Mono person thought I was offering to cheat?

Evangeline

New member
Ugh. I'm going through a really awkward period and I don't have many poly-friendly friends to complain to.

Background on our polycule: I have two partners, Anna and Elliot. Both Elliot and Anna and I have another partner each, I am former partners with Anna's other partner, and Elliot and Anna are partners (so we're a group of six).


Elliot has a best friend, Mark, who is (was) also my good friend. Mark and I have been having a long-running flirting/overly-long hug thing going and I'm interested in Mark, so Elliot encouraged me to ask Mark out. Mark knows all our other partners and our relationship has been going on for 2+ years; not a secret.

Anyway, I asked Mark if he was interested in dating and he totally freaked out; said he couldn't believe I would do that to Elliot and "destroy" our friend group. Then he immediately contacted Elliot so he could tell him "what had happened."

This is so awkward. Elliot and Mark are still just as good friends. Elliot says he explained to Mark that "everything was cool," but Mark and I haven't mentioned the incident and it's been two weeks and we see each other every day. I'm really hurt and angry that Mark would think I would cheat on Elliot (or Anna!), and I'm really confused - did he somehow not notice that Elliot and I both have other partners?

I want to talk to Mark about it, but Elliot thinks it would just make things more awkward. I'm having trouble letting it go though… Is there any way I can redeem this friendship?
 
If you want to clear the air with Mark, go ahead and ask him if he is willing to set aside some time to do that in with you.

He either is or isn't. You ask to find out.

If he does not want to, you cannot make him. But then you can let it go knowing you tried in good faith to clear it up. He wants to hang on to his weird? That is his business.

Could keep this simpler on you.

Galagirl
 
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If he knows Elliot, and Elliot is also partners with Anna, I'm betting he also knows Anna. So that means he knows Elliot is partners with two women. You, a whole and separate person from Elliot, express your interest in him (Mark) and he immediately thinks you're out of line? and reports you to your male partner but not your female partner? Did I get that right? If so that would seem to imply:

He has that men play and women don't ideal AND the women can't have legitimate relationships with each other on the same level as hetero relationships thinking......ewwwww

Why you like that guy lady? ;)
 
I feel you! :(

When I told my last boyfriend (obviously, before we were dating) that I was poly, he flipped right out; calling me a bunch of names and yelling at me.

His previous relationship had been an affair. The woman he was with had a husband who had no knowledge of what was going on.

The point is...
unfortunately, society's got this 'proper' idea of what it means to be in a relationship and it's deeply, deeply ingrained (ugh, think for yourselves, guys!). So even though cheating is super frowned upon and disliked, it's better than consensual non-monogamy. I don't know... people, right?

Anyway, you sound lovely and Elliott sounds awesomely supportive. Mark just sounds a little insecure. And who knows? Maybe he doesn't want to compete with Elliott.

From my experience, if they react like that, they'll end up resentful. And you don't need that in your life. Try to maintain the friendship. If he doesn't want to, it's his loss!
 
Hi Evangeline,

Re (from OP):
"Is there any way I can redeem this friendship?"

You'll probably have to do nothing for awhile, then, only approach Mark a little at a time. And based on what Elliot said, I guess polyamory is not allowed as a topic to discuss with Mark.

That being the case, are you sure you want to redeem this friendship? It sounds to me like Mark's got some hang-ups, and some more hang-ups surrounding and guarding the other hang-ups. None of that is your fault. You don't owe Mark anything (regardless of what he might think).

Anyway, it might be possible to make friends with Mark again. Just take it slow and don't talk to him about polyamory.
 
Hey everyone,

Thanks so much for all the advice.

Vinccenzo - good point! He just seemed like such a cool guy before this happened.

Elliot thinks it's possible that he did not realize Anna was our partner. Anna doesn't live in the same place as the rest of us and only visits on weekends, and we're not super into PDA. That being said, Anna and I are as much PDA-y as Elliot and I are, and a relationship of 2+ years which isn't a secret - it seems very unlikely that he didn't notice. (I'm sure I must have mentioned it at least a couple of times!) I think, unfortunately, that it's probably Mark seeing two women dating as somehow less real of a thing. (And if so, good riddance to him!) I wanted to attribute everything to Mark being unobservant and conventional in an attempt to exonerate him a bit, but that's probably overly generous here.

It seems like my options are: clear the air at the possible cost of the friendship, or not bring up polyamory again in an attempt to smooth things over with Mark.

Thinking back on it, if it weren't for Elliot and Mark still being such good friends, I'm not sure this friendship would be worth keeping after all. Still, I'm willing to try for the sake of the friend group (that Mark accused me of being so eager to throw over...)
 
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If you want to clear the air?

It does not take long to say "hey, sorry to catch to catch you off balance. It is ok you do not want to date. I want you to know that I would never cheat on Elliot. I ran it by him and he encouraged me to ask you out. I hope things can be friendly between us and we can put it behind us and let it go as just not a match."

After that if he still wants to be weird that is his doings, not yours.

Galagirl
 
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The point is...
unfortunately, society's got this 'proper' idea of what it means to be in a relationship and it's deeply, deeply ingrained (ugh, think for yourselves, guys!). So even though cheating is super frowned upon and disliked, it's better than consensual non-monogamy. I don't know... people, right?

I'd tossed this idea over in my head after reading about it in a different thread, and I did some "thinking out loud" over on my blog thread:

I have to believe it all comes from the same belief.

In a cheating relationship, there are typically two perceived outcomes:
  • The person understands that the cheater will not leave their spouse/SO and therefore does not ever expect this relationship to "go anywhere"
  • The cheater promises to leave the spouse for the new person, making this more "serial monogamy with overlap" and promising a "full" relationship at some point in the future.

(The "cheater and new partner end up having a long term extra-marital relationship" doesn't usually get thought about all that much, from what I've seen)

These still incorporate the belief that "monogamy is the only way to have a full relationship" - that you can never hope to have a "full relationship" with someone whose attention or intimacy is divided, unless you manage to pull them away from the previous relationship.

Cheating acknowledges and works within this belief system.
Polyamory rejects it outright.

Accepting cheating means not having to challenge your own beliefs. Accepting Polyamory means having to reevaluate the way in which you see the world, which is hard for many of us who are *motivated* to do so. For someone who isn't motivated in the least, this is probably asking the impossible.

Yes, there is the "long-term mistress" option as well, but many of those situations are presented as a relationship like Prince Charles / Princess Di, where the two people were clearly mismatched in the first place and the marital relationship exists simply out of obligation. You rarely hear about long-term extra-marital relationships where the married couple still share a close bond (not that they don't exist, but they're few and far between in our historical literature).
 
Re (from GalaGirl):
"Hey, sorry to catch to catch you off balance. It is okay you do not want to date. I want you to know that I would never cheat on Elliot. I ran it by him and he encouraged me to ask you out. I hope things can be friendly between us and we can put it behind us and let it go as just not a match."

That would be a good way to put it.
 
If you want to clear the air?

It does not take long to say "hey, sorry to catch to catch you off balance. It is ok you do not want to date. I want you to know that I would never cheat on Elliot. I ran it by him and he encouraged me to ask you out. I hope things can be friendly between us and we can put it behind us and let it go as just not a match."

After that if he still wants to be weird that is his doings, not yours.

Galagirl

Yeah, still very much a noob, here, but this really seems like a good approach to me, at a gut level. I feel like fear (Mark's, in this case) so often stems from ignorance (not being "dumb," just having a lack of information).

Laying it all out very clearly and calmly--giving him the information he lacks, while reassuring him that it's ok to have to have his feelings about the situation--seems like a good road to take.

Best of luck either way.
 
Not surprised he didn't get it

I'm not surprised that he didn't realize what was going on. My partner and I have a lot of vanilla friends from our previous lives. We don't evangelize but we don't hide it either and our partners come to parties. I remember once someone asking me how I met Kate and I told them I met her online at a dating site. My friend's response was That's great! And you're still friends!

His mindset simply didn't include poly. I would give him some credit for behaving ethically within his understanding of the situation. But from here it depends on how he feels about poly.
 
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