Ground rules and discussion topics

C

Cougarwolf

Member
My wife and I are going to be talking soon, as we did not start our poly journey on the same page. I am looking for topics we may need to discuss, and ground rules, so that we can avoid certain issues. I.e., if the other's partner tries to meet with less than a 24-hour's notice, the other can request no meeting, due to their own plans for the evening/day
 
Things you may want to consider that I have brought up with my wife.

  1. How much notice do you need to be given for an event? I like to know at least a day in advance that they have plans and try to let her know if I'm doing something. Obviously, this is not always practical. We also have small children, so we also have to consider their care and stuff.
  2. Testing and STI prevention. We decided to start getting regularly tested, and expect any other partners to be tested regularly. We agree to use condoms with other partners.
  3. How much do you want to know about what they are doing and who are they doing it with? We are VERY open about our relationships with others. This may not work for every couple. Some people don't want to know anything. I've actually found I am less likely to be jealous if I know what's going on. Something about the unknown makes me worry.
 
Cougarwolf said:
My wife and I are going to be talking soon, as we did not start our poly journey on the same page. I am looking for topics we may need to discuss, and ground rules, so that we can avoid certain issues. I.e., if the other's partner tries to meet with less than a 24-hour's notice, the other can request no meeting, due to their own plans for the evening/day
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I see you answered my question from your other thread.

You can do it that way, or you can set aside certain days of the week for meeting other partners. For example, you could set up actual date days or nights for the two of you, for say, Wednesday and Sunday, and set aside Tuesdays and Saturdays for meeting new people, or dating other established partners.

In my experience, 24-hour's notice is not always necessary. But I do believe established couples should not assume to be the default date for their nesting partner whenever that partner has no other dates. Days need to be set aside for friends, housework, extended family, hobbies, me-time for grooming or personal hobbies, exercise, etc. Kids' needs always come first. And most of us have jobs to work at to earn income. Everything needs to be in balance.
 
Magdlyn said:
I see you answered my question from your other thread.

You can do it that way, or you can set aside certain days of the week for meeting other partners. For example, you could set up actual date days or nights for the two of you, for say, Wednesday and Sunday, and set aside Tuesdays and Saturdays for meeting new people, or dating other established partners.

In my experience, 24-hour's notice is not always necessary. But I do believe established couples should not assume to be the default date for their nesting partner whenever that partner has no other dates. Days need to be set aside for friends, housework, extended family, hobbies, me-time for grooming or personal hobbies, exercise, etc. Kids' needs always come first. And most of us have jobs to work at to earn income. Everything needs to be in balance.
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Needless to say this is all a work in progress. We have each joined different discussion groups so we feel free to ask anything without worrying we might offend or hurt the other, while sharing pertinent questions and answers we feel will be beneficial to us both and staying away from “I told you so”, or “see I was right” scenarios
 
GuardianNoodle said:
Things you may want to consider that I have brought up with my wife.

  1. How much notice do you need to be given for an event? I like to know at least a day in advance that they have plans and try to let her know if I'm doing something. Obviously, this is not always practical. We also have small children, so we also have to consider their care and stuff.
  2. Testing and STI prevention. We decided to start getting regularly tested, and expect any other partners to be tested regularly. We agree to use condoms with other partners.
Click to expand...
Safer sex is the most common agreement.
GuardianNoodle said:
  1. How much do you want to know about what they are doing and who are they doing it with? We are VERY open about our relationships with others. This may not work for every couple. Some people don't want to know anything. I've actually found I am less likely to be jealous if I know what's going on. Something about the unknown makes me worry.
Click to expand...
While openness is good, keep in mind that your partner's other partner(s) deserve privacy too. No one should be sharing intimate details about one lover with another without their express permission. We might think hearing about the sex our partner is having with another is one of the perks of a poly relationship. But I don't want my partners to tell their other partners about how I act in bed, my O face, my body, what I wore, where we did it, for how long, and so on and so forth. There might be exceptions. You might learn a new sex technique with one partner that you want to share with another, for example.

And there are other sacred intimate details. Say your one partner has shared about a trauma from the past they suffered. They may not want you to share that with another partner. Discretion is the better part of valor. Always get permission to share intimate details, except in the broadest terms. It's respectful, and this concept goes for platonic relationships too.
 
Magdlyn said:
Safer sex is the most common agreement.

While openness is good, keep in mind that your partner's other partner(s) deserve privacy too. No one should be sharing intimate details about one lover with another without their express permission. We might think hearing about the sex our partner is having with another is one of the perks of a poly relationship. But I don't want my partners to tell their other partners about how I act in bed, my O face, my body, what I wore, where we did it, for how long, and so on and so forth. There might be exceptions. You might learn a new sex technique with one partner that you want to share with another, for example.

And there are other sacred intimate details. Say your one partner has shared about a trauma from the past they suffered. They may not want you to share that with another partner. Discretion is the better part of valor. Always get permission to share intimate details, except in the broadest terms. It's respectful, and this concept goes for platonic relationships too.
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I am definitely more open about certain things than she is, I DONT want to hear exact details of what they did. The most important question I ask after she spends time with another is “Did you enjoy yourself/have a good time?” As long as she is, that’s fine and any other question I might ask always has a said/unsaid don’t answer if over the line rule. We both are learning what we are comfortable sharing with the other and what the other is comfortable in hearing
 
Cougarwolf said:
I am definitely more open about certain things than she is. I DONT want to hear exact details of what they did. The most important question I ask after she spends time with another is “Did you enjoy yourself/have a good time?” As long as she is, that’s fine, and any other question I might ask always has a said/unsaid don’t answer if over the line rule. We both are learning what we are comfortable sharing with the other and what the other is comfortable in hearing.
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Sure. I just wanted to point out there is a third party involved.

And if she said, "No, I didn't have a good time!" I guess your response would be different.
 
Things to discuss:

-safer sex practices (testing schedules, sti prevention, pregnancy prevention if necessary, etc)
-scheduling - do you have kids? If so, tack on a lot more discussion about division of labor when it comes to scheduling dates with others. Do you have dates scheduled for you two to ensure you maintain your connection while building new ones?
-finances- do you share finances or have separate? If shared, do you have individual "fun money" to pay for dates? If not, consider that
-coming out/meeting other partners - do you ever want to meet them? Or keep completely separate? Do you plan to tell friends and/or family? Colleagues? Social media? All that fun stuff
-communication- do you want to know names, how often they're going out, any and all details that can ethically be shared or do you just want to know when your risk profile changes or somewhere in between?

As Mags pointed out, right now it's about just you two but going forward there will be others involved. Making sure to respect THEIR privacy and comfort is also important so imo the attitude of "as long as you are safe and having fun, I don't need to know specifics" is better than "I want all the details all the time."
 
Safer sex is the most common agreement.
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Safer sex is the most broken agreement. I'm tempted to write "LOL" after that considering how much of that we've seen on this board. There's a hell of a lot of lip service to it in this modern era where we are very aware of the risks, but when push comes to shove, it's extremely rare for two people who have fallen in love with each other actually continue to use condoms when STI tests are negative and contraception is managed in a different way.

That "condoms with others" rule is purely for protecting couple's privilege, for some kind of "specialness" between the more established couple. It's training wheels for early forays into polyamory, and it's the one most likely to cause hurt when it gets "accidentally" broken. Drop it now and save yourself the grief later.
 
Magdlyn said:
Safer sex is the most common agreement.

While openness is good, keep in mind that your partner's other partner(s) deserve privacy too. No one should be sharing intimate details about one lover with another without their express permission. We might think hearing about the sex our partner is having with another is one of the perks of a poly relationship. But I don't want my partners to tell their other partners about how I act in bed, my O face, my body, what I wore, where we did it, for how long, and so on and so forth. There might be exceptions. You might learn a new sex technique with one partner that you want to share with another, for example.

And there are other sacred intimate details. Say your one partner has shared about a trauma from the past they suffered. They may not want you to share that with another partner. Discretion is the better part of valor. Always get permission to share intimate details, except in the broadest terms. It's respectful, and this concept goes for platonic relationships too.
Click to expand...
To be clear, I know that they are having sex, but not the details or number of encounters. That would obviously be invasive. I have met her other partner in person quite a few times and have had open discussions with him about what we are both comfortable with, as well.
 
Magdlyn said:
Sure. I just wanted to point out there is a third party involved.

And if she said, "No, I didn't have a good time!" I guess your response would be different.
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Would kinda depend on her where the conversation goes from there. I would be curious, but if she needs comforting or just wants to be alone, that is on her,
 
Evie said:
Safer sex is the most broken agreement. I'm tempted to write "LOL" after that considering how much of that we've seen on this board. There's a hell of a lot of lip service to it in this modern era where we are very aware of the risks, but when push comes to shove, it's extremely rare for two people who have fallen in love with each other actually continue to use condoms when STI tests are negative and contraception is managed in a different way.

That "condoms with others" rule is purely for protecting couple's privilege, for some kind of "specialness" between the more established couple. It's training wheels for early forays into polyamory, and it's the one most likely to cause hurt when it gets "accidentally" broken. Drop it now and save yourself the grief later.
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This is something we are already discussing. lol But it seemed like a good idea at the time. I'm still using condoms because I am not fixed, but am planning to get my tubes tied later this year.
 
Evie said:
That "condoms with others" rule is purely for protecting couple's privilege.
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It CAN be used this way, but not always. My partners and I have this rule. They also know that it can be renegotiated on a partner-by-partner basis, after the relationship is well established and transparency, trust and ability to start hard conversations has been established.

I have a compromised immune system and certain STIs could be very dangerous to me, particularly HPV, which I’m too old to get vaccinated for, and Hep B because the vaccine doesn’t work on me. My ex has had several women lie to him about history, risk, and even say a condom wasn’t needed. If it’s not needed with him then they don’t use it with others.

He's had women refuse to get tested and worse, he has had partners who went to get tested have doctors say they’re fine and it's not needed. All shady shit. So yeah, all of my partners agreed to condoms with anyone until the above standards were met.

We have all experienced men say they can’t use them, or refuse and guilt women into going without, and women have been trained through patriarchy to please men, and that means not using condoms. You need to make sure the person you are with can enforce boundaries, say no, and use condoms without issue to truly know that they have the capacity to do what they can to reduce risk And have the hard conversations about that before sex and, if there happens to be possible exposure, have the ability to have hard conversations afterwards about either not using a condom (it happens) or possibly being exposed (if a partner comes up positive for something or is having symptoms).

For me, it’s not about specialness or punishment. It’s about informed consent. I cannot give informed consent if anyone in the polycule is choosing to be dishonest.

They also know they can choose not to abide by this agreement. At that point they would have to use condoms with me instead, which I have no issues with.
 
My partners and I have this rule. They also know that it can be renegotiated on a partner-by-partner basis, after the relationship is well established and transparency, trust and ability to start hard conversations has been established.
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Being up for renegotiation is the important part here. Rules generally aren't. Agreements are. And you aren't a newly-opening couple. You're an established polycule. I was really addressing the newbie training wheels approach of keeping barrier-free sex as a defining part of their coupledom.
 
Evie said:
Being up for renegotiation is the important part here. Rules generally aren't. Agreements are. And you aren't a newly opening couple. You're an established polycule. I was really addressing the newbie training wheels approach of keeping barrier free sex as a defining part of their coupledom.
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Totally agree. I certainly was not arguing your point. I was giving another perspective. I learned early that having other perspectives helped my partners and me find exactly what we wanted. You don’t know what you don’t know. 🙂
 
Hi Cougarwolf,

With as flaky as your wife's "FWB" seems to be, she should probably arrange her schedule so that some days/times are open and available for him, and other days/times are reserved for you. This means she will have to turn this FWB down sometimes, which probably doesn't sit with her well but there it is.

Just some thoughts,
Kevin T.
 
kdt26417 said:
Hi Cougarwolf,

With as flaky as your wife's "FWB" seems to be, she should probably arrange her schedule so that some days/times are open and available for him, and other days/times are reserved for you. This means she will have to turn this FWB down sometimes, which probably doesn't sit with her well but there it is.

Just some thoughts,
Kevin T.
Click to expand...
Many people have brought up making a schedule. I think it was also in the Poly Hell article. (Loved it.) We have decided we will make a schedule and stick to it.
 
That's probably your best opening move.
 
GuardianNoodle said:
Things you may want to consider that I have brought up with my wife.

  1. How much notice do you need to be given for an event? I like to know at least a day in advance that they have plans and try to let her know if I'm doing something. Obviously, this is not always practical. We also have small children, so we also have to consider their care and stuff.
  2. Testing and STI prevention. We decided to start getting regularly tested, and expect any other partners to be tested regularly. We agree to use condoms with other partners.
  3. How much do you want to know about what they are doing and who are they doing it with? We are VERY open about our relationships with others. This may not work for every couple. Some people don't want to know anything. I've actually found I am less likely to be jealous if I know what's going on. Something about the unknown makes me worry.
Click to expand...

Wow. This is basically our same list and that #3 is MEEEEEEEE.

I'm going to add for the OP that revisiting the rules/boundaries with regularity has been imperative for us. We are constantly morphing. Our lives are constantly morphing. It has been helpful to remind each other of the boundaries that are still hard and fast and those that are fluid.

CONNECTION.
CONNECTION.
CONNECTION.

Omg I can't say it enough. Don't stop connecting.
 
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