Semi-New to Polyamory (MFM cohabitation)

[CandyBunnii]

Hi, my name is CandyBunnii, or CB for short. I'm semi-new to polyamory. I am bisexual and have had three poly relationships since finding out I was poly 3 years ago. I'm currently in a relationship with the love of my life, my fiance... and with fiance's "doppelganger," whom I'll call Allen. The reason I call him a doppelganger is obvious, he's so like my fiance in every way, aside from one or two personality differences, that they could be mistaken for twins!

Anyway, all three of us have been discussing this, and we couldn't come up with an answer. When Fiance and I get married, and have Allen live with us, how do we explain to our families about the living situation? Of course, to his family, Allen will refer to me as his wife or girlfriend, whichever he prefers, and will refer my husband as his best friend. My husband will refer to me as his wife, and Allen as his best friend, and I will refer them both as my husband, depending on who I'm talking to.

But eventually our families will start asking us, "Why don't you dump the best friend (aka tell him to get a place of his own) and move in together as husband and wife?"

This is something we haven't made up our minds about. We all decided to move away from our families and live together in one big house as lovers and best friends, but none of our family members are open-minded about polyamory and they ask too many questions. Plus, there's always the chance that the family members would want us to visit during the holidays or start asking for kids. This is the difficult part. We really don't know what to do in regards to our families, except perhaps changing our names and cutting off ties indefinitely, but we're not willing to do that. (It's too sad.)

Do any of you have suggestions?

 

[GroundedSpirit]

Hi Candy,

It sounds like you have a logical plan, at least for the short term. Longer-term things will evolve as they will.

For those open enough to get their heads around it, bf, gf, etc. are fine. For the conservative, best friends gets it covered.

In the current economy, and for a variety of other reasons, cohousing makes a lot of financial sense for increasing numbers of people. And it helps with balancing time and responsibility challenges.

Just proceed like it's the perfectly normal, rational thing to do, which it is!

GS

 

[saudade]

CB, welcome! I'm in a similar position, the pivot on the vee, with two primary men, and I'm engaged to one of them, too! Lucky us!

I agree with GroundedSpirit that group housing is an easy, straightforward answer, and that acting like you're behaving normally can often be key to having people accept it. In our case, it's been even easier: we co-house with half a dozen people, so we don't need to explain to anyone how many of us are romantically entangled if we don't want to. Instead, we just talk about how cheap our rent is and that we buy groceries communally.

I'm guessing, from the way you describe things, that you can't imagine coming out of the closet to all of your parents. It's worth considering if you haven't thought about it. My vee is lucky enough that we've been able to, and met with largely positive responses from our families. It hasn't all been positive feedback, but I feel like it's been worth it.

Keep sharing on here. I'll see you around! (And feel free to PM me if you want to chat about anything at all.)

 

[classycaveman]

Eventually I hope to be in a situation where this is a problem for me. I come from a strict Christian background. Divorcing my wife was a big deal, and I recently came out as an atheist to my immediate family. (Extended is another story. I don't see them much so don't see the need to tell them anything.)

I've been living with my parents for the last few months and one day they found out that I'd stayed the previous night at a woman's place, a woman I wasn't really in a relationship with. I confirmed that I'd had sex with her. My parents responded that this was something that we would need to discuss. Ludicrous! I'm 30!

Anyway, what I ended up doing was saying, in an email to my dad, that since we had different value systems, we could go one of two ways: either openness without judgement, or don't ask, don't tell. He never mentioned it again.

It's unfortunate, because I really value open honest relationships, but sometimes all you can do is agree not to talk about it.

Good luck with whatever you eventually end up doing.