I've only known one triad. It was a single girl on with a married couple.

On the surface it looked fine. Once you saw a little more of the situation, you could see how messed up it was. It was basically a situation where the wife wanted a girlfriend and the husband really had no choice about it. He wanted to have sex with the other girl too. The wife had jealousy issues when she saw her new girlfriend with her husband.

It really colored my views on triads. Good luck and more power to those in them, but they aren't for me if they're going to be like the above.

I was for a brief amount of time, until the side effects from my birth control killed my libido and they both decided that no sex = no friendship. Nice, huh?

My partner and I have been looking for another male for this, but it's been hard to find one who wants casual friendship. Most just want sex.

done it briefly- was successful in that no one died. neither relationship was meant to last independently, much less with the added strain of the triad itself.


here's a column on trying out three-ways early on in relationships link

I admit I've had fantasies of having two bfs and both liking each other at the same time, but in practice it was horrible (thankfully all online) and the guy tried to steal my bf--he got really nasty, tried to break us up, etc. After a year or so he calmed down a LOT and is just a friend now. But geeze, the drama during that was terrible....

Kudos to those whom it works for.

I successfully had two boyfriends who were equally into each other for about two months. It was a long-time fantasy of mine and I felt like the luckiest girl on earth for that time. Eventually they started to drift apart, then break up, leaving me to hear each complain about the other. Left both of them shortly thereafter, but on good terms.

I'm currently in a poly triad, and it's generally great. This was a couple who went from being strictly controlled open to being fully poly at the time they did so as not to lose me, and over the past eight or so months, it's evolved slowly from being the two of them as primary partners and me as each of their secondary partners, to a more loose, fluid, unregulated triad in which all partners are "formally" equal, so to speak. They've been together longer, and they live together, but we no longer have rules about who sees whom when, for how long, or in what ways; the limits to my relationships with each of them have been eliminated; asking permission is outmoded, though of course respectful consideration and consultation is the norm.

It's been work, I'm not going to lie about that, and I find it hard to believe when people say there are absolutely NO jealousy issues. I think in the end, though, it comes down to being with people who are good people. It comes down to being with people who agree on what basic respect looks like and how you treat someone you care about, people who are in good faith with each other, who trust each other and check themselves when that good faith or trust is wavering for no good reason. Equally important is wholehearted commitment to the ideology of poly--you can't do it as a substitute for something else, or as a compromise, you have to do it because it's what you believe in and it's what you think is best for you. That's the only way you can get the strength to actively reshape those pesky ingrained monog ways of seeing things.

I'm in a sort of triad, as we all are involved with each other, although it is not on equal footing. I have a boyfriend and my boyfriend and I have a "pet". My bf, F, and I were together first, and then we decided to have a threesome with my friend J. F and J really hit it off and in the couple weeks afterward we decided to invite him into our relationship. He accepted and things have been pretty much great. We've hit a couple rough spots, not with jealousy of each other but of people outside the triad, but we worked through it and we've been together as three for more than a year now.

Now, my previous relationship was a V that did NOT work out at all because the girl at the other end of the V was a freeloader and had jealousy issues. I would never do that again, but triads are a whole different thing. It's much harder to get jealous of somebody when you're doing stuff with them too.

Coming up on a year now in a triad. It can be tough at times but communication is key.

I don't have any magic way to describe how things work for us but mainly it's because we talk about our needs and what is going on with each other. Of course at times we triangulate but we are working hard to stop that.

Also the fact we are constantly striving to better our relationship helps.

I dated a hubby and wife for almost a year sometime ago. I was more physically attracted to the wife but got along better with the hubby day to day. They were a package deal and I chose to end it but keep in touch with them here and there.

Its nice to hear about others who are having successful poly relationships. I'm new to this, since in the past the threesomes never lasted past 1 or 2 times.
My husband and I met with a girl via the internet about 4 months ago and something we all thought was going to be simply experimental probably just one evening has turned into regular dating and sex.

We have laid out some ground rules between my husband and I so that we are comfortable with what is going on, and the longer we date her, the more lax the rules have been becoming. Also it seems that she wants her own husband and family one day and we are completely open to her dating and letting us know when she needs to do that. In the meantime we work normal 9-5's and she has an odd-houred packed schedule (soon to get busier with an advanced degree) and doesn't really have the extra time to meet people so we see this going on for a while. It has not only been great for our marrige, but it's opening my husband up to toys and it's been building her confidence back up after a nasty breakup.

I wasn't sure how comfortable I would be with us actually having a girlfriend, it had always just been a fantasy, but we are doing really well, and I think a lot of it was meeting the right girl.

It was an absolute disaster for us. Too much jealousy; we all had possessive personalities. In the end, I learned a lot and am grateful to have the experience. I don't know as if I could do it again but I am not opposed to casual sex - in theory. A lot of ground rules would have to be laid down.

my partner and i have been looking for a poly partner, but so far to no avail. i forgot how hard dating was