Some of you may remember I've talked about being in a polyamorous relationship before. It was my husband, myself, and our male third "T" who was both of our best friend and just as much a husband to me as the one I legally married. We were together for years and it worked really well.
The thing is that it's hard. It takes more effort than your normal relationship, but for us the real problem was other people. We tried to keep it low-key, because we live in the rural southern US and people tend to freak out if they know you don't quite fit into the standard mold. But occaisionally someone would find out, and I've been called a ***** more than once because I was sleeping with two guys at the same time, despite the fact that I was only sleeping with those two guys, so it wasn't like I was running around screwing the daylights out of anyone who would sit still long enough. At the same time, my husband and T got a lot of flak for being "gay", even though they were both straight and that's not how our relationship worked. The craziest thing, though, is that even people who were in poly relationships themselves didn't get it, either because we didn't have an open relationship or because J and T weren't having sex with each other, and people used to warn us, I think at least with good-intentions, that we were headed for trouble because of it, even though we usually ended up outlasting their poly relationships.
Now that T passed away, it's just the two of us again, and we agreed that we don't want another third. It only worked with T because we were all best friends for a long time beforehand, and I particularly would feel like we were trying to replace him and no one can replace him. We've mentioned this to other poly friends of ours, and they totally don't get it. They keep offering to set us up with friends of theirs or encouraging us to try an open relationship as a way to "move past it". It's like if we're not in an open or polyamorous relationship, we're not part of their "enlightened" little circle anymore.
Has anyone else had experience with a poly or open relationship? How did it work out for you?
The thing is that it's hard. It takes more effort than your normal relationship, but for us the real problem was other people. We tried to keep it low-key, because we live in the rural southern US and people tend to freak out if they know you don't quite fit into the standard mold. But occaisionally someone would find out, and I've been called a ***** more than once because I was sleeping with two guys at the same time, despite the fact that I was only sleeping with those two guys, so it wasn't like I was running around screwing the daylights out of anyone who would sit still long enough. At the same time, my husband and T got a lot of flak for being "gay", even though they were both straight and that's not how our relationship worked. The craziest thing, though, is that even people who were in poly relationships themselves didn't get it, either because we didn't have an open relationship or because J and T weren't having sex with each other, and people used to warn us, I think at least with good-intentions, that we were headed for trouble because of it, even though we usually ended up outlasting their poly relationships.
Now that T passed away, it's just the two of us again, and we agreed that we don't want another third. It only worked with T because we were all best friends for a long time beforehand, and I particularly would feel like we were trying to replace him and no one can replace him. We've mentioned this to other poly friends of ours, and they totally don't get it. They keep offering to set us up with friends of theirs or encouraging us to try an open relationship as a way to "move past it". It's like if we're not in an open or polyamorous relationship, we're not part of their "enlightened" little circle anymore.
Has anyone else had experience with a poly or open relationship? How did it work out for you?