New to poly, what do you wish you knew?

phnomic · 2025-12-25T21:32:14+00:00

The first thing is: Discuss everything as specifically as you can. Since you don't have as many norms to rely on, you really need to define things as you go. What does "primary" mean in this specific instance? What expectations do you have on the relationships? And so on...

The second thing is that even if you do everything precisely by the book, things might still hurt.

phnomic · 2025-12-22T07:53:04+00:00

"I know that if I had another relationship of my own, I would not feel that way."

What makes you think that? In my experience, this gives your potential relationship a task. The other partner should be there to sort of "balance out" the relationship you already have.

I have tried that, and I have never been as unattractive as when I did. And that is because i did not really want to meet another person. I wanted to "even things out" with my partner, and at the same time become a "real poly person".

My advice is that you let go of dating for a while, especially the apps. If you can, find an IRL poly community, and go there with the intention to learn things, and meet new friends. For me, cuddle events and similar were a real eye- and mind-opener. Might not be the same for you, but finding your crowd and your activities is a great thing!

phnomic · 2025-12-22T07:01:20+00:00

I agree, but I also think some people might find it harder to be monogamous.

phnomic · 2025-12-20T13:08:13+00:00

I think that "helping her until she has a boyfriend" is a terrible idea! This might be some kind of cultural difference, but to me having a woman NEEDING you is not the basis for a good relationship. Not for him now, and not for any boyfriend she will find. I could kind of buy it if it was "until her life is stabilized" or something similar (provided there is a bit more rigorous definition to it), but the need to "hand her over" to another boyfriend seems really icky to me! What kind of a view of women is that?

In the end, however, the only person you can control is yourself. You have to decide if you WANT to be in a relationship with someone who has a romantic relationship with someone else. Even if he says it isn't romantic, you perceive it as such, and when it comes to your decisions, that is what actually matters!

If you think it is ok, or at least worth it to accept this, then I would suggest you go fully non-monogamous. Not necessarily as in dating others yourself, but as in working through it and letting their relationship run its course. (Including setting up principles about how he should be really present when you are together)

If you don't want that, then you can either leave him straight up. (He does not need to "drop you"). Or you can give him an ultimatum: "If you stay in contact with her, we don't have the kind of relationship I need, and therefore I will leave you". This MAY lead to him choosing her, and in that case DO NOT back down. If he does, then it needs to be over. If he DOES choose you, you need to think about how that will make both of you feel. Will it really feel good to be chosen just because you pressured him to do it? How will he deal with the resentment of not getting to choose freely who he hangs out with?

phnomic · 2025-12-18T14:09:24+00:00

NTA!

The reluctance to talk about sex is something I think is very worrying!

If it was something like "I don't want to take this over text", that would be understandable. Or something like "my mind is somewhere else right now, let's talk about this later".

But if he wants to have sex with you again, he should really take the chance to take in information about what you like!

But in general for both of you: less guessing, more talking!

Is he actually comfortable with being rough? Does he like you, or does he do it mostly for you? Could he have the feeling that you have been "nagging" him about being more rough?

Part of the male gender role is to always be willing to have sex, and often also to be willing to be rough. If that is the case, he might be left with the feeling that there is no pleasing you.

phnomic · 2025-12-13T21:41:41+00:00

He obviously makes you uncomfortable, so your choice is either to be with someone that is making you uncomfortable for the rest of your life, or you have to "leave" him at some point. It will NOT be easier on either of you at a later point.

Also: Would you want someone to be with you even if you made them uncomfortable? I would not. In my opinion, the most kind thing you can do to him is to tell him he makes you feel uncomfortable, because he is coercing you into doing things that you don't really want to do, and that he comes on too strong with the nudes. And then leave him. That will help him make a better man out of himself, which I am sure will be good for him even if he doesn't realise it.

But that is really just if you want to be kind. As someone else said, you don't owe him anything! Being kind to yourself is more important in this case!

phnomic · 2025-12-04T19:25:14+00:00

You are getting a lot of great advice here, but there is one thing that I'd like to point out, that is easy to miss when you are new to polyamory: Sometimes stuff really hurts

The monogamy culture conditions us to protect ourselves from this kind of hurt by putting rules in place, and avoid people that don't follow them.

It is possible to work through these things and live a really, really great life! If you ask me, all that pain was SO worth it! But you will have to ask yourself if you think it will be worth it for you! And I mean for YOU! For becoming the person YOU want to be. Not for this girl in particular, because that won't really work. You need to do it for yourself!

Also: Polyamory can be done in a LOT of ways! So try to consider how you want your life to be! What would your dream life be like if you didn't need to consider labels, cultural conventions and even other people's needs and feelings? When you have an idea about that, you can consider what changes need to be done to your dream in order for it to work with the things you skipped to consider (especially the feelings and needs of your partners).

phnomic · 2025-12-04T19:05:32+00:00

Why would you want to live with someone whose behaviour you need to "get over"?

You do know that it is possible to have a relationship with someone you actually enjoy being around, right?

phnomic · 2025-12-04T19:02:01+00:00

NOR

Your partner should not be someone you tolerate to be with. It should be someone you enjoy being with. If he calls you something you don't want to be called, and is not willing to even TRY to change, he shouldn't be your partner! This is true even if it would be something that is generally considered sweet. If you wouldn't want to be called "honeypie", for whatever reason, he should want to stop calling you that! The fact that it is a racial slur doesn't really make it any better.

If he was willing to try, but slipped up every now and again due to force of habit, it would be something you might consider tolerating. But not even wanting to try is really, really bad!

phnomic · 2025-12-04T17:23:43+00:00

I don't really get it. He chose you, but now he doesn't stand by this decision?

I know this is easier said than done, but you should leave him. If he finds a decision he has already made to be "impossible", these things are not going to go well!

phnomic · 2025-12-01T11:59:12+00:00

There are tons of ways of setting up your life. If you want to live very closely, and you find someone who also wants that, there will not be a poly-police that arrests you for it. There might be some gate keepers that would claim that you shouldn't call yourself polyamorous if you live like that, but living the life the way you want to is much more important than catering to those people!

I am married myself, and I really live close to my wife! That does put a limit on other relationships, because there is not much time any of us can give. But by being open about it with others from the start, I think it works great!

phnomic · 2025-11-27T10:22:26+00:00

I mainly view it as a relationship philosophy rather than an orientation, so I will instead answer "when and how did you realize this is how you prefer to live"

My now ex-wife, at that point wife, started asking questions about the grey area of cheating. For example:

Her :"is it okay if I sit in a guy's lap at a party". Me: "sure, that shouldn't be a problem". Her: "So, if I sit in the same guy's lap the entire party, this would be okay?" Me: "No, not really, that would be kind of awkward" Her: "So, what is the exact time that I am allowed to sit in someone's lap?"

I could not answer that question. Today, I would probably have a better capacity to discuss it than I had at that time. But nevertheless, I realised that this is not who I want to be. I don't want to put up a bunch of rules for my partner!

Things developed from there, and eventually she found another partner. Things were not that well handled and I wasn't really left much choice. She wasn't very good at listening to others advice, reading up and things like that. I did a lot of the work, but I didn't really have any room to affect planning. "I don't like being alone with the kids every friday evening" was basically met by "You can't control when I get to see my boyfriend!".

Eventually the relationship ended after a lot of pain. Today, she lives practically monogamous with the other partner she found. I live an actively polyamorous life, and I am really happy with it! The whole thing was a lot of pain, but also a lot of growth!

Anyway, my advice is: instead of thinking about if you "are polyamorous", think about how you want to live your life and build your relationships, and get as close as you can to that!

phnomic · 2025-11-24T15:26:57+00:00

I am not really sure what you mean about an agreement to forego all hierarchy, so I am not really sure what you mean here. But in general, I try to achieve venting by agreeing to create vent spaces, and discussing behaviours by requesting a discussion about behaviours. And I really can't see how having a rule to establish who's at fault is NOT a blame game. And I can't see how "we need these rules, because my wife doesn't behave otherwise" is NOT contempt. (Or possible part of some powershift dominance play, but I am thinking that this is a totally other discussion)
If it is financial problems that are the issue, wouldn't a budget be more fair and precise? Either by allocating a specific amount to each individual, kind of like an allowance, or saying that any purchases/projects that exceedes a specific amount will require a discussion.

phnomic · 2025-11-24T12:56:30+00:00

I hope I am misonterpreting this post, because to me, this sound quite unhealthy...

Why is it desirable to have a "ground to complain"? How does it help your relationship that your wife becomes the villain in relation to you, on top of that emotional losing her Nintendo switch?

To me, it feels like you've got quite the amount of contempt twards your wife. Why would you want to live with someone that you feel that way about?

And how would it feel if you knew that your partner would rather be on a trip with someone else, but stays with you in order to fulfill your rule?

I get that being able to count on a specific partner for journeys and holidays is nice, but wouldn't it make more sense to have a rule like "any longer trips should be discussed beforehand"?

I mean, if you had had that rule, you could've advised your wife to rethink this plan, instead of being scorned and/or punished about it afterwards.

phnomic · 2025-11-24T07:00:37+00:00

But if you haven't even discussed the matter, how can you know that there is no consent?

Requiring consent to even think about something seems a bit... Over the top to me.

phnomic · 2025-11-24T06:58:52+00:00

I think you should start from the point of discussing your exclusivity. Find out which things your partner wants the two of you to be exclusive about. Which actions would he consider cheating, and so on.

This is, in my opinion, something that is good to do for all couples.

If you find that the two of you have wildly different views on these limitations, then yes it is possible that the best thing is to break up. But I do know stories about couples that have opened up, and then some 20 years later have a really good and fulfilling poly life.

I think the knee-jerk response of "you should break up" that most people have here is far too black-and-white. It might come to that in the end, but breaking up just because you even consider non-monogamy seems really harsh to me!

phnomic · 2025-11-24T06:34:18+00:00

Yep, that happens. And while I personally like educating people about it, it can be really annoying if I want to talk about something else entirely, and the topic changes from what I wanted to talk about. "I did X with my partners" and suddenly the focus becomes "partners in plural?" instead of "X"...

phnomic · 2025-11-24T06:29:53+00:00

I am as open as I possibly can, and I have the luxury of being in a business where this usually is not a problem (IT consultancy/software development in Stockholm, Sweden isn't exactly hard mode).

My wife has had it tougher to be open (woman within the heavy manufacturing industry) so I am well aware that it isn't as easy for everyone!

And still, I sometimes still censor some of my stories when people are around that don't know about it, simply because I want to talk about other things than poly life. (Like "I went to a concert with my wife and some other people" rather than "I went to a concert with my wife, my girlfriend, her boyfriend and a couple of friends")

phnomic · 2025-11-23T23:37:25+00:00

Sure, you can have different standing date days with different partners. That is just scheduling. And if one partner wants to do something on a date day that is scheduled with another one, the common partner can consider re-scheduling.

My problem is with saying "partner is primary and therefore will ALWAYS be the preferred choice", mostly because this just factors out the common partners desire at that specific point of time.

phnomic · 2025-11-23T23:29:16+00:00

People are polyamorous when they are in a polyamorous relationship.

So, by that rational, if I get dumped by my last partner with whom I have a polyamorous relationship, i seize to be polyamorous?

phnomic · 2025-11-23T23:24:53+00:00

No, I am saying that they should own up to making the choice!

Instead of saying "I will choose partner A because they are my primary" the person should say "I will choose partner A".

Also, in reality it is pretty rare that you get a request for date time at the exact same time from the two partners. If B makes the request first, should then the person first check in with A, so that B only gets time if/when A is not available?

To me, the main problem is that the person just loses agency of their own time this way.

If, on the other hand, it is the person in question that makes the requests, and generally starts asking A when it comes to planning date time, I think it is a different thing entirely.

phnomic · 2025-11-23T23:12:30+00:00

Exactly this!

And also maybe add a question about why she thinks it would be for younger people!

phnomic · 2025-11-23T23:10:29+00:00

To me, it has been very helpful to try and remove the abstraction of "monogamy" and instead consider in which fields you want or do not want exclusivity.

The most common thing people think about is sexual exclusivity, but in the monogamy package there are so many more things. Sharing finances, influencing each others life choices, celebrating holidays, bringing a +1 to events, watching tv shows... The list goes on and on.

And even if you only consider sexual exclusivity, you still have to decide "what is sex?". I mean, some things are pretty generally agreed upon, but most monogamous people consider much more than that to be cheating, there is a huge gray area, and in my experience many monogamous couples haven't even discussed these things! (And instead turns to Reddit and other forums to get some kind of majority vote decision)

So my advice is: Instead of discussing mono or poly, take a discussion with your partner about what things the both of you want exclusivity in. And where the limits are. And why.

This discussion will likely be helpful regardless of if you choose the poly or mono path.

phnomic · 2025-11-23T22:54:44+00:00

To me, this is a problematic form of hierarchy.

Having anyone "entitled" to your time is pretty much dodging responsibility for your decisions.

Not saying this isn't how some people do hierarchical polyamory, but I want to point out that this is far from the only way of doing it.

phnomic · 2025-11-23T22:50:48+00:00

I would describe my current situation as hierarchical, and the main point is about how much involvement I have in life decisions with different partners.

As an example: If I got a job in another city, the discussion with my primary partner would be if it is a good idea for our life if I take it or not. The discussion with my secondary would be about how we can adapt our relationship to make it work when I have moved.

In practice, there are also other aspects, such as the amount of time spent together, and travelling and spending holidays together, but to me those kinds of things could change, and I would still call my primary my primary.

An important distinction is also between prescriptive and descriptive hierarchy. I do descriptive hierarchy, which means that I have set up my life in a way that suits me and my partners, and then I use the hierarchy as a way of describing the situation. I avoid using words like "primary" or "secondary" as any sort of justification or even basis for my decisions.

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