Being Poly and Choosing Marriage

C

confused88

New member
I have read of many married couples that opened up and became poly, but I am curious about couples (unmarried) who practice poly and their views on marriage. It seems to kind of contradict some of the poly anti-hierarchy philosophy, ie: I may love someone who I have been dating for 6 months the same as the person I have been with for 10 years. So my question is, if you're with a poly person or are poly yourself, would you choose to marry one of your partners for love? I know some people do it for healthcare, stability, legal reasons etc, but I am more interested in if poly and the concept of marriage can go together successfully in this regard.
 
I think anything's possible as long as all the connected parties are consenting.
 
I am married to both my husbands. I am only legally married to Butch for health insurance and pension reasons.

If I lived in Europe I would have never legally married anyone.
 
So @Dagferi you married for legal reasons, but you still find the term "husband" important enough that you use it for both of your partners. I find that very interesting. Can you explain that in more depth ? Thanks for your response ! I am very interested in how these concepts, ideas, commitments etc interact in regards to Poly.
 
I find this an interesting topic as it's something I have been questioning myself for a while. I am planning to get married to my long term partner, Nina, at some point soon. I am confident that we are so deeply compatible that some kind of close romantic connection will last between us for the great majority of our lives, therefore it seems like it would be a nice thing to share that fact with our close friends and family. As far as I understand these things, this would, in any monogamous relationship, be enough to encourage us to take this step. At the same time, we are both actively non-monogamous and happy with that arrangement. To be clear: the fact that we are a same sex couple, and this is the surest way in which we can both be assured of parental rights of any child either of us conceives, is the primary motivation for us having a legal ceremony. Most of Europe might have it's basic healthcare system sorted out, thus negating the need for marriage-for-health-insurance, but it's not quite the utopia of human rights that it could be, at least on that front. ;)

In addition to that though, it feels like the nature of our relationship would also naturally make me feel inclined to have some kind of non-legal ceremony/event to celebrate the fact that we were wanting to publicly commit to one another for the long haul, so to speak. I'm not sure being in an open or polyamorous relationship changes that - although I acknowledge that if you are practising some kind of non-hierarchical relationship it does seem at odds to place one partner in the privileged position of 'legal spouse' over another. I am pretty clear in my own mind that I do not want to have multiple life partner type relationships, so I sort of feel this doesn't apply to me though. I'm highly highly unlikely to want to be this life-entwined with anyone other than Nina.

To be sure, our vows will not include anything alluding to the 'forsaking of others', nor the blind 'love, honour and obey' of traditional wedding vows. I kind of figure that it's our marriage, our vows. We don't have to be tied to traditional beliefs (kind of hard to be, given that we're two women getting hitched), and we can make our ceremony reflective of who we are as people and what our values as a couple are. I confess, I'm still uncomfortable with my impressions of how OTHERS may perceive me (as a 'wife' - that word is so loaded for me), but I am comfortable enough with how my partner perceives me, and at the end of the day, that is the only opinion which matters.
 
My husband Butch is a state employee. While it pays less than the private sector in his field. It comes with very very very good health insurance for life if they work for 25 years. It also includes a pension. The only way I can receive his pension upon his death and have health benefits even after his retirement is to be legally married. My career field does not offer health insurance generally since veterinary hospitals employ less than 10 people usually. Obama care is NOT affordable at all.

I have stood up before family, friends and the universe and have committed myself to Murf too. I have every thing with him I have with Butch EXCEPT the stupid piece of paper. He can speak for me in medical situations and vice versa. He is a beneficiary on my estate and vice versa. We own property together. Have bills together. Go on vacation together. Visit family. Spend holidays. We do all the normal everyday crap together. He just doesn't get the tax break, and I am gone half the month to the house I share with Butch.
 
marriage is both practical and emotional. I think marriage for the most part is to legitimately ensure your partner is taken care of (insurance etc). I dated a lawyer for a long time and learned so much!! one being, same sex marriages which he defended, because can you imagine being with someone 40 years and they pass unexpectedly and then the partner can not get insurance or their belongings (unless a will was written). shit like that. marriage is a safety net. also, I've experienced this first hand with my marriage as he passed at the age of 32 and he hadn't life insurance. but I did get survival benefits. if we were not married, I would have been royally fucked even more than I already was!!!

the other side is emotional. It's beautiful and an amazing expression of ones own commitment to another (presumably a primary). I do want to marry one day again and I have no problem if it's with someone poly. for me, I'm fairly demi-sexual (partially asexual) so I don't foresee being tortured if not given the opportunity to date outside of a primary relationship if that was the case.

idk. I think it's mostly a logical thing. but the emotional side of marriage is lovely and dreamy too. I would never marry someone who did not support my independence. I really like to be independent and due to bad experiences, I would want someone who would encourage my career endeavors even if they aren't very "traditional".
 
I have a distinct mental separation between the emotional/spiritual/commitment side of marriage, and the legal/logistical side.

I committed myself to my ex long, LONG before we got legally married. I do not consider the date of our actually getting married to have any significance (neither of us did) to our relationship. Our tax situation actually penalized us for being married, so we remained legally not married for 10 years, and we had two kids. Finally our logistics changed and it made sense, so we did it.

Now it's over, and it has been since 4/14/15 and we're just now getting started really with the paperwork of divorce.

I truly believe that society would be better off if the two concepts were broken apart. The more things you can negotiate separately instead of bundling them, the happier and more specifically satisfied people can be in their individual situations.

I think that people who are emotionally deeply invested, but don't want to share legal logistics, should hold ceremonies and call one another by whatever spousal titles they want. I think that ANYONE should be able to form a legal partnership that conveys ALL of the rights and responsibilities of marriage including two people who are not romantically involved in the slightest, and including even siblings. Call it domestic partnership, but that part should exist on its own. If a brother is seriously disabled and his sister loves him and wants to dedicate her life to his care, I don't see why it implies that they are shagging, to say they should be able to take advantage of shared insurance and bennies and tax breaks and inheritance stuff. It doesn't. And all adultery and sodomy laws in the nation need to get thrown right out. Consenting adults need to legally be able to have whatever kind of sex they like without any legal threat of punishment, to include "at fault" concepts in divorce situations. The concept of the default nuclear family, sanctified by marriage, is destructive to our freedom. EDIT: I don't mean to imply that incest is ok. That's another of those exceptions to "consenting adults." But I do think that nonsexual relationships can bear strong commitments and should be afforded legal protections if the participants need or want them.

I have never in my life heard an argument that made real sense as to why any number of people should NOT be allowed to form whatever degree of commitment or legal bond that they choose to.

I used to think that it would be difficult and prohibitive to revise all of the laws that structure the marriage institution to accommodate more than two...but I recently read an article that said something to the effect of, what about laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? That required a whole lot of rebuilding and retrofitting of all sorts of facilities to allow ease of use for the disabled, and we've done / are doing that just fine. If people feel strongly enough that it makes sense, it can be done.
 
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clemenC said:
marriage is both practical and emotional. I think marriage for the most part is to legitimately ensure your partner is taken care of (insurance etc) . . . can you imagine being with someone 40 years and they pass unexpectedly and then the partner can not get insurance or their belongings (unless a will was written).
Click to expand...
Which reminds me of this beautiful film, which was made before non-hetero people had the legal right to marry (and won an Oscar for best short documentary):

Freeheld by Cynthia Wade
 (a preview that always makes me cry. The narrative feature length film version based on the doc starred Julianne Moore and Ellen Page)
 
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Marriage in a poly situation does build in a bit of a hierarchy, but plenty of people are just fine with that. (For me, when I was married, being clear that I had first claim on my ex, the father of my children, was pretty important. I'm now dating a married guy, and his daughter and his wife come first and always will.)

I didn't get divorced because marriage and poly are somehow incompatible. All the incompatibilities in my marriage were specific and personal. But even having once *been* married makes it easier for us to combine resources to continue to jointly parent our children.
 
nycindie said:
Which reminds me of this beautiful film, which was made before non-hetero people had the legal right to marry (and won an Oscar for best short documentary):

Freeheld by Cynthia Wade
 (a preview that always makes me cry. The narrative feature length film version based on the doc starred Julianne Moore and Ellen Page)
Click to expand...

Thank you!! I'm always up for new documentaries :)

yeah, the person I dated who was a lawyer taught me so much. He advocated for men who were abused in relationships and when he first brought the concept up to me, I must confess, like most people, I had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that the woman could be the physical abuser. But once realized, it was heartbreaking (as it is when the genders are flipped).

Gender roles are so damaging because in reality, not everyone's nature is going to conform to those roles so when bad things happen they aren't taken as seriously, such as men being physically abused in relationship or when a gay couple finds after 40 years of a relationship, they have no legal rights.
 
Slightly different angle here (note that I'm not poly, BTW, so this is from the POV of one of the arms of a "V", not as a hinge):

The "raising children" part of marriage doesn't apply to us at this point, since we're both in our mid-40s, have all the children we're going to have (from prior marriages), and have zero interest in more (to the chagrin of my youngest daughter, who would love a brother or sister... we have cats instead :p ).

That said, if Chops were to marry Xena (say, for insurance reasons, or whatever), I would bow out of a relationship with him.

It is important to *me* to not put myself in a situation where I would be beholden to my metamour's good will, and legally, that is the position I would be in, were something to happen to Chops. There are cases where people have all the paperwork ahead of time to say, "Yes, this person counts too," but the hospital staff turns to the wife to say, "is this person okay to visit?" (Or, worse, they force their own morality on the situation and don't allow it period, as in some older civil union or same-sex partnership situations).

Plus, it establishes a social hierarchy that I think would be extremely difficult for many people to ignore. I'm sure Chops' mom would feel as though he picked one over the other, and I've already got enough issues with his son ignoring my existence (in favor of Xena), that I'm sure it would validate his point.

Anyway, returning to the first (and most important) point, it's not that I don't *want* Xena's good will, but I am adamant that my relationship with Chops is *our* relationship, and nobody else really gets to dictate what happens. If Xena needs something that impacts us, we talk about it. If I need something that impacts them, we talk about it. A structure that establishes a hierarchy would be extremely unwelcome to me, and I'd leave.

I know there are plenty of other people who are okay with such a situation... I just wanted to speak up as a bit of an outlier. :)
 
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