Not really a blog

JaneQSmythe said:
My first bit of advice - tread very carefully here!

In my line of work confidentiality breaches are taken very, very seriously. (As in instant termination and loss of professional licensing! In addition to multi-million dollar lawsuits and potentially federal investigation if the employer was found to be lax about enforcing regulations.)

That being said, not infrequently I find myself in situations similar to what you describe (with the caveat that my colleagues and I cross-cover so it is conceivable that the conversation could have happened under a "need-to-know" basis).

So, you can't tell the potential victim that you saw the potential abuser at work. If you meet the potential abuser socially you cannot publicly acknowledge that you have seen them at work (unless they acknowledge that publicly first). Now, they may very well assume that you have spoken to your friend (people often assume that other people would do what they would do) and may accidentally out themselves asking their partner what you have told them. If you see them again at work, they will "know that you know" that they work with someone there - and, again, may out themselves by their reaction. (You can acknowledge that you recognize them the next time you see them at work because you have met them socially - because there is no "expectation of privacy" relating to a social situation.)

As far as your friend goes - you can watch very carefully for "red flags" that your friend tells you (i.e. things that you learn outside of the info from your colleague) and voice your concerns with regard to those behaviors. "You say that he always wants to know exactly where you are and who you are with so that he knows that you are 'safe'. I have to tell you that I find that more concerning than thoughtful - as I often hear of such behavior as part of a pattern of control as opposed to a genuine concern for a partner's wellbeing."

You can provide relevant "general advise" without disclosing what you know about the partner as an individual. For instance, it is always a good idea for a person to have access to money and their private papers that a partner does not have access to "just in case". You can express concern about introducing children/dependents to new dating partners "too quickly", etc. (Are you a mandated reporter? Because that can come into play if you learn of any abuse of minors/dependents even if you don't learn of the abuse through work.)

My friends and family are well aware of what I do and that there is some overlap in my social and professional circles. Occasionally, I will get asked if I "know" something - my response is always "You know that I couldn't tell you even if I did." (Whether I do or not.)

(NOTE: you could also have done all of this withOUT confirming with your colleague and therefore creating a confidentiality breach)
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The way the potential abuser has been recognized is through a FB profile. So at this time, the abuser likely does not know that their date's friend is somewhat known to them.

I think we will all be giving general advice as you stated. I just hope that we aren't too much with it: "WHAT?! HE ASKED YOU THE TIME?! WHAT TYPE OF ANIMAL IS HE?!"
 
We all know the issues that the US has with profit based healthcare but there are, or were, a lot of affordable and accessible family planning services. The UK has always been different in that family planning services are totally free so you can theoretically access clinics which you can get contraceptives, access to terminations all for free. This is a weird way to start this post but bear with me.

There was a time when as much as I'd argue about social inequality, I didnt really understand why the UK had such high rates of unplanned pregnancy amongst all age groups. This includes pregnancies that go full term to those that are terminated because they are unplanned and unwanted. I didn't get why someone could have four children they didn't ever want when they could have stopped themselves becoming a parent (again) at any point for free. I was relatively old when I met Titi and she explained to me exactly how privilege works to increase your access to choice. Choice and access to choice are 2 different things. We all theoretically have the same choices when we discover we are pregnant but we do not all have the same access to those choices.

This wasnt actually how we got talking about this. It was actually because me and Titi were helping her friend who was in an abusive relationship but felt she had to stay. She felt pressured by services to report the abuse and cut contact with the person but she had personal reasons as to why she could not. Cultural reasons. One being her obligation and desire to care for his mother. The only healthy mother-child relationship she had. She also didn't want to lose the money he provided which allowed her to study and eventually gain financial independence which he would if she reported him and he lost his job as a result. Which he would have done. I couldn't initially understand why she didn't take the opportunities given to her to LEAVE and why we were actually helping her stay with him. Just realizing that the likelihood of her son going to jail or dying from violent crime rose if his father went to jail was enough for me to understand that choices aren't what they seem.

Other things include cultural values. Someone who has been raised to believe that abortion is a sin and murder doesnt have the same ability to access termination as someone who has been raised to value bodily autonomy. Someone who has been raised to believe that only a useless woman leaves her husband or is left by her husband doesn't have the same ability to access support services as someone who hasn't been raised with that belief.

How does this relate to poly? Well, it's the same when people speak about how someone just has the choice to express their feelings honestly. So they make an agreement which essentially privileges the "primary" partner that they later regret and then they break the agreement instead of "coming clean". We can say they just had the choice to express that they wanted more freedom but really, do they? I mean yes, the battered woman or the pregnant person, they do, theoretically, in most developed countries, have the facilities to go to a refuge or prevent pregnancy, diagnose pregnancy early, and/or access a timely and safe termination. Equally, a poly person can theoretically approach their "primary" and say these rules aren't working for me and we'll have to relax them for me to both be content in our relationship and content in my freedom to experience intimacy with other people. But each person is influenced by mononormativity to varying degrees, and that makes access to that choice inconsistent.

I'm a middle aged, well established poly person. I have no dependents, and I am fully independent. Any entanglement I have with others, I choose and I could easily choose to disentangle without fear of losing my quality of life or relationships with my family and friends. I have healthy relationships and I am not in fear of abuse by anyone close to me at this time. There is no excuse for me, really, to fear honesty with a partner. If me and Jules agree to a rule and it doesn't work for me, I have no reason to believe that Jules would hurt me nor can she significantly influence my quality of life by breaking up with me. I have no reason to believe she would take a break up so badly that she would start unhealthy behavior I haven't witnessed so far. Furthermore, I'm strong enough in my poly identity and in polyamory from a philosophical perspective that even if she tried to invalidate the way that I love and value love because I want something different to her, it wouldn't work.

But I haven't always been that way. There was a time when I was less sure that I wasnt just selfish or that I didn't owe "more" to a partner I wanted to be with long term or live with. I wasn't obliged to give them a presence in my other relationships just because we wanted some aspects of a traditional relationship escalator. Even now, people so lazily use "exclusive/monogamous" and "serious/committed" as synonyms. It is hard for that not to leak into poly culture in some respect. That's why solo poly people often get a raw deal. They're seen as people who do not want the "burden" of a relationship so why should they get a share of the perks such as having their expectations met consistently by those who choose to be part of their lives?

So there is all this subconscious pressure going on to conform to these societal expectations and be a good person who values their partner properly and that might be reinforced by a partner who is visibly distraught or angry any time you express a need or desire that might violate this unwritten rule. Especially if somewhere they really believe that someone who values them would sacrifice what they might want with other people to preserve what they already have. That brings a sense of entitlement which feels so convincing.

Conformity is a powerful tool. You can convince people to say things they do not believe just by getting a few other people to say the wrong answer. And read, that's not you convincing them that the answer is right, just that they should say the wrong answer because they do not want to deal with confrontation or wrath or embarrassment. People want to fit in and they want to be liked. That's why they hide how they really feel.

We are humans and the best way to not be continually shocked and hurt by humans is to accept the limitations of humanity. Humans will lie to be liked or accepted, if you make them feel as if a certain answer will cause rejection, anger, punishment or revenge, they will be more likely to lie. OF COURSE one has to acknowledge the fact that telling a partner something that means your relationship is significantly changed or no longer viable will cause negative emotion but there are boundaries. Once you start on the tip where you make out they're a horrible person for wanting something that upsets you, you've started with the coercion and that ups the chances of them telling you what you want to hear.

I remember a childhood friend who would literally scream, cry and blackmail her way into consent from her parents and then speak about it as if their agreement was completely voluntary. I distinctly remember one occasion where there was a concert about an hour drive away finishing late at night and she bragged to those who were not allowed to attend that her parents trusted her. In fact she had threatened to run away and harm herself for them to agree.

This whole post is a long winded way to bring up the concept of free will. I don't believe in it. We have will, for sure. But it certainly isn't free.
 
The thing is, until someone is ready to see their own destructive habits and behaviors, no amount of explaining, pleading, or criticizing is going to change them. It's much easier to choose vulnerable partners and manipulate situations and others than it is to look honestly at ourselves and do the personal work needed to change. Not proud to say I've BTDT. We don't usually recognize how manipulative we are until we're committed to change. Even after years of therapy and work, I sometimes catch myself reverting to my old behaviors. Thankfully, now I have the awareness to recognize my behavior and the tools to change it.

My personal opinion is that most people prefer to stay in denial and will gladly choose others who feel the same. When it doesn't work out, they'll both play the victim card and move on to the next messy person. Their life. Their prerogative.

Plus there's that whole "blogs are for personal reflection, not others' opinions" thing.
 
I think there are a lot of people out there who are drawn to controlling partners who can direct their lives for them. I don't think it's always abuse, and I'm frankly puzzled why you think this case warrants the term "abuse." You are often extremely reluctant to label a relationship or person abusive--to me, the Franklin Veaux stuff was much more clearly "abuse" than this. It seems strange that you are so focused on this.
 
PinkPig said:
The thing is, until someone is ready to see their own destructive habits and behaviors, no amount of explaining, pleading, or criticizing is going to change them. It's much easier to choose vulnerable partners and manipulate situations and others than it is to look honestly at ourselves and do the personal work needed to change. Not proud to say I've BTDT. We don't usually recognize how manipulative we are until we're committed to change. Even after years of therapy and work, I sometimes catch myself reverting to my old behaviors. Thankfully, now I have the awareness to recognize my behavior and the tools to change it.

My personal opinion is that most people prefer to stay in denial and will gladly choose others who feel the same. When it doesn't work out, they'll both play the victim card and move on to the next messy person. Their life. Their prerogative.

Plus there's that whole "blogs are for personal reflection, not others' opinions" thing.
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I came back to answer these posts.

I think it would very much help if people were honest about what they see instead of interacting with her as if they think her relationships and general stance is normal and ok. Because I am the only one who says anything to her face, she thinks that everyone else sees her relationships and actions as healthy and normal and I have some sort of personal vendetta against her rather than abusers themselves.

The fact that you talk about "vulnerable" people being manipulated and you talk about the pattern of latching onto such people, playing victim and moving on to the next target yet you've never pointed this out to her is what I'm talking about.

I just dont want to be on a site where abuse is encouraged because everyone is too scared to make the abuser cry.
 
MeeraReed said:
I think there are a lot of people out there who are drawn to controlling partners who can direct their lives for them. I don't think it's always abuse, and I'm frankly puzzled why you think this case warrants the term "abuse." You are often extremely reluctant to label a relationship or person abusive--to me, the Franklin Veaux stuff was much more clearly "abuse" than this. It seems strange that you are so focused on this.
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If anything, the people involved in FV were mutually abusive. It was a bunch of people with pretty much the same agenda who realized that they're all as shitty as each other. But as usual, the women came off worse which is the crappy way of the world.

With Bluebird, she finds emotionally vulnerable middle aged men, arguably the prime age group of suicide, and then she manipulates them into trying to patch up her soul often to their detriment. That's what makes it one way abuse. And the pattern of it where you can see the same thing, with the same type of guys, for years, over and over and over, it's just too much for me. Maybe I'm too sensitive for these places. Either way I cannot stand by and watch abuse. One of these poor men will end up doing something extreme once she gets her claws in and starts isolating them etc. I just can't stand by and watch that and pretend it's just giggles.
 
We made it through the pandemic.

Our set up is still the same.

I took a chance, not so long ago. I met someone, a poly someone, and I ignored some red flags. They have a spouse like partner who has a boyfriend and dates other people. I noticed straight away that my prospective interest seems to have to "check in" and "go slower" than their partner.

We discussed it and I suppose they convinced me that it is okay if they have to take slightly different approaches. They assured me that their lack of relationships was more about their approach to relationships than anything else. If they were just into more people, then they'd have had more experience.

I believed them. I was silly to believe it. Within a few weeks, I was having to read and respond to long messages from my "metamour" about their nerves and needs. My prospective partner was so stressed from being interrogated and pushed into giving clarity nobody had the space to develop as of yet.

Needless to say, they sucked all the joy out of anything we shared. And I suppose we let them.

Good news though, that potential metamour has met a new person that they've seen three times now. They're ready for the next stage.
 
You get these people who are poly for the wrong reasons. They just want the love and attention of multiple people because of something they lack within.

We know the ones who have harems and instill OPPs. They're usually cis males with cis female partners. Although the goal might be to have younger, conventionally attractive partners, the reality is that more often those partners will be people who aren't conventionally attractive. Or at least they'll never see themselves that way. They'll have low self-esteem (often exceraberated by this harem leader) and feel like they're lucky someone wants them at all.

It's not only cis males that use these tactics, though. There are also different ways of furtively creating and sustaining the harem mono/poly situation. You can constantly poke and prod their other relationships by insisting on rules and regulations that just make it impossible to date anyone else. You can couple this with the insistence that "they just can't do this right". They're always doing things that are selfish or hurtful or just bad poly. They internalize that feeling and then dating other people just seems burdensome and even disrespectful - "I'm not a good enough person to do this right".

Let's say I have a rule with my spouse that he must fill up the car after they use it. I then create a situation where the only time he has to date is also a time when it will be hardest for him to also get gas. I use this complication to show that he can't keep to simple agreements. I get up at 5am after he has a date to check the gas situation and point out again that he has failed to live up to the conditions he has set. He's a bad poly player and lacks the skills to have multiple relationships. Eventually, he will stop trying.

Now I seek people as partners and metamours who have already demonstrated that they aren't this way inclined. One of my friend's partners isn't into kink - in fact, it repulses her. If she was one of these problematic players, she would purposefully find herself in positions where she is exposed to her partner and their kink dynamics with others. Instead, she steps around it. She wouldn't step into the room where her partner "plays" with partners until the room had clearly been refreshed and was back to its original use.

Her partner (my friend) demonstrates the room is back to general use by opening the door and windows after thoroughly cleaning the room. Now nobody needs to trigger or upset themselves by seeing anything they don't want to see.

I think to be like that, you have to genuinely want your partners to be poly, assuming that's who they are. You don't want to put yourself in positions where you'd feel threatened by their other relationships. You'd be careful about respecting their private space and you'd compartmentalize as much as necessary to allow them the freedom to have fulfilling relationships with other people.

You'd not want to make them associate time with other people as a chore. You'd not want to make it so a date is going to cost so many spoons they may as well just not go. You'd not purposely seek out ways to feel affronted or attacked by their choice to spend time with someone other than you.

look for those signs:

  • Problematic person has no metamours or no long term metamours
  • Problematic person finds its difficult to accept personal space or respect boundaries
  • PP has the need to physically mark territory and reclaim space with partners after their dates with others
  • Constantly picks apart how a partner/metamour relationship has violated vague rules/boundaries of their relationship
  • Often assumes or dominates an organizer/leader type role to counteract accusations of intrusiveness ("it's my job to manage everyone's bank accounts in the polycule/clean the bedrooms/get them up for work")
  • Always betrayed/abandoned/ran out on by disloyal or dishonest people. The reality is that people often find themselves sucked in, trapped and then are left with no option but to flee abruptly once they realize their situation and their desperation to get out of it asap.
 
Sometimes your boundaries are simply unacceptable.

I think people get used to using a word and then assume it purges any level of inappropriateness from the situation. Like if I call it "love", it doesn't matter if I continue this violence against my partner. It's just the way that I love them.

One of those words is "boundaries". People think that if they express a desire as a boundary, then it must be appeased. We have this whole phrase ready to go "you're violating my boundaries".

We have this way we say we distinguish between boundaries and rules - rules are what you apply to other people and boundaries are what you put on yourself. People often suggest any difference is semantical. Your boundaries become rules for your partner in a relationship. I agree. That's why they can be unacceptable.

I could have a "boundary" that before anyone gets to socialise in my home for extended periods, I have to meet them three times outside of my home. Now imagine I have a nesting partner and we are supposed to both have the option to be poly. There are 3 ways I could proceed:

1) I accept that my nesting partner is an autonomous adult and I've chosen to live with them. I do not bring up any expectation of them doing things the way I choose to. ✅️

2) I expect my partner to meet people three times before they come to the home.❌️

3) I expect to meet anyone (including metamours) three times before they come to the home.❌️

IMO, you can't nest with someone and expect them to mind this boundary of yours. It's your expectation that is unacceptable. Someone agreeing to it doesn't mean it's ethically sound, it just means you met someone who, usually through fragility and flaws, has accepted your bullshit.

When you see a man who swears this "sister wife" thing works just fine, but all of his seven "girlfriends" are under 21 with high education at best, you know that it isn't really proof of the success of his relationship style. It's just that he's found seven vulnerable young people to coerce.

The same goes for needs. It's not okay to "need" some things from people. It's not okay to display certain levels of emotional co-dependency that are cloying and restrictive to those you depend on. If I feel terminally miserable every time my needs aren't met through the attention of others, I need therapy, not partners.

I think any of us can go out and find partners so psychologically damaged that they believe our toxic demands on them are acceptable. Especially people at points of particular turmoil in their life. We can get them while they are vulnerable and turn their life into what we want it to be before they even have a chance to look up and see what's going on.

The tougher thing to do is work in yourself so you're not using people as that emotional crutch. Polyamory isn't just a way for you to fix all the holes in your psyche. It stops being a way you try and replace the love you should have got as a child.

Then polyamory can actually be healthy. It's not you trying to compensate for all you think you missed and deserve. It's you trying to relate to others in a way that is genuinely loving and fair.
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
The same goes for needs. It's not okay to "need" some things from people. It's not okay to display certain levels of emotional co-dependency that are cloying and restrictive to those you depend on. If I feel terminally miserable every time my needs aren't met through the attention of others, I need therapy, not partners.

I think any of us can go out and find partners so psychologically damaged that they believe our toxic demands on them are acceptable. Especially people at points of particular turmoil in their life. We can get them while they are vulnerable and turn their life into what we want it to be before they even have a chance to look up and see what's going on.

The tougher thing to do is work in yourself so you're not using people as that emotional crutch. Polyamory isn't just a way for you to fix all the holes in your psyche. It stops being a way you try and replace the love you should have got as a child.
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I think this is very common in monogamy as well as polyamory. In fact, with monogamy, that kind of emotional-crutch relationship can be considered normal!

Restricting a monogamous partner's time with their friends, forbidding friendships with exes, expecting the partner to meet all your needs and spend every minute with you and shape their entire life around you--I mean that is just kind of what a traditional relationship is "supposed" to look like, right?

I have certainly seen plenty of monogamous people in a vulnerable spot get sort of "swooped by" by a new (monogamous) partner who seems to turn their life around, and also then controls every aspect of their life.

Do you feel like this phenomenon works differently for monogamous people than for poly people?

I think the only difference is that poly people will do it to more than one person at the same time and sort of end up "collecting" partners whose life revolves around them. It can seem remarkable that a person will need SO MANY partners with the same psychological pattern to the relationship (whereas if they were monogamous they'd have only one). And maybe, there is more of a tendency to judge this situation in polyamory from the point of view of poly being a freedom-based/autonomy-based relationship model, whereas in monogamy it's "normal" for your partner's life to revolve around you.

But I think the basic psychology is the same, whether poly or mono. Some people are controlling and are able to find partners who are looking to be controlled.
 
MeeraReed said:
I think this is very common in monogamy as well as polyamory. In fact, with monogamy, that kind of emotional-crutch relationship can be considered normal!

Restricting a monogamous partner's time with their friends, forbidding friendships with exes, expecting the partner to meet all your needs and spend every minute with you and shape their entire life around you--I mean that is just kind of what a traditional relationship is "supposed" to look like, right?

I have certainly seen plenty of monogamous people in a vulnerable spot get sort of "swooped by" by a new (monogamous) partner who seems to turn their life around, and also then controls every aspect of their life.

Do you feel like this phenomenon works differently for monogamous people than for poly people?
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No and I agree with you. But it isn't like I am an ardent fan of monogamy. I suppose with monogamy, I think there is an inevitability that the relationship will serve in the way that you say, even if the people involved don't intend it to be that way. I suppose I think they're too far gone in a sense. The monogamous, I mean.
MeeraReed said:
I think the only difference is that poly people will do it to more than one person at the same time and sort of end up "collecting" partners whose life revolves around them. It can seem remarkable that a person will need SO MANY partners with the same psychological pattern to the relationship (whereas if they were monogamous they'd have only one). And maybe, there is more of a tendency to judge this situation in polyamory from the point of view of poly being a freedom-based/autonomy-based relationship model, whereas in monogamy it's "normal" for your partner's life to revolve around you.
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I think there's a simple reason for this. It's easier to see in the typical male led harem. In a monogamous relationship, the parties involved have a kind of symbiotic relationship where each party gets to "use" the other in different but basically mutually beneficial ways. They're as bad as each other.

In a harem, we know that other things get involved which mean that one party (the man) is advantaged over many others (the women). The women will rarely be equally advantaged (couple's privilege etc). It's not just two people mutually hurting each other - there are more casualties.

Even if we take an abusive monogamous relationship where there is one person advantaged and one person disadvantaged, there are still fewer victims. So even when we remove all emotion and just compare how many people (could) get hurt, polyamory still seems worse from that perspective.

Then you add those human elements I mentioned earlier. The experience many of us have with harems is that the women involved start out with vulnerabilities. Being new to poly and/or kink, being young, past trauma etc. So we always have in the back of our minds that the person who has said yes to this is more likely to do so from a place of negativity than someone who seems to prioritise autonomy and equality within their personal relationships

So that's why a polyamorous partner collecting partners will garner more judgement than a monogamous person leeching on one. Whatever way you look at it, they are an increased risk of creating harm within a relationship


MeeraReed said:
But I think the basic psychology is the same, whether poly or mono. Some people are controlling and are able to find partners who are looking to be controlled.
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Yes..I think people specifically seeking monogamy are saying "I'm up for consensual mutual control of each other" so I think it's quite an ethical model from that sense.
 
Sexual incompatibility is rarely a good reason to open a relationship. In my experience, a relationship is sexually unfulfilling for one of two reasons -

1) The people have different sexual needs (this could be likes/dislikes/kinks/libido)

2) (At least) One person doesn't want to have sex with the other.

If number 1 is so much of a problem that you're thinking of shifting your entire relationship, it probably means you're just generally incompatible. Opening the relationship won't solve that.

Number 2 is more complex. You'll see that many of us immediately ask a cis man wanting to open the relationship for more sex if he is helping to sustain a healthy relationship at home by contributing to the household in a range of ways, if he is trying to sustain his appearance and hygiene, if he is skilled in bed.

We don't always ask a cis woman those same questions. We assume that she, the female nurturer and servant (tongue-in-cheek), is a loving, warm, sexually skilled being who would never compromise the mental health of her loved ones until their sex drive diminished by their low mood.

A lot of the time, men who are substandard or even abusive partners won't even know that there is a sexual issue in their relationship. Why? Because their partners often don't need to be aroused for intercourse to occur. Or rather, for penetration to occur.

People with male partners often find that they feel a pressure to please their male partner. I'm keeping this gender neutral because you find this sort of heteronormativity in gay relationships too. Those where hegemonic masculinity is a prevailing trait of the dynamic.

So these cis men often have no idea that the sex they have with their partners isn't mutually desired or enjoyed and is therefore coerced. In the worst case scenarios, it's forced.

Cis men do need an erection to penetrate. That often can't be mustered when someone is suffering from low mood. Even with medical aids like viagra. That's not how it works for them.

Sure they can do other things to their partners, like give oral sex, but many people with male partners are focused on their penile arousal. They'd view it as rejection if their partner was rarely turned on by going down on them, for example. And my experience with cis men tells me that they can be lackluster with their efforts if they aren't aroused when doing these activities. They don't need an erection, but their mind needs to be into it.

Personally, I'd prefer they didn't bother if it is just a dutiful offering. And I think many people with male partners would say the same. That's why when low mood in a cis male is what makes a relationship sexless, it really is sexless. Everyone will know it.

What happens then depends on the people involved. Some weaponise low libido as part of their wider campaign of abuse against the leas desiring partner. That's few though. Few people are that malicious.

Many more will mistake the low mood for a sexual incompatibility and wander into dead bedrooms or an asexuality website. Some come here and use it as a motivation to open their relationship.
 
Is it permissible for me to ask questions to get more clarification on some of your assertions/opinions? Or would you like to leave this post as a stand-alone thing? Or could we cut and paste it into another section of the board, to be open to discussion?
 
Some of the issues raised in the last few posts is why I would be more interested in joining 1 like minded individual to possibly find a third. In my experience, joining an established couple has worked out horribly in the past. Maybe it has worked for others but in my experience it has not. I'm more concerned about everyone getting along and ultimately choosing each other instead of a pressure to open relationships.

So, I basically stopped dating 5-6 years ago because I got really tired of dealing with marriage crazy men. But at one point I thought I would open myself up to a man in an open marriage. My god did that go sideways fast. So, I met a really nice man who had been with his wife since they were both 16 and now they were in their early 40s. The wife suggested opening the marriage since they really never had that "fun 20s" because of having kids very early. She had two boyfriends straight out the gate while he was slow to find someone. Him and I clicked and really enjoyed chatting and what not. I met his wife and got the blessing to see him. However, after we had sex once she lost her mind over it. But at the same time she wasn't giving up her two boyfriends. Basically, she didn't want to share... have her cake and eat it too. In the end she won and I just backed off. I don't know exactly what her thinking was that it was only okay for her to be open but not her husband. Not only is that selfish but also inflicting a special kind of suffering on others. I can't say she had a personality disorder or anything of the sort because I didn't spend a lot of time with her. However, I do have a knack for attracting narcissists because my mother was one. I've only experienced jealousy with these people because the universe revolves around them. I'm sure they find open relationships to be fine if they only revolve around them. It's much like in families... everyone is expected to bow to the narcissist and if you don't you turn into their victim. Are all open marriages/relationships based on this dichotomy?? No, I don't think so but there may be an element of it in play. However, I've met a lot of happy swinger couples. In my opinion... it has to be a mutual agreement or something the other person was already into. Much like I have a preference for men who crossdress... I'm not going to force someone into crossdressing just because I like it. That's unfair and only leads to everyone being miserable. I think mutualism and communication are key to any of these situations. Unfortunately, I think people also mistake the key to fixing an unhappy relationship is to open it up. People have a really hard time letting go of broken things out of pride.
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
I think there's a simple reason for this. It's easier to see in the typical male led harem. In a monogamous relationship, the parties involved have a kind of symbiotic relationship where each party gets to "use" the other in different but basically mutually beneficial ways. They're as bad as each other.

In a harem, we know that other things get involved which mean that one party (the man) is advantaged over many others (the women). The women will rarely be equally advantaged (couple's privilege etc). It's not just two people mutually hurting each other - there are more casualties.

Even if we take an abusive monogamous relationship where there is one person advantaged and one person disadvantaged, there are still fewer victims. So even when we remove all emotion and just compare how many people (could) get hurt, polyamory still seems worse from that perspective.
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Ah, I see, you are thinking of specifically abusive relationships, where more harm is done in poly vs mono abuse because more people are harmed.

I was thinking of relationships that are not abusive but one partner is more demanding, more "in charge," needier, etc., and they date people who seem happy to play a supporting role in their life and who shape their own lives around the demanding partner.

My (very monogamous) brother and his wife are like this. His wife controls their schedule, their finances, their vacation plans, picks/approves their friends & hobbies, where they live, etc. She sure isn't my cup of tea, but my brother is happy "not having to think about that stuff" (his own words). He has always been passive and conflict-avoidant, but he does truly seem happy. His wedding vows even said that he "just wants to spend his life making her happy." They've been together 18 years. My brother is truly content and there is nothing that I could say is abusive, although the way they live their lives, and my brother's choice to give up his autonomy, makes me want to run screaming. In my opinion, he has to spend a lot of time tending to his wife's emotional needs and catering to her opinions (plus doing all the childcare), but their relationship seems to work for them.

With a poly version of that dynamic, the demanding partner has multiple partners with passive/subservient tendencies who seem to exist to meet the demanding one's needs. They usually claims that acts of service are their love language and they seem to like having someone tell them what to do (not necessarily as a kink dynamic, just in general).

I don't think that dynamic is always abusive, although it definitely can be. Especially if the "subservient" partners are vulnerable, young, lacking adulting skills, psychologically troubled, etc.

The weird thing (to me, from what I've observed) about this dynamic in poly is that while the demanding partner is allowed/able to have multiple non-hierarchal partners, the "subservient" partners themselves don't really seem to have other serious partners. Like, maybe the demanding partner puts too many rules & restrictions on the metamours so it never seems to work out. Or they are so busy helping assist with the demanding one's life that they effectively don't have time to date others.

But, when I have observed this, the non-demanding partners were happy with the arrangement and had no objections. They did not necessarily want to have other serious partners themselves other than their main love, whom they adored.

It's not for me, but I think many people just have a personality where they'd rather someone else be in charge. They are happiest when supporting someone else to shine.

That type of person can certainly be exploited for abuse, though.
 
MeeraReed said:
Especially if the "subservient" partners are vulnerable, young, lacking adulting skills, psychologically troubled, etc.
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Yes and more often than that, in a harem, the "subservient" partners do meet that description.
MeeraReed said:
But, when I have observed this, the non-demanding partners were happy with the arrangement and had no objections. They did not necessarily want to have other serious partners themselves other than their main love, whom they adored.
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Yes, they do say that. But what you've also got to consider is that these are often less powerful for the reasons you listed before (younger, etc). Attempts to date other people have already been shut down through gaslighting or just directly vetoed. The mix of their past and their present situations means they have low self esteem so they actually don't even believe they deserve the demander, leave alone additional partners.

Like if I meet a woman who is depressed most of the time, has low energy, no sex drive, is physically unhealthy and believes she is scum, then she's not going to be feeling like she's attractive enough for more partners. She's going to feel lucky to have me. I can use that to keep her monogamous to me.
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
Sexual incompatibility is rarely a good reason to open a relationship. In my experience, a relationship is sexually unfulfilling for one of two reasons -
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OK. Thanks for being open to discussion.

I super agree with what you're saying about a hypothetical demanding high-maintenance person having a harem of several people with low self esteem, depression, who are overweight or otherwise physically unhealthy, and how the "demanding" partner can rather easily keep their harem or stable of partners in line and not daring to get other partners of their own.

However, I have a bit of a different opinion about mismatched libidos not being a good reason to open a relationship.

IF a relationship is otherwise excellent, but the libidos differ, I think this could be a good reason to open, whether for full-on polyamory, if desired, or just for a physical relationship, FWBs at most.
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
1) The people have different sexual needs (this could be likes/dislikes/kinks/libido)
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Yes, some people realize when they've been in a relationship for a while, after NRE has passed, they are actually asexual, or greysexual, at best. They might love their partner very much, but just not be interested in sex. This could be an innate trait of theirs, or could happen with menopause, andropause, or medications.
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
2) (At least) One person doesn't want to have sex with the other.

If number 1 is so much of a problem that you're thinking of shifting your entire relationship, it probably means you're just generally incompatible. Opening the relationship won't solve that.
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I respectfully disagree. Sex IS just part of a loving relationship. For some, it is extremely important. For others, they can take it or leave it, and they'd really rather leave it. And some find sex repugnant.

Mother Nature is clever. All she cares about is NRE fueling frequent sex, making conception more likely. I think that NRE can fool asexual or greys into having sex for a while, but then losing interest. This is extremely disappointing for their partner with a more average or actually high libido.

In my own personal experience, I have had both high and low libidos, while in serious relationships, for various reasons.

During my marriage, I had low libido when my kids were small. I think this is nature's way. Breastfeeding changes your hormones and sometimes reduces libido. Pure exhaustion from the expending energy on the small ones on very little sleep also has a devastating effect.

I did have relationship issues with my ex husband, and just a lack of experience myself leading to a fear of enough open communication, which also took a toll on our sex life, even before we had kids. However, I loved him and he loved me and neither of us wanted to break up, nor did we cheat. He resented my low interest, but he was patient most of the time. We went to counseling.

Once menopause hit me, my libido skyrocketed, and despite ongoing relationship issues, our sex life increased to where we were having sex every day. This lasted for years, even as we did marriage counseling and ultimately broke up.

Now, with my current nesting partner Pixi, her sex drive was pretty high the first year of our relationship. And she told me how it was even higher when she was younger. But she suffered from chronic anxiety and ended up going through a hunt for the right anti-depressants. One of them reduces sex drive. Other meds she takes also reduce her drive. Most of the time, she'd rather think about sex than actually do it. This is frustrating for me. But we are crazy about each other. Luckily we are polyamorous and I can get sexual satisfaction from others (and love, as well). Pixi's bf's sex drive is on the low side, it seems, too, so there isn't a mismatch.
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
Number 2 is more complex. You'll see that many of us immediately ask a cis man wanting to open the relationship for more sex if he is helping to sustain a healthy relationship at home by contributing to the household in a range of ways, if he is trying to sustain his appearance and hygiene, if he is skilled in bed.

We don't always ask a cis woman those same questions. We assume that she, the female nurturer and servant (tongue-in-cheek), is a loving, warm, sexually skilled being who would never compromise the mental health of her loved ones until their sex drive diminished by their low mood.

A lot of the time, men who are substandard or even abusive partners won't even know that there is a sexual issue in their relationship. Why? Because their partners often don't need to be aroused for intercourse to occur. Or rather, for penetration to occur.

People with male partners often find that they feel a pressure to please their male partner. I'm keeping this gender neutral because you find this sort of heteronormativity in gay relationships too. Those where hegemonic masculinity is a prevailing trait of the dynamic.

So these cis men often have no idea that the sex they have with their partners isn't mutually desired or enjoyed and is therefore coerced. In the worst case scenarios, it's forced.
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I don't have much to say about this except that it is a shameful product of the patriarchy.
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
Cis men do need an erection to penetrate. That often can't be mustered when someone is suffering from low mood, even with medical aids like Viagra. That's not how it works for them.

Sure they can do other things to their partners, like give oral sex, but many people with male partners are focused on their penile arousal. They'd view it as rejection if their partner was rarely turned on by going down on them, for example. And my experience with cis men tells me that they can be lackluster with their efforts if they aren't aroused when doing these activities. They don't need an erection, but their mind needs to be into it.
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And of course, an aroused woman will give better oral than a woman who isn't particularly into it. Unless, that is, she's getting a monetary reward.
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
Personally, I'd prefer they didn't bother if it is just a dutiful offering. And I think many people with male partners would say the same. That's why when low mood in a cis male is what makes a relationship sexless, it really is sexless. Everyone will know it.

What happens then depends on the people involved. Some weaponise low libido as part of their wider campaign of abuse against the leas desiring partner. That's few though. Few people are that malicious.

Many more will mistake the low mood for a sexual incompatibility and wander into dead bedrooms or an asexuality website. Some come here and use it as a motivation to open their relationship.
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