Whose privilege is it to say "GET OFF MY FOOT"

I am so glad I live alone, have no kids, and keep my relationships separate. It's so much simpler this way! ;)

LR does have a lot on her plate. And it takes a lot of work to be a good Domme and sub at once, and I am sure she's good.
 
I am so glad I live alone, have no kids, and keep my relationships separate. It's so much simpler this way! ;)

Yes ma'am! I agree. :) I love reading about your life because (that aspect) does sound much easier.

I have told the guys that when the kids are grown, I want my own place. ;) We are actually serious about buying a large tract of land (like 20 acres or more) and building multiple houses on it. Preferably tree'd land, so there is good amounts of space and trees and privacy between all of them. At this point, we're thinking starting with 5 or 6 small homes and on the property, centrally located an.. like an activity center sort of home. No bedrooms, but a nice big kitchen, living room, bathrooms, game room. That way, if the extended family wants to socialize in larger groups-we can (because we do all enjoy that SOMETIMES) but we would each have our own private dwelling for doing our own thing.
 
Yeah-I don't get into those topics on here much-because it just seems to derail the conversations that are in process. Too many people are struggling with what seem like pretty basic concepts.
WE ALL DO at times.
But you are right Mag. When I read on here what some people are complaining about I am thinking "wow don't even start exploring yet omg you won't be able to handle it".

LOL!

I know GG would tell you I'm a very good Dom. Maca would tell you I'm a great sub. GG can't picture me as a sub at all. Maca can picture me as a Dom-it entertains him actually, but he see's me handle the world, so he knows I am capable, he just isn't going to drop into that mode to save his life. :p But that's ok, it's not his job!

You know though, I think those things and even the "poly thing" is much much easier than parenting. Shrug.
If you screw up any of the other, it's consenting adults who are struggling. But with parenting it's children. So you have to really consider and that responsibility infiltrates EVERY WHERE-you know?

That's one of the things I spend time considering that rarely manages to make it to conversations here-but it's part of why I got to the "GOD I HAVE A RANT" point with this topic.

I am looking at the kids thinking "what lesson is it that is being sent when they see a parent struggling and that parent can't/won't address the person they are struggling with?"
Kids DO SEE. All of the 'we can't tell our kids because' well-to be frank those kids aren't as naive as people think. They see much much much more than they admit or repeat.
So here you are as a parent telling kids the importance of direct, honest, forthright, considerate communication.. telling them about the need to take responsibility for themselves, their emotions, their needs..... but you aren't?

Um yeah. Wrong message.

It really is critical that when someone comes up-regardless of who it is, that we employ the same behaviors of communication with them as we are telling our children they need to use (and please tell me you are teaching your children proper communication).

But trying to explain to the world how D/s impacts the poly dynamic... that would just be too confusing here. There are extra responsibilities I have to GG as his Mistress that do alter the dynamic if he gets another lover. (I would never make it unavailable to him). There are also extra responsibilities Maca has to me as my Dom that have to be considered when he takes another lover. To be frank-I can't imagine it being feasible unless Maca dated another submissive personality. Not necessarily someone who was going to be HIS SUB. But someone who was experienced in that role so that they could understand that dynamic and how it effects things. Which, E, did understand. Whereas the younger chick-yeah no clue at all.
 
I am looking at the kids thinking "what lesson is it that is being sent when they see a parent struggling and that parent can't/won't address the person they are struggling with?"
Kids DO SEE. All of the 'we can't tell our kids because' well-to be frank those kids aren't as naive as people think. They see much much much more than they admit or repeat.
So here you are as a parent telling kids the importance of direct, honest, forthright, considerate communication.. telling them about the need to take responsibility for themselves, their emotions, their needs..... but you aren't?

Um yeah. Wrong message.

I keep looking for the FB 'like' button to mash down.

Kids are most definitely not naive. My ex-husband is going to get his ass handed to him one day because he fails to see it, and all I can do is live my life being honest with the kids, and open to answering any questions they have - without pushing them off or lying to them. I have to consider that the way in which I live my life is also an instruction to them, and that is a HUGE responsibility.
 
I keep looking for the FB 'like' button to mash down.

Kids are most definitely not naive. My ex-husband is going to get his ass handed to him one day because he fails to see it, and all I can do is live my life being honest with the kids, and open to answering any questions they have - without pushing them off or lying to them. I have to consider that the way in which I live my life is also an instruction to them, and that is a HUGE responsibility.

Totally hear you! My oldest is 22. It was only this last Christmas that her father (we separated when she was 2 months) called me to apologize and thank me. He is privileged in that, the way I raised her, allowed her to forgive him for some STUPID shit he pulled when he walked away. It motivated her to accept his apologies and "give him another chance" at building a relationship with her as adults so he can know his grandsons. It's allowed him to have a future with her-even though the first 20 years he threw away.
BUT it has also forced him to realize that he fucked up and he owes me more than he could ever repay.

Fortunately for him-I am just thankful that he got a clue. The rest is history and need not be dragged into the future. He's a good grandfather. His wife is a dream and I hold no grudge over mistakes made previously.

But you can be damn sure-I hold myself SERIOUSLY accountable with the rest of the kids-just as I did with her. The youngest is 6. She's a different breed. The older kids were SO independent and SO sure of themselves. They were confident and they were leaders. You could put them in a room full of misbehaving children-and they would walk out with kids who were behaving-just because they wanted to be like them.
The youngest, she's unsure and she's a follower. She see's someone doing something, she tries it. She doesn't understand how to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong if someone is doing "wrong" right in front of her. She's learned no lying, no hitting, do your chores, etc etc. But the more intricate concepts of WHEN to respond when called at the park, or which kid is playing "safely" versus kids who aren't still evade her.

So, I have to be even more aware of her surroundings.
While the older kids guilt tripped Maca over his cigarette habit-bringing home reports on what it does to your body, etc.
She laid into me over how "grown up daddys smoke cigarettes". It didn't even occur to her that her GG doesn't smoke. She adores her daddy-he smokes-so it's just what you do when you grow up. EEK! Even Maca cringed.

These guys, they know we are couples. At six she doesn't understand the full ramifications of sex. She knows boy body parts, girl body parts, she knows they go together and make babies, she knows all about babies growing inside of you-she's seen so many pregnancies. But the ramifications of being a lover? No.
But she watches how we act, how we treat each other.

Maca's ex-girlfriend, is still fond memories for her. She knows that E moved FOR WORK and that is why she is gone. She isn't upset and emotional.
But the potential who created so much drama, she is upset over. Not over the drama-she doesn't understand all of that. She is upset because she doesn't understand why this person who she met twice-suddenly isn't in her life now. She doesn't understand why this person who was kissing daddy in the kitchen "just like you and GG" is gone. Because for her-those kissing, hugging, lovey dovey moments are things that mean "I Love you" and I love you means I am part of your family. So why would someone who is family just disappear?
Being told that daddy and that person got in a big fight and they don't talk any more-just sends her into a tailspin. MONTHS of every time she got in trouble thinking that would mean that mommy or daddy or GG (whoever was "mad" at her) was going to never talk to her again-was going to leave "with that girl daddy kissed".

NICE! FUCKING NOT!

These things-people don't think about. She wasn't exposed to the drama or the fighting. She only saw a couple of happy moments. But those moments had MUCH MUCH more meaning for her than they did to either Maca or the lady.
Those moments created an emotional question mark for her in terms of her ability to trust that the people who loved her weren't going to leave her.

WHY WHY WHY should any 4 year old have to question those things? (She was 4 when it went down). It's asinine.

So yeah-we have some pretty strict rules regarding who is around and when they are around the kids. It's absolutely not a secret that we are poly. They know when one of us is going out on a date. But they don't need to meet people who aren't going to be around at least long enough to leave a positive impression on them like E did.
 
In a perfect world

I shouldn't need to speak up about a metamour mistreating me,

But sometimes I have to.

my partner should already be making sure that doesn't happen.

But sometimes he doesn't.

I shouldn't need rules to ensure my partner(S) protect and maintain our relationship,

But sometimes couples mutually choose to create rules.

that should be something they do naturally. I don't want to babysitting anyone. I don't want to have to speak for my partner, I don't want to have to overrule him, I don't want to have to have his relationships for him. If he needs that much help to maintain simple levels of decency, maybe he doesn't have the right mentality for maintaining multiple relationships.

True, but sometimes he slips up..... hell, sometimes I slip up and act the fool!!!

We're humans not machines! :)
 
We're humans not machines! :)

Yes thank you. :)
And at least in our world-we're teammates, so we work together.
When one of us screws up, it screws the team.
We back each other up, we are each others strength. We are each others fan club. We are each others conscious sometimes.

**we means all three of us**
 
Personally, I wouldn't let my kid meet a partner for months and months. Recently, my son had to meet one of them because he left something at my house, but he was introduced as a friend and that's all that partner will ever be in my son's life anyway.

I think I need to clarify what I mean by all this a bit more. Of course, everyone has boundaries in their relationships and things crop up that you didn't predict were going to be an issue but turn out to be, and things need to be re negotiated. That's all fine. It's important to have contemporaneous communication with your partner(s) and sometimes your metamours too. However, the idea of having to police their other relationships because your partner(s) are unable to maintain those boundaries is undesirable at best. Maybe once or twice something will crop up that wasn't handled as well as it could be, but especially when it comes to children (I've expressed how I handle relationships in relation to my son), even once where he didn't step up and assert the agreements that we have made would be too much for me. But the focus of my "blame", for want of a better word, would be on him. I wouldn't think that it means regularly and routinely having to manage his relationships in that fashion was desirable and if it became so I had to do that in order to keep our relationship healthy, it just wouldn't work for me. I need to be able to trust that my partner(s) can maintain our relationship whilst forming and maintaining others without me having to oversee it.
 
I think you are still missing my point.
I don't manage his relationships.
I manage mine.
When his people enter MY CIRCLES they then have relationship with me. Those are not his to manage.
 
Yes thank you. :)
And at least in our world-we're teammates, so we work together.
When one of us screws up, it screws the team.
We back each other up, we are each others strength. We are each others fan club. We are each others conscious sometimes.

**we means all three of us**

Thanks for sharing! I like reading your posts!
 
LR, I totally get how you feel on this issue. My husband and I have never, not even once, paid a sitter to come to our house and watch our kids so that we could go out and do something social or adult. WE take turns, or we bring them along. Maybe my parents take them once in a while so we get a date night, but they live an hour away so that is not often.

I do pay a sitter during the day when I need to work and TB is at work too. But that is one person that we have been bringing our kids to for 5 years. Same woman, and our kids love going there. Now that we have a teenager who is old enough to watch the little ones, we will take one or two nights a month together. But, really, they are OUR kids and WE take responsibility for them at all times. Not that I think that parents who DO hire babysitters are not, just that we have never wanted to do that.

My BF is the same way. He has two teens, who need ferrying to various sports and school events. He will not make arrangements for someone else to pick them up just so he can come and meet with me. WE work around THEIR schedule. His kids will only be living at home a few more years. I will not take that time away from him.

AS to being able to speak to you directly, well some people are just not good at direct communication. They probably think it's easier to negotiate or pass along messages through their partner, hoping that the "Love" will filter out any hostility or misunderstanding. But, really, it is triangular communication, AND the telephone game. Just today my husband asked me to tell my BF something, and I was like "Why dont you just Facebook him yourself?!?!"
 
I missed the original context of this, LR, but you are coming across as sounding crazy-jealous of any women who want to date Maca.

I completely disagree. That may be your interpretation, but I think she's coming across as a woman who just wants to manage her own life herself.

They think it's ANNOYING when people expect that everything needs to go through a third party.

I really wish I'd learned how to do this when my husband's daughter used to visit. She was already a teenager and I knew I was never going to be "like a mother" to her, so I was always timid about telling her what to do in my own house. I felt like I needed to ask my husband to ask her to pick up after herself, or else I'd be perceived as the wicked stepmother. But if I could do that all over again, I'd say fuck it: you're a teenager visiting my house, please hang up your towels and put your dishes in the dishwasher.

If I have an issue with one of their friends or coworkers or boss-I call them myself.

OK, it took me a minute to realize that you said if you have an issue with their boss... At first I was imagining a situation where Maca comes home complaining about his boss being a jerk, and you call up the boss and tell him off. Recently, Gralson had some trouble with some bullshit at work. I'm just trying to imagine how much he'd freak the fuck out if I called up his supervisor and stuck my nose into his professional life like that. It would not go over well, let's leave it at that. But I don't think that's at all what you're talking about. If he brought home a coworker who proceeded to wear muddy boots through the house, you can bet your ass I wouldn't sit there waiting for Gralson to do something about it.

I shouldn't need to speak up about a metamour mistreating me, my partner should already be making sure that doesn't happen. I shouldn't need rules to ensure my partner(S) protect and maintain our relationship, that should be something they do naturally. I don't want to babysitting anyone. I don't want to have to speak for my partner, I don't want to have to overrule him, I don't want to have to have his relationships for him.

You don't want to have to speak for your partner... and yet you're saying that you want your partner to speak for you. Curious.

People are not omniscient. Problems could come up that are completely unpredictable. I can't imagine anything more disempowering than needing my husband to speak on my behalf every time there's an issue. Hello 1850s... If an unexpected issue arises between you and your metamour, wouldn't be much simpler to just deal with it yourselves, like two grown-ups? Not only is it more efficient, but it doesn't require that the mutual partner even fully understand the issue. And let's face it: most men will never fully understand the issues that come up between two women.

However, the idea of having to police their other relationships because your partner(s) are unable to maintain those boundaries is undesirable at best.

If you're asking your partner to tell his other partner how to treat you, then you're actually asking your partner to manage the relationship between you and the other partner.

LR isn't policing the relationships between her partners and their other partners. She's policing the relationships between HERSELF and her partners' other partners. And who could possibly be better qualified to police her own relationships than she herself?

At the end of the day, the responsibility to maintain my boundaries is mine and mine alone. I don't expect my partners to spend all their time talking about me and my boundaries. It's my job to tell people where my boundaries are and when they're being crossed. The most I can expect from my partners is to choose other partners who aren't douchebags, so that boundary-crossing will be as infrequent as possible.
 
*You don't want to have to speak for your partner... and yet you're saying that you want your partner to speak for you. Curious.*

No, if my partner and I have an agreement about something, I shouldn't have to be the person to enforce that agreement with his partner. That's not speaking for me, that's him maintaining his relationship with me.

If you're asking your partner to tell his other partner how to treat you,

I'm not though. I want very casual, distant relationships with my metamours. They don't get to "treat me" any way at all because we do/will have very little contact, if any. That's why someone would have to really go out of their way to impact on our relationship and if they did go that far out of their way, it would be my partner's job to nip it in the bud. If he didn't, I would be wanting words with him, not her. And that goes for everything: rules around our home, our kids, our relationship(s), family etc etc. It's his job to maintain those boundaries in his other relationships, not mine. An inability to do this spells trouble to me.

It's my job to tell people where my boundaries are and when they're being crossed

I agree that it's one's job to tell one's partner(s) where their boundaries lay and when they have been crossed. It's the idea that one should routinely expect to have to maintain those boundaries in other relationships that I wholly disagree with.
 
I think it could be a case of "my interdependent poly isn't your independent poly."

Both approaches resonate with me.

When I was younger, single -- I wanted an independent model. I wanted to be with my partner and beyond him? I didn't want to deal with it. I wasn't interested in his family, his friends, his other dating partners. Beyond what I needed to know for calendar (sorry, I have a family bday) or sex health (That person I'm seeing? It's looking to go lover soon....) I didn't care to know. If he wanted to share, I'd listen. But I wasn't going to ask too deeply. The expectation was that it was his job to keep them from crossing lines and if he couldn't? We could be done. The expectation was that I would be doing same on my end of things.

At that time I just didn't want drama, too many shared entanglements, etc. I knew the polymath was there -- it always is. But certain tiers for me were not close. It was "live in the present only." It was just the NOW -- no past entanglements or planning future ones. It was fun. :)

As a married with kids now? I want an interdependent model and as a result my polysaturation point is different. Past, present, and future entanglements do apply now. When there's entanglements like shared children, aging parents, mortgages, cars, bank accounts, other property -- my way of going is different because my emotional energy/time management is different than it used to be.

It's neither here nor there to me. I think interdependent and independent models each have their strengths and limitations -- just in different places. Both approaches can work within their respective models.

Galagirl
 
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I agree that it's one's job to tell one's partner(s) where their boundaries lay and when they have been crossed. It's the idea that one should routinely expect to have to maintain those boundaries in other relationships that I wholly disagree with.

May I assume "other relationships" only refers to partners of your partners?

I was referring to all aspects of life: partners, metamours, friends, family, co-workers, the guy staring at you in the supermarket, solicitors coming to the door... Metamours are but one small component of "outside relations."

To me, if having to maintain my boundaries with my metamours becomes a full time job, then there's a bigger problem than "who should be enforcing this?" At that point, the conversation isn't "you need to control your girlfriend," it's "your girlfriend needs to get the fuck out of my life." Since you mention keeping them at a distance, it sounds like you crossed that line before it was drawn.
 
OK, it took me a minute to realize that you said if you have an issue with their boss... At first I was imagining a situation where Maca comes home complaining about his boss being a jerk, and you call up the boss and tell him off. Recently, Gralson had some trouble with some bullshit at work. I'm just trying to imagine how much he'd freak the fuck out if I called up his supervisor and stuck my nose into his professional life like that. It would not go over well, let's leave it at that. But I don't think that's at all what you're talking about. If he brought home a coworker who proceeded to wear muddy boots through the house, you can bet your ass I wouldn't sit there waiting for Gralson to do something about it.

Giggle-no-he has all sorts of venting to do about work. That's not my business except to patiently listen.
I meant if I had an issue.
He does work for a small company-his boss is married to a lady I grew up with and Maca does consider him a friend.
The prior boss-did actually call me periodically about things such as wanting to send Maca out of town for work-because the company is run on the basis of family first. So they try to work with the families in so much as possible.
 
Giggle-no-he has all sorts of venting to do about work. That's not my business except to patiently listen.
I meant if I had an issue.
He does work for a small company-his boss is married to a lady I grew up with and Maca does consider him a friend.
The prior boss-did actually call me periodically about things such as wanting to send Maca out of town for work-because the company is run on the basis of family first. So they try to work with the families in so much as possible.

Yup. Gralson works for a big national company full of unionized morons who place seniority above competence and even safety. As satisfying as it would be to call up some assistant foreman and scream at him for almost getting my husband killed, I don't think that would be especially productive.

"Family...family...Oh! You mean the support staff back home, who do your laundry and pack your lunch. Yeah, family is great! What? You want time off because your old lady is going in for surgery? Wellll... I gueeessss so... If you must. But doesn't she have some, like, girlfriends or something that can go with her? How soon can you be back?"
 
At that point, the conversation isn't "you need to control your girlfriend," it's "your girlfriend needs to get the fuck out of my life." Since you mention keeping them at a distance, it sounds like you crossed that line before it was drawn.

Other than being able to support our partner in the same place when he wants us to, I see no reason for me to foster a friendship with a metamour. If we happen to meet and really get along well, there is no reason for us not to be friends, but it isn't something that I need.
 
Other than being able to support our partner in the same place when he wants us to, I see no reason for me to foster a friendship with a metamour. If we happen to meet and really get along well, there is no reason for us not to be friends, but it isn't something that I need.

And that's perfectly valid. However, it does put you in a completely different situation than LR, who prefers to have friendships with her metamours, and whose partners prefer to bring their other partners home. Your approach of letting your partner be a buffer would never work if your metamours were frequently in your space. Then like with any friend, you would need to stand up for your own self.

Because your and LR's family arrangements and friendship preference are completely different, it's nonsense to make the leap from
I shouldn't need to speak up about a metamour mistreating me, my partner should already be making sure that doesn't happen.

to a generalized
it is up to an individual to ensure one relationship does not negatively impact on others

To turn it on its head, Maca and GG are metamours and they live together. Obviously that would never happen in your world. But in theirs, it would be ludicrous to expect LR to buffer their interactions.
 
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Nope, I still can't see how anything changes once you drop the expectation to have metamours that you like. A house rule such as no smoking should be maintained by my partner and if I don't want to spend time with my metamour whilst s/he is in our home, I'll go somewhere else so we don't share the same space.
 
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