First Conversation With Family Member About Poly Relationship...

D

Drakkaras

New member
Hello friends. Question for the forum...

So I attempted to have "the talk" with my mother when she started questioning some differences in my behavior recently. It was pretty clear to me that she had some idea about my previously closed marriage opening up and she was the first person to really ask about it, so I decided to test the waters a bit and answered her questions honestly. Turns out this was a terrible idea.

Literally, the first question she asked after my confirming that I was in an open relationship was, "Are you worshiping Satan?" Off to a great start!! Then she pleaded with me not to bring children into the world while my wife and I are "exploring this phase" and tried to reinforce the importance of traditional monogamous relationships in raising a child. Interestingly enough, my parents are divorced (since I was 13) and cannot even stand to speak to each other over the phone. Don't think I'm going to put a lot of stock in her relationship advice.

This continued for a while until I told her we would not speak about this issue again until she took the time to educate herself on some basic poly concepts. I sent her some links on articles to read because she is very uninformed about this lifestyle change. She is assuming the worst and we are not even speaking the same language at this point.

Long story short, I am feeling a little concerned about discussing this topic any more with her (or anyone else in the family...). The cat's out of the bag, and I've asked her many times to please keep this between her and I and to allow me to answer any questions others may have. She has agreed to this and promised to keep it to herself. I'm hoping that time will lessen her incredibly overdramatic and misinformed reactions, but I'm not sure.

Anyone else care to share their experiences with this? Successes, failures, how you went about it? Any of these would be appreciated.

For anyone interested in knowing a little more about my current situation, please take a look at my other thread: http://www.polyamory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73541
 
My parents know about my situation. My mother has known for nearly a year longer than my father has.

My mother has gone from a very strained "Oh, that's...interesting" to a "I can't understand this...you're my daughter, I don't know why you're doing this" to a "If you're happy, I guess it's okay." The other night when we spoke, after she went through her typical "How are Alt and Country? How is Hubby?" she actually said, "And how are S2 and his boys?"

My father's response when I told him, last June, was "How can your husband let you do that?" I haven't really talked to him since; other than Christmas and maybe one or two other times during the year, I only speak to my parents by phone, and my dad hates talking on the phone.

There's always hope your family will come to at least accept your life, even if they don't always fully understand. And sometimes you might be surprised by who accepts it. (One of my high school friends, a Jehovah's Witness, is often one of the first to tell me she's happy for me if I mention S2.)
 
My coming out to my extended family was rough. My sister discovered it through links on facebook and then blew up the family with a phone tree before confronting me over text about cheating. This was a year ago. Today we have various degrees of acceptance - my mom will talk about my boyfriend and she has met him and invited him to my dad's memorial service a week ago. My brother had lunch with us and has friended my boyfriend on facebook. My sister tolerates it, makes snide comments and is generally a terrible person about it still.

My husband's family had an "intervention" with he and I at Christmas - he came out to them voluntarily after the blow up with my family. Anyway, his oldest sister is like, whatever. His younger sister is appalled and hasn't been to our house since, but it wasn't like she was here to begin with. His mother went from not speaking to me, to staging the intervention, to having dinner at our house last month with everyone present.

My boyfriend's family seems to be ok. His brother is very nonchalant about it, and had stayed with us for a few weeks last year while he was trying to deal with his own personal issues, so he sees it works. His father is accepting and invites me to all events. His stepmother loves me, but has no idea I am poly, and it is quite difficult, but I don't feel it is my place to tell her. They have never visited our home.

So, yeah, it's been a year and we've made great progress. I don't think anyone really understands, but they've come to accept that we just don't do monogamy anymore.
 
My V is about 99% in the closet. I'd say three of our traditional friends/family know. My older brother and his wife basically know. Their response has been, "We totally support you, and just want you to be happy." My brother has even said that he has taken a new look at relationship models due to my own situation.

The third person who basically knows is my partner Snowbunny's long-time friend from school. Whose response was basically, "I could never do that, but it's cool."

If any others have guessed or suspected anything, they haven't said so. Who knows? When Snowbunny and I go on a trip together to Utah and Snowbunny's legal-lawful husband stays at home, people have got to wonder. So maybe they're just being polite? Letting us choose our own time to come out? Could be.
 
When I first told my family it was a bit rough. My best friend (who is also my sis-in-law) found out when another friend asked how things were going with that married guy I was dating, but didn't realize I hadn't told anyone else yet. So needless to say, she got the wrong impression even though I immediately said "it's a poly relationship, everyone knows, I've met his wife and we all get along." She told my brother, which I didn't mind cause I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but I ended up getting a lengthy email about whether I was comfortable with the idea that I could be destroying someone's marriage, etc. Turns out, he didn't care about the poly thing, just about dating a married person thing as it went against his own beliefs of marriage. After a few long emails he didn't really get it until we had a phone call where he ended up making me cry, saying he didn't think he'd ever want to meet anyone I was dating who was married or be involved, etc (my brother and I have always been fairly close and get along and see each other frequently). After that, it trurns out he felt bad enough about how upset he saw that his reaction made me that he finally agreed to meet my b/f, and the meeting went fine (duh, I knew he was over-reacting). Basically, he calmed down once we had a chance to talk it out and he could just digest the information. I think it probably would have gone much better if they hadn't found out in such a shitty way, and he even admitted that.

Of course, that then led to me having to tell my mother, because my brother was really uncomfortable with having to keep secrets and potentially lie when my b/f came up in discussion. I ended up telling her via a lengthy email, because I knew an in person discussion would probably not go well and I wanted her to be able to read some links and digest before we really talked about it, and I thought it would be the best way to avoid me possibly getting very angry if she ended up saying a bunch of negative things. Turns out, she called my brother asking about it all upset and cried and went and talked to her pastor, then went and talked to my brother (since I had told her he already knew) before she contacted me back. But she drove to see me to talk about it once she had a day or 2 to digest and basically said that even though she didn't agree, I'm her daughter and she loves me and doesn't want me or anyone I'm dating to feel unwelcome etc. Since then, she pretty much has acted normal and will ask about my b/f etc.

I vaguely told her that I'm also dating someone else, but I don't really say much since I figure she had a lot to digest in the first place. She had met my b/f before she found out about the poly thing, but hasn't seen him since, though he's been invited to things and just unable to attend.

This all just happened in the last few months, so while the initial reaction totally sucked, everyone recovered pretty well and fairly quickly. Since then, my brother recently even invited my b/f on a camping trip that my family usually tries to put together every year over memorial day. So I call that progress.

Everyone else I've told (friends) have been supportive, even if their response is "I could never do that, but if you're happy, cool!"
 
Ah yes... my experiences with telling only family and close friends has been "interesting".

Overall friends have been ok with it... similar responses to others here "I don't think I could do that but if you are happy, I'm happy for you".

But some family has been VERY critical. They worry and expect we are heading for disaster. They worry how this will affect the kids.

It has definitely created a rift. We intend to live our lives they way we want, but it does hurt a lot to be ostracized by people whom you love.

~S
 
I told my mother right away. At first, she was very skeptical and made the usual comments about "choosing" one of my partners eventually, etc. But after about a year, she suddenly turned around. She read some article (I don't know what it was and didn't send it to her) by a poly person and suddenly became very positive about it. I was able to bring both my partners and my partner's partners to Thanksgiving with her family this year, although I think most of my family members thought they were just all my friends.

The rest of my family pretends it isn't happening. My father is definitely the kind of person who would make the "worshipping Satan" comment, if he and I were to ever talk about it.

Good luck. I hope your mom eventually comes across something that changes her mind.
 
So. It seems that my mom is coming around to the idea a little more as the days go on. She continues to see interactions between myself and my gf on Facebook, and is fully aware of who the person is (this is what made her question me about it initially). She was silent on the subject for about a week, and I did not bring it up in our conversations due to her reaction the first time. However, she has been referring to my open relationship and gf lately, even going so far as to say she would love to meet her... She is still concerned that this "just can't work" and that it will damage my marriage in the long run, but she is recognizing how this change in my life has led to more happiness, love, and excitement in me than she has seen in a long time. It seems that is what is important to her. I'm hoping she continues to open her mind on the subject as time goes on.

Thanks for all of the replies and for sharing your personal stories!
 
I feel for you in this situation. But I'm glad you were open and honest with her. It'll take time if she ever comes to terms with this. But when it comes down to it it is your decision and life. No matter the topic people have their own opinions on the matter. I have not fully decided where I stand on my polyamorous feelings and so I have not had to come out to anyone yet. I know that my parents will not be happy about this and also don't know about my attractiveness to females as well.

They are very religious and against all this sexuality stuff.

All I know is before my hubby and I got married I remember my mom telling me to "not open our bed to other people"...I was like "awkward!" But ironically we'd already been swinging and had been in threesomes,etc. I don't think I will ever come out to the, about this stuff. Though I did recently join our local Facebook polyamory group, which is public and I'm waiting for my mom to ask me about it.

Screw the world and live your life. It may be hard at first but all you need is you and the people who try,y love you and accept you unconditionally.

All the best
 
Glad to hear your mom is coming around a little, Drakkaras. Believe it or not she is actually coming around rather fast -- they say one should expect one's parents to take about a year to stop freaking out about it.
 
I love my birth family, they are awesome people, but I feel ZERO need to discuss my personal, private decisions about my relationships with them. (MrS feels the same way. Dude is estranged from his family for other reasons.)

Our families know that Dude lives with us and we consider him a member of our immediate family. He is invited to family functions (first by our request/prompting, and then spontaneously). Noone, that we are actually related to, would be so RUDE as to inquire about our private/sexual arrangements - that is NONE of their business. (I think our BILs have questions...tough shit. Talk to your wife if you need to bitch about it, we have no relationship, other than basic civility, with the people our siblings chose to marry.)

OTOH. Our siblings all have children. If they decided, along with their husbands, that they were uncomfortable "exposing" their children to us without understanding the FULL dynamic, then I would expect them to ASK us. No one has. We are not terribly "demonstrative" in public/family scenarios and would definately "pass" as "good friends" - so I think this is unlikely to become a serious issue.

TL:DR version - I don't feel the need to talk about poly with our families. Period.
 
Mal told his sister and mom a few weeks ago. So far there doesn't seem to be any fall out. Djinn's mom would freak out, as would mine. So we aren't planning on telling either of them. I'm estranged from my mom and brother (dad passed a few years ago) anyway, so it isn't a big deal for me.

But both Djinn and I had pretty serious reactions to Mal's 'coming out' to his family. It was pretty hard for Djinn (made her doubt their relationship, some thoughts of transitioning to non-romantic co-parenting), and oddly it was pretty shocking for me too. Suddenly it wasn't 'this thing we were experimenting with' but it was a real thing that had consequences beyond the three of us.

Now that we're settling in to the idea it's better. But I expect that as his mom sits with the idea for a bit she'll have questions and will want to talk to me and Djinn about it as well as talking with Mal more.
 
My mom - didn't accept it well. I thought she would because she's always been very be who you want and I'll love you. She wasn't upset I was bisexual, she was upset I wouldn't divorce my husband and be with a woman because that would be "easier" on our child. Makes no sense. Then she moved to denial, then she moved back to the "you're going to ruin your child's life", to denial, to asking about the GF but never referring to her as this. It's all odd.

Sisters - one knows one doesn't

Dad - doesn't know because I had to promise to not tell him right now (mom's request)

To me it isn't a big deal. Those who I want to know do. Those who don't know I really don't care one way or the other.

DH's family - Dad knows, mom hasn't been told but we are sure she knows.

GF's family - accepts it so well.

Basically my family is shitty about it but DH's family and GF's family totally make up for that :)
 
No, no, no... Never try to share this experience with parents! We do not do such a thing. )) Frankly, I wonder what I would say if my children told me something like this. But surely I wouldn't criticize them.
 
It was important for us to tell them because we wanted everyone to be invited to family events, etc. But that blew up on one side (unfortunately mine) but it wonderfully worked out with the other two sides so that's a plus.
 
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