How much do you expect a partner to tell you when they begin a new relationship?

If (one of) your partner(s) starts a new relationship or transitions a relationship from casual to more serious, or begins having sex with a new partner, how much do you expect to be told? Any examples where you got too much or too little info?

Also, whatever you expect to be told, do you expect this info before or after the fact? And if you expect it after the fact do you have an expectation that they tell you soon after the fact?

Examples of “before”:
“Hey, I am thinking about getting back on OkCupid and see if there’s anyone I click with.”
“I have a date on Thursday and I am really excited.”
“Things are going well with Homosapiana. I think we are ready to talk about protection and get more intimate.”


Examples of “soon after”:
“I re-activated my profile on OkCupid yesterday.”
“I went on a date last Thursday and it went well.”
“Things have been going really well with Homosapiana. We slept together on Friday.”

Examples of “farther after”:
“I went back on OKCupid a few months ago.”
“I’ve been dating this person I met at a poly event for a few weeks now.”
“Homosapiana and I have been hooking up every now and then for awhile and it has been a lot of fun.”
 
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"I'm seeing someone."

I like to keep it simple. Really, they just start being mentioned more and more in regular conversation. I don't need any specific updates or anything like that.
 
For me, I would prefer to be looped in before any is set into motion. I want to have the chance to address any issues or concerns before someone else's feelings are involved. Additionally, my hubs and I are pretty open with each other. I don't think I would like him not sharing that aspect of his life and vice versa. For me, if he or I didn't share those aspects, wouldn't it create distance between us? All of this is hypothetical because we have been mono the entire length of our relationship but perhaps my view will change.
 
I don't care at all about talking to people on the Internet or being on a dating site.

If he's going out I want to know. I don't need to know with who but he always tells me. Just not coming home from work or taking off isn't ok to me though. That's a courtesy issue as far as I'm concerned. I would worry about an accident. Maybe it will be different when we aren't raising a minor child together anymore but right now just disappearing for a night is definitely not ok.

As far as sex I don't consider it my business until it's at the point where they're considering not using protection anymore. That needs to be a conversation with me too because it's my health as well.

That's pretty much it and I do the same for him.
 
I like to know before a date happens. I know then if multiple dates with the same person occur that sex is likely and it's not a surprise when I learn about it after the fact (my only request there is that it is BEFORE I have sex with that partner again so we can cover risk level change).

Boy used to be really bad about not telling me things. After having me almost walk away because of random insecurities and general feeling unimportant and such... He keeps me in the loop now.

Hubby tends to overshare. He literally called me minutes before he planned to have sex with a girlfriend of his that I really didn't like. They were already sexually active together, just hadn't done piv. I made it very clear that calling me at work to tell me he's going to be fucking someone I don't like is not okay. I know sex was on the table - just do it and tell me later.
 
The majority of my polycules have been kitchen table style, so I have a 'two date or is this person going to be reoccurring in your life?' boundary. I trust all my partners with safe sex, and that they'll inform me if they fluid bond with someone new. I'm a comperson nut who regularly asks after my metas, and I kinda assume all relationships are gonna get deeper with time unless I'm told otherwise.
 
Just not coming home from work or taking off isn't ok to me though. That's a courtesy issue as far as I'm concerned.
Is he the type to sometimes simply dawdle on the way home? Like, if I were to swing by something nerdy (major guitar store, the model railroad club, Grainger, the Woodworker's Store...) then a few hours can easily slip away; if I run into a friend, we could decide to keep talking & grab a pizza.

I ask because I have observed & experienced where the "you might have been dead in a ditch or something!!" routine is pulled when someone is out on a date (whether first meeting or heavy sex), but not for "innocent" events (like movies night with the usual group of friends).

And IME, most who expect this courtesy find ANY such expectation to be (at best) invasive: to quote one, "well, I don't see how that's any of YOUR business!!"
 
For me, I would prefer to be looped in before any is set into motion. I want to have the chance to address any issues or concerns before someone else's feelings are involved. Additionally, my hubs and I are pretty open with each other. I don't think I would like him not sharing that aspect of his life and vice versa. For me, if he or I didn't share those aspects, wouldn't it create distance between us? All of this is hypothetical because we have been mono the entire length of our relationship but perhaps my view will change.

What sorts of issues do you anticipate?

For me, the decision to enter into a poly relationship means we are going to be seeing other people. Some of those people might be one date. Some might be two or three. Some may end up being friends. If lucky, one may be worth having a long term relationship with.

For me, having sex with someone isn't a big event. Moving someone into the house would be an event that would need to be discussed. A partner having sex with someone isn't going to change my life.
 
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Some of those people might be one date. ... If lucky, one may be worth having a long term relationship with.
Yah, I kinda got the "seeing into the future" vibe from some of the posters. ;) Heck, if I had a good idea how it was all going to turn out, we wouldn't NEED to have such conversations, right?

Such thinking also seems to assume that every potential dating partner is somehow a Major Life-Altering Event. Are we talking dating here, or shopping for a Life Partner with a deadline looming. :D
 
I tell my partners about potential dates / relationships and how they're going not because I have to, but because my partners are also my closest confidantes and I want them to know what's going on with my life - and honestly, they tend to know me well enough that they know what's going on even before I tell them.

Case in point - years ago, before I met AnotherArtist, I dated MartialArtist (if I had realized they would ever appear here simultaneously I would have picked different names but anyway). It wasn't serious - he was a rebound, I was an experiment in nonmonogamy and the relationship really did settle at "we're good friends with a lot in common, including a taste for consensual objectification and the rough edge of vanilla sex". We broke it off when he and his long term partner decided to go back to monogamy, but stayed friends (admittedly friends with a flirty edge). When their monogamous phase ended, he suggested we hook up again - explicitly as FWB this time, and on a very occasional basis as he had moved to a city a few hours away but still visited my town once in a while.

Anyway, so he had been hitting on me via chat and I had almost decided _not_ to reinstate the benefits portion of the thing - mostly due to a degree of internalized sex-negativity more than for any _good_ reason - and had discussed my thought processes there with both Artist and Knight. Then MA and I went for drinks and ended up at my place and... yeah. So obviously from a safer sex perspective I had to tell Artist and Knight before I slept with either of them - thing is, they both pretty much already figured I would and/or had long before I told them, because they know me that well. :D

Any new partners would probably go much the same, were I looking particularly hard - I'm just not good enough at compartmentalizing my life to ever NOT tell someone that something was in the works / happening.
 
No, he doesn't dawdle to avoid me if that's what you're saying. He would let me know he'll be out for a couple of hours. I would do the same for him. I do consider that a courtesy for people you live with. My sister lives with us and will do the same if she's taking off for the night so we don't wonder if there was an accident.

I didn't say I bother him on his dates. If he says he's going out on a first date then I know he's somewhere. Right now he gets off work at noon. If it's 10 pm and he never came home and I can't get ahold of him and there were no plans then I'm calling hospitals because I think he might be dead. Because people die sometimes.

I'm not the bitch you're trying to paint me as. I don't disappear either. I do everything I expect and frankly, I think what I expect is pretty minimal. I'm a very open book. I don't think I've ever told any of my partners "That's none of your business!" in response to any question.

Frankly, I think my rules are a lot less than most of the people who also posted but I'm the one accused of acting jealous and harassing him on dates. That's kind of bullshit. I just ask to know that he's alive. I don't need to know who he's with or what he's doing. Just shoot me a text that says "Hey, going out after work." I don't see how that's a problem. I would never just vanish on my family for a night. I don't see why it would be acceptable for him to do it.

Is he the type to sometimes simply dawdle on the way home? Like, if I were to swing by something nerdy (major guitar store, the model railroad club, Grainger, the Woodworker's Store...) then a few hours can easily slip away; if I run into a friend, we could decide to keep talking & grab a pizza.

I ask because I have observed & experienced where the "you might have been dead in a ditch or something!!" routine is pulled when someone is out on a date (whether first meeting or heavy sex), but not for "innocent" events (like movies night with the usual group of friends).

And IME, most who expect this courtesy find ANY such expectation to be (at best) invasive: to quote one, "well, I don't see how that's any of YOUR business!!"
 
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I like to know

I like to be kept in the loop with plans. We have 4 young children, any plans either of us make, be it friends or dates, we have to factor them in as obviously someone has to be home with them, or babysitting arranged. So whichever of us makes plans, we let the other know. A simple 'I want to go out on __ , does that mess with your plans?' kinda thing works fine.

As for sex, I want to know if it's a possibility in advance so I can make sure my boundaries are appropriate, i.e. safer sex ect. I don't need to know right before, or after, or what happend, what they did or how long it lasted. No interest in any actual information, just 'sex is on the table'
 
We both want to know beforehand. In limited special circumstances, it is okay to inform each other ASAP afterwards. This works well for us, and prevents problems and misunderstandings.
 
No, it's YOU who are saying it.


Drama-queening.


Drama-queening.


Drama-queening.


Drama-queening.

There's kind of a pattern here.

Do you wish to look into it, & maybe fix the underlying problems?

Did you ever have kids Ravencroft? Because if you didn't, you're commenting from a totally different prespective than the reality of a life of a parent with small children is, especially if you are a stay at home parent. When my boys were young and I was a stay at home mom, I looked forward to when my husband got home from work because it meant that I could get some type of a break from the ever present needs of my children, whom I love immensely and enjoyed being home with, but not even being able to go to the bathroom sometimes without a child either knocking on the door or joining you, depending on if you shut and locked the door or not, can get exhausting. I appreciated a heads up if he thought he was going to be late, not because I wanted to control him or because I thought he was doing something wrong, but because it meant that my little break was going to be put off a while (this was 20 years ago, so before cell phones).

You choose Marvelgirl to call out, even though other people had stated the same rules or very similar. Is her reply perhaps a bit defensive? Maybe, but I can see her side of it, wondering why you decided to call her out instead of anyone else. To then call all of her reactions merely those of a drama queen and say that she obviously has a pattern and should get help is really a bit over the top.

Marvelgirl, for what it's worth, when my boys were younger, I often wondered if my husband was especially late if something catastrophic had happened also. Beyond worrying about the man I love, having low grade depression most of my adult life, I think another part of it was related to a subconscious worry about losing the only wage earner in our household. Having little children is emotionally draining in a lot of ways I didn't realize while I was in that stage of my life, so please don't feel bad about needing reassurance in other parts of your life that some people find inappropriate for their lives. As long as it's something you and your partner/s agree on, you do you and don't worry about what others say. *Hugs*

I don't even think it's necessarily something limited to partners. I give my young adult sons, who live at home, heads up if I end up spending the night at my boyfriend's house instead of the several hours date I usually plan on (along with my husband if he's home that night, because he doesn't always think to tell them) for much the same reason, because I know that they'd worry if it got to be late and I wasn't home. My sons tend to shoot me a text if they are going to be doing something way out of their normal pattern too.
 
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I am definitely in the "Dead in a Ditch" brigade. I have not called any authorities, just fretted and fretted. I can't remember if I have called around asking if any of the usual suspects has seen an incommunicado Significant Other. I may well have.

Leetah
 
I'm not whatever jealous woman you had a troubled relationship with. Stop projecting on me.

No, it's YOU who are saying it.


Drama-queening.


Drama-queening.


Drama-queening.


Drama-queening.

There's kind of a pattern here.

Do you wish to look into it, & maybe fix the underlying problems?
 
My husband and I both had fathers who disappeared whenever they felt like it. We both work, we just aren't assholes who want our kids to go through that.

I guess we both need help because I'm just as considerate about it as him. We don't disappear with no word. No one's ever had a problem with that before but I guess there's always a first time.

In 17 years there's only been one time I was worried that something happened to him and it had. He got locked out of his car in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sitting around worrying and neither is my husband because we just take a few seconds to send a text. Or make a phone call before leaving work back before we had cell phones. Or just say, Hey, I'm going out tomorrow night like normal people do.

Thanks for not slinging insults at me. I appreciate it. I've never been accused of acting jealous or controlling or being a drama queen in real life but apparently I've irritated Ravenscroft somehow. Oh well.


Did you ever have kids Ravencroft? Because if you didn't, you're commenting from a totally different prespective than the reality of a life of a parent with small children is, especially if you are a stay at home parent. When my boys were young and I was a stay at home mom, I looked forward to when my husband got home from work because it meant that I could get some type of a break from the ever present needs of my children, whom I love immensely and enjoyed being home with, but not even being able to go to the bathroom sometimes without a child either knocking on the door or joining you, depending on if you shut and locked the door or not, can get exhausting. I appreciated a heads up if he thought he was going to be late, not because I wanted to control him or because I thought he was doing something wrong, but because it meant that my little break was going to be put off a while (this was 20 years ago, so before cell phones).

You choose Marvelgirl to call out, even though other people had stated the same rules or very similar. Is her reply perhaps a bit defensive? Maybe, but I can see her side of it, wondering why you decided to call her out instead of anyone else. To then call all of her reactions merely those of a drama queen and say that she obviously has a pattern and should get help is really a bit over the top.

Marvelgirl, for what it's worth, when my boys were younger, I often wondered if my husband was especially late if something catastrophic had happened also. Beyond worrying about the man I love, having low grade depression most of my adult life, I think another part of it was related to a subconscious worry about losing the only wage earner in our household. Having little children is emotionally draining in a lot of ways I didn't realize while I was in that stage of my life, so please don't feel bad about needing reassurance in other parts of your life that some people find inappropriate for their lives. As long as it's something you and your partner/s agree on, you do you and don't worry about what others say. *Hugs*

I don't even think it's necessarily something limited to partners. I give my young adult sons, who live at home, heads up if I end up spending the night at my boyfriend's house instead of the several hours date I usually plan on (along with my husband if he's home that night, because he doesn't always think to tell them) for much the same reason, because I know that they'd worry if it got to be late and I wasn't home. My sons tend to shoot me a text if they are going to be doing something way out of their normal pattern too.
 
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I just have one partner, namely Snowbunny. She is highly sensible and dependable, so, I've never felt the need to draw up boundaries of what I need her to tell me and when. She just has two partners, namely Brother-Husband and me. It's possible she would start seeing a third person, but super unlikely. So if she did start seeing someone new, it would be quite a big event, and she would probably give me a lot of notice on the various things, although I guess technically we'd figure that out as we went along. I do like to know things like when I'm going to have the house to myself and for how long. Now if I or my metamour started seeing someone new, Snowbunny would probably want to know a lot about it, but I guess we'd figure that out as we went along. And it's not at all likely that either of us guys would start seeing someone new. But theoretically possible.
 
Did you ever have kids Ravencroft?
Two. They're now 31 & 29.

Does that mean the rest of your thought is pointless conjecture? :confused: In any case, I'll address some bits of it as though relevant.

the reality of a life of a parent with small children is, especially if you are a stay at home parent.
I was the stay-at-home primary parent for two years, beginning when my kids were 0 & 2 respectively. Annie was making more than me (& had much-better healthcare & retirement-investment plans), & childcare was expensive, so I quit my job to be a house-husband until our oldest entered preschool. I did almost all the laundry, cooking, & cleaning, & my "free time" generally consisted either of catching up on my sleep or shopping for groceries & baby togs.

Wow; you're batting 0-for-2 thus far & kinda mansplaining as well. ;)
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Back to the original gripes.

Clearly, I used myself as an example of getting distracted when out bunging around. My house partners were like that as well. Our "rule" might be put into words something like "if we don't have plans, then we don't have plans." If something was in the works, then YES we felt required (in the sense of courtesy) to maintain close contact, whether locating a phone promptly or swinging by the house to check in.

In no way did we go on our little walkabouts to avoid being together -- reading that into my statement looks like a so-called Freudian slip, where a non sequitur reveals a hidden underlying problem.

Escalating "being an hour or three late" to "disappearing for a night" is oversell, moreso with "calling hospitals."
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Moving back a step further, the thread title is "How much do you expect a partner to tell you when they begin a new relationship?" Hyperbole about fears of blatant general discourtesy is a bit off-topic.
 
Moving back a step further, the thread title is "How much do you expect a partner to tell you when they begin a new relationship?" Hyperbole about fears of blatant general discourtesy is a bit off-topic.

Conveniently ignoring the first sentence of her paragraph that makes paragraph on topic is on you, not her. There was a question in the original post about whether or not you expect to be told if your partner is going out on a date. Marvelgirl said that she expects to be told because just not coming home isn't okay. Then she expands it further to say that it applies to her whole life and that she tells her husband the same amount of information.

My life is totally different now with young adult children than it was when my boys were small. I worried about different things, I had different emotional pressures. That was the point of my post, though I admit I could have made it that way instead of asking if you ever had kids and going on to explain as if you hadn't.
 
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