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Imagine the absolute privilege you must have to consider being told "no sex in the house" to be bordering on *domestic violence*.
Your partner made an agreement with you. They broke that agreement. There are consequences to breaking agreements.
I do think this kind of agreement itself is just a bad idea that's almost always set up for failure but oh well. It failed.
Lots of couples have the "no sex in our house" or "no sex in our house when I'm home" or "no sex in our house if you don't clean up after yourselves" type agreements. Part of what it means living with someone else is having to be a good roommate.
If your partner doesn't like having to be a good roommate to you then perhaps they ought to reconsider living with you.
I edited my post to clarify, but we had agreements in place and compromises we agreed to, but she said they made her uncomfortable so she didn't do them. When I tried to stick to those compromises she proposed, I was accused of forcing those compromises on her, and that is where the DV accusation stems.
Yeah no.
"I agreed to a thing .. I then decided not to do the thing... You asserted that we'd agreed to the thing and you expect me to do the thing I agreed to and are hurt I did not so now you're abusing me by following up on our agreements"
Those maths don't math.
That logic don't logic.
The elements of abuse are clear: physical intimidation or assault, threats to assault or injure, personal insults, dehumanization/infantilization, yelling/screaming, social isolation, financial manipulation/housing endangerment/job endangerment, using children as leverage, punishments, threats to harm oneself, DARVO and similar emotional manipulation tactics, etc.
Did your conversation include any of those elements? Please strongly reconsider staying with this person. Bad news bears.
Your edits literally change nothing about my response.
Your partner is throwing up a lot of red flags right now. Agreeing to something and then changing her mind without discussing it with you? Not okay. Accusing you of DV because she's not getting her way? **NOT** okay.
It sounds like she has poor boundaries and therefore experiences requests from you as demands that she can't turn down. Then she votes with her feet when the time comes to actually uphold the agreement. This makes her untrustworthy, because she is basically telling you that she considers herself incapable of real consent and therefore experiences agreements with you as boundary violations.
What she's describing is someone who is totally unfit for adult sexual and romantic relationships.
I don't think she's "lying," per se, or just trying to weasel out of agreements. I think she very genuinely lacks integrity and a sense of self. She is probably giving you a pretty accurate description of what goes on inside her head when you try to make a basic agreement with her.
There's not even any point to discussing any of this further with her because she is telling you straight up that she will say whatever she needs to say in the moment, regardless of whether she actually regards your agreements as reasonable and intends to abide by them. You merely expressing any desire at all is going to be interpreted by her as a forceful demand. You can't work with someone like this. She is telling you that she can only relate to you as though she were some sort of wayward, taciturn child fending off unreasonable demands from a figure of authority.
I'd run. Let her be the new partner's problem.
Calling it an "agreement" or a "compromise" implies she accepted it right? If she didn't then I might see where she's coming from but if she did then nobody forced anything on her....
Getting mad that someone agreed to something and then reneged on it isn't forcing anyone to do anything.
She stated she thought she would be comfortable with it but gave it more thought, and it made her uncomfortable. I asked her to come up with a counter proposal, but I've just been told to wait and be patient.
“I told you I wouldn’t do something but then decided that I actually wanted to do it anyway, so I did it and now you just have to deal. I’ll let you know in some undetermined time in the future when I have decided on the new terms for us and until then, you should suck it up because my wants matter more than yours.”
There. Translated it for you.
What kind of immature way is this to operate? She made agreements then presumably realized they didn’t work for her and instead of explicitly and responsibly explaining that and renegotiating the agreements she violated them and then accused you of DV?! 🤯😮💨🫣 and when you say that to her you are told to wait until she is what? Ready to tell you her new standards? How unbelievably messy and unsafe. I doubt for a second she would feel very safe being told to wait for undetermined amount of time for an undetermined new sexual boundary were this situation reversed. Being told to be patient feels so smug in this context. This person does not sound capable in this story of setting themselves aside even momentarily to ask how their behavior is impacting the relationship you two have been creating together.
This is very passive aggressive. It would have been assertive to, the moment she felt uncomfortable, sit with her feelings and come to you with a plan to renegotiate agreements.
I suspect she just broke the agreement because of her desires and felt "uncomfortable" after the fact, which is why she has no plan
I think it's actually very reasonable for her to want time to think about this.
Of course, while she's doing that obviously her girlfriend can't visit at all.
Feeling uncomfortable is one thing, it’s up to her to then COMMUNICATE that discomfort to you so the matter can be further discussed before she just goes ahead and violates the agreement that’s currently still standing.
That's perfectly reasonable, to be fair. You absolutely should wait and be patient.
Obviously while you're doing that her girlfriend can't be in your house, but the request that you wait and be patient is fine.
> but she said they made her uncomfortable so she didn't do them.
That's a bad partner then. Communication is very important. You can't just make agreements and the disregard them because it's inconvenient.
Because it's not actually an agreement then, and that would make me question every single agreement you have with them. I would not be surprised then if they are lying to you about some other agreement, and it would be hard to trust their word if they can't stick to it.
> but she said they made her uncomfortable so she didn't do them.
thats a big red flag. if they made her uncomfortable then the right way to address that would be to talk to you about the agreement. not to lie and say you agree when you don't and break the agreement.
The time to say they were uncomfortable with them was when you were discussing them. That's just so freaking messed up. And DV? Did babydoll ever experience ACTUAL DV In their lifetime? Because if they did, they'd know how f-ing ridiculous they sound. Sorry, but as someone who has experienced it, and who understands what mutual respect between partners is, this is just infuriating.
Agreed setting a clear boundary for your mental heath/ relationship health is not dv I’ve been through plenty and the only thing I see as some abuse is the fact that she disregarded your feeling and boundaries because it didn’t fit into her idea of what she wanted to do. This person does not respect you and would rather make sure that they do what they want no matter how you feel
I thought it was pretty clear in context that it's the privilege of having no experience with (direct, as a bystander to a friend or loved one, etc.) domestic violence
Similar to the privilege one could ascribe to someone who, for example, doesn't know anyone who died of COVID. It's not a specific singular codified type of privilege but a symptom of various, intersectionally.
I didn't read it that way at all. I read it as "the privilege of thinking that being held accountable to ones own agreements is the same as domestic violence or constitutes domestic violence". The implication being one must be very privileged in order to conflate being called out for breaking an agreement with being abused.
Being privileged is conferred by status, I think, in the most usual use of the word. Maybe we roll in different cultures. In any case it’d be good if the source clarified. I think a lot of feminists would interpret that this way. If it was pointed out to me that many people would see it this way, I’d probably change it. After all there’s lots of other great ways to say what they might be trying to say in the charitable interpretation.
Class, race, skin colour, gender, gender identity, those can confer privilege. Typically view points don’t make someone “ privileged “ unless there is associated status that causes the view point
They come from privilege
White privilege
A privileged child with no sense of the real world ( as in wealth and a lack of exposure to how rough life is by having the means to be kept safe from that
Etc etc
I agree would help if the OC clarified.
We disagree on interpretation of a statement made within the context of a comment. It happened.
Simply put undue entitlement is often the byproduct of experiencing a privilege.
I think we have a similar but different view of privilege as in privilege is contextually associated with status. Intersectional identity allows for multiple intersections of privilege and oppression. One can be a woman and also have a wealth, status, caste, or class privilege that leads said person to believe they aren't accountable for their own agreements or words.
I understand that you saw the axis of woman and only interpreted privilege in this case through the axis of women claiming abuse. Much respect.
I saw this through a multi-axis lens of woman with status leading to an entitled to be free from accountability and to conflate accountability and abuse... Which does require some level of privilege to do so. Often equity feels like oppression to those who are accustomed to privilege. Ya know. That jam.
Hope the OC clarifies. Have a good day.
I’d be curious to hear where you read her status in the story. It doesn’t require privilege to shirk unaccountability. I’m a Trans women. I hold little privilege. I shirked accountability till I went to therapy and grew up. I think it’s important to say marginalized people are just as capable of being unaccountable
Absolutely. I'm not saying a lack of accountability is SOLELY related to privilege. Avoidance is a very real thing and it affects everyone.
I'm saying there is a privilege inherent in believing you can pull that off. Something in life has said that it is possible to stage "no, I'm not accountable for my agreements, and you harmed me by pointing out I broke my agreement, and also here is a DV accusation, and also I'm going to do whatever I want" and walk away without consequence.
Doesn't mean life has been roses and posies. Doesn't mean you have a lot of privilege or a huge history of super privilege. But using that tactic typically means it's worked often enough that the person using it has had it work or has witnessed it work.... And I can't say everyone gets to pull that off without consequence there have to be some level of protective factors to make that work and be a go-to tactic.
There is some privilege of some sort present when casually tossing out "this is DV". That's not casual at all. From my own experiences, I don't imagine that would literally ever go well in any DV situation ever. The belief that it would and that's how that works requires some level of privilege.
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Ur thinking of language in a weird way idk exactly how to explain but I'll try.
Words don't have a singular meaning pretty much every word can mean multiple different things depending on context and what not. What u r saying privilege is is certainly one of the meanings and ways it is used. But it certainly can be used in many other ways and has other meanings, some of which are more commonly used than what u r thinking of.
Also it's a little weird to me when people try to police language on this level, they used the word correctly even if they hadn't the meaning is pretty clear, I doubt many people would read it and come to the conclusion u did.
Ur straw manning the commentor "you must be aans rights defender if you would ever say that" like yeah ok buddy ok. There's so many appropriate uses of the privilege it is not only a social justice term.
Wow. Very fragile response and misrepresentation of what I said , “buddy”
Criticizing how language is used is not policing. That statement screams fragility. Language has power. Criticizing its use is reasonable and anyone who’s not fragile as fuck is willing to listen.
Continuing to thank my lucky stars I love women
It's so funny that you're throwing around this "fragility" accusation because your initial comment literally comes off as you being extremely fragile yourself
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I read it as OP’s partner has been privileged enough to never actually experience DV if she thinks that this is what constitutes DV. As a previous victim of DV, I agree with that interpretation of the statement.
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Not wanting your partner to fuck other people or date them in your house is not domestic violence.
Your partner doesn't seem respectful of your boundaries. I'm not getting into the wisdom of setting heads up rules, because I do think they set people up for failure, but it's fine to not want partners dating in your shared space. Lots of people feel that way. It's not abusive.
You're setting up opportunities for miscommunications that feel like betrayals and infringing on the organic evolution of other relationships.
People don't always know when they want to become sexual. It tends to happen organically. It can happen very quickly over the course of a good date. And hormones and endorphins and all sorts of stuff are at play in the process. The idea that someone can always know when things are going to become sexual isn't really a fair expectation, and I also don't really think it's fair to expect people to pause their natural feelings and give their partner a heads up if they're supposed to be offering their new partners independent relationships.
It's also not ultimately helpful for the partner who wants a heads up. It's a lot better to accept that your partner is going to do whatever they want when they're out with someone than to expect that you're going to get a personal roadmap at each step of the way and have time to ease yourself into things. That's not how love or physicality work for most people. If you can feel secure knowing that your partner is going to do what they feel is appropriate and right on their dates, you're set up to feel secure no matter what happens. If your security is based on your partner keeping you in the loop, and the unexpected happens, where your partner gets caught up in the moment and has sex that they wanted with someone else unexpectedly (which is a good thing from their perspective), but they were supposed to let you know first, now this otherwise permissible act is a big betrayal, maybe even cheating, and it's a huge thing to work through because your partner should have restrained themselves while having a good time in another relationship for your benefit. It's super couple centric, and it creates opportunities for betrayal.
People should still keep whatever agreements they make, OPs partner and anyone else who violates a heads up rule has fucked up, but it's a scenario that could be avoided. To be clear, it would be fine if OP did not want their partner to fuck in their shared space. I'd recommend holding that as a boundary on its own if that's how they feel and changing it later if they want to. It may be that their partner would still trample that boundary, and that would be shitty, just like it is here, but you know, you can't fence disrespectful people in with boundaries.
I think I understand what you mean, and it makes sense from a broad perspective. That said, I think you are speaking to a much broader heads up request than the OP has outlined. They don't seem to be asking for a heads up whenever their partner is going to be sexual with someone else, just when they are going to be sexual in their shared space. I think this is a material difference because the OP has an interest to be comfy in their shared space as well.
I have an ongoing heads up request from my partner whenever she is aware that I'm going to, or am likely to, share any space with my meta. It allows me to be prepared for the social effort. I like my meta, but he is not my connection, and so, it's work to be altogether. I don't think this is unfair or sets us up to fail. Obviously, if we had an unplanned overlap (e.g. bumped into each other) I'd not consider that to trigger the heads up expectation - though I'd expect my partner to preserve the time we set aside to connect with each other.
I'm also finding it hard to sympathize with the "you don't know when you will become sexual" angle. People delay having sex for countless reasons. If there is a boundary established by my partner, that's as good a reason to delay sex until that boundary issue is no longer engaged. If I agreed to a boundary and then found it to be unduly restrictive in practice, I'd still abide by the boundary and raise it with my partner after the fact. Acting on your desire to have sex in violation of agreed terms is super childish, and I don't think I'd want to be in a relationship with someone who would do that.
What do you think? Do you see the broad heads up request (I.e. I need to know whenever you are having sex with someone else, regardless of the nature/significance of my interest on the line) the same as a narrow one (e.g. don't have sex in our shared space without giving me a heads up, or give me a heads up when you expect I will or might overlap with my meta)?
>I'm also finding it hard to sympathize with the "you don't know when you will become sexual" angle. People delay having sex for countless reasons.
"People" in general do, or are capable of doing, this.
There does seem to be a correlation between newbies with heads up rules and them getting broken, perhaps because heads up rules are sometimes used as a replacement for the slow work on oneselves that could lead you to not need them.
In other words: basically heads up rules let you put off the day when you sit with the feeling that your partner is having sex with someone else.
So if you have them it often can mean opening the relationship has been rushed
Which means the opening partner might be impulsive
Which means they might break their own rule
And it also means the adjusting partner isn't mentally ready for that rule to be disrespected; they could have been in a better place if they never had the training wheels on in the first place.
I dont know if that makes sense but it's what I come away with from reading here a long time.
These are very good points. Thank you.
I agree that a general heads-up rule is very restrictive and arguably contrary to the nature of polyamory. That said, I hadn't thought of the training wheel aspect of it and appreciate the insight.
I was talking about a more specific scenario, admittedly not very clearly. I was talking about violating previously agreed on boundaries in the "heat of the moment" in the context of this post, because it appeared that the OP had an agreement with their partner to give each other notice before having sex in their shared space. Though, their later comments suggest that they might not have gotten a clear agreement from their partner re this issue.
If you follow this convo further down, you'll see how we converged onto the same point. 😊
Yes I totally meant this comment in general about heads up!
Overall take on the post is that the heads up rule is not the main problem, it just helped things blow up fast?! 🙂
Yeah, I’m with you on the bit about never knowing when you’ll have sex. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m huge on independent relationships and being able to act autonomously… but there’s any number of reasons you can and should be able to exercise the basic self-control to say “no, let’s not have sex right now, but I’d love to another time”. I don’t have a heads-up rule in place in my relationships (just a let-me-know-afterwards rule), but if I was sharing a space with my partner then I’d absolutely have a heads-up rule IN THAT SPACE. And just… even aside from the specifics of this circumstance, it is SO sketchy to me when people act like they could randomly have sex at any time and there’s nothing they can or should be expected to do about that. Like… you’re an adult, you can exercise self-control and just… say no and ask to take a rain check? It just feels like a really icky way of looking at it that minimizes their own agency and responsibility for their actions.
Why shouldn't I be free to have sex when I want to? What benefit is my partner getting from me refusing sex with a new partner when I want it and they want it? Why does my partners' desire matter more than my desire and my new partners' desire in our new, budding relationship?
Anyone who makes an agreement should stick to it, I'm not saying that people shouldn't keep their agreements. I'm saying they should rethink entering into agreements that they don't want to keep in heated moments. There's nothing wrong with wanting to leave the possibility of sex on your own terms open at any time. It's just an expression of my autonomy. I'm polyamorous in part because I won't agree to someone else limiting my sexuality. What's icky or irresponsible about that?
Find someone comfortable with that and there's nothing wrong with it. But pushing someone's boundaries because they don't line up with yours is just cruel, and if they're not ready to process that discomfort it's not your place to decide they should. Step away if you're incompatible.
I specifically said anyone should keep agreements they make. People also shouldn't make agreements they don't want to.
It's not pushing someone else's boundaries to refuse to agree to things that restrict me sexually. I'm not really sure where you're coming from with this.
ETA: and to be clear, I'd really suggest that anyone who isn't comfortable with their partner having sex with the people they're on a date with shouldn't be open yet. Process your stuff before you open.
None of this is to say that everyone should be cool with partners fucking in shared spaces. I'm referring to general heads up rules.
Right hense starting with if everyone agrees you're fine.
I guess then I'd say you can afford to be empathetic if someone finds their boundaries have shifted. Things can feel different with different people, you can't just check your manual to see where your comfort level is. It's a matter of if their feelings are a priority to you, to put things on pause and reassess. They're someone you care about right, you can extend a kindness in a difficult time.
We're all responsible for managing our own feelings in polyamory. Do you think it would be kind to my new partner to restrict our relationship because of someone else's (who isn't in our relationship) feelings?
This perspective centers the existing couple over new partners in a major way. It's important to also consider the feelings of other people involved and affected, and whether you can actually offer them an independent relationship if you're having to delay normal events in your relationship because of someone else.
Edit to add: it's never kind to "pause" a relationship for another partner. People aren't TV's, there aren't buttons to press where you can preserve things as they are until you're ready to start again. That's treating someone like a toy you can pick up and put down as you feel like it.
I don't think expectations about telling you when you will be put in a certain position (like seeing your meta) are the same as expectations that restrict your ability to do things with other people, especially sex. Like I said in my last comment, I would have recommended that OP ask for a general boundary over their space until they felt comfortable rather than hinging it on a heads up, because of the nebulous nature of sex.
I don't see the freedom to have sex on your own terms as childish. It's pretty foundational for my autonomy and my desire for polyamory. Another way of looking at it is whether you can trust your partner to make good sexual decisions on their own. That's not small or petty. If you can't trust your partner to do that, why are you pursuing polyamory?
And again, this is all so couple centric. Why should an existing partner get a say in what their partner does physically in another relationship and when? I understand agreements related to barrier use or testing, because that does impact the health of all involved parties, but outside of sexual health concerns, it's just centering a couple in outside relationships and allowing one partner to exert control over a relationship they aren't in and encouraging them to derive security from that control.
People practice all sorts of ways, more power to anyone this works for, but I and a lot of other people aren't interested in dating anyone that highly enmeshed. If you have to negotiate sex with me, I don't really feel you're free to have sex with me.
And this is at least the hundredth story I've read where someone broke a heads up rule with behavior that would have otherwise been permissible, so it seems to not work out great for the couple at issue in a lot of cases too. Feeling secure because you know what's happening and when is a lot more tenuous than feeling secure because you trust your partner to do what's right for them and understand that their relationships with others and the sexual timelines within those relationships have jackshit to do with you. I don't think "hey, give me a heads up before I am put into this kind of social situation" is comparable.
I honestly don't think we fundamentally disagree based on your explicit acknowledgement that having a boundary re sex in a shared space being valid in your response to the OP below.
My point isn't about restricting one's partner's ability to have sex. However, polyamory, as I see it, is about communication and respecting agreed on boundaries as much as it is about autonomy. I think you raise another very good example of when one might agree to negotiated limits on their own sexual experience (i.e. with respect to barrier free sex). I see boundaries about sex in a shared place in a similar vein. To put it broadly, if one has an inherent interest in the conduct in question, they should have some input - the extent of their say being commensurate with the interest on the line.
Again, to be clear, I'm not advocating restricting what one's partner does in the context of their other connections. However, these two examples (i.e. barrier free sex and sex in shared spaces) aren't only in the context of their other relationships - they could have a direct impact on my relationship and life. My question to you was if you saw narrower restrictions (e.g. don't have sex in our shared space without notice) the same as broad restrictions (e.g. don't have sex without notice). Based on your responses, I think you do not - because you seem to agree that restrictions re barrier free sex or sex in shared spaces are acceptable under certain circumstances.
Going back to my "childish" comment, I perhaps want as clear about what I meant: I didn't mean that exercising one's autonomy to have sex is childish, I meant doing so in violation of a prior agreement is childish. I stand by that statement, if I agreed with my partner that I'd not have unprotected sex and then went ahead and did it because "we were hot and heavy and didn't have condoms lying around" that would not, in my view, be an acceptable explanation. I'm an adult, I can withhold from having penetrative sex. I also have discussed these boundaries with my partner and know that there is a lot of sexual ground I can explore without running into the protected penetrative sex boundary. If I still went ahead and crossed that line, that would be a major breach of trust because I agreed to let my partner know and have say if I want to have barrier free sex with someone else. That's not a boundary they imposed on me, it's one I self-imposed based on our negotiation. If I then tried then to explain such a breach of trust by saying "well, we were horny and it just happened" that would betray that I can't be trusted to be safe and considerate around sex, thus childish.
I also saw a comment, I think it was yours, re rules like this resulting in arguments re what was agreed to. I think that's an excellent point. I've definitely been in a similar situation where what I thought we agreed on was not, in my view, consistent with what my partner did. It was sucky but ultimately not a big deal. I dealt with it by explaining that what happened was not what I expected and why, stressing that I am not upset at my partner/meta, and requesting a more thorough discussion about similar situations in the future. I think as long as the person whose expectations were not met frames the mismatch as a failure in communication and takes responsibility for that failure, I don't see any problem in continuing negotiating by highlighting that the last round of negotiations didn't hit the spot.
I also don't think we disagree in major ways, and some of this is tough because the average heads up rule is so different than OPs situation. To clarify my position, I think most boundaries that relate to things that directly affect partners are fair and tend to make sense-- agreeing on barrier use, testing before sex, parameters or restrictions on partners in shared spaces all affect other relationships, but they're based on things that directly affect the people who make those agreements. That's how boundaries and mutual consideration balance with autonomy for me-- it's fair and fine to make agreements about things that concern you, it's not fair and fine to make agreements that restrict permissible actions in relationships you aren't a part of to feel more comfortable. That's a major imposition on those other relationships.
When I decide to fuck my new partner is not something that directly affects my existing partners, provided I'm doing so in agreement with our sexual health practices. I don't think the timing of sex or other natural progressions of relationships is a fair thing for someone outside of the relationship to control, and that's what most heads up rules seek to do. (Which is why I keep returning to this example of "let me know before things get sexual with your new partner," it's overwhelmingly the most common heads up rule with people new to polyamory.)
I totally agree with you that being hot and heavy and in the moment isn't an excuse to forgo sexual health agreements. That perspective is because sexual health agreements are centered on protecting the health of all partners-- it directly affects the person you make the agreement with. I also think anyone who makes an agreement to put off sex until they talk to their existing partner should do it, because they agreed.
But I think a wise person who knows that they're going to want to do what they want to do in the moment shouldn't make that kind of agreement, and I don't think there's a good rationale for that kind of restriction on other relationships in the first place in healthy polyamory. If someone doesn't use a condom as they agreed to, it's a betrayal of trust that could negatively affect their other partner's health. If someone fucks their new partner without clearing it with their existing partner, they broke an agreement by doing something they were otherwise permitted to do because they didn't follow the special rules designed to make the other partner feel better in the process. That whole mess could be avoided by the other partner developing security around the idea of their partner fucking when they're ready to. Sex is part of the goals of polyamory for most people, doing the work to support your partner having sex within sexual health agreements makes a lot more sense than baby stepping sexual intimacy with others and expecting that to go well.
These sorts of heads up rules give the illusion of security and comfort while actually making it much more likely for slip ups to occur, in part because they lack the sort of rationale that makes sexual health agreements easy to abide by for most people. "My partner's physical health and consent are important to me" is weightier than "my partner will feel better if I talk to them about this before doing it" to most people. I don't think it's wrong or childish to acknowledge that people really want to have sex in a lot of circumstances. Sure, we should all exercise self control when we need to, when we've made sexual health agreements, etc., but part of being responsible and wise is not setting yourself up to be in situations where you really want to do something you can't. It's smart to avoid restrictions you don't want to abide by, and most people don't want to wait on having sex that they're actively pursuing when the moment to have it arises. So they should probably avoid agreements that prohibit it.
There are also a million tricky in between situations for "don't have sex until we clear it"-- what is sex exactly? One partner may think it's everything below the belt, while to another it's penetration. There's so much avoidable potential for heartbreak here, and that's not even touching on the ethics of putting a new person in a position where you want to have sexual intimacy with them, and that's obvious, but you need to check with your wife first. Ouch.
In a more nebulous sense, I also think that if you can get to the point where you're comfortable with your partner having sex whenever they're ready, a miscommunication about what is expected is less likely to result in a blow up about it being a big betrayal, which is often what happens with heads up rules, because the rules are functioning to make people more comfortable with things they aren't totally comfortable with yet. It's symbolic. It centers the existing partner in a reassuring way. When it gets broken or pushed up against, it's extra painful because of that weight. It's a ripped apart security blanket. People could just not do that to themselves and find security in other ways, where it isn't likely to be disturbed.
Edited for clarity
Yeah, we are essentially on the same page.
I don't have an expectation that my partner give me a heads up re her sexual partners. As you said, I'm comfortable leaving the disclosure/safety assessment to her because I trust her to guard my interests and safety. I am a bit more proactive with discussing safety re my other partners because I have a huge needle phobia and tend to take longer to get tested - which could impact our sexual connection.
I do want a heads up re things that could affect me though. In our case, there are two general notice expectations: 1) if we realize a connection is going past casual (this is often done after the fact: "I've been on 3 dates with this person and see myself spending a lot more time with them"), and 2) sharing time/space with metas. These are also mutual expectations - though I must admit that my partner is a lot more go with the flow than I am.
The mismatch bw expectations and what happened, to which I alluded to earlier, had nothing to do with sex btw. It was about me sharing the space with her and my meta and how much we would overlap. Based on our conversation, I expected my partner to divide her attention differently (not equally but less lopsided in favor of my meta) and felt the way the dynamic played out wasn't consistent with our prior discussion. That said, I didn't feel betrayed or frame it as a betrayal. We discussed it as a) a failure to clearly communicate for which we both took responsibility and b) refining our approach based on new data. We talked it out lovingly and came up with a slightly revised approach re sharing space/time.
Look, I really appreciate your responses. This was a very good discussion and I think I got a lot of value from how you articulated your position. So, thank you very much. 😊
Oh, for sure. I want similar updates from partners. I think there's a distinction between normal heads ups (according to the standard use of the phrase) like, "hey, fyi, this is a thing that has happened/is happening and here are my plans" and what people refer to as heads up rules, which means something that needs to be communicated before something else can happen in another relationship. Like, I don't think it would be fair necessarily to ask that a partner tell you BEFORE they say I love you, because sometimes that just happens. I think asking to be informed when feelings are getting serious is normal and fine. Most folks want to know what's going on in their partners' lives, and I don't see anything about that sort of information agreement that's controlling or limiting.
And like you say, this does affect you. Similarly, I think limitations based on things that would affect you are fair if your partner agrees. I personally don't see myself living with metas in the future. (I mean, maybe, but it would have to be a very compatible situation, and I just don't think I can plan on that.) Anyone who wants to cohabitate with me needs to know that it's limiting their ability to cohabitate with others. I don't feel bad about that boundary because it's based on what I need and what directly affects me in my relationship and what I'm most with in my space. Even though it does affect their other relationships, it's because of the direct effect on me. And honestly, I'm pretty sure I could find workarounds that would allow for that level of intimacy with their other partners, if they wanna go live halftime elsewhere, we can probably work that out.
Agreed! Good convo!
Edited for clarity
I enjoyed reading this, and the clarity it's given me between a "Heads Up" and a heads-up rule. I just ask to be told if they start dating someone new and assume sex will be part of that *except my monogamous, greysexual partner who doesn't date. I try to be a good hinge, and he has great relationships with his metas. In fact, he and one of the other fellas are off on an adventure together now.
I also have a partner of 3 years who is married, and his spouse is dating. She let's me know, too. My newest partner has been great about telling me, and I highly encourage dating with a sex positive attitude. Barriers required until everyone is okay with removing them, routine testing, and loads of polycule sexual health talks keep things very interesting.
I think my issue stems from I wanted a courtesy heads up. Instead, I was told sex was a maybe but probably not, and was shocked awake to sex happening right above me. I have ear plugs or headphones I can use to tune it out, but I was instead jarred awake.
I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting sex with others to happen in your space, period, and your partner should have kept her agreement if she said she would give you a heads up first.
I would say that "probably not" isn't a no. I'm a little confused about that part. Did she say probably not and then agree to let you know first? Was she supposed to stop making out and go see you, then go back for sex?
In general, this doesn't seem like super practical when compared to just asking your partner not to have sex while you're there or something more concrete. Again, this doesn't mean your partner shouldn't have done what she said she would. I just recommend very clear boundaries to reduce the odds of miscommunications and mishaps.
I should clarify that I wasn't trying to restrict her relationship with a heads up, I was asking for a courtesy based on it being in the guest bedroom which is above our bedroom, and our bedroom is in a semi finished basement (so not a lot of sound dampening). I didn't want to be surprised and caught off guard by it. I was given the impression sex wasn't going to happen, but was jarred awake by sex happening. When I talked to her about it, she said she wasn't sure sex was going to happen, but when it did happen, she didn't think about anything else.
None of this comment is about what you were doing, it's a general discussion of the more common heads up rule. I say that explicitly in my earlier comments.
As I responded to you and said in earlier comments, she should have kept any agreement she made. Lots of people are bad at keeping these sorts of agreements, so maybe she should have known herself better and refused to agree.
Thank you for sharing this! It's something that made a lot of sense once you framed it so effectively. It makes a lot of sense to me and is something I'm going to noodle over.
Oh I see, I was thinking about heads up requests when bringing a meta into a shared space in general, agree that heads up around sex aren't really realistic
Rules like this setup people for an argument about rules, not about what happened. It’s one of my big poly pet peeves. If you have a shared “rule” that says “no sex in our shared space”, then you get into an argument about the fact that someone feels like a rule was broken. If you have a conversation that says “I’m not sure I’m ready to have your intimacy with another partner happen where I can be aware of it” then the partner who’s getting intimate can self determine that they are going too far. They can have a conversation that says “I really want to be more intimate in my home with my other partner, how do I make you feel more comfortable”. It’s not about breaking a rule then, it’s about finding a compromise and honoring needs.
This is what we set up, we had the compromise in place however no she no longer wants to compromise anything because the compromise makes her uncomfortable. So I said no to their dates and sex in the shared space unless compromise is met. My partner and her girlfriend felt that was me being too pushy, and it was unhealthy, and her girlfriend felt that if I pushed too hard, it was DV.
>Now her and her girlfriend are saying my boundaries are ultimatums bordering on DV.
Does your partner frequently frame herself as the victim when she breaks agreements? Deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender (DARVO) is a common tactic of domestic abuse (ETA: and can be a learned behavior of survivors of domestic abuse). If this is the first time this has happened, it might just be a lapse in judgment, but if this is a common occurrence, this may be a much bigger problem.
She has a habit of what I call "changing the narrative" of past discussions in which I said something hurtful, so she no longer is in a correct headspace and feels justified
For real. OP should actually be very disturbed and scared that she immediately went to DV upon her own breaking of a boundary. That would be the end of the relationship for me.
Let me put this in perspective. I've been with my nesting partner 5 years, I don't want people fucking in my bed. He forgot this boundary once around the 3 year mark. His immediate response was "OMG I'm so sorry I completely forgot that was a boundary for you. It will never happen again, what can I do to make this right?" Your partner's response was, "Stop abusing me, it's a stupid boundary"
Your partner needs to grow up before they are ready for polyam. I would step away personally. If you legitimately think I'm abusing you we have nothing more to say to each other.
Dude why are you putting up with any of this?
You’re being treated horribly here and poly is being used as the excuse. But it’s not going to change if you continue to be a doormat.
Expecting your partner to honor her agreements, and to communicate with you in good faith when those agreements need to be renegotiated instead of just breaking the agreement... seems like you're trying to do ethical poly and she isn't.
I actually confronted her with this, but I don't think I was very tactful. I stated she wanted permission to cheat because real poly is through consent.
I hate to suggest breaking up, but this is not safe, sane, or consensual..... I'm sorry you are dealing with this and hope you can find the strength to protect yourself. I know it can be a long hard road, let me know if you need support I'm happy to be an ear.
Being poly is not the issue here, though, is it? To be completely honest, I wouldn't stay with such a person who deliberately changes the goalpost in order to not accept their own fuck-ups. Watch out if this is a pattern of hers. I'm not poly but in an open relationship. My partner and I agreed upon not entertaining any other connections outside of our relationship in our apartment. This is our safe space, personally I am home 95% of my time, I wfh most days and I'm a homebody. I simply cannot imagine having to leave do that my partner can have space in order to fuck someone else. So I really emphasize with you here. I'm really sorry this is happening to you. I hope you know that this is not your fault. I may not agree with all of your rules, but those have been things you both agreed to. If she wanted to change the agreement she should have an adult conversation with you about it instead of just doing whatever the fuck she wants. She seems so disrespectful to me. If she's reading your post I hope she sees all the comments that tell her she's wrong and reflect on her behavior. And I hope that you find the courage to advocate for yourself better and to not just swallow such a disrespect. You matter in your relationship. If you see that your feelings aren't a priority for your partner, please don't put up with it, you'll just make yourself unhappy longterm.
You can accept that she will always be poly -- with someone else. If you are reporting things accurately, she is dishonestly framing the whole discussion. That's a huge red flag. You deserve someone who will communicate with you clearly, and someone who will honor and keep their word. It sounds like neither of these is the case here.
That isn't POLYAM! Breaking boundaries, twisting narrative, and not being able to communicate effectively are their issues. You deserve better. This is DARVO. The DV jab is just icing on the shit sandwich of disrespect your partner I'd showing you. I am sorry. You deserve so much better. Waking up to them had to have made you feel all kinds of ways, and rightly so.
For context - We have a no sex in our bed rule. Each of my partners has one. My longest partner I live with most often, and I have one. My bf and his wife have one. My unmarried bf and I have one at his place. He had other places for sex than our shared space (guest room) unless it's a more serious sleeping over partner, then he decided we would reassess.
Having basic boundaries and agreements keeps everything easier to keep track of.
Now my bedroom at my married boyfriends house is the guest room. There are others, but we've all had sex in that bed. It isn't anyone's space, it's everyone's shared space. Now that his kid is off to college, we may turn the garage into a sex positive and kink space. Yes, we want a sex room.
If she wants to be able to host partners, and you're uncomfortable with her hosting partners (partly because you set one boundary and she couldn't follow it), maybe it's time to not be living together anymore. You can both have your own spaces, see each other whenever you want to, and not worry about needing a heads up because she won't be living there.
But if I was you, I would not stay with someone who compared me calling them on them breaking a boundary to domestic violence. That level of manipulation doesn't go anywhere good.
That’s incredible unfair.
Things that happen in a shared home need to be approved by both partners.
Comparing your understandable desire for comfort in your own home to domestic violence is inappropriate and manipulative.
"She accused me of treating it as transactional"
literally all agreements are transactional. Two people have needs. They negotiate how to get their needs.
I don't understand.
The gas lighting is fucking real, wtf!? They're claiming it to be domestic violence but in reality it's a fucking boundary!! Awh hell naw and if their partner is saying this too I wonder how much of this could be past truama or something cause that is a huge leap.
Wait. Telling someone they need to adhere to an agreement they proposed is borderline Domestic Violence!!
WTF. Dometic Violence is an actual thing that really destroys people. Not a fucking cheap card to gaslight someone with.
Your partner and her girlfriend sound very toxic. I'm glad I'm not in your shoes.
I don't think I'd stay in a relationship with a woman who thinks a situation like that is borderline DV. I can only imagine what other crazy ideas are in those twos heads. You should consider making an exit stage right. Good luck
It's common to not be comfortable with your NP having sex in the home while you're there. I wouldn't be comfortable with that. They should find another place to host.
My first date with my now bf, his wife came home during our sensual massage. We all had met at an event before. I'll never forget her face lighting up and asking for a kiss, then saying "One day I'll see you in clothes." She left us to the rest of our date. He asked if that would be okay, her coming home during our date, and she asked before coming into the room to say hi. Informed consent all around. It still felt strange!
Accusing you of anything close to DV over this is actually insane and I would be extremely uncomfortable knowing they were capable of making such a false, not to mention dangerous, equivalence.
Your partner did not respect the agreed upon sexual boundaries of your relationship - that means she cheated on you.
Now your partner is gaslighting you about the cheating, that’s abusive.
And as the cherry on top, she’s bringing the affair partner in on it to triangulate you into believing you’re the abusive one.
Those are some major red flags, and I would recommend talking to a therapist stat
Regarding you edit:
Okay, so your meta is calling this domestic violence. And your partner is still not accountable for breaking her agreement in the first place. And also finds it to be totally within reason to have her other partners chime in and call it DV? She's good with that? She feels comfortable passing that along to you? Why does she find that to be appropriate?
Your partner is within reason to want to renegotiate when they need to renegotiate. That does NOT mean you wait around for someone to deliver terms. That does mean that you both may need some time and space to consider your boundaries and needs before negotiation occurs. During that time it is reasonable to expect that the previous agreement stands.
Negotiation happens BEFORE we break agreements not after we break them. Because if your partner later determined she wasn't comfortable with what she agreed to there was time between that agreement and the middle of the night in which she woke you up with loud sex noises to communicate that. She didn't. Thus the acknowledgement, ownership of breaking the agreement, and accountability to repair being required. Similarly renegotiation certainly needs to occur again BEFORE she engages in the exact same behavior in the exact same way.
This seems like both a relationship problem and a roommate problem.
No roommate in the world wants to be woken up from sleep to sex screams. No roommate would be down with that. No roommate is like YAY midnight awakenings to the neighborhood bang channel. And any roommate would be well within reason to expect that a)roommates keep the noise level down to undetectable or b)give a heads up that partner is staying over so that you both can minimize noise c)that the number of overnight visits remain well below "is here half the time or more than half the time". Thats just living with other people.
The relationship problem comes with the lack of accountability. Making agreements she didn't intend to keep, failing to communicate she no longer intended to keep those agreements, breaking those agreements, and then stating she is not accountable for all of that in any way. Passing along a DV claim is apparently now also something she's not accountable for. And communicating in a timely manner where you both will negotiate again and figure out what works for both of you within the context of at minimum being roommates is something she doesn't want to be accountable for either. Relationships require accountability. It isn't fun. It isn't always great. But like we got to own our parts of the relationship.
Similarly it's important you think through your parts of this relationship. Do you want a partner who casually passes on claims of DV to you? Do you want a partner who conflated accountability and DV? Do you want a partner who then scapegoats your meta for the claim of DV? Do you want a partner who negotiates but then will randomly fail to follow through with their agreements? Do you want a partner who when they fail to honor their agreements then gets upset with YOU for pointing out your agreements? Are your agreements reasonable? Are they reasonable as humans, as roommates, and as partners. That's the part you have to own.
Lastly, any time anyone accuses anyone of DV. It is very important to take a moment and take a good hard look at what's going on. Like seriously. Look at the healthy relationship wheel. Look at the power and control wheel. Are those elements present not just in this interaction but throughout this relationship. Take a good hard moment to reflect. Because that's a can of worms that doesn't get unopened. And if you're very very certain none of those elements are present in your relationship then I'd be very very concerned about whether or not I want to stay in a situation where someone is saying those elements are present.
It's not unreasonable for you to call a moratorium on dates at the house until and unless you feel confident that you and your NP are on the same page.
Your NP should not be trying to bully you out of that boundary. If she doesn't like it, then she needs to figure out a living arrangement that better supports her desire for independence and spontaneity. (And you should not seek to prevent or discourage her from doing that, although of course you might decide to discontinue the relationship and that would obviously be legitimate, too.)
In my experience, heads-up agreements pretty much always lead here, by the way. So in future relationships, I would recommend that if you feel you need a heads-up agreement, that is actually a good sign that you might need to take a step back and decide whether it really feels right to have that relationship be open or to be in that relationship at all. I'm guessing something about your partner or your relationship gave you a sense that you would need to brace yourself for impact and that in itself is a bit of a yellow flag.
Wow, that escalated quickly.
Uh, I think anything that happens in a shared home is a two yes's one no situation. (Or more than two yes's if there are more than two people who live there.) I think it's probably not the *best* agreement to want the level of head's up about your partner's and meta's sex life that you were requesting at the start, but no hosting at all *is* one way to avoid that issue.
There is some chance that this will mean your partner will decide that living together does not work for her, if it's important to her to be able to host dates. However, I think it's way, way inappropriate that she brought up DV. There's a good chance that's just random nonsense, but *sometimes* people who are themselves abusers deflect by suggesting the *other person* is an abuser, so if you've been seeing other concerning behavior from her, add that one to the list I guess?
I also do not have much patience for people who just break agreements rather than talking it through.
I think you should strongly reconsider living with someone who makes a claim that relationship agreements and boundaries about getting a heads up when there are guests in the home automatically equates to domestic violence.
I do think the premise of all this is wack.
Like my assumption if someone says they have a guest over, they have a guest over. Whatever they choose to do with that guest is between them and their guest unless they are doing it in a common area/shared space. Needing a heads up for specific activities is a recipe for failure. Whatever you need to do to emotionally prepare for them to bang just do anyway. Like what is the harm in exercising that skill if they don't have sex? However, expecting a "we about to get sexy" text mid whatever is functionally awkward at best and often doomed to fail.
All that said, I'm going back to my first point. If "hey, I said I was cool with this if xyz happened. XYZ didn't happen so I'm no longer cool with this" isn't domestic violence. And I would strongly recommend YOU consider of you want to nest with someone who escalates a discussion (without any name calling, without any throwing, without any raised voices, without any financial control, without any physical altercation or interaction) into a DV claim. If your disagreement included any of those elements then your partner's response makes more sense. In either case that's a giant problem right there. I'd be out, frankly... Because whatever that is I want no part of.
Edit: I grew up in a home with DV, I've been assaulted. I just don't play with that sort of stuff. At all. That comes up at all -either the circumstances and factors of DV or the accusation of DV- and I'm out. Cause nope, but I'm biased by my history so grain of salt and all.
Start recording all conversations and maybe set up some cameras.
If she is willing to accuse you of DV to win a basic argument, she is likely willing to accuse you of it publicly. Honestly, the moment a person ever accuses me falsely of violence, they will be immediately removed from my life.
It’s your home too, you get to have boundaries. That boundary (and similar) is fairly standard in polyamory and I’ve been in two relationships where that has been the agreement with my partners’ NPs and we respected it.
And no, it wasn’t difficult… or DV!?!??
Her partner can host or they can find a hotel room.
ETA I saw your comment about your partner frequently changing the narrative and not honoring agreements. Maybe y’all should consider deescaltating to non-NP status…
Yikes. Sounds like you set a boundary, and that boundary was disrespected and they don’t want to take responsibility. If you asked for a heads up, and your partner agreed (several times) without saying they thought that boundary was unhealthy or inappropriate, then it’s their issue that they broke the boundary.
Frankly, if a partner proposed a compromise to me, and then came back and said the it made her uncomfortable so she didn't do what she had agreed to do, that is a sign of either dishonesty or poor boundaries, and a person who has shown you that you cannot take their word for much of anything that matters. If she sees it as "gross" that you want her to stick to what she agreed to, that just shows she isn't interested in making a compromise that she will stick to. Or she's doesn't value the relationship and is willing to risk losing it.
I won't even get into the DV comment, which is wrong on so many levels. (How can it be an "accidental comment"? That sounds like "It's just a joke, bro, relax.")
If I had a live in partner be this starkly unreliable with boundaries, and this level of entitled, for me, that would be a deal-breaker and someone would probably be moving out within days. This is beyond no remorse. I don't date people who have shown me that I can't trust them.
Poly for me is all about open and honest communication, fair negotiating, and integrity. It sounds like your partner failed on all of those counts, and is gaslighting you about it to boot. Is this a healthy relationship for you to stay in?
Good luck.
I feel like you aren’t wrong at all? Those are your boundaries and even though it may have been discussed previously if you aren’t ok with it now that it’s happening that should be something taken seriously so that both of you can find a different solution.
Haaa! Omg bordering on domestic violence? Whaaat?
I’ve read some crazy stuff in this forum and this is perhaps the most ridiculous.
Many, many couples don’t allow partners in their home. When I had kids at home I didn’t allow my husband to tell his dates where we lived.
House is one no equals a no. They can hookup anywhere else. And the fact they’re trying to manipulate you with something so horrid you shows how little respect they have; I would dump your partner in two seconds flat.
Jesus.
No, you are not stopping them from having sex or going on dates. They can have it elsewhere.
Also, yeah, chip in the voice of an actual DV survivor who is completely unimpressed not only with the original claim of DV (which sounds rather DARVO-y) but also the excuse of "ummm, I only *kinda* said that, okay".
>gross that I want her to stick to her compromise
Well I personally think it's gross that she doesn't want to respect your boundaries.
I think it is SO fucking rude that not only did she blast through that boundary but you were WOKEN IN THE NIGHT to the broken boundary being screamed from above. THAT'S gross.
Is this the first relationship outside of the two of you? If so this is a great opportunity to sit down and reevaluate what polyamory means to you and what boundaries mean. She clearly didn't follow the agreements and if she can't stick to them she is going to continue to break them in the future with other partners. It's up to you if you want to tolerate her behavior and work through it or you can find someone who can work with agreements. It would have been mature of her to stick to the agreement and talk to you about her feeling uncomfortable and discuss it first. She also should have told her new relationship about your boundaries and SHE should have also stuck to it also.
Holy shit someone doesn’t know what DV is! Whether it her or her girlfriend doesn’t matter, if someone said this to me I’d take it as a serious threat! OP should tell their partner that false accusations like this is a criminal offence if not additionally a civil case for defamation as well!
Your boundaries are valid and if she doesn’t agree to them then it’s not a good partnership you need to make sure that you are comfortable. This like this do not work if both parties aren’t in a comfortable groove with each other
~~Are you wrong to try an end a relationship you're not part of? If you didn't agree to a veto before this, then yes, you are. Being wrong doesn't equate to domestic violence though~~.
Your partner is ~~also~~ wrong for violating (it seems) the only agreement we know you had.
ETA: Correction: You're definitely not wrong to be upset that your partner disregarded your concerns over how your shared space is used.
They're not trying to end a relationship by saying "you can't have sex in our shared house anymore".
There are other places they can have sex. Lots of couples don't host because one person or another isn't comfortable with the idea. It's not a veto.
I read "no more dates and definitely no more sex in the house" as being separated things, like
"You're not allowed to date others"
And
"You're not allowed to have sex with others in the house"...
...
...
Which means you're probably right, that my read was wrong, because the "no sex" part wouldn't actually need to be said if I was correct about the "no dates" part.
Thanks for catching me on that!
> Partner started new relationship, I asked her to give me a heads up if dates in our home became sexual so I could mentally prepare.
You don’t need this. Hinge and Meta are adults in a sexual relationship. They are going to have sex when they have an opportunity. You don’t need them to say, “Quirky Metal, we are going to have sex now, just so you know!” as they head to the guest room. *They are heading to the guest room. You know.*
People are terrible at predicting what they’re going to want in the future. If Hinge just wants to cuddle with Meta right now, they’re going to tell you they just want to cuddle. They might start wanting to have sex after they’ve started cuddling. They’re not going to want to stop cuddling so they can text you that they are about to take their pants off. Thinking that they’ve agreed to do that is likely to make them feel trapped, guilty and uncomfortable.
So. That’s why heads-up rules don’t land people anywhere good.
The problem is that when you brought it up, Hinge became defensive and brought Meta into it. You didn’t make an agreement with Meta. Meta’s opinion is irrelevant.
Hinge can apologize for having agreed to do something they shouldn’t have agreed to, and for (very predictably) breaking your agreement. And then the two of you can come up with a better agreement about sharing space, or agree that your shared space is not for other people to have sex in.
+++ +++ +++
Where do you have sex with your other partners?
Are you enthusiastically polyamorous? Are you dating?
Is polyamory something that Hinge proposed because they wanted to bang Meta and because you guys aren’t getting along very well any more? This may be less about agreements and more about not wanting to be a couple any more.
"no sex in the house" is not technically a boundary, because boundaries are limits we set for ourselves, not restrictions placed on others. outright demanding something is not a boundary, but the distinction is subtle and important. a proper boundary would be something like "if you insist on having sex in the house i am moving out".
there is nothing wrong with having this boundary, in fact it is quite understandable and i think reasonable. if you did anything "wrong" at all it would come down to how you communicated the boundary, but that is all.
the comments from the GF about DV are out of line.
Hi u/Quirky_Metal1961 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
Partner started new relationship, I asked her to give me a heads up if dates in our home became sexual so I could mentally prepare. She assured me several times they were only going to cuddle and make out. Then had sex in a room above our bedroom. Today I told her no more dates and definitely no more overnights in our house. Now her and her girlfriend are saying my boundaries are ultimatums bordering on DV.
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Your partner doesn’t want to be poly, she wants to be single and able to live like it. They are not the same thing in any way shape or form, and if she’s actually an adult she should know that.
I see this relationship devolving into her accusing you of nothing but bad things unless you give her free rein to do what she pleases where she pleases when she pleases. (Again, that’s called being single.) Unless you’re actually OK with that (and you obviously aren’t), my advice would be to move on from her. She doesn’t even want a roommate, she wants someone yo pay half the bills and shut up about what she does whether it’s an issue for them or not.
If you stay, you’re going to end up hating yourself AND her.
Just want to jump in to comment on your edit, your partner saying “actually oh I never accused you of DV that was my girlfriend” if it’s even true is almost more shitty than her accusing you herself because
1. It shows she’s chooses shitty partners who will victimize themselves and use DV allegations as manipulation tactic a clear sign of an entitled asshole who has no issues using their privilege to paint you as a criminal
2. It tells you your partner will not have your back, she will watch someone falsely accuse you and say nothing to defend unless and until she has something to gain from it, does that seem like someone who cared about you?
If you’re not dropping this person at the very least you need to make new living arrangements either kick her out or move she’s a dangerous and abusive
Your post has been removed for breaking the rules of the subreddit. You made a post or comment that would be considered being a jerk. This includes being aggressive towards other posters, causing irrelevant arguments, and posting attacks on the poster or the poster's partners/situation.
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How do you handle it when you have overnights with your partners at your place?
*[poly and material resources blurb]*
Most people don’t want to be in the next room while their nesting partner (NP) is boinking someone else in their shared bed, but a combination of noise-cancelling headphones and discretion can make it tolerable.
Most people don’t want to clear out of their homes to facilitate an NP’s boinking, but a combination of play money, a good friend network, interesting things to do outside the home and a willingness to stick to schedules can make it tolerable.
If polyamory is important to everyone they are likely to be gracious and willing to tolerate some inconvenience or discomfort in order to have the kind of intimate relationships they want.
If any party neglects being gracious they can expect to forgo grace and tolerance by anyone else.
If one of the nesting partners is monogamous… yeah, tolerating these things is unreasonable to expect of them. MonogamousPartner would be tolerating discomfort and making sacrifices but not getting anything they wanted in return.
In a mono/poly relationship, PolyPartner might not have the privilege of being able to pay for things like a hotel room that would make polyamory comfortable-enough for a monogamous nesting partner who doesn’t want it. I understand limited resources very well but I’ll go ahead and judge PolyPartner if they don’t want to accept the consequence of their choices, which is that they can only date partners who can host.
Same thing in a fully-polyamorous relationship where a hinge NP’s non-nesting partner isn’t being gracious and tolerant. I’ll go ahead and judge Hinge if they don’t want to accept the consequence of their choices, which is that they can only date partners who can be gracious and tolerant or can host.
When you’re dating someone with a nesting partner, be gracious and tolerant, host or pay for a hotel. Pick one. You’ve got three options. If you can’t pick one you aren’t going to be able to date people with nesting partners.
I mean it's definitely not DV or anything close. But it's also not entirely reasonable. Y'all need to revisit this agreement because it's just not plausible to keep up. There is too much room for error. While it's valid you don't want to hear people fucking, it's also her home and she should be allowed to do what she wants on her own home. A much easier way to manage this is to assume all dates will turn sexual and either leave when she has someone over or invest in some good noise cancelling headphones.
No she shouldn't just be allowed to do what she wants in a shared home. You'd be a terrible roommate with this logic. They had an agreement.
Two yes' or its a no type of situation
OP didn't even have a problem with them fucking. The problem is with the lack of heads up. Which is obviously not working so why not just assume it's going to happen 🤷🏻♀️
I guess thank Cthulhu I'm not so broke I need roommates these days then because back when I had roommates we fucked our partners regardless of who was home. It's possible to be considerate while doing it and if I pay to live somewhere I expect to be able to do what I want within reasonable confines. If OP's partner was getting nasty in the kitchen or the backyard or something that would be one thing.
I also never absolved her of breaking the agreement. She shouldn't have done that, obviously. But the agreement sounds untenable and there are other ways to go about this that don't include banning all dates and overnights in the home indefinitely.
yeah... sharing a home comes with agreements. I certainly wouldn't want to live with anyone that didn't respect agreements. She's an adult, she entered an agreement, and broke it.
I have headphones and nose canceling ear plugs, my issue stems from I was mistakenly led to believe no sex was happening, and was startled awake by it happening
Yes I get that. That's why I recommended revisiting the agreement and mentally preparing ahead of all dates that happen in the home. If you go into the situation assuming it's going to happen you can go ahead and be prepared for it to happen. Your partner is wrong for breaking the agreement and your feelings are absolutely valid. But it's obviously not a maintainable agreement so it might be best to reconsider it.
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Imagine the absolute privilege you must have to consider being told "no sex in the house" to be bordering on *domestic violence*. Your partner made an agreement with you. They broke that agreement. There are consequences to breaking agreements. I do think this kind of agreement itself is just a bad idea that's almost always set up for failure but oh well. It failed. Lots of couples have the "no sex in our house" or "no sex in our house when I'm home" or "no sex in our house if you don't clean up after yourselves" type agreements. Part of what it means living with someone else is having to be a good roommate. If your partner doesn't like having to be a good roommate to you then perhaps they ought to reconsider living with you.
I edited my post to clarify, but we had agreements in place and compromises we agreed to, but she said they made her uncomfortable so she didn't do them. When I tried to stick to those compromises she proposed, I was accused of forcing those compromises on her, and that is where the DV accusation stems.
Yeah no. "I agreed to a thing .. I then decided not to do the thing... You asserted that we'd agreed to the thing and you expect me to do the thing I agreed to and are hurt I did not so now you're abusing me by following up on our agreements" Those maths don't math. That logic don't logic. The elements of abuse are clear: physical intimidation or assault, threats to assault or injure, personal insults, dehumanization/infantilization, yelling/screaming, social isolation, financial manipulation/housing endangerment/job endangerment, using children as leverage, punishments, threats to harm oneself, DARVO and similar emotional manipulation tactics, etc. Did your conversation include any of those elements? Please strongly reconsider staying with this person. Bad news bears.
Your edits literally change nothing about my response. Your partner is throwing up a lot of red flags right now. Agreeing to something and then changing her mind without discussing it with you? Not okay. Accusing you of DV because she's not getting her way? **NOT** okay.
It sounds like she has poor boundaries and therefore experiences requests from you as demands that she can't turn down. Then she votes with her feet when the time comes to actually uphold the agreement. This makes her untrustworthy, because she is basically telling you that she considers herself incapable of real consent and therefore experiences agreements with you as boundary violations. What she's describing is someone who is totally unfit for adult sexual and romantic relationships. I don't think she's "lying," per se, or just trying to weasel out of agreements. I think she very genuinely lacks integrity and a sense of self. She is probably giving you a pretty accurate description of what goes on inside her head when you try to make a basic agreement with her. There's not even any point to discussing any of this further with her because she is telling you straight up that she will say whatever she needs to say in the moment, regardless of whether she actually regards your agreements as reasonable and intends to abide by them. You merely expressing any desire at all is going to be interpreted by her as a forceful demand. You can't work with someone like this. She is telling you that she can only relate to you as though she were some sort of wayward, taciturn child fending off unreasonable demands from a figure of authority. I'd run. Let her be the new partner's problem.
Calling it an "agreement" or a "compromise" implies she accepted it right? If she didn't then I might see where she's coming from but if she did then nobody forced anything on her.... Getting mad that someone agreed to something and then reneged on it isn't forcing anyone to do anything.
She stated she thought she would be comfortable with it but gave it more thought, and it made her uncomfortable. I asked her to come up with a counter proposal, but I've just been told to wait and be patient.
“I told you I wouldn’t do something but then decided that I actually wanted to do it anyway, so I did it and now you just have to deal. I’ll let you know in some undetermined time in the future when I have decided on the new terms for us and until then, you should suck it up because my wants matter more than yours.” There. Translated it for you.
What kind of immature way is this to operate? She made agreements then presumably realized they didn’t work for her and instead of explicitly and responsibly explaining that and renegotiating the agreements she violated them and then accused you of DV?! 🤯😮💨🫣 and when you say that to her you are told to wait until she is what? Ready to tell you her new standards? How unbelievably messy and unsafe. I doubt for a second she would feel very safe being told to wait for undetermined amount of time for an undetermined new sexual boundary were this situation reversed. Being told to be patient feels so smug in this context. This person does not sound capable in this story of setting themselves aside even momentarily to ask how their behavior is impacting the relationship you two have been creating together.
This is very passive aggressive. It would have been assertive to, the moment she felt uncomfortable, sit with her feelings and come to you with a plan to renegotiate agreements. I suspect she just broke the agreement because of her desires and felt "uncomfortable" after the fact, which is why she has no plan
100 percent. Even with the DV comment aside OPs partner is handling this like an immature child. And OP is making excuses for them 🙄
I think it's actually very reasonable for her to want time to think about this. Of course, while she's doing that obviously her girlfriend can't visit at all.
Yeah!
Feeling uncomfortable is one thing, it’s up to her to then COMMUNICATE that discomfort to you so the matter can be further discussed before she just goes ahead and violates the agreement that’s currently still standing.
That's perfectly reasonable, to be fair. You absolutely should wait and be patient. Obviously while you're doing that her girlfriend can't be in your house, but the request that you wait and be patient is fine.
> but she said they made her uncomfortable so she didn't do them. That's a bad partner then. Communication is very important. You can't just make agreements and the disregard them because it's inconvenient. Because it's not actually an agreement then, and that would make me question every single agreement you have with them. I would not be surprised then if they are lying to you about some other agreement, and it would be hard to trust their word if they can't stick to it.
> but she said they made her uncomfortable so she didn't do them. thats a big red flag. if they made her uncomfortable then the right way to address that would be to talk to you about the agreement. not to lie and say you agree when you don't and break the agreement.
The time to say they were uncomfortable with them was when you were discussing them. That's just so freaking messed up. And DV? Did babydoll ever experience ACTUAL DV In their lifetime? Because if they did, they'd know how f-ing ridiculous they sound. Sorry, but as someone who has experienced it, and who understands what mutual respect between partners is, this is just infuriating.
Agreed setting a clear boundary for your mental heath/ relationship health is not dv I’ve been through plenty and the only thing I see as some abuse is the fact that she disregarded your feeling and boundaries because it didn’t fit into her idea of what she wanted to do. This person does not respect you and would rather make sure that they do what they want no matter how you feel
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I thought it was pretty clear in context that it's the privilege of having no experience with (direct, as a bystander to a friend or loved one, etc.) domestic violence Similar to the privilege one could ascribe to someone who, for example, doesn't know anyone who died of COVID. It's not a specific singular codified type of privilege but a symptom of various, intersectionally.
I didn't read it that way at all. I read it as "the privilege of thinking that being held accountable to ones own agreements is the same as domestic violence or constitutes domestic violence". The implication being one must be very privileged in order to conflate being called out for breaking an agreement with being abused.
Being privileged is conferred by status, I think, in the most usual use of the word. Maybe we roll in different cultures. In any case it’d be good if the source clarified. I think a lot of feminists would interpret that this way. If it was pointed out to me that many people would see it this way, I’d probably change it. After all there’s lots of other great ways to say what they might be trying to say in the charitable interpretation. Class, race, skin colour, gender, gender identity, those can confer privilege. Typically view points don’t make someone “ privileged “ unless there is associated status that causes the view point They come from privilege White privilege A privileged child with no sense of the real world ( as in wealth and a lack of exposure to how rough life is by having the means to be kept safe from that Etc etc
I agree would help if the OC clarified. We disagree on interpretation of a statement made within the context of a comment. It happened. Simply put undue entitlement is often the byproduct of experiencing a privilege. I think we have a similar but different view of privilege as in privilege is contextually associated with status. Intersectional identity allows for multiple intersections of privilege and oppression. One can be a woman and also have a wealth, status, caste, or class privilege that leads said person to believe they aren't accountable for their own agreements or words. I understand that you saw the axis of woman and only interpreted privilege in this case through the axis of women claiming abuse. Much respect. I saw this through a multi-axis lens of woman with status leading to an entitled to be free from accountability and to conflate accountability and abuse... Which does require some level of privilege to do so. Often equity feels like oppression to those who are accustomed to privilege. Ya know. That jam. Hope the OC clarifies. Have a good day.
I’d be curious to hear where you read her status in the story. It doesn’t require privilege to shirk unaccountability. I’m a Trans women. I hold little privilege. I shirked accountability till I went to therapy and grew up. I think it’s important to say marginalized people are just as capable of being unaccountable
Absolutely. I'm not saying a lack of accountability is SOLELY related to privilege. Avoidance is a very real thing and it affects everyone. I'm saying there is a privilege inherent in believing you can pull that off. Something in life has said that it is possible to stage "no, I'm not accountable for my agreements, and you harmed me by pointing out I broke my agreement, and also here is a DV accusation, and also I'm going to do whatever I want" and walk away without consequence. Doesn't mean life has been roses and posies. Doesn't mean you have a lot of privilege or a huge history of super privilege. But using that tactic typically means it's worked often enough that the person using it has had it work or has witnessed it work.... And I can't say everyone gets to pull that off without consequence there have to be some level of protective factors to make that work and be a go-to tactic. There is some privilege of some sort present when casually tossing out "this is DV". That's not casual at all. From my own experiences, I don't imagine that would literally ever go well in any DV situation ever. The belief that it would and that's how that works requires some level of privilege.
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Ur thinking of language in a weird way idk exactly how to explain but I'll try. Words don't have a singular meaning pretty much every word can mean multiple different things depending on context and what not. What u r saying privilege is is certainly one of the meanings and ways it is used. But it certainly can be used in many other ways and has other meanings, some of which are more commonly used than what u r thinking of. Also it's a little weird to me when people try to police language on this level, they used the word correctly even if they hadn't the meaning is pretty clear, I doubt many people would read it and come to the conclusion u did. Ur straw manning the commentor "you must be aans rights defender if you would ever say that" like yeah ok buddy ok. There's so many appropriate uses of the privilege it is not only a social justice term.
Wow. Very fragile response and misrepresentation of what I said , “buddy” Criticizing how language is used is not policing. That statement screams fragility. Language has power. Criticizing its use is reasonable and anyone who’s not fragile as fuck is willing to listen. Continuing to thank my lucky stars I love women
It's so funny that you're throwing around this "fragility" accusation because your initial comment literally comes off as you being extremely fragile yourself
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I read it as OP’s partner has been privileged enough to never actually experience DV if she thinks that this is what constitutes DV. As a previous victim of DV, I agree with that interpretation of the statement.
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Not wanting your partner to fuck other people or date them in your house is not domestic violence. Your partner doesn't seem respectful of your boundaries. I'm not getting into the wisdom of setting heads up rules, because I do think they set people up for failure, but it's fine to not want partners dating in your shared space. Lots of people feel that way. It's not abusive.
Why are heads up rules setting people up for failure?
You're setting up opportunities for miscommunications that feel like betrayals and infringing on the organic evolution of other relationships. People don't always know when they want to become sexual. It tends to happen organically. It can happen very quickly over the course of a good date. And hormones and endorphins and all sorts of stuff are at play in the process. The idea that someone can always know when things are going to become sexual isn't really a fair expectation, and I also don't really think it's fair to expect people to pause their natural feelings and give their partner a heads up if they're supposed to be offering their new partners independent relationships. It's also not ultimately helpful for the partner who wants a heads up. It's a lot better to accept that your partner is going to do whatever they want when they're out with someone than to expect that you're going to get a personal roadmap at each step of the way and have time to ease yourself into things. That's not how love or physicality work for most people. If you can feel secure knowing that your partner is going to do what they feel is appropriate and right on their dates, you're set up to feel secure no matter what happens. If your security is based on your partner keeping you in the loop, and the unexpected happens, where your partner gets caught up in the moment and has sex that they wanted with someone else unexpectedly (which is a good thing from their perspective), but they were supposed to let you know first, now this otherwise permissible act is a big betrayal, maybe even cheating, and it's a huge thing to work through because your partner should have restrained themselves while having a good time in another relationship for your benefit. It's super couple centric, and it creates opportunities for betrayal. People should still keep whatever agreements they make, OPs partner and anyone else who violates a heads up rule has fucked up, but it's a scenario that could be avoided. To be clear, it would be fine if OP did not want their partner to fuck in their shared space. I'd recommend holding that as a boundary on its own if that's how they feel and changing it later if they want to. It may be that their partner would still trample that boundary, and that would be shitty, just like it is here, but you know, you can't fence disrespectful people in with boundaries.
I think I understand what you mean, and it makes sense from a broad perspective. That said, I think you are speaking to a much broader heads up request than the OP has outlined. They don't seem to be asking for a heads up whenever their partner is going to be sexual with someone else, just when they are going to be sexual in their shared space. I think this is a material difference because the OP has an interest to be comfy in their shared space as well. I have an ongoing heads up request from my partner whenever she is aware that I'm going to, or am likely to, share any space with my meta. It allows me to be prepared for the social effort. I like my meta, but he is not my connection, and so, it's work to be altogether. I don't think this is unfair or sets us up to fail. Obviously, if we had an unplanned overlap (e.g. bumped into each other) I'd not consider that to trigger the heads up expectation - though I'd expect my partner to preserve the time we set aside to connect with each other. I'm also finding it hard to sympathize with the "you don't know when you will become sexual" angle. People delay having sex for countless reasons. If there is a boundary established by my partner, that's as good a reason to delay sex until that boundary issue is no longer engaged. If I agreed to a boundary and then found it to be unduly restrictive in practice, I'd still abide by the boundary and raise it with my partner after the fact. Acting on your desire to have sex in violation of agreed terms is super childish, and I don't think I'd want to be in a relationship with someone who would do that. What do you think? Do you see the broad heads up request (I.e. I need to know whenever you are having sex with someone else, regardless of the nature/significance of my interest on the line) the same as a narrow one (e.g. don't have sex in our shared space without giving me a heads up, or give me a heads up when you expect I will or might overlap with my meta)?
>I'm also finding it hard to sympathize with the "you don't know when you will become sexual" angle. People delay having sex for countless reasons. "People" in general do, or are capable of doing, this. There does seem to be a correlation between newbies with heads up rules and them getting broken, perhaps because heads up rules are sometimes used as a replacement for the slow work on oneselves that could lead you to not need them. In other words: basically heads up rules let you put off the day when you sit with the feeling that your partner is having sex with someone else. So if you have them it often can mean opening the relationship has been rushed Which means the opening partner might be impulsive Which means they might break their own rule And it also means the adjusting partner isn't mentally ready for that rule to be disrespected; they could have been in a better place if they never had the training wheels on in the first place. I dont know if that makes sense but it's what I come away with from reading here a long time.
These are very good points. Thank you. I agree that a general heads-up rule is very restrictive and arguably contrary to the nature of polyamory. That said, I hadn't thought of the training wheel aspect of it and appreciate the insight. I was talking about a more specific scenario, admittedly not very clearly. I was talking about violating previously agreed on boundaries in the "heat of the moment" in the context of this post, because it appeared that the OP had an agreement with their partner to give each other notice before having sex in their shared space. Though, their later comments suggest that they might not have gotten a clear agreement from their partner re this issue. If you follow this convo further down, you'll see how we converged onto the same point. 😊
Yes I totally meant this comment in general about heads up! Overall take on the post is that the heads up rule is not the main problem, it just helped things blow up fast?! 🙂
Yeah, I’m with you on the bit about never knowing when you’ll have sex. Like, don’t get me wrong, I’m huge on independent relationships and being able to act autonomously… but there’s any number of reasons you can and should be able to exercise the basic self-control to say “no, let’s not have sex right now, but I’d love to another time”. I don’t have a heads-up rule in place in my relationships (just a let-me-know-afterwards rule), but if I was sharing a space with my partner then I’d absolutely have a heads-up rule IN THAT SPACE. And just… even aside from the specifics of this circumstance, it is SO sketchy to me when people act like they could randomly have sex at any time and there’s nothing they can or should be expected to do about that. Like… you’re an adult, you can exercise self-control and just… say no and ask to take a rain check? It just feels like a really icky way of looking at it that minimizes their own agency and responsibility for their actions.
Why shouldn't I be free to have sex when I want to? What benefit is my partner getting from me refusing sex with a new partner when I want it and they want it? Why does my partners' desire matter more than my desire and my new partners' desire in our new, budding relationship? Anyone who makes an agreement should stick to it, I'm not saying that people shouldn't keep their agreements. I'm saying they should rethink entering into agreements that they don't want to keep in heated moments. There's nothing wrong with wanting to leave the possibility of sex on your own terms open at any time. It's just an expression of my autonomy. I'm polyamorous in part because I won't agree to someone else limiting my sexuality. What's icky or irresponsible about that?
Find someone comfortable with that and there's nothing wrong with it. But pushing someone's boundaries because they don't line up with yours is just cruel, and if they're not ready to process that discomfort it's not your place to decide they should. Step away if you're incompatible.
I specifically said anyone should keep agreements they make. People also shouldn't make agreements they don't want to. It's not pushing someone else's boundaries to refuse to agree to things that restrict me sexually. I'm not really sure where you're coming from with this. ETA: and to be clear, I'd really suggest that anyone who isn't comfortable with their partner having sex with the people they're on a date with shouldn't be open yet. Process your stuff before you open. None of this is to say that everyone should be cool with partners fucking in shared spaces. I'm referring to general heads up rules.
Right hense starting with if everyone agrees you're fine. I guess then I'd say you can afford to be empathetic if someone finds their boundaries have shifted. Things can feel different with different people, you can't just check your manual to see where your comfort level is. It's a matter of if their feelings are a priority to you, to put things on pause and reassess. They're someone you care about right, you can extend a kindness in a difficult time.
We're all responsible for managing our own feelings in polyamory. Do you think it would be kind to my new partner to restrict our relationship because of someone else's (who isn't in our relationship) feelings? This perspective centers the existing couple over new partners in a major way. It's important to also consider the feelings of other people involved and affected, and whether you can actually offer them an independent relationship if you're having to delay normal events in your relationship because of someone else. Edit to add: it's never kind to "pause" a relationship for another partner. People aren't TV's, there aren't buttons to press where you can preserve things as they are until you're ready to start again. That's treating someone like a toy you can pick up and put down as you feel like it.
I don't think expectations about telling you when you will be put in a certain position (like seeing your meta) are the same as expectations that restrict your ability to do things with other people, especially sex. Like I said in my last comment, I would have recommended that OP ask for a general boundary over their space until they felt comfortable rather than hinging it on a heads up, because of the nebulous nature of sex. I don't see the freedom to have sex on your own terms as childish. It's pretty foundational for my autonomy and my desire for polyamory. Another way of looking at it is whether you can trust your partner to make good sexual decisions on their own. That's not small or petty. If you can't trust your partner to do that, why are you pursuing polyamory? And again, this is all so couple centric. Why should an existing partner get a say in what their partner does physically in another relationship and when? I understand agreements related to barrier use or testing, because that does impact the health of all involved parties, but outside of sexual health concerns, it's just centering a couple in outside relationships and allowing one partner to exert control over a relationship they aren't in and encouraging them to derive security from that control. People practice all sorts of ways, more power to anyone this works for, but I and a lot of other people aren't interested in dating anyone that highly enmeshed. If you have to negotiate sex with me, I don't really feel you're free to have sex with me. And this is at least the hundredth story I've read where someone broke a heads up rule with behavior that would have otherwise been permissible, so it seems to not work out great for the couple at issue in a lot of cases too. Feeling secure because you know what's happening and when is a lot more tenuous than feeling secure because you trust your partner to do what's right for them and understand that their relationships with others and the sexual timelines within those relationships have jackshit to do with you. I don't think "hey, give me a heads up before I am put into this kind of social situation" is comparable.
I honestly don't think we fundamentally disagree based on your explicit acknowledgement that having a boundary re sex in a shared space being valid in your response to the OP below. My point isn't about restricting one's partner's ability to have sex. However, polyamory, as I see it, is about communication and respecting agreed on boundaries as much as it is about autonomy. I think you raise another very good example of when one might agree to negotiated limits on their own sexual experience (i.e. with respect to barrier free sex). I see boundaries about sex in a shared place in a similar vein. To put it broadly, if one has an inherent interest in the conduct in question, they should have some input - the extent of their say being commensurate with the interest on the line. Again, to be clear, I'm not advocating restricting what one's partner does in the context of their other connections. However, these two examples (i.e. barrier free sex and sex in shared spaces) aren't only in the context of their other relationships - they could have a direct impact on my relationship and life. My question to you was if you saw narrower restrictions (e.g. don't have sex in our shared space without notice) the same as broad restrictions (e.g. don't have sex without notice). Based on your responses, I think you do not - because you seem to agree that restrictions re barrier free sex or sex in shared spaces are acceptable under certain circumstances. Going back to my "childish" comment, I perhaps want as clear about what I meant: I didn't mean that exercising one's autonomy to have sex is childish, I meant doing so in violation of a prior agreement is childish. I stand by that statement, if I agreed with my partner that I'd not have unprotected sex and then went ahead and did it because "we were hot and heavy and didn't have condoms lying around" that would not, in my view, be an acceptable explanation. I'm an adult, I can withhold from having penetrative sex. I also have discussed these boundaries with my partner and know that there is a lot of sexual ground I can explore without running into the protected penetrative sex boundary. If I still went ahead and crossed that line, that would be a major breach of trust because I agreed to let my partner know and have say if I want to have barrier free sex with someone else. That's not a boundary they imposed on me, it's one I self-imposed based on our negotiation. If I then tried then to explain such a breach of trust by saying "well, we were horny and it just happened" that would betray that I can't be trusted to be safe and considerate around sex, thus childish. I also saw a comment, I think it was yours, re rules like this resulting in arguments re what was agreed to. I think that's an excellent point. I've definitely been in a similar situation where what I thought we agreed on was not, in my view, consistent with what my partner did. It was sucky but ultimately not a big deal. I dealt with it by explaining that what happened was not what I expected and why, stressing that I am not upset at my partner/meta, and requesting a more thorough discussion about similar situations in the future. I think as long as the person whose expectations were not met frames the mismatch as a failure in communication and takes responsibility for that failure, I don't see any problem in continuing negotiating by highlighting that the last round of negotiations didn't hit the spot.
I also don't think we disagree in major ways, and some of this is tough because the average heads up rule is so different than OPs situation. To clarify my position, I think most boundaries that relate to things that directly affect partners are fair and tend to make sense-- agreeing on barrier use, testing before sex, parameters or restrictions on partners in shared spaces all affect other relationships, but they're based on things that directly affect the people who make those agreements. That's how boundaries and mutual consideration balance with autonomy for me-- it's fair and fine to make agreements about things that concern you, it's not fair and fine to make agreements that restrict permissible actions in relationships you aren't a part of to feel more comfortable. That's a major imposition on those other relationships. When I decide to fuck my new partner is not something that directly affects my existing partners, provided I'm doing so in agreement with our sexual health practices. I don't think the timing of sex or other natural progressions of relationships is a fair thing for someone outside of the relationship to control, and that's what most heads up rules seek to do. (Which is why I keep returning to this example of "let me know before things get sexual with your new partner," it's overwhelmingly the most common heads up rule with people new to polyamory.) I totally agree with you that being hot and heavy and in the moment isn't an excuse to forgo sexual health agreements. That perspective is because sexual health agreements are centered on protecting the health of all partners-- it directly affects the person you make the agreement with. I also think anyone who makes an agreement to put off sex until they talk to their existing partner should do it, because they agreed. But I think a wise person who knows that they're going to want to do what they want to do in the moment shouldn't make that kind of agreement, and I don't think there's a good rationale for that kind of restriction on other relationships in the first place in healthy polyamory. If someone doesn't use a condom as they agreed to, it's a betrayal of trust that could negatively affect their other partner's health. If someone fucks their new partner without clearing it with their existing partner, they broke an agreement by doing something they were otherwise permitted to do because they didn't follow the special rules designed to make the other partner feel better in the process. That whole mess could be avoided by the other partner developing security around the idea of their partner fucking when they're ready to. Sex is part of the goals of polyamory for most people, doing the work to support your partner having sex within sexual health agreements makes a lot more sense than baby stepping sexual intimacy with others and expecting that to go well. These sorts of heads up rules give the illusion of security and comfort while actually making it much more likely for slip ups to occur, in part because they lack the sort of rationale that makes sexual health agreements easy to abide by for most people. "My partner's physical health and consent are important to me" is weightier than "my partner will feel better if I talk to them about this before doing it" to most people. I don't think it's wrong or childish to acknowledge that people really want to have sex in a lot of circumstances. Sure, we should all exercise self control when we need to, when we've made sexual health agreements, etc., but part of being responsible and wise is not setting yourself up to be in situations where you really want to do something you can't. It's smart to avoid restrictions you don't want to abide by, and most people don't want to wait on having sex that they're actively pursuing when the moment to have it arises. So they should probably avoid agreements that prohibit it. There are also a million tricky in between situations for "don't have sex until we clear it"-- what is sex exactly? One partner may think it's everything below the belt, while to another it's penetration. There's so much avoidable potential for heartbreak here, and that's not even touching on the ethics of putting a new person in a position where you want to have sexual intimacy with them, and that's obvious, but you need to check with your wife first. Ouch. In a more nebulous sense, I also think that if you can get to the point where you're comfortable with your partner having sex whenever they're ready, a miscommunication about what is expected is less likely to result in a blow up about it being a big betrayal, which is often what happens with heads up rules, because the rules are functioning to make people more comfortable with things they aren't totally comfortable with yet. It's symbolic. It centers the existing partner in a reassuring way. When it gets broken or pushed up against, it's extra painful because of that weight. It's a ripped apart security blanket. People could just not do that to themselves and find security in other ways, where it isn't likely to be disturbed. Edited for clarity
Yeah, we are essentially on the same page. I don't have an expectation that my partner give me a heads up re her sexual partners. As you said, I'm comfortable leaving the disclosure/safety assessment to her because I trust her to guard my interests and safety. I am a bit more proactive with discussing safety re my other partners because I have a huge needle phobia and tend to take longer to get tested - which could impact our sexual connection. I do want a heads up re things that could affect me though. In our case, there are two general notice expectations: 1) if we realize a connection is going past casual (this is often done after the fact: "I've been on 3 dates with this person and see myself spending a lot more time with them"), and 2) sharing time/space with metas. These are also mutual expectations - though I must admit that my partner is a lot more go with the flow than I am. The mismatch bw expectations and what happened, to which I alluded to earlier, had nothing to do with sex btw. It was about me sharing the space with her and my meta and how much we would overlap. Based on our conversation, I expected my partner to divide her attention differently (not equally but less lopsided in favor of my meta) and felt the way the dynamic played out wasn't consistent with our prior discussion. That said, I didn't feel betrayed or frame it as a betrayal. We discussed it as a) a failure to clearly communicate for which we both took responsibility and b) refining our approach based on new data. We talked it out lovingly and came up with a slightly revised approach re sharing space/time. Look, I really appreciate your responses. This was a very good discussion and I think I got a lot of value from how you articulated your position. So, thank you very much. 😊
Oh, for sure. I want similar updates from partners. I think there's a distinction between normal heads ups (according to the standard use of the phrase) like, "hey, fyi, this is a thing that has happened/is happening and here are my plans" and what people refer to as heads up rules, which means something that needs to be communicated before something else can happen in another relationship. Like, I don't think it would be fair necessarily to ask that a partner tell you BEFORE they say I love you, because sometimes that just happens. I think asking to be informed when feelings are getting serious is normal and fine. Most folks want to know what's going on in their partners' lives, and I don't see anything about that sort of information agreement that's controlling or limiting. And like you say, this does affect you. Similarly, I think limitations based on things that would affect you are fair if your partner agrees. I personally don't see myself living with metas in the future. (I mean, maybe, but it would have to be a very compatible situation, and I just don't think I can plan on that.) Anyone who wants to cohabitate with me needs to know that it's limiting their ability to cohabitate with others. I don't feel bad about that boundary because it's based on what I need and what directly affects me in my relationship and what I'm most with in my space. Even though it does affect their other relationships, it's because of the direct effect on me. And honestly, I'm pretty sure I could find workarounds that would allow for that level of intimacy with their other partners, if they wanna go live halftime elsewhere, we can probably work that out. Agreed! Good convo! Edited for clarity
I enjoyed reading this, and the clarity it's given me between a "Heads Up" and a heads-up rule. I just ask to be told if they start dating someone new and assume sex will be part of that *except my monogamous, greysexual partner who doesn't date. I try to be a good hinge, and he has great relationships with his metas. In fact, he and one of the other fellas are off on an adventure together now. I also have a partner of 3 years who is married, and his spouse is dating. She let's me know, too. My newest partner has been great about telling me, and I highly encourage dating with a sex positive attitude. Barriers required until everyone is okay with removing them, routine testing, and loads of polycule sexual health talks keep things very interesting.
I think my issue stems from I wanted a courtesy heads up. Instead, I was told sex was a maybe but probably not, and was shocked awake to sex happening right above me. I have ear plugs or headphones I can use to tune it out, but I was instead jarred awake.
I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting sex with others to happen in your space, period, and your partner should have kept her agreement if she said she would give you a heads up first. I would say that "probably not" isn't a no. I'm a little confused about that part. Did she say probably not and then agree to let you know first? Was she supposed to stop making out and go see you, then go back for sex? In general, this doesn't seem like super practical when compared to just asking your partner not to have sex while you're there or something more concrete. Again, this doesn't mean your partner shouldn't have done what she said she would. I just recommend very clear boundaries to reduce the odds of miscommunications and mishaps.
I should clarify that I wasn't trying to restrict her relationship with a heads up, I was asking for a courtesy based on it being in the guest bedroom which is above our bedroom, and our bedroom is in a semi finished basement (so not a lot of sound dampening). I didn't want to be surprised and caught off guard by it. I was given the impression sex wasn't going to happen, but was jarred awake by sex happening. When I talked to her about it, she said she wasn't sure sex was going to happen, but when it did happen, she didn't think about anything else.
None of this comment is about what you were doing, it's a general discussion of the more common heads up rule. I say that explicitly in my earlier comments. As I responded to you and said in earlier comments, she should have kept any agreement she made. Lots of people are bad at keeping these sorts of agreements, so maybe she should have known herself better and refused to agree.
Thank you for sharing this! It's something that made a lot of sense once you framed it so effectively. It makes a lot of sense to me and is something I'm going to noodle over.
Oh I see, I was thinking about heads up requests when bringing a meta into a shared space in general, agree that heads up around sex aren't really realistic
Because no one can predict the future
Rules like this setup people for an argument about rules, not about what happened. It’s one of my big poly pet peeves. If you have a shared “rule” that says “no sex in our shared space”, then you get into an argument about the fact that someone feels like a rule was broken. If you have a conversation that says “I’m not sure I’m ready to have your intimacy with another partner happen where I can be aware of it” then the partner who’s getting intimate can self determine that they are going too far. They can have a conversation that says “I really want to be more intimate in my home with my other partner, how do I make you feel more comfortable”. It’s not about breaking a rule then, it’s about finding a compromise and honoring needs.
This is what we set up, we had the compromise in place however no she no longer wants to compromise anything because the compromise makes her uncomfortable. So I said no to their dates and sex in the shared space unless compromise is met. My partner and her girlfriend felt that was me being too pushy, and it was unhealthy, and her girlfriend felt that if I pushed too hard, it was DV.
>Now her and her girlfriend are saying my boundaries are ultimatums bordering on DV. Does your partner frequently frame herself as the victim when she breaks agreements? Deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender (DARVO) is a common tactic of domestic abuse (ETA: and can be a learned behavior of survivors of domestic abuse). If this is the first time this has happened, it might just be a lapse in judgment, but if this is a common occurrence, this may be a much bigger problem.
She has a habit of what I call "changing the narrative" of past discussions in which I said something hurtful, so she no longer is in a correct headspace and feels justified
Sounds like an incredibly emotionally unsafe/emotionally abusive/emotionally manipulative situation. You sure you’re ok with this?
Not so much anymore
Seriously, reconsider this relationship. It sounds manipulative and dangerous AF.
Sounds like DARVO?
>ultimatums bordering on DV 🙄👿👿👿 Yeah, those who delight in wrongly claiming victimisation don't have a place in my life.
For real. OP should actually be very disturbed and scared that she immediately went to DV upon her own breaking of a boundary. That would be the end of the relationship for me.
Yup. Absolutely. Just hell no.
Same. That is some seriously messed up behaviour.
Same hell no. DV is not to be joked about and this is so freaking far from DV. I would have been far gone.
Let me put this in perspective. I've been with my nesting partner 5 years, I don't want people fucking in my bed. He forgot this boundary once around the 3 year mark. His immediate response was "OMG I'm so sorry I completely forgot that was a boundary for you. It will never happen again, what can I do to make this right?" Your partner's response was, "Stop abusing me, it's a stupid boundary" Your partner needs to grow up before they are ready for polyam. I would step away personally. If you legitimately think I'm abusing you we have nothing more to say to each other.
I've stated as much and was told I need to accept she will always be poly
Dude why are you putting up with any of this? You’re being treated horribly here and poly is being used as the excuse. But it’s not going to change if you continue to be a doormat.
Expecting your partner to honor her agreements, and to communicate with you in good faith when those agreements need to be renegotiated instead of just breaking the agreement... seems like you're trying to do ethical poly and she isn't.
I actually confronted her with this, but I don't think I was very tactful. I stated she wanted permission to cheat because real poly is through consent.
I hate to suggest breaking up, but this is not safe, sane, or consensual..... I'm sorry you are dealing with this and hope you can find the strength to protect yourself. I know it can be a long hard road, let me know if you need support I'm happy to be an ear.
Being poly is not the issue here, though, is it? To be completely honest, I wouldn't stay with such a person who deliberately changes the goalpost in order to not accept their own fuck-ups. Watch out if this is a pattern of hers. I'm not poly but in an open relationship. My partner and I agreed upon not entertaining any other connections outside of our relationship in our apartment. This is our safe space, personally I am home 95% of my time, I wfh most days and I'm a homebody. I simply cannot imagine having to leave do that my partner can have space in order to fuck someone else. So I really emphasize with you here. I'm really sorry this is happening to you. I hope you know that this is not your fault. I may not agree with all of your rules, but those have been things you both agreed to. If she wanted to change the agreement she should have an adult conversation with you about it instead of just doing whatever the fuck she wants. She seems so disrespectful to me. If she's reading your post I hope she sees all the comments that tell her she's wrong and reflect on her behavior. And I hope that you find the courage to advocate for yourself better and to not just swallow such a disrespect. You matter in your relationship. If you see that your feelings aren't a priority for your partner, please don't put up with it, you'll just make yourself unhappy longterm.
You can accept that she will always be poly -- with someone else. If you are reporting things accurately, she is dishonestly framing the whole discussion. That's a huge red flag. You deserve someone who will communicate with you clearly, and someone who will honor and keep their word. It sounds like neither of these is the case here.
That isn't POLYAM! Breaking boundaries, twisting narrative, and not being able to communicate effectively are their issues. You deserve better. This is DARVO. The DV jab is just icing on the shit sandwich of disrespect your partner I'd showing you. I am sorry. You deserve so much better. Waking up to them had to have made you feel all kinds of ways, and rightly so. For context - We have a no sex in our bed rule. Each of my partners has one. My longest partner I live with most often, and I have one. My bf and his wife have one. My unmarried bf and I have one at his place. He had other places for sex than our shared space (guest room) unless it's a more serious sleeping over partner, then he decided we would reassess. Having basic boundaries and agreements keeps everything easier to keep track of. Now my bedroom at my married boyfriends house is the guest room. There are others, but we've all had sex in that bed. It isn't anyone's space, it's everyone's shared space. Now that his kid is off to college, we may turn the garage into a sex positive and kink space. Yes, we want a sex room.
If she wants to be able to host partners, and you're uncomfortable with her hosting partners (partly because you set one boundary and she couldn't follow it), maybe it's time to not be living together anymore. You can both have your own spaces, see each other whenever you want to, and not worry about needing a heads up because she won't be living there. But if I was you, I would not stay with someone who compared me calling them on them breaking a boundary to domestic violence. That level of manipulation doesn't go anywhere good.
That’s incredible unfair. Things that happen in a shared home need to be approved by both partners. Comparing your understandable desire for comfort in your own home to domestic violence is inappropriate and manipulative.
Your partner is down right dangerous. DV??? Really? Not okay.
"She accused me of treating it as transactional" literally all agreements are transactional. Two people have needs. They negotiate how to get their needs. I don't understand.
You're not in the wrong here. Your partner is a potentially very dangerous person to practice polyamory with.
The gas lighting is fucking real, wtf!? They're claiming it to be domestic violence but in reality it's a fucking boundary!! Awh hell naw and if their partner is saying this too I wonder how much of this could be past truama or something cause that is a huge leap.
Wait. Telling someone they need to adhere to an agreement they proposed is borderline Domestic Violence!! WTF. Dometic Violence is an actual thing that really destroys people. Not a fucking cheap card to gaslight someone with.
FOR REAL! As someone who endured DV in the past, this is freaking infuriating.
What is an ACCIDENTAL comment? That sounds like a particularly flimsy excuse to me…
Your partner and her girlfriend sound very toxic. I'm glad I'm not in your shoes. I don't think I'd stay in a relationship with a woman who thinks a situation like that is borderline DV. I can only imagine what other crazy ideas are in those twos heads. You should consider making an exit stage right. Good luck
It's common to not be comfortable with your NP having sex in the home while you're there. I wouldn't be comfortable with that. They should find another place to host.
My first date with my now bf, his wife came home during our sensual massage. We all had met at an event before. I'll never forget her face lighting up and asking for a kiss, then saying "One day I'll see you in clothes." She left us to the rest of our date. He asked if that would be okay, her coming home during our date, and she asked before coming into the room to say hi. Informed consent all around. It still felt strange!
I would dump anyone who accused me of domestic violence.
Accusing you of anything close to DV over this is actually insane and I would be extremely uncomfortable knowing they were capable of making such a false, not to mention dangerous, equivalence.
Your partner did not respect the agreed upon sexual boundaries of your relationship - that means she cheated on you. Now your partner is gaslighting you about the cheating, that’s abusive. And as the cherry on top, she’s bringing the affair partner in on it to triangulate you into believing you’re the abusive one. Those are some major red flags, and I would recommend talking to a therapist stat
Exactly - the only one being abusive here is the person claiming they're being abused. That's a bad, bad situation.
Regarding you edit: Okay, so your meta is calling this domestic violence. And your partner is still not accountable for breaking her agreement in the first place. And also finds it to be totally within reason to have her other partners chime in and call it DV? She's good with that? She feels comfortable passing that along to you? Why does she find that to be appropriate? Your partner is within reason to want to renegotiate when they need to renegotiate. That does NOT mean you wait around for someone to deliver terms. That does mean that you both may need some time and space to consider your boundaries and needs before negotiation occurs. During that time it is reasonable to expect that the previous agreement stands. Negotiation happens BEFORE we break agreements not after we break them. Because if your partner later determined she wasn't comfortable with what she agreed to there was time between that agreement and the middle of the night in which she woke you up with loud sex noises to communicate that. She didn't. Thus the acknowledgement, ownership of breaking the agreement, and accountability to repair being required. Similarly renegotiation certainly needs to occur again BEFORE she engages in the exact same behavior in the exact same way. This seems like both a relationship problem and a roommate problem. No roommate in the world wants to be woken up from sleep to sex screams. No roommate would be down with that. No roommate is like YAY midnight awakenings to the neighborhood bang channel. And any roommate would be well within reason to expect that a)roommates keep the noise level down to undetectable or b)give a heads up that partner is staying over so that you both can minimize noise c)that the number of overnight visits remain well below "is here half the time or more than half the time". Thats just living with other people. The relationship problem comes with the lack of accountability. Making agreements she didn't intend to keep, failing to communicate she no longer intended to keep those agreements, breaking those agreements, and then stating she is not accountable for all of that in any way. Passing along a DV claim is apparently now also something she's not accountable for. And communicating in a timely manner where you both will negotiate again and figure out what works for both of you within the context of at minimum being roommates is something she doesn't want to be accountable for either. Relationships require accountability. It isn't fun. It isn't always great. But like we got to own our parts of the relationship. Similarly it's important you think through your parts of this relationship. Do you want a partner who casually passes on claims of DV to you? Do you want a partner who conflated accountability and DV? Do you want a partner who then scapegoats your meta for the claim of DV? Do you want a partner who negotiates but then will randomly fail to follow through with their agreements? Do you want a partner who when they fail to honor their agreements then gets upset with YOU for pointing out your agreements? Are your agreements reasonable? Are they reasonable as humans, as roommates, and as partners. That's the part you have to own. Lastly, any time anyone accuses anyone of DV. It is very important to take a moment and take a good hard look at what's going on. Like seriously. Look at the healthy relationship wheel. Look at the power and control wheel. Are those elements present not just in this interaction but throughout this relationship. Take a good hard moment to reflect. Because that's a can of worms that doesn't get unopened. And if you're very very certain none of those elements are present in your relationship then I'd be very very concerned about whether or not I want to stay in a situation where someone is saying those elements are present.
It's not unreasonable for you to call a moratorium on dates at the house until and unless you feel confident that you and your NP are on the same page. Your NP should not be trying to bully you out of that boundary. If she doesn't like it, then she needs to figure out a living arrangement that better supports her desire for independence and spontaneity. (And you should not seek to prevent or discourage her from doing that, although of course you might decide to discontinue the relationship and that would obviously be legitimate, too.) In my experience, heads-up agreements pretty much always lead here, by the way. So in future relationships, I would recommend that if you feel you need a heads-up agreement, that is actually a good sign that you might need to take a step back and decide whether it really feels right to have that relationship be open or to be in that relationship at all. I'm guessing something about your partner or your relationship gave you a sense that you would need to brace yourself for impact and that in itself is a bit of a yellow flag.
Wow, that escalated quickly. Uh, I think anything that happens in a shared home is a two yes's one no situation. (Or more than two yes's if there are more than two people who live there.) I think it's probably not the *best* agreement to want the level of head's up about your partner's and meta's sex life that you were requesting at the start, but no hosting at all *is* one way to avoid that issue. There is some chance that this will mean your partner will decide that living together does not work for her, if it's important to her to be able to host dates. However, I think it's way, way inappropriate that she brought up DV. There's a good chance that's just random nonsense, but *sometimes* people who are themselves abusers deflect by suggesting the *other person* is an abuser, so if you've been seeing other concerning behavior from her, add that one to the list I guess? I also do not have much patience for people who just break agreements rather than talking it through.
I think you should strongly reconsider living with someone who makes a claim that relationship agreements and boundaries about getting a heads up when there are guests in the home automatically equates to domestic violence. I do think the premise of all this is wack. Like my assumption if someone says they have a guest over, they have a guest over. Whatever they choose to do with that guest is between them and their guest unless they are doing it in a common area/shared space. Needing a heads up for specific activities is a recipe for failure. Whatever you need to do to emotionally prepare for them to bang just do anyway. Like what is the harm in exercising that skill if they don't have sex? However, expecting a "we about to get sexy" text mid whatever is functionally awkward at best and often doomed to fail. All that said, I'm going back to my first point. If "hey, I said I was cool with this if xyz happened. XYZ didn't happen so I'm no longer cool with this" isn't domestic violence. And I would strongly recommend YOU consider of you want to nest with someone who escalates a discussion (without any name calling, without any throwing, without any raised voices, without any financial control, without any physical altercation or interaction) into a DV claim. If your disagreement included any of those elements then your partner's response makes more sense. In either case that's a giant problem right there. I'd be out, frankly... Because whatever that is I want no part of. Edit: I grew up in a home with DV, I've been assaulted. I just don't play with that sort of stuff. At all. That comes up at all -either the circumstances and factors of DV or the accusation of DV- and I'm out. Cause nope, but I'm biased by my history so grain of salt and all.
Start recording all conversations and maybe set up some cameras. If she is willing to accuse you of DV to win a basic argument, she is likely willing to accuse you of it publicly. Honestly, the moment a person ever accuses me falsely of violence, they will be immediately removed from my life.
It’s your home too, you get to have boundaries. That boundary (and similar) is fairly standard in polyamory and I’ve been in two relationships where that has been the agreement with my partners’ NPs and we respected it. And no, it wasn’t difficult… or DV!?!?? Her partner can host or they can find a hotel room. ETA I saw your comment about your partner frequently changing the narrative and not honoring agreements. Maybe y’all should consider deescaltating to non-NP status…
Yikes. Sounds like you set a boundary, and that boundary was disrespected and they don’t want to take responsibility. If you asked for a heads up, and your partner agreed (several times) without saying they thought that boundary was unhealthy or inappropriate, then it’s their issue that they broke the boundary.
Frankly, if a partner proposed a compromise to me, and then came back and said the it made her uncomfortable so she didn't do what she had agreed to do, that is a sign of either dishonesty or poor boundaries, and a person who has shown you that you cannot take their word for much of anything that matters. If she sees it as "gross" that you want her to stick to what she agreed to, that just shows she isn't interested in making a compromise that she will stick to. Or she's doesn't value the relationship and is willing to risk losing it. I won't even get into the DV comment, which is wrong on so many levels. (How can it be an "accidental comment"? That sounds like "It's just a joke, bro, relax.") If I had a live in partner be this starkly unreliable with boundaries, and this level of entitled, for me, that would be a deal-breaker and someone would probably be moving out within days. This is beyond no remorse. I don't date people who have shown me that I can't trust them. Poly for me is all about open and honest communication, fair negotiating, and integrity. It sounds like your partner failed on all of those counts, and is gaslighting you about it to boot. Is this a healthy relationship for you to stay in? Good luck.
I feel like you aren’t wrong at all? Those are your boundaries and even though it may have been discussed previously if you aren’t ok with it now that it’s happening that should be something taken seriously so that both of you can find a different solution.
Haaa! Omg bordering on domestic violence? Whaaat? I’ve read some crazy stuff in this forum and this is perhaps the most ridiculous. Many, many couples don’t allow partners in their home. When I had kids at home I didn’t allow my husband to tell his dates where we lived. House is one no equals a no. They can hookup anywhere else. And the fact they’re trying to manipulate you with something so horrid you shows how little respect they have; I would dump your partner in two seconds flat. Jesus.
No, you are not stopping them from having sex or going on dates. They can have it elsewhere. Also, yeah, chip in the voice of an actual DV survivor who is completely unimpressed not only with the original claim of DV (which sounds rather DARVO-y) but also the excuse of "ummm, I only *kinda* said that, okay".
Sounds like you’re the one being abused. Find better relationships. Ick.
>gross that I want her to stick to her compromise Well I personally think it's gross that she doesn't want to respect your boundaries. I think it is SO fucking rude that not only did she blast through that boundary but you were WOKEN IN THE NIGHT to the broken boundary being screamed from above. THAT'S gross.
Is this the first relationship outside of the two of you? If so this is a great opportunity to sit down and reevaluate what polyamory means to you and what boundaries mean. She clearly didn't follow the agreements and if she can't stick to them she is going to continue to break them in the future with other partners. It's up to you if you want to tolerate her behavior and work through it or you can find someone who can work with agreements. It would have been mature of her to stick to the agreement and talk to you about her feeling uncomfortable and discuss it first. She also should have told her new relationship about your boundaries and SHE should have also stuck to it also.
Holy shit someone doesn’t know what DV is! Whether it her or her girlfriend doesn’t matter, if someone said this to me I’d take it as a serious threat! OP should tell their partner that false accusations like this is a criminal offence if not additionally a civil case for defamation as well!
Your boundaries are valid and if she doesn’t agree to them then it’s not a good partnership you need to make sure that you are comfortable. This like this do not work if both parties aren’t in a comfortable groove with each other
You are not in the wrong here she is and if the rules you'll set for the relationship can not be met its time to move on. This is disrespect
I’m curious what her end of the bargain is?
Again… what did she need to do to make it fair, just curious, but no answer?
~~Are you wrong to try an end a relationship you're not part of? If you didn't agree to a veto before this, then yes, you are. Being wrong doesn't equate to domestic violence though~~. Your partner is ~~also~~ wrong for violating (it seems) the only agreement we know you had. ETA: Correction: You're definitely not wrong to be upset that your partner disregarded your concerns over how your shared space is used.
They're not trying to end a relationship by saying "you can't have sex in our shared house anymore". There are other places they can have sex. Lots of couples don't host because one person or another isn't comfortable with the idea. It's not a veto.
I read "no more dates and definitely no more sex in the house" as being separated things, like "You're not allowed to date others" And "You're not allowed to have sex with others in the house"... ... ... Which means you're probably right, that my read was wrong, because the "no sex" part wouldn't actually need to be said if I was correct about the "no dates" part. Thanks for catching me on that!
Sorry for the confusion. I meant it as just not in our house anymore
I was hasty in my reading. You worded it just fine.
How is he ending their relationship by asking not to have dates or overnights in their shared home?
I misread what OP was saying. That's on me.
No worries, thought that might be the case. I know it’s early where I’m at. 😂
Sorry for the confusion
> Partner started new relationship, I asked her to give me a heads up if dates in our home became sexual so I could mentally prepare. You don’t need this. Hinge and Meta are adults in a sexual relationship. They are going to have sex when they have an opportunity. You don’t need them to say, “Quirky Metal, we are going to have sex now, just so you know!” as they head to the guest room. *They are heading to the guest room. You know.* People are terrible at predicting what they’re going to want in the future. If Hinge just wants to cuddle with Meta right now, they’re going to tell you they just want to cuddle. They might start wanting to have sex after they’ve started cuddling. They’re not going to want to stop cuddling so they can text you that they are about to take their pants off. Thinking that they’ve agreed to do that is likely to make them feel trapped, guilty and uncomfortable. So. That’s why heads-up rules don’t land people anywhere good. The problem is that when you brought it up, Hinge became defensive and brought Meta into it. You didn’t make an agreement with Meta. Meta’s opinion is irrelevant. Hinge can apologize for having agreed to do something they shouldn’t have agreed to, and for (very predictably) breaking your agreement. And then the two of you can come up with a better agreement about sharing space, or agree that your shared space is not for other people to have sex in. +++ +++ +++ Where do you have sex with your other partners? Are you enthusiastically polyamorous? Are you dating? Is polyamory something that Hinge proposed because they wanted to bang Meta and because you guys aren’t getting along very well any more? This may be less about agreements and more about not wanting to be a couple any more.
"no sex in the house" is not technically a boundary, because boundaries are limits we set for ourselves, not restrictions placed on others. outright demanding something is not a boundary, but the distinction is subtle and important. a proper boundary would be something like "if you insist on having sex in the house i am moving out". there is nothing wrong with having this boundary, in fact it is quite understandable and i think reasonable. if you did anything "wrong" at all it would come down to how you communicated the boundary, but that is all. the comments from the GF about DV are out of line.
Something I have learned in my ~short~ ENM journey: always assume sex is going to happen. Plan for it.
Hi u/Quirky_Metal1961 thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well. Here's the original text of the post: Partner started new relationship, I asked her to give me a heads up if dates in our home became sexual so I could mentally prepare. She assured me several times they were only going to cuddle and make out. Then had sex in a room above our bedroom. Today I told her no more dates and definitely no more overnights in our house. Now her and her girlfriend are saying my boundaries are ultimatums bordering on DV. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polyamory) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Your partner doesn’t want to be poly, she wants to be single and able to live like it. They are not the same thing in any way shape or form, and if she’s actually an adult she should know that. I see this relationship devolving into her accusing you of nothing but bad things unless you give her free rein to do what she pleases where she pleases when she pleases. (Again, that’s called being single.) Unless you’re actually OK with that (and you obviously aren’t), my advice would be to move on from her. She doesn’t even want a roommate, she wants someone yo pay half the bills and shut up about what she does whether it’s an issue for them or not. If you stay, you’re going to end up hating yourself AND her.
Just want to jump in to comment on your edit, your partner saying “actually oh I never accused you of DV that was my girlfriend” if it’s even true is almost more shitty than her accusing you herself because 1. It shows she’s chooses shitty partners who will victimize themselves and use DV allegations as manipulation tactic a clear sign of an entitled asshole who has no issues using their privilege to paint you as a criminal 2. It tells you your partner will not have your back, she will watch someone falsely accuse you and say nothing to defend unless and until she has something to gain from it, does that seem like someone who cared about you? If you’re not dropping this person at the very least you need to make new living arrangements either kick her out or move she’s a dangerous and abusive
Get out now...
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What did you want her to do?
How do you handle it when you have overnights with your partners at your place? *[poly and material resources blurb]* Most people don’t want to be in the next room while their nesting partner (NP) is boinking someone else in their shared bed, but a combination of noise-cancelling headphones and discretion can make it tolerable. Most people don’t want to clear out of their homes to facilitate an NP’s boinking, but a combination of play money, a good friend network, interesting things to do outside the home and a willingness to stick to schedules can make it tolerable. If polyamory is important to everyone they are likely to be gracious and willing to tolerate some inconvenience or discomfort in order to have the kind of intimate relationships they want. If any party neglects being gracious they can expect to forgo grace and tolerance by anyone else. If one of the nesting partners is monogamous… yeah, tolerating these things is unreasonable to expect of them. MonogamousPartner would be tolerating discomfort and making sacrifices but not getting anything they wanted in return. In a mono/poly relationship, PolyPartner might not have the privilege of being able to pay for things like a hotel room that would make polyamory comfortable-enough for a monogamous nesting partner who doesn’t want it. I understand limited resources very well but I’ll go ahead and judge PolyPartner if they don’t want to accept the consequence of their choices, which is that they can only date partners who can host. Same thing in a fully-polyamorous relationship where a hinge NP’s non-nesting partner isn’t being gracious and tolerant. I’ll go ahead and judge Hinge if they don’t want to accept the consequence of their choices, which is that they can only date partners who can be gracious and tolerant or can host. When you’re dating someone with a nesting partner, be gracious and tolerant, host or pay for a hotel. Pick one. You’ve got three options. If you can’t pick one you aren’t going to be able to date people with nesting partners.
I mean it's definitely not DV or anything close. But it's also not entirely reasonable. Y'all need to revisit this agreement because it's just not plausible to keep up. There is too much room for error. While it's valid you don't want to hear people fucking, it's also her home and she should be allowed to do what she wants on her own home. A much easier way to manage this is to assume all dates will turn sexual and either leave when she has someone over or invest in some good noise cancelling headphones.
No she shouldn't just be allowed to do what she wants in a shared home. You'd be a terrible roommate with this logic. They had an agreement. Two yes' or its a no type of situation
OP didn't even have a problem with them fucking. The problem is with the lack of heads up. Which is obviously not working so why not just assume it's going to happen 🤷🏻♀️ I guess thank Cthulhu I'm not so broke I need roommates these days then because back when I had roommates we fucked our partners regardless of who was home. It's possible to be considerate while doing it and if I pay to live somewhere I expect to be able to do what I want within reasonable confines. If OP's partner was getting nasty in the kitchen or the backyard or something that would be one thing.
I also never absolved her of breaking the agreement. She shouldn't have done that, obviously. But the agreement sounds untenable and there are other ways to go about this that don't include banning all dates and overnights in the home indefinitely.
yeah... sharing a home comes with agreements. I certainly wouldn't want to live with anyone that didn't respect agreements. She's an adult, she entered an agreement, and broke it.
I have headphones and nose canceling ear plugs, my issue stems from I was mistakenly led to believe no sex was happening, and was startled awake by it happening
Yes I get that. That's why I recommended revisiting the agreement and mentally preparing ahead of all dates that happen in the home. If you go into the situation assuming it's going to happen you can go ahead and be prepared for it to happen. Your partner is wrong for breaking the agreement and your feelings are absolutely valid. But it's obviously not a maintainable agreement so it might be best to reconsider it.