Ethical non monogamy

Holy hell dude. Yeah, you were doing yourself a lot of damage. Really glad you got out of such a toxic situation for you.

I still struggle to see the connection of our stories other than you thinking I'm lying about how happy I am. It sounds like in your situation you had a lot of red flags that indicated that there were a lot of trouble for you both. Seems like the red flags for you were low self esteem, being unhappy, not communicating your needs with others and lying to others about it all. Its good for people to keep these in mind if you ever think that your relationship is not what you need it to be. Never stay in a relationship if it makes you feel this way.

 

The one red flag I see is your own recognition that your partner is jealous. Per my first reply, that’s what I highlighted and where I see a fundamental parallel. Jealousy is a very powerful emotion. I hope you guys are as happy and vulnerable as you suggest, it will be needed to ultimately overcome the jealously that you yourself recognize exists.

 

I’ve been following this thread because this topic has been on my mind. I’m not in a relationship (actually I’ve never had a relationship with a man), but I use to say I could never be in an open relationship. Over the last couple weeks I’ve been questioning why would I say that? How would I know what I would/could do if I never had any experience with a relationship now that I’ve accepted my sexuality?

I wasn't gonna comment on this thread, just read it lol I mean since I have nothing of use to add. But there is a word that came up that is a bit troublesome. Shame! Feeling shame for being in a non monogamous relationship... I don’t think shame should be a determining factor in deciding if something is right for you. I mean so many of us felt shame with our same sex desires! Some still struggle with it. Shame can influenced by what society says is acceptable and we all know they get that wrong, often. So just because there is shame involved doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it simply means you have to self reflect on what’s the cause of the shame.

Now open relationships are not for everyone, and that’s cool! They may not even be for me, who knows? But we can’t invalidate other’s love, relationships, and/or feelings just because they are different than ours.

 

Geeks? Really?

I am a geek and would be open to polyamory, I have such tendencies myself, however, I would never suspect geeks of being more polyamorous than others. Do you have a clue why there is a link?

 

Ah, so jealousy is that made you jump to it. Got it!

So, yes jealousy has to be managed in a relationship. If done incorrectly (seems like you guys might have not spoken about it) then it can eat people alive.

For poly people, we see jealousy a bit different. To me, jealousy is a "check your engine" light in your car. It means something is wrong and you have to check it out. When this happens, me and my husband check in with each other and talk about what is causing the jealousy. For example, if he feels jealous about me spending too much time with a guy then it usually comes from feeling afraid that I enjoy the other guy more than him. It takes him being vulnerable to say "I'm scared" and it takes me saying "I hear you and I'm here to make you feel secure". When that happens we talk about it and come up with ways to make sure he FEELS appreciated and loved. We are intentional about date nights, we share hobbies together, and we connect in ways that only we both can connect to.

One can't really overcome jealousy though. One can only manage the feeling by communicating our needs, being vulnerable and trusting the ones we love to take care of us. For example, even in monogamous couples people feel jealousy over best friends. Some people feel jealousy when a group of friends hang out with out them for example. Just like in poly couples, all you have to do is tell your friends that you are hurt and trust that they will take care of your feelings. Unless you are vulnerable enough to communicate your needs, then yeah it will suck the life of a relationship.

Thank you for being concern for me. Its quite sweet, but I will caution you to not project your experience on too others so hard. Give your warnings and concerns. Check on people for sure, but also believe me when I tell you when I'm happy

 

No idea. Studies about poly communities are not that popular so its hard to point at something specifically, but its a THING. Like a known thing that you can see whenever you walk into any poly community.

My own guess is that it only applies to those poly people who are active in poly communities. A lot of poly people don't get too active, so there is that.

Its fun though. The gender dynamics in poly circles are also super cool. Women are protected at all cost, straight men are mostly seen with cautious eyes (a lot of creepy predators try to go into poly communities. They are easily spotted and kicked out), and trans people are far more visible and easily accepted than in many communities that I have been a part of.

 

C’mon, you think you can honestly compare an emotion so strong as jealousy with a “check your engine” light? This goes completely opposite what you even recognize here:

A check your engine light requires that the engine be fixed. As a mechanical object an engine can be fixed. But as you just agreed jealousy as an emotion can’t really be overcome. So if It can’t be overcome it can’t be fixed, than any attempt is just a bandaid until the light comes on again.

It seems your buying into poly group think and conventional wisdom. This goes back to your initial reaction to my post which you admit took you back. Maybe your initial reaction should be your own “check your engine light”?

Reading your response, putting aside my experience, it would seem your not being honest with yourself.

 

So are most poly relationships same sex?
I imagine it must be liberal about gender norms, that is a liberal environment to be in.

 

Seems like we are getting to your real concern for my post. Yes, jealousy.

I'm not the most eloquent person, so let me see if I can get something that explain it better.

"Jealousy itself is an interesting emotion, because jealousy is a composite emotion that is based on other emotions. It’s a second-order emotional response—something happens, that thing causes you to feel threatened or to feel insecure or to feel something negative about yourself, and then that fear or insecurity makes you feel jealous. For that reason, the root of jealousy is often surprisingly difficult to pin down and understand.

Instead, what happens is that people look at the event that is the proximal cause of the jealousy and assume that that event is the source of the problem. “My partner kisses another person, I feel jealous; therefore, it’s the kiss that makes me jealous. The way to deal with the jealousy is to tell my partner to stop kissing people."

Okay, so the kiss example. A lot of people will say that stopping the kissing will stop the jealousy, but that is in fact not true. If you do not deal with the root cause then the jealousy will keep rearing its ugly head. If you deal with the root problem then the jealousy stops. But you can't deal "directly" with jealousy.

If it helps, its the same thing with anger. You can't really deal with anger itself. You can't overcome anger. You can only tackle the root cause of the anger, not the anger itself. That is what I was trying to say.

Naw, straight people are still way more numerous than queer people so the majority is still straight. But queer people are definitley over represented in poly communities.

 

Ah okay. Cool.

 

Well my knowledge of cars is about as much as that of relationships. But from my understanding, once you perform the service required to have the “check engine light” turned off it isn’t the end. Eventually it will come back on do to using the vehicles, whether it be the same issue or a different one. So with this in mind, the analogy of a relationship being like maintaining a car kinda works!

Again, I thinks it’s very unfair to leap to assumptions about someone’s relationship. There’s really only two out comes...

1) what you say has some form of truth but the approach is such it cause your message to be lost and the receiver doesn’t accept the help your trying to offer. (I doubt this is the case based on all that has been said. He seems very self aware, open about the struggles of poly relationships, and honest about how things have/are gone/going.)

2) your entirely wrong and off base and have now insulted some one, called in to question their character, and implied they have no self worth. Which really makes you look bad.

Either way you slice it, not good.

 

Perhaps we should go back on topic? I'd like to read more about it but not like this.

 

I appreciate you thoughts. That said Smurf and I have debated one another for quite sometime. He and I are open to exchanging and challenging one another as we see fit. Being challenged helps us think about the realm of possibilities and decide for ourselves what feels right.

 

When I mentioned shame it was not because of my open marriage. It was because my "other" relationships are with men. I have two friends who have wives and mistresses and everyone is quite open about it and my other friends don't care that much.

I am still dealing with underlying "gay" shame so I can't share my relationships with younger men with my friends yet.

 

I have a hard time understanding why jealousy is a bad thing? When I find myself jealous it means it is time to understand why and change my behavior. Ever since I was a kid I used jealousy to better myself so I no longer felt jealous.

With relationships it can work the same way. If my wife is jealous of the time I spend with my friends then I need to make the time I spend with her better and more fulfilling for her.

 

It has been many years, but I can vouch for the interconnection within the communities. For those of us who are into RACK yes poly is very apparent as are trans. I think that to be actively part of any form of BDSM there has to be very open communication. There are boundaries/rules participants agree to and trusting the agreements will be held is a big part of it.

I guess that's why I think poly is so wonderful. Although I can't ever see myself with any other man again besides my current husband, a poly marriage would allow me to have the best of all of me. Well almost - I would love to have a RACK lesbian.

Oh and I am also a geek - tech, Treky, Dragon Con, anime, Cosplay...and most Def have my kink fetishes.

 

Can you elaborate on the notion that jealousy is not a bad thing? If your able to manage your own jealousy and use it to better yourself, Great! But I struggle to understand how causing someone else to be jealous based on acts of your own are a good thing. Rather than making the time better and more fulfilling to compensate for causing the jealousy, shouldn’t the starting point be not to create it to begin with? I am confused by the notion you articulated.

 

This is true in some cases, but I don't understand your guys obsession to put that on my relationship haha shame is not the only reason for jealousy. If people are selfaware and are working on their shit its fairly easy to identify.

But again, these are issues that affect all type of relationship styles. If you aren't self aware and don't know where your feelings are coming from, they will manifest in your relationship. Period.

This is what makes no sense. EVERYONE should be cautioned and encourage to self-assessment before deciding their relationship style. If I didn't have self-worth then I would just go with the default and be monogamous. It takes SOO much fucking effort to make this work. If I didn't know myself, if I didn't know my worth, if I hadn't learned to advocate for my own happiness then I would be in a monogamous relationship.

 

I appreciate the point that no one can cause anyone else to be jealous. That said, if one partner has jealous tendencies, whatever the underlying issues that cause them, and the other partners intentional actions go toward triggering such jealousy (as participants in an open relationship would trigger), isn’t that contributing to exasperating said jealousy? And if one party does not poses true underlying jealous tendency and the other does, wouldn’t that mean such partnership may not be compatible?