I think there are an unfortunate number of monogamous people who decide to try polyamory to fix or hold on to a dying relationship. It's not a surprise that that often goes extremely poorly. It's not for everyone and it's not gonna fix any problems.

I've dated a couple of people who are poly, and while I'd always been in monogamous relationships, I was open to the idea. I don't think love is a finite resource, and I'm not a jealous person at all, and it turns out, it doesn't bother me at all. I also stay well away from anyone who thrives on drama, so all involved were very honest and adult about the whole thing. I wasn't in a good headspace for any relationship at the time, so it didn't work, but I'd absolutely be willing to try it again.

My nesting partner and I do not have a sexual relationship anymore, and that's totally fine. We're still in love and enjoy spending lots of time together. Polyamory is not about sex. I have other sexual partners sometimes, and that's fine. My NP also has a girlfriend who she doesn't have sex with either, and they get along like gangbusters.

Also if sex is all there is holding your relationship together you are fucked

I guarantee you know more monogamous people who have lost their relationships to jealousy.

This isn't a polyamory issue

My friend did it. Initially it was because her SO became basically asexual and she was trying to make it work while also meeting her own needs, and she ended up leaving him for her polyamorous partner and they got married and have been together for ages and had a baby. Sometimes the way on is the way out I guess.

Unless you're both asexual, or are open to the sexual one fucking around, you probably should get a divorce though

I think there is another side to that though that the non-asexual partner is probably often not very happy.

Are you disregarding your partner's needs here?

(Pre-edit: this became much longer than intended. You struck a chord in me it seems.)

You've articulated this so very well. It's a lesson that took me many years to learn and comes with the prerequisite of respecting yourself and respecting your partner to such a degree that the relationship comes second for both of you. Each person's first priority should be themselves. Both parties need to respect that to the point of accepting that staying together is not a given and is contingent on both parties being fully satisfied with the direction your lives together is heading.

The funny thing is that I've never felt more confident in my relationship since learning that. I used to think that's putting the relationship second to yourself is antithetical to commitment but actually it's the other way around. The only way to fully commit to a relationship is to make sure that maintaining it is a concious choice rather than an expectation or given.

The way my dad illustrated this lesson in my youth (and I took the advice but only recently learned the full meaning of it) is like this: life is a journey down a road with many crossroads. Should you find a partner, you walk together. If you hit a crossroad and can't agree on a direction then thank each other for the lovely journey together but let them follow their own path. Find that partner that is going to the same destination and you'll have found happiness in love.

Ive seen about 5 open marriage relationships first hand as part of my social circle, and maybe another 10 open dating relationships in the same expanded social circle. All hetero relationships, and I'd say slightly more than half of them were initiate by the woman. All "progressive" / non-religious poly.

This has been about a 15 year period, and every single one of those relationships at this point is over, or on deaths door.

My closest friend at one point was one of those, and I watched him slowly get more and more depressed over 6-8 months before opening up to me about it. He was critical of me passing judgement on poly relationships until I told him "OTHER people are capable of poly relationships. YOU are not." And that's really my only criticism to poly stuff. It is possible to be two well adjusted people participating in a long term mutually consensual polyamorus relationship. But those are about as common as rolling a natural 20 in the sample set of poly relationships. The rest are just headed for the garbage and at least one person in the relationship already knows it.

Real Polyamorus deserve marriage equality and to love the way they want. Most of the others are just virtue signaling and wearing it like a fashion statement, which is why they get made fun of.

I think a lot of people have the experience of dating someone who does not reveal they are poly until it is too “late.” I have a friend who is constantly meeting people and then learning that they already have a boyfriend, which is extremely frustrating.

My ex husband also decided that he wanted to be poly. I was okay with it (I had no interest in pursuing other relationships myself) - but then he decided to throw our marriage away so he could chase legal teens half our age…

The worst part is that you are supposed to feel “compersion” or something. It wasn’t enough to let my husband fuck teenagers, I had to be happy about it. It made me feel absolutely horrible and devastated my self esteem.

The poly lifestyle also sort of encourages you to view relationships as means to an end and disposable. You see this person for your sex needs, this person for your emotional needs and so on. It’s not a lifetime partnership.

Woah there buddy. This genie can't make somebody to fall in love with you.

They weren't implying a lack of sexual desire altogether. They were implying someone who was no longer attracted to their spouse but wanted to have sex with other people instead would just call themselves poly instead of getting a divorce...

Like how all those cishet guys go through years of emotional and hormone therapy, multiple surgeries, etc, so they can perv out in the women's restroom by calling themselves trans. Obviously /s

Life's about goals friend!