Starting out "full poly" vs. opening up slowly

I meant in all threads, not just OPs thread, we [as in all users; including you and me, but in the end an EVERYONE we] should get clarification on something we could be biased about. Is X situation something that could have been written poorly? More as a general rule for just interactions on, especially emotional, threads. We all misunderstand things, misread things; sometimes taking that pause and making sure we've got it right can make all of our advice better and in the end, more tactful and meaningful.

I did ask for clarification. All I did was explain to the OP that the guy wants a perfectly valid version of poly and she went off the deep end because she doesn't want to hear that.

In this case, it is more important that she acknowledges that than it is for her to feel sympathy for any heartbreak. It's more important for polyamory to be properly understood than it is for her to have her moment making him out to be a dog.
 
I did ask for clarification. All I did was explain to the OP that the guy wants a perfectly valid version of poly and she went off the deep end because she doesn't want to hear that.

In this case, it is more important that she acknowledges that than it is for her to feel sympathy for any heartbreak. It's more important for polyamory to be properly understood than it is for her to have her moment making him out to be a dog.

I expressly stated that I was talking, not really about the Open vs. POly thread; but IN GENERAL. I'm not quite sure why you keep bringing it up in this context? I was also directing it at MYSELF that I SHOULD HAVE AS WELL.

I am, literally, talking as a general rule of thumb for interactions on these topics not JUST THAT THREAD.

You seem really intent to find fault and/or to bring it back to that thread. I'm trying not to, why are you trying to? Do you have an issue with being told "the way you're saying something isn't helpful"? Because honestly, all I am saying is, IN GENERAL we all need to be kind and clear in what we are saying. That's it.
 
I expressly stated that I was talking, not really about the Open vs. POly thread; but IN GENERAL. I'm not quite sure why you keep bringing it up in this context? I was also directing it at MYSELF that I SHOULD HAVE AS WELL.

I am, literally, talking as a general rule of thumb for interactions on these topics not JUST THAT THREAD.

You seem really intent to find fault and/or to bring it back to that thread. I'm trying not to, why are you trying to? Do you have an issue with being told "the way you're saying something isn't helpful"? Because honestly, all I am saying is, IN GENERAL we all need to be kind and clear in what we are saying. That's it.

What wasn't helpful? This is what I mean, you keep saying that it would be "helpful" if people did all those things, but so far, I'm the only one you've said was unhelpful, mostly because of that thread. You've said that clarification would be "helpful", I pointed out that I asked for clarification. You keep taking about tact (in direct relation to me) but what was tactless about saying what I said?

You agree that you read the thread in the wrong context in one breath, but maintain your stance that I'm "unhelpful" in the next. It's either you misread the thread so you take it all back or you still think that I was biased and tactless and you stand by your original views of that thread.
 
What wasn't helpful? This is what I mean, you keep saying that it would be "helpful" if people did all those things, but so far, I'm the only one you've said was unhelpful, mostly because of that thread. You've said that clarification would be "helpful", I pointed out that I asked for clarification. You keep taking about tact (in direct relation to me) but what was tactless about saying what I said?

You agree that you read the thread in the wrong context in one breath, but maintain your stance that I'm "unhelpful" in the next. It's either you misread the thread so you take it all back or you still think that I was biased and tactless and you stand by your original views of that thread.

Again, I'm talking about in general; overall, overlapping, all around. Not just at you. Sorry you feel that way.

My not getting clarification made my advice not helpful. Assuming I read things properly without going back and checking made my advice not helpful. MY advice.

Being too sugar-coaty or too blunt can make advice not helpful.

Tone and phrasing issues of any kind can make advice unhelpful. If your tone is too soft and doesn't get a point across; unhelpful, if it is too brash and makes the OP defensive (and thus most liely won't absorb the content of a post) it's unhelpful.

I am NOT talking about YOU being unhelpful right now. I really don't know how many times I can clarify that. I am not attacking you, I am not talking about BirdsNest, I am talking about this idea as a discussion topic.

And believe it or not, someone can admit that their advice and assumptions were incorrect in a different thread, and still maintain the stance that IN GENERAL we should all try to be kind and clarifying in our answers.

In response to me asking you if you had issues with being told your tone wasn't the best choice, I said it because you seem so eager to come back to the BirdsNests post, where I did say you were wrong. I since went back and correct myself to you, and you are STILL coming back to it. It's certainly offputting
 
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Back to the original topic...

If two people are starting out poly, then maybe they should have a discussion about their poly styles before jumping into a relationship. For me that is a conversation to be had on a first date.
 
Back to the original topic...

If two people are starting out poly, then maybe they should have a discussion about their poly styles before jumping into a relationship. For me that is a conversation to be had on a first date.

It being a first date discussion is definitely a good idea!
 
But can people always make free choices about this in a society where monogamy is the default?

Building on what MeeraReed said here:

As a free agent poly person, it took me YEARS to be able to articulate that I wanted love and closeness AND the freedom to be totally autonomous about other relationships. For a long time, I thought I didn't have the right to both things.

SeasonedPoly is trying to say that loving, free agent poly also works, for people who want that. I think your ex will be fine--he doesn't need to mature or get over the "kid in a candy store attitude." He just needs to meet people who want the same type of poly that he does.

His difficulties in communicating to you might simply be incompatibility. Until I met my partner 7 years ago, I felt like I struggled with communication because I had a hard time articulating that I wanted loving relationships AND to be a free agent. But with my partner, he got it right away, because he also wanted the same thing.

I think sometimes one can get stuck in the idea that if they want some of the traditional entanglements like nesting or marriage, they have to also give up any idea of autonomy in other relationships.
 
So it looks to me that in both cases one being opening up a long term mono marriage and starting a new relationship as poly from day one the key is setting or managing expectations.

To me it seems way easier to establish parameters early on what you are going to feel obliged to do and what you’re not going to bend on. It may require some long and hard conversations but it seems very doable.


On the other hand transitioning from a mono relationship and better still a mono marriage that conversation would seem very very difficult if not impossible for obvious reasons. Let’s pretend it’s the typical song and dance ...I still love you the same, and there’s nothing lacking in our relationship, loving another or others doesn’t take away from you. I’d to make this change in our romantic dynamic and I really don’t want to feel obligated for your emotional processing.

With this there might be a bit of a disconnect because you’re saying one thing with your words. Still love you or in love ( that’s tricky to decode sometimes if you don’t know the subtle difference ), nothing lacking, and lastly the abundance theory. BUT then what your also saying / doing is demotion of Number 1# or thee one. Displacement : so little you hardly notice or so much you feel like you hardly see your partner. Whether this intrusion in you life is very minimal or severe enough to call it poly hell it still carries an emotional charge or toll and wonder if a harder or stiffer approach might yield better out comes.

How much resentment and friction is generated by endless coddling and foot dragging?? How many of the people who agreed to go painfully slow in the end regret it because it was like ripping of a bandaid in super slow motion.
 
Thanks

This issue came up on another thread, but I wanted to talk about it here (as the other thread was getting derailed).

I've noticed a couple times lately that a newish-to-poly person is struggling with their partner's approach to poly in a new relationship--feeling that the partner is going too fast, too soon, even though the OP wants to be poly too. In these cases, it's a fairly new relationship that started with both partners wanting to be poly or non-monogamous (not a monogamous relationship being opened later).

Those of us offering advice soon stumbled into a sort of debate. Some people suggested that a new relationship needs time to become stable and intimate before anyone should be seeking others to date. Other posters pointed out that you can start off being poly/open right away and it's not necessarily a problem; it's just a more autonomous and less hierarchical way to do poly.

Of course there is no one right way to do poly and every relationship might be different. But I wanted to hear about people's experiences with both/either approach.

For me, the biggest issue is that if you slowly open a relationship (rather than starting out fully open), it creates a hierarchy with a "main couple" who get to be alone together, but then no future partners get that same privilege. No one who slowly builds up intimacy together will then break up temporarily in order allow a future partner to also build up that same one-on-one intimacy for a period, right?

I mean, no poly person who starts seeing someone who already has another relationship gets to slowly open up with them, so it doesn't quite make sense to me.

Personally, when I first started out doing ethical non-monogamy, I struggled for a long time because there was so much advice out there about "opening up" relationships, and none describing how to just be poly right away.
Thanks for ur advice me and wife have done this before but kinda stepped away but r looking to start over
 
There were actually two different original threads I was talking about. (I didn't want to link them specifically because I didn't want to talk about the OPs specific situations). The other thread had a comment about how four months of dating seemed "too soon" for a poly person to want to date others...which struck me as a strange way to view poly.

Whereas I would say that four months is way too soon to decide to be exclusive with someone!
 
Whereas I would say that four months is way too soon to decide to be exclusive with someone!

I think this is a whole matter of perspective too. For me, I can know with some people if I really want it to be a long term relationship ASAP, and while I'd never have it be exclusive since...2 husbands and a girlfriend...I've had some where it's like "I am ready to date another person ASAP and others where I was like "whoa can we slow it down". I feel like it can be so specific to certain relationships with certain people and their dynamics that it's a hard thing to navigate and really needs to be discussed by the parties involved prior to aiming for certain things.
 
For me, being poly means I'm always open to intimate relationships with multiple people. When I meet someone new, my focus doesn't narrow to them for a set amount of time like it naturally does with other people. I've been with people like that. In fact, one of my partners is like that but their expectation isn't that their partners are the same. She doesn't feel less valued by the way her partners date.

She has reported that it's actually caused difficulty in the past. It freaked out someone's spouse because she appeared to be monogamous and the spouse associated "monogamous metamour" with "cowgirl". She didn't have any partners at the time they met and wasn't interested in seeking any for the few months they were together so the spouse didn't believe she wanted to be poly.

I think where it can become problematic is when a request to 'slow down' comes along with an expectation that your partner will or should oblige if they are not shitty. If the other person agrees to slow down, great. But you see a God awful lot of those who do agree in poly forum saying that it isn't working for them and they regret agreeing. Agreeing can sometimes set an unhealthy precedent.
 
We tend to spend most of our time in "Open-but-not-Looking" mode.
Occasionally Dude or I will flip into "actively looking" and crank open our OKC profiles for a bit.

Dude and I had been together for 2 years before he started actively looking for someone else to date.

When he/we started seriously dating Lotus, she asked if we could refrain from adding any new partners while she adjusted to the "new normal." After discussing exactly what that meant, we agreed that she, Dude, and I would refrain from dating new people for a period of the next few months. MrS (my husband) and TT (her husband), neither of whom were seeing anyone else, were exempt from this agreement.

I was not really enthusiastic about the agreement, but wasn't really looking to date anyway, so it was easy enough to accommodate her request on my end. After a while (6 months?), I spoke with her about whether or not this was still desired (I didn't have anyone I was interested in but just wanted to know where she was at) and she said that she was fine if we wanted to see other other people but she wasn't going to be adding anyone.
 
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For Green and I having opened a prexisting marriage, I am open to whatever happens. But we aren't open and looking and neither of us are in a mode of seeking other partners just for sex (in that sense of the word 'open').

I know I have my hands full with 3 kids and 2 partners. I wouldn't turn away a good friendship turning into something more, but I'm just not in that mode, nor do I have time or energy; not to mention I don't even know very many people where I am currently. With that said, I wasn't in that mode with Red when I met him either. I just let it happen, and then decided to continue with that feeling that we both had.

Green is open to another relationship but isn't looking. He found that actively looking didn't really work for him, as most people he met just wanted sex first and then to build a relationship possibly from there.

Both of us are the type to take things slow when meeting people, for the most part. (separately, Green and I have never searched for a 'third' or partner together). Like, let's see if we are attracted to each other on any other level besides just physical attraction. Neither of us are very interested in meeting others just to have sex, we both enjoy an emotional or intellectual connection.
 
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