r/PolyFidelity

There is a ridiculously bad article on Wikipedia regarding "Unicorn Hunting" that just reeks of that other polyamory subreddit and their "we make the rules" mentality. It is in need of some editing and I would encourage anyone with the time to take a look. The first four references are tangential at best and garbage sources at worst, and the article attempts to speak for the entire LGBT and Polyamory communities in its slant (if not open condemnation).

Maybe it's just me, but I have yet to see any closed triad formed by three people spontaneously gathering together at exactly the same time, or of a large polycule reducing in size to form a stable throuple. What I have seen has always started with two people, and then a third joins. Many of you have been in relationships which started like that for years.

Take a look and see if you agree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn_hunting

How many of us are sick to death of people trying to control information to their own advantage? "They who yell loudest" isn't democratized knowledge, and we can't allow a few loudmouths to claim private ownership of a definition in order to control public opinion - that's Joseph Goebbels and Newspeak.

Alright, rant over. Thank you.

Just sitting around on this lazy Sunday, trying to fill some time while we all have the day to ourselves, I got to wondering - do you consider yourselves to be relatively traditional? Do you engage in other kinks, lifestyles, or communities that are off the beaten path? Do you dress differently than the norm and such?

None of it's a judgement on anyone, I'm just realizing how much my group doesn't look like anyone you'd consider poly. I'm your standard 9-5, suit and tie business guy. Both of my girlfriends are very traditional, femme girls, one's even reasonably religious (goes to church semi-regularly, nothing nuts). The craziest one of them gets is some very mild artificial hair highlights that mostly blend in to her hair, but fits her aesthetic as an artsy person.

We mess around with a little bit of kink, but nothing more intense than you'd see on a standard HBO show or movie. We're not part of any alt-communities, although they spend some time with other bisexuals/lesbians occasionally.

What about you? Happy Sunday.

EDIT ADDED*

Long story short i was in a polyquad. We are two married couples who fell in love with eachothers partners. My partners wife doesn’t like me after he decided to get me pregnant without my consent. This was 10 months into knowing eachother. I was asked for an abortion and demanded to get it but i ended up losing my baby before anything. I can understand her feelings about it but i did not consent to his actions. I was blamed for her husbands actions and she has held this grudge on me ever since and treated me poorly due to it. We are about to hit 3 years. They have a child and we have all raised him since the day he was born. I was not allowed to discuss my child after it happened. There is so many more details of pain but its not the point of what clarity i need.

I let my feelings be known moving forward on if we were to stay together our partnership would need to be equal to his wife. She agreed also when it came to my husband. I did not feel comfortable with the power dynamic she had over me. I asked him for commitment on not leaving if she asked him, gave him an ultimatum, or asked for a divorce randomly. He reassured me multiple times throughout our relationship. Even 2 days prior to us breaking up. So i agreed to continue our relationship. I would have ended it after what i went through with being abandoned after getting pregnant if i knew he wasn’t being honest with his reassurance. She ultimately had a lot of jealousy towards our relationship because he had put a lot more effort. Although she treated me poorly i made sure to tell him to be better and helped him do nice things. I would go out of my way and help their failing marriage. I didnt want to see them end as we became a family although she didnt like or treat me well. With us all raising a child we were civil and would plan dinners and swaps together. We lived separately and our relationship has been a secret from others so we had to plan accordingly.

Now to the point. He has expressed he loves me more and our relationship has been the best he has ever had. He has done so much for me that he never has for her. Not that it was right but i can only push so much for him to do better for her. She has also caused many issues to our relationship. We couldn’t spend genuine time together most of the time due to her blowing up our phones, causing issues, not allowing us to go anywhere when he was with me, and texting him hurtful things often when with me. He has admitted that me and him have no relationship issues and it was wonderful with no complaints. She decided to leave my husband due to her hate for me after i had said something about being disrespectful with something she did. She messaged me nasty things and i decided not to respond as im honest but not hateful and wont tolerate that. Ive let her walk on me a lot throughout this quad relationship. Ive felt scared as she has threatened to take away my relationship with my partner. I felt as if i had to walk on eggshells around her. Despite everything, I was kind to her
and would help her with so much with no thank you from her. I was expected to do things with no appreciation. Im leaving things vague as i would be typing for hours about our entire relationship over 3 years.

I had asked once again to my partner if he was going to leave me due to her decision and he said if she asks him to, yes. It hurt and i broke down as he had lied to me about not leaving me through this situation. I fought for our relationship so hard. He didn’t want to give me closure and ghosted/blocked me. I had to find out from my husband that he didnt want a conversation. My husband had to beg him to talk to me and he finally agreed. Unfortunately it wasn’t closure he gave me during this conversation but false hope on continuing things and giving me false reassurance again. He talked to her afterwards and flipped a script for a second time. He then texted me ending things the next day after our conversation. I asked him to call me and later that night he did. He once again said he wanted to be with me and made that commitment to me again which left me extremely confused. The next day i got a text saying something opposite of what i was told the night prior. So he called me later that evening and told me if me and her arent friends then he cant be with me. He wont let her divorce him due to expressing being scared of losing his child and that he married her regardless of the relationship being not good. I told him ive asked her countless times to have a conversation with me but she refused and blocked me. My husband had also asked her but she had no interest and was set on her decision. Basically she didn’t want to talk things out with me although we never had a conversation about anything she has felt.

I was never given a chance to fix anything and never knew her feelings as she is one of those people to expect someone to know what she is thinking without saying anything. Her husband then convinced her to have a conversation and be open and understanding to me. She agreed and we talked but unfortunately she was not open on talking it out and stated she didn’t care to understand me. Only being able to say what she wanted. I never got to express my side but gave her understanding on how she felt through her talking. At this point 6 hours in i asked if she was open to making it work and we can figure it out. I came into the conversation being understanding and it was calm and civil. We figured out what went wrong so when she said no she was never open i was confused. She told me she was only open to having all 4 of us talk and to call her husband out so he can admit things he has done wrong infront of her. I refused to do that as what would be the point to help her call him out on anything if we aren’t making this work. She wanted to due to needing him to admit certain things to leave. We talked further on that basically she doesnt trust me and that she wont leave even if he admitted to things that were the worst outcome due to their child. Therefore I said no and asked her once again to work it out. Her response was no so the conversation ended as it was pointless to say my hurt from her or continue talking if this was final. We blocked eachother and left it at that.

Here we are almost 1.5 months later and im finally getting my closure conversation with him. It took a lot to have him open to it as he didnt care. I expressed it would be long and exhausting. He had admitted so much during our talk. He has nothing good to say about his wife and has agreed she is the reason for majority of the issues we have came across. Minus the problems he has caused. He told me he loves me more currently although we broke up almost 2 months ago. He still doesnt want to be with me and explains that he has to leave to work on his marriage for his child. I can understand but here is the problem. I told him that i did not want to emotionally invest myself more in a man who would leave me at the request of someone else prior. Ive give him multiple chances to leave if he couldn’t respect that. Instead of being truthful he falsely reassured me. He said he didnt want to leave but had to. Obviously not true as he had a choice. Why does he continue to say he loves me more, feels more with me, it’s the best he has had and no one has made him feel so loved the way i have but decides to leave after continuing a relationship when i expressed i didn’t want to be together if this was a possible outcome? Its confusing. I never asked him to leave her. Nor would i leave my husband. That did not mean our relationship needed to end.

I get it he has a wife and a child but when he explains why he is staying its not for her in anyway. He says he doesnt think the connection with her will come back and if the marriage ends in 6 months so be it. So why did he have me sit in a relationship that i was giving so much of myself to then pull this on me? Its not fair to me. They both decided to do this relationship and agreed to being equal. So why put me and my husband through this? We are both hurt. She continues to reach out to my husband for closure when she had that already but needs more. Im confused as to why when she ended it. Its emotionally exhausting. Here is the kicker:

She called her husband during our conversation because she showed up to where she thought we were but couldnt find us. She did this because i was not comfortable with her continuing to talk to my husband after having her closure talk with him already and needing more. She told her husband to leave the middle of our conversation immediately. Before he left we had a small conversation and he told me he was willing to keep having sex during his work shift behind her back if i dont tell my husband either. Its insanely wild as he is chosing to leave me in order to work on his marriage but yet wants to continue fucking behind her back and has said these things to me as well as continue to hide deeper secrets that she has no idea about that only i do. Me and her agreed to keep things in our own relationships as we have had problems discussing details or problems with each other so this is why she isnt aware and why i havent said anything. Along with the fact that im afraid of her and if i said anything she would likely do as she threatened. Although he reassured me it wouldnt happen, i knew in the back of my head its likely due to her taking away his child from him. So many lost details throughout but im hoping to understand more. I know im not perfect but this seems to not be polyamory, instead a long term swingers situation. It hurts. I guess im just looking for advice, insight or even understanding.

Edit to add*

After reading the comments, I have now realized that what he did to me was SA. I did not consider this anything like that due to agreeing to have sex with no condom. I didn’t know that since he came inside me on purpose without my consent, despite multiple conversations, that it is considered assault. 

As for the comments regarding his wife, I should’ve had worded things a lot better than I did because I didn’t take time to truly like go through my thought process when writing this at 3am. I know it sounds like I’m blaming her for everything, but she is absolutely not to blame for everything in any type of way. When I say she causes majority of the problems, I meant according to putting strain on mine and his relationship. I also addressed that he also causes many problems in our relationship. She is definitely not the sole reason but she is the reason for a lot of conversations on how she is treating me due to his actions. It is absolutely his fault though for him not taking action on that. I have had this conversation with him time and time again. I would set boundaries, but clearly would not stand on it as I obviously don’t have any respect for my own self on keeping that. Unfortunately, I am a person that I will work through anything. I’m currently doing trauma therapy as I’ve had a really extremely traumatic childhood. I do believe her taking things out on me is absolutely her fault as she 100% should’ve taken it out on him instead of me rightfully. Me and her have had conversations where we both acknowledge that we are being told two different things and to have conversations moving forward. I would confront things that I found out were problems, but she would never come to me and instead hold grudges on me, resulting in poor actions towards me. I never blamed her and sat and understood her on everything he was doing as it was 100% not okay. I made her know i was on her side regardless of the backlash on my relationship. Eventually after so many times of trying to help them fix their relationship and her continuing to do these things to me, I didn’t feel comfortable any longer discussing or helping them as it was never my issue to fix for them and it should’ve never been put as my problem. I have done countless things for her and pushed him to do dates, sweet things, and even would do things to take anything off her mental load. I never received anything in return from her or any appreciation. I was met with hate. I can only be so kind to someone before i cant deal with it anymore hence me telling her that she was disrespectful causing her to end our quad situation. 

I get it. I’m stupid for staying in this situation but I truly had a lot of love for this person and their child. Its hard to explain to someone who has never been through an abusive relationship on why you stay. I was trauma bonded to him as i was pregnant with his child along with other things making me attached. I have ADHD, OCD, PTSD, anxiety, depression. It makes it harder for me to release from attachment. 

As for the situation on him being okay with having sex behind his wifes back, no im not okay with this. I immediately told my husband. Me and him have not had contact since we broke up. The only time we did was when we unblocked eachother to plan a date to have this conversation. I am not interested in entertaining him anymore although it hurts to never speak again. He put me through so much more than what was written down. Sadly i cant just completely diminish my love regardless of his actions. So i will continue to heal. 

I understand that this was not polyamory in anyway as this is exactly where my frustration is. We all have never been in this situation and it was all four of our first time figuring it out together. It was rough. None of us know anyone who is in the community and tried navigating through it without support or knowing how to approach things or what to approach when it comes to boundaries. 

I can be more specific on the things he has done that i don't feel comfortable discussing with her after being treated the way i have. She told me she doesn’t trust me and wont believe anything i say. We also have agreed to leave certain things out from discussion with each other. I don't feel like within our quad that everyone completely understood what a boundary truly is vs control. “Boundaries focus on protecting your own well-being by defining what you will do or tolerate, well control attempts to force others to change their behavior to suit your needs.” Unfortunately a lot of “boundaries” she had were not genuine boundaries. A lot of the things are sexual things she didn’t like for us to do that didnt cross any true lines. Just kinks she felt uncomfortable with but it had no harm to her in anyway. He had spent money on things but she would control him on what money he can spend. I didnt feel it was my place to say anything as i have prior but got backlash and she then stopped allowing dates for us since he would need to eat something small or pay for parking if we went anywhere that was even free. I also dont agree on him not being able to spend his own money but also understand a budget and convinced them to sit and discuss budgets to not have this issue. For those who are married and share money, we all understand this stand point of not blowing money and having talks when it comes to those things. But this was fully beyond that. He couldn’t spend even a few dollars without it being a issue. I also did not feel comfortable to discuss anything he said to me as i made it known he needs to fix his marriage and leave me out of it. That she needs to stop involving me and taking things out on me and he needs to do better. So him feeling the way he does makes me uncomfortable to say anything as it would basically end my relationship immediately. Obviously its over now either way but if she doesnt want to hear from me again i feel no need to say anything. Not my issue anymore. She hasnt treated me well and at this point it would only stir issues for me and backlash which i dont need as im ready to heal. Here is probably the worst one.. he has tried to convince me to take birth control so he can c*m inside me and told me if i got pregnant again while on BC that he was okay with it this time. I absolutely said no and left it at that. Yes my husband knows this. He had also came in me once more “half way” after i was pregnant. My husband also knows. This was also once again not consented to. He never did it again as he got scared and resorted to trying to c*m inside my ass instead. Yeah, clearly i dont learn. At this point our emotional connection was very deep and obviously the sexual tension was very much there causing me to stay once again. I wont explain why as you can probably tell by now i was extremely attached and in an abusive cycle. He has physically (once, yes i know again dumb to stay please no need as i didnt even want to mention this.. i understand i should have left many times) and mentally torn me down. Things were hot and cold. One minute really great with him and the next it was like getting hit by a truck.

Thank you for all of your comments. Its truly so nice to receive understanding and to get more insight. You all have made me realize a lot. 

Has anyone here been in a throuple relationship that fell apart, but still managed to stay on good terms with the third person afterward?

Ours ended and we’re honestly not on good terms at all now, which has been really painful and confusing for me. I think people underestimate how deep those bonds can get and how much grief comes with losing not just a partner, but the friendship and connection too.

I guess I’m just wondering if anyone’s been through something similar and eventually found peace/friendship again after everything fell apart. Or even if you didn’t.. how did you cope with losing that person?

Hi!

I’m in a closed FFF triad. I’ve been married to my wife for 7+ years, and we became very close to one of my friends, which led to a casual kiss, then a threesome, and now a relationship of 5+ months. I live with my wife, but our girlfriend lives in another city, so we don’t see each other as often as we’d like.

My wife and I had casually seen other people a few times before, but nothing ever developed into a serious commitment until now. The three of us are in love, and we’ve started talking about what a future together could look like. Not because we’re trying to rush anything, but because these are the kinds of conversations we’d have with any serious partner to understand compatibility, expectations, and what each of us wants.

Since I have so many questions, I’d really love to hear personal triad/poly success stories from people who have been doing this longer.

Are all of you married*? Do you live together? How long have you been together? What was it like in the beginning, and what is it like now? What changed over time? Whatever you’re comfortable sharing, I’d be very grateful to hear it! :)

Many thanks

​

I've been married to 44 (M) for 13+ years and I 37 (F) have had a relationship with a woman for 9 years (she is also married). As of recently we have split unfortunately. Aside from communication issues, I feel like the fact that I have growing family has added to the complication factor. I have a young school age child with another one on the way. She doesn't and that will not change. She advised that things between us are changing and because of my growing family things will continue to get complicated. I want to add that i am commited to her and we were in a closed relationship. Our relationship is like an onion with many layers but that's not what my question is about.

Question: Is it possible in this type dynamic ENM/KTP/ Hinge relationship can flourish with a family? Is the future I was envisioning with her (maybe someone else down the line) actually a reality for some of you?

What I envisioned is something along the lines of her and I date/have our time like a normal relationship. Semi annual trips & maybe weekend getaway here & there. We do things as a family e.g. beach, dinner, celebrate "family" things together - like an aunt.

Looking forward to feedback.

Thank you in advance.

My husband and I (both M) have been chatting with and going on dates with a wonderful new fella, and so far all the flags are green 😁

We've been poly for several years, tried dating solo of each other and didn't like it, and then had a year-long quad relationship with another duo that ultimately fell apart due to jealousy (on their part, not ours). It's been just the two of us for a few years now.

We know that what we are looking for (moving from an existing duo into a trio or quad, etc.) is challenging / rare to find. We've been patiently working on ourselves and finding contentment in our lives, and this wonderful guy just kinda appeared in our lives.

It's early days, and we've learned to be cautious and not rush into anything, AND I'm really enjoying this magic moment in our lives.

We are having a "defining the relationship" conversation this week, and I'm excited for the possibility and anxious that it may not be the result I hope for.

LGBT+ community has done a lot of works in those past decades (they're still working on it, but it surely is better than few years ago in a lot of countries).

Do you think it will be the same for us? Do you think we'll be ever able to have poly marriages with more than one partner? (I'm referring to marriages that aren't religious like the muslim ones and that gives everyone the possibility to be married to more than one person, not like only men with more than one woman kind of thing)

Idk, sometimes I just wonder if in this timeline I'll live long enough to see it, but I'm not smart enough or know that kind of history enough to draw a possible answer...