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.
Regarding defection: In my experience, approaching someone with the information that I’m poly and would like to ask them out can be stressful, beyond the usual fear of rejection, because they might react extremely negatively and out me to people I don’t want to know about my relationship status.
The more people you add, the greater the risk of something like that happening.
I’d believe that, for example, any given relationship participant has some arbitrary likelihood of one-place defection, and the likelihoods stack proportional to the number of participants. But I’m not sure that any given participant is more likely to defect the more people they are also in a relationship with—if defection is two-place, it seems like cooperation should be too.
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.
Regarding defection: In my experience, approaching someone with the information that I’m poly and would like to ask them out can be stressful, beyond the usual fear of rejection, because they might react extremely negatively and out me to people I don’t want to know about my relationship status.
I’d believe that, for example, any given relationship participant has some arbitrary likelihood of one-place defection, and the likelihoods stack proportional to the number of participants. But I’m not sure that any given participant is more likely to defect the more people they are also in a relationship with—if defection is two-place, it seems like cooperation should be too.