A question for female secondaries

Wolfwood

New member
Okay, my main question is, "at what point did your SO tell you about his primary poly relationship?" My primary-girlfriend (Kemie) and I have differing opinions on when it is proper to discuss this. I don't always feel the need to share intimate details of my private life on a first date with a girl. In fact, I tend to refrain from giving too many details unless I get the feeling it could turn into something more serious. My girlfriend, on the other hand, takes the opposite approach and lets guys know before any dating ever happens. I am looking for some real world examples of how other poly guys approach dating, specifically from a female perspective. So, without further ado, here are my questions:

Did you know your SO before you started dating?
At what point did he tell you about his primary relationship and was it before you both slept together?
Did you meet his primary relationship and, if so, at what point in the relationship did you meet them?

I'd like as many real examples I can get. I specifically want to hear from people who met their SO while online dating (I met most of my non-primary relationships via online dating). I've also been known to pick-up girls in bars and other social events.

If guys would like to chime in on how they approach meeting and dating secondaries, then that would also be helpful. What are your success stories?

Thank you for your time!

-Wolf (primary of Kemie)
 
In online dating, it seems pretty common for the man to be fully upfront about the fact that he has a primary partner. I've seen many profiles where the man states clearly that he is married or has a primary girlfriend.

I was specifically searching for non-monogamous men when I encountered these profiles. Or, if the profiles belonged to men who messaged me first, they were drawn to my profile because I state that I am ethically non-monogamous.

I would want anyone I go on a date with to be immediately clear that they have a primary partner. I can't imagine why that would NOT come up on a first date? It seems slightly deceitful not to mention it.

I suppose that in terms of casual dating and dating around, non-exclusivity is the default state and it is assumed that everyone is seeing others. My approach to poly does kind of come from that style of dating--I would assume that anyone I meet is probably involved with someone else, at least casually.

But NOT everyone is coming from that perspective--so why not just be clear about it from the get-go?

Particularly with online dating. I mean, your ultimate goal is to find someone who accepts and understands your primary relationship, right? So why not openly seek someone on those terms?

I do understand that if you pick someone up at a party or something, the expectations are casual so maybe you don't have to say that you have a primary partner. But what would be the advantages of omitting that information?

Fyi, I'm happily single and NOT looking for someone to be my primary partner. I would be very comfortable with someone telling me they had a primary partner right away. I would NOT be comfortable with finding out later (i.e., the next morning or on a later date) that they have a primary partner and omitting telling me right away.
 
I met Punk on OKCupid. We are each other's secondaries, and we both stated in our profiles that we have other loves (my BF, his wife). His profile is linked to his wife's profile; I have photos of my with Fly on mine.

I met his wife on our second date, before we had sex. He met my BF a couple months in (Fly would rather not meet my loves and lovers at all if he can help it :rolleyes:).

I would be royally pissed if someone went on a date(s) with me and didn't tell me they have a primary partner. Actually, there probably wouldn't be anymore dates, because this wouldn't be someone I could trust to be honest and up-front with me in the future. To me, there's a big difference between dating around and having a SO.

Just my $0.02 :)
 
I dunno if you want my experience. I met my BF1 locally. I met my BF2 online. (I ended up as the hinge later.) And since I'd started dating BF1 first and he was local, he was first and "primary" then. (Don't really use those terms, but I'll play.)

Did you know your SO before you started dating?

I was the SO. BF2 did not know me. We met online. Total strangers. Not like we were friends first in another context. BF1 and I were friends first.

At what point did he tell you about his primary relationship and was it before you both slept together?

I told him right off the bat. I had a squeeze but I was not exclusive. He was fine with it. Anyone else I dated needed to be on board. Otherwise better not to date me and just keep it at friends.

And to know this about me if he was thinking of wanting to date me. I wanted him to know how I roll and all the goods from the get go so he wouldn't feel like he was wasting his time on a poor return for his investment. He has to right to seek what he wants in rship, and the clearer the goods in my front window, the better for all concerned.

This was well before we slept together. It was before the date!

Did you meet his primary relationship and, if so, at what point in the relationship did you meet them?

Nope. They knew each other existed, I swapped the names, phone numbers, emails. Then I left it to them to arrange whatever they wanted on their meta tier. They left it at polite metas who might exchange brief emails once in a great while. They kept themselves pretty separate though.

HTH!
GG
 
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@Meera - To be clear, I never lie and I strongly imply I am seeing other people on first dates. However, I don't volunteer more information then that unless a girl asks. Mostly they ask for details by the second date, so it's rarely even an issue. The main reason I don't make a point to tell is that some girls just don't want to know. Not everyone I date is looking for something serious. I'm perfectly happy to accommodate a non-serious, occasional FWB's situation. Until I know what a girl is looking for, I don't typically volunteer specific details about my love life.

@Rainy - Thanks, that's exactly the kind of experience I'm interested in hearing about. In your case you were already interested in poly. I doubt that will be the case for most of the women I meet. I'm very curious what the best, and ethically sound, way to introduce new dates to poly. I'm fairly sure that most women consider discretion to be a virtue in a man, so I'm not really at the point where I want to add the poly-label to my profile. I also freely admit that my attitude on this may change once my girlfriend and I move in together.

Anyway, keep the stories coming. =)

-Wolf
 
Have you tried doing a search? There are many, many threads on this topic already, so you will probably find lots of good info. You can try a tag search for "dating" as a start, get a little creative with the advanced search, and also visit the Golden Nuggets forum for the sticky called "Other Threads Worth Reading."
 
Wendigo and I are each other's secondaries. I met him though my husband and our mutual friends and have always know he was married. Infact the firs time I met him was at the apartment his brother in law was sharing with a mutual friend. We were friends for a couple years before we got together and I saw his wife in passing when we gave him rides to our boffer LARP, but we didn't actually meet and start conversing until Wendigo and I had been dating for a couple of months as she is very much an introvert and going out to dinner once or twice a year is about as social as she gets.

Runic Wolf's last girlfriend he met on OK cupid and she is a member of our local poly community so telling her he was married was easy. She and I still talk occasionally.
 
Nyc, it's actually not a particularly easy subject to search for. I have read most of the posts in the "Other Threads Worth Reading", cannot recall seeing a topic like this. I'm sure I could read through the many, many first person accounts of relationships on this site looking for the details I want, but I thought like this would be quicker. If you can come up with some better search terms than I can, I'd be happy to check out any threads you can dig up. =)

I am a long-timer lurker on this site. I just don't post here that often because this is mainly my girlfriend's forum (although she has not posted here in awhile). Also, I have my own guy-specific forums that I typically post on. I just wanted a broader range of opinion for this particular question.

-Wolf
 
I'll preface this by saying that I've never really "dated" - so I am not sure how that whole dynamic goes (I'm sure I would hate it).

Anyone that I would be potentially involved with/interested in would know that I had another partner/other partners just by talking to me for 5 minutes. At this point in my life even a casual fling couldn't miss it ("Hold on a sec...let me txt my husband and let him know what hotel to pick me up at in the morning." - Actually, a baby version of this happened when we were last in Vegas - Some guy is totally trying to pick me up, I say, "Let me check and see when my husband wants to meet up for dinner..." we set a time and pick-up guy goes back to nibbling on my ear. At the appointed time MrS shows up and introduces himself, I thank ear-nibbler for a lovely afternoon, and we head off to dinner.)

If they boys ever start dating I would expect them to be upfront from before the beginning about being involved with someone else but not exclusive. How do you even have a conversation on a date where you don't talk about what is going on in your life? (i.e. "The other day my girlfriend and I were at the park and this funny thing happened." "Oh, you like sci-fi? So does my wife - she thinks I should read >insert title here< - what do you think? Did you like that one?")

Jane("Just-not-cut-out-for-dating")Q
 
My strong preference, and the things that has worked out best for me, is to actually be friends with a person before dating them. Since my partners are such significant parts of my life, it's pretty much inconceivable that they topic of them wouldn't come up.

In my online profiles on dating sites, I mention polyamory and my relationships quite clearly in my profile. That way anyone who does contact me will have no surprises. If the idea of me having existing relationships that I am not looking to replace isn't something they can deal with, then I'd rather know about that up-front than waste time and money meeting the person.

Turning the tables - if a woman that I had agreed to meet up with (I wouldn't call that a "date" - just a meet-up for coffee and a "getting to know you") told me only on subsequent meet-ups that they were in a committed relationship, then I wouldn't be too pleased. To me this sort of thing is part of the basic "getting to know you" process. All this, and a meeting with the corresponding significant others, I would want before we went out on what I would call a true "date".

I know others have different opinions on this, and this probably makes me quite old school, but this is my strong preference.
 
I am upfront from the get go. If someone is not willing or able to accept that I am in another relationship, then we don't even get started. Too many cowboys/cowgirls out there, thinking they can change my mind, lol. Hubby is the same, upfront about the situation. Just seems logical to us, why hide or omit our SO? He is a huge part of my life, so I don't exclude him in my conversations. To not say anything would leave a smaller window of things I can discuss, haha.
 
I'm definitely in the "let them know from the get-go/first date" camp.

I generally meet people via OKCupid. It is clearly stated in my profile that I'm poly and it is linked to my husband's profile. His is the same way.

Now, I also think that not mentioning poly or any primary partners until the first date would be fine in my book, but like a few others I would feel deceived/uncomfortable if I went out on a date, or even just a get-to-know-you meet for coffee, and a person in a committed relationship didn't tell me about said committed relationship(s).
 
I met one guy who insisted that it wasn't something that was needed (and preached endlessly about "radical honesty") until he got to know someone better. This was taken to the point of lying on his dating profiles, saying he was "single" when in fact he was legally married to his primary. No mention in his profiles about having anybody.

When I asked him when he brought it up, it was usually after the first few dates (which could easily have included sex). His logic was that he felt that if he hid that, it would allow the person to get to know him first, and then would be more likely to stick around after knowing the truth than if he came out with it first.

I wasn't impressed.... I think I actually called him a hypocrite to his face. He was unfazed....
 
Ugh, bad stuff Ciel! Why would anyone want to stick around after such blatant deceit?
 
I met one guy who insisted that it wasn't something that was needed (and preached endlessly about "radical honesty") until he got to know someone better. This was taken to the point of lying on his dating profiles, saying he was "single" when in fact he was legally married to his primary. No mention in his profiles about having anybody.

When I asked him when he brought it up, it was usually after the first few dates (which could easily have included sex). His logic was that he felt that if he hid that, it would allow the person to get to know him first, and then would be more likely to stick around after knowing the truth than if he came out with it first.

I wasn't impressed.... I think I actually called him a hypocrite to his face. He was unfazed....

Well, to be fair to the guy, his method is effective.. especially if the girl has no experience with polyamory. That's partially the reason I started this thread. I wanted to hear stories of single girls (with no poly history) who met poly-guys (who have primaries) and dated them, knowing they were poly from the get-go. Are there any stories like that around here? It's easy to say, "guys should do this" and "guys should do that", but I'm more curious about what is effective.

Thanks again, everyone, for your time.

-Wolf
 
My husband is in an online (email and Skype) relationship with a woman who had never heard of poly until reading his OKC profile. She was kind of weirded out by it in the beginning (and actually they started corresponding because she viewed his profile and he was curious why - she lives in another country, so he was just being friendly, not trying to start anything). After talking to him a bit, having him explain poly and our relationship specifically, she decided it is a really neat concept and something she could see fitting into her life to some degree.

She has admitted to him that even in the online world she would have stopped talking to him altogether if he hadn't been so up front about being married/involved.

I'm also confused about how that method works (waiting multiple dates, claiming to be single, etc). Are there really that many women out there who are okay with dating people who have lied about something that huge? I couldn't imagine not having enough self respect to walk away from a guy who did that to me. I would think getting to know a woman just to get to know her while letting her know about polyamory and then letting her decide if this really nice person who has been talking to her in a no pressure kind of way who happens to believe in alternative relationship structures would be someone she wants to date. Seems a lot more honest and a better way to build a sturdy foundation for a relationship.
 
I'm also confused about how that method works (waiting multiple dates, claiming to be single, etc). Are there really that many women out there who are okay with dating people who have lied about something that huge? I couldn't imagine not having enough self respect to walk away from a guy who did that to me. I would think getting to know a woman just to get to know her while letting her know about polyamory and then letting her decide if this really nice person who has been talking to her in a no pressure kind of way who happens to believe in alternative relationship structures would be someone she wants to date. Seems a lot more honest and a better way to build a sturdy foundation for a relationship.

I thought I was clear in my earlier comment, but apparently not. I don't lie, I strongly imply that I am seeing other people, and I answer questions honestly. However, I'm cautious about how much information I put on a public profile and about how much information I volunteer to a person when I first meet them. I just don't believe that people should have access to those details of my life unless their is a possibility of a more serious relationship. If I'm only going to see them a few times or they want a non-serious FB relationship, then they don't need (or probably want) to know who else I'm sleeping with.

I don't really have a problem with this method, and it also serves the purpose of easing the transition to poly for a girl who has no poly experience. If a girl wants to be a more serious part of my life, then they need to accept that I'm polyamorous and have other relationships. Unfortunately, my girlfriend has reservations about this method, as she is much more direct when dealing with guys. I'm considering changing up how I do things, but I'm trying to do some research on the realities of the situation. This is the biggest poly forum I know of so it seemed like a logical place to start.

Again, what I REALLY want to know is whether or not poly-guys are successful at starting sexual relationships with secondaries who do not have prior poly experience, when they fully disclose the nature of their primary relationship at the get-go. So the big question is: Are there any women here who were introduced to poly by a guy who (1) already had a primary relationship and (2) announced that fact at the very beginning of the relationship?

/sorry it took me so long to really narrow down my question
//poly-guys with experience are welcome to chime in

Much love,
-Wolf
 
I thought I was clear in my earlier comment, but apparently not. I don't lie, I strongly imply that I am seeing other people, and I answer questions honestly. However, I'm cautious about how much information I put on a public profile and about how much information I volunteer to a person when I first meet them. I just don't believe that people should have access to those details of my life unless their is a possibility of a more serious relationship. If I'm only going to see them a few times or they want a non-serious FB relationship, then they don't need (or probably want) to know who else I'm sleeping with.

I was referring to the method that Ciel said some guy used that involved blatantly lying about being involved with others.
 
Nyc, it's actually not a particularly easy subject to search for.
Yeah, you're right. I was thinking "dating" and another term... not sure. For some reason, I thought there had been a bunch of links to threads on this topic gathered somewhere, either by me or someone else, but now I don't see it. It is tricky to search for, but I feel like I have read at least ten different threads on the same thing. When I have a chance, I will do an extensive search and post it in Golden Nuggets.

But I just looked up some of the threads I recall responding to, and there are a few good ones that are related (some more than others) to this topic, that you might like:
Generally, what I have found is that solo people tend to give dating someone a little time before saying they have other lovers, and married people tend to reveal it before any dates take place.

I was in a brief relationship with a married poly guy, and I met him online. His dating profile states that he is married and has links to both his wife's profile and to Franklin Veaux's site so people could read about it - all in his first paragraph.

I am currently corresponding with a married poly guy and I met him online, too. Pretty much the same thing as the other guy - it's all upfront, except his wife doesn't have a profile, so no links.

Neither of them introduced me to poly. I was already looking for poly men. But I feel that anyone who has a spouse should state so before making a date. A primary who is not a spouse, I could wait a little bit to find out, but it should be fairly soon-ish - especially if they've got a bunch of rules and guidelines that would affect additional partners! But I tend to look for and attract poly men who have very loose, less structured arrangements with their SOs, and not many rules.

As for myself, I am unpartnered and do not have nor seek a primary. I want the parameters of my poly relationships to be a little looser and more casual than that. Plus, I do not see dates as auditions for long-term relationships. I simply see going out with someone as an opportunity to have fun and get to know somebody. I mention poly and non-monogamy in my dating profile without coming out and saying that's how I roll. I don't want to exclude or scare away "civilians" who might be interested and willing to embrace something new. If I had a spouse, I would definitely have it upfront in my online profile, but I don't feel it's necessary if I just have several casual lovers or a partner who is also solo, and not a primary. I don't subscribe to that hierarchy, btw.

If I were married, or partnered and considered that partner a primary, anyone I date would know on that first date. I am not sure I would tell someone I met in person before going out with him, but probably fairly soon on a first date. But I don't have a primary. I think it could sound a little arrogant to state to someone that I have lovers and practice polyamory too soon, as if I was assuming that this guy must want me. No, I like to see if we're hitting it off first. For people I meet in real life, sometimes "relationship talk" and the subject of non-exclusivity takes place on a first date; sometimes it happens on the third, or fifth date, or even the morning after boinking someone.
 
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I was referring to the method that Ciel said some guy used that involved blatantly lying about being involved with others.

My apologies if I took your comment out of it's proper context.

Incidentally, the lie Ciel was referring to involved a guy who marked himself as single on an online dating profile. I think that is a somewhat forgivable sin. If I were married, then I would probably not mention it on an online dating site either. I wouldn't necessarily lie, but I'd leave it blank if possible (like you can do on Facebook). If I didn't have that option, then I'd probably consider putting single or just using a different dating site. I'm not really sure though, because I've never been in that situation.

@Nyc - Thank you so much! That was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! I think you are right about the married / unmarried thing. I would probably tend to meet more people WITH my girlfriend if were in a more marriage-like scenario (living together, have kids, etc). I'd also probably be more likely to announce my marriage because a wedding ring is a dead give away (I'm not the type who would take it off to go on a date). Anyway, thanks again.

-Wolf
 
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