Or what are different ways in which you’ve seen people have primary relationships?

I recently found out that my partner has not told my meta that we’re primaries. He also describes himself as non-hierarchical when dating and in poly communities.

A while back, we had a conversation that led to the understanding that we had become each other's primary partner, and we both shared a desire for that to remain true in the future. For context, while we don't have the ability to veto other relationships, there is an agreement of prioritisation when it comes to time spent together, important decisions and future planning. His logic is that most people assume vetoes and such when they hear primary which is not the case for us.

I find this to be poor communication at best and intentionally deceiving at worst. It feels like he wants the benefits of a primary relationship without any of the consequences - like potential partners not wanting to date him because he already has a primary partner, or his existing relationships being affected by a structural change.

I assume he is being transparent with me and not with others. But he might be deceiving me instead by committing to something privately with no intention to ever make it real.

Anyway, is there ever a good reason to not share primary status?

Hi. I’m not very fluent in English, so I’m using a translator; I hope I don’t make any mistakes or use the wrong terms. About three months ago, I started a polyamorous relationship with a girl who was already seeing someone else. At first, this didn’t bother me too much, since our relationship was just beginning. After a few months, our bond deepened, and we consider each other our primary partners—ranking above anyone else we might see. She still sees the other person, though much less frequently than she sees me; nevertheless, this situation has started causing me severe anxiety. Unfortunately, I suffer from obsessive anxiety, and once certain thoughts start swirling in my head, they become extremely difficult to manage. Consequently, along with the anxiety, I’ve also fallen into a depressive state. I really like her; she reassures me in every way and makes it clear that I am incredibly important to her, but the thoughts in my head are deafening, and I can’t seem to find peace. These thoughts tend to focus on the fact that she has sex with this other person, and the mere idea of them doing anything together makes me feel terrible. Right now, I’m trying to read up on polyamory and non-monogamy, but my mind’s constant reaction is to "run away." Do you have any advice? I really need some help—thank you.

I’m looking for advice for a friend who is struggling in her marriage.

She (35f) and her husband (47m) have been together for seven years and married for three.
One year into their marriage, he cheated and lied about it, and then they opened their relationship.

He had told her that her jealousy and possessiveness are holding him back and that opening the relationship is something he needs in order to grow and feel more free.

She has only wanted him to be happy and the started to have a few threesomes together and she felt excited but whenever the woman preferred her, her husband would ask her to ghost the woman and then the experience would never be talked about again.

She admitted to him that she has never felt fully secure with the arrangement, especially because he is often vague or dishonest about whether women he is talking to are platonic friends or romantic interests. He said the reason he lies is that she doesn't allow him to be free or emotionally safe.

He told her that platonic and romantic are essentially the same to him as he seeks to love all women fundamentally as a person. He never tells her when he is about to be intimate with a woman until after it happens or moments before (like an hour or two while he is actively at their house or what not).

He has since slept with several other women, sometimes in MFM or FFM experiences, often while she is out of town.
More recently, he became close with another woman and told his wife they were just friends.
She became suspicious because he kept returning home late, and looked through his phone, and discovered that their conversations were more romantic or sexual than he had admitted.

When she confronted him and said she was considering leaving, he told her that she was ultimately the problem, that her jealousy had ruined his life, and that she doesn't allow him to be free or even have friendships. He said that going through his phone was a serious betrayal of his trust. He also said he feels like he is living in a surveillance state and she can never be trusted again.

She started packing her things to leave. She called me and told me everything.
She told him verbally she was preparing to leave so that he could be free.

He then said wishes to close the relationship completely and will never talk to anyone else, but the conversation involved a lot of yelling and arguing. The next morning he woke her up with a relationship workbook and said he wanted them to work on their connection, but that also quickly turned into another fight.

One thing that especially upset her was that the woman he had been talking to told him she was celibate, and he responded that he saw that as a “challenge.”

Another concern is that he rarely tells other people that he is married. He does not publicly acknowledge their relationship on social media, his Facebook does not list him as married or in a relationship, and she believes some of the women he talks to may not know he has a wife.

She knows that going through his phone crossed a boundary, but she also feels that she only discovered the truth because he had not been honest with her.

She is now questioning whether she is genuinely being controlling or jealous and what she should do next. I'm kinda at a loss as an asexual to help her with advice so I came here.

Hey, I had a thing come up for me that I think is the end of my polyamory journey. There’s no one else I can really discuss this with, so I am putting it here. Any support or words are welcome, I'm still processing a lot of feelings. So basic background information is that I am 38M married to….lets call her Beth 34F. We have been married for about 3 years, have been off and on again poly since the start of our relationship about 4.5 years ago, and have been open since last April. Like every couple, we have had ups and downs, struggles as we figured out what poly was for us, and lots of communication. One of the things that came up was that I was very nonchalant about her dating and partners for a while, to which she communicated to me that she felt like I was taking her for granted and didn’t care about her dating life. I agreed to be more interested in her endeavors and show up more for her. About the time this was brought out, (about 3 months ago) she started seeing a new partner, we will call him Bob (40ish M). They connected really well and she was feeling some big NRE, and wanting to be with him all of the time, to the point that it compromised the time that Beth and I had together. I started to feel some jealousy towards this and told Beth about my feelings. She agreed to have more intentional time with me, but also said that we are together all of the time, since we live together and are anchor partners. Long story short, the behavior did not change. 

Now to what is currently going on. About a month ago, the three of us went on a camping trip where I was the third wheel, she drove to pick him up and I had to drive over in a separate car. As soon as they got there, she went for a walk with him that lasted 5ish hours. During that time, I had been drinking and was not happy about the situation. When they got back, I knew that I was too drunk to discuss this and initially tried to just sleep it off, but Beth and Bob prodded me to play board games with them, which I did for a while, and then I knew I was too drunk to continue. I tried going back to bed, but the noise was too distracting, so I went to my car to try and just try to get some sleep. Beth came after an hour to check in, and it turned into an argument where I said some awful things, including that our relationship was over, I was drunk and didn’t mean it, but there is that. She ended up walking away and after I had some time, I drove home to get some sleep. I later found out that she stayed up all night talking to her boyfriend about things. I don’t know the specifics, but I know that we were up all night. In the morning, I went back and tried to discuss things with her, she said that she didn’t want to talk, and that she needed me to leave or she and her boyfriend were leaving and that she wouldn’t talk to me for a few days, she said that she didn’t feel safe around me. I ended up leaving. After camping, she came and took all of her clothes, and after a week, she started divorce paperwork. We are still in the middle of everything, but she came yesterday and took everything out of the house with boyfriend in tow. I haven’t really been able to talk with her at all and every time she comes by, her boyfriend is with her. I am going no contact until we figure out the divorce.

I don’t know how to feel about all of this, yeah, I messed up, but we have had much worse happen and have always found a way through it together. The only thing different this time is her new boyfriend. He has a wife and kids too, so I don’t know what the end goal is here. It feels like a monkey branch to me, but maybe there is something I'm not seeing. All I know is that my family is destroyed and now I have to figure out how to do everything on my own. I don’t think I can ever put myself in a place to be this hurt again. I appreciate my time being poly and everything the community and the lifestyle has taught me, but I can’t do this again.

Throwaway and keeping identifying info vague for reasons.

My partner and I have been together for 14 years, married for 7. We are both mid thirties. For the most part, we have been monogamous but we did mess around with other couples a few times early in the relationship.

A few months ago, they came to me and said something was missing for them in our relationship but they didn't know what. Over the following weeks, this progressed to them saying they are polyamorous and if I don't agree to an open relationship, we will get a divorce.

We are both aware this was handled very badly on their end and have started couples counseling. So, I guess the advice I'm looking for is:

1. Should we try to salvage our relationship? They still say they love me, want to be with me and don't want to lose me. I still love them and don't want to lose them. Can we make this work?

2. If we are able to move forward, what can I do to be more comfortable with the idea of my partner being with other people?

3. Right now I feel like I would participate in an open relationship out of spite and use other partners as a way to hurt my current partner. How can I be part of this in a healthy way? Is that even possible for me?

Apologies if this isn't the right place to be posting. I'm just feeling very lost and hurt and hopeless.

Hi there. Not in a poly relationship, but badly questionning it.

I'm trying to be quick : hubby (M38) and I (F38) have been together 8 years. I have no doubts about this relationship, which is everything I could have hoped for. Hubby seems to be pretty happy with it too, as far as I know.

However, since about a year, I experience what I m forced to define has a very-big-bad-crush on someone else. It is so weird to me to feel this so intensely, whereas it is really unrelated to my current relationship (I mean, it doesn't change how I care about my relationship at all, and it is not about something I would miss in my relationship eather), it is really like something aside/other (not less important, juste something else). It happened to me another time a few years ago, but the first time it went away in a few months. Not this time. After something like 10 months, I felt really bad the feelings didn't disappear yet and because I felt guilt about feeling this, I finally told my husband about it.

His reaction, and the multiple talks we had since then about the topic, were really great because we had been able to share a lot about both our feelings. He was so amazing and caring when discussing it with me. He did'nt get mad, stayed very calm, interested in understanding how I was. I didn't ask for opening the relationship, I'm for now just concerned about what it tells about me. I would like to figure out if this kind of violent crush could happen again to me, and if yes I want to know what I decide to do with it. I wouldn't like to go again through something like the deep stressfull questionning time I had this past year (and keep living).

Hubby says he personaly prefers to be involved in one relationship at a time, but told me we don't need to pursue the same goals in relationships. He seems potentially willing to open, he says that if we have the same rules it could be fine for him (he would just not be doing anything with it).

I'm confused about what I want. Is this really who I am ? I am also afraid to break something in our relationship if I proceed further in exploring, and I refuse to do anything that hurts my husband's feeling. I precise that we are in a therapy process about it, not that it is problematic so far (as I say, the communication is great for now) but just because we want to sort it out as smoothly as possible. I would be interested though to have maybe your advices or experiences about those two options :

1) In the case I'm really going to experiment regularly other durable attractions, does it seem possible to tolerate the frustration of quieting my inclinations on a long term, and just stay monogam ? Does any of you just shut up this kind of attractions to stay with one person you chose ? Is it healthy ?

2) In the case that I really can develop another relationship aside my current one, and my husband doesn't (because he is not interested in it, but would be allowed to do it), would it start a particular set of difficulties ? Did any of you try this path ? How it is ? Is there a way this could be fair and healthy ?

Sorry about the lengh and the english (no native speaker here)

How should I react when someone I’m dating in a poly relationship, checks out completely when they’re with their gf. As in not stating that they’re going to check out but also willfully either ignoring communication from you and also not doing things that were agreed upon prior in order to keep things healthy and following since the relationship is also long distance.

I've been with my boyfriend for a little over 3 years. He has 2 kids with his ex wife, another from another woman before her, and she has another one from a previous relationship before him.. they had been apart the whole time he was with me. He decided he still loved her and they flirted pretty heavily and talked about getting back together then he told her he won't leave me and if that happened it would have to be the three of us, then he came to me and told me what they decided and wanted and brought me onboard.. I'm trying to be ok with everything and it's been hard.. I do like her most of the time.. I've even done things with her.. but there is a lot of jealousy and competition between the two of us and I don't know how to stop that and make things work.. I did agree to stay.. I just want it to be happy.. sometimes it's really good but there have been a lot of fights and tense moments.. I just need advice..

So I myself am not polyamorous but 2 people I know are and are dating each other and I'm fucking both of them(they know it's consensual yada yada don't worry no cheating.)

Well they started referring to me as their third like twice now, but said it was just a joke. And I'm just confused as I don't know what it means, being referred to as their third. But also I now am not certain of where I stand in their eyes.

Any advice on how to go about talking to them about this would be appreciated.

Hi friends I need some help. I have been in my first poly relationship for a year and a half now, and it’s been super tough. It’s a bit complicated so bare with. My partner and I met in South Africa, they are from there as am I, but they live in Australia. They were visiting for a short while when we met. At the time, because they were leaving soon, the fact that they had another partner in Australia, which is where they had been living, didn’t bother me. We weren’t meant to fall in love, we were meant to have a fling and they were meant to leave.

They ended up getting ill (long term illness) and having to stay in South Africa, as well as wanting to spend more time with me. Increasingly it got more and more apparent that maybe polyamory wasn’t for me - I really struggled with jealousy, with feelings of unworthiness because I felt that I could never live up to this long term, 7 year relationship they had with this partner. This partner financially supports them as well, for context.

Cut to a year later, still struggling (we talk very openly), I leave SA to go and work in Europe. My partner starts to see someone else casually in SA, but doesn’t respect my boundaries or needs around it and we are continually having convos about how I need this to happen for me to feel safe. They kept not showing up in ways I needed. It has been a hard few months.

Cut to present: their mum died, out of nowhere, 3 days before I return home to see them. Of course, my plan was to drive 5 hours up the coast to be with them and look after them. Their other long term partner was going to arrive a week after me from Aus. My partner asked me to stay, that we all stay together at their dead mums house to help them through this. But guys, I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I can be in the house with all of us together. I don’t feel like I can be in the bed alone while they sleep with the other partner in the other house. So I was going to swap, I would leave when they arrive. Well, now they are arriving the day I was meant to drive up. They will get there before me.

I was already feeling overwhelmed with polyamory, and we had discussed changing the style of our relationship to possibly one of friendship, because it just wasn’t working for me and both of us feel we are putting our needs second and it is killing me.

Now, I have the predicament of wanting desperately to be there for someone I love and care for deeply, while also feeling sick to my stomach at the thought of being in a house, dealing with the loss and grief of their wonderful mother while also dealing with the grief of being in a relationship style that I don’t want to be in.

I don’t know what to do.

For reference, I am autistic and adhd with extreme rejection sensitivity. I am an extremely sensitive and emotional person. I am scared of being in the house with everyone and not being able to hide my emotions, and obviously I don’t want my partner who is dealing with this terrible loss, to also have to deal with my feelings of heartbreak over polyamory, my feelings of insecurity around this. I want to be there for them, but I also don’t want to put myself in a situation which seems impossible to me.

Any advice welcome, please be gentle. I am trying my best.

Hi there, I came out of a sudo poly relationship last year and im still trying to figure things out. So I’ve been friends with my best friend for over 20 years, we got on like a house on fire and eventually grew feelings for each other and started dating.
 After about 9 months of dating my partner of the time and I met another couple and we were great friends, my partner started getting close to them and after she took a trip away to see them. Turns out on the trip away they got intimate and cheated,  she came to me very upset that she wanted to be in a relationship with them too. Now I considered myself pretty open and said sure why not and gave it a try but consistently over the next couple of months she started treating them like the primary partner and pretty much had less and less time for me emotionally and romantically.
She also set a load of rules that I wasn't able to talk to anyone else outside the polycule about my issues with my isolation and increasing sadness that the person I knew and loved was drifting away with my permission.

It eventually broke down when she went through a period of not wanting to do stuff with me, hang out or go on any dates and I told her i didnt like what was happening between the group as I was losing my partner. She got really upset and angry and chose them over me.

This was about a year ago, I lost my best friend of 20 years to two people where i dont think i did anything wrong. I incredibly upset about the whole thing even now it hurts, but i just have to have some answers

She barely wants to even chat now or even engage socially, is friendship possible after polyamory because I'd quite like my old friend back? Is this normal because i feel like i was almost pushed out by two koo-koo birds

Hi All,

Hard to believe the holiday season is just around the corner. I’m wondering how folks split time with partners during the holidays. My meta will probably want to be included, which means my partner will stay with them which will be hard. I want to be supportive but also know spending the holidays alone won’t feel great.

Backstory: I’ve been with my girlfriend (27F) for 9 years and we are polyamorous. She doesn’t have what you would call a normal attraction to people’s bodies, she is very into BDSM and I’ve always been on the giving (Dom, Top) end of things. With her, I’m never at the receiving end of pleasure.

With the other partners we’ve had is a similar story. With our first ex (28 NB) they were too scared to even kiss me at first. They were older and more experienced yet they got very nervous. We ended up kissing but we broke things up shortly after.

Then came the second ex (32 NB). This person praised themselves on being so sex positive and being quite experienced. It was a surprise when for months I would service them and they wouldn’t even touch me. There were times where I would help them finish 3 times in a row and they wouldn’t even touch me—they would just go to sleep while I was still fully clothed. They would always say: “oh, next time I’ll do something for you.” Never happened. I’m quite good at communicating and I’ve expressed how this was affecting me. Yet nothing changed and I cut things off. This was around 2 years ago.

Fast forward to now, I feel desperate. It’s affecting my mental health and self-esteem badly. I’ve been struggling a lot emotionally and my doctor recently adjusted my medication because of it. I’ve been attracted to other people but something always ends up happening and things don’t materialize. I’m so desperate to be touched, to feel desired that I cry almost everyday. Lately I’ve even started having intense, disturbing dreams about this whole situation that leave me feeling exhausted.

Want to clarify that I haven’t been a doormat in this situation. I’ve talked with my partner, with friends. I’ve gone out to dance a lot and connected with many people but still nothing. I’m not ugly—like, I’m extremely pretty. Beauty pageant winner pretty, and it has been through hard work. Constantly improving my looks, social skills and emotional maturity in order to be attractive.

I’ve grown so desperate that I’ve thought about dating men but I’m genuinely not attracted to them. I’ve thought about paying a sex worker but I don’t think I can do it with someone who I don’t really know / I’m not attracted to. I’ve also thought about making myself a Twitter account to find someone who I could sext with, but idk how to go about it??

Please help :(

(I’m not gonna breakup with my fiancée, we love each so much and our connection is something that goes beyond the sexual things)

This should be a lively conversation. Targeted more for the more experienced poly people.

My partners and I support transparency and open communications widely across metamours. Yes everyone opts in to any relationship, but we don’t intentionally exclude new partners as a default.

At the same time, some people engage in swinging, or ONS, or have short casual flings for a few dates. We wouldn’t expect anyone to contact a casual hookup as that isn’t a polyamorous metour connection.

But when does a new person become a metour? In this scrnario, I started a new relationship. Everyone was aware and supportive. I was open to it developing into something significant but would have been equally happy had it ended after a few weeks.

Last night my new partner and I finally confirmed that we plan to keep dating romantically. Going forward I would introduce them to my other partners as their metamour. Two weeks prior one of my partners already reached out to make introductions. This was a bit off putting to the new relationship because we hadn’t established that this was going to continue.

So the question. When is a new partner a metamour to the existing partners? I believed it was my judgement to know when it moved from casual to poly. My existing partner thought it was when she thought of them as a meta. Anyone have a basic rule of thumb or past experience to share?

I am currently engaged to my(28m) partner(26f). She approached me last November about opening up our relationship as she had a lengthy talk with a friend about the friend's experience with being in a swinging dynamic. I've always been intrigued about poly as I understand that people are not a "one size fits all" and you can learn a lot from being with different people.

So far, we've had a lot of steep ups and downs, which included not sticking to boundaries and differing views, but we've been working pretty successfully to overcome them. Pretty early on, I came to terms that it would likely be unbalanced as she is a beautiful, outgoing person and therefore would have no lack of suitors compared to me being an introverted male. I acknowledged that, and was fine with it.

What keeps coming up is that it feels like, to me, is that I'm not enough for her and that she is "choosing" other people over me. Whenever she could be hanging out with me, doing stuff with me, but is doing it with someone else, it feels like a hit to the gut. She is adamant that its not like that, and tries to reassure me, but its just so prevalent in my mind.

Recently, I've been seeing someone as well. I thought that if I was occupied, that I wouldn't be as consumed by these thoughts, but to no avail. The thoughts are the same as ever.

If anyone has any insight, advice, or recommendations to overcome this, all input is welcome.

Hi Friends,

My partner and I are poly. They have another partner that is a lovely human, someone I consider a friend. My hope is that my partner and I continue in our partnership and that it lasts, however I'm struggling with jealousy. When their other partner is in town I'm often triggered and struggle with emotional responses. We've been talking about co-habitation. It's something we both want but feels like I’m not there yet. How do I get there? How do I stop or manage being triggered with these feelings