quote:

ORIGINAL: SirMIkeSD

As a male Dom I can tell you that there will be only one Dom Me in my household. Finding another Dom willing to share full time is going to be hard. Not impossible but hard I would think. I am in charge and there is no way anyone else will be.

Mike

quote:

ORIGINAL: CallaFirestormBW

Our situation is significantly different than many of the folks who post here. While authority exchange and fetish activities are an important aspect of our lives for some of our household's members, the primary reason for welcoming people into our household is because we love having a poly household and sharing love among the membership. We have keepers, servants, and members who aren't into authority exchange or fetish at all, and they're all loved and cherished. Some of us live together all the time, and some of us live at a distance and share one anothers' nests from time to time, but we're still family. We have folks of many age ranges, races, colors, body types, and individual styles. We have scientists and maintenance workers, artists and writers, computer geeks and body mod freaks, doctors and dreamers... all wrapped up in the folks we call 'family'. From that perspective, I can say that it is a little more difficult to add two or more people at the same time than it is to add one person, but having done it both ways, in the end, it all seemed to work out the way it was destined to. Sometimes, it worked out by the person or persons becoming part of the family... and sometimes it worked out by everyone going hir own way. The biggest complication with adding multiple people at the same time is the upheaval and year-long 'settling in' that comes from changing the face of the relationship... which can get really hairy when you've got several people in transition at a time.

Some things to think about:

1. Why are you considering the person or people you're thinking about welcoming? Is there more to it than just sex or kink?

2. Do you share a common philosophy on the importance of family, and is everyone on board with the idea that family has to come first?

3. How do existing family members feel about the newcomer(s)? Is someone keeping an eye out to address areas of tension as they crop up?

4. Do you share common philosophies about how to deal with things like unequal perceptions of what 'clean' means? Do you have the space for the potential person who is a packrat? Will it bug the crud out of you when newbie Jo drinks out of the milk carton or puts the orange-juice container back in the fridge empty?

5. Can you laugh together? Cry together? Are you already hiding things about yourself or afraid to show your true self around the newcomer(s)? Can you handle the stress when one or more of the members are pissed off or having a bad day (week)?

Becoming a poly family has its own challenges. Some folks may think it's too -early- to think about some of these things, but it's been my experience, over the past 30 years in poly living, that these are some of the "inconsequential" things that get glossed over. NRE (New Relationship Energy) is a great thing... but it's easy to forget that a poly house is more than just the newcomer... it takes its flavor from everyone who lives there. It's important, even while immersing oneself in the glow of NRE, to take time to touch base and get a feel for how the family is riding out the potential incoming partner(s), whether it's one, two, or a half a dozen coming in at the same time (and that includes offspring!).

quote:

ORIGINAL: CallaFirestormBW

Our situation is significantly different than many of the folks who post here. While authority exchange and fetish activities are an important aspect of our lives for some of our household's members, the primary reason for welcoming people into our household is because we love having a poly household and sharing love among the membership. We have keepers, servants, and members who aren't into authority exchange or fetish at all, and they're all loved and cherished. Some of us live together all the time, and some of us live at a distance and share one anothers' nests from time to time, but we're still family. We have folks of many age ranges, races, colors, body types, and individual styles. We have scientists and maintenance workers, artists and writers, computer geeks and body mod freaks, doctors and dreamers... all wrapped up in the folks we call 'family'. From that perspective, I can say that it is a little more difficult to add two or more people at the same time than it is to add one person, but having done it both ways, in the end, it all seemed to work out the way it was destined to. Sometimes, it worked out by the person or persons becoming part of the family... and sometimes it worked out by everyone going hir own way. The biggest complication with adding multiple people at the same time is the upheaval and year-long 'settling in' that comes from changing the face of the relationship... which can get really hairy when you've got several people in transition at a time.

Some things to think about:

1. Why are you considering the person or people you're thinking about welcoming? Is there more to it than just sex or kink?

2. Do you share a common philosophy on the importance of family, and is everyone on board with the idea that family has to come first?

3. How do existing family members feel about the newcomer(s)? Is someone keeping an eye out to address areas of tension as they crop up?

4. Do you share common philosophies about how to deal with things like unequal perceptions of what 'clean' means? Do you have the space for the potential person who is a packrat? Will it bug the crud out of you when newbie Jo drinks out of the milk carton or puts the orange-juice container back in the fridge empty?

5. Can you laugh together? Cry together? Are you already hiding things about yourself or afraid to show your true self around the newcomer(s)? Can you handle the stress when one or more of the members are pissed off or having a bad day (week)?

Becoming a poly family has its own challenges. Some folks may think it's too -early- to think about some of these things, but it's been my experience, over the past 30 years in poly living, that these are some of the "inconsequential" things that get glossed over. NRE (New Relationship Energy) is a great thing... but it's easy to forget that a poly house is more than just the newcomer... it takes its flavor from everyone who lives there. It's important, even while immersing oneself in the glow of NRE, to take time to touch base and get a feel for how the family is riding out the potential incoming partner(s), whether it's one, two, or a half a dozen coming in at the same time (and that includes offspring!).

quote:

ORIGINAL: beargonewild

Yet wouldn't the circumstances have a different outcome when say:

- the primary couple has no minimal jealousy issues to seeing their partner with another?
- when everyone shifts their focus more to maintaining a viable 3 way relationship based upon respect, mutual needs/wants and goals?

It just seems to me that when a couple open their relationship to including another person that the kink factor still remains yet it isn't the driving force of the relationship but having the capacity to openly and honestly work towards keeping a stable relationship going.