Mini-Love-Lesson #213
Synopsis: What throuple love is; its legality, offspring, sexuality; who desires it; and the question “Is it a real love?” are all briefly presented and explained here.
How Throuple Love Happened to Alice, Betty and Charlie
It all started sometime after Alice’s policeman husband was tragically killed in the line of duty. Her best friend, Betty, and Betty’s husband, Charlie, began looking in on Alice and her two young daughters then taking them places like shopping, the movies and the park along with their own children. Later they all watched TV and did other ordinary stuff together. It was obvious to all of them that they were growing quite close, including the children. One day Betty said, “Suppose we all move in together, after all, it would save money and we have become like one big family”. That led to a lot of talk and spending experimental weekends together which went quite well.One day Alice said she had a problem with the suggested all live together idea. She confessed she was both romantically and sexually attracted to Charlie and, truth be told, sometimes also a bit attracted to Betty too. She went further saying she felt sometimes like she was falling in love with both of them. Betty surprised herself as well as the others by saying she loved Alice and didn’t think she would really mind sharing her husband with Alice, sort of like they had seen on a TV show about Mormon sister-wives. Charlie then related he had love feelings for both Betty and Alice, truth be told, he revealed he had sexually fantasized about having threesome sex with both of them.
Cautiously one weekend with all the kids away at the grandparent’s homes, they started a very loving, three-way, sexual relationship. At first they laughed together at their awkwardness, then got really amazed with how turned-on and passionate they all got with one another. All three were quite certain they would want to do it again and they did.
One thing that just evolved was all three of them enjoying spending more time before and after sex, non-sexually cuddling and caressing one another. It was after one such very loving three-way experience that Charlie, kind of awkwardly proclaimed, “I think we three are creating a marriage with each other.” Alice and Betty soon agreed. After some parent guidance and blended family counseling which included all the children to make sure that they carried this off in the best way possible, they bought a big house and moved in together. That was years ago and except for some problems with outside family members their love-filled, very psychologically real, three-person marriage/union has gone quite well.
Another surprise came when they discovered lots of people around the world were doing pretty much the same thing and there was a name for it, along with websites, support groups, an app and a whole bunch of other stuff. The name for it, similar to the word couple, is “Throuple”.
What Is Throuple Love?
To understand throuple love, just think of the term couple love and add a person. Throuple love is a love-mate or spouse-type love for two people simultaneously instead of just one. A throuple love relationship is where spouse-type love goes back and forth rather equally between three people as they have and live in a committed, love-based, three person, psychological marriage. Sexuality is a part of that but not the center of it, as likewise it is in a healthy, love-centered marriage.Throuples are to be differentiated from threesomes who usually are more temporary and more about sexuality than love. They also are different from couples who have a third person, friends with benefits type relationship, although probably that is closer and might turn into a throuple relationship at some point. Technically a throuple could be considered a form of polygamy or polyandry but those terms more often reference a one gender dominance situation. Throuple usually is a classification within the subcategories of plural marriage, group marriage, polyamor relationships and alternative lifestyles, all of which are encompassed by the larger category of marriage-type relationships ( see “Poly Love” and “Multiple Sex Partners and Love”).
Some people also use a term like throupling to refer to actions and states of mind involving or going toward throuple love and relating. Throupling, throuple love and throuple marriages can occur between one man and two women, one woman and two men, three women, three men, one or more bisexuals and one or two others of either gender, one or more transsexuals with one or two others and may include other gender oriented categories (see “Other Genders Love” and “Does Sexual Preference Influence Love?”).
What About Throuple’s Legality?
The first legal recognition of a throuple union occurred in the country of Columbia in 2017. Three men were granted family law, legal union status with the same rights as couples. When challenged, their legal union was upheld by that nation’s constitutional court. Worldwide, supportive compliments came from other throuple relationships around the globe as well as from various libertarians, liberal religious groups, alternative lifestyle supporters and relational freedom advocates. Condemnation, death threats, hate messages and other legal challenge attempts came from a wide variety of other conservative, traditionalist, reactionary and regressive groups apparently mostly in South America but also in some parts of Africa.In most parts of the world, throuples just are not dealt with legally or, at worst, are arrested and imprisoned with some even endangered by the death penalty. In countries rated as more democratic, throuples tend to be accepted and some legal support is able to be obtained through contract law and broadening family law. In countries rated as more non-democratic or anti-democratic, severe problems can be encountered. In various places, the safety of those in a throuple relationship where laws against polygamy, homosexuality and other forms of alternate lifestyles exist are a concern, as they are in lands heavily influenced by various conservative religious laws.
What about Children of Throuples?
Throuples make the argument that three parents can be, and often are, much better than two or one parent households. What little research evidence there is suggests this may be true. One of the possible reasons this may be valid is that when a child needs comfort, information, support or any parental help, there may be more loving adults available. Certain testimony from those who have grown up in three parent, throuple type, homes seems to be quite positive about it so far. Contrary comments from throuple offspring, to date, are uncommon.Definitive, long-range studies have yet to be completed. Harmful and destructive throuple influences on children have been postulated by some, but not proven or objectively confirmed as having any real frequency of occurrence. The preponderance of available, though meager, evidence to date, suggests throuple love correlates well with good, healthy, parental love and subsequently children who turn out quite well as they mature.
What about Throuples and Sex?
King-size beds apparently are rather popular with throuples. One reason is because three people being sexual with each other simultaneously is not so easily done in smaller beds designed for couples. As commonly proclaimed, throupling is not primarily about sex but rather about love, or at least the attempt at modern, egalitarian, three-way love. Three lovers cuddling together as they go to sleep with love in their hearts for one another is more the prototype image than three people climaxing together (see “Sexual Love Laces”).Some throuples take turns or do one at a time sex, some occasionally bring in a fourth person, usually a dear friend and a few go about things in the open marriage sort of way but, so far, the evidence suggests not many. Throuples usually seem to emphasize they are going about their relationship in very democratic ways including what they do sexually. Democratic equality and mutuality, along with a willingness to experiment with what each other wants, seems to be the standard.
Who Wants Throuple Love?
Quite a few bisexuals seem to see a throuple love relationship as a real boon to their natural desires and proclivities. One bisexual said, “I no longer have to cheat, have affairs and feel guilty now that I’m in throuple love”. Bi’s have related that in a three-way love and sex relationship they no longer have to deny or try to suppress half of their true selves. Some married lesbian and gay men also have related that the throuple way has allowed them to stay married and continue as full-time parents, so it is way better for the children.Throupling homosexuals being sexual is more with a same gender partner but it can occur in the threesome way. Some report becoming a bit more bi themselves and getting turned on by seeing their two other throuple partners enjoying each other.
It is surprising to many that a fair number of older, retired people seem to have formed throuple-type, love relationships. Cases of widows and widowers becoming friends and then developing multiple person, marriage-type love for one another and finally living in a three-person marriage arrangement might possibly become somewhat common.
Transgender and mixed gender people of various types also see throuple love as a form of living married that is well-suited to their particular needs and wants. One trans person said it was wonderful not to have to get a divorce like happens to so many married transgender people when they make the transition. “I started in our throuple as a biological male with a male and a female spouse. For a time, I was sort of a half-and-half but was just as loved by my other two. Then I got to my real self as a full female and was still pretty much loved just the same way I was when we started. Even better, all three of us pretty much are just same except my female clothes take up more room now”.
There are those who grew up in happy, big families who find the throuple way of doing love relating to feel like being home again. Others admit to being bigamist at heart and there are still others who enjoy having a sort of brother or sister spouse. A very small number are known to have grown up in throuple household and just see it as what they are used to and like. Others who have had bad experiences with two-person marriage are willing to try a throuple love approach.
In short, a growing number of people all around the world either want a throuple relationship or are willing to give it a try to see if it works for them. It is too early to tell but some analysts suspect throuple love is going to keep growing and eventually perhaps become common.
Is Throuple Love Real Love?
You can’t really love two people at once, can you? At least one person’s love for one of the others will be fake love, won’t it? And if you love one better than the other, won’t that break up the throuple? Doing this throuple love thing isn’t natural, is it? All sorts of questions arise and those in throuple love relationships give some pretty interesting answers. To the question about loving two people comes the reply “lots of people love two children, two parents, two siblings, two friends etc. so why not two romantic or marriage type partners? To the second question comes to the reply “throuples have less fake love and false love problems than do couples because they have to examine everything more carefully, and three minds work better than just two or one”.The third question about loving one better than the other gets the answer “people may unequally love two children, two siblings, two parents, etc. differently at different times and it all works out fine, so why not two lovers? To the issue of what’s natural comes the social psychologist’s and cultural anthropologist’s answers showing millions of people living and having lived in multiple person marriages and done so quite sufficiently and successfully. Monogamy actually may be in the minority throughout cultures and over long time periods. That certainly is true in the animal world.
If you measure real love by the behaviors and operations that exhibit it, and by the operations that differentiate it from false love, or by what the limbic system in the brain does neurochemically and neural electrically with love, or by the social biological correlates of those who strongly report feeling love after years of love relating, then we have no reason to think that throuple love could not be just as real as couple love. However, it will take a lot more good, solid research to support or contradict this much more fully than is currently evident.
Could throuple love be right for you, or members of your family, friends, etc.? Again, emphasis on love.
One More Little Thing
Who might you want to talk all this over with, and maybe tell them about this site and its FREE 200+ mini-love-lessons?As always – Go and Grow with Love
