New and confused

... I'm in the camp that believes that poly relationships are not inherently harder work than monogamous ones. So being poly isn't harder work than being monogamous, or shouldn't be, at least.

I wasn't necessarily responding to anyone specific. Rather, to anyone who believes that relationships don't take work, or that poly relationships don't take more work than mono ones. They do. Of course they do. Doing something always takes more work than not doing something; making new relationships is "doing something."

I assumed you were responding to london.
 
I guess it also depends what you mean by "work." I'm not talking about pain and suffering or anything. I mean, mowing the lawn is "work" but that doesn't mean it's a horrible, awful thing to have to do. Now, if you were going to mow the lawn with a pair of scissors, that would be making far more work than you need to do. Perhaps that's what you're getting at with "just not worth it."

I'd agree with this. What I mean is that often people think poly should be more gruelling than monogamy. The negative side of "work". Relationships that would have been deemed futile months before in a monogamous situation are worked on more. People forget that you can just break up. That you can chose not to have poly relationships. That there are other forms of ethical non monogamy. It's like they have to be poly and every relationship must be turned into a lifer long success.
 
I wasn't necessarily responding to anyone specific. Rather, to anyone who believes that relationships don't take work, or that poly relationships don't take more work than mono ones. They do. Of course they do. Doing something always takes more work than not doing something; making new relationships is "doing something."

But what I'm emphasizing is that work is not equal to awful, difficult, or miserable. IMO, anyone who sees any and all work as awful is nothing short of lazy.



Just because you say they do, and you really mean it, does not make it a unilateral truth. Both of my relationships are virtually effortless, and neither takes more effort just because the other is there. I don't think this is true however, in most cases, but that's because i think people choose difficult partners for themselves. I'm very lucky to have the two, but i slogged through a lot of duds and i was a dud for some. "work" would have been useless. I am better off doing what works than trying to make it work.
 
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Perhaps 'dominating' wasn't the best word for me to use. My husband isn't dominating either, but when he is with us we have a different kind of sex than when my gf and I are alone. She and I do things when it's just the two of us that we don't bother to do when he is there, if you catch my drift...

I know you say you are 'slower' sexually than he is. Perhaps one on one dates between you and her would help? I know I felt a bit lost when my gf and I started having sex, it wasn't so clear cut as having sex with a man (I'd not had any real girlfriends before her) and you need to figure out what each person likes.

I'm not saying you need to 'keep up' with the pace of their relationship, but you don't want to neglect your private time with her. Otherwise in a month you may find yourself left behind as she and he build a full relationship and you and her only have a friendship.
 
Just because you say they do, and you really mean it, does not make it a unilateral truth. Both of my relationships are virtually effortless, and neither takes more effort just because the other is there. I don't think this is true however, in most cases, but that's because i think people choose difficult partners for themselves. I'm very lucky to have the two, but i slogged through a lot of duds and i was a dud for some. "work" would have been useless. I am better off doing what works than trying to make it work.

"Work" can be as simple as working out who does the dishes or when you're both available for a date. When you say your relationships are virtually effortless, I interpret that as saying you're not cutting the lawn with a pair of scissors. Not that you have absolutely zero things to ever work out.

If one of your relationships takes N units of work and your other relationship takes M units of work, then together your "relationships" take at minimum N + M > (N or M) units of work.

Again, I'm not saying that "work" means "we have all these problems and we're constantly discussing and compromising and no one is ever really happy." The relationship side of both of my relationships is very pleasant and not at all difficult. But sharing a house with my husband means we have to work together to figure out things like finances, meal plans, cleaning the bathroom... That's all "work." With my girlfriend, we're both really busy, so we have to figure out when we'll have time to see each other. That's "work."
 
You're thinking of it more like in terms of calories expended, like work in joules or something. But with me, my "extramarital" relationship really does not require that kind of work-effort, unless you consider having wacky sex for 14 hours "work". I would quit my day job for that.

And my live-in spouse-partner? Besides the "work" of needing to remind them to do stuff (ADD, etc.), there isn't that much "work" either, at least not on an every-day basis.

I still think that a lot of this "work" people speak of is the result of feeling like they've invested "this much" in a relationship so far and they don't want to "lose" that.
 
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