Is it irresponsible to tell someone in a poly/mono relationship "it can work"?

[OnceAndFuture]

Is it irresponsible to tell someone in a poly/mono relationship "it can work"?

Now I'm not saying here that poly/mono relationships can't work. There are some on this board, even. And I've talked to maybe one or two couples who work, or sort of work, that way. This is not an opportunity for everyone to jump in here and point to the one or two poly/mono relationships, out of about 20 or 30 they know, that worked.

What I'm saying is this: Every person who's ever come in here asking for advice on how to handle a poly/mono relationship (including myself) is met with very well-meaning advice on how to drop the "poly bomb". And while I appreciated all that well-meaning advice, I can't help but notice that that all that advice I got had about the same effect as the advice almost every other poly/mono person gets: namely, that it didn't help at all.

To be honest, telling the poly half of a poly/mono couple that things can work out feels like a financial advisor telling his or her client that a way to make a lot of money is to spend their life savings on lottery tickets. Yes, it's possible that the client is going to be one of the lucky ones who hits the jackpot...but it's a heck of a lot more likely that the client is going to end up broke. Not to mention feeling misled: hey, the advisor I asked help from is supposed to be the expert here, but if I go around telling people that I followed the advisor's allegedly expert advice, they're going to think, "Geez, what a moron, why'd he fall for that?"

I'm not claiming that the quality of thought here is along the lines of "use the lotto as your retirement provider." But if it's got the same chance of working, is it really any better? I mean, we all kind of admit to this when we call it the "poly bomb." Ever throw a bomb into a room and have the place look better after it explodes? Do you think you could give anybody any advice on how to throw the bomb to not only minimize the damage but cause a measure of improvement?

I've got to admit that during my rare trips back here that I feel a sense of dread every time I see a new person posting here asking for help in starting a poly/mono relationship. To be honest I'm starting to feel like getting advice in this situation is counterproductive, even if it's bracketed with a phrase like "but even if you do everything right, your relationship is probably going to end, or more likely hurt both of you for a long time then end." Most people seek out advice from experts because they have a reasonable expectation that if they apply the advice to their lives, their lives will be improved, or at least made easier. They're hoping to hear "if you make mistake X, horrible thing Y will happen to you, so do action Z instead." They're not looking to hear "if you make mistake X, horrible thing Y will happen...although to be honest if you don't make mistake X, horrible thing Y will probably happen anyway."

So as the poster child on this board for "Horrible Thing Y", I'd like to make a suggestion (and, in making this, I realize I have to start leading by example too): instead of giving advice to new posters wanting to start a poly/mono relationship, we start asking the difficult questions first. "Are you prepared for your relationship to end the day you drop the poly bomb?" "Are you mentally stable enough to handle your relationship (and that may mean being mentally strong enough to walk away) WHEN things go bad?" "Are you prepared, if your partner doesn't want to be part of this, to be the 'bad guy' for the rest of the relationship? What are you going to do when your partner throws out 'but you wanted to be poly and fuck other people' as a trump card in every argument you're going to have for the rest of your relationship?" "If you're married and have mutual assets or kids....do you know a good divorce attorney?"

I'm certain that most people reading this are going to be thinking, geez, OnceAndFuture, don't scare people away. Well, after the year I've just been through, I wish I'd been scared away from day one. I don't think a day goes by that I wish I had never heard the word "polyamory" to be perfectly honest. I'm not blaming anybody who gave me advice here. I know all of it was well-intended, and there was much intelligence, thoughtfulness, and care behind your words. On the other hand, one person standing up and saying "I've been through an attempt at a poly/mono relationship. For my sake, please do not try it" would have meant more than all the advice I got here.

As always, I'm thrilled that there are people here, and elsewhere, who are happy in their relationships. I just feel like if we want others who don't have a partner who shares their views on polyamory to also be happy we have to be more honest.

 

[WhatHappened]

I just signed on to respond to a thread in which CTF has essentially been told to keep his 'negativity' to himself. In fact, he is saying largely what you are: that the chances are very high of the poly bomb having detrimental effects.

My feeling is that this is a forum 'about' poly, for people to get good advice, not merely for cheerleading and ignoring the very real other set of possibilities. How can we make good choices if we're told only one side of a story or only one set of facts?

My XBF is apparently one of those who is beating the odds as far as keeping their marriage together. He and his wife opened up about twenty years ago and to all appearances are still going strong. She has had a dom for the past 6 or 7 years and to my knowledge his marriage lasts, too, while he has girlfriends and subs. So...I suppose it can work if by work we mean the couple continues to put each other first.

On the other hand, I was the first girlfriend of any length he ever had in real life. I was the longest girlfriend he'd ever had, period. And it turned out that caused problems in his marriage. It turned out he was not as open and honest and great at communication as he claimed (refusing to tell me what was really going on, accusing me of imagining things when I saw a clear pattern in his wife's behavior.)

It was pretty obvious she was having jealousy issues and decided to play the silent veto game--and this is a story I see over and over on forums where the secondaries talk among themselves.

He was in love--he refused to graciously let me go but also refused to rock the marriage-boat by telling her to knock it off. End result: a lot of upheaval and damage in his life and mine these past years since I broke up with him. There has been a LOT of pain. He wanted the feel-good of someone in love, of being in love--yet I wasn't supposed to really expect a real relationship of him.

The two of them wanted to have it both ways from me and this is why so many secondaries end up feeling like the blow-up doll that's supposed to sit on the shelf and pretend they don't have any real emotions when it's not their date night.

So, yes, it seems to 'work' for them. They're still together. But even that is only one side of the story. They've left a trail of pain in their wake. I know of others before me who have had issues with his wife, and he continually blames the other women and never notices the common denominator or acknowledges that it is coming from her fear of losing him (to put the kindest possible slant on her behavior) and therefore will continue.

They're in the process of moving in the new girlfriend. Maybe they'll all live together happily ever after but the odds are highly against it. And if they do, they'll say it was worth it, but I think the outside evaluation still needs to take into account those who were hurt along their way to success...and that's IF they finally achieve it.

ETA: and how do we qualify the pain and damage to XBF himself from all the ended relationships. I know that he has also been in great pain at the end of our relationship and I believe he misses me even now. His choice to put his wife above anyone, in every way (ie, very hierarchical) has cost him other things as well, including the business he and I started together, including some of his artistic endeavors.

I believe your point is that all sides should be shown so people can make well-informed decisions. I'm in complete agreement with you, and I don't think this is about being negative, but merely saying, this is my story, this is how it worked (or didn't for me), and before you embark on...hiking the Alps, diving to underwater shipwrecks, flying experimental airplanes, skydiving...or poly...you should be well aware of the possibilities and common scenarios and think carefully about if you want to risk those things and how you might best avoid all those potential pitfalls.

 

[FallenAngelina]

I'm guessing that you have not seen this current thread. ?

 

[Marcus]

Introducing change to the fundamental and previously unanswered and unexplored assumptions of a relationship is probably going to cause some friction. Depending on the nature of the relationship, it might take some work and some growing, or it might explode into a fireball that the whole neighborhood can see. It depends on the people in the relationship and how they respond to challenges.

Some relationships can weather this kind of storm and become stronger for it because they are able to make adjustments according to the new reality. Some relationships simply don't have the ability to survive and should mercifully be altered to make room for the new reality (divorce, or whatever).

It CAN and does happen, sure. The anecdotal data I have access to would lead me to believe that it is unlikely.

I just signed on to respond to a thread in which CTF has essentially been told to keep his 'negativity' to himself. In fact, he is saying largely what you are: that the chances are very high of the poly bomb having detrimental effects.

Is that why people have responded strongly to CTF, WhatHappened? He has said that the chances are very high that one partner coming out as polyamorous will have detrimental effects? And THAT is what caused the friction?

Do you feel like that is an honest assessment of what has gone down in that thread?

I've read that thread, as I'm sure you have, and that thread didn't start out as a "rah rah" for polyamory, nor did it finish that way. No one in there was trying to lull a poly person into believing that it's all going to be roses, sunshine, and blowjobs once they told their mono partner that everything is about to change.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

I'm guessing that you have not seen this current thread. ?

Well that thread is pretty much the reason I started this one.

I guess my biggest concern is this. A lot of people in that thread are saying, well, you need to be honest about being poly with your partner, otherwise you're living a lie so to speak with him/her. I get that. I mean I really get that.

But what I don't get it why it's so important to be honest about that, but not to be honest about the fact that the vast majority of the time poly/mono relationships are going to fail. That's not "being a downer", that's being truthful. If I say to a friend of mine who's never done much mountain climbing and is thinking about climbing Mount Everest, "That sounds really dangerous, are you sure you're ready for that?" I'm not being a downer, I'm trying to express my concern. I'd like that person to come back from Nepal, and preferably with all of their fingers and toes still intact.

Yes, yes, it absolutely sucks to put up a facade and pretend you're OK with being mono. Theoretically, none of us should have to put up facades, about anything. I shouldn't have to put up a facade about being autistic. But if I want to lead a productive life, I pretty much have to. It sucks. No, let me rewrite that: it SUCKS. Much as I would like to change how the world sees people like me, though, I realize I am fighting an impossible battle to do so. I should mention that I was only diagnosed a few months ago, so like someone who newly recognizes themselves as poly, this is still a really new thing for me.

It's all well and good for someone to say, "You be you, go ahead and live your life #nofilter" and all that. Personally, though, I'd rather live with the facade. It's a whole lot easier for me to "act normal" because, much as we'd like to think we're past it, people with autism are going to be discriminated against. I can't change that, and, sadly, it's easier to change myself.

I guess I'd have to ask someone thinking about being in a poly/mono relationship the same thing: what's going to be easier for you, keeping up the facade, or handling the fallout from putting down the facade? I'd have been about 100x better off never having mentioned it. And that, I guess, is why I'd defend CTF if I'd been back here while that thread was still going strong. There are worse things than putting up a facade. If you can't live with the facade, then do something about it, yeah! But at least try to answer that question first. And if you're going to be able to answer the question, be honest about the fallout.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

No one in there was trying to lull a poly person into believing that it's all going to be roses, sunshine, and blowjobs once they told their mono partner that everything is about to change.

But at the same time, a lot of people weren't exactly being honest about the fact that the vast, vast majority of poly/mono relationships don't work no matter what advice they get or take on board. And here in this thread, I'm trying to say "don't even give 'advice' to someone considering a poly/mono relationship until they understand what's at stake." To me, it feels like giving someone advice on how to survive jumping off a bridge...."don't jump off the bridge" should be the first, perhaps only, advice needed.

 

[Marcus]

To me, it feels like giving someone advice on how to survive jumping off a bridge...."don't jump off the bridge" should be the first, perhaps only, advice needed.

Just so I'm clear, the appropriate response on the thread in which the original poster has already discussed being poly with their mono partner should have been - "you should know, it is a big risk to tell your partner this. A lot of relationships, heck, the vast majority, can't make it past that conversation"?

Correct? After they already had the conversation we should make sure to advise them of the risks of having the conversation?

 

[Hannahfluke]

If I remember correctly, OnceandFuture, while people may not have told you that being mono/poly is next to impossible (I don't remember what people told you at the beginning), people did respond to your posts about how the Signal was handling things with advice that poly probably wouldn't work for you until she started being willing to handle her own emotions, rather than you handling them for her by forever modifying your behavior to match whatever she felt in that moment. I don't think anyone, once you started posting about how she was reacting, said "oh, all you need to do is follow our advice and your life will be sunshine and rainbows forever."

 

[Tinwen]

I agree there may be some elephants in the room in the poly world.

However, I'm not sure that we should start by telling newbies "it almost never works". First, I wouldn't mind seeing some real statistics. Second, that's usually what they have been hearing all their lives in the mono world!

For the record, my relationship also ended when I asked to open the relationship. It was very painful at that time for a few months --- and I don't regret my decision one bit.

But due to other experience, just as you feel weary when you see people recommending honesty, I get cold shivers every time I see people saying 'if a relationship (model) doesn't suit you, it's better to break up'. Reality, physical or emotional, can be much more convoluted than that.
So I share the sentiment expressed in the title of this thread - only roles reversed.

And, while I still hope to work things out in my relationship, I would never tell a mono person who's falling for a poly partner to just go ahead and 'go with the flow' or 'work things out' -- I will caution them, as I did here.

I guess I'd have to ask someone thinking about being in a poly/mono relationship the same thing: what's going to be easier for you, keeping up the facade, or handling the fallout from putting down the facade? I'd have been about 100x better off never having mentioned it. And that, I guess, is why I'd defend CTF if I'd been back here while that thread was still going strong. There are worse things than putting up a facade. If you can't live with the facade, then do something about it, yeah! But at least try to answer that question first. And if you're going to be able to answer the question, be honest about the fallout.

Putting up a façade - yes, I agree it may be easier to do so, and it's a very legitimate question.
I think that again people tend to contradict the advice that's omnipresent in the mono world - which of course recommends never admitting your poly tendencies, and vastly underestimates the depressing effects that hiding a part of yourself has, especially long term.

As for CTF, I agree with Marcus, that the issue wasn't calling for caution, but him doing so after the decision has been made. Also, he's been asked by the OP to stop, and decided not to - I acknowledge his right to do so now, but felt pretty annoyed back then.
I do agree though, that if you know for sure that your partner is mono, you should think not twice but a dozen times at least.

So as the poster child on this board for "Horrible Thing Y", I'd like to make a suggestion (and, in making this, I realize I have to start leading by example too): instead of giving advice to new posters wanting to start a poly/mono relationship, we start asking the difficult questions first. "Are you prepared for your relationship to end the day you drop the poly bomb?" "Are you mentally stable enough to handle your relationship (and that may mean being mentally strong enough to walk away) WHEN things go bad?" "Are you prepared, if your partner doesn't want to be part of this, to be the 'bad guy' for the rest of the relationship? What are you going to do when your partner throws out 'but you wanted to be poly and fuck other people' as a trump card in every argument you're going to have for the rest of your relationship?" "If you're married and have mutual assets or kids....do you know a good divorce attorney?"

Please do post your questions, when you find them relevant. I like the highlighted one - although I would still use IF and not when. I might adopt that.
I don't like the one about being the bad guy, nor the next one. If my partner can play these blame-shifting, manipulative games with me, something is very wrong, no matter the relationship model.

I'll be thinking more about the topic of elephants in the room.

 

[Shaya]

This is a good thread with a good question. As a forum, we are all here browsing and posting with the well-intentioned aim of giving advice to newbies, and I consider myself a newbie too. What happens when our advice has the potential to cause more harm than good?

With regards to the opening question, what do we feel are the factors that can make a transition from monogamy to poly/mono work? I'm presuming that the couple were in a previous long term committed monogamous relationship with one another, trying to transition to a model of couplecentric polyamory. I believe that other models of polyamory would be more difficult for such a couple.

Factors that I think are likely to help the transition of the couple from monogamy to couplecentric polyamory include:

• Mutual agreement on the philosophy of polyamory and an eagerness for both parties that polyamory is the "right choice" for each individual rather than a sacrifice one would make for the other.
• Agreement from the couple to enter polyamory before a specific individual has been picked out. Equivalently, entering polyamory for the benefit of the current relationship rather than for the benefit of someone else.
• Subjective and objective evidence from the poster of strong communication styles. This includes ability to handle arguments and a red flag would be a couple that has no arguments because this could be interpreted as having the presence of a conflict avoidant person in the relationship, or as evidence of a controlling relationship.
• Previous exposure to polyamory or to consensual non-monogamy in 1, 2 or all 3 parties involved (eg swinging, BDSM, or kink).
• The hinge in the V having experience dealing with NRE, or equivalently, having fallen in love and fallen out of love many times. I feel this gives the hinge a clearer mind when experiencing NRE. Equivalently, the hinge is less likely to be "swept away" in the moment compared to someone who has little experience with this new emotion.
• Experience dealing with jealousy.
• Ability for the arms of the V to feel compersion.
• Having free time to research polyamory resources.
• Willingness to transition from monogamy to polyamory at the rate of the slowest member, as long as the slowest member is willing to allow progression of the new relationship rather than stone-wall.
• In a similar vein, situational factors that limit contact with the new partner so that the relationship progresses slowly (eg long distance polyamory).
• Secure love attachment styles.

Factors that I think may be detrimental to the transition of the couple from monogamy to couplecentric polyamory include:

• Choosing to add polyamory to fix an existing relationship. Equivalently, evidence of a recent decision to break up.
• Evidence of underlying relationship issues in the monogamous relationship. <To newcomers to this forum: One relationship is hard enough. Can you imagine more than one relationship to be any easier to manage?>
• Transitioning from an affair in monogamy to polyamory, so as to include the affair partner legitimately.
• History of previous affair(s) or repeated broken trust/lies in the relationship.
• History of previous affair(s) or repeated broken trust/lies in previous relationships that have left a scar on the psyche of one of the parties.
• Insecure love attachment styles, or perhaps equivalently, childhood trauma/abandonment issues that impact the way we love as adults.
• Poor hinge (this is a vague statement and likely contentious but I feel I do not have the experience to really explore this. Would someone like to help with an article on what a good hinge should be doing? Perhaps poor arms of the V as well though in my biased opinion, the arms of the V usually do a lot of work to wrap their head around jealousy, insecurity and are usually found on this forum posting and looking for help more so than the hinge. Sorry, I don't mean to offend any awesome hinges who are reading this. Like I said, I really am quite new here.)
• Lack of time to read polyamory articles. Lack of time for processing.
• Rapid decision to move from monogamy to polyamory, usually because one person in the relationship has already chosen a new person whom they want a new relationship with.
• Firm belief in monogamy in one or more parties.
• Poor self awareness.
• Poor communication skills.
• Conflict avoidant personalities.
• Inconsistent demonstrations of love, or equivalently, mixed messages between parties.
• Lack of previous experience with sex, falling in love or relationships.
• Poor setting of boundaries or breaking of boundaries.

I've run out of time to put more things on this list today. The list could be organised better so that the more important things are at the top, rather than me just blabbering whatever comes first to my head. Those who know my story will clearly see my biases in the list above as well. Also, there are many many more things that can be added to the list. I'm looking forward to a lot more factors that others can add.

In summary, predicting whether or not a poly/mono relationship will succeed can sometimes be difficult. The answer probably depends upon us fishing for more information about their specific relationship. They may not want to be so open about their relationship issues on a public forum, but we should be able to give them some sort of list like this. On the question of whether it's ethical to be overly optimistic, I think being upfront that some poly/monos can work but most don't... being upfront would be, in my opinion, the honest approach.

 

[WhatHappened]

Is that why people have responded strongly to CTF, WhatHappened? He has said that the chances are very high that one partner coming out as polyamorous will have detrimental effects? And THAT is what caused the friction?

Do you feel like that is an honest assessment of what has gone down in that thread?

I've read that thread, as I'm sure you have, and that thread didn't start out as a "rah rah" for polyamory, nor did it finish that way. No one in there was trying to lull a poly person into believing that it's all going to be roses, sunshine, and blowjobs once they told their mono partner that everything is about to change.

I said:

CTF has essentially been told to keep his 'negativity' to himself.

Yes, that's what was said to him.

I said:

...he is saying...the chances are very high of the poly bomb having detrimental effects.

Yes, he was saying that.

You are welcome to your opinion on what 'caused friction.' I may or may not agree with you, but it really wasn't what I said. I said he said X and was told Y.

 

[newtothis2017]

I think that most people asking for advice are probably leaning towards doing it anyways. I am monogamous, my girlfriend identifies as polyamorous. We both went into it blindly, setting up a don't ask, don't tell rule. Suddenly she was in an emotional and physical relationship and I had no clue. Additionally, the open relationships I had been exposed to were mostly physical so even though I agreed to polyamory, we were not clear on what our definitions of polyamory/love/relationships were.

Luckily, some of her friends who were more experienced with polyamorous relationships were like hey! what are you doing? You need to talk about this! That's why I think there is value in coming to a forum and asking people who have gone through it and asking them what works. Thankfully I've found resources and educated myself on polyamory, my girlfriend and I have defined and discussed terms such as girlfriend, love, polyamory, open relationships.

Also, the situation has changed where the woman who she entered a relationship with is now moving away so we are continuing a polyamorous relationships but are going to have a slower transition. One piece of advice that was previously mentioned was move at the rate of the slowest member (me). As a monogamous person, I really appreciate my girlfriend saying that next time we will move more slowly.

Am I uncomfortable with polyamory? Yes of course (not with others polyamorous but the idea of her falling in love with someone else is incredibly difficult). Maybe our relationship will crash and burn but we have a really strong connection and I want to give it a shot.

 

[vinsanity0]

My answer to the question posed in the title is No. I think it would be irresponsible to not include all possibilities.

It can work. Just because it doesn't work for a certain couple doesn't it mean it won't work for anybody.

I don't think I've ever seen a thread in which the possibility it won't work was not mentioned.

 

[vinsanity0]

I think a lot of people who come here looking for advice are really just looking for a some reinforcement of what they already want to do. Then they ignore advice that goes against what they want to hear. Some of them storm off. Others come back and complain when it didn't work out the way they hoped.

 

[Shaya]

Hi Vinsanity. I think you're referring to a cognitive bias that has to do with preconceived emotions or fixed world views.

I think a lot of people who come here looking for advice are really just looking for a some reinforcement of what they already want to do. Then they ignore advice that goes against what they want to hear.

I think that people tend to agree with something emotionally, then hunt around for logical reasons that prop up that belief. I once read of an experiment that put two cooked chickens in front of two groups of people. One chicken was scrawny whilst the other fat. I forget the exact things the people were told, but the specifics don't matter for this retelling. The first group was told that the fat one was given medications and injections and remained illness-free whilst the scrawny one was all natural. The second group were told the opposite - said that the fat one was all natural whilst the scrawny one was given medications and injections and remained illness-free. Everyone went to eat the fat chicken but their reasons were different. The first group said that a healthy chicken was more important than a natural chicken, whilst the second group said the opposite. The authors of the experiment concluded that we make emotional decisions (choosing to avoid the scrawny chicken) then strive to make logical reasons to justify our claim.

The experiment probably extends to anyone in the throes of emotional bias, including those with bad-ass NRE (don't make any big decisions whilst in NRE!), casual racists, anti-vaccinators, climate change deniers extending all the way to everyday things where we favour attractive-looking people, marketing susceptibility, reading articles with nicely laid-out headings, and so forth. I wanted to explore this idea and started it's own thread a while ago. No need to read through it all since it's getting quite long - just post your thoughts there instead of derailing this one like I seem to be doing (Sorry to the opening poster!)

But back to the quote above, when advice is given online, I feel it tends to be received best if it agrees with a poster's pre-existing viewpoint. If the advice does not, I find it helps to first tell them things they want to hear (or to create empathy in some manner), then give them the advice they don't want to hear. To the experienced forum members, do you think it's worth creating a new thread to discuss constructive ways in which we can give advice to new forum members so we don't scare the b'jeesus out of them?

 

[OnceAndFuture]

If I remember correctly, OnceandFuture, while people may not have told you that being mono/poly is next to impossible (I don't remember what people told you at the beginning), people did respond to your posts about how the Signal was handling things with advice that poly probably wouldn't work for you until she started being willing to handle her own emotions, rather than you handling them for her by forever modifying your behavior to match whatever she felt in that moment. I don't think anyone, once you started posting about how she was reacting, said "oh, all you need to do is follow our advice and your life will be sunshine and rainbows forever."

I'm fuzzy on my remembering of those days. I'm going to have to look back on those posts...to be honest I'm not looking forward to rereading those posts, but I'm willing to do so to get things right. I honestly wish I had never made those first posts here.

 

[OnceAndFuture]

It can work. Just because it doesn't work for a certain couple doesn't it mean it won't work for anybody.

I don't think I've ever seen a thread in which the possibility it won't work was not mentioned.

I'm not saying that nobody here has ever said "poly/mono might not work." I think the question that needs to be asked is "is the possibility that poly/mono might work worth the potential damage to my life/relationship/mental health if it doesn't?" And to answer that question, we need to be honest about both the possibility it can work, and the potential damage it might do if it doesn't work. Saying that something "can" work is meaningless. Do we mean "can" as in "you can buy a ticket to the latest action movie" or as in "you can win the lottery"? One is almost bound to happen (barring a blockbuster sellout), the other is almost impossible.

Say I made you a deal that if you correctly picked the winner of a random horse race, I'd give you $20, but if you picked wrong, you would give me $20. I further tell you that the horse "Poly Pocket" is a 1-4 favorite for the race (i.e., Poly Pocket is favored to win the race 80% of the time). You'd think, hey, that's a pretty good deal: 80% of the time I get $20, but only 20% of the time I lose 20%. After you make the bet, "Mono Nuclear Osis" wins the race. Although you lost, you're not too upset about it...then you read the paper and find out that it was actually Mono Nuclear Osis who was actually the 1-4 favorite, not Poly Pocket. When you confront me about the bet, I explain that "I never told you Poly Pocket was guaranteed to win" and that there was always a chance you'd lose. Needless to say, you'd still have the right to be upset with me. I wasn't honest about your chances of success. So, I mean, what are the chances of a poly/mono relationship succeeding? Even? Poor? Or really, really low? I think we all know the answer here to be honest.

It feels to me that sometimes the advice that's given to new people in a poly/mono relationship is like advice given by lottery winners to potential lottery players. They were successful, after all, so they're hardly going to tell people not to follow their example. They're associating with fellow lottery winners now, so they can point to a whole bunch of other people who were successful at the lottery. Lastly, they've stopped talking to lottery losers, so they have a mistaken view of proportionally few people actually win the lottery. And that's what seems to be going on here. If it seems like a lot of people here have a positive view on the possibility of success of poly/mono relationships, it's because those are the people who are most likely to stay here and keep posting. People who got hurt in a poly/mono relationship are not generally likely to stay on a board called "polyamory.com".

(Except, I guess, people like me who are trying to exorcise some demons and maybe help a few others on the way.)

 

[OnceAndFuture]

Am I uncomfortable with polyamory? Yes of course (not with others polyamorous but the idea of her falling in love with someone else is incredibly difficult). Maybe our relationship will crash and burn but we have a really strong connection and I want to give it a shot.

I don't have a lot of time to post right now but I wanted to address this part of the issue. When I started thinking about starting a (second) polyamorous relationship situation with The Signal, we'd been together for over 12 years. We'd spoken to each other every single day even while I was living 1,000 miles away for work. We had a house together, and were raising two kids from her previous marriage. I, too, felt we had a really strong connection with her. We had a lot to live for with each other.

I guess what I'm saying is that we had a lot to lose by our relationship ending. I know that having a marriage ending isn't the end of the world--I had that happen to me once already! But neither is it something I'd just casually toss away, if I felt there was a lot of value in it. And now knowing that I'm autistic, and feeling older every day, I'm not deluded enough to think, "well, I can just rebuild what I had with The Signal if things go wrong." I'm not a mid-20's Casanova who's just going to shrug my shoulders and head down to the nearest singles bar if I find myself single again. What I'm going through is hurting, badly.

To go back to my horse-race analogy, it feels like a lot of the advice I got and see here assumes that I'm going to lose $20 if I lose my bet. But to me it feels more like $1,000. To you it might feel like a million. That's why I think one of the first questions I'd ask someone considering a poly/mono relationship would be "how much do you think you can lose?"

 

[PinkPig]

So, I mean, what are the chances of a poly/mono relationship succeeding? Even? Poor? Or really, really low? I think we all know the answer here to be honest.

You can't apply odds to opening a relationship, Once. It's not like a horse race where you don't intimately know the horses. You know your spouse (if you don't, then why the hell are you even married?) It IS like a horse race in that it depends on each individual horse, on the environment, on the jockey, on the horse's relationship to the jockey, on the track, etc, etc, etc. There is no good way to predict. It doesn't matter if 99% of mono/poly relationships fail, there's still 1% that don't. And, even if the marriage or relationship ends, the ending generally cannot be solely attributed to the poly/mono relationship. There are sooooo many other factors that come into play...the health of the relationship between the partners, the communication skills of each, the emotional maturity and ability to regulate their own emotions, etc, etc, etc. And, there's the fact that roughly half of marriages end in divorce anyway....and some of those that don't, probably should. People grow and change. Sometimes that growth and change brings more intimacy, more love, sometimes that growth and change pulls or drifts people apart. It's just part of life. It's sad, it hurts, but it can bring so much growth and happiness if we allow it. Or, it can turn into bitterness and anger, if we allow it. It's all up to us. Pain is inevitable, Once. It's just part of life. Trying to avoid pain just results in avoiding life.

ETA: On the odds thing, I had a reaction to an anesthetic many years ago....the anesthesiologist was really pissed off because he said that particular reaction happens in less than 1% of cases....I was that less than 1%....what happened with the other 99+% had no bearing on me. That's the point I'm trying to convey. Doesn't matter how it affects every other person, only matters how it affects me. And, I'm the best person to judge that.

 

[Tinwen]

You can't apply odds to opening a relationship, Once. ...

I do mostly agree. Even if you do, compare different scenarios: What are the chances of the person going into the poly relationship (opening up or not) of being happy with, or without?

What are the chances that the person, who comes here with a "I want to be poly" wish for change, that their gonna just swallow up their tendencies and be happy in the current state of their marriage? 10%? 5%? less?

I do acknowledge that there is some "I won the lottery, you can too" effect going on here, if the poster's reasons to open up seems cool. Yet I think people here are generally great in pointing out problems. If someone sais they have a problem with intimacy, people will tell him that poly doesn't work as a fix. If we hear someone talking about their relationships, there is a whole bunch of people, who will jump in and point out any red flaggs to be cautious about, any 'wonky thinking' as Galagirl likes to say So if there are warning signs, we're telling people not to open up. Personally I feel the people here are often very paranoid. Is it enough? I don't know.