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Poly

A friend sat me & my partner down about 10 years ago and told us she was polyamorous. She had a boyfriend and a second love interest at the time.

I'd never heard the term before and didn't think much of it.

But as time went on I realised this is how I felt as well. I have been fighting it off because I'm in a happy, monogamous relationship that I don't want to upset, but I also feel in some ways a little restricted by that. I love my partner and will stay 100% loyal to her as that is the loyal relationship we have.

I'm sure anyone reading this will immediately think 'you want to be physically intimate with another person'. This isn't my concern. My concern is surrounding the notion of freedom, actually to be more accurate, the palpable feeling of restraint or restriction that I feel single person relationships hold over individuals in society's unwritten 'Rulebook of Expectation'. You know the one, that everybody signed (accept, nobody has, they just go along with it without question??).

If it was a physical thing I could just go out and cheat and be a dishonest person. But I have no interest in breaking the love and trust of my partner. It is much more nuanced than that. It's the feeling of freedom to know and share love and care with whomever I feel it towards. I feel that deeply. This isn't about physical intimacy, this is about philosophical freedom.

Just wondering if anyone else feels this way?

As I say I'd never heard that term before, but within my circle of family and friends I don't know anyone else that follows this way of thinking. It would definitely be frowned upon and seen as 'weird' or similar, and although I am growing into my unmasked unique self, the idea of being open about things like this that can so easily be mischaracterised and life changing in the most important relationships I know, is frightening to me

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  • I've read this thread with interest. How would you feel if your partner had this conversation with you? Presumably, you would be happy for them to be poly and share a relationship with someone else also? 

  • As I noted, the relationship I am in is not the prime reason for my enquiry here.

    As it goes, this relationship is a monogomus one, so I would not want to risk changing that agreement or risk the trust built up over the course of it.

    However, in general, I feel there is a palpable oppressive notion attached to 'typical' relationships and the associated expectation for couples in contemporary society which I feel is unfair and an undue burden on our freedoms as individuals.

  • Anyone is entirely free to do whatever they wish to do, in the context of what this discussion is about. However, if a person was to exercise that freedom there would be consequences. It is a balance of reward and cost between the exercise of freedom, and the extent of the negative consequences that would result. The idea of unfettered freedom is impractical and usually unattainable. It is ultimately futile to wish for it.

  •  a society that has no rules.Are you saying, Martin, that "Do what thou shalt, shall be the whole of the law" is impractical??

    Maybe even, gasp, WRONG for us??

    Because that would imply that there are universal rules that we really all should understand from an early age, and use as the basis for our societies!

    It would also seem to imply that a society that discovers and instills those rules into each generation of it's children would be visibly more successful and better to live in that one which does not.. 

    Sounds like crazy talk doesn't it?

    I suppose we could look at historical evidence and see if there's any weight to the argument. Nah, that's too much work, anyway now we have the T.V and internet, we don't need no stinking history or that old  people thinking do we? 

  • I deal with existence as it is. I leave Utopia to Thomas Moore. The consequence of his exercise of freedom, of conscience, was the headman's axe. A more pragmatic man would have retained his head.

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  • I deal with existence as it is. I leave Utopia to Thomas Moore. The consequence of his exercise of freedom, of conscience, was the headman's axe. A more pragmatic man would have retained his head.

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