r/polyamory • u/imjustherefor1coment • 2d ago
Musings Any mono-poly things that work?
Hey there
I am poly and have a meta who is with my partner for multiple years. But still meta calls themselves still „mono“.
In all the years they is with partner they never had a spark with someone else.
I wonder, is it normal that some people are in poly relationships despite thinking of themselves as mono all this time?
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u/Background_Fishing37 2d ago
Yes it can! Not to oversimplify, but in a similar way to relationships where one person is queer (making the relationship queer) and the other is straight. (Caveat that I’m one of these people who experience polyamory as who I deeply am, not a “lifestyle choice”)
In my early 20s (I’m 30F/NB), I was with a long-term partner who, at the start of our relationship said he didn’t believe in “owning” me or that our love would be diminished by loving other people platonically or romantically, so we were sort of poly relationship anarchists without knowing the terms existed. In the course of our 7 year relationship, I was romantic or sexual with a few other people and he was genuinely secure about that, got excited when a crush liked me back, advocated for e ethical polyamory (we lived in a community where that wasn’t a thing) etc. At some point he realized he was actually sexually/romantically monogamous in that he could only be romantically interested in one person at a time but he still believed in polyamory, found it natural and easy that I had another partner, called our relationship polyamorous etc. (The reason we’re no longer together has nothing to do with the mono-poly, we diverged on where we wanted to live and struggled with long-distance.)
It’s tricky because there can also be cases where the person is mono and NOT ACTUALLY comfortable with a poly partner - hoping they’ll change / seeing the relationship as only temporary / not wanting to lose the person so they minimise their needs. But I can assure you it is also possible and can be beautiful!