I have two boyfriends and they live with me. One I’ve been seeing longer than the other, and he’s my best friend also. In poly circles that makes him my “primary.”

But to be honest, I hate those terms. I am in love with both men and they are in love with me (but not each other). I can’t say I am “more” in love with the first and “less” with the second. I’m not planning on making the first the person I’m with forever and the second a transient who could be easily replaced. That’s just monogamy with options. Love can’t be measured. There’s no such thing as “primary” and “secondary” in any poly relationship based on love, not sex.

I have been with the first for nine years now, and the second for almost seven. We’ve all lived together for six years. They’re friends. Our relationship is, er, there’s no real term for it, but they could go out and sleep with other people provided they wore condoms (a condition), and the penalty for not wearing condoms is not sleeping with me for six months while we waited for all the necessary tests for disease to come back clean. The other condition is that they tell me, preferably before-hand but at least afterwards, as soon as is convenient for all of us. I have no interest in sleeping with any other men or with forming any other relationships, because making a relationship between myself and two men work involves working on my relationship with the first man, my relationship with the second man, my relationship with both men (a wholly different relationship!) time for myself (self-relationship), and their relationship (their pre-existing friendship) with each other. It’s like balancing plates on sticks.

So they know I’m not going to go out and find other men, and if I did, it would just be for a one night stand. But honestly, I’m more likely to sleep with a woman. I have variety in bed with men already. I have two loving relationships. All I have left to look for is novelty, and I’m ok with that.

The original post describes my life in great, big excellent detail. Sometimes, love is just love. A lot of kink and desire go away when freedom exists. When it’s not transgression, it’s often just, you know, not as fun. When it’s not dark and hidden, the kink is gone. And, you know, I can understand why these are “theoretically” non-monogamous, because damn, keeping two relationships alive and strong is hard work. I love it, it’s how I’m built (both women know this and appreciate it in their own way), and it’s hard.

The benefits of it are huge, even when we go through bouts of discussing it, or simply letting it be. My wife absolutely knows that I am happy with her having sex with someone else (but the one friend of ours she’d love to sleep with is presently taken, dang!). Somehow, we make it all work. Same with my lover/girlfriend/other partner/companion. It’s not open (we don’t feel like seeking things out), but it’s free. And it feels great.

Why? What in the world makes that irresponsible? This is essentially my relationship, right now. My girlfriend and I have been together for four years, the majority of which we’ve spent in pretty extreme long distance (east coast US to east coast Australia). We’re both comfortable with the other having some (clearly defined and agreed upon) sexual activity with others, but neither of us is very likely to actually DO so*. For all practical purposes, we’re monogamous, but because we’ve discussed our theoretical non-monogamy and made specific agreements that we’re both comfortable with about that non-monogamy, neither of us has to really worry about The Other any more than you do. The whole point of this article was that your non-monogamy eliminates the fear of being cheated on by making it a non-issue. That’s what it is for us, too.

I find it kind of insulting and rude to say that because we’re not actively sleeping with other people, our “theoretical” or “potential” or whatever other qualifier you’d like to use non-monogamous agreement is less valid than a similar agreement where the partners do have sex with other people. If it serves the same purpose–to enhance our relationship by enhancing our trust in each other, and giving us sexual perspective–it shouldn’t matter if we sleep with other people or not, because we are open to the idea of it in the first place.

*Between some Asperger’s-like qualities on my part and a general social awkwardness on both of our parts, plus a distaste for clubbing and bars, the chances of either of us meeting someone we want to sleep with is pretty much nil.

Option is there. Option hasn’t really come up outside of making out with a few people. The past few years has been interesting and brought more people we might want to get involved with (or have sex with) but we’re too busy (and I’m in too much pain) living our lives and working on making sure our love is there and the relationship stable.

So I’m glad Ferrett pointed this out to me. This is definitely an article I agree 100% with for a multitude of reasons.

Cheers!

For those couples who have multiple romantic relationships with multiple people, I never understood what the deal was with putting limits on the sexual activity. How is that fair to the other couple? For that matter, the whole concept of a “secondary” and “primary” is a bit confusing too. How is someone’s love “secondary” to someone else’s? How is that even remotely fair to anyone involved to say, “We both love Bob, but I’m his secondary, so what his wife says is what goes. She puts limits on how we love each other. Like, we aren’t allowed to have oral, because it bothers her, so we don’t ever do it.”

I don’t get this mentality at all. Can anyone enlighten me?

Lots of times, with both sex and piano, the player has a bad experience and basically shuts down. Lots of people never have sex again, or they avoid that type of person, or that situation. On the flipside, some people keep growing and working around the setbacks.

It seems to me that sex is a particular kind of conversation, and you can get better and better at it, until, like Glenn Gould playing the piano, you can do things that truly are impossible to the novice. Or you can get stuck in a rut.

It is true that you and your partner are “living animals with normal libidos”, as are so many other people, but it is also true, perhaps not for you, but for many, that we are normal animals who experience intense sexual jealousy. That is a part of who we are, it evolved in our ancestors, and was selected for, and we are stuck with it.

This makes the concept of non-monogamous relationships difficult to apply universally, to say the least.

Still, when you put it that way, it sounds good. Perhaps it is something we should all strive for, as much as it is feasible to do so.

When he went through periods where his libido was low, I had my own lover to turn to, a black man (that was MY kink) that my husband introduced me to 8 years ago. (He and I have this weird “quarterly schedule, kind of like the financial markets.)

So, non-monogamy CAN work……it DOES work but, it requires that each person “check their ego at the door” and leave behind the traditional ideas that society insists on imposing upon us all.

I’ve never understood why most society thinks my other half should sit home with his thumb up his ass while I have a 1001 things going on. I want him to go out and have a good time with a person he enjoys instead of waiting at home for me.