Any other poly folk?

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I've never understood the whole "ownership" thing as applied to monogamy. I'm really not interested in multiple relationships -- god knows I don't have time for them anyway -- but the idea that I'd "own" whoever I'm with sounds to me bizarre. He's there by choice, no? And if he doesn't want to be, then presumably off he goes.

That is a much better view than most people I know who are in committed exclusive relationships. Many people take it as an excuse to micromanage every bit of their partner's life and also insist on doing everything together or not at all. Very little room for individuality in those cases. Clearly all are not like that, but that seems to be the socially accepted norm.

^ A lot of television characters act as though some rule book for relationships actually exists somewhere, and all their arbitrary and self-serving rules are actually written in it, and that everyone knows it. Maybe people get that idea from TV, or perhaps the writers get that idea from those types of people. Probably both.

I just avoid the people, although the idea is such a popular trope that I can't avoid it in the media.

IMO the only "rule" should be whatever works for you.

NT here. Poly with two partners (one Aspie, the other also NT). I think it's working out for all of us. Honesty and communication are important.

In spirit I am, lol.

I am.

I am in a concerning situation right now though--there's somebody new I like, and I think the feeling is mutual, but not sure if he's down with poly stuff. But he knows I am. Sigh.

Having open relationships makes some things harder and some things easier, I think, at least for me as an aspie.

If he wants to have a relationship with you, then he's thinking one of two things. I say this for the benefit of the monogamists in the thread, btw. Either he is down (or thinks he can adapt), or else he thinks he's going to change your mind.

Polyamory has become more mainstream in just the last few years, I think. We largely have Dan Savage to thank for that, IMO. So, unless he's been living under a rock, then he has some idea what it is, and can figure out where to find information about it.

I have done a lot of reading and thinking about it. The conclusions I reached point towards a fine balance of practices and definitions. I am in a mono relationship, though through my reading I have come to find quite a bit of fault with it, on a technical level. Mono relationships come with a predefined, prefabricated 'set of rules', that you absolutely must not break, otherwise your partner's trust will be diminished. It kinda works, but if I'm to speak from experience, it's not exactly uncommon to put yourself through quite a bad experience trying to uphold all these societal rules about how to behave. Taking myself to 2004, I recall one such bad experience. I had a long term partner, was in a committed relationship, and was relatively happy, but I also had feelings for someone else. Due to the entire prefabricated ruleset, it would not have been wise to act on those, and very likely unwise to mention it to my then partner. For me, this meant having to cope with my own 'betrayal' (from daring to have feelings) as well as resist meeting needs I never knew I could even have, alone. This conflicts heavily with my belief that a loving relationship should not force you to go through anything alone.

A similar experience happened again in 2007, with the same partner. However, I decided that it was symptomatic of not being into the relationship any more (I wasn't), so I left my partner, and broke off all contact with the other girl, on the same day.

Going on that history, I think it is a reasonable assumption to make that I might actually be polyamorous, even though I have no experience of actual polyamorous relationships.

I am very happy in my current mono relationship. We share a lot of trust, and a lot of love, and confide in each other about anything. I would most likely consider it a very horrible experience if I were to develop feelings for anyone else at this point. This is because I am so much more secure about what we have. I know I could turn to her about anything, but then I would still probably have to avoid doing so if that happened, because of the potential for harming the trust we share, and the equal potential for causing pain and breaking her heart. So I have no idea hw I would handle it, if that situation should arise. Yet I believe that kind of damage only really exists because of ownership. She is mine, and I am hers.. that's how we were brought up to be, how society's norms instilled in us dictate is the 'proper' way.

The thing is... I refuse to accept that, now. She does not own me. I'd be offended if she tried to force me into anything. Also, I refuse to claim her as mine. We're both adults with our own minds. Not property. Also, feelings are uncontrollable. If you develop feelings for a person, you either have to fight them, or go with them. Personally, I think society's 'relationship rulebook' doesn't allow for this simple fact of humanity, because if you can't even have feelings for someone else (potential relationship-breaker) without breaking other parts of a successful relationship (hiding things is a breach of trust), the very matter of being a human being with feelings precludes you from sticking to those rules. Suffer alone in silence, commit the worst possible offense, or get out entirely. Doesn't matter what you do, you're screwed,

The option is to throw away the rule book. Recognise that people do occasionally have feelings, and that those feelings can be felt for more than one person. I think that this tiny act of recognition, on the part of society at large, and the structure of the pre-packaged mono relationship, could pave the way for a lot of confused people to actually come clean to their loved ones, and be able to confide in their partners without fear of breaking anything. Doing so must surely only build trust, not break it. But with the norm being 100% exclusivity and monopoly on a person's emotions... I would imagine most couples would suffer terribly from it.

I honestly doubt I would prefer to be in a polyamorous relationship. However, I would not rule it out. I'm much more in favour of bringing some of the ethical standards and jealousy handling practices over to the mono community so that the new normal is that having feelings isn't a crime against love, and partners can freely communicate with each other, instead of caging each other up like pet budgies.

After all my thinking and reading, I'm reasonably sure that if my partner ever turned round to me and said that she might have feelings for another man, I'd actually be quite happy about it. I'd almost certainly have a lot to get used to, insecurity and jealousy at the fore, but I'm 100% confident we'd be able to sort that out. I'm almost certain it would never happen, though. I don't wish for it, but I'm far from opposed to it.