Bored Druid ThreadFollow

Yeah, I dunno.

I'm busy enough as it is trying to keep up with the demands of one relationship. Taking on even a supporting role in a second seems like it'd be a lot of work. I can only open so many jars and squish so many spiders. Though I guess if you can handle more than one, more power to you.

Besides I wouldn't have anytime left for WoW, and that'd be no fun.

Well, I can open my own jars. ;)



Though spiders are all you.

And the #9 reason to ditch your spouse and go gay is...

Well, 19 is probably too young to say that I'm going to stay that way for the rest of my life, but so far, I haven't met anyone (male or female) that I can tolerate spending more than an hour or so with at a time. I think it's safe to assume people spend more time than that with their partners, so I don't think I could have any sort of meaninful relationship with someone that I've already met. That isn't to say that I won't meet someone, but I'm not optimistic.

Oh, I don't think the primary/secondary distinction is necessarily a good thing.

When I was poly, I made it because RJ seemed the most ok with that, but in the end I'm back to square one with him and while it's not perfect, I'm dreading having to leave him in a few months no matter what the conditions of the relationship are, but me going rather far away for the next 7 or more years is too strong an argument. :/


Edit:
And yay, defying stereotypes!

Edited, Mar 29th 2011 9:36pm by Kalivha

True, but if everyone is living in a house together, and there's other kids in the house and everyone is one big happy family, does it really matter? I'm adopted, my parents loved me as much as if I had been their own biologically. What's the difference?

Besides, why I said I wouldn't mind not knowing, I would probably get a paternity test done sooner rather than later, for health history reasons if nothing else.

As much as I would love to entertain the idea of multiple women in my life. I find having just one wife now hard enough. I see it as this.

My wife is like a 3x3 rubic's cube. After enough time and practice I can figure her out quite quickly, but there are still combinations of colors that I will not figure out for years. Now adding another woman onto that is like making it a 4x4, so on and so forth. I'd like to keep it easy with just one.

It honestly depends on the woman. :-) I think most women probably are pretty complicated, because we're culturally taught to be that way. Until I was about 13 or so, my mom was the breadwinner in the family and my dad stayed home and took care of me. Because of that, personality wise I'm pretty androgynous. There are some aspects of my personality that are stereotypically female: I like shopping, I like making myself look pretty, I really enjoy reading, I like cute things, etc. However, there's aspects of my personality that are stereotypically male too: I like getting dirty, I love food and don't really pay attention to what I eat as long as it tastes good, I don't play mind games or guilt trip people, I don't like gossip, I really don't care what celebrities are doing with their lives, and I really like sex. I consider myself to be a fairly simple woman as far as complications go. I do think I'm complex, but in the good way, like there's multiple layers to me. My live in bf gets me. I don't confuse him, although I definitely frustrate him sometimes. He confuses me sometimes though. =/

TL;DR version: I'm weird.

You would be redudant, that way...
=D

I think polyamory probably refers to multiple relationships. I'm not sure having multiple friends with benefits counts.



I think the act of adopting is significant though. When most people marry someone with kids, they don't adopt their stepchildren. So your authority in the household dynamic comes through your spouse. And it makes the balance of power a little weird, I'd imagine.

But when you adopt the kids, they are now legally your children. You no longer gain your power from the spouse. Even though this may not make a huge difference in the grand scheme of things, I feel like it probably has a significant impact on the actual emotions of the family members. For instance, you'd be more comfortable disagreeing with your spouse over issues relating to the kids, because it isn't like they are "their kids" anymore--they are "our kids."

I can't comment on a system where they don't adopt, but my dad is technically the step father of my elder sisters, from my mom's first marriage. When they got married, he legally adopted them. And he's never been their step father in our family dynamic (or, at least, he was no longer by the time I was born, 5 years after they got married). He's their father, legally. And they never call him their stepdad when referring to him to their friends/partners. I can't help but feel that, had he remained just a step dad, whose authority came from my mother, the dynamic of the family might change this.

But, on his end, I think adopting them made it real for him that they were now his kids. They weren't baggage that came with the marriage, they were children he legally decided to make his own--to provide for even should he and my mother divorce. As such, there has never been any bias in my family towards my brother and me (his biological children). Quite honestly, I usually forget that they are my half siblings. The only possible favoritism is towards my brother, who he can relate to the most. And that has nothing to do with blood--it's entirely sports related, lol.

Though, the fact of who their real father was probably helped cement my dad as their own. My mother divorced because her first husband was an alcoholic who refused to recognize his problem, and it became too much (she married at 18 and had my eldest sister just after turning 20). This meant that he ended up as kinda an absentee dad. The legal agreement was that my mother would have them during the week and he got weekends (or every-other, I can't remember). But he'd often never show up to get them, and when he did he'd end up being drunk most of the time. There wouldn't be food in his apartment, etc. I know on a few occasions my dad wouldn't let their father take them, because he'd show up at our house drunk. So they both asked my mom to stop the visits (and they couldn't have been older than 8 and 12).

He was pretty much completely out of their life from then on until he died several years later (from something to do with his liver). My mother made sure they kept in touch with their father's relatives--their uncle, primarily--but he wasn't really their father any more.

So it may be that they were perfectly willing to make my father their own, since he was willing to do the same.

I didn't really intend to write this, lol, it kinda just came out. But my point is that dynamics can change in significant ways by what gives parents power in a relationship. If they have to rely on someone else to gain power, it's probably going to hinder their equality as parents. If they have legal recourse, though, it means that they can feel about the kids as if they are their own (because they are, just not where dna is concerned). I don't know how many parents a single child can have in the US. But I imagine you need to marry in order for someone else to adopt your child (without first giving up your own right).

I may be completely wrong, but it feels to me that this would be a big issue in there being true equality amongst parents in a poly-amorous family. It's something adoption laws could fix, though, I imagine.

[EDIT]

Part of my reason for thinking adoption is significant is that, before their marriage, my father's family were dead set against him marrying my mother, because she came with kids. They thought she was wonderful, but opposed the match completely. After they got married and my father adopted my sisters, they all kinda acted more like they were step kids than children. They never favored my brother and I, per se, but my sisters have always felt that a few of my aunts had a certain stiffness towards them that didn't exist for my brother and I (my two uncles, who were really close with my dad, never opposed the match to begin with).

My grandmother, on the other hand, had been dead set against the marriage. But, after my father adopted the girls, dropped all disapproval altogether. I attribute this to her seeing my sisters, through the adoption, as now truly being her grandchildren (daughters of her son). I doubt heavily that that would have happened if they were only stepchildren. My aunts, who didn't have the same kind of link (that of parenthood), never really got there (at least mostly--I think one aunt doesn't feel that way, but she was the closest to my father of his sisters).

I doubt anyone but Pigtails will be interested in reading this, but meh--I felt it was worth sharing. :P

Edited, Mar 29th 2011 10:57pm by idiggory

I guess it's just as inexplicable to Pigtails and Kali how you can be completely satisfied with one person, or not in love with multiple people as it is for you to have feelings for more than one person.