My experience is that the more partners you have the more demands are made on you. Perhaps that’s cultural expectations, and perhaps it’s different when there’s children involved.
And I’ve never seen a case where people could function this way without jealousy, competition and backbiting. I’ve definitely seen it tried, and I’d love to see it work.
I think you see failure when you have hiearchy, when only one person is really getting the benefits out of more than one partner. A harem is simply civilization taking it’s wildest fantasies for a ride.
It’s easy to allow yourself one partner; it’s harder to allow your partners more partners. I think a lot of the failed experiments come when this has not been dealt with.
I’m not in an actual relationship with anyone, really. That helps, not having commitment, just knowing that so-and-so will be there for me, always, no matter where I am at in my life. And this is great, because then I can be asked by so-and-so if I’m with anyone, and if I’m available, it’s like boyfriend-in-a-can, ready-to-go person of trustworthiness and sexual satisfaction.
I think the idea for me is to never stop loving anyone, to never withhold any love I have ever cultivated, no matter what. Because through my dating life I haven’t stopped loving anyone, a lot of these women are still in my life. WE still love each other, and regardless of our monogamous experiments, the love is still there, the care is still there, the relationship remains mostly intact.
I find myself supporting the women in my life by helping them see through the mental barriers they build up for themselves. I try to be emotionally satifying through my understanding of who these women are. I’m so glad I’ve gotten all the sex and more than a person could desire in this lifetime, because now I can focus within a relationship what matters more; feeling like someone really gives a shit about who you are.
I know that not getting jealous of my wife and other men has freed me up from filling certain needs for her. I am terrible at cuddling: I can’t sit still for long and I overheat easily. I do my best, but my wife tends to get her extended cuddling needs from other close friends. Often these friends are male. At one point she was hanging out with our friend dan so often, eating lunch with him regularly, and cuddling with him, and some of our mutual friends thought maybe they were dating behind my back. To this day I still joke about how she “dated” Dan. I find it a good arrangement.
Eva see the movie “little big man” with dustin huffmen? He couldn’t help him self and the sisters wanted offspring and sexual needs met. This subject totally reminds me of that movie! Nowadays you better have protection!
I speak for myself when I say nothing…
ROFL. 
[quote=“BearMedicineWoman, post:21, topic:127”][quote author=wildcarrotdances link=topic=104.msg4223#msg4223 date=1188377068]
Also, it wouldn’t be as demanding as a monogomous relationship, cause everyone would have other people to want things from besides me.
[/quote]
My experience is that the more partners you have the more demands are made on you. Perhaps that’s cultural expectations, and perhaps it’s different when there’s children involved.[/quote]
This is definately my experience as well. I have one serious relationship, one person I’m just kind of “dating”, and a couple of small side intrests. Seems manageable, but man, there are only so many days in the week. It really only works out well if every one involved has multiple partners as well. If I’m the only person they are having sex with, then even just with two folks, that’s taking up most of my nights. Anyway, the reason I enjoy having my main partner as my “number one” is so if things start getting too complicated, or if I have overextended myself, me and everyone involved already knows where my heart is. I feel that as long as this is made clear, problems stay to a minimum. At least that’s how it has worked for us nearly problem free for the past year.
such problems you have, Trollsplinter! ;D
Hey, sometimes I just wanna make some chain mail and listen to adventure metal, or hang out with platonic friends. Nights get sucked up quickly. I spend about 4 nights a week with my partner, 1 night a week with my date, and sometimes 2 nights a week for myself and everyone else can get hard to manage. I am not some kind of stud or anything. I think that just about anybody that actively participates in an open relationship, and especially polyamory will run into difficulty with scheduling. Heck, I run into that problem with just one partner.
the one experience ive had with polyamory involved a partner who was constantly seeing other people but then as soon as I tried to develop another relationship they went on a jealous rampage.
Ive heard similar stories from every other woman I have discussed the issue with
Bruja, I think that’s true for certain people in general, not just guys. In my experiences, and based on those of my friends I would have thought that mostly women seem to have those responses, but I know that it isn’t as simple as that. I feel that certain personalities deal with their jealousy better, whatever their gender may be. The first two girls I tried to have open relationships with did exactly what you described your partner as doing in your attempted open relationship. It’s an unfortunately common experience. Sorry you had to deal with it too. 
And, well, lets face it, from a purely darwinian perspective, that’s an adaptive behavior. Assuming that sex leads to breeding, as it did through most of time, it makes sense that an organism would desire to breed with as many as possible, while preventing your breeding partners from doing the same. Both partners would want something similar, however, and they are incompatable. Even more so on the scale of the whole population. Monogamy is just one way this inherent conflict can be worked out. Frankly, I imagine a monogamous relationship is just as hard to work as a polyamorous one. One requires subliminating your desire to sample, just as the other demands sublimating your jealously.
and how do you go about telling yer current partner that you would like to try out polyamory? It seems like it would be impossible to do after having a long monogamous relationship. Or am I wrong?
Well, Polyamory doesn’t attract me. What interests me is a form of relationship other than marriage. IMO People couple for two main reasons, Sex and procreation, and intimacy. IMO marriage cannot fulfill both. IMO We are attracted to people who differ from us, who possess what we lack, to procreate a child having thing we lack. On the other hand we develope intimacy with people who are like us, who can understand us b/c of the like experiences b/c of the like nature. IMO if we marry the person we love, we will procreate a beauty, but will live our life in hell. If we marry an alike person we will have a happy life, but will create a degraded child. So IMO there is something wrong with marriage. IMO in a natural state, the least controlled state, people will couple with the one they love, not the one they chosse logically. And then they are not sentenced to live together forever, they have no tendency towards it, they have intimate friends and relatives, a tribe or band or gang or whatever we call it (the mate may be one of them), they don’t need to make one. I don’t mean that in tribal life there has been no marriage, I mean that this is the wildest form of relationship possible, IMO of course. What do you think?
i’ll agree that marriage (esp as most modern civs practice it) should get a second look, but i disagree with your opinion of attraction, intimacy, and marriage’s limitations.
i know you’re in a different part of the world, surrounded by a different culture than i am, but what you seem to be saying strikes me as buying into the worst lies that civilization has foisted upon us regarding how men & women can/should relate to each other.
I know this discussion is about polyamory not monogamy but marriage has been brought up here.
I have tried polyamory (that’s a strange word to me) where I was one of at least two men that a woman was having intimate relations with for about four years. We all knew about each other. It was painful for all of us. I won’t speculate about why, but it was very painful and actually left me emotionally unhealthy for quite a while after. Commonly referred too as broken hearted.
I have now been married to a woman for 25 years. We made commitments to be monogamous and I’m certain that we’ve both remained faithful to those commitments. Marriage is not a static thing. Ours is based on some commitments but the relationship is constantly evolving. We are still learning new things about each other as we are both constantly evolving as individuals.
There are things that can only be experienced over time and through commitment to sticking it out. After 25 years my relationship is very different than it was after 5 years. Our relationship has not always been smooth and easy. We have had some very difficult times. At this place in time our relationship has a depth that would not have been possible except through years of relationship with one person. After 25 years it’s not a stale or boring relationship. In fact I love her now in a much deeper way than I ever have. I have complete trust in the woman I’m married to. I never question her motives or intent. When she says something I have a hard time with I can go straight to trying to understand her instead of hearing her with suspicion.
I know this will come off strange to the younger people on this forum and it may smack of a stereotype of older people, so I am asking you now to cut me some slack and try to read past my poor way of wording this.
I don’t expect a person in their 20’s to be able to fully grasp that kind of relationship with a lover because I certainly wouldn’t have understood that a relationship like this is possible until I had been in one for 15 years or more.
I know there are rotten marriages and relationships and I’m in no way saying that a person should stay in one of those. Tough times don’t always mean bad relationship though.
I’ll just leave it there, if I say more it may just go around in circles.
I have little to say about polyamory. Unless I change significantly, polyamory is unlikely to be something I’ll experience in life.
I don’t think it would be impossible… I’m sure it has happened before. But circumstances would have to be right.
If you and your partner have good communication and respect, it shouldn’t be that hard to say something like, “How do you feel about polyamory? Would you ever consider trying it?”
I had a relationship about 6 months ago that, while not polyamorous, involved a number of conversations (esp at the beginning) about emotional commitment expectations, because at the time we met, he was also interested in a couple of other people, and because for various reasons we weren’t sure how far we wanted the relationship to develop. (He went on two dates with another person while we were together, in a way that was acceptible to me [I was informed beforehand; he didn’t cross any of the lines that we agreed upon - e.g., no physical intimacy with another person].)
In our conversations, we agreed on a number of points:
It worked surprisingly well for us, because we communicated well and often, so neither of us felt too far removed from the other and it enabled a certain symbiotic, adaptative fluidity as different situations arose. (The fact that we have similar personalities and thinking processes really helped; I am an INFJ, he an xNTJ.) In the end, we didn’t break up due to jealousy and/or the influence of exterior love interests, but because we just weren’t compatible…we have different lifestyles and valued different things in life. (Also, he had/has an alcohol problem that made commitment past a certain level impossible, but that’s another story for another day…)
i consider myself open to the polyamorous route in relationships, and i think it would be hard for me but maybe a constructive challenge.
i know it probably doesn’t relate, but i increasingly feel that in addition to the cultural norm of monogamy , the norm that good romantic relationships have to last a lifetime may not be best. maybe it’s just a commitment problem on my part, but i think mutually beneficial romantic relationships don’t have to last 'til death to be counted good. i think it’s a sign of health in a relationship to know when the time has come to transition that relationship from one of romance and sexuality into something else… (though i reckon a ‘partnership’ can already negotiate the dynamics of relationship without it ending).
[quote=“heyvictor, post:36, topic:127”]I know this will come off strange to the younger people on this forum and it may smack of a stereotype of older people, so I am asking you now to cut me some slack and try to read past my poor way of wording this.
I don’t expect a person in their 20’s to be able to fully grasp that kind of relationship with a lover because I certainly wouldn’t have understood that a relationship like this is possible until I had been in one for 15 years or more.[/quote]
oh, i definitely get it, and my wife & i have only been together for…huh, well, i guess it is closing in on 15 years now… (only 12 years of being married tho’)
damn, time flies…