Not really a blog

Indeed, so I think the tax rebate thing here is a bit of a red herring. Financial planning needs think broader than any one of these issues. And as for the amount of board she's paying, that's heavily location dependent too, regarding fairness.

Really, I don't think there's enough information provided to really make a call if it's a sweet deal or if, in the medium to long term, someone is going to get utterly screwed over, financially.
 
Someone made reference to the idea that they should be equal. Something like that.

ENM people often talk about how unwise it is to promise that you won't have certain feelings. Namely, that you won't fall in love with an intimate partner. What we don't speak about as much is that we can also make false promises that we will fall in (equal) love with someone else. We do that unless we specify that we can't predict anything.

There might be a clear reason why we can't feel as "strongly" for one person as we can another. In the thread I'm talking about, the person is ace and therefore not up for (much?) sex. So one could say that there is a factor that is likely to be a common obstacle in relationships. It's a reason why someone might feel like they can't feel quite the same as they do in other relationships. Often it's a lot more vague.

You just don't feel that way. You can't change that. I'm not sure you owe it to anyone to try to change that, either.

I think some poly people end up leading a less content life because they chase "fair" to their own detriment. They feel like they can't allow one relationship to grow to where they'd ideally like it to, because it will push put existing connections or at least limit their opportunity to also grow which is somehow unfair.

It actually makes me think of some of the older poly people I know. I say older, I mean 50+. Those with a couple of decades experience with it. Some of them wonder "what if?" they'd been a little less committed to "fair poly" with previous partners. Would they now be in a more established partnership instead of the erring on casual, mid-term solo experiences they have now?

The practicalities of that type of partnership have become more evident as time has gone on. Sure there was a time when they had a network of chosen family in their 30s and 40s who would be there for those emergencies that partners usually cover. But over time, that became more and more "for emergencies" and less and less for lonely evenings. They had their own commitments which essentially revolved around an established partnership. Some of them move away. Some die. You drift apart.

Just writing this reminds me that I have been that person. I've been the person too genuinely busy with my own core relationships (familial and romantic) to really be there for someone who doesn't have that base. I've done my best. I've done shifts with others to give 24/7 support, but more than once in various contexts, we've all been too busy with our "main" life and the ball has ultimately been dropped.

In hindsight, I see the ball was dropped and sometimes the person felt let down by that occurring. Sometimes they were angry. Again, in hindsight, sometimes I see that the person was led to believe it would be different, that they were "equal" in priority and could sometimes be a top priority. Other times, it was a consequence of a life and relationship style that they had chosen. They just didn't quite realise the reality of that choice. If you're never the person to be called during illness, can you expect to call?

I guess what I'm trying to say in this post is that polyamory is great. I'll always be poly. I've just come to realise that it's probably more important to ensure you have partnerships where there is a true grounding of mutual desire and commitment. Shared desire and commitment. Sometimes you can only build one of those without compromising its integrity. Sometimes being in too many (even one) relationships where you'll never achieve that mutuality is wasting your time and distracting you from better situations.

I'm not saying that everyone needs a mononormative strict hierarchy in their polyamorous set up. I do think focusing on establishing long term partnerships (even platonic ones) where you have a mutually desired and shared understanding of your elevated place in each other's support network is vital.

Yeah, in that sense, you kind of do need at least one primary.
 
I'm currently on a train. There is a mother with a young infant (I'd say 4 months absolute maximum). The baby has been crying continually, mouthing, look, the baby is hungry, it's obvious.

She's trying to console a hungry baby with cuddles and songs. The baby is unimpressed to say the least. A woman says "the baby is hungry, feed it". The mother says she is breastfeeding and doesn't feel comfortable doing it in public... yet. She has no formula or expresses milk. The baby is loud.

I haven't been vocal but two other women have said that its unacceptable to go around with no food for the baby and inflict its distress on everyone else in this enclosed space. I haven't disagreed. I have made agreement faces.

Are we all assholes?
 
SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
I'm currently on a train. There is a mother with a young infant (I'd say 4 months absolute maximum). The baby has been crying continually, mouthing, look, the baby is hungry, it's obvious.

She's trying to console a hungry baby with cuddles and songs. The baby is unimpressed to say the least. A woman says "the baby is hungry, feed it". The mother says she is breastfeeding and doesn't feel comfortable doing it in public... yet. She has no formula or expresses milk. The baby is loud.

I haven't been vocal but two other women have said that its unacceptable to go around with no food for the baby and inflict its distress on everyone else in this enclosed space. I haven't disagreed. I have made agreement faces.

Are we all assholes?
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No, you're mammals.

However, the nursing mother has spent her life being trained her breasts are sexual objects meant just for her husband, and it would be rude, obscene and sexually suggestive to bare a breast in public to feel her baby. She may have been raped and told it was her fault for looking too sexual. Etc.

Our culture is fucked up.
 
The woman has my sympathy.

She doesn't want to bare her breasts in public, she feels humiliated.

The baby is hungry, not dying.

Sure sucks to be you passengers, though!!! As someone child-free, the sound of a baby screaming goes right through me, I don't know how parents do it.
 
I mean how long is the train journey? If it’s, idk, under 30 min I don’t think it’s a big deal for the baby to wait; if it was longer than that she needs to feed it and really should have brought a bottle if she wasn’t comfortable with nursing. (Though if it really is THAT small I have more sympathy, I didn’t get used to feeding MiniMe in public til he was 3-4 months either).
 
icesong said:
I mean how long is the train journey? If it’s, idk, under 30 min I don’t think it’s a big deal for the baby to wait; if it was longer than that she needs to feed it and really should have brought a bottle if she wasn’t comfortable with nursing. (Though if it really is THAT small I have more sympathy, I didn’t get used to feeding MiniMe in public til he was 3-4 months either).
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I was off the train before they were. The entire route is about 2hrs.
 
@Magdlyn said something in a recent thread about couples and unicorns etc and it got me thinking about something I haven't quite acknowledged in whole.

You often get a mff triad situation where the women involved are left with an unmet expectation of a 1v1 relationship with at least one half of the established couple.

In the particular situation Mags commented on, it seems like neither women actually have the desire for a 1v1 relationship with each other. They both seem fairly satisfied with threesomes and then solo time with the male partner.

The thing is, I'm not sure that is outside the bounds of polyamory. I'm not sure that each dyad does have to have solo time, therefore I'm not sure that anyone should assume that will or won't be the case. I think it's another thing to discuss and another aspect of compatibility.

It's easy to say that if a couple are not open to solo time with the other party, then they're not really open to polyamory. But does that work in reverse? If the other party only wants to spend time with the couple together, or never have solo time with one half of the couple, does that make that person "not really poly"?

I don't think so. Polyamory specifies love, intimacy, whatever descriptior you want to use, with multiple people who all know and agree to keep seeing you under those conditions. If you can experience love/intimacy/romance without 1v1 time, even if it isn't quite the same as the feelings you have for your spouse, or other partners, then I'd say it counts if you say it does.
 
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SEASONEDpolyAgain said:
@Magdlyn said something in a recent thread about couples and unicorns etc and it got me thinking about something I haven't quite acknowledged in whole.

You often get a mff triad situation where the women involved are left with an unmet expectation of a 1v1 relationship with at least one half of the established couple.

In the particular situation Mags commented on, it seems like neither women actually have the desire for a 1v1 relationship with each other. They both seem fairly satisfied with threesomes and then solo time with the male partner.

The thing is, I'm not sure that is outside the bounds of polyamory. I'm not sure that each dyad does have to have solo time, therefore I'm not sure that anyone should assume that will or won't be the case. I think it's another thing to discuss and another aspect of compatibility.

It's easy to say that if a couple are not open to solo time with the other party, then they're not really open to polyamory. But does that work in reverse? If the other party only wants to spend time with the couple together, or never have solo time with one half of the couple, does that make that person "not really poly"?

I don't think so. Polyamory specifies love, intimacy, whatever descriptior you want to use, with multiple people who all know and agree to keep seeing you under those conditions. If you can experience love/intimacy/romance without 1v1 time, even if it isn't quite the same as the feelings you have for your spouse, or other partners, then I'd say it counts if you say it does.
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Your points here make sense and I agree.

But for the situation you describe, I would suggest the participants think of it as more of a V than a triad. The two arms of the V can each develop separate relationships with the hinge, and if all three occasionally want to have threesomes, perhaps that element can be more secondary to the main dynamic of the V. Like, the label "triad" might not be helping the participants create the dynamic that works best for all of them.

If the OP thinks of the dynamic as a couple dating the other woman in a triad, then she is going to have different expectations for the dynamic.

(Although there were just two different posts here about very similar triad situations, so I'm not sure which one you're referring to specifically, and I might be mixing them up).
 
I agree with @MeeraReed here - the problem isn’t whether or not a not-quite-triad fits into polyamory, it’s whether the people involved are trying to force a relationship where there isn’t one based on thinking that “that’s the only way to do this”.
 
MeeraReed said:
Your points here make sense and I agree.

But for the situation you describe, I would suggest the participants think of it as more of a V than a triad. The two arms of the V can each develop separate relationships with the hinge, and if all three occasionally want to have threesomes, perhaps that element can be more secondary to the main dynamic of the V. Like, the label "triad" might not be helping the participants create the dynamic that works best for all of them.

If the OP thinks of the dynamic as a couple dating the other woman in a triad, then she is going to have different expectations for the dynamic.

(Although there were just two different posts here about very similar triad situations, so I'm not sure which one you're referring to specifically, and I might be mixing them up).
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I added the word "triad" to both posts' titles to let people who might be interested go back and forth and see the similarities and differences.

I am also not sure which one Seasoned is referring to.
 
Someone I know went missing a week ago. Just... didn't come home from a night out. She's actually much closer to Jules but once you meet her, you'd love her too. Anyway, she's dead. She was found dead in unexplained but unsuspicious circumstances, so the police say.

It's difficult because I'm aware of discrimination by police when it comes to violence against queer and particularly trans women. I'm also aware that you don't always know how someone else is feeling. Accidents happen.

Jules is similar. Some people have set ideas about what happened. I just can't be set on it. You never know what's really going on for someone else.
 
Today on Reddit, the members have decided that you cannot be monogamous if you have a poly partner.

I have to wonder why it is so important to them to define the relationships of others. I think if I was only interested in having one intimate partner while my partner was interested in having more, I'd feel monogamous.

Is the relationship polyamorous? I suppose so. It isn't monogamous. But the people involved might be monogamous within a polyamorous relationship.

I think the insistence comes from the idea that poly is good and mono is bad. Therefore, someone who can thrive while their partner has other partners just can't be a "bad" monogamous, they simply must be one of those "good" poly types.

I don't really care if a "mono" in a mono/poly relationship calls themselves poly or mono. I don't think it makes enough discernible difference in terms of indicating how stable they'll be in a relationship where their partner is ENM. I can't see why it is important they identify one way or the other.
 
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