Certainly not everyone can pull off poly. you have to really do some soul searching and you will feel the answer in your gut. Maybe sharing someone in a 3way first would be easier for some people???

I think humanity needs to work on learning to be happy with themselves first and then letting other people decide what is best for themselves.

I think it's important for you to pay attention to that gut feeling when he is with others.

I am poly myself. I do not see it as progressive towards anything. I think and feel it is an inclination, an orientation. It chooses us and not vice versa. I would say it is not for everyone and would be in the minority on a spectrum of behavior. Jealousy varies from person to person and I would say comes from a fear of loss. It often makes for a self fullfiling prospect.

I'm all for doing whatever makes you happy/comfortable. That said I am not very good at monogamy on many levels. I don't want to have children nor do I care to get married and so I see no reason to be with just one person. I don't like the possessiveness or ownership factor of being monogamous. What I mean is how people feel that you are theirs and since you are "in a relationship" you are restricted in what you can and cannot do (and with whom). I rebel in these sort of situations and while I have never cheated on a partner I have been very detached when I felt that I couldn't explore or express a side of myself (sexually, mentally, socially) because of my partner/relationship.

I'm also not very good at the widely accepted ideal of polyamory either because I find that I can receive/enjoy different versions of love and affection from different people. I don't wish to place any relationship type (friends, sex partners, bf/gf etc.) above or below any other. For me, they are pretty much all equal. I do not wish to share my space or all aspects of my life with another person either. I realize that even in polyamorous relationships moving in together and sharing space/life is still an important step. One I'm just not interested in since I value my personal space and happiness above( most) everything else.

In the past I believe most relationships were poly with men having more than one woman. But with the advent of Judeo/Christian religion in the west it changed.
I would like to be in a poly relationship but I find it hard to convince women.
A poly relationship also doesn't necessarily have to involve sex. It could just be a love relationship for more than one other person.

I definately have different people in my life who fill different needs, people here for interesting discussions. people I work with to complete community projects, ocassionally a friend to see a movie with, someone to go tp coffee with. Lots of gaps though.

It depends on the person(s) involved. I don't think either poly or mono is in itself good or bad.

I refuse to be in a monogamous relationship; simple as that.

When all is said and done, I have seen very few poly arrangements that work out. Count me as one of the monogamous ones. I also realize that monogamy and monotony are not the same thing.????

Both parners need to feel and act the same. If you are both happy and secure with variety, then fine. If one of you needs the security or just plain prefers to be the one and only then it isn't going to work. For me, I want that one person---and I want him to just want and be content, fulfilled, and happy with me

@doglvr1882 In between significant relationships I have had casual relationships with several men at a time not always sexual but good to hang out with, not long term friends either although sometimes they have become good friends, once I commit to someone though there's not enough room for more than one

Right now I'm sexually monogamous, but I haven't always been. I used to think I couldn't be monogamous, but as it turns out, I can be. I have, however, become much more selective with whom I'll share sexual intimacy with.

I didn't really know about polyamory/ethical non-monogamy for the longest time. I didn't have the language for why I kept falling in love with men while I was married. It kind of just happened and I thought I was just a bad person for not being able to be monogamous. I thought I was abnormal and sick. But I wasn't. Love makes everything so much better and gives me energy and as long as I'm honest about my activities to those I'm with, it's good.

I have a lot of interests and hobbies and therefore need a lot of friends to share these things with. No one person likes all the things I like and even if they did, that would get rather boring. I like talking about all kinds of things from math/physics/biology to psychology to history and literature, art, theatre and music.

Fortunately, I've always had guy friends and my husband of the time was cool with that. He was cool with me needing to flirt with them too and it became kind of a fun game and most times I'd come home and share that energy with my husband. But sometimes I shared that with that person. I gave myself permission to feel love and follow my affections. It actually didn't turn sexual that often but sometimes it did and it felt good to share that physical aspect without any expectation that it needed to be an ongoing thing. At first I didn't tell my husband about this sexual activity with others. I didn't want to hurt him and I didn't want to break up with him either. I still loved my husband, even though I wanted to love others too.

Things changed when someone I fell in love with told me that they didn't want to be hidden from my husband and that if I wanted to see him, I needed to tell my husband the truth about what I wanted.

So...I spent a great deal of time learning about polyamory and I opened up to my husband how I was. Those were some hard conversations. I still loved my husband, and I knew that telling him meant I could lose him, but I had to be true to myself and if it meant I lost my husband, that had to be okay. I couldn't keep how I was from him any longer. It wasn't fair.

Even so, I still felt a bit guilty for being married and wanting to be with others. My husband was monogamous. I will say this: I'm glad he did try to make an open marriage work. He was super uncomfortable at times and caused him pain and he got angry at me even though he gave me consent. It was a very confusing and painful time for a while. At least until he started finding women he could date and it was a little better.

But we still ended up splitting up because of other issues we had (stemming from his drinking).

I'm glad we tried, though, to make an open marriage work. We just couldn't.

So, the partner I'm with now is the last lover I ever had when I was married. We've been living together since about 6 months after my divorce.

But after being married for 18 years and finally being free to love whomever I wanted, I set up an OKC profile to start dating. In 2017 I dated 5 men, all of whom were poly and two who were married and poly. I had a really nice time dating them and going to interesting places and learning about their lives and how they navigated multiple relationships. I found out that in some cases, their wives were having more regular sexual encounters with others than they were. I didn't have sex with any of them, because I wasn't actually attracted to them that way, which was kind of disappointing. I found I couldn't get past the kissing stage for a couple of them because while they were nice, very smart men, they didn't kiss well.

Only one of them ever gave me any kind of passionate feelings. He was a beautiful kisser and I felt things I hadn't in a long while. I wasn't expecting that because though we spent 6 hours together going to different trendy spots in Logan Square in Chicago, I didn't have any real opinion either way, but that he was nice and a good communicator. But that goodbye kiss...there was a whole universe in that kiss. He was the only one I ever felt anything for...and our second date was a weekend getaway at a meditation and movement retreat - a cabin in the woods with 8 other really cool adults. His girlfriend couldn't go so he asked me and I didn't even have to pay for it, which was amazingly cool of him. We almost had sex there at the retreat, but in the end, didn't. It turns out later he told me he was a high functioning alcoholic, and while we are still friends, for my own peace of mind, I had to keep my distance (not too hard as he's an hour away). But I still think of him often.

One of them turned out to be one of my very best friends, but I never get to see him enough because he's getting super busy with his girlfriend and his photogrpahy hobby.

I believe that humans by our nature are both bi sexual and poly, but due to religion and paranoia we have restricted our-self's to something that is both unnatural and does not help our species evolve. Besides poly relationships can be anything from very close friends (without sex at all) to married couples.

I'm pretty sure I'm a product of my upbringing. So Mono..

But I have no issue with people who want to do Poly - just don't involve me without my knowledge.

Also with Poly - every person you add is more work. I don't think most people can do that.

I've never been monogamous. It proved something of an issue with my ex when I told him up front that I was poly and if we were going to get married (for tax reasons), I preferred to keep our marriage open in the event he or I met someone and wanted to pursue a relationship with them as well. Everything was fine until I started dating a very close mutual friend of ours. It bothered my ex that I was with anyone else, particularly as I shared a strong emotional connection with her and we spent so much time together. I broke things off with her to please him, despite how it hurt.

Last year I met two other people who were in a long term relationship with one another and after months of getting to know them, we ventured into a relationship. I've since left my ex as our paths were diverging into very different directions. He wasn't poly, he hadn't ever been, and the breaking point was me coming to him with the truth that I loved them deeply. I'd come out to him once as asexual (I now identify as demi), so learning my attraction to them wasn't a purely emotional or romantic one was a complete dealbreaker.

I truly believe poly is not for everyone. Some people have all their needs met by just one person or that's honestly all they want, and that is completely okay. Others, like myself, have specific desires that have never successfully been met by a single individual.

I think everyone should just do whatever the fuck they want. As long as everyone is of legal age, and has given their informed consent.
Who gives a shit how many people anyone is involved with? Ain't none of my damned business.

i'm a monogamy guy and won'tbe evolving to a poly guy. i just want one honest intimate relationship going on in my life at a time.

Poly can only work if all want it. My ex had a girlfriend and we got along together we all had feelings for each other and we for the most part were all together at the same time. I think where a problem comes in is when there isn't a togetherness. Other than that I've only been in monogamous relationships.

I think polyamory can work...but there is always the problem with someone feeling left out. There has to be enough to go around, as they say.

I am somewhat surprised to find that I do not necessarily need someone who only needs me. And I have been (more or less, if you take college out of the picture) monogamous my whole life.

However, if you're in a relationship, you have to be honest (well, I gues you can try not to be, but good luck with that). And the way life is structured, I think it's hard to maintain polyamory for extended periods of time. We are creatures of habit, and we like stable structure in our lives, and polyamory is inherently unstable.

Also, some guys have commitment issues. Just sayin'.

Depends on the person and their ability to let go of that possessive nature we all have in us. Just like a kid doesnt want to share their toys, most people don't want to share their SO. BUT I think when there's two mature people that are accepting of the fact they do not own their SO and aren't sharing so much as allowing them their freedom, it is an amazing dynamic. It's more likely you'll be cheated on than not in a monogamous relationship, so the way I see it, cut the bullshit. Poly relationships aren't easy but they're more realistic.

After two failed marriages I have changed my view in relationships. I feel that the connection is important. We have for years tried to keep our religious teachings (one man one woman) as a guide. This leads to staying in unwanted relationships and can ruin the connections we crave. If you are with someone and they have a better connection with someone else why would you want to be in the way of that? It sucks being on the end that is left, but restricting connections won’t dull the need for other connections. Having said all of this I am single. My wives left me and I currently feel the need to be alone. I do crave connection but don’t want the hassle of changing who I am to fit into someone else’s idea of what a relationship is. I’m quite positive that this has helped, not at all!

I think it's a personal choice. I think if you felt sick when he was with his other partner, polyamory is probably not for you. There ARE good and honorable people out there (monogamous and poly) just keep looking and working on you and you'll be ok.. Don't settle for something that makes you feel bad.

The truth is that most of us are into serial monogamy for one reason or another. It might be interesting to study precisely why, but marriage laws in this country are clearly the result of the christian beliefs of the majority – and imposed on such as Mormons and Muslims. I suppose if you think about morality in fairly abstract terms (what is good for the greatest number) there is something to be said for forcing parents to jointly raise (and be responsible for) their children. Its hard for me to see that outlawing the idea of multiple wives (or husbands) helps much in this regard. We have so many broken families in our society.

I prefer monogamous for health reasons. People need to do what is comfortable for them