Even though the matter is resolved, I'm going to comment on that... I guess I'm just feeling the need to defend my "polyness" while still having maintained the reservations that I did.
She new that mixing those relationships up could hurt everyone.This seems to be an exception to the poly way of thinking .
There's no poly creed that says "you should embrace every situation that involves multiple romantic relationships, or else you're not truly poly." That's like saying you should encourage all women to abort every unplanned pregnancy, or else you're not truly pro-choice. Polyamory means you can
choose to have multiple romantic relationships, not that a polyship is the best choice in every situation. A bad idea is a bad idea, poly or not.
if you are truly poly, then you should think "go with my blessings ", "i trust you " and "i know that its just sex for you, that's fine with me"( the sex only part ), and " if she develops a connection with you that's fine with me too " ( that would be the love , connection part of poly)
This logic assumes that my husband is also polyamorous, which he is not. It would not be the "love, connection part of poly" because
he is not polyamorous. I don't know how many different ways I can say this. Analogy? I like studying bugs. My husband likes squishing bugs. I would never encourage my friend to bring my husband on a bug collecting expedition, because he would squish all the bugs. Does that mean I'm not truly a bug enthusiast? I guess you could argue that I shouldn't have married a bug squisher if I'm a bug lover, but I consider it
the price of admission.
Me being polyamorous doesn't make my husband polyamorous, and so his relationships don't fall under the "polyamory guidelines." Period. It's not that he isn't
allowed to develop feelings for someone else, it's that he does not
want to. The only reason it's not "fine with me too" if my best friend develops feelings for my husband is that he is not interested in returning them. I would say "not capable" but reading about Mono in RP's blog, I'm starting to suspect anyone is capable of having romantic feelings for more than one person... However, my husband currently does not have enough time for his family due to his job, so he sure as shit doesn't have enough time for his family and a girlfriend.
That's the practical side. The emotional side is that my husband...isn't. He grew up in a home where expressing your feelings was frowned upon, unless it was anger or pride. He's come a long way, but he still struggles with emotions. He's said time and time again that it's all he can do to keep up with one romantic relationship, that it's very difficult for him to do the work required to maintain that relationship, and that he'd rather walk over hot coals than have to deal with a third woman's emotions (the first being his daughter, the second being me).
Take the fact that he's my husband out of the picture, and therefore take poly out of the picture. Would you encourage your best friend, who's in an emotionally vulnerable state, to have sex with a guy who just wants sex, knowing that in her current state there's a chance she'll develop unrequited feelings for him, forcing him to break her heart? Now put my husband back in: You know the guy very well, and your opinion holds a lot of weight for him. You have the ability to head this off at the starting gate. Why wouldn't you use every drop of your influence to try and protect your friend?
I should re-iterate that my biggest fear was for my friend's emotional well-being. I was never afraid of losing my husband. If this was about polyship, my fears would be all about losing my husband, or losing a part of his attention, or something about
me. This was never about me, so my polyness is frankly irrelevant.