I absolutely get what you're saying! It's kind of like all those things at once. I have my primary partner, who I live with - the guy above. The person I dated before that I still see regularly and when my fella is out of town, that person and I grew apart sexually so we just cuddle mostly but still love each other very much. I also have a few old friends I like to fuck occasionally, and I love them too. One I love very much and he lives across the country so we occasionally take romantic trips together. My partner also has a few longtime partners in his hometown who he spends the weekend with when he's there. I guess the difference to me between calling my situation poly versus an open relationship is that it is acceptable in my relationship to fall in love with other people. We both have other people we love in our lives. Those people are really respectful of the primary relationship which is why it works.

When there are problems, it's when a third person deliberately ignores one of us or tries to manipulate it so that one primary partner is cut out of the picture. The first girl, the buttsex one, spent her day with us glaring at me over my partner's shoulder while kissing him, sitting on his lap while he was sitting next to me and then falling in place between us with her legs wrapped around him, eating his food off his plate, pulling him away from me and asking him when they could be alone together again, and interrupting our conversation by grabbing his genitals and pulling him away from me, showing him her breasts, or literally climbing on him and straddling him. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and it could have been ok but she made it a problem by continuing to disrespect me and trying desperately to win my partner's attention every subsequent time I have seen her. This bothered me most because he didn't seem to feel like her ignoring and trying to manipulate his primary relationship was also disrespectful to him.

The best and most accessible way to do open relationships - without falling in love with anyone else - in my opinion is to find someone you're attracted to and bring up the idea of a threesome with your fella. That way you're in charge and the third person knows this. The third person is taking part in YOUR shared dynamic then, and knows their place is tertiary to your partnership.