100% with DD on here, despite us upthread disagreeing. There’s a way to do it, and oldDiS was a haven for bullshit shutting down good discussions. You can see it in almost every thread going back - it was a race to be the most glib, and I took part in it.
But this place is sooooo much better now. Infinitely so. And i’ll call it out when I see it.
Oh no, sorry @anon82218317, I guess I was responding to a moment of light relief. Wasn’t trying to have a dig at anyone or derail a really good discussion. I’ll be more careful with my likes in future
Spot on.
I entirely agree on principle. I just don’t think the comment was bad. It’s like saying that you’ve watch Disney’s Dinosaur, and you’ve no idea how something with that many dinosaurs and monkeys in it could be so boring. It’s just a crappy gag.
I went into a sexually open relationship (but not emotionally/dating others) with my long term gf recently. It’s done wonders for our relationship. And have often done more open things with people I’ve dated. I think it’s good.
Same here everyone @anon82218317
apologies, didn’t mean to cause any harm or upset and will be more cautious in future. It was just a like for how it was worded and not to do with the content of this thread as it’s all been great and very educational xx
Yeah fair enough, I thought it was fairly innocuous but I can understand why it hasn’t gone down well. I’ll buck my ideas up (y)
I getcha. I’ll be more sensitive in future, I can totally see where you’re coming from.
For the record, I doubt I’ll ever have a monogamous relationship again, and I appreciate the efforts to ‘normalise’ poly relationships.
Don’t disagree with your concerns here but just on the subject of the use of polygamy. I think for many, certainly for me, anyway, the use of polygamy was just a slip of the fingers.
Someone else said it first and I just followed on. An easy mistake to make (given that the words are so similar) and not necessarily a lack of understanding of the difference.
As an aside - I wonder why we don’t have a word that specifically relates to single exclusive relationships given that monogamy doesn’t actually necessitate marriage. It might be more helpful if we had a word like monoamory or just dispensed with one of the terms for poly relationships (married or otherwise).
Might well have been me that started the polygamy train, just simply mixing up words that I rarely use. It happens, and now I know.
Sorry I’m being a thicko but whats the difference between Polygamy and Polyamory?
Is one where you have multiple wives/husbands?
And also whats the bad thing about using one incorrectly?
(genuine Q - i’ve no idea and don’t want to say the wrong thing in discussions)
Polygamy involves marriage, polyamory doesn’t.
Polygamy is pretty much always one man being married to several women, and the women are usually not permitted to have relationships outside of the marriage.
Ok cool, i’m with you.
Thanks!
Of course, yes, because there’s polyandry too.
I’d completely forgotten about polyandry.
It’s pretty telling that it was felt we needed different terms.
"I’ve been in two open relationships before which ended because feelings developed beyond the original, erm, “agreement”
That for me is why I don’t think open relationships work. They’re sort of doomed to fail because you’re fighting against inevitable feelings developing. In monogamous relationships you welcome those feelings developing. In open relationships you’re fighting against those feelings developing. Case in point, a friend of mine who was in a 6 month open relationship started to develop feelings for the guy, wanted commitment and he couldn’t give it so she broke up with him because he couldn’t give her the commitment that she wanted. I mean, that can equally happen in monogamous relationships but in monogamous relationships there’s an almost unspoken agreement of commitment that you don’t have to fight against…
I dunno, I’m just rambling. I made this thread mainly because of my friend who has agreed to an open relationship just to make her boyfriend happy. She doesn’t want to go off with anyone else herself. She’s content just being with him. But she’s concerned that he’s not satisfied with her sexually and in her own words, ‘I no longer have to worry about him wanting to go off with other girls’. I just think that’s a crap reason to be in an open relationships. She’s finding it hard to do and I feel for her.
I dunno. Fuck it.
Can see how this was annoying.
I think I mentioned jealousy, myself, as a reason why I’d find it difficult at this stage in my life to adjust to poly relationships. That’s my issue though.
Hopefully this and subsequent discussions on here will feature no piling on anyone.
That’s just not enough data to say open relationships don’t work.
A bit like saying that because you’d been in two plane crashes air travel can’t work.
Agree entirely that the open relationship you’re describing sounds doomed though. She has to want to be in one too.
I disagree. There’s an example in there, but there’s also a general argument preceding it.
A thing that interests me about that post though is that it contains the word “commitment” three times, which is three times more than it had appeared in the whole of this thread up to that point. Inevitably someone will assume I’m taking some sort of stand here, but in reality the only point I’m making is that commitment is an extremely important part of my own relationship and I’m surprised it seems to be so little discussed here.
Hang on. You disagree with what? My suggestion that anecdotes from two people is too little data to write off a relationship model?