Does marriage affect autonomy in Polyamory?

OMG are you me? I've thought about this a lot because part of me thinks that ...I might be happier as a solo-poly person... but all my financial planning, such as it is, has always been as a "two", not a one or a three or a many. And I don't know how to disentangle that... nor how to make that fair for Joan...

:LOL: - Yes...did you not know you had a poly-doppelganger?!!:ROFLMAO:

I was typing up a much longer reply (as usual) and decided to save it for a blog post...solo poly appeals to me, MrS would rather not have to deal with living with a poly person, we will figure stuff out...
 
Living unmarried / solo poly is always what has appealed to me, but aside from the autonomy for myself, I don't want to be married to one partner and NOT married to another (now hypothetical) partner. Nor do I want my partner to be married to me and not to a metamour. Poly just seems simpler without legal marriage being involved.
 
We do live together, but split finances 50/50. We both make an income but I recently graduated from college and began making several times more money than she does.
Some people split shared costs proportionately with income. Just a side thought for the changes going on in your lives. There are ways to support each other without marriage.

IN FACT some forum member divorce their spouse to make their poly relationships more fair and equilateral.
(I did that!) I got “unmarried” after 17 years of legal marriage (and three kids) in order to have more autonomy and less contrived hierarchy. Also to have the right to put the actual father’s name on the birth certificate we hoped we would someday be filing. (We did that!)

There’s still arguably some de facto hierarchy, but it’s dictated by co-parenting needs rather than the privileged status that accompanies an externally determined fixed box of legal obligations and rights. Incidentally, my nesting partner is not the one I was legally married to (hereinafter wuzband), so the de facto hierarchy has flipped.
  • Next, the way other people view the two of you is likely to change. Now, in the eyes of society, you are no longer "just" a boyfriend and girlfriend, you are now husband and wife. To some people, that implies a certain commitment and they will expect that of you.
Kevin’s points are all good. But this is the one that caused the most friction for me. People seemed to think they owned the definition of my marriage when I was married. Sure, I could spend time trying to explain my life and defend my labels. For me, it made more sense to stop using the institution that really didn’t fit my needs anymore.

Living unmarried / solo poly is always what has appealed to me, but aside from the autonomy for myself, I don't want to be married to one partner and NOT married to another (now hypothetical) partner. Nor do I want my partner to be married to me and not to a metamour. Poly just seems simpler without legal marriage being involved.
This is where I have ended up. I plan to live alone when I get this last kid launched into life. I remain separately close to both wuzband and my nesting partner, and I expect to always. But I certainly don’t need anyone identifying either dyad by labels that sound exclusive to a couple. If we were poly-fi I might feel safe (where I live) claiming two husbands, but we aren’t (prescriptively, anyway), and I still wouldn’t plan to live with either of them when the kids are flown.

For us, taxes are separate (the dads each claim their kids - I am single); retirements are separate (the kids are beneficiaries on their own parents’ accounts); I have my own health insurance and the dads’ health insurance covers their respective kids; I have my own car and my own money. We mishmash a lot of day to day expenses, but each asset is clearly owned by one adult. If we had to split things up tomorrow (you really never know), we’d only be able to argue over the dishes and some of the furniture.

I realize that my preference for having gone this route was specific to my situation: Having a child with someone who I wasn’t married to made being married socially problematic (and presumed paternity would have created a legal mess in registering and re-registering the birth).

Now, about nine years down the road, I’m super glad my legal status matches my strong belief that it shouldn’t break the people to end a relationship. Barriers to exit merely stress the system and its members right when they most need strength and support.

All that said, marriage is something that matters a *lot* to a huge number of very normal people. So I would not recommend to anyone that they avoid it based solely on my analysis and experience. My advice to my kids (one of whom is married) and anyone else contemplating marriage is always “Only marry someone you are absolutely confident would be a good partner in divorce.” And please, for the love of a rational future, don’t anyone change their names! 😂
 
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