Are You A Victim Of Love?
There Is Nothing Wrong With You
Actions That Change Your Dating Mind
Are They Your Soulmate Or Your Faux-mate?
Are You Focusing Your Will On Being Single?
Are You Looking For Love Or Looking For A Life?
Are You Making Yourself A Priority In Relationships?
Are You On A Love Deadline? The Perfect Age For Love.
Are You Using Your Spiritual Work As A Means To Find A Partner?
Breaking Your Love Rules For Dating Success
Getting Over The Hurt When A Relationship Ends
The Best Break-Up Ever
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Anonymous
Posted on December 7, 2011
I have been poly for over a decade. It has glorious and painful, like many other things in the world. My long-term partner is married, and has been. I am friends with his wife, but I don’t have to be; I am not intimately involved in his day-to-day life. You don’t have to be involved with both parts of a couple, if the couple has good communication and healthy boundaries. You just have to give them enough time to sort things out, and wait for them to figure things.
I have had poly relationships fail, and one, you could say, failed because of the way my partner was doing poly. But the real problem was more that I was not the primary I needed to be, and he could not give me that. The presence of another person who *was* primary, well, that just made it break faster.
But I don’t think it’s fundamentally different from a monogamous relationship where one partner is just not emotionally available enough. That happens all the time and is just as heartbreaking.
Now I am married, and we are poly; we are friends with each others’ partners, while maintaining without question which relationship comes first. It works for us. Others don’t like having a hierarchy, and that works for them.
Of course jealousy comes up, and envy, and territoriality; that happens in monogamous relationships too. The standard cultural narrative response is “if I am jealous, you have to stop doing a thing”. We try to find other narratives, like “if I am jealous, maybe I need more time with you”. I’ve felt debilitating jealousy in the past, but the thing is… each time, I was afraid of losing a thing, and each time, I didn’t have the thing in the first place. My jealousy disguised other, fundamental relationship insecurities. It was a sign of a problem, not a problem in itself. Even in my current secure relationship, we sometimes need reassurance; this is okay. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong, it just means that we sometimes need warm fuzzies.
There Is Nothing Wrong With You
Actions That Change Your Dating Mind
Are They Your Soulmate Or Your Faux-mate?
Are You Focusing Your Will On Being Single?
Are You Looking For Love Or Looking For A Life?
Are You Making Yourself A Priority In Relationships?
Are You On A Love Deadline? The Perfect Age For Love.
Are You Using Your Spiritual Work As A Means To Find A Partner?
Breaking Your Love Rules For Dating Success
Getting Over The Hurt When A Relationship Ends
The Best Break-Up Ever
Report this comment
Reply
Anonymous
Posted on December 7, 2011
I have been poly for over a decade. It has glorious and painful, like many other things in the world. My long-term partner is married, and has been. I am friends with his wife, but I don’t have to be; I am not intimately involved in his day-to-day life. You don’t have to be involved with both parts of a couple, if the couple has good communication and healthy boundaries. You just have to give them enough time to sort things out, and wait for them to figure things.
I have had poly relationships fail, and one, you could say, failed because of the way my partner was doing poly. But the real problem was more that I was not the primary I needed to be, and he could not give me that. The presence of another person who *was* primary, well, that just made it break faster.
But I don’t think it’s fundamentally different from a monogamous relationship where one partner is just not emotionally available enough. That happens all the time and is just as heartbreaking.
Now I am married, and we are poly; we are friends with each others’ partners, while maintaining without question which relationship comes first. It works for us. Others don’t like having a hierarchy, and that works for them.
Of course jealousy comes up, and envy, and territoriality; that happens in monogamous relationships too. The standard cultural narrative response is “if I am jealous, you have to stop doing a thing”. We try to find other narratives, like “if I am jealous, maybe I need more time with you”. I’ve felt debilitating jealousy in the past, but the thing is… each time, I was afraid of losing a thing, and each time, I didn’t have the thing in the first place. My jealousy disguised other, fundamental relationship insecurities. It was a sign of a problem, not a problem in itself. Even in my current secure relationship, we sometimes need reassurance; this is okay. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong, it just means that we sometimes need warm fuzzies.