The parallel I'd ask the LW to see is between himself - the newly "converted" polyamorous partner - and those who have newly converted to LSD or any other church. New converts are the most fervent in their new beliefs and heart-felt in how fabulous their lives now are, compared to a short time ago. They aren't the most nuanced or balanced views about their new church nor are they particularly sophisticated in rolling it out to others. This is glaringly obvious when you engage door-knocking Witnesses who tend to be new converts versus Mormon missionaries who, while young, are life-long church members and had a lot of trading beforehand.

Point being: 12 months isn't very long to have been poly and to take on the task of explaining it to a potentially hostile, high-stakes audience. A year or two from now, your own understanding and knowledge of being poly will be much greater, your outside-the-marriage relationships will seem less flash-in-the-pan to your relatives, and some of the new-convert-fervor you feel now will be diminished which actually makes you a better representative: to not be such an over-the-top advocate of what you are, understandably, so excited about right now.

Accepting my disbelief of deities was one of the best decisions of my life. Being atheist makes me feel really happy, I hope the LW feels the same way! Best of luck!

ELDER doesn't mention anything about his wife's partner(s). Unless she's not seeing anyone currently, they're going to have to coordinate any public statement with that person too.

I don't understand why we bother with officially sanctioned relationships. Why not have as many relationships with as many people as you like and tell your friends and family and they'll accord those people the respect they should be showing anyone you know regardless of relationship status. Then for all government and legal issues file paperwork that handles those situations. The only weird situations arise when it comes to insurance but then it makes fiscal sense to limit it to two adults on a policy for instance.

I always wonder why people feel compelled to broadcast their sexual proclivities to the world. Hey, friends and family! You might be wondering whether my wife, girlfriend and I have been having sex with monkeys, and the answer is an enthusiastic YES! Please don't judge our chimptastic tendencies (which will be documented in detail in our next holiday letter). We just want to share our monkey-lovin' lives with all of you, especially our more religious extended family because you are definitely the ones most likely to appreciate us broadcasting our private proclivities.

I also agree with DAVID@1...what's the big rush? Give everyone (including yourself) a chance to settle into the new reality before taking out a full-page ad in the newspaper to proclaim who all you're gonna be fucking.

@5 (DonnyK)

Thanks for the giggles about the wild monkey sex. As for the WHY announce it, I believe we Dan-acolytes discussed this months ago IIRC about celebrities coming out. Though we were talking about orientation, certain principles apply to polyamory. When you're poly and out and are caught being where you (or your wife) aren't supposed to be, with a stranger, people won't be gossiping about the fact you're cheating.

Oh,. I'll bet some will still gossip, but they won't be able to leverage it to cause more damage because the news will already be out ... and old.

ELDER, have you been through any painful poly breakups yet? And are your relationships past being new and sparkly? I didn't get a timeline of how long since you moved to poly-in-practice.

None of that is a requirement before telling people, of course. I guess I'm saying, you've come a long way, maybe you'll always be journeying, but I think some time you'll get to slow down and reach a kind of steady state. That's not yet.

So I would think of this now as who do you trust to share your *journey* with, and all its bumps along the way? Rather than who do you want to tell about the *fact* that you and your partners are poly. If someone's going to be I-told-you-so when you change how you do things, or with a messy breakup, then you might keep them out of the loop for a while longer.

Helenka@6 "When you're poly and out and are caught being where you (or your wife) aren't supposed to be...

I guess if you are going to be out and doing things that might raise eyebrows (PDA, under-table blow jobs, monkey sex during zoo hours) it might behoove you to put out a general alert to mom & pops. If you're not ready to deal with Aunt Gert gasping when she catches you dirty-dancing with the babysitter at the community center, then I guess you'd just better not do those things. You can't have your Kate & eat her too.

I understand the psychological need that most people have for acceptance and validation, but isn't that just a carryover from childhood. All children need their parents approval, but at some point they have to establish their independence. It may be nice to have it, but you shouldn't need it. ELDER evidently does, acceptance and validation appear to be the most important things in his life, but then I've never been persecuted. As an adult I accept that I may be wrong about this and many things.

Last year I began to wonder if Donald Trump is the reincarnation of Joseph Smith or L Ron Hubbard. I'm fairly certain that he would love found his own religion with himself as the deity.

Gonna agree with #1 DAVIDinKENAI and #7 PinkieB on this. Boy has Newbie Enthusiast written all over him. Yes, it's nice you found something you really like (especially so closely combined with your other huge step of leaving Mormonism). Yes, you're totally psyched about all this awesome new stuff you're just experiencing now, and you feel that if you don't tell everybody about it you'll just burst, but... chill. Just cool it. Your family really doesn't need to know about this Great New Thing you've discovered. Take another year or so to really work out your new lifestyle, wait till a few things go bad and you've figured out how to deal with them, and after all that, really think about whether you need to let your family know.

Another thing to remember is that if you do it now, all shiny-eyed and "OMG this is the best thing ever!!!!" then your family's probably gonna give you a lot of 'told you so' when you encounter your first problems with it, because you oversold it so much. Just give yourself more time to come at this from a more experienced angle before you drop it on your family.

Interesting that another LW is using the phrase "explore our sexuality" to mean, not "discover what our sexual orientation is," but "have sex with multiple partners."
So what phrase should be used to mean "discover what one's sexual orientation is," in order to make it clear that it's a different thing?

David @1: Good point. Many of us adults have learned that there are things that are so important that they must be shared with our families (such as our sexual orientation), but other things that just aren't any of their beeswax. EMLDER and his wife appear to have the option of referring to their other partners as "our good friend." Given their families' likely reactions, it might be more prudent to go this route, and be more selectively open about their openness.

Donny @5: Sigh. Being in a committed, loving relationship with someone is not a "sexual proclivity." Telling people "We have a girlfriend" is different to describing what one does with one's girlfriend. When you bring your girlfriend home for Thanksgiving, do you talk to your parents about how often and how you have sex? (Rhetorical question to which I assume the answer is no.) Surprise: poly people don't either.

Donny @9: The expression is "You can't have your Kate and Edith, too."

@5 I'll echo #9 here - as I understand it, polyamory is about more than just sex. This is the swinger/polyamorous division: for swingers, it is just about sex and friendship. For the polyamorous, it is about multiple romantic partners - as in, long-walks-on-the beach, holding-hands-in-the-rain stuff. Polyamorous couples who aren't out about their other SOs are actually suppressing an important part of their lives, not just failing to mention certain aspects of their social lives.

@10: L. Don Trumpard

@4. To give an answer to your rhetorical question, "I don't understand why we bother with..." At this point in our society's political evolution, if a person cannot prove a legally recognized relationship that gives automatic rights to inheritance, hospital visitation, joint ownership, joint custody of children (and pets), if one partner dies or wants to split and take everything they supposedly own, the remaining partner has virtually no recourse. Even if a partner is given full inheritance of an estate left by their partner, the inheritance is taxed and can be tied up in court by suits from disgruntled family. If the estate is jointly owned, the estate ostensibly belongs to them without said taxes. If a partner is hospitalized or otherwise incapacitated, their family can shut out the remaining partner from visitation, medical, and other decisions.

We are at a crossroads of (finally) legal protections for gender/sexual minorities but there has been and continues to be legal pushback. As evidenced by the draconian laws introduced and passed against a woman's right to access to safe local abortion and birth control and North Carolina, Texas, et al. Political attempts to prevent Trans-people from accessing the bathroom, new laws are bound to be passed to prevent any relationship that doesn't comport with the traditional one man-one woman relationship joined in "holy matrimony."

Additionally, the Man has gots to be paid! Our tax system is convoluted now. Can you image what it would be like if no one sealed the deal to their relationships? What about Family Law? The state wants to be able to know who they can come after for the support of those children, etc.

The reason the LW wants to come out as poly to his family is that it's 'becoming painful' for him to suppress who (he feels) he is. He isn't naïve about expecting easy validation; from some quarters, he might well anticipate a shitstorm. To me, his impulse is honorable; and he may well experience it as irresistible or non-negotiable. The important thing now is to be on the same page as everyone in his polycule. It's not for him to hurry anyone, maybe especially his wife.

He knows his family better than anyone here giving him advice. What kind of reception does he foresee? Even from individual family members and couples? How would he cope with the worst rejection they could throw at him? Is he in any way romanticising the potential benefits of their acknowledging him, thinking that love and renewal would flow from his honesty? (If so, it's reason to take stock and live the poly life a while before broadcasting his identity). There have to be thoroughly independent contingency plans, financial and otherwise, for his immediate family and lovers if the blowback takes him by surprise in its severity.

I second the other poly folks telling him to cool his jets. I have a liberal-ass family and a form of poly life that is pretty easy for my family to accept (my husband is ace-spectrum and therefore hasn't chosen to have other partners; we don't live with my other partner, we don't have kids, yada yada) and they were still dubious to the point of anxiety and confusion and distress.

With conservative families (and there may even be MORE anti-poly blowback from mainstream Mormons since they've had to distance themselves from polygamy so hard) you're looking at probable intervention attempts, total cut-offs, never being allowed around their kids, getting CPS called if/when you have kids...and that's without figuring in the fact that you just became an apostate, so they may think you've been brainwashed or that this is what lack of Mormonism brings or something.

Get some more road miles on your poly buggy and be sure you have a good support net for a very bad family explosion before even making sure both you and your wife (and your polycule to the extent they'll be affected) are really on board.

But I'm very happy for you that you're happy and out of the Church.

Thank you, Lance @13. I came out as poly to my conservative mother when hemming and hawing over her "so what did you do this weekend?" conversational queries started to feel disingenuous and uncomfortable. I was surprised at how well she took it -- although my style of poly, solo poly, was relatable as "you don't want to settle down with one person," which I appreciate isn't EMLDER's situation. Ultimately they need to decide whether any possible fallout is worth the freedom of openly living their truth. (And no, bigots, "openly living their truth" does not mean "discussing their sex life." It means replying "Marcie and I went to this new Greek restaurant on Friday, and Kelly and I saw a movie on Saturday" in response to "what did you do this weekend?".)

Can we start taking poly people down off their ethical/moral high horse? "[It's] about honesty, facing fears, and sharing love" - like, please spare me your bullshit. You are into something and good for you, but I'm tired of people finding new ways to describe how they're fundamentally better than me.

The LW explicitly said he and wife had been exploring poly for 3-4 years, the first year mentally. So that's 2-3 years of being actively poly. The 12 months is how long he's been ex-Mormon. Seems like a few years would be long enough for the new convert glow to wear off.

Sportlandia @19: Are you saying that your relationships are NOT about "honesty, facing fears, and sharing love"?

Then how are poly relationships better?

When you're constantly told that your relationships are about nothing but sex, when even mentioning your partners is equated to having sex with monkeys, then you do find yourself in the position of having to defend your choices. That's not a "high horse."