Dan: We have a question of the day, this came in from a podcast listener. They say “my significant other and I have found a fellow kinkster here locally. We’re considering adding her to our dynamic as our girlfriend. This will be a first for us. Can you give us any tips, advice or warnings about adding a third to our dynamic? Then they immediately go into this line. I plan for this to be a full three-way, triad, whatever today’s label might be; all three, one relationship. So there’s our first warning, tips and advice for this person.
dawn: I wrote little notes here and they are the same thing you’re getting ready to say
Dan: in the short…my impression is that they are a male/female couple, and they met a third female. They want to add this third female to their relationship,
dawn: …..also known as Unicorn hunting. When we used to do it, it didn’t have a label. It was fine. Now it seems to be judgmental.
Dan: Yes. So the first bit of advice or first bit of warning for us to recognize that this perspective, this idea of adding a female to an existing relationship is called Unicorn hunting by some people and thought very poorly of by some people. And that’s just the way it is. The key to it…… and I don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about that…… the key to it is to simply be very clear in what you’re offering at the very beginning of the relationship …..to say, “It’s me and my partner and we would like to add you into our existing party. And if we’re in a hierarchal relationship where I consider my other, my partner to be my primary, then you are a secondary….and here’s what that means. And if there is a thing where if my primary says, look the relationship’s over, that I’m going to automatically turn off the relationship. Let that new person know right upfront. That’s the way this is going to be. That’s what we did. So here, is what my first piece of advice for this person would be is that very clear, this idea of say, here is exactly what we’re offering and here’s what we expect. Here’s the role that we hope that you’ll fulfill in our life. And here’s the situation where we’re going to change that… you know that’s. ..You’re not going to know all the answers up front, but be clear with what you do know.
dawn: That’s very true and I totally agree with that, but the other thing that struck me was is that it says, “I plan for this to be a full threeway triad. Whatever today’s label might be all three, one relationship.” It doesn’t say…… It says, “this is what I planned”, so what do the other two people plan, right? Have they agreed to this? I mean, because the whole even three way triad thing seems to be if you read nowadays, it seems to be that that is supposed to be your goal. That takes everybody into consideration. Everybody’s on a level playing ground, but that’s not always the way it is, right? It can shift up and so so make sure that you’re expressing your ideas, like Dan said, your ideas of what this is going to be. Now the other trick is just because you want it to be that way…. Emotions are a funny thing, so you can go into it – All three of you with the best intentions saying, this is going to be a triad. This is going to be a three way. This is all of us on the same playing field. There’s no hierarchy. There’s no primary, there’s no secondary, there’s no jealousy, there’s no. We’re all going to love each other the same way at the same time and it doesn’t happen that way.
Dan: Right? Like you said, the wacky world of emotions, right? We certainly had many situations where we’ve either gone into it as a, the two of us adding a third or having two of us dating a couple and you have your intention when things get started, but then as you go along, you find out that the emotional aspect of it change’s ..that people. It may well be…. You start this relationship with this third person and you find out that the new person and your partner get along fantastic and you find out you don’t like this new person as much as you thought you would, you know, or any other dynamic of that. You cannot control anyone’s emotions. You can’t guess how they’re going to go. What you can do is set your intention and be open in your communication and have it continued. You know, make sure, so another piece of advice, make sure you set some time aside and say on Wednesday nights we’re going to sit down and chat. Right. And one of the things that I’ve heard of lately that you and I never practiced, but it’s a really neat idea, is this concept of kitchen table polyamory. So it’s a great idea. If
dawn: I had to look that word up, it’s a, it’s a newer word.
Dan: It would be neat if you can have the three of you sit down in some neutral spot once a week and say how are things actually working for you. Understand, it really depends on what you want to bring this person in for, you know, you mentioned that there are local kinkster if what you want to add them to your dynamic for is a quick, sexy time. Great. Don’t overthink it. If it’s going to be a full time relationship.
dawn: Like when they move in and. Exactly. Then, you have kids and bills and finances Yeah. I mean, is this not to make it overly complicated, but you do have to think about those things, you know, and are two of you financially doing this stuff and one is just being added in. Well then you’re really not on the same playing field, right? So you know, how are you doing all of that or is it just sexy fun time? So, but one of the things I do recommend is what you were saying is the whole sitting down once a week or something like that. It doesn’t have to be that, but if nothing else have some sort of communication tool, right? That’s what you’re gonna need. You’re gonna need a way to talk to each other, figure this out, whether you do it in writing, whether you do it meeting once a week, whether you do it, whatever works for the three of you, I have no clue what that is, right?
dawn: What works for me and Dan may not work for, for you. So have some sort communication tool so that when you hit the bumps in the road, you know how to talk about it, right? So and try to figure that out upfront so it doesn’t catch you by surprise because you said this is the first time you’ve tried this, right? First poly relationship, you’re going to hit some bumps in it. We all do, hell Dan and i have been doing this for almost 19 years and we still hit bumps in the road. so communication tools and there was something else I was thinking of and now I can’t think of it.
Dan: The other one that comes to my mind then is the idea of figuring out what it is that you are going to be able to communicate to say, if I tell dawn something, does that automatically find the automatically kat finds out to or do kat and I have communication that is allowed to be just between us or you and kat have communication, right? Whoever that third person is, decide if that’s acceptable or if their understanding is that everything is above board right off the bat. And I don’t mean above the board. The trick is, the trick is if dawn has some things she needs to talk to me about as my partner to find out, is there an expectation? I don’t talk to my other partners about that.
dawn: Yeah, you really want to talk about that upfront because I’ve got personal stuff that I don’t want going to your other partners. Right. So there’s some baggage that I decide who that gets shared with. So yeah, you need to talk about that upfront. Did you remember your other thing? I did. So the other thing was, is that, I mean you’ve got us answering your question, but my other advice is to surround yourself with other poly supportive people. Other poly people, not just supportive, right? I’ve got some monogamous supportive friends, but it didn’t really work out as well as having people that have lived poly and lived a successful poly. Right. Because you don’t want to surround yourself with the dramatic poly people because that tends to blow things up. I’m trying not to be judgemental, but you know, there are some people that are a little more dramatic than others. So you want to find the, the stable people that have tried this out.
Dan: I mean, another way to look at it instead, if you don’t like those words are find people that are that practice of polyamory that you would like to model, right? when you see people and you say, well, hey, that’s the kind of polyamory I’m looking for. Those are the kind of people you want to surround yourself with. The last bit of advice that I would suggest to you is speaking of finding people to be around, come to Beyond the Love in November. It’s, you know, not only, I mean dawn and I run this event and I don’t mean to pitch it, but it’s 300 poly people, right? The reason that we put together this event is so that you can have, surround yourself with a variety of not only poly people that do poly like you do, but people that don’t do poly, like you do. people that do poly other ways you haven’t thought about doing. Right? Surround yourself with people like that and find out what, what does work for other people and what doesn’t work.
dawn: And we’ll be bringing in presenters that teach about communication and teach about that stuff. So if you can’t think of what a communication tool works for you,
dawn: we’ll have presenters there with tons of ideas so that you can incorporate into your poly or not. Right. So there is that advice. Let us know how that goes. If you have some thoughts about this and how you, what you recommend for a, a new triad, head over to erotic awakening podcasts, all one word, our facebook page and share your thoughts.
