[GlitterNarwhal]

Hello!

So.

Hello again.

You probably remember my last post: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27467 Which you can read for some background if you haven’t already

So, basically my question is if there’s anyone out there who either has multiple caregivers or littles? Like all in one relationship, not separate ones? If so, how does this work? Do you recommend it? Advice going into this kind of relationship?

My mommy (aka sissy when she’s little) and I have been discussing adding in an additional caregiver to our relationship, or at least start looking for one. When it comes down to it, we really love each other and want our relationship to work out, but I don’t have the ability to meet all her needs. I think this would benefit both of us, if we are all three in a relationship together (to avoid jealousy).

Thoughts?

[Motherly]

I have a lot I could personally say about this since I'm a Mommy to two adult babies and one middle. We've been pursuing polyam for a bit now, and I've been delving into the educational component of that community as well. Ultimately, this is something you need to consider very seriously and not on a whim. This should be months of planning out before diving into. This is a pretty serious consideration that involves another person you've yet to meet. These are some things to think about:

• Polyamorous relationships where 2 or more people are expected to develop a bond to the same person are not as common for good reason. It isn't impossible, but it's difficult to keep your expectations realistic while also being able to accept that it might not work out the way you initially expected.
  • What if only one of you actually bonds to this third person?
  • What if one of you wants to "break up" with this person?
    • Is it fair to expect the third person to be broken up with by two partners just because one doesn't want to continue pursing something with him/her?
  • It's very possible they may only "like" one of you and not the other. What then?
    • What if the person only is capable of bonding to one of you and doesn't turn out to be compatible with the other?
    • Is it fair to expect the third person to leave both the relationship with you and your partner just because they don't "get along" or bond with the other?
    • Is it fair to force the third person to remain in a relationship with the person they aren't bonding with and aren't capable of bonding with?

• What does the third person receive from the relationship you would have with them?

• What does the third person receive from the relationship your partner would have with them?

• What if you introduce Person#3 in effort to make sure that all of your needs and all of your current partner's needs are taken care of and fulfilled in full, and it turns out that neither you nor your current partner meet all of their needs?

• Are both you and your other partner individually ready to emotionally care for another partner? Relationships take work, and the third person will need love, support, and care too. Are you both individually in a place to love another person?

• Do you expect this third person to be able to attend family functions of both of your families', such as holidays? Or are they to remain "just a friend"? How would you feel if you were always "just a friend" to your partner's family?

• Do you expect this third person to be able to attend work-related events, such as holiday parties? Or would that be your "first" partner's right only? How would that fairness work out?

• Do you expect this person to also live with you and your current partner?
  • What if they don't want to and you want them to?
  • What if they do want to, but you're under a landlord who doesn't permit more than 2 adults for your rental agreement?
• Will you relocate for this person, or would they be expected to relocate for you two?

• You will need to sit down with your partner and outline the idea of "fairness" rather than "equality".
  • What is fair for each individual and meeting their needs?

• You will need to consider that relationships work on their own time. Bonds take time, and we're unique individuals so you can't really estimate these and have solid expectations of when something should or should not happen between two people.
  • The time it takes for you to fall in love with XYZ person may be 123 days.
  • The time it might take for your partner to fall in love with XYZ person may be 321 days.
  • XYZ person may take 1 day to fall in love with you, but 100 days to fall in love with someone else.

• Sex is a big deal in itself.
  • You will need to outline what sort of sexualities fit both you and your partners desires, in both "giving" as well as "receiving". You need to understand that the third person may not share all of your kinks, desires, or interests when it comes to these things. You can't expect them to be into everything both of you two are into, and you can't expect them to do all of the "giving" just because they like kink1, kink2, and kink3 that you may share.
  • You will need to figure out how you will feel if your partner engages in physically intimate conduct with the third person, and come to understand that you cannot place time restrictions on this sort of activity on anyone but yourself. That means if you want a threesome and one of your partners doesn't then you still cannot pressure that person to do it anyway.
  • That means that if you aren't ready to engage in physically intimate activity it doesn't mean your other two partners aren't.

• Boundaries can only apply to yourself.
  • You cannot expect someone to love based on your personal rules, restrictions, or expectations.
    • Read that again.

• There are no rules to how someone loves.
  • Read that again.

• As a Caregiver, are you expecting this person to take on all or most of the household and caretaking for two regressive, adult individuals?
  • When would they get their break to "rest and relax" from tending to multiple other adults? Caregiver burnout is real and serious, and it will increase in likelihood or frequency with more persons they take on to care for.

• You need to outline if this third person would be permitted to establish other relationships as well.
  • If you are looking for someone strictly devoted to only you and your partner then you need to consider the situation where they may (likely) already have other partners themselves or expect to do so in the future.
  • Poly people tend to be with other poly people because they enjoy having multiple partners and the openness or freedom to take on another relationship if they feel it's fulfilling for them.

• When it comes to more serious relationship structure, who gets the legal rights to marry who? Who gets medical rights over the other? Who shares assets with who? This is a future topic that will come up at some point.

You need to outline the thought process that this is not a 2+1 situation, it is a 1+1, 1+1, 1+1, 1+1+1 dynamic. The third person deserves romance with each of you. They deserve to feel special by each individual partner. They deserve work and effort put into them and each relationship they are pursuing.

1. You + current partner
2. You + new partner
3. Current partner + new partner
4. You + current partner + new partner

Personal experience as a Mommy of multiple littles:
So, it was initially myself (a Caregiver/Mommy) with my twins (AzureAndVanilla). I was very firm about being "monogamous" for awhile since I felt like our bond was important to firmly and strongly establish. We were in a LDR together and then throughout our conversations we decided to open our relationship to include their big brother (my middle), also in another LDR structure among us all. This past spring/summer the twins and my middle came to live with me. We are in a closed, poly-fidelity structure where we do not take on additional partners.

I am the only Caregiver in our family group, and I'm not a switch. I can't confidently say I could realistically get along with a second Caregiver who would take care of my littles. I do believe jealousy would take me over and I would end our relationships. I have a lot of personal value held in silly Caregiver tasks since I feel like it's very strongly tied to my personal identity, and I'd feel devalued if another Caregiver could simply step in at any given moment and take over what I felt was my role. A lot of times when I feel less-than-happy my first thoughts are, "I'm not a good Mommy," so I feel like I'd just jump to that more if I felt someone else was capable of "replacing" me in a situation with my partners. Perhaps it isn't the best way to place value on my self-worth, but that's just who I am and where my comfort level falls.

My partners are regressors though and they tend to get along well. They don't take on the exact same roles or age-ranges though, and I'm not sure they would feel fulfilled if they did. My middle is very helpery and finds a lot of value in being given chores and assigned tasks, as if he's a preteen in need of heavy structure and discipline (mostly scolding and having someone keep him accountable for the chores). My babies feel valuable also with some menial chores but also with heavier infantile regression and clear, but gentle, acknowledgement at times that they're ultimately just big babies. I don't know that they would feel happy if they were all on the exact same level of needs and regression since they are vastly different in these things already.

My partners and I have gone through a lot together in the past six months when we all moved to share a home and living space together. It isn't impossible but it's hard work to get sorted out while keeping everyone in a good space. It isn't just Mommy tending to her little ones because we are not just robots that live in a fairytale, fantastical world. We are still working on optimal communication, and we have each been together for 2+ years (we were just long-distant, basically, up until this past summer). We each communicate differently, and without text being our buffer to individually figure out what we want to say when expressing our feelings it can be a challenge to work through together. We are figuring out our real needs though, and it's beautiful when we hit success with resolving issues we're facing. We don't live in a fairytale and that's okay, but we have to come to realize, accept, and even embrace that our initial expectations have not always been reality. I've learned a lot.

So, perhaps we struggle at times because we are so, so, so different as individuals, but I also feel like that's why this structure has been so personally fulfilling for me not only as a woman, a person, a human, but also as a Mommy. The reward of making multiple partners very happy by just being myself, some silly but quite overbearing motherly type at times, is grand. Everything we've gone through up to this point has been worth it. I'm very happy having multiple partners now.

It's definitely different than how we dreamed and planned. It's definitely different than when we were long-distance. A lot has changed. I wouldn't trade this for anything though. I love my relationships. I love my partners. I love my people. I absolutely love my little family.

It's difficult to give you advice since it's so broad of a subject so if you'd like to message me to have a private conversation with more direct scenarios or concerns I'll happily share my experiences with you.

There are a load of polyam relationship resources here that I would strongly recommend you read through:

http://www.polypatchwork.com/linkssharing

Especially so, try to avoid becoming an accidental Unicorn Hunter, mistakenly placing unrealistic expectations that the other person will be an all-giving, never-needing, magically perfect person at all times with no flaws and a strong willingness to allow you to not only completely dictate your relationship with them but also cast them aside at the sake of “saving” your “serious”, pre-existing partnership :

http://www.polypatchwork.com/linksharin ... corns-r-us

[GlitterNarwhal]

Firstly, thank you so much for such an in-depth reply. It really means a lot that you’d take the time

I’ll try my best to respond to and hit most the points and pm you about the rest^^

First though, I realized I should give a little more background information. So my mommy and I have been dating I think a little over two months, and we have a LDR, she lives in Canada and I live in America. We text constantly and make time to call and FaceTime each other when we can. We’re moving pretty slow, and we’ve obviously played with the idea of moving in together someday, but neither of us are in a place in our lives where we can uproot. I’m also not a full time little. I love being little and cared for, I couldn’t live without it, but my career and independence is also very important to me. I love my mommy so, so much and we were really good friends for a long time before we dated. I love her so much, it’s very important for me that all her needs are fulfilled so we’re both getting what we need from our relationship(s). I’ve never been in a polyam relationship because I’ve always been with mono people, but I myself have always been poly, I just haven’t really explored the community very much.

I’m sure that the relationship won’t be equal. I don’t need it to be, my mommy doesn’t need it to be. I just feel like it should be an x+y+z/x+y/x+z/y+z relationship instead of just like a x+y/z+y type of situation, if that makes sense. In my mind, Person #3 would be more her primary caretaker when she’s little, though I suppose, thinking about it now, they’d also have to care for me if I’m little at the same time. But neither of us have done this before, so I feel like the three of us would have to figure it out ourselves. We don’t really know what will happen if any of us want to break up, but I feel like any relationship, we’d have to figure that out when we get there. I don’t know if I’d be okay with either of them seeing people outside of our relationship, due to jealousy and whatnot, but I’m not sure.

I’d love to pm you more about the rest of the stuff! You can reach me here or at my email, which I think you have? I can send you an email if you don’t though. Thank you so, so, so much, you’re so awesome and helpful! I’d love to talk to you more.