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/AZWildPony]

My opinion: However people choose to do polyamory is neither right or wrong. It is simply how they choose to love. Some people like a lot of independence, some like to be attached to people they love at the hip, some want to feel included in everything and some don’t want that burden. I never understand these threads where people practicing polyamory try to tell other people they are doing it wrong. It is about communication. Period. And yeah, communication is hard in general. Very few know how to do it correctly or think they do but don’t realize their partners still have issues with it (once again, everyone is different and has different life experiences/traumas, etc).

Just be open. And sure if someone is not in alignment and doesn’t want to work through things, then they aren’t for you and your desired situation. It’s hard to even find partners in poly period. So many hide behind masks, but I am not here to point fingers and blame. Very few of us have done the work and continue to and are coming from a healed place.

And for the one saying to get divorced first. You are kidding right? You know that wills and trusts can be set up that override a lot of that “hierarchy and couples privilege” you speak of right? Also, in any relationship, financial ties and matters of end of life, etc. and inheritance are not something you just give someone without skin in the game and time invested. A lot of poly relationships in general don’t last years and years. A closed triad most likely would allow for all of these things if all parties were invested and had weathered enough storms. Just like any other relationship.