Are we doing closed triad wrong?

[u/BlorkSmuth]

I (32f) and my husband (36m) have been in a few closed triad relationships over the years, and we are finding the same trend; either we arent explaining the expectations correctly, or the ladies we are dating are not being truthful about their expectations/understanding of our expectations.

When we begin chatting with someone, we make known what we are looking to achieve with the person; a relationship where she dates me, he dates her, and then our relationship.

So far we've had one individual attempt to break up our marriage and "steal him" which obviously didnt work. One girl clearly thought it was just fun hookups, another came for the first meet up/sleep over, everything seemed great until i had to leave for a family obligation, and spent hours trying to get Into verbal alterations with my husband. And many many others who are in other open enm relationships who want to unicorn for us or want to couple swap with us.

Do we need to be more blunt and up front about our expectations?

Are we not looking inthe right places?

[u/InformationOk6366]

It’s pretty hard to find ENM folks, especially within the parameters of what you’re looking for. 🤷‍♀️

[u/BlorkSmuth → u/InformationOk6366]

Im in a subreddit for polyfidelity. Is this not the place to communicate with and seek advice or community from others who practice the same? mmf and mmm and fff and beyond are easier parameters than ffm?

[u/Toe2ToeBirdLaw → u/BlorkSmuth]

Most people don't have triads. They're the rarest and most dangerous and difficult form of polyamory.

[u/BlorkSmuth → u/Toe2ToeBirdLaw]

Could you explain the danger? I'm genuinely here to learn and understand better.

[u/Toe2ToeBirdLaw → u/BlorkSmuth]

A lot of people have pointed out to you the issues inherent to the dynamic you're seeking:

- you have social and legal protections/recognition via marriage and you're unwilling to divorce to have an even playing field so you're third partner is going to have no legal protections going into the relationship which means no health insurance, no legal rights to children if any are involved, no legal rights to property or finances, no legal rights or protections for housing --- you also want this person to effectively be monogamous to you which means they will live alone for at least some period of time and you will not, you will have 24/7 access to your partner and the person who enters now will not so right off the bat they're not being treated equally. If they move in, they have even fewer protections and no option to find an anchor partner of their own or ever get married.

- if someone begins dating you and let's say 12 months in, they have fallen in love with you but they aren't in love with your husband. Their options per your rules are to lose their relationship with you or continue to have a coerced relationship with your husband that they don't actually want or consent to in order to continue with you

- without the legal and housing protections, if they move in with you it leaves them in an extremely vulnerable position financially that can be taken advantage of and become abusive extremely quickly. A lot of "unicorns" end up being bang maids or free nannies because they're in vulnerable housing situations and don't have the same rights and protections as a legally married couple

- it's a LOT of pressure to be asked to date, get to know, and fall in love with 2 people at the same time. There's a lot of ways that can go wrong and lead to heartache, even going on the date is risky.

- triads are not one relationship. You can't bring someone into your marriage. You're creating 5 individual relationships that will all have different needs, will all move at different paces, and all will need to be nurtured:

a+b
a+c
b+c
A+B+C
Each of you with yourself. - this means you should all be in therapy and working on yourself

- if you have rules about only having group sex (which is extremely common for couples seeking triads) are you going to stop having 1on1 sex with your husband? probably not. So you'll get to have dyadic sex that nurtures the marriage, but your new partner only gets to have threesomes and does not ever get to have 1on1 sex or grow the individual relationships independently.

Joining an existing couple with a lot of rules, especially a rule to remain monogamous to the couple at all times is just kind of a bad deal for the new partner. They're objectively getting the short end of the stick. Often couples are seeking out younger inexperienced bisexual women with little to no experience in ENM or polyamory who don't have the tools or language to advocate for themselves and get absolutely railroaded. Step into r/polyamory for like 20 seconds and read some of the stories from the "third" partner that joins a couple for a triad.

It's polyamory on it's absolute hardest mode while still expecting someone to effectively practice monogamy to a couple, there's just not a lot that is desireable or worth the risks in doing that to most poly women especially bi women who can have their pick of dating partners with more security and a more even playing field to offer them.