I personally am in a phenomenally stable polyamorous relationship. I've been married to my wife for 12 years, and she has had the same boyfriend for about half of that time. It's a really fulfilling arrangement for all of us in various ways. We're all genuinely happy and satisfied. I'm kind of casually looking for a boyfriend of my own.
But I feel like I only hear negative stories about other poly experiences. It's always unstable people and situations. It's always two out of three people happy at most. Surely there are other success stories out there, and I just hear the disasters because they're more memorable and fun to tell. Does anyone else have or know a polyamory success story?
EDIT: This blew up a little while I was asleep. I promise I'm at least reading every comment.
EDIT 2.0: ngl I did not expect the trope of polyamory to fix a struggling relationship would be so real. We did just the opposite and are both baffled. Don't use volitility to fight the volitility.
I’ve been with my wife and girlfriend for about 4.5 years. Gf has been married for longer.
Polyamory attracts trainwrecks and hands them a ton of rope which they promptly hang themselves with. We hear about them a lot because they’re loudly collapsing all the time.
We don’t hear about our types because what are we going to do, loudly announce stable long term relationships? Because I am judged as one of those people or a slut or a player or something I’m hesitant to loudly profess my polyamory. My coworkers don’t know that one day a week I don’t go to my regular home when I leave but to my girlfriend’s home where I hang out with her and her kids (whom I’ve been a stable adult fixture in their lives for years) until her husband wakes up for work when I either take her out to dinner, or get some alone time as he watches the kids, or he’s just there hanging out with us, then rather than it being an absolute fuckfest, we either have “I have work in the morning” sex, curl up watching tv, chat alone, or increasingly often chat with her kids because they’ve been needing more attention lately before going to bed. Then the next day I go to work from there. And they also don’t know that that evening my wife is glad that I was there because it’s good for me and she needs some alone time on a regular basis because while she loves me very much I’m a high energy extrovert and she’s a low energy introvert.
Hell my family is uncomfortable with my polyamory except my sister. They can accept that I’m gay and love my wife, but they don’t talk about my girlfriend and are clearly uncomfortable when I talk about her. So I shy away from it. And I don’t go to poly events because they’re full of train wrecks. I don’t filter through partners. I’ve never even had a romantic relationship that was under a year long.
And yeah I’ve had my drama. Casual sex has gone weird. My ex was actually monogamous but she started a triad because I wanted polyamory and that went just terribly. But also I was in my early 20s, similar situations for monogamous relationships aren’t blamed on monogamy but on dumb 20 somethings.
But yeah I’m happy and stable. And I know my wife, gf, and meta would all agree that’s our situation