My Sweetie's Sweetie is my Sweetie [Me]

I was reading a blog that focused on polyamory and choosing relationships wisely, and wanted to share. The page I was at is http://polyamoryparadigm.blogspot.com/2011/11/what-have-i-stepped-in.html, but the thoughts that are relevant are things I've been asked, or thought about on my own, before. Fair warning, this one's a lot more about being poly than about being multi.

Here's the relevant line from the blog above: "If I can't have a relationship with someone and accept how differently their other relationships function then I shouldn't be in a relationship with that person."

My boyfriend has a relationship that he's been in as long as I've known him. She also has multiple personalities, though her structure is very different than our structure. And she has a boy of her own. I don't have a deep individual relationship with either of them. But they both live with him, and I don't yet. So a few people have asked about how I feel about his relationship with her. And that's something that is still 'in progress' as far as dealing with it.

The first and last point on the matter is this - his relationship with her is part of him. If I can't handle that, then I don't need to be with him. It's the same thing if I was dating a man that had children living at home with him. If I'm not prepared for kids to take priority over me sometimes, or to be involved in what we do, then I have no business getting together with him.

Now, she has the same issue - my relationship with him is part of him too. Both of us want him to be happy. He's happy with both of us. And so, the two of us both make some concessions to his relationship with the other. Sure, we'd both like to have him full-time. But he wouldn't be happy, which means we wouldn't be happy either. And so, we work things out. Sometimes more succesfully than others. And that's what a relationship is about, working together, whether there are two people involved, or three, or six.

Sometimes I don't like the way the two of them inter-relate. And I'm sure she feels the same way about me, too. If it's just me pouting or being protective of him, I try to ignore the feeling as 'not my business'. He's an adult and can handle his own relationships. If I think there's a serious problem, it's my job as his friend, at least, to point it out to him, and let him know that I think he's being taken advantage of, or whatever. And then, again, it's his problem. I have to step out of it and let him deal with it - or not - as he wishes. Their relationship does not function the same as our relationship. Heck, his relationship to me doesn't function the same way as his relationship to some of my alters, even. He has a lot of balls in the air; I shouldn't criticize his juggling.

So what does that make his other girlfriend to me? Or me to her? My relationship to her is that of a friend. We plan to all live together eventually, so we better be at least friends, right? I'm not interested in women for relationships, so that option is unfortunately closed. But we've kind of decided that my boyfriend's girlfriend is my girlfriend, at least for the shorthand.