I’ve had a couple Poly experiences.

None of them are particularly happy memories, but it has nothing to do with Poly itself and everything to do with the fact that the only women that are attracted to me, or that are even interested in talking to me, seem to be abusers with a plethora of mental illness issues.

I’m poly, in a closed triad. Basically I live with my two partners and we are all dating eachother. Honestly, it just kinda works. Not much different than “traditional” relationships apart from the fact that even the biggest standard beds barely fit all 3 of us lol

I’m monogamous myself, but personally know two different polyamorous relationships. 1 is pretty damn good, and the other is rife with drama. Besides that, I tangentially know of others, and all of those are rough, though since I’m hearing of these from mutual friends and acquaintances, I could just be getting the juicy drama and none of the good parts. Could very well be that my info on those are bad

It does seem to mirror the general expectation, though, that most are unstable, and I wouldn’t call it surprising. Relationships are complicated, and anything that has more moving parts is going to be more complicated. I’m not trying to suggest here that monogamy is the way to go by any means–different people have different wants and needs, and some people are just good for polyamory. I just think that a working arrangement like this is tough to pull off

Besides, this gets asked a lot about polyamorous relationships, but there are so many fucked heteronormative relationships, and you never see the argument that monogamy is wrong, so yeah. Just whatever makes you happy

Back when me and my wife started dating, it was a long distance relationship and we agreed that it’s OK if we see other people too. Neither of us did, but I feel like “expanding relationship” should only happen when your primary deal is in healthy state and not to try fix issues in it by dating someone else.

I have 2 serious partners and I couldn’t be happier! These are the healthiest and most fulfilling relationships I’ve ever had. I love the freedom and autonomy that polyamory affords all of us. Since realizing I’m polyamorous, things have really fallen into place. It just feels right for me.

I knew two groups of polys. One was a success story and did very well with a big family full of kids. The other one broke up when it was clear two of them cared more about each other than a third. So I’m guessing it’s like every type of relationship- sometimes it works out well, sometimes it’s a disaster.

you’re delusional

I’m polyamorous myself, with a girlfriend of about 18 months and another of nearly a year. Both my relationships are stable and very fulfilling, and also relaxed and laid-back. It takes more communication to have it work but for me I can’t even imagine living any other way, polyamory feels right for me and me and my partners are happier than we’ve ever been.

Granted, my relationships aren’t a case of opening an existing partnership, but rather I talked about the fact that I’m polyamorous to each partner very early on before we even considered a relationship. Most drama I’ve seen in polyamory comes from one partner in a monogamous pair wanting “more” and so the decision is pretty one sided, and neither is willing to really put in the work and communication that healthy polyamory requires. Every polyamorous person I know that started their relationships as polyamorous is healthy and happy in their partnerships.

I’ve been in like, 3 or 4 of them so far. I can really see the value in a poly relationship but I find it, that it’s incredibly challenging to maintain much less establish one. All of the ones I’ve been in, was where the individual wanting or orchestrating the poly relationship, was just a flat out cheater who wanted more than they can handle. My limit is no more than 2 other partners. The people I kept finding myself with, practically wanted like several partners too many and it just complicated things.

I’m open to being in a good one but I really don’t know nor would I know anything or anyone that’d want a good stable poly relationship.

So maybe not exactly a success story but I wouldn’t call it a disaster either. I don’t view my current experience to be negative even if it is extremely difficult for me.

I’m poly, technically have been most my life but most my relationships have been functionally mono until 3 or 4 years ago. I’m in a hard place right now, 6 months ago my polycule split, two months ago my anchor partner very suddenly broke up with me, my nesting partner of over 10 years has stopped physically interacting with me.

I thought I was insulated from heartbreak because I could fallback on other partners while I get back on my feet, and I did actually do that a couple times with non core partner breakups. Apparently the opposite can happen where all your partners drop away in rapid succession and you have to deal losing all the people who would have supported you.

I’m happy I’m poly. It is difficult but so is being mono in different ways. The love I had when the polycule was functioning I can’t describe that to people who haven’t had it before. I had a great run of about 3 years of memories I’m going to hold very dearly. I’ll rebuild my relationships with new people and everything I’ve learned here will make things better for me in the future.

I’ve been with my wife and girlfriend for about 4.5 years. Gf has been married for longer.

Polyamory attracts trainwrecks and hands them a ton of rope which they promptly hang themselves with. We hear about them a lot because they’re loudly collapsing all the time.

We don’t hear about our types because what are we going to do, loudly announce stable long term relationships? Because I am judged as one of those people or a slut or a player or something I’m hesitant to loudly profess my polyamory. My coworkers don’t know that one day a week I don’t go to my regular home when I leave but to my girlfriend’s home where I hang out with her and her kids (whom I’ve been a stable adult fixture in their lives for years) until her husband wakes up for work when I either take her out to dinner, or get some alone time as he watches the kids, or he’s just there hanging out with us, then rather than it being an absolute fuckfest, we either have “I have work in the morning” sex, curl up watching tv, chat alone, or increasingly often chat with her kids because they’ve been needing more attention lately before going to bed. Then the next day I go to work from there. And they also don’t know that that evening my wife is glad that I was there because it’s good for me and she needs some alone time on a regular basis because while she loves me very much I’m a high energy extrovert and she’s a low energy introvert.

Hell my family is uncomfortable with my polyamory except my sister. They can accept that I’m gay and love my wife, but they don’t talk about my girlfriend and are clearly uncomfortable when I talk about her. So I shy away from it. And I don’t go to poly events because they’re full of train wrecks. I don’t filter through partners. I’ve never even had a romantic relationship that was under a year long.

And yeah I’ve had my drama. Casual sex has gone weird. My ex was actually monogamous but she started a triad because I wanted polyamory and that went just terribly. But also I was in my early 20s, similar situations for monogamous relationships aren’t blamed on monogamy but on dumb 20 somethings.

But yeah I’m happy and stable. And I know my wife, gf, and meta would all agree that’s our situation

I tried (long distance) dating a poly dude in a situation where he had a long term live-in boyfriend and got me and a trans girl to start dating him around the same time. He wanted a polycule to work out and it seemed plausible-ish for a few months, but the communication was atrocious. Everyone liked the central poly dude and I tried getting along with the other two, but it was clear they were just interested in the main dude. Turned into a mega jealousy situation between all of us which blew up horribly and spectacularly.

In a good monogamous relationship now, but I wouldn’t even try a poly thing again. It requires a lot of communication, moving parts, and if someone is slightly less than truthful it’s probably doomed to fail lol.

Not much. I’m what many might call a relationship anarchist and this can translate into polyamory, especially when QPR’s are a part of the equation (same with my closest friends but in a more meta way), but I’m not in any and never have been. I was offered the chance though because a classmate in middle and high school began aspiring to a polygamist relationship (LGBT relationships were already a thing and I guess my class got ideas) and managed to appeal to a bunch of other classmates. The core classmate of the relationship then had to move though (the family’s mom got a job somewhere else) and that created a weird sense of withdrawal among the participants.

No real first hand experience. I kinda interacted with people that were /are poly, but wasn’t part of their group.

But the thing I noticed about poly groups regarding the kind of stability that would be a success in any objective view, is that there’s usually a core few that comprise the true group, with anyone else being kinda replaceable. It’s usually either a “throuple”, or two pairs, and those core relationships are what really matters when there’s any trouble.

Imo, that makes sense. In a real world sense, nobody loves everyone equally. It might get close, but we as a species just aren’t that controlled in our emotions. They’re shifting and tied to so many different memories that it’s barley possible to have comparable levels of love, much less exactly the same.

And, there’s the issue of numbers and work. If a couple has X amount of work to maintain, a third person doesn’t turn that into X+1, it turns it into X^3, because you have A×B, the first two, then you have A×C, B×C, and, A×B×C. The dynamics of each pair of individuals is the same, but you add the dynamics of the group to that. Add a 4th person, and you get X^4, and so on. So, the larger the group gets, the harder it is to actually maintain every relationship at all, much less equally.

But! I know two poly groups that have been stable for a long time. One since the mid nineties, the other since 2003 (officially, but they got together informally a few years before that). The older group stabilized out at five people back around 98, when a couple that had joined in decided it wasn’t working for them.

The other group is essentially a foursome, though they tend to rotate through twosomes over time. Like, one couple spends a few months more focused on each other, then the other two people either do the same or float a little as individuals without as much group interaction. But they’re all bisexual as well as poly, so there’s that helping out a little; everyone is into everyone romantically and sexually, so there’s less chance of someone feeling left out.

Both groups have kids, btw. Which can get a little tough on the kids in school, but damned if it isn’t a plus at home. Like, those kids never lack for someone to help them, give them affection or discipline, or anything. The oldest boy from the longer lasting group is out on his own now, and doing well for himself.

The only other poly group I know well enough to have picked up details about their arrangements went back a lot further, back into the sixties when they met. Which is a success, if you ask me, but there’s only the one lady left now, and that’s fucking brutal to lose three partners that you love like that. I don’t know if it’s any worse than losing a monogamous partner or not, but holy hell has she been through some pain over the last two decades.

I call them a success though. They went through fourty-plus years together, raised kids, lived life, and stuck together. I didn’t meet any of them until one of the guys had a stroke, back before I got hit with the disability stick and had to quit working. I was a CNA, and when he had the next stroke, they asked if I could come back, so I got to know them a good bit. But they’d lost one of their group between times to cancer.

For myself, I don’t think I could handle that part. I know that if my wife dies before me, it’s going to break me. I can’t imagine going through that two or three (or more) times.

Which is probably not the most pleasant way to end this comment, being a bit less happy than maybe you were wanting. But I figure if one group of people can live poly together long enough for that, then polyamory is nothing to dismiss, and it’s certainly proof that it can be satisfying and good.

I was involved in a nonconsensual, clandestine polyamorous relationship once. It sucked, broke my fucking heart.