that in my opinion if you are poly, staying in a monogamous relationship is a failure on a personal level, because you're not true to yourself and not as happy as you could be.
I can understand doing it to save a very long relationship you have invested a lot in, because I guess if you've been together so long without being poly, maybe you don't need poly that much, but it makes me uneasy. I think even if you end up with no partners, it's worth it expressing who you are, at least.
And some times it's better for a relationship to end, at least romantically (you can still be friends), because it just wasn't working, or it was until a certain point but wasn't going to keep working. Sometimes saving the relationship means changing it a lot, and that can mean breaking up and being friends instead.
 
Not everyone who is poly feels this undying need to be poly. There are people who can happily navigate monogamy while being polyamorous.

I am not sure I would be willing to lose my wife over my need to have other partners. I have never been forced into that kind of decision, thankfully, so I can only guess at what I would do.

I guess it depends on how poly you are. Mny moons ago a group on this forum made a sliding scale of polyness. It was close to the Kinsey scale.

1 - is capable of loving more than one but neither craves it or looks for it. Is a possibility without expectation or requirement
3 - enjoys being poly, dates, hangs out, can love more than one, but can take or leave it as well. Can go years seemingly monogamous and then find someone to enjoy being with.
6 - can't fight it, craves it, wants it and can't live any other way

Maybe you need to decide what poly means to you, where it fits in your life and then... What does your primary relationship mean to you?

Air
 
Good point, Ari, although I don't think it's just about the scale.
For instance, I don't feel that I need to have more than one partner at all times. After opening up my relationship with Raga I was de facto mono for two years and it was fine. Yet if he hadn't been willing for the relationship to open, these two years, if they had existed (read, if I hadn't broken up right away) would have been torture.

To me it's not about having someone else, necessarily, but knowing that I'm allowed to fall in love again if it was to happen. I just can't trust someone who doesn't give me that freedom, and if you can't trust someone, you can't share your life with them.
Because I can't control my feelings, I would never be fine with someone who demands I control them. Even without being in love with anyone else, knowing that if I did, I'd have to hide it or be "the bad guy" would be enough to just ruin my relationship.

On the other hand, I believe I could happily live with a single partner forever and never any other if I just happened never to fall in love again.

So I don't know about the scale. On the one hand I'm as poly as can't me (won't accept a relationship where monogamy is expected) and on the other hand, it's not something that I crave or need (I can be fine with just one partner, or even zero for that matter).
 
I've read so many posts that make it seem like anyone who doesn't act on all their impulses is somehow living a lie. Being human is, imo, about balancing desires with reason and the freedom to make choices. I believe everyone ultimately has the potential to desire partnership with more than one person. That does not mean that it is necessary to choose to be with more than one person (at a time) in a romantic relationship. You may say that making choices that defer satiating (all) one's desires is repression but so is not putting everything you see at the supermarket in your shopping cart or not ordering everything on the menu you find appealing.

Hey Serial,

Yea - I think there are some post like that. And people.
But I think you miss the point.

Because there's two components. The philosophy and the action.

TRULY understanding ourselves - what we believe and how we like our life to progress - is one thing. What we DO in any given situation & time is something different.

It's kind of all a cost/benefit analysis. Nothing more.

Sometimes the cost of living up to our own beliefs has a cost we aren't prepared to pay. Other times we'll pay ANYTHING !

But the one thing we DO know is that paying anything for something we are not satisfied with in the first place - and then continuing to pay - takes it's own toll. And for some people, the account gets emptied pretty quick. Some others have bigger accounts and can continue to pay longer. You are somewhere along that line.........

GS
 
I've read so many posts that make it seem like anyone who doesn't act on all their impulses is somehow living a lie.

If everyone acted on every impulse this world would be severely fucked IMO. Luckily we have higher reasoning and an overall sense of morality that controls some of our instinctive and base impulses.

Trying to control a healthy part of ourselves (such as being poly or mono) is likely to erode who we are and what we could become.

This is more about following the right path for us as thinking individuals as opposed to following our nose like a scent sniffing dog.
 
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