Polypartner status levels and p.f.hell

Juan234

Juan234

Member
When would a married primary have priority or veto power over their spouse’s secondary (metamor) in a “V”? This is a theoretical question. The answers could vary from never, to always, to something else. Nevertheless, its a topic I have seen as tangential discussion. I am creating it here as a new thread. This is because I did not want to hijack other threads, and particularly the thread that sparked my inquiry:

transboyband said:
So i'm dating/fwbs with a lovely lady … and she has a wife … wife gets to veto over her ass?? … does that mean that wife gets a say over who Lacey can fuck when Lacey wants to fuck?
Click to expand...

Woven into this discussion is Poly Fkn Hell (PFH).

In an extreme case, a married couple with kids has a lot responsibilities. It would suck for one of the spouses to go on an exotic tropical vacation with a secondary if the married couple had not done something like this already. In other words, one of the spouses reserves “fun” to be outside the marriage. And the other spouse is always stuck with all the chores. It sounds like a recipe for jealousy of all types. Welcome to PFH! 😘😱

Of course if someone wants to stay home, so be it.

In the swinging world they have a saying that roughly says to only go as fast as the slowest spouse.

I am seeing discussions where full-blooded “Polys” opine that romancing-only secondaries should have no restrictions.

Is there a balance?

It seems Poly requires great scheduling abilities, and a partner that does not provide restrictions?

Thanks for reading!
 
Way back in 2009 when my ex-h and I opened up to poly-dating, he started dating a woman from a hobby group we were involved in who lived 500 miles away. Soon after they started a relationship, he decided he wanted to drive to her very nice city once a month for a long weekend. He did this two or three times before I vetoed things. It's not like he and I never went on long-weekend dates, or child-free weeklong vacations. We'd started doing that once our kids got to the age where we could leave them happily with relatives. But our relatives all lived out of state, so we weren't able to do this often.

My husband wanted me to stay home with the kids and pets while he went to his gf's city, where they took long walks, went sightseeing, had long conversations, lunches and dinners out, browsed bookstores, had uninterrupted sex, etc. And I was left behind, with all the household responsibilities, child and pet care, etc. Trying to poly-date myself was out of the question. I had no extra energy for that.

If we didn't have kids who were school age, it might not have mattered. Could I have hired a sitter and gone out on my own or with friends? Yes, but then those household responsibilities would not have magically gone away. I didn't think it was fair that he was getting a mini-vacation once a month where I was getting getaways maybe 2-3 times a year.

However, when I pulled the plug, he fell out of love with me. Our dates (even just dinner dates) stopped. Our sex life died. Several years went by like this, until our kids got to be older teens, and then I insisted we start to date regularly again. We had a brief renaissance, but it was too little, too late. He no longer loved me. He still only loved the new gf. I was tired of his shenanigans. We separated/divorced.

Nowadays, with no young children to be responsible for, I can go on nice dates or vacations alternately with my two partners. And they can go do what they want with their other partners. It's all fair and balanced. I don't believe vetoes ever really solve anything.
 
Hi Juan234,

Veto power -- or the lack thereof -- varies from one couple/polycule to the next, and is determined by what the participants agree on (consent to). Usually veto power is proscribed in poly (and especially here on Polyamory.com), but that does not stop many couples from granting each other that power. It's kind of like DADT policies. Not generally recommended, but often practiced.

Regards,
Kevin T.
 
Problems with veto power are two:
- not fair to the "third" person
- when going gets tough, it probably won't work
In other words, if you try vetoing your partners' NRE, making them choose, you're almost as likely to be the partner that is dropped as is the other one.

Although you seem to speak more about vetoing particular activities than vetoing the relationship as a whole? Really, I hear two questions: What to do when my partner neglects the family? Can I veto individual activities?

I want to pretext that it's definitely important to consider balance if you want to keep your relationships healthy.

The first question, I think if your partner is neglecting you or home responsibilities, your options are the same limited options as in monogamy. 1. speak up, 2. try to understand each other, 3. make a scene, 4. get outside help, 5. divorce. Roughly, but not necessarily in this order, and maybe I forgot some. Of course, between "make a scene" and "divorce", you could also try whether a veto would work... but if your partner already doesn't consider you, why would you think he would take the veto seriously.

As for the second question, my personal belief is that there should be a "veto" power over the shared home. I don't think anyone is entitled to having their outside partners visit, sleep over or share sex in the marital bed (ugh) if it's not in the comfort zone of the live-in partner.

There should be strong agreements on safe-sex practices and shared finances, but once baseline rules are laid, I think everything else in these areas is trying to micro-manage another people's relationship and falls under the category of "not fair to the new person".
If a spouse has strong feelings about sex... and still wants to be poly... sure, it's possible to give them some time and help to adjust. But they should probably have started working on it before even opening up, and it it's very strong, it does raise the question why they choose poly at all.

Your example of Caribbean vacation, that would indeed not be cool unless the couple has similarly cool plans for this year together :)
But if they have the financial means and are also able to take a vacation together, I don't think that should be vetoed... Although I do feel that the limited 5 weeks of vacation time most people have are one of the sore spots of parallel poly.
 
Juan234 said:
When would a married primary have priority or veto power over their spouse’s secondary (metamor) in a “V”? This is a theoretical question. The answers could vary from never, to always, to something else. Nevertheless, its a topic I have seen as tangential discussion. I am creating it here as a new thread. This is because I did not want to hijack other threads, and particularly the thread that sparked my inquiry:



Woven into this discussion is Poly Fkn Hell (PFH).

In an extreme case, a married couple with kids has a lot responsibilities. It would suck for one of the spouses to go on an exotic tropical vacation with a secondary if the married couple had not done something like this already. In other words, one of the spouses reserves “fun” to be outside the marriage. And the other spouse is always stuck with all the chores. It sounds like a recipe for jealousy of all types. Welcome to PFH! 😘😱

Of course if someone wants to stay home, so be it.

In the swinging world they have a saying that roughly says to only go as fast as the slowest spouse.

I am seeing discussions where full-blooded “Polys” opine that romancing-only secondaries should have no restrictions.

Is there a balance?

It seems Poly requires great scheduling abilities, and a partner that does not provide restrictions?

Thanks for reading!
Click to expand...
The reality is that few people are going to uproot their general stability for a new entity unless they were already quite unhappy. So although some "primary" couples may explicitly say they forbid veto power between them, it's still very unlikely you'll remain in a relationship where your partner's spouse finds you disruptive.

There is definitely a feminist element to this issue. On poly forums, you see women who are seeking to be the "secondary" partner of a married person wanting to ensure they are "treated fairly" by the married men they date. Meanwhile, his female spouse is taking on an even more unbalanced share of the emotional and physical labour at home. These "secondary" partner's have little idea that they are enabling guys in taking advantage of their overworked wives. They're only concerned about being treated fairly themselves.

And then when the married guy has to admit that he's been a shitty husband and that has to be his priority since he has made longstanding commitments, they feel like his spouse has pulled rank. No, his spouse has insisted he be the husband and father he's meant to be instead of someone else's boyfriend.
 
Tinwen said:
Although I do feel that the limited 5 weeks of vacation time most people have are one of the sore spots of parallel poly.
Click to expand...
5 weeks vacation?? I'm in the U.S., I wish we got 5 weeks vacation. Sorry, back to the topic at hand.....
 
LoveBunny said:
5 weeks vacation?? I'm in the U.S., I wish we got 5 weeks vacation. Sorry, back to the topic at hand.....
Click to expand...
LoL, sorry. It's 4 week by law and a fifth week is a common work benefit in... well, I think in most European countries, but I could be totally wrong. What's the US standard?
 
It's 4 weeks here, too. And 10 public holidays. And 10 days paid sick leave p/a.
 
Tinwen said:
Although I do feel that the limited 5 weeks of vacation time most people have are one of the sore spots of parallel poly.
Click to expand...
5 WEEKS!!? 😳

not sure where you live where 5 weeks is what most people have. In the US the average is 2 weeks. And yes, this alone is poly nightmare.
 
Two weeks' vacation is standard in the US. (And that's not even counting all the jobs where there are NO paid vacation days and it's hard to schedule a vacation, like retail work, etc.)

I once had an "excellent" benefited job with 2 weeks of vacation, where after 5 years I earned 3 weeks of vacation, and after 15 years I could have earned 4 weeks but I was laid off at 8 years. Now I work a part-time job with no benefits / no paid vacation days, and actually it's easier to schedule the vacations I want--I can take whatever time off I want, I just don't get paid. I also have freelance income; otherwise it would be unaffordable. I am not planning to go back to full-time work if I can help it.

My dad, as a physician, had 4 weeks of vacation. It was considered a real luxury in the US.
 
Well, uh, I guess yay to social states and to unions fighting for worker rights a hundred years ago... Sorry for derailing the thread.
 
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