Would you be open to a non-monogamous relationship?

Wow..judgmental much? I respect your opinion of not wanting such a relationship, but to call people who are in them "animals"... makes me glad you aren't my friend. I choose to be friends with people who don't judge and hate other peoples completely legal (and natural) life styles.

 

I don't think I could, I feel like it would be unfair to the people involved.

 

It depends if I'm really into the girl or not tbh although I couldn't take a relationship seriously if we was allowed to sleep with other people, it's alright if nobody is investing real emotions into it though. :icon_bigg

 

No.

I place extremely low value on sex and romance. Most of my energy not spent on my existing relationship goes towards other things I can't imagine giving up for a primary partner in the first place, let alone others. More isn't worth the risk.

I chose someone exactly like me.

 

Absolutely not.

 

Nope. I only want to be with one woman, romantically or sexually.

 

Nope. I'm a hopeless romantic, want a soulmate, all that jazz. I'm way too jealous.

If you can make it work, go you, I'm open minded to those who are polyamorous. But I could never make it work for me or my hypothetical partner.

 

Probably not. I don't think there's anything wrong with it, but I don't think I'd like it.

 

I'm going to have to say no. Once I meet that someone, then he's mine and I'm his! :icon_bigg

 

I couldn't do it. I'd end up getting hurt, jealous and everything else that goes along with not feeling special or as loved as I need. If someone wants more partners they can stay single but I couldn't commit to a serious relationship basically out of fear.

 

This is an area I've been exploring lately. I'm currently in a polyamorous web: I have a boyfriend, who likewise has another boyfriend (who also has another boyfriend), and my boyfriend is also seeking another boyfriend who lives closer by (we are long distance). When I first encountered this particular situation, I admit that I was freaked out. Every neuron in my brain screamed "this is a terrible idea, what are you doing?!" and I felt incredibly insecure. I wondered what would happen if he found someone more satisfying than I was emotionally who also happened to live closer to him. I wondered what would happen if he and his other long distance boyfriend moved closer together and I was unable to. Would I be phased out, or made irrelevant?

Two things occurred to me which convinced me that my insecurities were probably unjustified. First of all, I face less uncertainty about my status as a romantic partner in a polyamorous setting than I do in a monogamous setting. This is because, in a monogamous setting, if my partner finds someone new, the mechanism of the relationship is such that I have a really high chance of literally being replaced. In a polyamorous setting, however, there is no particular reason that my partner should "replace" me, because as long as he has an emotional bond with me, he will want to keep me close to him. Even if he builds an emotional bonds of various strengths with two other people as well, there is nothing precluding him from being emotionally close to me. Second of all, my insecurities were the product of jealousy, which are in turn the product of romantic competition, and this emotion is harmful. I was opposed to polyamory because I was scared, being scared made me feel like I had no control over the situation, and feeling that way made me want to control my partner, and set limits that I thought would keep me safe from emotional harm. If I had pursued that path earnestly, I have no doubt that I would currently be single. Meanwhile, time has passed and all of my fears have been shown empirically unfounded ... my partner has had sex with others, and has gone on dates, and yet my status is still quite secure, and we still express love and desire for each other explicitly and passionately.

Now, having said that, I want to address the post by ChristianFemLes, which I think contains various misconceptions (some of which I had held, to some extent).

Actually, my boyfriend and I have a tremendous amount of respect for one another. It is partly out of respect for his feelings and autonomy that I considered and ultimately consented to polyamory. I respect that he would feel suffocated in a monogamous relationship, I certainly respect that he wants to be my boyfriend without crushing the hearts of his other boyfriend, and without eliminating the possibility of finding a local romantic partner. He likewise respects that I still have some amount of discomfort, and so he goes to great lengths to talk to me when I feel pangs of jealousy or insecurity, and he makes sure that I am not feeling neglected. The reason that we respect each other in this way is that we do actually love one another, and that we want one another to be happy. I certainly don't think that I am being anything less than genuine in this, and the warm fuzzies he gives me suggest that he is being genuine as well.

I think that being open minded is in general a good thing, actually. How else are we to evaluate assumptions, if we do not sometimes entertain and operate in frameworks which function under different assumptions, or under minimal assumptions? This point isn't irrelevant, because I notice that you assumed that monogamy was the only relationship in which people could really love and respect one another. I provided anecdotal evidence to the contrary, and prior to that explained how I had made certain assumptions about polyamory which turned out to be false when I actually tried it.

I think the convention is to provide a citation for claims like this (I'm not sure there are even millions of people who are actually in non-monogamous relationships, let along that many who are being actively hurt by it), but don't worry about it. I'll simply point out that there is no contradiction in saying that millions of people can in principle be harmed by non-monogamous relationships and that non-monogamous relationships can in principle be loving and fulfilling. Though I do think that the wording of all this is somewhat misleading, and that it would be better to say that people can in principle be harmed while being in a non-monogamous or a monogamous relationship, and I would posit that many of the causes of this harm are shared between the two relationship dynamics. Jealousy, discontent, boredom, stress, disillusionment, etc., are all things which can cause a relationship to fall apart, but neither of those is the exclusive domain of a certain type of romantic relationship.

I'm not sure what you mean by "more acceptable." Usually predators have certain criteria which they like their victims to meet, and I guess there could be some predators who prefer people in open or polyamorous relationships, but I don't see how this would make open or polyamorous relationships immoral. Surely it is the predator who is behaving immorally by targeting these people? Or maybe I'm totally misunderstanding what you're saying. In any case, I don't think there are any solid grounds for saying that open relationships and polyamory are immoral full stop.

I don't understand what you mean by this pejorative, but I'll go ahead and assume that it isn't relevant.

 

I voted No to this. While I behold no judgment for those who are open to polyamory, I myself believe in the concept of soulmates. There is that one guy out there, the other piece to my jigsaw puzzle, who will complete me and whom I complete. And there is no room in that equation for a third variable.

 

It would be very hard for me, but it could be possible

 

Meh, I'm not sure. I've been in a non-monogamous relationship and things get complicated, it really does affect your relationship a lot. I wouldn't be particularly keen on being in one again but wouldn't rule it out 100%

 

Yes but only romantically. I have no problem with it as long as I approve the partner and to make it fair if I brought a partner in the mix they'd have to approve. However, it might be weird breaking up if needed.

 

Definitely not.

 

And nobody gets hurt in monogamous relationships? If people choose to enter a polyamorous relationship, that is their choice and it would be close-minded of us to consider them immoral. Yes, it's open to abuse, but monogamous relationships are so often made up of a dominant and brutal partner who makes the life of the other a living Hell.

 

Absolutely 100% no doubt in my mind NO! If both partners are okay with it then I suppose it could work for some people, but it's just not something that I could ever see myself doing. I'm far too needy and want too much of an emotional investment from a relationship to be able to handle the thought that my girlfriend or boyfriend was seeing someone else.

 

I would say no, I'm a fairly jealous person, but not only that I've always thought that sex would include romance and be with someone I love or are at least in a relationship with. Three-some is also out of the question, I've even been asked this. Yeah, I just think that sex is best when it's with someone you're emotionally attached too, maybe some people can feel this way about multiple people, but I cant. I can only picture any of my future relationships to be with one person only.

 

It might sound strange, but I feel like romantically I could potentially love more than one person. At the same time, dating someone who also wanted to date more than one person would be tough for me I think because I don't wanna have to share my mate.