Comments

1

Forget this unless the wife gets a new job.

2

So sad to be at odds with your religion and sexuality. Life is too short. Time to decide.

3

Am I the only one who is a little skeeved that the therapist suggested POLY might be poly? I know if my therapist told me to consider some type of sexual relationship that I wasn't already comfortable with, I'd consider a breach of boundaries. Would you sick with a therapist who suggested you're actually straight?

4

Dan, you are being quite remiss in not immediately recommending the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article231717833.html

5

Even just opening the marriage was/is risky since she is employed by/associates with people who are actively and judgmentally opposed to that and everything else they are considering. Losing her job is possibly minor compared other potential ramifications such as, depending on where they live, being declared unfit parents and losing custody of any children, social ostracization, etc.

Sorry for the doom and gloom, but somethings really are mutually exclusive. There is no room for compromise especially in this increasing polarized country.

6

Something to cross off my bucket list. Posting the first comment to a SLOG column.

7

@3: Agreed

8

If you think about it, though, on a strictly etymological level, all men are unicorns, aren't they?

9

I see smooth sailing ahead for this couple!

10

Would you stick with a therapist who DIDN'T suggest that you may be straight or bi after you describe being attracted to opposite sex partners and masturbating to straight fantasies? You have no idea what this guy told his therapist. If the guy described his yearning to be with both a man and a woman in committed long term relationships, why would they not suggest that they look into poly? What other solution is there? There is a huge gulf between good honest perspective that people pay for from a therapist which may include discussion of sexual orientation and the coercive bullshit in conversion therapy. Sometimes we need someone with some detachment to reveal to us what has been obvious to everyone else.

11

If this couple goes ahead with seeking a third, then they are just begging to be outed and one bad relationship with a vengeful person and it will be all as the person calls or emails the wife's employer, parents, siblings, friends, etc.

12

What does that family line mean? Were 30 percent of couples in 1940 marrying their cousins?

13

"I'm trying to be conscious of couples privilege while looking for a guy who will have to be completely in the closet about our relationship while my wife and I only have to be a little in the closet."

People who want credit for being aware of their privilege without relinquishing their privilege are exhausting.

14

@biggie #12 It means they were introduced through someone in their family, eg, a woman marries a friend of her brother

15

Dan, you were a lot nicer to them than I would be. IMO there’s not much difference between what they’re doing and an anti-gay politician who turns out to be a big ‘ole homo.

16

"Woke" Christian millennials are the absolute worst. They engage in bipolar virtue signaling and are therefore twice as phony as your typical SJW/evangelical millennial. It's nauseating.

POLY, you had the guts to come out to your wife. If she loves you, she shouldn't be ashamed of you. Go public and give the church the finger.

17

Haha, just realized that 42 is Gen X. Ooops. Guess I was triggered.

Sorry, woke Christian millennials! (But you still suck.)

18

@16: "Woke" Christian millennials are the absolute worst. They engage in bipolar virtue signaling and are therefore twice as phony as your typical SJW/evangelical millennial. It's nauseating."

Can you explain what you're talking about here?

19

LW you and your wife should consider it your Christian duty to proceed without fear expecting your entire community will find out about this. You should willingly take up the burden that the gay and transgender children, for example, being raised in your Christian community cannot shirk, by virtue of their god-given orientation. Fuck your being in the closet. And double, triple, infinity-fuck asking the third-unicorn-man you hope to love and make part of your family to be in the closet. Embrace the totality of who you are and demonstrate to your community that you can be good, Christian, ethical AND a sexual minority. How many will be saved, their lives literally saved, by your example?

20

@18: They don't make good dinner party guests.

21

@12, @14: FDR and the missus were cousins and the current president would probably do his daughter in a heartbeat, so who knows?

22

@21: FDR was Eleanor's 5th cousin, once removed. Please make a note of it.

23

Maybe they should try Slinging

24

For some reason, Mr Savage must think Mrs LW can be saved. I'm really not sure. She seems to have developed a hyper-anti-lead-casket-attitude and wants all the reward without giving or hazarding anything.

I'm half inclined to tell LW to get out of the marriage now (or at least make dumping evangelism a price of continuation) just because he seems dangerously naïve. I don't think he could recognize signs of Mrs' getting ready to lower the evangelical boom on him should she ever prepare to do so.

25

Surely by now somebody must have written a book titled, "You Might Be an SJW..."

26

Why not just fuck someone from the church? What are they gonna do, out themselves? Also lets be real no one has a complaint when their dick is in someone's mouth.

27

Mr. & Mrs. Poly might be able to survive the cognitive dissonance of being bisexual, poly-triad, evangelicals, but their evangelical coreligionists, who live with their own hypocrisy as to other matters, are simply not going to be so charitable to Mr. & Mrs. Poly. The reality is that Mr. & Mrs. Poly have apparently agreed to a major change in their lifestyle that if actualized will lead them into very unconventional territory. Excluding 20-somethings who aren't genuinely settled down, I suspect the number of American triads is rather small. Mrs. & Mrs. Poly need to align their behaviors with their beliefs, which means leaving the evangelical community. Once they are free of the financial and personal ties that constrain their behavior, they can be open in their search, and importantly, not treat their third like a sex toy in their drawer.

28

Yes Sportlandia @2. Is this someone’s notion of being sex positive. Where do people find these therapists, at Walmart?

29

Sporty @3: I strongly suspect that the therapist had a reason to suggest POLY is poly, which he left out of the letter. I also highly doubt that this couple would decide they want a triad with a man just because a therapist suggested it.

Yes, the wife should quit her job and un-brainwash herself. And yes, sites like OKCupid and Grindr require photos but they do not have to be face photos. Start with artfully shot silhouettes, torsos, etc and supply face pics only to men who pique your interest after a few messages are exchanged. I also agree with Dan that ongoing relationships develop from threesomes that work out so well everyone involved wants to keep repeating them, and that they probably want to slow down a bit. I would also suggest bi/poly meetup groups as another means of meeting the third of their dreams.

30

Fuck anyone who supports, defends, or looks the other way on those evangelical terrorists.

31

DrJones @10: The point I was trying to make, only you made it better.

Wood @13: That's the thing about privilege: it is inherent and therefore cannot be relinquished. What do you suggest they do, break up? It's good that they are aware of the advantages they hold by virtue of having each other no matter what happens with their third. This means it's much more likely they'll treat him like a human being, not a sex toy.

Undead @18, welcome back!

Westy @19, applause. This is one way these two can use their straight-appearing couple privilege for good in their community.

32

Boo-fuckity-hoo! All you want is to take money from bigots in exchange for helping them spread bigotry, but geez, why should that interfere with getting your rocks off? Truly, you deserve the perfect bi unicorn who likes you both equally and is happy being your dirty little secret forever!

Truly, Chris Fleming was right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTsdKycVZZ4

33

One more note, don't expect the new guy to put his life on hold. If he's polyamorous he may want to date other people and don't expect to tell him to change that. Let him decide what he wants his life to look like.

Don't refer to it as him "joining" your relationship. Remember that you're creating two new relationships with him.

And since these are two seperate new relationships, remember that it's not h going to be totally even. He may connect more deeply with one of you, and that's okay. If that's a deal breaker for you, then you shouldn't be looking into a triad.

Finally, be aware that a triad is not going to reduce any feelings of jealousy. It may well heighten your jealousy. (Ever had a jealous moment when two friends did something you wish you were included in? Chances are that it stung more because two of your friends were involved.)

34

POLY, I recommend reading "More Than Two" to elaborate upon the impracticability (and very significant potential for unethicality) of the goal of adding a unicorn and becoming a triad.

35

@19 that's a beautiful thought but, (speaking as a bi person who once worked for a church) the second they come out of the closet as having an open/poly marriage (that includes sex with people other than each other,) she'll not only be fired immediately, but completely ostracized from that community.

I'm speaking from experience. After I left my church job, I wasn't even allowed to send letters to my friends who attended that church to them know what was going on in my life.

That church will do absolutely everything in its power to make sure exactly zero young people see their relationship as aspirational. If anything, they will become a cautionary tale to any young queer that their entire support system will abandon them if they consider coming out.

Even "progressive millennial" evangelicals who are coming around on queerness STILL insist that people should only ever have sex with one person in their whole entire lives: the person they are married to AFTER they are married to them. Progressive evangelicals are only just now in select few, rare churches beginning to accept that maybe just maybe you're not going straight to hell if your one life-long sex partner-that-you're-married-to-and-whose-genitals-you-didn't-see-or-touch-until-after-you-were-married-legally-and-before-god-forever-and-ever has the same genitals as you.

Evangelicals. Are. CRAZY. about policing sex.

In my experience, coming out in an evangelical setting will only do more harm than good for young queers who may be watching.

36

The coming out event should be stepping to the church for a Sunday sermon while all three are holding hands and sit together. Assuming job loss and ostracizing are sure to follow, what is there to lose?

Walk in right as the talking starts so that everyone can see you and stay for the remainder of the event. It is unlikely that people will get up and force you to leave while the Sunday wind up takes place.
Leave with your heads up, ignore the laughter and the nasty comments you are likely to encounter. Make sure this is documented, hire an undercover videographer to follow you

Tell yourself and others that this is what homosexuals and trans and all other church outcasts deal with daily. You may also expand on the subject in emails, obtaining friends’ addresses ahead of time.
Thrive to be an inspiration!

37

At least in my case Dan is spot on with how triads form. We were just fooling around, liked it and kept fooling around, hung out a bunch, boom, triad! Now that I'm in one I can't imagine seeking one out. If this one ended I'm not even sure I'd entertain the possibility again, it is freakin' complicated. So many moving parts!

The odds are just vanishingly small that you can engineer a good triad. They just happen. About the most you can do is just be out about that being a possibility and then let the chips fall. LW and his wife could date casually solo while ensuring that their dates, that end up being more than a hookup, at least meet the other spouse, in hopes that there might be a spark, but you really can't make it a condition or even push very hard for it.

38

Oh yeah regarding the church ostracizing part of the equation...life is too short to spend even a minute hiding who you really are, from people who would judge you for who you are. Who would want to be a part of a community that would immediately banish you if they knew who you really were?

39

Hang out with the Bible-bangers and you get exactly what you signed-up for. A bunch of narrow-mided bigots who are totally and completely convinced that they, and only they, are completely right and the entire rest of the world is wrong. Facts mean nothing to them. They conveniently ignore the parts of the Bible that talk about "love thy neighbor" and "don't cast the first stone" because it feels SO much better to be superior and to hate the "faithless". Congratulations on doing your part to perpetuate this toxic culture. I hope they come down on you like a ton of bricks if and when they learn that you have the audacity to love in a way that doesn't conform to their insane interpretations.

As for finding your one male unicorn needle in a haystack made of needles, you've got your work cut out for you, my friends. Hope you've got plenty of patience and an abundant supply of luck.

40

Point of order: Since everybody's Mitochondrial DNA can be traced to a universal common female ancestor, eponymous eve, everybody literally marries their, usually, distant cousin,

41

So biggie@12 100% of couples in the 1940s and ever decade before or since for something like between 100,000 and 200,000 years has married their cousin. Or something like 6,000 years (TYVM Bishop Ussher) if you are a fundamentalist Christian.

42

Damn that whole first section was a serious tl;dr. Did anyone bother?

43

Upon reflection, what is truly important is that they are mating with their cousin or closer relative whenever incest is involved.

44

I agree with Sportlandia @26. Fuck someone from church.

First, spend time evaluating the men for good sense and sexiness. Discuss them in bed for a year before reaching out to any of them. Then invite the most promising candidate over for a beer. If that goes well and becomes a regular thing, and you trust each other enough to admit to non-evangelically approved activities, then ask if he'd be interested in a threesome sometime. If that goes well, more threesomes, and then as time goes on, invite him to move in with you to save rent. As long as he has his own bedroom, no one from church will be able to prove that it's not what you all say it is.

Also, everything stonesoup said @33, especially these:

"Don't expect the new guy to put his life on hold."
"He may want to date other people and don't expect to tell him to change that."
"Remember that it's not going to be totally even. He may connect more deeply with one of you, and that's okay."

45

@29 Bi - like Sporty, I'd fire the therapist. LW only recently came out to his wife and they just started exploring. Then his therapist not only tells him that he believes he is poly, but says he also believes poly is an orientation? The therapist is supposed to help LW figure out all this new stuff himself, but instead says "I believe you are x and I believe x is an inherent trait". That is especially weighty for someone with so little experience with enm and therefore few opinions of his own formed. Plus, at a time when lw has gone through so much change, he's basically barely just become a kid in a candy store. Any reasonable therapist would say to take a step back, prioritize, be realistic about possible impacts and unforseen effects, and to take his time figuring himself out/deciding what he wants. To explore without charging forward too fast and doing something he can't undo. The therapist basically said "this is who you are, and this is how people like you have relationships".

To be fair, I kind of want lw and the wife to blow up their social standing with the Evangelical bigots in their life. Especially if they want all the advantages of this lifestyle while still gaining socially and monetarily by actively pretending to be among those who look down on people exactly like themselves. Maybe therapist doesn't like the Evangelical wife and/or her job, and hopes lw insisting he needs a poly life now will force things to a head. Or he's just a bad therapist.

@26 Sporty - I highly suspect that if this ends up working, that is gonna be what happens. The husband says they've already done some extracurricular activities individually. I'd suspect the wife would have at least one church guy who catches her eye over the donut setup or whatever if that hasn't already been one of her pickups for play partners. It would do away with the issue of outing (mutually assured destruction) and wouldn't be too weird to have him over a bunch. Plus a church guy is less likely to be like "uh - I ain't being in no triad with two closeted bigots" bc he'd be one more bigot in the closet with them. Or, y'know, there not bigots, they just choose to surround themselves with them...and will all be in a closet together with that in common.

46

Lots of judging comments floating around here....the tone in many posts (13, 19, 32, among others) is more akin to that of the evangelicals that everyone is lining up to get their free dunks on. You'd need a pretty tall ladder to climb off of these high horses!

If POLY and wife found a third and they want to stay in the closet and their third wants to stay in the closet, who cares? Let them do what they want. As other have suggested, they should find someone in their church and have kinky, fun, sinful sex all in, around, and throughout the motherfucker, all the while cheerfully closeted to their little heart's desire. If they are "privileged," then so be it. Maybe they want to turn out some prissy dickwad at their church and get into cuck shit. Maybe the third wants to put his life on hold and be their gimp. Maybe they can prance around the church basement at midnight in harnesses and stick their dicks on things. Who's to say? And who is anyone here to say how they should do their business?

Pretty preachy up in here.

47

@45 Kitten Whiskers
That the therapist tells a patient that poly is an orientation sounds wrong to me too, but I don't agree with you that it would be wrong for a /good/ therapist to do no more than "...help LW figure out all this new stuff himself".

For the right therapist with the right patient", help (for example suggesting he consider whether he's poly) could be good.

I told a story once here of my first therapy experience, free from my university, of a crazy robotic therapy modality where all they do is repeat back your last word or phrase. Even as I was walking out explaining how useless what they were doing was. Anyway, back to the point...

Numerous times I've asked therapists for their thoughts, there's no reason patients always need to figure everything out themselves if the therapist happens to be a person worth listening to. Of course probably many who aren't think they are, and therapist "poly is an orientation" could very well be one of those.

48

I'm on the fence about the therapist question. Having had a LOT of therapy myself, I can attest to both the benefits of being led to figure something out for yourself and the benefits of a little firm guidance when it's necessary. IF the LW had spent a lot of time talking about desiring elements of poly life without making the connection himself, it could be reasonable for the therapist to connect the dots for him. (The orientation thing I'm not sure about, though.)

HOWEVER, if that's not the case, if the therapist is basing all this on the LW's bisexuality and open marriage and not a lot else, it's definitely a leap too far. That would be not only be a potentially wrong suggestion, it would be unprofessional and irresponsible. Unless the seeds are clearly there already, planting something this major in a client's head is a very bad practice. Only the LW knows which is true.

49

*A bridge too far. Not sure where I got "leap" from.

50

@48 this is one of those things where I wonder if men and women get radically different experiences for therapy. I've never ONCE been able to get a therapist to make a suggestion. At best they try to help you make a decision, but it's like pulling teeth to get them to offer their own opinion.

51

@50 I have a really good therapist I've been seeing for around 8 years. She knows me really, really well. I don't remember if she always used to actually respond to "What do you think?" type questions, but she certainly does now -- at least most of the time. (She still wants me to take the lead, of course.) Maybe familiarity is the key? She knows me well enough to know how I'll respond to her suggestions, what amount weight I'll attach to them, etc., so maybe that makes her more comfortable giving advice when asked?

52

*amount of weight

53

Could the therapist be looking to join the party. They after all set the whole thing up. Or try the Minister/ Priest, they are usually a sure bet.
Funny therapy story curious. @47.

54

@47 curious2 Yes, that's a good story. (I think it's a Freudian technique. While interesting, Freud has become mostly obsolete.)

According to my mom and my uncle, my grandmother took my uncle to see a similar therapist way back when (he had what was likely undiagnosed/undiagnosable because of the time ADHD). Since the therapist would only talk if the client said something, my uncle would sit in silence with the therapist, the two just looking at each other until the appointment time ran out. He says it did help somewhat, somehow, sitting in silence like that. (My uncle is an interesting man. He's a marine biologist, somewhat of an inspiration for me.) My grandmother never knew all the money she was spending to help my uncle was going down the drain (silently).

55

Re. Freud: I think a lot of his writing can tell you more about his psyche specifically than it can about the human experience in general. Specifically -- mommy issues and phallic fixation.

56

No it’s not a Freudian technique, Muse. Without Freud, Jung etc.. we’d have no psycho therapy. I’m sure there are Freudian therapists around, and now all the offshoots.
It’s not up to a therapist to tell someone such defining things, and to say poly is an orientation, ha. It’s a social/ sexual construct humans have lived, thru multiple cultures. Like monogamy etc.
LW, get a new therapist and think for yourself.

57

I'm not saying there's no value in Freud, just that his ideas were not evidence-based and have been surpassed by more specifically sound techniques. And if that method isn't Freudian, it's certainly some sort of old-school analysis technique

58

*scientifically sound

59

Mr After - Sure, in an ideal world, people could seek and get neutral advice no matter how much their world views or careers clash with those of the advice providers. And perhaps even NFIB would allow its employees complete privacy. Are we really there yet?

Here's the letter, rephrased - "Hi, Mr Savage. I'm a closeted member of your team. My wife and I want to make a change in our lives that will make it even more important to be closeted, because my wife is working to end your marriage and take away the rights of our entire team. I know you don't like judgemental evangelicals; they're the worst, aren't they? If we are found out, people will say mean things to and about us, and my wife will no longer be able to work to end your marriage and take away the rights of our entire team. Please tell us how to make this change in our lives in a way that will let my wife continue to work to end your marriage and take away all the rights of our entire team. Thanks so much for your help."

Now, in a world where approval of the Alphabet Soup had a permanent floor of, say, 75%, it might be safe to give such a LW a totally neutral answer without a sermon. But we aren't there yet. Indeed, we're going strongly in the contrary direction.

60

Verbal Psycho therapy is not scientifically based, Muse. You talking about eye movement therapy etc, or drug therapy.
The skill of a good therapist is about their ability to empathise with others pain and confusion, and guide the client to some understandings and healings. The process of transference and counter transference, allows issues to been seen in the therapeutic relationship and worked on.
No idea what you’re referring too.

61

@19. westy. A good answer. I'm not sure you expect the couple to do this, but maybe they will.

@33 stonesoup & @35. kathryn lena. Very helpful cautionary notes.

/break/
I think his wife has behaved creditably. She found out after nearly two decades of marriage her husband was bi. Rather than leaving him, she went with him to a therapist and opened the marriage, letting him fuck men. The most he can acknowledge this is saying that it was 'good fun'. Good fun? Does he think there's something shallow and insubstantial in casual sex? And that a triad relationship would be deeper? It sounds to me as if she's nearer to weaning herself off some of the more reflexively phobic impulses of evangelism than he is....

Their therapist is also acting creditably. This is a man who works with, has credibility with, Evangelicals. Think of all the moralistic 'eat shit to save your marriage' advice there is out there. Instead of relating it, this guy has done some reading and decided some people might have a settled, capable-of-being-ethical preference for multiple partners (perhaps not an 'orientation', but let's not split hairs). He's responded genuinely to what POLY's told him and helped his wife (presumably) to stay with the marriage.

It may be that all Evangelicals hate any kind of non-normative sexuality and that any queer should just get out of that scene. I'm not sure, though. (It's not a crowd I have experience of). Speaking as someone unable to pass, to hide my gender-nonnormativity, I would say that it isn't simply the right and the religious who can't deal with it. Many progressives and queers are similarly aversive in their reactions.

62

@47 curious2 and @48/51 calliopemuse - I think I spoke a bit too strongly and generalized too much. I agree that it can be appropriate and helpful for a therapist to make suggestions, especially when they know a patient well and/or a patient has basically put all the pieces out there without putting them together. In this case it just seemed done in an inappropriate way and at a bad time. The lw is in a position where he and his marriage are already going through a lot of change. Not only has he just started to explore his bisexuality and enm, but also he's in a position where acting on this could have huge consequences for his marriage, social standing, and financial security.

I think it would've been fair for the therapist to suggest that LW sounds like he might be interested in exploring a poly relationship. But the therapist should be counseling caution about making any definitive decisions bc of all the recent changes and bc LW hasn't even tried out a poly relationship. Saying it's an integral/inherent part of who lw is is a much different statement than suggesting lw might be interested or should explore with caution and awareness of the possible ramifications. The therapist also shouldn't let personal beliefs cloud his ability to give reasonable advice. Poly may or may not be an orientation, but it sounds like the therapist is allowing his personal views to influence LW at a vulnerable time.

63

@46 aftertheafter - @59 vennominon had a pretty great answer. This isn't just some kind, innocent couple who happens to live in an Evangelical area and needs to avoid the bs of the people around them by staying in the closet. The woman is active in ministry/works in the Evangelical church and while the husband may disagree, he at least partially lives off that money. She made the choice to support and preach a religion that actively looks down on other people who aren't hurting anyone and wants to take away rights just bc they don't line up with their beliefs. They don't believe in select American values like separation of church and state, but only for their religion. At the same time, anyone whose views on the Constitution don't line up with theirs are unpatriotic/unAmerican. They practice hate, but cloak themselves as righteous without being able to be questioned bc of the bible, which they selectively utilize to justify anything they want while ignoring the parts they disagree with. You are arguing for acceptance of bigotry and hate, saying it's unfair for people to be rude to someone who thinks many of us are sinful or are just hated for who we are. That's so hypocritical. Why are non-evangelicals supposed to be nice and give respect to people who hate us and want to take away our rights?

64

Great comments, Stonesoup @33 and Coolie @37. When I came out as bi and fled my monogamous marriage, I too envisioned my ideal relationship situation as having a boyfriend and a girlfriend. More than two decades later, I have never actually been in that particular arrangement. My only triad experience was a short-lived, off-on addition of a female FWB to an existing relationship, which ended when the long-distance primary partner who vacillated between being OK and not OK with her non-monogamy decided he was not OK. Now they are monogamously married, and I'm not bitter (spoiler alert: I'm bitter). Anyway, the point being that they may, like me, enjoy a few decades of each having loving relationships outside of their marriage, none of which ever become the triad of their dreams. Accept the partners who come to you and don't try to force them into a role they are not comfortable with. As Coolie says, if it happens, it happens. Good luck to you both.

65

Sporty @50, as usual you are making everything about gender, but I have often sought and rarely received concrete advice from therapists either. Friends of both genders state the same, with it generally being considered the ethical standard for therapists to simply ask leading questions and let the patient reach the course of action on their own. This is why I suspect the conversation in this case went something like DrJones @10 envisioned: POLY states in therapy that he is bi, that he wants to explore that side of his sexuality but still loves and is committed to his wife, and the therapist states the obvious conclusion: has he considered that he may poly? Which he reports as "my therapist says I'm poly!"

66

Good comment Kitten Whiskers @63, hypocrites don’t deserve considered advice.

67

@ 59 and @63 - thanks for the response - good points all around. I think that Harriet @61 makes a (more reasonable) version of my point, which is that the wife actually seems to have handled this pretty well for a fire-and-brimstone hypocritical bigot and should perhaps be given some credit. She had a major bomb (given her background, lifestyle, lived experience) and she not only didn't run screaming to the church, she is letting the guy bring in a third. Many wouldn't, even outside of the ranks of fundys. She should get some credit here. Who can say what her life is like? Maybe she just isn't willing or capable of making the giant leap that many others have.

I am pretty sure I have seen some advice given here about staying in the closet when the personal, emotional and social costs are too high, or in some cases, when it simply isn't anyone's business what people do behind closed doors. I feel like people should respect the sanctity of the closet a lil' bit more here and not be so quick to jump at an easy target because the E word got involved.

68

Some consideration for the potential third in this triad. They are looking for someone to love them and whom they can love, and they are also presumably hoping to keep him secret. In other words, as any of us queers who've lived in secret can tell you, they are planning to embark on a relationship that is incomplete, and that is harmful to everyone involved, and that will only succeed in distorting their own spirits, the very same spirits that their ministry friends are always talking about. "We're going off to Wednesday night spaghetti dinner in the Fellowship Hall, Third, but you have to stay home." "Uh-oh, here comes Brother Malachai, Third, so you will have to pretend to be - fill in the blank." Any potential third should probably steer clear of that mess.

69

A.
One thing I will say about that robotic therapy modality...is such therapists wouldn't need much training!

B.
Freud deserves respect for his place in history, but even while getting a psych degree I had little genuine interest.

C.
@50 Sportlandia
"...I wonder if men and women get radically different experiences for therapy...I've never ONCE been able to get a therapist to make a suggestion."

And I rarely have any trouble (I'm a cis male). (I forget, maybe I wouldn't even ask until I've been seeing one a while.)

Could be the therapists you've seen.

Could be you. I know people who see the same therapists I've seen and they get "radically different experiences" than I do from the same one because therapists may tailor the experience to the patient.

Patients might benefit from different approaches. By which I mean things like:

a. Some offered me (but not others) reading suggestions, perhaps thinking I would 'think' my way to a goal.

b. Some patients might not be 'ready' for, might even react negatively or something to, the same approach that would work for others.

D.
@54 CalliopeMuse
"...the therapist would only talk if the client said something, my uncle would sit in silence with the therapist, the two just looking at each other until the appointment time ran out."

Hilarious. I know someone who spent most of their time in sessions (with my favorite great therapist) crying until the time ran out. Maybe that's what that patient needed.

E.
@62 Kitten Whiskers
"The therapist also shouldn't let personal beliefs cloud his ability to give reasonable advice."

Yes. And more than just debatable, I think "poly is an orientation" is likely not a correct belief. It's a relationship style, and quite likely /one/ relationship style would not fit at all times and situations in a human lifetime.

70

@26 and @44 are right: Fuck someone from your own church.
These giant evangelical churches give the impression of being full of sexually repressed nuts but they are-- every on of them-- full of sexually expressive hypocrites. They fuck around enough to make a herd of goats blush.
Try lingering eye contact when you do your Jesus-banter. The right guys will get the message.

71

The wife is being supportive. And open-minded. Asking her to blow up her source of income as well, before she's ready to do so seems like a lot, at once, as far as blowing up her life, in the name of love and commitment. We don't know what other options she has. The job market is hugely regional. And even if religious discrimination is illegal (unlike LGBT discrimination) super-progressive organizations are not necessarily eager to hire people away from religious organizations, especially if the words they use in a cover letter or interview create the impression of that nebulous problem, "bad cultural fit."

72

@60 LavaGirl There absolutely is evidence-based talk therapy. I have benefitted from multiple kinds of it. Lots of research has been done on the outcomes of various talk therapy techniques. Off the top of my head, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) are supported by a ton of research. Of course, a good practitioner needs empathy and skill, and a strong connection between client and therapist can make all the difference. But to say that talk therapy is not scientifically based is a false assertion.

73

@62 Kitten Whiskers I would agree more with what you've said here that what you said before. The fact that the therapist insists that poly is an orientation does give me pause about giving them the benefit of the doubt on the other things.

@69 Mazel tov, curious2! 🥳

74

Fair enough Muse.. I don’t know enough about those therapies to comment. Not sure how they can scientifically judge a person has got past some neurotic etc behaviour... I know some of them are great with fear of flying etc. I’ll check them out.

75

I don’t think Freud would be taught , curious, now, in universities. Lots of intellectual ferment around in my uni days re treatment of the mind. Closing down of Psyche hospitals, deep analysis of western treating modes.
I can’t recall what of Freud I learnt at uni or what I’ve read privately. I find the intensity of Freud et al, their intellectual vigour and fallings outs, his being plucked from Vienna soon after the Nazi’s arrived etc, inspiring.
His ideas, well, he was a Patriarch, with all that baggage. He still created the movement of interest in the West, into therapy and the therapeutic relationship, and it’s abilities to help people heal. Big Dadddy of therapy, and he needs to be given his dues.

76

Muse, transference and countertransference as a tool in good therapy, is more than empathy.
It’s what happens, strongly in long term therapy, where the client starts to project/ transfer issues onto the therapist, the therapist has responses to this, countertrasference and the good therapist can look at these dynamics, patterns etc, with the client, rather than be caught up in them.
Which is what this therapist sounds like has happened to them.

77

@69 there you go. I've had a number of therapists over the years (well, 4 I suppose), male and female, and it's been a common thread. I've never sat in on anyone else's therapy sessions, and a vast majority of people talking about what they talk about IN therapy are women - and getting direct advice is a not-uncommon thing I've read about, as @48 indicated. That's at odds with my collection of experiences! While it could be "just me" that would require me to believe that from a therapists perspective, I'm especially distinct; when in reality they have a hard time remembering my name on a week-to-week basis. I don't think they're going out of their way to treat me especially differently based on some personal trait I have.

78

@76 LavaGirl I'll take your word for it. I know far more about being a patient/client than I do about being a practitioner. I've taken one and a half intro psych courses (had to withdraw from one due to mental health troubles, barely finished the second due to the same); Freud, Jung, and the lot were only briefly mentioned in the beginning during a sort of cursory overview of the history of psychology.

79

I know a little more about Freud than that from recreational reading -- also, strangely, a poetry workshop I took where the instructor had us read a number of strange (though somewhat interesting) things, including an extraordinarily sexist passage from one of Freud's writings. I'm still not sure why she had us read that. Incidentally, that instructor didn't like me very much. She thought I was too vocal and wanted to discuss things too much. Go figure. Not one of the more rewarding poetry-writing workshops I've taken.

80

@77 Sportlandia
"...that would require me to believe that from a therapists perspective, I'm especially distinct...I don't think they're going out of their way to treat me especially differently based on some personal trait I have."

Really? So to everyone here (including me) you're more "especially distinct" than to 4 therapists who were supposed to help the individual you?

That would be sad but not surprising, actually. The first robotic wacko therapist I had certainly didn't treat anyone like anything other that the emitter of sounds to be echoed.

It's true, many/most guys aren't gonna fess up to seeing a therapist. Which is also sad; life is hard, growth is hard, anything that helps is nice.

Oh, and (as I've probably also said here) I think the people who wouldn't ever consider seeing a therapist tend to be the ones who most need help.

81

@77 Sporty - out of 3 therapists (and 3 psychiatrists, though I only saw them long enough to get my meds to a good place) only my current therapist really has given me straight suggestions and opinions. That's probably partially why I have a negative response to the idea. He started doing it literally the first week I met with him and seems really resistant when I don't agree. I should probably find a new one, but I've never left a therapist this way and it sounds so awkward... Anyway aside from that I haven't normally gotten straight suggestions. I've definitely been clearly led to an answer the therapist has in mind with questions, but I can't remember having them say it. Maybe you've either been simpatico enough with your therapist that they've been able to lead you to the conclusions on your own, or they realize you're too stubborn to accept a straight suggestion ;)

82

@80 no, the exact opposite.

83

@81 Kitten Whiskers
"...he started doing it literally the first week I met with him..."

Oh, shitty therapist then, a good one would wait to learn who the patient is before deciding upon whether that's a good approach. And would absolutely do the opposite of "seems really resistant when I don't agree". Right after your last session, kick him in the balls for me please KW.

@82 Sportlandia
"@80 no, the exact opposite."

First, people don't remember their Comment #'s. Include people's usernames unless you do not want anyone to know they're be replied to. (On second thought, that would be a favor to them, so keep leaving off the usernames.)

Second, your reply is senseless in that I wrote a bunch of stuff @80 and I bet you don't disagree with all of it, so "no, the exact opposite." is uselessly unspecific.

Third, though in this case it doesn't matter, I disagreed with almost all your replies. Probably you aren't getting suggestions because therapists know you're not ready for them, and (quoting me @69) "might even react negatively or something to" them (and they don't need that shit).

84

Calliope @73:
Letter writer: "my therapist suggested that I consider that I may be polyamorous and also suggested that he believes poly may be an orientation"
You: "The fact that the therapist insists that poly is an orientation"
Enough said. LEARN TO READ, PEOPLE (not just you, Calliope).

85

@84 BiDanFan What exactly did I misread? Or are you just saying that I'm not putting enough weight into the fact that the therapist made that erroneous assertion?

86

@85 CalliopeMuse
Looks like BiDanFan is pointing out you wrote "insists...is" whereas the LW qualified it more "suggested...he believes...may be".

87

"...he believes that poly is an orientation." Okay, he might not be "insisting" that's the case, but it is a pretty powerful assertion.

88

Mr After/M?? Harriet/Ms Joy - Mrs Ministry has apparently handled this well, but I think it highly plausible that she might be taking advantage of an opportunity to play around a little, all the while knowing that she is in a powerful position. She can run to the church at any time with tales of Things Her Evil, Sinful Husband MADE HER DO and frame her actively enjoyed role as Reluctant But Dutiful Female Submission if she wants.

I don't think LW at the moment can see sufficiently far outside himself to be able to give us a reliable sense of which role Mrs Ministry is fulfilling from the Cracker episode The Big Crunch. Maybe she's Kenneth, the schoolmaster-minister who seduces teen girls, lies about it, gets caught and comes up with the best justification possible without turning a hair. Maybe she's Virginia, the true believer who will stand by her husband Kenneth no matter what and work off all her emotional turmoil by collecting thousands of pounds for charity. Maybe she's Norma, who doesn't really believe and just drifted into Kenneth's renegade church because she always wanted him for herself but had to settle for his downtrodden brother Michael.

Maybe she's fine with having a bi husband and a second man herself but equally fine with actively working not to let anyone else have a non-monogamous arrangement. Maybe she's just desperately devoted to both her faith and her husband and will do anything she can to paper over the cracks. Maybe's she's not even a believer and it's just a job to her.

I don't know what to make of her; I'm just fed up with LW. She does at least appear to have taken a bombshell revelation well. But that does not justify demanding that one coddle and make things easier for people who have done harm. Granted, it's a complicated subject. Apparently, in Australia, Mrs Court's church does a large amount of good alongside the harm Mrs C herself tries to do to lesbians. I could see helping Mrs Ministry work her way out of the evangelical lifestyle if that were what she wanted to do. But if she just wants to keep doing evangelicals' work without any problems while enjoying a non-evangelical lifestyle, then one's sympathy gets almost entirely used up in simply not outing her.

89

Calliope @87: And a very common one. Many people in the poly community state that their need and ability to love more than one person is just as hard-wired as gay/straight/bi sexual orientations. So what I'm saying is the opposite -- that you are putting way TOO much weight on the therapist's vague words. In fact, you're the one who's "insisting" that it's "erroneous" to claim that polyamory is an orientation, despite what poly people themselves say. Have you done any research at all on polyamory? What is your evidence for this assertion?

Venn @88: I would be interested to hear the wife's side, too.

90

@89 BiDanFan
I can get used to calling this relationship style an orientation.

My prior objection resulted from me thinking that for example at first a person would need to acquire relationship skills through experience in order to make poly work, and because it seems seems like a dissimilar use of the word. But the first is equally true of kinks, and saying "orientation" does avoid needing to include the word "hard-wired".

91

@89 BiDanFan I am completely open to changing my mind on the subject. I am basing my assumption (and yes, I agree it's an assumption) solely on the general response here and the response from other LGBT+ folks in my experience when the subject is raised. Other than that, I'm not sure what to believe, I suppose.

92

That chart is fascinating.

I can suggest potential explanations for some of the trends. The reason for the increase in Met Online is obvious - the internet didn't really exist for most people before 1990. The initial increasing trends for College, Work, and Bar/Restaurant probably reflect an increasing number of women (especially single/unaccompanied women for bars/restaurants) in those various areas of the public sphere, while the falloff in Work starting in the 90s reflects an increase in the existence/enforcement of workplace sexual harassment policies. The recent falloff in College probably reflects a later average age of marriage - people are still likely to date people they meet in college, but less likely to continue dating them/marry them, leading to fewer people who met in college being together at the time of survey. The recent uptick in Bars/Restaurants probably accounts for some part of the shift away from college sweethearts, and online, too (people who don't marry/indefinitely partner with college partners need meet people they do marry/etc. elsewhere).

I initially thought the "church" falloff could be due to decreasing church attendance, but it tracks the "neighbors" falloff, so unless that's an unrelated coincidence (which it might be), some factor is affecting both.

I have no idea why friends apparently have stopped setting their single friends up with each other starting sometime around the year 2000, nor why the decline in family-introduced partners and childhood sweethearts has been so steady. I HAVE experienced the falloff in friends recommending dates - I've never once had a friend set me up with someone (despite having plenty of friends, many of whom question why I'm perpetually single), while I myself have set friends up with each other (two of whom just bought a house together as of last weekend!). The Bar/Restaurant uptick after the plateau also defies (my) easy explanation; the recent shifts in College, Bar/Rest, and Friends all start about the same time, suggesting a common cause, but it predates the 2008 economic crash and post-dates the start of the Afghanistan (late 2001) and Iraq (early 2003) wars, so the biggest cultural upheavals of the last 20 years don't seem to be direct causes.

93

@89: "Many people in the poly community state that their need and ability to love more than one person is just as hard-wired as gay/straight/bi sexual orientations."

I mean, sure? In the sense that wanting to have sex with people at all, and, not surprisigly, more than one person over the same period of time, is hard-wired to some degree? I'll grant that it may be a core part of sexuality (though, as with the people who "can't be single", I think the privileged position of apparently always having interested sexual partners somewhat biases their analysis, unless they're admitting to being rapists in cases where there aren't interested partners, because it takes two consenting adults to tango without constituting sexual assault).

But to call polyamory an "orientation" is a category error. Orientation is defined (formally!) as to whom or what one is attracted, not how many people. As I understand it (indeed, this is a point Dan reiterates all the time), monogamy doesn't mean you aten'tbattracted to others, just that you agree to not fuck them, and MOST monogamous people experience attraction to others. And given the commonality of "emotional affairs", I know the common plural partner isn't just sexual, it's emotional, too. Conversely, for the same reason we have gay, bi, pan, straight, etc. asexual people, we have all kinds of (technical) orientations for poly people - poly people still have e.g. gendered sexual orientations that have nothing to do with polyamory.

So, no, despite many polyamourous people not understanding what they're talking about and insisting that polyamory is a sexual orientation, it's not. It's a relationahip model and maybe one extreme of the "to how many people am I sexually attracted at once" spectrum, but not an orientation.

94

Curious @90: "me thinking that for example at first a person would need to acquire relationship skills through experience in order to make poly work"
By the same logic, though, you could argue that a man would first need to acquire blowjob skills to make a gay relationship work. Which obviously doesn't make sense. Orientation is about what one desires, and if what one desires is multiple loving partners is one's life, I feel that one can inherently know this even before they have had the experience to prove it.

John @93: Thank you for telling people they are wrong about themselves. I am inclined to give people more credit for possessing self-knowledge than you are. If, for instance, my poly partner whose first ever relationship was poly and who has been only in poly relationships over the 30 years since states that for him, poly is an orientation, I will accept that. I think it goes to the difference between -sexual and -amorous. Sure, most people experience -physical attraction- to people other than their partners; this does not make them hard-wired polyamorous. -Amorous means love, not sex. Poly people can -love- more than one person at a time, which is different from whom you want to fuck or are fucking. Poly people will always feel stifled in a monogamous relationship because of the emotional connections they are missing with potential others, not because of the potential missed dick/pussy. So people who have emotional affairs may be "closeted polyamorous" people who've committed to monogamous relationships not knowing/believing they have other options. (Some poly people, indeed, have been happy in monogamous relationships too; these people are known as ambiamorous.) Tl;dr, if someone says polyamorous is equivalent to a sexual orientation for them, I will accept that, just as I accept a trans/non-binary person's pronouns. They know themself better than you or I do and to suggest otherwise is kinda insulting.

95

@83 curious: Really? So to everyone here (including me) you're more "especially distinct" than to 4 therapists who were supposed to help the individual you?

No, I literally wrote: that would require me to believe that from a therapists perspective, I'm especially distinct; when in reality they have a hard time remembering my name on a week-to-week basis.

Are you having a hard time with reading comprehension? What you asked is the exact opposite of what I wrote. Move along now child.

96

@93 John Horstman
"But to call polyamory an "orientation" is a category error."

Yes, as I wrote @90 it's "a dissimilar use of the word." But my new position on this is 'who gives a bleep' about that because embracing this indeed different definition of the word in another important way does belong in the same category, that of 'being hard-wired', and inherently brings poly people acknowledgement of that.

So the new kind of definition does make that kind of sense. Which is enough for me to stop knocking my head against the wall of a definition people are after all gonna use anyway whether we like it or not.

@95 Sporty
Damn this mofo is an idiot ass.

97

@96 I love how you're shown explicitly where you're incorrect and your reaction is to hurl insults. Only outright pieces of shit do that. Stay safe at your next Trump rally.

99

@67 aftertheafter - "I am pretty sure I have seen some advice given here about staying in the closet when the personal, emotional and social costs are too high, or in some cases, when it simply isn't anyone's business what people do behind closed doors."

The difference in this situation is that wife is actively involved in the type of organization that specifically makes it their business what goes on in other people's bedrooms, which is exactly what creates an environment where people have so much to lose by coming out. The reason I don't give the wife much credit is the same reason I don't give it to ministers caught in gay relationships. They think it's fine as long as they're the ones doing it. I think there is something to be said for being accepting of people like these - both for the sake of being accepting and in the hope that acceptance spreads. The cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, and secrecy doesn't give me much hope that doing just that will work, though. I think holding them accountable while still giving advice may be the best way to go.

@84 Bi - the reason I was careful not to make any pronouncements about whether or not poly is an orientation is bc I wanted to avoid this argument, which is beside the point in this case. The point I was trying to make is that LW doesn't have the experience to know if that's what he wants/is, if it's what he wishes he could have but is willing to forego for other priorities, or if he just wants to explore different open relationship models for the time being. I think the therapist suggesting lw may want to explore if he is poly is appropriate. My point (and I think calliopemuse's) was that it was a step too far to say anything about poly being an orientation. Even if therapist put it out there as their belief, it isn't their place to be discussing personal beliefs. On a subject that LW doesn't have experience with - one that he is excited about and more likely to be influenced by someone whose opinion he trusts - his therapist should not be encouraging him, however strongly or lightly, to label himself as being inherently anything. He should be encouraging as much personal discovery, tempered by cautious consideration for the possible ramifications, with as little outside influence as possible.

@94 Bi - I wasn't going to get into this argument about poly being an orientation bc I understand what you are trying to say. I do want to say I think you should think about the argument you're making when you said "Tl;dr, if someone says polyamorous is equivalent to a sexual orientation for them, I will accept that, just as I accept a trans/non-binary person's pronouns." Sexual orientation has a definition, which is the gender to which you are attracted in relation to your own gender. If you wanna say relationship styles like poly are inherent, and that you are offended people don't believe you, then ok. But please don't use the language of trans individuals as some vehicle to argue that we have to accept any definition any person wants for any word, because that's what that argument says to me. Like I said, if you believe poly is inherent to who you are and your attraction style, fine. There's still an argument to be had there, but I think it is useful to be accurate with your language. So maybe instead of saying it's an orientation use another word? Or not, but please be aware of using trans pronouns as an argument to have words mean what you think they should mean. The right argues that using correct trans pronouns is going to lead to a world where words have no real meanings and if we argue words should mean whatever we want bc trans identities should be respected, then we're feeding into that.

100

I was also initially trying to avoid the topic of orientation/not orientation, but I failed to do so and let slip a cursory opinion I'm not even sure I have. Oops. I take any statement on that subject back and would like the record to state that I am officially neutral. The other stuff about the therapist being possibly reasonable, possibly unreasonable still stands.

101

Kitten @99: The problem is that sexual orientation can be quite a complicated thing for something many people think of as simple. I liked Dan's model of a three-layered definition of orientation: desire; behaviour; identity. Sometimes these elements can be at odds with each other. For instance, the lesbian activist who has some attraction to, and occasionally sleeps with, men; the straight-identified guy with a Grindr profile; the monogamous bisexual. There are also people who, as we've read in this column, experience attraction to the different genders in different ways, for instance being sexually attracted to people of multiple genders but romantically attracted to only one. Additionally, we think of the LGBT+ "alphabet soup" as being about sexual orientation, but it includes asexuals, which as John has stated is not a sexual orientation, it is a term used to indicate absence of interest in sexual relationships, and trans people, who can be any orientation or no orientation (aka asexual). So the term was already wibbly wobbly timey wimey before poly people, kinksters etc asserted that they, too, are hard wired in much the same way. "Orientation" just means what is something pointing towards. If your sexuality points you exclusively towards the opposite sex, you are heterosexual, that is your sexual orientation. If your sexual desires are exclusively for kinky sex, then could you not argue that that too is a "sexual orientation"? I don't see why not, and I don't see why "no no, you must tiptoe around the right less you say something they don't like" is a valid reason for me to repress that opinion.

But if it ends the debate, I am happy to accept "polyamory is hard wired for many people" as an acceptable alternative turn of phrase that means the same but doesn't piss anyone off.


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