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'Bye, Everyone I guess I really am done here.

Sure, retreat to relativism in the absence of evidence or compelling argument. As it happens, I've read a lot of Heinlein, from Red Planet to "The Roads Must Roll" to To Sail Beyond the Sunset. I will grant that Heinlein's early work is compelling and important as a contribution to science...

Yep. This is it, precisely. Our entire society, including many of its rights and entitlements and privileges, is built around monogamous couples bound in the institution of marriage. That has its advantages as well as its disadvantages but, in any case, it's a powerful institution that tends to...

One does not need a special qualification to conclude that Heinlein is a misogynist pig and a world-class creep. I mean look seriously and objectively at the character, Jubal Harshaw, who is evidently Heinlein's avatar within the book. Would you take him as your model of how to practice...

Yep, this is the problem with trying to be non-monogamous in a monogamous culture. I have no suggestions to offer, only commiseration. As far as I can see, there is no solution to this problem. Assuming your wife would not be willing to return to monogamy, you're in for a long run of loneliness...

As far as I know, it's a V. I'm not involved with anyone, and expect never to be involved with anyone. Even if it were plausible to think anyone would be interested, I could not in good conscience ask or expect someone to be a side-dish. I don't know whether my wife's other guy is involved...

You are joking, right? As it happens, I live in a state that, shall we say, did not rush to embrace the ACA. Even if I did, the ACA was always a bad compromise that set up a profoundly unstable system . . . and one that the current administration seems intent on undermining, with or without...

It's the relationship I have, the situation in which I am stuck. It is not a fount of happiness, for sure, but what I want is not the only issue. Promises mean something, and they impose binding obligations even if they are not reciprocated. Given our history together, all the things she gave...

This entire thread strikes me as a bunch of blame-the-victim nonsense: Is polyamory tearing your relationship apart and ruining your life? It's your own fault because you don't handle arguments well! Devastated by a betrayal? Maybe you should think about what you contributed to the situation...

I understand precisely where your husband is coming from on this, and I think he is essentially correct: It's too late to change your mind. You have, in all likelihood, broken your marriage and, if you persist, you will break your husband. The great mistake of polyamory is the notion that...

While you wait, here's an amusing podcast about the book. http://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/2014/08/01/015-stranger-in-a-strange-land-w-adam-marler/ ---- too long;didn't listen? The gist of it is that Stranger in a Strange Land is laughably awful, Heinlein is a crypto-fascist misogynist...

Aristotle on the Finitude of Love A big chunk of Aristotle's big book on ethics - Nicomachean Ethics - is devoted to friendship (philia), which he defines as mutual good will: we should wish for the good of our friends for their own sake. He distinguishes three varieties of friendship: those...

I think I've figured out that my wife is drawn to poly because it lets her have all the advantages of leaving me without losing her health insurance.

Well, you don't. None of us does. That's sort of the point. It seems to me the height of folly to found a practice/way of life/"identity"/"lifestyle choice" (or whatever) on the premise that we really can have it all, everything we want, with no limits at all.

Jeremy, I don't know what it takes to slow down or even stop a big bad one-ton, but it seems to me you really should put the brakes on. I wrote some along these lines on your wife's introduction thread, but I wanted to put my two cents in here, as well. If your marriage is basically...

Maybe so, but it's far from clear that's the situation here. Krissy, it seems to me you and Jeremy really need to dig into what it is that prompts him to see polyamory as his "path", something for which he seems to think himself destined. What he says is this: What does that even mean, "out...

I would join in urging a great deal of caution. I would also disagree with GalaGirl regarding "the marriage shape," as though it were some arbitrary invention imposed on you. Think of it this way: you currently have a functioning partnership, a household that includes three children. Whatever...

In this thread, I will collect fragments of things I've read that have given me pause, made me question both the wisdom and the viability of the practice of polyamory. I don't agree with everything in each of these fragments, but they raise for me important questions about what many on this...

These days, I often wish my wife and I had never decided to try practicing polyamory. For me, it has led mainly to isolation and despair.

Thanks for the kind thought, Indie. It's not one thing, or at least not one big thing. You can pick your metaphor: It's the 1000th cut. The final straw. Or maybe the water is boiling, and I only now see how thoroughly I'm cooked.