problems I see with polyfidelity

Yes I did agree to be polyfi. One of my husbands have expressed that if I date or seek out others that they probably will end our relationship. Luckily I have no urge or need for other partners. He has no issues with my other husband.

Dagferi, I am curious: did your husband also ask his metamour (your other husband) to not date or seek out other partners? Or does that not matter to him?

Because it often sounds like "polyfidelity" refers to EVERYONE in the arrangement agreeing to be closed to new partners, regardless of individual needs. That could get difficult very fast.

But it certainly sounds reasonable for one individual to decide to agree her partner's request that she not date others, when luckily she doesn't have a desire to date others.

One more thing that I didn't quite articulate in my previous post: the concept of polyfidelity (as I was defining it) often seems based on the monogamous idea that a "real" relationship is predicated on exclusivity. "We're exclusive! It's just that there's three (or four) of us in the relationship!"

I first approached polyamory from rejecting the norm of exclusivity = romantic relationship, so I was initially puzzled to encounter that attitude within (some types of) polyamory.

It's totally fine to decide or agree to stop dating new people--but it requires arriving at a point where you already have the relationships that you want. For a poly newbie, or someone who is single and totally starting over and trying to figure everything out by yourself from scratch (as I was 6 years ago), polyfidelity as a general concept didn't provide a very helpful model.
 
Thanks Meera you beautifully summed up my thoughts on this. I dont think all those who find themselves limited number of partners situational circumstance as being in the same club as the hard flag planting group.
The only word that I would have added to Meera's wonderful post is the word Mandate. It seems to happen in these unicorn hunting /shopping experiences and once its bagged the committee meets and the mandate is slammed down. Im sure it happens in other situations too but that seems to the most popular.



So I am doing poly lite because I am polyfi?
Yes ... But its less filling and fewer calories :D



All because I have agreed not to have sex outside my marriages to my husbands. I am not being told that I couldn't seek out other partners, but I don't want to.nor do I am an urge to add more partners.

My husbands could date other people if they wanted but they dont.

Yes I did agree to be polyfi. One of my husbands have expressed that if I date or seek out others that they probably will end our relationship. Luckily I have no urge or need for other partners. He has no issues with my other husband.

You are right I could care less what others do in their relationships. People can date as many partners as they want as far as I am concerned.

Im confused is this some sort of semantic game??? Im not being told I cant seek out other partner but if I do he's going to walk. To me(most people ) would say that yes in all practicality you were being told you couldn't seek out additional partners.
 
A big problem here -- with labels in general, really -- is that people don't stop to clarify (to borrow terms from linguistics) whether they're using a term descriptively, or prescriptively, or maybe "how it is" against "how it could be."

Of course, I have been openly nonmonogamous since the early 1980s. That has never changed, & even atthe darkest times I have never been drawn toward somehow giving it up.

Yet over the years I have also had spans when I was monogamous, or celibate. I have been in closed dyads & a quad. Those terms describe my situation. Therefore, some have pounced upon my experience at a given moment to claim I'd somehow "given up polyamory" to do something else. This demonstrates the confusion between the two, which in some situations can be exploited to "win" a disagreement.

When some sort of moral implication (like "STD safe") enters, a third category arises, which I don't have a name for. :eek: That is where statements pop up on the order "this is the way the world works, & everything else is aberrant." It certainly does nothing to clarify the conversation. In my opinion, such thinking is very common in Monogamism, & (at most) flimsy in polyamory.

Surely there are people who are in a closed three- or four-person relationship who are quite happy. It could properly be called "polyfidelitous." But how do we productively label a sexually closed triad that doesn't embrace the "polyfi" identity?

And questions multiply. Like, how is it that a vee open to maybe the eventual possibility of adding others is on equal footing to one that's intended to be closed for life? Is there really much nontrivial similarity between (say) four poly-experienced individuals who happily settle down together & two married couples who get together with no non-affair outside experience?

In the latter instance, if none has experience with polyamory -- & in fact they see no need to even grasp poly stuff like communicating at high levels -- how is it that they are polyamorous?

Is someone interested in a closed vee thus polyfidelitous? Is a single polyfi person allowed to "shop around" sexually? how long?

Can a polyfi triad be swingers?
 
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I've considered certain relationships as being polyfi but only for set periods of time. I am currently polyfi with my two husbands - doing poly lite, I suppose - but we are all open to being open in the future, just not right now. We just bought a house and our finances are getting an overhaul. I would definitely describe my relationships as being monogamy, elevated. I am juggling two separate monogamous relationships. For now.

Honestly though, the thought of adding another primary relationship in my life is not appealing. Sometimes the thought of banging lots of other dudes is. STDs are not a real concern for me, except that the actual mechanics of getting and staying clean exhaust me. I have no desire to start going to the doctor for regular testing again, buying condoms, taking my diaphragm with me on sleepovers. It just seems tiring, and not presently something I am thinking as a fair trade off for banging lots of dudes, or even one other dude. I think this is what being old feels like.

I will have to think about the question of can a polyfi triad be swingers. I am not in a triad, but a V, but the question is still an interesting one. Semantics. If I am closed to new primary partners, but don't mind getting freaky on the weekends with strangers...no, that wouldn't be polyfi to me. But maybe to someone else they would consider that polyfi. I know my husband PunkRockAwesomesauce would not - to him, polyfi is 100% no new sex partners, period, ever.
 
I don't see polyfidelity as being any better or worse than polyamory in general (and I do tend to think of polyfidelity as a subset).

I agree. For sake of conversation I am part of a "closed" quad consisting of two married couples and we have all been in this poly relationship for 10 1/2 years. (Wonderful years and not open to exploring outside the four of us) We are closed because that is what we desire. I'm not labeling or judging others who are in other situations. I do though sense a judgment by some in this thread towards people like us who have chosen to expand our marriage but still maintain boundaries on it. It is what we are all comfortable with and what we want out of our life together. Frankly we don't give a damn if others want to put labels like "poly lite" on us because we are not about making some sort of statement or representing a community. We are about us...period.
 
Yes, I want a like button too ;)

Gary, what I am interested in, where does your desire to be closed come from?
 
I would say it is more about not having the desire to be otherwise. For us poly happened naturally and we did not seek it out. Our relationship is not really about being poly nearly so much as it is about us simply being in love and open to it. I imagine each of the four of us would be different in our level of comfort with more of an open relationship, but none of us feels the need for it. To us our commitment to each other is part of what makes it work for us.
 
I would say it is more about not having the desire to be otherwise ... I imagine each of the four of us would be different in our level of comfort with more of an open relationship, but none of us feels the need for it. To us our commitment to each other is part of what makes it work for us.

I'm not trying to put you on the fire, Gary, I'm just also curious to understand what you are saying.

So the group of you do not have an exclusivity/fidelity agreement? You just all happen to not be interested in seeking outside partners?
 
I'm not trying to put you on the fire, Gary, I'm just also curious to understand what you are saying.

So the group of you do not have an exclusivity/fidelity agreement? You just all happen to not be interested in seeking outside partners?

Oh no...we definitely have an exclusivity agreement. We are as committed to it as any traditional married couple. In fact cheating (which is what it would be since we have agreed to remain exclusive) would be as harmful as in any relationship.
 
Oh no...we definitely have an exclusivity agreement. We are as committed to it as any traditional married couple. In fact cheating (which is what it would be since we have agreed to remain exclusive) would be as harmful as in any relationship.

So it is an explicit exclusivity agreement, got it.

This brings us back around to the question Tinwen asked, "where does your desire to be closed come from?" I asked for a clarification on whether or not you actually have an exclusivity agreement because your response to this question made it unclear (to me at least).

You say that your "commitment to each other" is part of what makes it work - have you given any thought as to why an exclusivity agreement is required for it to work? Where does the need for such an agreement come from?
 
You say that your "commitment to each other" is part of what makes it work - have you given any thought as to why an exclusivity agreement is required for it to work? Where does the need for such an agreement come from?

It comes from our needs of course. Our insecurities, our desires, our group dynamic. It is simply who we are. I think this need to be authentic to self is important for success in all types of relationships. I don't in any way think exclusivity is required for poly to be successful. I do, however, think it is required for US to be successful. I don't think that makes us any more or less authentic than anyone else who embraces the possibility of more than one love. I don't think we're in love with the "idea" of being poly...we're in love with each other. As I have said before...we didn't choose poly, we simply fell in love with our best friends and discovered how wonderful it could be. Had that not happened my wife and I would likely still be monogamous.
 
we are not about making some sort of statement or representing a community. We are about us...period.
FWIW, that's something that I do see as indicative, which is why I said
rather than coming together in mutual support and to assist one another through inevitable difficulties, those who claim polyfidelity seem dedicated against wider community with peers. As more than one couple has said, "we're only here until we find our third."
IME, unless they're considering expanding their clade, people in closed relationships actively avoid hanging out with other nonmonogamists.

To me, it resembles a phenomenon I first found noted in the 1950s, where suburban couples actively avoided inviting singles to their social events. So long as it was "couples only," there was a lot of groping going on at these parties & a bit of furtive sex as well, but that was considered "safe" because it didn't endanger the couple front they were ALL in, a sort of "mutually assured destruction" detente.

But should even one unmarried person show up, researchers noted quite a chill of near-hostility overall. That outlier threatened the neat social dynamic.

Most of the closed three- & foursomes I've known avoided hanging out in close proximity even at unrelated events (community Wiccan rituals, science fiction conventions, bisexuality conferences) with others in their situation unless they could readily use the general crowd to "buffer" their interactions. They certainly didn't seek to get together with their polyfi peers to exchange knowledge, much less create social situations.

I suspect the major factor in this is analogous to the suburban couples. If there were such a polyfi-only social event, & even if everyone in the polyfi clades were to swear a mighty oath that they're NOT interested in anything but what they already have, more than a few know they're blowing smoke, & therefore surmise that they'd be surrounded by people equally duplicitous.

Even seeing some other family's dynamic opens one's own dynamic for examination. And like Monogamism, any question might be a threat, & therefore IS a threat.

That sort of fragility doesn't square well with polyamory.

And that's one reason I believe polyfidelity is properly seen as an outgrowth of monogamy, not a special case of polyamory.
 
Gary, thanks for the answer. I am glad you have a nice functional quad, that is always nice to hear. Not many cases around bere.
I am still struggling to understand the pros and cons od exclusivity for my own life, hence the question.

Polyfidelity might be closer to monogamy in terms of values than to polyamory as promoted by more than two and similar sources, but even if so, I still consider it part od polyamory.
 
IME, unless they're considering expanding their clade, people in closed relationships actively avoid hanging out with other nonmonogamists.

This is likely true for many in closed groups like ours. I don't really think that is the case for us. We live in a small mid western community. I believe we would be very comfortable around other poly people. But we don't know any. Our relationship is not open to the public. We're not ashamed of it in the least. But there would be a significant "cost" in terms of family, careers, etc. There probably are other poly groups in our vicinity and we may even know some of them without realizing it. But the nature of our quad is pretty private. We don't avoid other poly people...but we don't seek them out either. Not really an issue in our little corner of the world.
 
My V hasn't sought out much social activity (yet) in Washington, but when we lived in Albuquerque we used to attend poly potlucks once every month. I'd say we were social enough, with other polyamorists. I also think my participation on this forum should count for something.

Actively avoiding hanging out with other nonmonogamists? Hardly.
 
Anyway, I do have a question for people in general, & would really like some input. Namely, how exactly is "polyfidelity" different from "group marriage"? Is it just a cool-sounding neologism for a generations-old practice?

The best I can properly define polyfidelity would be "the group marriage as praticed by Kerista Commune, & the underlying philosophy of their practice."

Etymologically, I'm comfortable with that, but it still doesn't feel quite right descriptively.
 
Anyway, I do have a question for people in general, & would really like some input. Namely, how exactly is "polyfidelity" different from "group marriage"? Is it just a cool-sounding neologism for a generations-old practice?
I am not sure is group marriages of whatever gender were ever accepted, I'd say it was usually polygamy and rarely polyandry. Also some modern emphasis on equality perhaps. So that might be slight differences, otherwise yes, I think it's just a new word - connecting it to the "new" philosophy of polyamory, which I think is ok.

I can see where you consider polyfidelity distinct from polyamory Ravenscroft, but in my view the connecting propperty of loving romantically more than one person (with the underlying shift of belief away from the monogamous "if you love someone else, your love to me can't be true") is more important than the open/closed property.
 
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I can see where you consider polyfidelity distinct from polyamory Ravenscroft, but in my view the connecting propperty of loving romantically more than one person (with the underlying shift of belief away from the monogamous "if you love someone else, your love to me can't be true") is more important than the open/closed propperty.

I agree Tinwen. I like the simpler definition of polyamory the best. Wikipedia does a pretty good job with the definition.

"Polyamory is typically the practice of, or desire for, intimate relationships where individuals may have more than one partner, with the knowledge and consent of all partners."

For me the most important aspect of the term is having more than one partner with full knowledge and consent. In practice of course the large variety of configurations, lifestyles, open vs closed, hidden vs in the open, living together or apart, all come down to individual preference based on the needs and desires of the members of the group. I think the variations are irrelevant. I think the honesty of full knowledge and consensual is the key in whatever configuration is chosen.
 
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