Polyamory Always Ends Up Badly

People will say “polyamory never works,” and then too often it turns out they’re on their third marriage, or they have cheated (or are currently cheating) on their spouse.

Human beings are really bad at monogamy. It’s almost like, as a social construct, it’s against our basic instincts. If you take all of human history into account, the most common form of long-term human bonding is actually polygamy, not monogamy. If so much of human culture wasn’t patriarchal, polyandry would probably be at the top of the list as well.

it should be discussed in the beginning of the relationship. We discussed it with our poly couple and when the other wife fell in love we were able to revisit the arrangement. In the end we all decided to move on. It was a great 2+ years. There were no hard feelings.

In my own experience, our 'third', a female, became too attached to me; she was missing her husband who lived 1,000 miles away. She realized that he couldn't fill the very present physical and emotional needs that she had. She became attached to all the attention she was receiving, particularly from me when we played, but forgot that she was the 'third'. She wanted to fall in "love", and didn't realize there needed to be a separation between a "love" and a "like-really fun to be with you" kind of relationship. Not sure how to really vet that out up front, or howw not to be obnoxious about setting up a rule like that.

There are different kinds of poly. There’s “kitchen table” poly, where everyone is on the same level, and then there are hierarchical poly relationships, where you have “nesting” partners and then other people are brought into that relationship, but the base partnership is at the top of the hierarchy and takes priority. This is really common with people who have kids.

@funley we are here to share our thoughts and our experiences..

Considering how common cheating and divorce are, we could just as easily say, “Monogamy always ends up badly.”

Town are you speaking for yourself

I think if it works and that person doesn't feel like a third wheel you won the lottery.. and for some it's just on their bucket list and after that bucket list have been fulfilled they are gone..

@playful, thank you for that.

I've been in two long-term (5 to 10 years) poly relationships that worked very well. One ended when she met someone else, and the other because we moved. We are still good friends with both, and we all remember those times fondly.

Esperanza, there are some things about polyamory you misunderstand. A poly relationship does not "begin with a monogamous couple." Once they embark on polyamory they are no longer monogamous. I do agree that a couple who became a couple with previous experience in polyamory and had that expectation from the start are much more likely to succeed at poly. But I know couples who went from monogamy to an open relationship and then to polyamory successfully. It worked because it met the needs of everyone involved.

The other misunderstanding is the idea that there is always a hierarchy and that is always bad. The majority of the polyamorous people I know have primary relationships and other relationships that are rich but secondary to the primary one. When primary partners are involved with others of course there is a hierarchy; that is not evidence that it isn't working. However, other polyamorous people do not have a hierarchical structure to their relationships. That is more challenging to manage but it can work. I know people who have multiple, roughly equal partners and don't live with any of them. I also have a very close friend who has a wife and girlfriend who are pretty much equal in "importance" to him and time/energy/money spent.

When most people in the usa are raised into hetero monogamy, and struggle with just basic communication in day to day living, and most couples already have their ups and downs, I don't understand how most people expect polyamory to actually ever work out long term.

All people involved have to be at least equally openly very communicative and very unattached to traditional hetero monogamous roles. What do you think the odds are of anybody finding that?

I don't believe for a moment that any poly relationships that begin with a monogamous couple can ever work long term. There will always be a sense of a hierarchy and couples privilege.

There are a lot of relationship paradigms under the banner of "polyamory." I'd say triads are relatively rare. A primary relationship where both parties also have other relationships is the most common in my personal experience and that describes a lot of the couples I know in the Lifestyle. However, it is not nearly as common as swinging couples who play with others but avoid emotional attachment. That is much easier to sustain over a long term, but polyamory does work for some people. It depends a lot on the "secondary" partners being content with that, due to their circumstances or their preferences. It also requires a lot of maturity. I can point to quite a few people who have made one version or another of poly work for them over long periods. And some for whom it did not work. Monogamous and swinging marriages break up, too, as Molly pointed out already. I hypothesize that a truly scientific sample would reveal that polyamorous relationships break up more often but the rewards of having multiple people in your life who love you are substantial.

Well, Molly beat me to that answer.

A regular playmate has been in a poly triad for over 15 years and I know of others that have lasted even longer. It's not for me, since I can't be that intimate with more than one person, but it's not because poly relationships are inherently any more unstable. I mean, how many people have you known who have been divorced? There's usually bad feelings and some tears there too.

IMHO, your spouse/committed partner should be the only person you are really, really close to. When a third party, male or female, gets too intimately involved in the relationship, it opens the door for drama, hurt feelings, or worse. Recreational sex with other people is a blast and we love it. We only "love" each other however in a truly intimate way.

Can it work for some people? I suppose it can, but we've never seen it play out positively in the long term.

Saw it happen with two couples whom we were mutual friends with that decided to be exclusive. Knew it wouldn't last. Opens the door for too much drama & it did. They wound up alienating all their other lifestyle friends. One of the couples left the lifestyle soon after it ended.

Yes or no? Every couple we've met who's been involved in a polyamory situation has ended up hurt. Someone ends up crying with a broken heart because there always seems to be a breakup involved. Relationships with three people never last. What do you think? What's your experience?