In my experience people who have recently gotten into poly are evangelical, claiming that it is easy and for everyone, while people have done it for years say it is hard and not for everyone. But you hear a lot more from the people with the new partner infatuation. Experienced people complain even about this dynamic.
Largely negative experience: person A (female, bi, well-known by me but I have the story second-hand) was in a poly relationship with a couple. The guy had other women on the side, with his partners' knowledge but only grudging acceptance. The two women had occasional female secondary partners themselves. This lasted for around a year. Person A had a fling with another guy; her primary guy went jealous and awful over it. He's now out of both women's lives; they're not dating anymore but are still friends.
EDIT: I should point out that while all of this was permitted by the rules of the relationship (except the jealous fit and its fallout), there wasn't as much communication as there probably should have been. "Other women are OK, other men aren't" perhaps should have been a rule, but maybe the guy didn't know he'd get so upset over it.
OK, somebody is going through almost every comment on this thread and downvoting it. What gives? Are you objecting to the small amount of free karma for sharing data (in which case, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just post a comment saying so and asking the OP not to upvote the comments, with justification?), or is there some other objective? Was something about the comments too low-quality? Did it reveal too much information? Too little? What's the objection?
I just got hit with ~30 downvotes in a row after posting something with a slightly leftish political flavour. I conjecture that we have Neoreactionary Mass Downvoting Syndrome again. NRx folks tend to disapprove of polyamory, and even though the title is "Negative polyamory outcomes" it's possible that someone wants to punish people for treating polyamory as socially acceptable.
(This is only a guess, and I'm not super-confident about it.)
As a matter of principle I think we should ignore such worries. (I'm aware that that's easier for me to say, since I've been here for ages and have a reasonable supply of karma.) In response to intimidation attempts one should refuse to be intimidated, because that reduces the incentive to attempt intimidation.
I don't think it reflects upon the forum as a whole - we just picked up some single NRx-er with way too much time on his hands a while back and there's not much that can be done about it, as he will just keep making alts. You can basically harvest karma for downvoting by making a large number of low quality comments, because everyone is apparently downvote-averse. The last time this happened the user in question managed to become a top poster. I think he's basically aiming to alter the group's composition by targeting left wing individuals who are sensitive to negative feedback.
(Repost) Negative and second hand: Some couples were sharing a large house. One of the couples added a third person, who turned out to be very bad news. That marriage ended, and only one of the couples lives in the house now.
Positive and second hand: A triad which has worked well for many years.
Negative and second hand: Triad where the third was emotionally destructive and also brought in a very serious STD.
I've wondered about the risks of polyamory which aren't exactly about fidelity, but more about the risks of giving a great deal of trust to a person who might defect. The more people you add, the greater the risk of something like that happening.
I have a friend who's tried it on two occasions. The first time, she and her best friend shared a boyfriend. It didn't last terribly long, but it seems to have ended amicably. The second time, she and her then-boyfriend decided to merge up with another couple into a foursome. Her original boyfriend eventually ran off with the new girl, leaving her and the other guy single(they weren't as into each other, and decided not to bother continuing after their other partners left).
Overall, she's mostly unhappy with her experimentation, and has said she intends to remain monogamous in future.
This isn't strictly related, but I was thinking about polyamory today and I was wondering something.
I've never experienced polyamory in real life, and while aspects of it seem cool, there's a major concern I would have with it. I feel like I would deplore a situation in which I have only one partner who in turn has multiple partners. I wouldn't be able to shake the feeling that I was getting the raw end of the deal, like I had been duped into becoming a willing participant in a sort of public systematic cuckoldry.
Given that fact, I feel like any polyamorous relationship with a "primary" would be a constant battle of sorts to ensure that I have a greater than or equal to number of dating prospects as my partner. But as a man (the username is a dumb joke), I feel like this battle would be stacked against me, as women tend to have an easier time finding dates. I imagine that this is doubly true in a rationalist community where the men probably outnumber the women by a significant amount.
I'm not sure if feeling this way says more about polyamory, or my own selfishness and insecurities. Anyway, I would be interested in hearing from polyamorous people if this is an issue that ever comes up, and if so, how it's dealt with.
If your partner having multiple partners while you don't is an unacceptable outcome for you then you definitely ought to get clear with your partner on what you'll do about it (collectively) if that happens before you start inviting other partners.
From what I've seen (monogamous man in a very poly-friendly social environment) yes, this is an issue that comes up, and yes, it's an expression of partners' insecurities. (This isn't intended as a dismissal; people have insecurities and relationships need to deal with those insecurities somehow.) It strikes me as similar to the issues some people have with partners who are significantly more romatically/sexually experienced than they are. In some ways it's also similar to the issues some people have with spouses who out-earn them financially.
One poly married couple I know deals with this by the wife, who is far more socially adept, helping her husband find other partners.
One approach you might consider is asking whether there's anything extra your primary partner could provide during the periods when she's more connected than you are that would make you feel less "raw end."
I infer from your assumptions that you're straight, but if not you might find it easier to find male poly-compatible partners than female ones. (In my experience it's less that women have an easier time finding dates, and more that it's easier to find male dates.)
I'm a guy in a polyamorous relationship with one girlfriend, who is in several relationships simultaneously. It's not a problem - the only occasional issue is that of limited time, and that's not unique to polyamory, it would be necessary to make those tradeoffs for friendships as well. On the plus side, compersion is a great feeling, and another benefit that I get in particular is that my girlfriend dating other people expands my social circle and introduces me to cool people, whom I would have greater difficulty meeting otherwise, because I'm normally not very social with people I don't know.
Negative experience, I know all the people involved but didn't observe any of this firsthand and it happened before I knew some of them: A good friend of mine (call her person B, female, bi, married) and her husband (person C) once tried dating another married couple (also friends of mine, call the guy person D). Everything went swimmingly as far as the sex and the hanging out together as friends went, but C got uncomfortable about the growing romantic attachments and amicably broke off the inter-couple relationship. Unfortunately, B had already fallen hard for D (though not to the exclusion of C) and ended up cheating to have one more night with him. When she told C about it he got pretty mad, blocked D out of his life (and got a promise from B not to be alone with him again) and pretty much swore off polyamory (at the time). This was over three years ago, and it was only in the last year or so that C has started to forgive D and they've moved towards being friends again.
B and C are still married, though it was rocky for a while there (D and his wife aren't, for many reasons of which this cheating incident was plausibly one). B really doesn't do monogamy well, and the compromise for a while was swinging with other couples (just sex, no dating in the usual sense) every now and then. That seems to have worked out, though B wishes it was more often.
Related question: should I include swingers in the list of people I know in poly relationships? The boundary is a bit fuzzy but many people would count it as CNM even if it's just for sex.
Poly seems ubiquitous enough among people I know (mostly young, techies, living in the Bay Area or otherwise with some connection to it) that it's hard for me to even keep track of which people I know are poly or have been in poly relationships.
My general sense is that things often go well, sometimes go badly, but when they go badly poly is usually not the main reason (but sometimes it's an aggravating factor.) When things do go well, you're less likely to hear about it than when they go badly, too.
I also know several people who seem to have had poly phases at one time or another, but now seem to be practicing-monogamists; as well as at least one poly person who went through a monogamy phase (for a partner) but couldn't deal in the end and is back to poly.
I've tried polyamory several times, in several permutations, and it Just. Does. Not. Work. for me. I'm male and bi so there are many permutations, although I have not logically exhausted them all. Yet! First experience was with a female partner who started seeing someone else, also male. Much jealousy and unhappiness all round, despite much talking. Everyone was happier when we stopped doing that. A later one with a primary male partner and we both saw other people, fairly casually, mostly other males. Again, much unhappiness merging in to insecurity, despite talking, though less than in the first one. Then later a four-way two males two females all bisexual in theory thing that never worked right. Who was finding who really hot kept changing over time, which seems like it ought to have worked. But, long story short, A never had the hots for B when B had the hots for A, for all values of A and B, and nobody was getting any.
My two big monogamous relationships were much less hard work (one male, one female). Less visits from the Drama Llama is awesome. And the latest of those is very long term and happy and we now expect the relationship to end by death, if at all.
Maybe there's a typical mind fallacy thing going on. Some people get on with polyamory, some don't. I know people who love it, others who crashed and burned. I say give it a go, but be ready to call a halt to the trial as soon as you have enough evidence to show it's not working for you.
So, in terms of statistics I'm not going to try to isolate the experiences; I have too many friends involved in poly relationships to do a representative sampling without more work than I feel like dedicating to this comment.
Just to be clear, I'm counting as "poly" relationships those where at least one partner has at least two partners who know about and are reasonably OK with each other for at least some period of time, and where such partners are understood as in-principle acceptable. I'm counting as "monogamous" relationships where such partners are understood as in-principle unacceptable, including ones where partners have had affairs but claim to feel bad about them.
This creates an excluded middle of "poly in principle but not in practice" and it's likely that a lot of relationships I consider monogamous fall in that excluded middle (arguably including my own) but I don't really care.
There's also "nominally monogamous but in practice poly" relationships mediated by affairs which are eventually confessed and forgiven, about which I don't have much to say but am counting here as monogamous.
If I had to guess about statistics I'd say that...
Largely positive experience thus far: my current relationship is technically poly, though so far it's mostly been limited to when one of us is out of town for a week or more. General rule is "anything goes as long as you're safe and it doesn't cut into the time we have with each other." Travel (I'm a consultant) is one obvious case, but we live far enough apart that it's hard to see each other except on weekends. She's had one fling with an old fuckbuddy mid-week while we were both in our respective hometowns; I so far have not (only when traveling) but have considered it.
When we are with each other we have largely acted monogamous so far, and things may change if she moves closer (as she is planning to do). We have discussed (her suggestion) adding a third person for a fling, though. We appear to have implicitly rejected expanding the primary circle. Current relationship age is over seven months and this has been the rule since the first month.
Negative: a couple decided to go poly after some years in a stable monogamous relationship. It seemed to go well for a few months, but the guy apparently told a few white lies here and there, which then got completely out of control and eventually resulted in a disaster for pretty much everyone involved.
Neutral/negative: a couple was poly for maybe half a year or so, then decided it was "too much trouble" and returned to monogamy. I don't know them well enough to be able to provide more details, but they have been together for a few years after that and are now having a child, so nothing terrible probably happened.
I know plenty of other poly people as well, but don't know as much of what's going on in their individual relationships. The general feeling I get is that while a healthy poly relationship certainly isn't impossible, they are only rarely very stable and often seem to require significantly more attention and work to succeed even when they do (which of course are not negative things to everyone, and it can be worth it anyway in case the freedom and additional partners bring a lot of value). Problems arising from insufficient honesty are pretty common, even among those who would generally seem to value trust and openness, so that's probably an important thing to watch out for.
My only experience with poly was negative. (There were details here, but I removed them for reasons.)
I have decided that poly is way too complicated for me and I have no intention of pursuing a poly relationship in the future. I left this feeling more like a piece in a collection than a human.
Repost: I apologise that this is not first-hand but Patri came out arguing his experience with polamory had been negative a while ago.
I think it's pretty hard to know whether poly gets credit or blame in any given situation.
For example, I know of one relationship that opened up largely because it wasn't a good relationship and then later ended. In my best guess (not very confident), the open relationship hastened the end while also making it somewhat easier to do.
At first glance, that can look like "poly ruined their relationship!" or at least "poly might mean your relationship isn't good and so don't do it or it'll fall apart!", but in this case the transition from ...
The main negative aspect of my ongoing experience (20 months so far) has primarily been in increased awkwardness around acquaintances and family members. I'm predisposed to that anyway, and actually doing something nonconformy (and not really having much sense of how acquaintances and family members feel about it, even those who are aware of the relationship) has heightened the phenomenon.
It's definitely net positive overall, though. :)
edit: deobfuscation
Swinging having been described as "definitely CNM", I'll mention some other folks I know where there are others in their sex lives, but only for the sex.
Another couple I know (hetero couple, but I'm not actually sure how they would define their own orientations) have a very kinky sex life and routinely take part in sex acts with participants outside the relationship (for example, two or more people together tying up / dominating a third). They've been together for something approaching three years now (and co-habiting for over a year), talk openly and happily about their sex life, and in general seem happy and committed to each other.
Per passive_fist's suggestion, I am collecting my experiences as replies to this comment and deleting the originals. I'm keeping them as separate comments so that they may be replied to individually.
Positive experience:
I've been poly for 3 years, had 10+ poly relationships, and while all but 4 have ended problems caused by polyamory has never been the cause. I'm currently in a triad for 9 months, been with one of the people in the triad for almost a year, and have been in another relationship for a bit over a year. Polyamory has literally never been anything more than a tiny issue in my current relationships, and only once was it ever anything close to a serious issue.
Personally: Overall positive experiences. I'm polyamorous by nature, and have never had a relationship that wasn't poly. In my friend circle (bay area rationalists) there's a fair bit of polyamory. It seems like there's more + happier relationships, as well as more + calmer breakups, when I compare to the current relationships of my acquaintances from high school.
Negative data point: someone I know tried polyamory for (I think) 10-25 years, had a lot of difficult life experiences some of which related to her relationships, and has lately skewed towards re...
The market rate for swingers parties for single males is the same as the rate for prostitutes. Damn, I was looking for an arbitrage opportunity!
Back to my point. Given the similar rates, that would suggests swingers probably attract the same population of single males who go for hookers. As one such individual myself, and having met LessWrong and regular poly's, my experience is such that the latter represent a very different population that either Johns or hookers.
Related article: Polyhacking
Note: This article was posted earlier for less than a day but accidentally deleted.
Although polyamory isn't one of the "official" topics of LW interest (human cognition, AI, probability, etc...), this is the only community I'm part of where I expect a sufficiently high number of members to have experience with it to give useful feedback.
If you go looking for advice or articles about polyamory on the internet, you mostly get stuff written by polyamorists that are happy with their decisions. Is this selection bias? Where are the people whose relationships (or social lives, out anything) got damaged or ruined by experimenting with Consensual Non-Monogamy?
I'm posting this hoping for feedback, negative AND positive, on experiences with polyamory. I considered putting this in an Open Thread, but it occurred to me that many other LW readers might be interested in whether polyamory has drawbacks they need to be aware of. If you have experience with CNM (including first-hand witnessing, which has the added bonus of not requiring you to out yourself while still participating in the dialogue), please comment with your overall impression and as much detail as you would like to include (I am also putting my experiences there rather than in this post). If you've seen multiple poly relationships, multiple comments would make tallying slightly easier. I will try to upvote people who feed me data, a la LW surveys. If there are sufficient comments, I will periodically go through them and post a rough ratio of good to bad experiences at the bottom of this article.
PSA: The Username account is available for use by any who wish to remain anonymous. The password is left as an exercise for the reader. Hat tip... Username.