A simple question...Or is it?

How long has your poly relationship lasted so far?

  • 1 year

    Votes: 6 42.9%
  • 2 years

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • 4 years

    Votes: 1 7.1%
  • 8 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 10 years or more

    Votes: 4 28.6%

  • Total voters
    14
  • Poll closed .

TL4everu2

New member
I have a question....How many of you who are in a poly relation ship, have had a poly relationship last longer than a year? 2 years? 4 years? 8 years? 10 years?

It seems to me (on this forum anyway) that all I'm reading about is people who are hurt by their initial girlfriend/wife or initial boyfriend/husband. :( Now please don't get me wrong, my wife and I have enjoyed about 3 poly relationships in the last 8 years. We have been married to each other for the last 19 and a half.

So, for those few who have been in a poly relationship for longer than 5 years, tell us, how do you make it last?
 
My primary & I will be at the five year mark in May :).

How do we deal with issues? We talk, talk and talk some more!

If it's me that's having the issue I do research on it so I can get a better handle on things before I talk to them about it.

I've spent hours at xeromag, here, my poly groups, journaling on Live Journal, talking to friends who are poly what ever I can think of in order to better understand the issue I have, why I have it and how to better deal with it.

This is my first poly relationship & I have had issues. They were my issues, I owned them & we dealt with them together. I will still occasionally have an issue with jealousy or something. I head back to xeromag, reread the article on fixing the refrigerator, do some more research and talk some more. It all works out.

If you'll look a little closer you'll see that it's not ALL about problems with poly relationships. I know Mono and redpepper have a thread going where they detail the good things that are happening in their relationship together, and with her husband and family. I've got a thread going as well where I post the good things that are happening in my life. These are threads which are not used daily so they don't show up on the quick links very often so you don't see them unless you actually search for them.

We talk about anything and everything. I let him know I'm having a problem & that I will talk to him about it when I feel I'm ready to do so. He accepts this and goes about his business, asking gentle questions along the way, until I'm ready to talk about it.
 
wow

look at the poll numbers so far! I know its very early but I never imagined 10 years or more was possible!...Gives me hope:p
 
I think that people may have misunderstood my question...I don't mean your relationship with your primary....noooo....Your relationships with your secondary lovers. My wife and I have been married for 19 years now...but our relationships with our lovers only last an average of about 2 years.
 
oh, sorry. My husband and I have been married for 38 years and I love him like my next heartbeat. However, I have fallen in love with another man too....he's exciting, funny and makes me feel so special. but im dealing with with the jealousy issue now and have come here to see what I can do to resolve that....
 
I didn't answer your poll, cause I don't even know where to begin! :)
Seriously!

My husband and I have known each other for... 22 years, started, became sexually involved immediately, then lost contact for 10 years, OFFICIALLY started dating and became sexually involved again 12 years ago, married 11 years ago.

My "secondary" (GG) and I have known each other 17 years, became sexually involved with each other 15-16 years ago, became officially bf/gf 6 months ago.........

SO our "poly relationship" has lasted less than one year...
but my relationship with my secondary, well that doesn't fit the same criteria does it?

:confused:
 
My longer-term partner (in duration, not mindset) and I have been friends for over 25 years, together as a couple for 20, poly for around 18. She is monogamous, I am poly.

My longest period with one poly configuration is just under 4 years, my current configuration is just over a year and a half.

How we make it work? Communication, honesty, and commitment - to each other and the relationship. It's as simple and as complicated as that.
 
Although it seems we've (M+F couple) been "poly" almost forever, when you frame the question in relation to additional loves it get's a bit complex.
Although we aren't currently in a close (physically) relationship we have several past relationships that separated us by distance and circumstances.
We are still in frequent contact and were circumstances different would likely be back in that close intimate relationship we once were.
But life and it's demands are what they are sometimes and we don't grieve the past but prefer to celebrate all of what made those times & connections special. And what we all learned.
We are past hardly understanding any other way to live !

GS
 
Thanks for clarifying the question :) I was a little surprised by the poll results seeing 10 years or more being the most common! I then realized that was probably based on primary relationships. I am curious how long multi-partner relationships tend to last as well. How long did your "v" "triad" or "Quad" last so to speak.

I'm at 16 months and April marks my one year anniversary on the forum I believe!
 
My two spouses and I have been together for ten years now. We have two young daughters and a mortgage. :D
 
Our quad has been together a little over three years now.

We make it day by day I guess. Like most relationships of any kind.

I can be the glue at times in suppose...simply because I insist in more communication that a couple of them like and are used to. Well, that would be Tech and Kitten. Gator is long used to having to talk with me about things. I don't like leaving things unresolved and swept under a rug.
 
My longest poly relationship was a two-year-old vee. My current primary vee has been going on just over a year... and I've been with my secondary girlfriend off and on for three years.

@Ruby, wow! That's so beautiful...
 
wow, what a great question!

Nerdist and I met as a result of my girlfriend and I becoming non-monogamous 12 years ago. We thought we would find another girlfriend, but I found a man and she had a hard time with being poly... strangely enough not that he is a man. Even though we were die hard lesbians at the time.

We have been married for about 10 years and have always been polyamorous. Mono has been the longest at 16 months though. Others have come and gone. I see them as a means to be ready for Mono... we were so ready for someone who wanted to commit to us for the long haul. Even though he is my lover, it has really worked better that he has become part of our family and not just a lover of mine. I think that should sustain us longer than any other lovers that have come and gone. We shall see ;)
 
My husband and I were monogamous for 15 years before deciding to actively live as poly. We are now separated, but we were poly together for three years (and are still friends). I was with one partner for just over three years, and my four current relationships range from 14 months to 2 months.

That said, I wonder if time is always the best indicator of a successful relationship? Isn't success also measured by how you feel about, relate to, and communicate with someone, regardless of how long you spend as their partner?
 
I would agree geminigirl. I think that there are many indications of a good relationship and length of time isn't necessarily one of them, there is also how much time one has spent with a person too, just as much as quality of time. If someone has a long distant relationship with someone does it qualify that that relationship is some how more successful because it has been several years as opposed to a relationship where the people live together? Even that is hard to measure, because some people who live together don't spend as much time together as others do...
 
I asked this question in a different way once...the consensus seemed to be that "successful" does not necessarily equate with "long-lived".

My primary and I have been married 20 years this summer. (...wow...) We were monogamous, I never wanted to be anything else. Had poly friends who gave me a very bad impression of poly.

My secondaries have been friends for years. Three years? Four? They gradually became closer and closer. A couple of years ago we started hanging out together as a family every weekend. About a year ago we made the decision the be a quad. I think that means we've been romantically involved for a year, but there was a lot of lead-up before we committed. (For example, just how romantically involved is strip poker? Does it count if Sunday groped me when he was drunk? Does it count if Sunday and I were "married" on weekends when Asha and Easy were working, and proudly showed off our combined brood of children? Does it count if I'm absolutely certain that Asha and Easy were romantically but not sexually involved with each other before we decided to become a quad? Hmmm...and I specifically remember proposing marriage to Asha two years ago...)

I know what you're asking, and I don't think there's any easy answer to it. (I wish there were.) Poly relationships break up, just like mono relationships do, and there's no way to know if you're going to work in either format. All you can do is give the relationship your best effort and hope.

Are we successful? I don't know. We're always working on some kind of issue.
 
Great question and good responses !!

I don't have a "primary lover" since I am a single female and I live alone, but I have 4 male lovers.

I had monogamous relationships with 3 of them that lasted 4 years, 3 years and 1 year.

I consider these three to be "long term" relationships since I have known them 10 years, 8 years, and 6 years.

I consider myself to be living a successful poly lifestyle because my lifestyle is a manifestation of my philosophy about relationships which has nothing to do with the "length" of a certain connection or configuration- in fact it's just the opposite!!
 
Sadly, never had a poly relationship last much more than 6 months in the past. I'm hoping to break that record now.
 
VERY interesting responses thus far guys and girls. I love it. This is all so awesome.

What I have found is that there is no "hard" deffinition of "poly". So when one asks a question like this, it is hard to be inclusive of all involved. LOL But I think we are hitting it right on now.

See, the reasoning behind me asking is this; I don't know that a "poly" relationship between more than two people can last the test of time. I mean, to me, a "successful relationship", is gauged by time and happiness. You need both to be successful. One without the other is not a successful relationship IMO. My wife and I have been married to eachother for over half our lives now. We have had ups, and downs. However, when we involve others in our relationship, we are way happier with eachother. Unfortunatly, we can't seem to make our secondary relationships last longer than 2 years. :( This saddens us greatly, and we are beginning to think it is us...and not the others.
 
See, the reasoning behind me asking is this; I don't know that a "poly" relationship between more than two people can last the test of time.
And how long should it go before it has reached that critical point, in your opinion?

I, too, like things to last - I enjoy being with people I love and having them as a part of my life. I am not an NRE junkie at all, in fact I don't really enjoy it much. I enjoy things after the NRE has quietened down.

I know poly configurations that have stayed together for years quite happily, and have lasted longer than most monogamous marriages.
 
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