Polyamory, Open Relationships, Swinging and Living Consciously

[JoaquinFox]

Hi All-

Was just curious if anyone has had any experience with polyamorous relationships. I was polyamorous in which I can best describe as a 30 day trial. It extended into about 90 days and immediately afterwards I concluded that polyamory is a lot of work!! So hard to coordinate your schedules, let alone your emotional connections, and intimate interactions. I am open to exploring other relationship models than just your standard monogamous relationship, but whatever relationship model one chooses has its own set of challenges and rewards. Has anyone forged a path with an alternative relationship model and found a successful and conscious way to share intimate, congruent and loving relationships with more than one person?

Or is anyone else, like me, open to exploring these other models and would like to discuss them here?

[SuperStar]

Most of my relationships have been "open" because I always require that from the women I date. It usually ends up being an ongoing awkward point of contention through the relationship though. And you're right - it takes a lot of time and energy to coordinate something like that! I think the only way it really works is if you have one established relationship, and then when it is evolved and trusting enough, you talk through it with your "number 1" and bring others in, with the understanding that the new person will absolutely not come between you and number 1. They will only add to the communal pleasure. And if they do start to come between you, whether intentionally or not, all bets are off and they are kicked out of the "circle".

The guy that is the expert on this is Stephane at ideagasms.org . He's got his number 1, Ghita, and several others. He only dates bisexual women, which makes the coordinating issue easier since they all have their fun together at once instead of separately.

[Wulfen]

My experience is a lot like what JoaquinFox says, with the difference that I tend to bear the logistical mess, because I like variety in my romantic life.

I always tell the girls beforehand that I do not want a serious relationship and that I won't be monogamous, and that this very fact won't change. Some grasp it quickly, some others are more stubborn in trying to control me and make me monogamous with them. As a general rule, they will every now and then probe you to see if you have somehow changed your mind. The ones that like you very much will at some point give an ultimatum on monogamy or breakup.

Advantages? there are many: first, you have variety which is very good, second you are not needy because if one gf dumps you, you always have other(s), third, if you're into pickup, your skills will not rust since you will use them even while in a relationship.

I have found that polyamory the best girls are those that are very busy, for instance very focused on her career, because these girls don't have time for a normal, clingy boyfriend, the typical one who calls her everyday and stuff, but these girls every now and then want to chill out and spend an evening with an intimate partner, that's where someone likes me comes in handy...

OTOH girls that are more traditional and have a lot of free time, just want a "normal" boyfriend, marry, have kids, you know the drill. For these girls sometimes it hurts too much to see that I can't be the boyfriend they want me to be, and to think that I am with other girls can be very painful.

The problem is that they might be OK with the setup one day, and wake up the next day totally devastated because they realize they want me only for them. I don't like this and it might be the greatest downside of polyamory, so in the future I might screen only for busy girls, focused on something else, to avoid hurting them.

[JoaquinFox]

Interesting. I never approached the process by saying, "I don't want to be serious". Honestly, during my experiment I was hoping to have a fullfilling relationship with each person I dated. That may sound crazy, but I have several friends who I am close with and with whom we fullfill each others needs. I actually have a lot of people who I am closer with than I have been with many of my romantic partners. So, could it be that there is a way to include romance in some of these close friendships? And I don't necessarily mean sex either although certainly not out of the question. Am I challenging a block that exists with the limited consciousness of our society and within myself or is there a really damn good reason not to seek multiple partners...on par with don't steal, don't kill....and don't commit adultary???

I've tended not to define a consensual and open relationship where everyone is conscious and aware of the nature of the relationship as adultary, but maybe I'm just fooling myself....or maybe I'm dead on and just need some more experience creating congruency within myself before I can manifest it in my love relationships????????????????

I don't claim to know.

[ahimel]

Since I think it might be relevant to this thread, I'm female.

I can't imagine a serious polyamorous relationship working long-term unless each pair of partners really likes each other. So if you have two girlfriends, sometimes you'll all 3 be together, but sometimes Amy will have to accept that you want some time alone with Beth (not necessarily for sex, but sometimes it's nice to have a 2-person date, or just talk), Beth will have to accept that sometimes you want to be alone with Amy, AND you will have to accept that sometimes Amy and Beth want "girl time" to discuss clothes/watch a chick flick/dissect their dates/discuss menstruation, etc. It doesn't matter whether or not their relationship is sexual independant of you, but it does matter that they have a relationship totally unrelated to you.

Otherwise, you're essentially trying to have 2 relationships (or more!) in the space where most people have 1. And most people with 1 don't have enough time to do it. If you have to build up 2 completely seperate relationships with completely seperate date nights, sex nights, dinners, movies, dances.... they'll never be satisfied, and you'll never sleep. But with 3 of you within a single relationship, you have enormous flexibility. If Amy has a painting class, you and Beth don't have to sit around bored waiting for her to get home. If you want to play basketball, Amy and Beth can join or not without feeling the slightest guilt about how it will affect the relationship. You have 5 possible combinations of alone-together, instead of the normal 2.

[Lotus]

I don't think this is any sort of polygamy, but I do maintain a "friends with benefits" relationship with a guy I've known since high school (where we were the "are they dating or not?" couple). We don't see one another romantically if either of us is engaged in a closed relationship... but if we are both single and just want to have a romantic partner available to hang out with, make out with... yes.

We realize that we're not compatible for a long term romantic relationship, but we're very good friends.

I also have a female friend that won't admit she's bisexual (she's just going through "college experimentation" ), and we mess around once in a while... but again, only if neither of us are in another relationship at the time.

[SuperStar]

Originally Posted by Wulfen

I always tell the girls beforehand that I do not want a serious relationship and that I won't be monogamous

My take on this is that you're not practicing true polyamory. You're just "dating around" and not committing to anyone (which is fine of course, since you're saying this up front).

Poly=many="I won't be monogamous"
-amory=loving != (does not equal) "I do not want a serious relationship".

To me polyamory means you have serious, loving, committed (or open, but that's a different topic) relationships with more than one person at once.

Originally Posted by ahimel

Since I think it might be relevant to this thread, I'm female.

I can't imagine a serious polyamorous relationship working long-term unless each pair of partners really likes each other. So if you have two girlfriends, sometimes you'll all 3 be together, but sometimes Amy will have to accept that you want some time alone with Beth (not necessarily for sex, but sometimes it's nice to have a 2-person date, or just talk), Beth will have to accept that sometimes you want to be alone with Amy, AND you will have to accept that sometimes Amy and Beth want "girl time" to discuss clothes/watch a chick flick/dissect their dates/discuss menstruation, etc. It doesn't matter whether or not their relationship is sexual independant of you, but it does matter that they have a relationship totally unrelated to you.

Otherwise, you're essentially trying to have 2 relationships (or more!) in the space where most people have 1. And most people with 1 don't have enough time to do it. If you have to build up 2 completely seperate relationships with completely seperate date nights, sex nights, dinners, movies, dances.... they'll never be satisfied, and you'll never sleep. But with 3 of you within a single relationship, you have enormous flexibility. If Amy has a painting class, you and Beth don't have to sit around bored waiting for her to get home. If you want to play basketball, Amy and Beth can join or not without feeling the slightest guilt about how it will affect the relationship. You have 5 possible combinations of alone-together, instead of the normal 2.

ahimel - That's brilliant and I can see exactly what you mean. The women don't necessarily have to be bisexual but they do have to have a relationship with each other. It has to be a 3 way relationship, not two separate two-way relationships.

[JoaquinFox]

I guess I should disclose that I am a gay man. So I guess anyone I would be interested in dating would also potentially be interested in whoever else I was dating. It seems that the accepted social norm with gay men is to actually have several partners even while you have a committed "first or primary" relationship. However, in most cases, it seems the expectation is to turn a blind eye to the other partner's behavior and certainly there should be no communication involved with this behavior. That model just strikes me as so unhealthy, unloving and destructive.

I am not opposed to monogamy in the least, but I am curious about the possibility of having an expanded network of lovers who can all consciously and lovingly share their lives together. When I was actively trying to find this I went out on several dates and would mention this early on in the dating process to weed out anyone who would be disinterested in this sort of relationship model. Most people thought I was weird and actually encouraged me to not voice things in this way. A few even encouraged me to keep silent and to lie about my desire to date more than one person...I guess because they couldn't imagine that what I was trying to tell them was actually thinking about a long term relationship like this and not just trying to sleep with a lot of guys on a nightly basis.

Of course if your going to cultivate this kind of relationship in the long term you have to be committed to it in the long term. After about 90 days of trying to maintain this all, but one of the relationships fizzled, because mostly people WEREN'T uncomfortable that I was sleeping with other people, but because I was open about it. One guy actually told me this.

I don't know if that actually provides any sort of insight on how a healthy, loving and conscious polyamorous relationship could be acheived, but it was interesting to me that these people were more comfortable with dishonesty with several partners than the possibility of having an open and loving relationship with several partners.