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In a one-month-old relationship, these words (hearing or feeling them) would end it for me.

I will echo Evie’s concern for the friend of “some months” who obviously has formed some kind of mutual attachment with Yellowlover’s husband. We can assume the attachment was allowed to develop within the context of reassurance that their marriage agreement leaves them open to other partners...

Seconded. While many of us have few to no rules in our relationships, fundamentals like honesty (before and after the fact), safety, and respect (at least acknowledgement?) of partners’ reasonable needs have been horribly neglected here. I mean, they’ve kind of been heaped on a bonfire and...

You’ve got a range of answers to chew on here. Mine is that monogamy is so culturally propped up that it would be hard to tell if anyone is inherently of a monogamous orientation. So many people defy the overwhelming pressure to be monogamous, that we must conclude nonmonogamy (or possibly a...

What I'm hearing is that this relationship is so new, you haven't even establish that "dating" for the two of you, right now, means monogamous together. While I would wish that everyone just put poly/open right out front, there are plenty of people who don't know that's a best practice - just...

Still and all, LOTS of people choose it. I know I couldn't be happy enough while cheating to make it worth it, but I've known people who seem to be able to handle it just fine.

1. I’d choose not to be in that relationship. The options aren’t for happiness, and I’m better off without them, finding happiness elsewhere. 2. “Being poly” doesn’t set me apart from others in any noticeable way. I did tell my family of origin and my best friends when I became functionally...

One question that keeps occurring to me, is this: Do you feel only positive feelings about having sex with a partner who doesn’t want to have sex (with you/right now/for any or many reasons), but says yes out of a sense of duty?

So there’s a duty to be available for sex, but no duty to respect a preference for not-sex-right now? Or for some time alone? This is a very self-dissolving kind of relationship style. Do all of the members of your household share these values and expectations? This part I REALLY don’t...

When and how did you find out your new acquaintance is single? That seems like one natural point at which to share relationship structure/status info about you. Otherwise I would think you’d explain your primary’s place in your life as soon as this looks to be a potential sexual/romantic...

Are you saying Frank may have thought this was a "monogamous" one-night stand?? And that Phyllis should have guessed this, and volunteered that she was married? Did she also fail to tell him she has children, or that she needs to have knee surgery within the year? I am truly baffled as to...

I suppose a Zero Penis Policy is, in some ways, not that different from a One Penis Policy. (In other ways, of course, it’s quite different — you’re not asserting patriarchal privilege with a ZPP.) If you are honest about it up front, and honest with yourself about the level of control you...

It sounds like you really love Red, and feel that walking away would be giving up something good, as well as (maybe?) ditching on some kind of obligation to stick with someone who was solid when you needed that. My first caution to you is that, as with all "investments," past performance is...

For me? If I were in a poly group family with a commitment to not having any (more) children, and other members lied about doing their part and getting BC (whether or not it was reasonable that they had that job) to avoid pregnancy, and someone (a “FWB”?!?) fell pregnant and decided to keep the...

Not a fan of namecalling, either. But I think that identifying transactional analysis roles in a situation (such as the one described by the OP) is not namecalling. It is certainly debatable whether the roles have been validly identified. In this specific case, I think they are apt. And I think...

Is there no network of social support within your church group, in which people will have answered this question within families similar to yours, over and over? Wouldn’t using the shared vocabulary for such relationships be most understandable to the children in your family and all their...

In my state a married woman is explicitly legally required to list the husband’s name as father. I think it’s even a separate form for married vs single birth mothers. [edited to correct] Paperwork can be submitted after the initial birth certificate is issued, with the named father voluntarily...

So, if you become friends with someone, and they don’t particularly like hanging out with you and your fiancé, you end the friendship? And he does the same? And you’re putting that requirement on anyone he might date? And that’s just a personal boundary of yours? If so (all of the above), and...

Just popping in to say things are still plugging along. I spend a couple of days and nights a week with Woof and the teens, a couple of hours from where I live with Mitch. I’m usually exhausted by the chaos of the Woof home by the 48-hour mark, when we head back to Mitch’s. Still, the way the...

Yeah. I like it, too.