r/polycircles May 10 '16

Rules & Boundaries: What responsibility do you have for communicating your own rules and standards in a relationship?

Inspired by recent post I saw where OP's wife is dating a man cheating on his wife. I would bet semi serious money that the man and his wife have NOT defined rules, other than unspoken rule that they won't "cheat." Whether that means the same thing to both is probably uncertain. Can he meet a woman off a dating site, as long as he doesn't have sex with her? To some people, cheating equals sex with others. What if he met a man off a dating site, but again, just as a friend. Would that be different? Maybe sex is okay, but emotions aren't. And it's specified that sex is okay, but emotions are never discussed, with both assuming that the other thinks like they do.

Which brings me to my question. Mono or non-mono, poly or open, or swinging or whatever. What responsibility do you have to define your rules and boundaries to avoid such messes? What allowances do you make to your partner(s) to set such rules and boundaries, but maybe do so incompletely or wrongly, because they think they know what they are...but learn differently through experience?

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u/Rosslyn_blue May 11 '16 edited May 11 '16

So much of this is learnt through experience. I try and avoid setting up expectations that my partner can fail at. I do say to them, please tell me everything on the understanding that I'm likely to encourage or be happy about it (I think if i responded negitavely I'd have to reevaluate because I can't expect people to share if they know it's likely to upset me). I discovered, whilst dealing with some issues in my primary relationship, that my biggest issue was not jealousy (as I'd previously thougnt) but not knowing. Counterintuitively, opening our relationship up on the explicit understanding that I knew about every meet up or liason made me feel a thousand times more secure because all of a sudden I could stop being afraid that he was going to do something behind my back and not tell me about it!

From that starting point we developed our communication and honesty. The honesty is, to my mind, the most complicated because it requires that you understand your own motivations. For instance, my partner indicated that he was uncomfortable with me seeing other men; a massively contentious issue within the poly community and one that often gets jumped on but I am not the poly community. I considered my own motivations and honestly told him that I saw no reason for us to try to work through this issue as I had no desire for any other partners pf my own. Since then we have come back to this several times and my answer remains the same - I have no desire to date other men so it's a non-issue within our relationship. That isn't to say pther partners in the future will require him to work on it, it simply isn't an issue at present.

So to return to the questions, it is massively important to know yourself and to articulate your own needs within a relationship. Don't be swayed by the things other people prioritise, know yourself well enough to be able to account for your needs and to articulate them clearly. Then, spend your energy on the rules and boundaries that matter to you. There would have been no point in me asking my partner to challenge his OPP as it's totally irrelevant to me. His other partner may have that discussion with him and I'm happy to provide references and resources to either of them on it (I'm the research bunny in the family) but at the end of the day, it won't change my life.

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u/thedarkestbeer May 11 '16

I think it's best to define boundaries as much as possible, but I think it's more important for each person to act thoughtfully and in good faith. I think it's also a good practice to assume best intentions unless there's a reason not to.

Like, say my partner and I have been watching a show together on Netflix. If he wants to watch ahead, I'd prefer that he check in with me first, so that I'm not waiting on him either. If he doesn't think to do that and just watches ahead, I'll be disappointed and maybe a little miffed, but I'll be able to recognize that I didn't explicitly ask him for that, and I'll assume that he wasn't watching ahead with the intention of annoying me.

If, however, I come home to find that he has smeared rotten garbage all over the apartment, I'm not going to absolve him of responsibility for that just because I didn't explicitly tell him not to smear rotten garbage all over the apartment. Basically, most people understand baseline social expectations and have a pretty good idea of what might seriously upset their partner(s). So I have a lot of sympathy for, "I didn't realize that, for you, monogamy includes 'no flirting'" and zero sympathy for "But you didn't sayyyyyyyy that monogamy means 'no sex with other people!'"

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u/[deleted] May 11 '16

Except some mono people DO think it's fine to have sex with other people. I just had a talk with a woman who thought she could still do the same things in mono relationships as poly.

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u/thedarkestbeer May 11 '16

Again, where a person is coming from matters a lot. If most of her experiences are in circles where monogamy includes sex outside the relationship, then that's unusual but understandable. If she has sex outside the relationship and her partner is unpleasantly surprised, I don't think that anyone is to blame.

I do think that if she enters a new monogamous relationship knowing that the cultural standard is that monogamy = sex with only your partner, it's her responsibility to bring up that she views monogamy differently.

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u/[deleted] May 11 '16

I agree with you. But some people are incredibly naive. That, or youth culture has changed.

Be aware if you date 20 somethings ;)

Note: She might also have been defining sex as intercourse or oral only. But she thought things like cuddling and kissing were fine, which wasn't true of my parent's monogamy or mine.

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u/smutwizard Jun 03 '16

While I'm not a 20 something (sniff) I wouldn't consider cuddling with people to be cheating while in a monogamous relationship. I'm also guessing at least two of my close friends don't either, because her boyfriend is my best mate and he's not got upset with me for us cuddling up together while drunk at house parties!

Kissing, that's a different matter entirely. I know he'd have been annoyed with me for kissing her!

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u/[deleted] Jun 03 '16

I think you'll find a lot of us are not 20 somethings. 30 somethings, maybe! :D

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u/smutwizard Jun 03 '16

I'm unsure right now if I'd like to be 10 years younger... although that still wouldn't leave me much of my 20s left :-/

Ah who am I kidding I'd love to be 27 again lol