Spinoff question from metamour thread

It all depends on the people and relationships involved. Not much different than friendships in my mind. I have friends that are friends with each other, friends that know each other and are civil, and friends that have never met. The closer I am to someone the more likely that they will have met other important people in my life - if only to put a face to the name. I've never had one of my friends "refuse" to meet another if it makes sense that we end up in the same place.

I have a very limited circles of friends and, whether we are romantically/sexually involved or not, I am curious about the people that are important to them.

(That being said - I'm in no rush to meet new people - MrS and Dude were friends for several years before I ever met Dude.:rolleyes:)

We actually all met Lotus in person at the same time, although Dude had been "talking" to her for a few weeks via phone/OKC, as he invited her to a concert we were going to. We all like her a lot! This is very comfortable for me - we make ourselves at home when we are at her house, she makes herself at home when she is at her house. We all get along with her husband - although he as only been to our house once (for about 5 minutes).
 
. . . One of the posts about relationships not being as deep if the other partners are not willing to at least be in the same place together got me thinking.

As deep as... what? And what do you mean by "deep" in the first place? Committed? Entangled? More meaningful? More serious? Twoo poly?

The depth of a relationship isn't determined by how many of your partner's other partners, friends, family, or people you meet and befriend - is it? I don't think so. Sure, you can get to know someone better by getting to know the people in their lives, but that doesn't necessarily make your own relationship with them any "deeper." All it means is that you know more about them and get a few more perspectives on who they are. I can have met and shaken hands with all of my lover's other lovers, even befriended them, and know him extremely well, but how deeply we invest in our relationship would depend on more internal factors, I believe.

The depth of a relationship, for me, is only about how much of our hearts we are willing to risk, how vulnerable we let ourselves be with each other, and how connected we are emotionally, as well as intellectually and physically. That, to me, is a private process, an inner connection, completely independent of any entanglement and involvement we have with each other in our worlds and with other people in our lives.

I don't mind meeting metamours and other people in a lover's life, as long as it happens organically and isn't contrived or expected of me in order to push the relationship into some pre-conceived place. I have no interest in riding the Relationship Escalator to prove to anyone that my relationships are "deep."
 
My personal take on it:
I do want to eventually meet Chops' other partners/dates at some point, but it's not going to kill me if it doesn't happen (and I'm not waiting with bated breath).

(You know what - I take this back a bit... if he's dating someone, I really have no interest in meeting them unless and until they become a part of his life, rather than a date here and a date there. If they develop something close, then sure, I'd be happy to meet them. Otherwise, I'm pretty "meh" about the whole thing.)

If I gain a friend, great. If I don't, that's fine. I don't like metamours trying to push us into a relationship that is closer than what is organically there. Chops is my partner, not them. Xena's desire for us to be BFFs/sisterly toward each other just served to push me away when she kept making it feel like every minute I spent with her was a check box toward an overall goal of "are we BFFs now?"

On the flip side, I really, really like Noa, and although we see each other rarely (her time is extremely tough to nail down), I have a blast when we do. We seem to just be letting things happen as they will, which is great by me.

Also, quality time with Chops is precious to me, and while I have no problem spending time with everyone in a family situation, or onesie-twosie events, if I had to spend time with my metamours every time I wanted to see Chops, it would bug me, and probably drive me out of the relationship. Regardless of the fact that Chops would have loved a Poly Family situation, my relationship with him is just that - with him. I don't love the others. Not as anything more than friends/family.

I'd use the caveat, "But then, I'm mono," but honestly, even if you're poly, it's not like you're going to love everyone your partner loves.

Nutshell version (too late!): best to just let these things be what they are naturally and not force them.
 
Last edited:
Butch's relationship with his gf can be as deep as they want it to be. I do not need to meet her for that to happen. His relationship is his own. I do not need to be involved.
 
If another woman managed a deep relationship with my partner, while never spending time with both him and me, I'd be okay with it. But she still would get very little time with him.
 
If another woman managed a deep relationship with my partner, while never spending time with both him and me, I'd be okay with it. But she still would get very little time with him.

Why ? Are you unable to handle the homefront solo? Or are you so insecure that you need to be attached to your partner at the hip? Or are you a control freak?

Murf gets me just as much as Butch. I have kids and a house full of pets. The kids come along to Murfs. Along with my Rottweiler. And Butch handles the rest. When he is with his gf I do the same.

Holidays Murf comes to the house so the kids can have time with Butch.Then we will take the kids and see Murfs family. Butch stays home or goes to work. If his gf and he become as deep as Murf and I then we will make sure they get their time too.
 
Why ? Are you unable to handle the homefront solo? Or are you so insecure that you need to be attached to your partner at the hip? Or are you a control freak?

Murf gets me just as much as Butch. I have kids and a house full of pets. The kids come along to Murfs. Along with my Rottweiler. And Butch handles the rest. When he is with his gf I do the same.

Holidays Murf comes to the house so the kids can have time with Butch.Then we will take the kids and see Murfs family. Butch stays home or goes to work. If his gf and he become as deep as Murf and I then we will make sure they get their time too.

I think I explained myself very clearly above. Our schedules simply don't allow time for a metamour who refuses to ever interact or meet with anyone in the rest of the family.

Again, there is no forcing. But than that person relegates themselves to maybe one available weekend a month (that he is not with the family) and 3 or 4 nights per month, depending on what city he is in (he travels between multiple cities and is only in any one of them alone for about a week at a time).

Obviously, once a new person joins the family, we'd all spend time one on one (or maybe it would be only my girlfriend or only his, I dunno). But neither he nor I have capacity to have the full on kind of relationship we like with partners who don't interact. Balancing 100+ hour work weeks, travel, family, future family, and two separate relationships (by which I mean two different lives with two different families) is just too much for me to handle. If he could do so, great, but he says it sounds too tedious for him at the moment.
 
Last edited:
Why ? Are you unable to handle the homefront solo? Or are you so insecure that you need to be attached to your partner at the hip? Or are you a control freak?

Murf gets me just as much as Butch. I have kids and a house full of pets. The kids come along to Murfs. Along with my Rottweiler. And Butch handles the rest. When he is with his gf I do the same.

Holidays Murf comes to the house so the kids can have time with Butch.Then we will take the kids and see Murfs family. Butch stays home or goes to work. If his gf and he become as deep as Murf and I then we will make sure they get their time too.

I don't know how things are on her end but I knew nate has only sought out spending time with others because im away. If I wasn't away with sam then nate would be only going out for hookups.but then again Nate isn't looking for anything deeper either
 
I don't know how things are on her end but I knew nate has only sought out spending time with others because im away. If I wasn't away with sam then nate would be only going out for hookups.but then again Nate isn't looking for anything deeper either

My situation isn't exactly yours, and honestly, none of us are solely polysexual and so that wouldn't happen often in our polyship. However, we both are very busy and there are very few people in either of our lives (romantic or otherwise) that are very important to us. We dedicate almost all our time to them. If a new girlfriend of mine (or boyfriend, though, again, I'm more of a lesbian) couldn't handle being around those people, they just wouldn't ever get anywhere with me. Even if they dated BOTH me and him, but, say, hated his kids? I doubt that would fly.
 
What I actually meant was that a person who absolutely refused to ever be in the same place as a metamour would be excluded from birthday parties of mine, holiday celebrations, social events plus wouldn't be able to come over to my shared home quite a lot of the time. If we were able to bond despite these restrictions, then I wouldn't reject the possibility of considering them a serious partner just because they haven't met my other partners. However, experience has shown me that not many people can develop that depth of relationship without being part of at least some of those things I listed. That's on my side as much as theirs.
 
What I actually meant was that a person who absolutely refused to ever be in the same place as a metamour would be excluded from birthday parties of mine, holiday celebrations, social events plus wouldn't be able to come over to my shared home quite a lot of the time. If we were able to bond despite these restrictions, then I wouldn't reject the possibility of considering them a serious partner just because they haven't met my other partners. However, experience has shown me that not many people can develop that depth of relationship without being part of at least some of those things I listed. That's on my side as much as theirs.

I completely relate.
 
If anyone in our poly family were to want another partner it would be impossible for them to be a serious partner if they refused to meet the rest of us and at least be in the same places together once in a while. We are a family unit not a bunch of separate families. It will soon be 7 children and 3 adults living together in the same house. There is no way it would be possible to clear out the house so a new partner had time with one of us without having to meet or spend time with the rest of the family. With work, school, and kid schedules it would also be impossible for a member of the family to leave for extended amounts of time to be at a partner's home. We are a team and we function as such.

We could probably manage to accommodate a late night booty call for someone once all the kids and other adults were in bed to keep a new person from having to meet anyone else. But really how close a relationship are you going to be able to have if you can't be here until midnight then have to leave before 4am when the first person gets up for work? That 4th person also wouldn't ever be at family dinners, bday parties, holidays, summer BBQs, etc if they refuse to be around any of the other partners or children.

Sweet Lady and Bud were the ones who took the kids trick or treating this year. It was her first Halloween with us as more than a friend. It was originally planned all 3 of us would take them out. I asked them both if I could stay at home to hand out candy instead so they could have that bonding time with each other & with the kids. It was an awesome night. They walked around, held hands, laughed, talked, generally just enjoyed themselves. But if either Sweet Lady or I were the type who refused to meet/be in each other's presence, it wouldn't have been possible for that night to happen the way it did.
 
If anyone in our poly family were to want another partner it would be impossible for them to be a serious partner if they refused to meet the rest of us and at least be in the same places together once in a while. We are a family unit not a bunch of separate families. It will soon be 7 children and 3 adults living together in the same house. There is no way it would be possible to clear out the house so a new partner had time with one of us without having to meet or spend time with the rest of the family. With work, school, and kid schedules it would also be impossible for a member of the family to leave for extended amounts of time to be at a partner's home. We are a team and we function as such.

We could probably manage to accommodate a late night booty call for someone once all the kids and other adults were in bed to keep a new person from having to meet anyone else. But really how close a relationship are you going to be able to have if you can't be here until midnight then have to leave before 4am when the first person gets up for work? That 4th person also wouldn't ever be at family dinners, bday parties, holidays, summer BBQs, etc if they refuse to be around any of the other partners or children.

Sweet Lady and Bud were the ones who took the kids trick or treating this year. It was her first Halloween with us as more than a friend. It was originally planned all 3 of us would take them out. I asked them both if I could stay at home to hand out candy instead so they could have that bonding time with each other & with the kids. It was an awesome night. They walked around, held hands, laughed, talked, generally just enjoyed themselves. But if either Sweet Lady or I were the type who refused to meet/be in each other's presence, it wouldn't have been possible for that night to happen the way it did.

Yep. Mine is the same way. I think it might be different if there were no future plans to have kids, but there will be over the years....I think we'll scare off any childfree lifestyle types with the number that are already in the picture....so I imagine any new additions will want children of their own.
 
The depth of a relationship, for me, is only about how much of our hearts we are willing to risk, how vulnerable we let ourselves be with each other, and how connected we are emotionally, as well as intellectually and physically. That, to me, is a private process, an inner connection, completely independent of any entanglement and involvement we have with each other in our worlds and with other people in our lives.

Note the liberal use of "for me" and "to me". In my opinion this is the important thing to remember about this conversation. We aren't really talking about ship styles so much as personality types and preferences. I happen to relate to what nycindie has said above, you will find that my relationships avoid relationship escalators and don't have rules about who I should meet and why. I don't have an intense need to be in peoples business and know everything about them in order to feel intimate... it's just not how I function.

Clearly there are many people out there who have a high need to be intimately involved in every aspect of a friend or partners life in order to feel like they are really connected. Those people are going to find a person like me very frustrating and are likely going to need to move on (or get a puppy to entertain themselves).

If anyone in our poly family were to want another partner it would be impossible for them to be a serious partner if they refused to meet the rest of us and at least be in the same places together once in a while. We are a family unit not a bunch of separate families. It will soon be 7 children and 3 adults living together in the same house. There is no way it would be possible to clear out the house so a new partner had time with one of us without having to meet or spend time with the rest of the family.

Is going on a date *outside* of the house allowed? It sounds like diving into the Brady Bunch scene is a requirement lol
 
Clearly there are many people out there who have a high need to be intimately involved in every aspect of their friend or partner's life

I don't see that at all. I personally have a PREFERENCE to be intimately involved. I like triads, etc. But sometimes we end up dating separately. And that's fine. I've never met my partner's fwb and likely won't. She's not part of our family.

But what I do see is people, like Emmy, find it impossible to completely compartmentalize each romantic partner. I even interface with EX metamours. It's just not a big deal to me.
 
Last edited:
Is going on a date *outside* of the house allowed? It sounds like diving into the Brady Bunch scene is a requirement lol

No as a matter of fact it's not. We all stay in the house every minute of every single day. Good grief what the hell kind of a question is that. Are dates outside the house allowed? Really???
 
No as a matter of fact it's not. We all stay in the house every minute of every single day. Good grief what the hell kind of a question is that. Are dates outside the house allowed? Really???

I think he meant outside of your vee. Can you, bud, or sweet lady have additional partners that aren't involved with everyone else?
 
Maybe that, but also I think Marcus was responding specifically to this part of Emmy's post:

There is no way it would be possible to clear out the house so a new partner had time with one of us without having to meet or spend time with the rest of the family.

My question--which may or may not have been Marcus's--is why would you have to clear out the house for a new partner to see you or Bud or Sweet Lady? Why couldn't whichever one of you has the new partner go to *their* place instead of them coming to yours?
 
Maybe that, but also I think Marcus was responding specifically to this part of Emmy's post:



My question--which may or may not have been Marcus's--is why would you have to clear out the house for a new partner to see you or Bud or Sweet Lady? Why couldn't whichever one of you has the new partner go to *their* place instead of them coming to yours?

She explained that in her post, if you bothered to read it. And actually, she specifically talks about partners going to other people's places.
 
Maybe that, but also I think Marcus was responding specifically to this part of Emmy's post:



My question--which may or may not have been Marcus's--is why would you have to clear out the house for a new partner to see you or Bud or Sweet Lady? Why couldn't whichever one of you has the new partner go to *their* place instead of them coming to yours?


that would be my preference this is also why I only date people who live alone
 
Back
Top