FMF vs MFM

I stand corrected

Hi Shaya - nah - just more of a discussion - but another thought along those lines -

FallenAngelina recently wrote the following on another thread in response to a man who was happy that his poly wife had a new bf, but was concerned for himself - even though he would be a "good catch".

You're in a very crowded boat. There are many men in your same position and only a tiny fraction of women who are willing to be an open secret lover of a married man. A married woman seems to be catnip to men, but a married man has the opposite effect on women - mono and poly. There are many threads here about why this is. It's a common topic.

I heard Minx say essentially the same thing on a Poly Weekly podcast as well - in response to the idea the Poly was just a way for men to have affairs legally. Her reply was that it more often turned out that it was the man sitting home on Saturday nights while his wife was out on the hot dates.

I'm sure many men can see this upfront - and prefer to steer any consensual non-monogamy more toward partnered swinging for that reason - to keep things "balanced".
 
@dingedheart :

Thanks, but I am not a feminist. I am a humanist. I seek to SEE the perspectives of all people and recognize when anyone is being cast unfairly, overlooked, treated badly, etc.

Of course you're not how silly of me to assume that :D:D

Which is why I find the "men are pigs" stereotypes offputting. What, for wanting sex?

I will certainly push back when women are commodified in a conversation to the point where their minds and motivations are seen as irrelevant.
. Think the men are pigs was born out of commodifying women. And as a man whose spent large block of time with other men I'm not sure that label hasn't some truth to it.


I do not think that anyone who is happy in their relationship, is "settling." It's a tall order under good circumstances, to have a happy love life that lasts a long time with the same participants involved. Nevermind how many or what genders are doing it. Happiness doesn't look like, "settling" to me.

I think one of the sad facts of dating and partnering up with other humans is that settling happens all the time out of insecurity out of laziness or out of a really limited world view. Can one be happy with that decision ? I'm sure. Does that mean they didn't settle I don't think so. When I married my wife I never felt like I had settled however maybe she did. Maybe the day the ring slide onto her finger it was like a prison door slamming shut that her poly soul was being crushed. I will tell you a few months into poly I felt I had very much settled. And everyone here on the forum said " don't panic It's just NRE it will calm down in 6months to 2yrs " I'd even say I joined the forum as an effort to be HAPPY with that decision. The advice of get a hobby didn't quite work. It still felt like I settled. But that being said had it been a situation where relatively little had changed no NRE fallout could I have adjusted to sharing my wife and that intrusion into my life and been " happy"? Maybe.


You talk about going from poly back to mono ....my god why would you do that ??? Oh because someone wanted 100% and didn't want to settle for 50, 60, 85, % Did you have meaningful conversation on who's settling or not settling and why ?


"Women are more emotional." Oh, good luck with that. Not in my lifetime.

"Women want committed relationships more than men." Not in my experience. My ex pushed for marriage, when I balked and kept it at bay for 10 years.
I think it's a pretty standard fact that there are some significant differences between the sexes. This isn't news. I coached both boys and girl soccer of 10 yrs and I got to deal with it first hand. Put a bunch of good boy athletes together and they could go out and win a game the first time they were thrown together. Girls you could have the best talent in the state and if the didn't like each other or didn't like the coaches or the uniform or whatever their you'd see it on the field. I went to clinic put on women collegiate coaches to deal with this stuff. Also ask any mother who's raised both boys and girls which ones easier and why ???:D:D.

Bottomline I think this might be one more slight difference between the sexes.


Also I've asked various members to come here and give their opinions / experience on if they felt like they had settled and if it was a trade for happiness unfortunately none have accepted the invite as of yet.
 
@dingedheart

First of all, let me say on a personal note that I am very sorry that you've had the difficulty in dealing with poly in the way you have.

Secondly, no, I did not go mono because someone wanted 100%. My Zen was thrilled with what he was getting of me. He expected to be sharing me and was happy to have me in his life on any terms. But he is not a very typical man.

Several shifts happened in different elements of my poly life. While my relationship with Zen was thriving, and we were learning one another and he was pleasing me more deeply and truly all the time... My love relationships with "the quad" were fading. Analyst had a major property project that was occupying all of his time, and could not be bothered with so much as a text or a phone call. And I was realizing I had trouble with some of his sexual and communication habits that left me feeling disconnected and out in the cold with him. With Fire, and Hefe, I was seeing them over the weekends, but I felt like a visitor, a guest, a tourist in their lives. It was fun...but is going on vacation every weekend really sustainable? It did not feel comfortably integrated into my life, but more like I was escaping my life and leaving it behind every weekend. That was fine when I lived in the house with my abusive, crazy ex and I needed to escape...but once I got my own apartment and was a single mom with a teenage son, I felt more conflicted about how I was spending my time.

And sex was happening more and more with Zen, and less and less with the others.

It just felt like it was evolving easily and naturally into less of a "girlfriend/relationship" thing and more like a "very close friend" thing. So I put it into words...why not be this, do this, and call it this?

And to my surprise, those in my quad had difficulty accepting that at first, were "disappointed" and saw it as a breakup. I guess they settled for what I felt I could offer them. But I did not settle for monogamy because Zen wanted 100%, and Zen has only been happier and happier...he went from "this is pretty good!" to "this is AWESOME!" He wasn't unhappy with me as his poly girl, but he's thrilled to have me to himself now.

And while I agree that with humans, and the genders, there is some commonality or...I don't know...some natural trend to lean or drift in one behavioral direction or another... You can point at some stuff and say, "So that is a thing." Yes. And your illustration of sports teams also is in agreement with my thinking that multi-male configurations can have a certain degree of stability because of that male "team mentality" bonding thing that CAN, under the right circumstances, happen. I do think that women have a harder time doing that, especially in a single domestic sphere. I would be prepared to say that it is a "male strength."

And yet...is it such a rule that I consider it absolutely reliable or an absolute?

NO.

I know so many boys who cannot fit comfortably into team dynamics at all. SO MANY. So your rule is only a rule when everyone is fairly homogeneous in their temperaments and mindsets and personalities on the field...not when you include misfits, nerds, outcasts, introverts, loners, and the whole mess of other fringe-dwellers who just don't fit.

And while there are men who commodify women, all women, in general...I don't judge men as pigs. I know too many wonderful men who have treated me with the utmost of respect. My ex would say, "Yes but if you could see inside their minds, you've got your ankles behind your ears and they aren't hearing a word you say." Well thanks for the insult that I am not deserving of an ounce of respect from half of the human population, but you can take that notion and shove it right up your arse. I won't write off the possibility of decency in men. And a man who says such things is revealing only his own insecurity to me. I don't give a rat's ass what is going on in a man's private thoughts, if he is being civil to my face. And guess what? There have been plenty of times that I have pretended respect and interest in what a man had to say, while thinking, "My god what a boring jackass, can't he tell that no one cares about what he is on about right now?" and my mind might wander to what I want for dinner, or a random sex fantasy, or my household finances, and I can still APPEAR, to be completely engaged and politely interested in what said insufferable person is saying.

I do it all the time.

And I commodify men in my mind sometimes, as do most women I know.

Some women only care about the size of something in a man's pants, whether it's the bulge in the front, or the bulge of the wallet.

But you are not calling women, "pigs?"

People are people. Big ol' mixed bag of good, bad, and otherwise. Again though, if your experiences have filled you with cynicism, well...I am sorry to hear it. Me, I love humanity in all its various difference and similarity, predictability and endless surprise. I just don't have it in me to be truly jaded or cynical, not really.

Maybe you need to meet some nicer people.
 
Re (from dingedheart):
"Kev: glad to see you here. Didn't you say not long ago on another thread that your slice of the Snowbunny pie was more than enough?"

I'm sure I said something along those lines. Why, does that mean I'm settling? I like being part of a poly arrangement. It's cool, in my eyes. I particularly like being in an MFM model.

Re:
"And didn't you also say that Brother-Husband struggled for a year or longer getting used to the V? If you get a chance ask him if during that time he felt like he was settling. And if he did feel he was settling why he did it?"

You figure I should stir the pot a little, eh? No thanks.

Brother-Husband doesn't dig relationship discussions. Asking him the questions you propose would to him be like dumping an anthill on his head. I will venture a guess though, during that year of discussion (no V existed yet it was only being proposed), he was, rather than settling, *deciding.* I'll even venture that he feels like I do, that it's cool to be part of a poly arrangement.

Sorry if you don't like me speaking for him, but that's all that's available. You'll have to settle for it. :D

Not that we all don't settle all the time. I've settled for mortality, for instance. Not my first choice, but since I don't really have a choice, I might as well resign myself to it. And try not to worry about it. Death has its advantages ... even eternal death.

But no I don't see my poly relationship as settling. It's what I want in life. I assume I'm allowed to speak for myself.
 
Been thinking a lot about this thread and looking through my life experiences. Particularly the part where women appear to be more territorial. It is something I've not expected. While most of my relationships so far have been monogamous (with one affair by a husband after we had already drifted apart), I have never felt this territorial feeling. Not about exes, not about close women friends, not about close women friends spending extended time with my partner with privacy possible, not mother-in-laws or similar roles, landladies, bossy maids, nothing. Zero.

One time when I had a problem with my partner being involved with another woman, it was about him handling things poorly (and the woman turning out to be fairly toxic). If he'd handled them well, on my end, I have no doubt we'd be a fairly problem free FMF V.

I am wondering if it has something to do with me mentally mostly being androgynous, though sexually, so far I have only been hetero. I don't see other women romantic interests of my partners as encroaching my space (unless they actually encroach it).

It reflects in other areas too. I don't particularly dress in a feminine manner - more of a tomboy. I am not particularly interested in domestic stuff - even though I'm home 24/7 - preferring geeky hobbies I get into at home over actual housework (for which I have a maid). While I obviously wouldn't expect a partner of Spexy's to do household management, another woman taking charge of the whole household if she wishes is more of a "feel free to be yourself" thing than threatening thing, I guess as long as she doesn't evict one of my projects.

Of course we may not live together, but I guess a FMF may work better if the two women don't have control conflicts.
 
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Any theory that starts with "Men are..." or Women are..." is merely a reflection of our own biases.

Cat was very "territorial" in regards to the house. She took great pride in decorating, etc. In contrast, an ex had no particular domestic desires and would have probably welcomed some help if she wasn't so jealous.
 
Shaya asked me to comment, as we are one of the few FMF V's here. We're 3 years in, with me starting as secondary, but the relationship becoming rather serious. Our relationship does have big problems.
I don't know many poly people and I don't know which configurations are stable. I can only say what fits with my experience.

Actually, I like what Spork wrote on post #4 (I'll take out a few citations that fit my view ;)):

The more orgasms I have, in general, the more I WANT to have. I might be fucked into exhaustion sometimes, but it really does not take long before I'm ready to go again
I believe the effect is real, but doesn't really apply to us.
Also, it could be balanced easily if the man had a higher sex drive than the women.

Even though men and women often both work, women are still often the head of the domestic sphere. ...
Now bring in another woman, and either she is forced to be submissive to the wife and live a sort of twilight half-life of domesticity like a servant...or there can be conflict.
This is certainly a factor for us. I'm in fact not very domestic, but I refuse to accept the pre-set order of 'how things are done' in the older relationship. In addition, our age difference is 15 years - and I'm carrying over all the dysfunctionalities I have with my mother into the dynamics. Cohabitation is not an option for me, not only because of jealousy but the clash about 'who's in charge' too.

(Now, there are no doubt a lot of women can cohabitate just fine with a woman and a lot of man can't cohabite with another man, and I have no idea about the percentages. Actually I don't think there will be much of a difference, just maybe the typical type of conflict won't be the same.)

Now if you take cohabitation out of the picture, you avoid a lot of that, but I think that so many people are wired for escalation ...
the man who finds The One, the woman he doesn't just want to chance might take his seed, but the one he wants to provide for and protect...he is perhaps apt to either continue to make her The Priority and treat a secondary girlfriend as too casual and not give her the degree of love and consideration and energy and connection that she needs to remain happy long-term...or else fall into a more "serial monogamy" route without meaning to
While Idealist is very egalitarian, he still has tendencies to both extremes Spork names. (Though I'd be surprised if women hinges didn't have them.)

Continuing on that thought of man being the "protectors"
A V is essentially one poly person with two monogamous, but poly friendly partners. Traditionally, women are more the nesting sort. Therefore, in a FMF there is at least one F partner who is out in the cold, so to speak. I don't think men need that sort of security as much.
It's one of the few more-or-less-biologically given differences, that women are more vulnerable when pregnant and fall out of the workspace when they have kids, so indeed in that period of our lives we need more protection. This feeling I think carries over also to times when it's not needed that much. Furthermore, in me, the (cultural?) idea of the man as a breadwinner is very deeply rooted. So yes, I do think women need more home-security. And, I AM posing the question "how do I have family in a poly relationship? can you provide, with money and care, for me and the kids?"
If something breaks us up in the near future, this will be it.
So my guess is, if FMF triads are indeed more instable, blame the biological clock and the idea/state of affairs that the man provides for the household.
 
...I'm really too new to really know, but I get the feeling that within polyamory that is V-shaped, the MFM configurations tend to last or to be more stable than the FMF ones.

Why is this? Or is my sample size on this forum biased?

...

I came here as this was linked from another thread. I don't really know that the reason I was seeking other poly insight is applicable to this thread.

I will instead offer my own ancedotal evidence. I have had three poly relationships with men, with two of the men having other female partners/my metamours.

I can tell you that none of the men had problems with each other. Would have lively discussions about shared interests. Would listen to interactions as me and another discussed things and interject if they felt relevant. We watched tv shows together, cuddled on the couch, no jealousy, no problem. Enjoyed sex without being territorial of me.

All my problems in polyamory have so far come from the influence of other females/metamours. One picked apart my statements in which I had fluid bonded with a partner, had presented the StD panel from my doctor and offered that I was sterilized. My partner was fine with sex. The next time the metamour and partner had a date, suddenly the partner was discussing concerns about the metamour, who had confirmed to my husband she was the one asking for more testing and surgical proof of my sterilization because I used the word essure and tubal ligation in conversation. The relationship between me and the partner imploded, recovered after a few months, and then when the partner revealed to me rather than stand up to the other metamour's insistence that he remove me or change our relationship status, he instead deleted/blocked his profile and told me it was because of depression.

My other relationship, the wife of my partner, wanted my relationship with her husband to be downgraded after six months to play date, no overnights, and fuck buddy status. She has problems seeing me with my partner in her house and doesn't really respond to overtures of friendship. I have started pulling back.

The men have no problem sharing me and indicated they loved me, no problems. All my difficulties have been in expecting the shared partner to stand up for our relationship but it's shaky. I cut my losses with one partner and am struggling through a recent thing with my second partner (seen in another thread).

I would guess if you defined these problematic times as defined by the interactions of FMF, that the MFM configurations interactions do feel less tense/not tense at all and stable comfortable and happy. When the FMF interactions happen, I do not get intimacy and instead sit there stiff and worried about triggering the other F arm of the hinge. I feel like I am on eggshells or emotionally held hostage for fear of escalating the territorial feelings to the point that I will lose my relationship with our shared partner if I push too hard on my partner to stand up for our relationship.

I have no idea of relevancies to your studies, but these have been my somewhat limited experiences.
 
Here's an excellent intro post by the male hinge in an FMF situation. I think the opening post highlights a lot of issues previously discussed in this thread. It certainly gave me a lot to think about.
 
Shaya, you are using your posts to reference your other posts, & apparently confusing people --
I came here as this was linked from another thread. I don't really know that the reason I was seeking other poly insight is applicable to this thread.
Could you maybe say what you have to say (at least briefly) in a given thread rather than recommending noobs to your other threads...?
 
Ya know... I consider the year with my quad and even its eventual dissolution, to be generally drama free. The other woman, Fire, was wonderful to be with, and I still love her. I don't feel she did wrong things in our group. But I do feel that sometimes her best intentions (and sometimes mine) backfired in various ways.

Like when Analyst had personal stuff to deal with and withdrew himself temporarily from our social circles, I was struggling with things that were bugging me, but I didn't want to bring them to him. He was very much "I can't deal with anything relationship-wise right now, my plate is too full with dealing with life things." So I stayed quiet where he was concerned. But I couldn't keep my stuff bottled up. I blogged some about it, but that was limited because he values his privacy and I didn't want to push the envelope there. I did however tell my woes to Fire. Girls talk.

She then tried to help, by talking to Analyst on the phone about all of this stuff. I know she only wanted to help, but it started some triangulation, and then I also felt a bit upset because I felt like he wasn't making time to talk to me, but he'd make time to discuss me, with her! And he was getting upset and eventually coming back to me and demanding that I chill out and stop giving him grief, when I never wanted to give him grief in the first place, or I would have contacted him directly.

Later he ended up in a mono relationship with a wonderful woman, really she is almost his perfect match. She is so good for him that even though he is very polyish at heart, he's been willing to go mono for her sake. She is worth it to him, and rightly so. But there was an issue where someone needed to help him with something, and it was important, and Fire found out the new GF couldn't be there to do it so she insisted she would, if no one else would. As a friend, who cared. And the GF got angry and said that Fire was trespassing on her "GF territory" with this. There were angry words and tears. Analyst meanwhile, stuck in the middle just wanting everybody to chill out and quit making a fuss.

The point is, even women who do everything they can to be on the best possible terms with everyone, and who have really good intentions, and who understand poly and want to do it...sometimes struggle with some of our social behaviors. With men, it seems either they can accept poly, or they cannot, period. If they can...they keep it as simple as possible with the minimum of emotional processing and turbulence, and they will sail smooth as silk. If they can't deal with poly and it's not their thing, then that's that. I feel like, from what I have seen, men do well with defined roles that they understand and accept, rather than changing and fluctuating shades of complexity...women on the other hand, might be more prone to shifts based on many factors, and don't operate as consistently in absolutes.

But of course those are generalizations, and I don't really like generalizations as applied to groups of people...the minute you act like something is a rule, you can usually find a hundred examples to disprove it.
 
I have to agree this whole thread is based on generalizations to a ridiculous degree, and terribly binary ones at that.

I've seen men go weird and territorial about their partners - HipsterBoy and Knight, back in the day, had a fair number of issues between them that they would not talk about, just hung out in a mostly chill but with hidden drama sort of way. On the other hand, Knight and DinoActivist were totally chill, as are Knight and Artist.

Not to mention that Artist has a non binary / transmasculine meta and they get along great, nor does it take into account the number of V's that are MFF or FMM (a bisexual hinge with two partners of opposite genders, who are not a couple.)

Oops, just noticed that Shaya did acknowledge the binary question in the OP, but most of the rest of the discussion has sort of stuck to the original question so I still feel like I have to point that out.
 
A thought:

dinged heart: I believe you, that the boys and girls you coached exhibited different behaviors that seem to be based on their genders. But the reason for that is 100% social conditioning.

The girls struggled to play if they didn't like their uniforms? Did they somehow absorb the message that girls are judged more on their appearance than anything else??? The girls struggled to get along with each other while the boys had no problems? Did they grow up watching movies in which there are ZERO examples of female friendship, i.e. almost every movie ever????
 
More thoughts:

I think it is true that for straight, cis-gendered people doing poly, the MFM V seems to be a fairly common arrangement, and on this forum alone there are many long-lasting, emotionally stable examples of that configuration. At least, that configuration seems to work well for monogamous-minded men who are happy being with a poly woman and are happy living in a house with her (and often with her other partner).

I think it is true that the reverse arrangement is less common--where two monogamously inclined women live with one poly man.

There could be many reasons why this apparently gendered discrepancy exists. Most of those reasons are based on societal constructions of gender. Women are socialized to be jealous and competitive with other women? Check. Women are socialized to be better with emotions and thus better "hinges"? Check. Women are conscious of feeling like men view them either as real girlfriend/wife or a slut/fuckbuddy? Check. Women feel that the domestic sphere belong to them and are territorial about it? Check. Women feel that they are judged for their relationship choices more harshly than men are? Check.

It is very cool to me that this specific type of MFM V is defying a lot of the social conditioning that tells us that men should feel emasculated if they "share" a woman, and that a woman shouldn't want more than one man.

So it's an interesting question, to me, why more social conditioning hasn't been broken down around the FMF V, i.e., what is preventing this type of V from working? (Or maybe that type of V works totally fine, and I'm just musing on anecdotal evidence).

However, it may simply be that few poly women choose to be the monogamous end of a V with a straight man as the hinge. They would choose to have other partners, and then the relationship configuration would be totally different.

Or else the FMF attempts to become a triad if the two women are bi...which adds another relationship dynamic and therefore becomes more complex to maintain.

Or they would seek out totally different configurations in the first place. In my social circle, there is a long-running V comprised of a woman with a male partner and a female partner (who are not involved with each other). They have tried different combinations of living together and living separately, so their living situation has been fluid although their relationship has been stable.

There are so many different configurations of poly relationships, and also so many different genders and sexualities, that it seems silly to focus on such a binary example (as others have said).
 
Even more thoughts:

My cis-male, mostly-straight partner has a much higher sex drive than me. (I am a straight cis-woman.) I have never, EVER wanted to be his only sex partner! (Yipes! I would be sore and tired). He has the energy and stamina, both sexual and emotional, to maintain quite a few relationships. He is definitely at the extreme end of the libido spectrum.

I could never be in a MFM V with him because I would never have anything left for the other dude! And I could not survive being his only sex partner :)

I do date other men, though (on the rare occasion that I can find someone who interests me and is interested in me). But the configuration would be different than MFM. The other guy would either have to have other partners himself, or be on the asexual spectrum, because my sexual energy is limited.

I don't live with my partner, and I don't want to live with him. Nor do I want to live with any other guy, or any other woman. I'm a Solo Poly person, meaning I want to be free to live on my own and have partners who don't live with me.

Being Solo Poly has been very stable for me. My relationship with my partner has lasted 5.5 years so far. But being solo, I also value more fluid relationships, relationships that don't always last, that turn into friendships, or that involve seeing each other only irregularly.

What I'm trying to say, Shaya, is that there are SO MANY possibilities for poly relationships beyond the MFM or FMF binary.

The Solo Poly forum that I am on has MANY members who are queer, non-binary, trans, etc, as well as many straight cis-gendered women, as well as many people on the asexual spectrum. For some reason, the forum has very few straight cis men. I'm not sure why.
 
Just so it's said

FMF.... Is just as common in my area... And In my experience! It's just the nature of the Forum of why it's not so expressed... Nature of guys.. Whatever makes sense to you, because if the anecdotal is Making sense the other way means that it could just be what your eyes are limited to understanding. And the nature of our society that doesn't want to see it or know that it's that prevalent. Just ask Maggy why the male fantasy of FMF is so boring! Because lots of energy is spent on it.... And guys don't necessarily quit after 10 failures.

The cohabitating dynamic of FMF/mfm ,Stands with or without the poly factor, it has more to do with the societal Norm. Remember there are other countries with different norms.
Jm2cts
 
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