Polyamorous Relationships

Could it work?

Sexy polyamour in action...

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From Anonymous
How about a MFM long term relationship where everyone is hetero?  Think that can't work?  We've been going on 5 years now, and my boys have only gotten more proficient in how to work as a mind-blowing team.  I think relationships are as complex as the people involved.  Of course, we have no children and are totally in the proverbial closet, but let me tell you, we have a real good time in there. 

How does it work?  We three are terrible communicators.  I mean awful, like, 'oh, did I forget to mention my mother's staying with us this week' kind of awful.  Love just trumps all of that.  Our friendship, which came first, is the priority. 

From Anonymous
This is really interesting! I am bi-sexual, and now married to a great guy. I was honest with him from the start and told him I would always want to be with a woman, no matter how great the sex is with the two of us...and it is.

We have been in several threesomes, and have talked of an actual "relationship" with a girl, but, something always happens. The girls we select always seem to think they can take the guy away, or they just get weird, and try to make us jealous. Strange, how can we be jealous.

Anyway, it must be where we are meeting these girls...online adult websites and bars.

From Lively Lad
I think one of the early contributors (Angela?) put her finger on it when she mentioned the dirty socks left lying around the establishment (and more.) Most of us have already been there haven't we? The shared flat at Uni., the 'awful' brother/sister who just won't clean the bath after using it, who drank the last of the milk without replenishing it? etc etc. Now add the 'sex factor' and watch the firework display!

Personally I can't think of anything worse than a 'permanent' live-in polyamouramic(?) situation - whatever the mixture/combination of the sexes, and I'd guess the 'amour' part of the equation will vanish very quickly when domestic squabbles begin (as they will, when jealousy, bitchiness, physical attractiveness of one member etc. will add 'fuel to the flames'.

A CASUAL 'sharing' with open-minded/'kindred spirits' yes, but sexual 'happy families' - no thanks (and just for the record, I NEVER leave dirty underwear/socks lying around!)

From Bob
I might give it a try, if I could be the one to stay home.

From Anonymous
I had never heard the term polyamorous relationships before but I am involved in something similar. I am involved in an intimate, loving relationship with a bisexual couple.  They are married and have always enjoyed having another open minded person in their bed, be it man or woman.  We don't live together due to lack of space and the fact they have children. I live alone and we get together as often as possible and share our bodies.  It is incredible and they both love me, I love them and we tell each other openly how we feel about each other.

There are no insecurities, nor jealousies.  I think TRUST is the main component of our relationship.  We TRUST each other. I feel "married" to them and I think they feel the same about me.

From A man
Some time back I posted on this site about a close friend of mine (a guy) who married a very beautiful bisexual lady in her early twenties. He knew all about her being bi and is perfectly fine with it. A few months after they married, she asked if he would allow her girlfriend to live with them, and he agreed.  The girlfriend is also very good looking and soon they all were sleeping together. These women adore him and have never paid the least bit of attention to any other men, including me.

However they love and make love to each other regularly. The second wife has married the other two in a private ceremony. I recently visited them and I was surprised to learn that a third girl was living with them! The guy must be the luckiest man in the world!! I could tell that the new woman was also being included in their marriage. He told me that none of the women could ever be with any other man but he was OK with them being with women. As far as children, none of them has any children yet. They live in a large city and no one seems to notice. I have never seen anything like this! They all seem to be very happy and do not have jealousy problems.

From Rebecca
For me polyamory/polyfidelity has always been my best case scenario. First, I'm bisexual so no one partner will satisfy that particular inclination, no matter how good a role player he/she may be.  Second, I think a group living situation can be more stable than a couple.

I've come close to that "ideal" for only short periods of time.  Once in college with a set of five of us—we were close, intense, intimate, and sensual, but we split up with graduation and "real" life.  Having so many people to turn to was great and we spoke about making it last more permanently, but jobs, grad school and growing older intervened.

About ten years later, I thought for a moment I may have something with a threesome—me and another women and a man.  The relationship felt great while it latest, the sex was phenomenal and we had a lot of fun, but when I broached the idea of it lasting, they freaked.  The idea of going outside "normal" beyond the sex/dating was frightening for them. They both held on to the couple-and-kids vision of a lasting relationship as the only acceptable choice (even though they were not a couple themselves.)  They just couldn't deal with the fall out of choosing such a non-traditional lifestyle.

A few years after that, I was dating both a man and a woman at the same time.  They knew about each other and were very supportive of the other. The woman actually had a boyfriend (and then husband) at the same time. For almost two years we had a very supportive extended "family", but an illness with the man I was involved with and the woman having a child realizing she was gay and not bisexual lead to a few breakups.  I am now married to the man in question and she is happily "married" to another woman and they are raising her daughter.

Currently, I am open to expanding my heart/life again, but life does grab hold of those intentions and strangle them as best it may.  I am openly bisexual with my close friends, but haven't found another woman I've been interested in getting to know.  We live in a smallish Midwest town and too many small minds (including my own family) still live here to make being truly, openly "other" a challenge.

From Angela
Permanent ménages are possible, but I think it takes very unique personalities to participate in long lasting three-way relationships. Let's be honest, it takes a lot just to make a two-party relationship work.  Add one more personality, ego, set of emotional hang-ups, and another collection of dirty socks on the floor, and one can only imagine the communication and inter-personal exchanges necessary to sustain such a complex relationship.

But they are possible.  Look at Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston, his wife Elizabeth and his partner Olive Byrne.  They all lived together until William's death, then Elizabeth and Olive continued to live together until Olive's death in the '80s.

From remittance girl
I can only relate to the case of my great uncle, Benjamin, who had both a wife and a mistress for most of his life. It's rumored that his affair started some time before the war (WWII), and 40 years later, they were—all three of them—still going each summer to holiday on the Adriatic together.

They didn't all live together permanently, but each was obviously aware of the other and some kind of polite agreement seemed to have been reached.

My guess is that real, long-term successful ménage à trois have more to do with all the members maintaining a certain level of almost Victorian courtesy rather than any great passion. Anyway, I've always thought that civility and politeness are much underrated qualities when it comes to negotiating tricky social relationships.

Personally, however, my experiences with threesomes ended in tears, so I have no advice at all to offer.

From Malcolm
Courtesy is an important ingredient in all long-term relationships, and best practiced in shorter ones, too, since you never know when you will need the basic human skills. All concerned must value the relationship(s) for it to last - just like any other marriage.

I have loved more than one woman for most of my life.  It's only in the last year that my partner has accepted that my relationship with another is so important that I'm not going to end it.  I think we all probably have the capacity to love more than one.  Some ideas have been expressed here about that, and about the 'dead hand' of religious and 'women as property' remnants.  Having multiple lovers while married is another thing altogether.

Some people need it to feel fulfilled, whatever that is, and if their situation permits it, then good on 'em.

Maybe at my age I am really bulletproof and can get away with anything. Certainly I am not very vulnerable, as many people are.   All we know is, these things can be done, but they are not easy and can go wrong. But the same applies to any kind of marriage.

From Richard
Perhaps the definitions want looking at a little more closely. References to 'Polyamory' so far seem to have suggested relative permanence, in which case the definition would more likely be polygamy, having a number of wives, or polyandry, having a number of husbands. I'm taking it, here, that 'marriage' refers to an intended permanent partnership without, necessarily, benefit of ceremony.  'Common Law' marriage, as it is referred to here in the UK.

Polyamory implies a multiplicity of lovers, rather than partners, in a relationship where one or both partners have no misgivings about their partner taking lovers outside the home.

There are reasons, I believe, why any of these structures could and should work, but there are powerful forces in operation against them. The most popular religions, whose prejudices are often subsumed to a surprising degree even in those who have given up practicing those religions, tend to point to the two partner marriage as the ideal.  In part, I believe, this is because the two-partner, exclusive marriage is the strongest guarantor of linear succession, particularly of property, and is important in securing the dynastic line.  It grows in strength, too, I think, when women are perceived to be the property of their husbands.

The two-partner marriage with 2.4-or-so children is also extremely useful to economically-focused societies.  The extended family, which legitimate polygamy or polyandry would almost inevitably produce, is less wasteful and requires fewer externally provided services.  If two cannot live as cheaply as one, three can probably live as cheaply as two, and if the third does not need to work he or she can make a greater contribution to child care, education and welfare within the family.

It is love and commitment, I believe, which matter in a relationship. In two-partner marriages love and commitment often fail and the separated partners are involved, in effect, in serial polygamy or serial polyandry.  They have multiple partners, but one after the other, and experience, in all likelihood, more of the disadvantages than the potential advantages.

From Richard
My nature seems to be polyamorous. When my present relationship began, it was on the understanding that both parties were free to love others, to have others as lovers.

The justifications for it are not complex.  If we desire those we love to be happy we should not seek to impose strictures on them which may leave them less happy than they otherwise might be.  If my lady desires certain qualities in a lover— in terms of build, appearance and physique—which I either do not have or have lost through age, it does not seem problematic to me that she should enjoy a fuck, if she has the opportunity, with someone who still measures up, and vice versa. Provided the sex is safe it should not overly matter, especially if the commitment, the understanding that the two of you are in it for the long haul, remains a constant.  Even if it does not, if your partnership is not used as a long term safety net, it would seem wrong to me to prevent one's partner from moving on to another relationship in which he or she would be happier.

One's partner having sex with someone else is not as significant as we try to make it. Through the initial sowing of wild oats and subsequent separations and divorces, many come to their relationships with a history which includes previous partners, previous lovers.  We acknowledge, really, no cut-off point.  It seems not to matter to balanced people if their spouse had another lover twenty years ago, twenty months or perhaps even twenty weeks ago, if that was prior to the existing relationship.  To me it is of no great moment if my partner had another lover twenty minutes ago.  What matters is where her mind is at, where—to use an ancient metaphor in part—her heart is at.  If she still loves me, still wants to spend her life with me, little else matters.

From Christine
If the tendency to feel jealousy is so ingrained in people, how is it that I and others who are happily polyamorous either do not feel jealousy or deal with in a way that does not sabotage the polyfidelity of our relationships?

From remittance girl
There may be an argument that the 'powers that be' through the centuries have maintained an emphasis on this atomic family because it IS just unstable enough to allow the power of the church or the state to take precedence. If you had too many members of a polyamorous group getting together, you might actually end up with something that looks like a credible challenge to the authority of the power elite.

The one thing that relationships do tend to create is loyalty. One of the arguments for unmarried priests and nuns was that, having established no other bonds, their first loyalty would be to the church.

Of course, no bonds mean no children and a society that does not grow, so the state DOES need individuals to bond to maintain power. If they bond in large numbers, they become a threat to the prevailing power.

I think this would be a Foucaultian rationale on the maintenance of the two-person good mythology.

Personally, I think we are all naturally polyamorous, but thousands of years of enculturation have formed us into individuals who cling on to our individualistic sides fiercely. I think polyamorous relationships can frighten people into feeling like they are losing themselves to a greater identity, and this makes it very hard to maintain them.

From Volponia
I think that the greatest obstacle to polyamory is insecurity.  I used to think that was natural, but am now not so certain.  I know very little about non-Western cultures, but I wonder if it's likely that there are many in which polyamory is the accepted state of things?

Would anyone with more knowledge of the subject please respond?

From Richard
Polygamy has a long and established tradition, and a kind of de facto polygamy in which husbands are bigamous or maintain permanent mistresses seems to exist quite extensively in the eastern world.

One or two things seem pretty much undeniable to me.  One is that marriage as a construct evolved from a desire to strengthen paternity, lineage, succession and inheritance.  It seems at base an economic construct.

Marriage as we know it seems only to have really existed for a couple of hundred years or so.  Formal-religious marriages do not seem to have been an established norm among common people until well into the 18th century, and again the precepts behind it seem to have been more to do with economics than anything else.  It appears to have been a way for clerics to earn a living, for the church to add to its income and for the state to acquire taxes.  It was probably strengthened by Protestant ideology too, in reaction to the excesses, perhaps, of the Stuarts and those of the nobility which persisted at least into the times of the Hanoverians.

A second 'almost given' as it were, is that polyamorous relationships which are modeled on the polygamous, which involve a man having a number of female partners, are more likely to succeed than relationships which involve a number of (straight) men.

I recall that in the "White Sands" collective experiment, as recorded by Alex Comfort anyway, it was the men who tended to be the most problematic.  He recorded, in fact, that the women who had to be persuaded and coaxed into trying a communal sexual approach actually committed to it far more quickly and easily than did the men who had persuaded them to try it.

I suspect that this has more to do with the way males are raised than anything else.  F/F and F/M interaction, as opposed to M/M interaction, seems palpably less invasive, which may have something to do with it, and it seems to me that the male sexual identity is somehow much more brittle than that of the female.

From Rose
The short answer is "yes."  As for combinations, it would depend totally on the individuals involved.  Love is unpredictable, so no one combination is necessarily more viable than another.

I suspect that the chances for debatable issues in a relationship might expand exponentially, the greater the number of people involved.  On the other hand, where there is love, respect and openness, it would be no different than any other loving, functional family where a normal amount of bickering goes on, but not much in the way of unforgivable wounding takes place.  Building solid relationships is always work; not always easy, but where the will to succeed exists, certainly doable. Being a basically het woman, 'one woman, two men' is, to me, the more appealing combination.  I can't imagine a more ideal domestic situation than sharing a three-winged house (please note that particular qualifier) with two fabulous men, who get along well with each other, and each person having his/her own space.  Barring that, a stable domestic relationship with two men in two respective households is certainly a viable alternative. But other people's mileage may vary and any combination would be viable, if the people involved want it to work.

I believe that aside from love and trust being the foundation upon which any relationship is built, the major requirements for long-term polyamory/polyfidelity are a level of maturity and self-confidence not readily evident in a good portion of the general population.  There can be no room for petty jealousies and insecurities, and no competitiveness for affection and attention.  You can still want to beat the pants of anyone in the relationship—at chess, poker, Monopoly, or tennis, etc.,—but that is where the battles to "win" at something, must end.

Each person in the threesome, or moresome, must have grown beyond the possession-of-people stage of personal evolution and would necessarily have to understand the concept that you love, not more or less, but simply love (i.e. "Just because I love this person, too, doesn't mean I love you less").

Of course, it goes without saying that mutual respect all the way around, is also necessary, but I'll say it anyway. In any successful, loving relationship, mutual respect is essential.  Also, common courtesy, consideration, and good manners are never out of fashion in any relationship.

I have never truly understood why people so readily accept the notion that you can love all your family members, and both your parents (and in some cases, step-parents), and all your children, and no one would dare think to ask someone in a stable, functional traditional family, "Which child do you love best?" or "Who do you love more, your mother or father?" or "Which of your siblings do you love the most?" Society, in general, does not expect people to choose between their siblings, or choose one parent over another, or one child over the other children, because they have the capacity to love all those people, equally.  So why on earth is it expected that you would or should love only one other person, in a mated fashion, exclusively, rather than have more than one person in your life (simultaneously), with whom you bond in numerous ways, including on that many-splendored level of intimacy? Oh, sure, there are plenty of people who say you can love two people, but they always tack on the qualifier, "...but you can only be with one of them ... so choose. You can have either this one, or that one."  Why must it always be a matter of either/or?  What's wrong with having both? My answer to that is, "Nothing."

From Roxy
This is what "family values" is: not a commitment to love one's family, but a fear that love will go beyond the family.  Fascinating that Jesus had little or nothing to say about family values but a great deal to say about loving your neighbor (i.e. complete strangers, or anyone who needed your help).

From DB
We can take inspiration from the example of Pitcairn Island. Otherwise uninhabited, the crew of the Bounty landed there with several Tahitian women. When a British ship stopped at the island years later, only one man, John Adams, remained alive, with many women. There was evidence of lots of violence.

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