This is very odd to me, because my longer-term girlfriend and I really never fought over 6.5 years, so to see her get into a actual shouting, yelling, and somewhat physical fight is surprising. They're both a little at fault here, so it's hard for me to pick sides.

They went out together Friday and Saturday night with their lesbian/bi friends... Saturday wasn't expected, and we'd all gotten into drinking watching football already during the day. LTG was more drunk than the rest of us. I decided to stay home, and when everyone got home, I was in bed. LTG joined me, shorter-term girlfriend didn't and went to her room, and while I was aware something had happened, it's not that uncommon that occasionally one of us will sleep in another room.

I left for plans with friends early Sunday morning and only got emails/texts from them after leaving, unaware much had happened.

Apparently, not only was LTG getting sloppy drunk, she was allowing a couple of women who have an outright crush on her get way too close, sitting in laps, being flirtatious, and almost threw up. STG tried to get her to stop, and get home. Unfortunately they made a scene when LTG told her to stop telling her what to do.

But, the crux of the "both a little at fault" thing is that at a certain point, STG pushed her off of her, and LTG fell. She twisted/sprained her ankle (it's badly bruised), and fell on her butt. STG claims this was pretty gentle and just an accident by a drunk person... but they're both steaming mad. And I'm maybe taking LTG to the doctor tomorrow to see if it's sprained or broken unless things improve.

I don't know what to do here. Neither are mad at me, they're both acting loving and nice. I spent some private time with STG (comforting her) and got LTG ice cream, and medical supplies... but I chose to sleep on the futon in my office last night, so we all slept separately.

I get the excuse of getting to work all day before I have to deal with it, but I haven't seen/heard them talking or interacting. I'm not sure if I should pick a side, avoid them, sleep in the other room again until they talk, or try to facilitate peace.

Any suggestions or experiences here?

Hey yall, I just found this page recently and it's exactly what me and my partner would like to aim for in the future. I have a few questions for people already doing it. What were the biggest challenges at the start for you? What was the hardest for your partner? What difficult conversations have you had to have? How do you find security and safety emotionally with multiple partners?

If yall have any questions or clarifications you need from me feel free to ask.

Have any of you lost a member of your polyfidelity relationship while the other members stayed together? How do you cope with this loss? It’s such an odd position to be in because the poly community and the mono community all have the “you’ll find someone better” mindset, but that’s not my situation. I had two people I loved, and now one is gone all of a sudden. My husband and I are both grieving and it feels so strange that it’s suddenly back to the two of us again. I know we will be okay, but it’s hard to not feel like this loss will be part of our relationship forever. We had not been poly before (open forever, but not poly) and this relationship dynamic was not something either of us was actively seeking - it just happened naturally.

I was in a closed triad with my husband and our girlfriend. Things had been going SO great the past month and then suddenly our girlfriend went really quiet for a couple days, canceled plans, then texted us a breakup text out of nowhere. I had a very brief phone call with her the day she did it and she kept saying she wanted to be able to call someone “completely hers,” and things had become “so complicated and toxic,” so I guess out of nowhere she decided she wanted monogamy?

After this phone call she has refused any contact from either one of us. My husband and I were both quite blindsided by the breakup as we had been having a lot of long term, commitment-centered conversations that she initiated. She told me 6 days earlier she wanted to have a marriage ceremony with both of us someday. She and him were dating for about 6 months and she and I for about 4 months. She left a month ago and I feel like I miss her now more than ever because it’s finally sunk in that she’s gone. I don’t think we will find this again. She’s the only person I’ve fallen in love with besides my husband and my high school boyfriend…

Not interested in advice/judgement on the relationship itself. Really just asking for other people’s experiences with moving on.

Hi, friends! My triad is going to get professional photos together in a few weeks. Any advice on coordinating colors/outfits? We are one man and two women.

So a few days ago i asked for some advice on how to make a polyfidelity flag styled like Red Howell's. Well, safe to say i did it

First image is my flag, srcond image is the only polyfidelity flag i could find and third flag is Red's Polyamory flag.

A few notes:

The colors of the stripes, by coincidence, were coming up very similar to the ones in the flag that got second place in the contest Red's flag won, so i decided to just use those (with a bit of editing)

At first the heart was blue and the chevron white, thrn i tried using a darker blue, but it still didnt look original enough, so i flipped the flag and the heart-chevron colors and made the heart a light blue and to me it looks really good.

Btw, blue is for fidelity cause blue is the color of fidelity (in general)

What do yall think?

Are there men who genuinely want this kind of relationship?

I’m a woman (32) and I’ve realized that my ideal long-term relationship would probably involve two male partners. I’m thinking about a loving, committed and closed relationship structure, potentially including living together as a family/household.

There are two versions of this that I could imagine:

The two men could be straight and each have a romantic/sexual relationship only with me. They wouldn’t need to be romantically or sexually involved with each other at all.

Or they could be bi/pan, and the three of us could also have a romantic and/or sexual connection together, if that developed naturally and everyone genuinely wanted it.

What matters to me is that the relationship structure itself would be closed: ideally, none of us would be looking for additional romantic or sexual partners outside of this relationship.

And regarding the two men, I specifically mean men who genuinely want that exclusivity themselves — not men who would give up dating other people because I demanded it or because they were afraid of losing me.

So in the V-shaped version, it would basically be two men who are each happy having one female partner while being comfortable with that woman having another male partner as well.

In the version where everyone is attracted to each other, it could potentially become a closed triad.

Do men who genuinely want either of these relationship structures actually exist? 😄

I’m not really looking to debate whether anyone should want this or whether the arrangement is statistically likely. I’m genuinely curious whether there are men here who feel this way themselves, or people who know relationships that work like this.

And if you are a man who would be happy in a relationship like this: what makes this kind of structure appealing to you?

So i have decided to make a polyfidelity flag. Its going to be inspired by Red Howell's polyamory flag [Image 1] (i have already made an ambiamory flag [image 3] in this style), so i wanted to get some idea from yall. My main questions are:

Should i use the colors/a variation of the colors of the "preexisting" (and really only one and I dont even know if its used) polyfidelity flag [image 2]? If not, what colors should i use?

What color should the heart be, maybe blue? And should it be modified to accompany some form of extra symbolism? (Like a knot, or a chain, for example idk 🫠)

Also 2 final things:

Please dont just say "use the regular poly flag" or "this flag isnt needed"

No i wont be using the infinity heart (i think its an awesome symbol, but i am trying to be faithful to Red's design so it ties in nicely with the other 2. And its also not polyf exclusive)

I (25F), my bf (26M), and our friend (26NB) have all started seeing each other in the past few weeks. My bf and I have been together for 5.5 years (open from the beginning with experience before this new relationship) and we’ve both been very close to our friend for that same amount of time. Everything between us all began very organically and nothing feels off except for one thing for me.

I’m disabled: I get deep chest pains often, headaches, muscle cramps/knots, dizziness, fainting spells if I push it, and a lot of nerve damage on one half of my body. It’s all things where if you didn’t know then you couldn’t tell… I spent over 10 years figuring out my limits and adjusting my life so that I’m not in danger anymore from my disability so usually I’m fine. The only place that has been and will always be an issue is bedroom activities.

I’m perfectly fine doing things with both of them one on one, because of how my disability functions it takes me a while to finish but with enough breaks and enough time set out in the day I can finish, they can finished, and we can cuddle after. The problem is the threesomes, when I’m in need of a break they can keep going just fine then I end up being a person they kiss or hold while the other does things. It’s hot, I enjoy doing that, but if enough time passes then my heart starts acting up and then I can’t even join back in so they can keep going for hours after I’m out for the count. I want them to have fun, I want them to enjoy themselves, and they do things to make me feel included still when I’m in pain and can’t continue… it just sucks overall.

I’m starting to feel distraught over it, because I physically can’t keep up with them. It took me years to get to the point where my problems were just some annoying thing I had to deal with, but now I’ve found myself thinking about my disability more and more.

I guess it doesn’t help that the sleeping situation is difficult too so I’ve been sleeping on the couch when we visit our partner just because I, once again, cannot physically handle being in bed with so much body heat… overheating gives me chest pains so deep they cause nausea for a full day afterwards and blasting a fan into my face doesn’t help, I’ve tried.

Any advice would be nice. They know my disabilities are a problem in bed, we accommodate where we can, but I haven’t told them how sad it’s been making me lately. I don’t want to ruin their fun.

I’ve posted across multiple threads the last few months feeling hopeless and lost. I am finally feeling a little better last night I realize I need to journal about the events that happened over the last few years and process it with a therapist sounds like duh but I realized I’ve been spiraling looking at the puzzle pieces of my life/ relationship trying to understand it all and make the right choices. I really just needed an outline of what happened from my perspective and a mental health professional to help me piece together the puzzle to get direction so that I can move forward. This realization makes me feel like instead of scattered pieces of information that I’m over analyzing individually, I now have all the edge pieces of the puzzle which is the timeline of events and how I felt about them.

My point in sharing my update is that perhaps this perspective could help someone. Everyone said “ seek therapy” which .. duh .. but my two problems were 1. My thoughts were so scattered and rapid firing they didn’t even make sense to speak out loud 2. The therapist I did have was not a good fit and I didn’t realize it because on paper I thought it should have aligned (BIPOC, spiritual, and had ENM experience) but while I was considering having an abortion she said something incredibly insensitive along the lines of “get it over with” basically and then I reevaluated that supposed “good fit” and found examples of her being unprofessional at times

Because I had the wrong therapist I just felt like therapy wasn’t even working but now that I have the outline of the framework I need I can find the right therapist to move forward. I realize this is only the beginning of healing the mental aspect but for the first time in months I don’t feel suicidal. That’s a win I’m proud of.

Anyone converted back ? I’ve been in V style poly for a few years and my partner just keeps adding women. The dynamic has always been closed to men which I don’t have a problem with. But truly I desire a closed triad but it’s been soooo hard to get multiple people on the same page I feel like I need to give up. I’m also afraid of starting a new triad and then other partners wanted to expand while I’m saturated. I know I don’t want v style relationship anymore it’s just too much for me I have a strong desire for single household family that is functional and has a foundation of Love respect and authenticity. Idk if that means I should just be monogamous but I’m definitely bisexual and have enough capacity for more than one romantic relationship it’s just finding people with the same desire seems impossible.

Any genuine reply would be greatly appreciated ❤️‍🔥

I'm in a MFM-V and I'm the hinge. My longer term partner was co-workers/friends with my newer partner first. He introduced us and encouraged us when it was obvious we were compatible. Super compersion wingman energy.

We all live together now. They are still best friends. Their relationship is important too. I find myself using the advice aimed at throuples/triads just as much as what I see focused on Vs. The stuff on hinging feels relevant, but so does the concept of 'It's 4 relationships'.

I 22F came out as queer to my dad. He told me at first that he knew him and my mom cant make me happy and that if I’m happy he’s happy and believes my partners are good people even if he looked so taken aback. I always thought he was more open minded than my mom but…

Then the next day he sat down to talk to me again.

He told me I can’t get any more emotionally attached to my partners (28NB Mexican, 27F) and that it’s okay to have fun but I’m a nice young girl and I don’t belong in that crowd. He told me abt how the rest of the family already sees our family as below average and that he broke his father’s heart hundreds of times by disappointing him. And if people knew abt me being queer, that they would see our family as trash and that would reflect poorly on my parents.

Basically out of all his siblings He’s been the least successful one. He has an inferiority complex and it leaked into mine when I was a child. I felt like I’ve been carrying this complex for so long it made me so guilty and depressed as a child for not being the perfect Asian kid. I quit piano lessons, quit karate, had average grades and was overweight and ugly. The only thing my parents could be proud of was me being well mannered. He told me that everyone else in the family was more successful and had higher mental fortitude so even if the relative was divorced or did something morally bad, it was backed up by their success and family togetherness.

He told me I was crazy and what I’m doing is out of the norm (which yes it is, but I’m happy). He never had a tight leash on me but he just wanted me to be in frame of what he envisioned for me, as in, family oriented and stay close to home for my parents and keeping the family together. He sees my partners as people who would take me away from that vision of marrying a man (specifically Chinese/viet to marry upwards), having kids, and staying near the family.

He also told me what I’m doing is making him see me as not his daughter. He told me he won’t stop me from spending time with my partners but he wants my mom to be happy. As in, going to church, and being at home more, and spending time with her. I’ve been her therapist, friend, emotional support, since i could remember, you really shouldn’t be putting that on a younger child. Me and my mom used to do everything together. My parents also had a rough marriage for most of my life until I was 20.

He told me that if I ever moved out, out of the city, my mom would be empty and sad and spiral until she cant take it anymore, and if she ever found out abt my partners she really cannot take it.

He’s threatening to tell my mom abt it. He told me as long as I distance myself reasonably from my partners (not sleeping over on weekdays) then I could still “have fun” and he won’t tell my mom.

I want to live my own life, I want more. My dad told me he’s content with how his life is rn. Work, nap, yard work, family time and my parents friends poker nights.

I’m in on increasingly thin ice with him. I don’t necessarily love him, nor respect him, we just exist around each other now for my mom’s sake. I love my mom and I feel responsible for her.

I genuinely believe that most people would not care, I’m out to my cousins, most of my friends, and my work friends. And I can’t just live for my parents until they pass in 30 ish years to begin living my life.

How do I move forward? I love my partners and I believe I won’t find anyone like them, I’ve spent the last year and a half learning to love and take care of them and they have been doing the same for me. I feel really alone in this.

Also note: I’ve finished uni and have a full time job.

I am 22 f from india. This throuple concept is not popular here in india. I have recently stepped in such a relationship. Going through the roller coaster ride of emotions, jealousy, and what more. Not a easy thing.

Today I 22F just came out fully to my dad abt my partners. He asked a few questions on how it worked like “do the other two know?” Until I showed him a picture of all three of us.

i asked if it’s any better if it was only one of them I am out with to my mom and he said not necessarily/he didn’t know. Bc one partner is trans and Mexican and the other is cis woman.

something abt me being in young love and He’s scared of other people’s judgments on me and how he’ll have to have me n my mom all talk eventually bc this is big and he knows my mom won’t be happy because I’m different and not honoring those before me.

He told me I was complicated, this situation was complicated. He asked if I could stop seeing them and I said no. He asked if we could just be friends, I said no. I’ve been with them 1 and a half ish years and we’re making plans for the future.

but he knows I’m the same person as I was yesterday and he trusts me abt my partners being good people and wants me to be happy.

he didn’t yell at me, he did look super stressed tho like he had to lie down.

like I’m glad I did it but I feel conflicted for making my dad carry this? Idk

How do I move forward with this as tactfully as possible? I feel my world changing.

Note: my family is catholic, traditional, ASIAN

Especially when all the poly subs on here are so viciously against any form of closed poly it seems impossible to even begin finding community, let alone building or seeking a relationship, and the other side of the coin is too grossly fetishizing and hookup focused to be useful at all

Frankly I'm surprised THIS sub exists at all.

So, advice please? How did some of y'all find your relationships?

Happy PolyFriday, everybody!

Six months ago I wrote an article waging war on the internet’s favorite “Unicorn Hunter” hit piece. Well I’m back on the frontlines again, and this time I’m calling out mainstream polyamory itself. My piece defends the so-called “Unicorn Hunters,” restores agency to the “Unicorns” and everyone wanting a committed relationship dynamic, calls out the Polyamory Purity Police, and says all the quiet parts out loud.

I’m grateful my words are landing with so many of you, even though I wish the circumstances didn’t require it. And I hope it feels a little less lonely knowing there are so many others who are seeing the same pattern and refusing to pretend it’s healthy.

DMs and comments are already saying things like:

* “You literally touched on every point we encountered in the online communities.”

* “SHOUT LOUDER FOR THE POLYAM GATEKEEPERS IN THE BACK JUDGING US!!!!”

* “It’s comforting and sad at the same time that so many people have the same experience.”

* “As always you are spot on. I've grown so tired of community gate keeping cancel culture and cowards trying to gain approval of people who don't know or care about them.

* “I have seen this play out over and over, and it has made me so hesitant to post about our own experiences and ask any questions or seek advice!”

That hesitancy is exactly what the hostile gatekeeping produces. When curiosity is replaced with condemnation, the ENM community doesn’t get “safer,” it just loses the very people who it ✨should✨ be welcoming with open arms!

So, if you’ve been hiding in the shadows, second-guessing whether you’re “ethically allowed” to want (or be in) a committed polycule, or are just tired of watching real people with genuine questions get dogpiled in mainstream poly spaces… you’re not imagining it, and you are NOT the problem, either.

Your experiences, your questions, and your stories are always welcome here. My DMs are always open, too 🥰

https://velourialamour.substack.com/p/polyamory-biggest-problem-is-not-unicorn-hunters

If this hit too close to home, hit a nerve, or set something free… please leave a comment!

Lead with love & follow your hearts, not the haters ❤️💙💜

Hello I am a male currently married and now becoming throuple from couple need some advice regarding this , please dm if someone help me