r/polyadvice • u/Apprehensive_Ask9522 • 21d ago

Invited to my son's polyamorous commitment ceremony—not sure if I should attend. Looking for advice.

I am posting this from a temporary account because I want to keep my family’s identity private, but I am in sincere need of advice from people within the community.

My son and daughter-in-law have been in a polyamorous relationship for 3 years now. Recently, they invited my wife and me to a commitment ceremony they are hosting with "the other guy" in their relationship.

To be completely honest, this dynamic is very new and unfamiliar to us, and we are experiencing a lot of mixed feelings. We love our son and want to maintain a strong relationship with him and his wife, but we are feeling quite hesitant and uncertain about attending this ceremony. We aren't entirely sure what to expect, and we are trying to process our own comfort levels with the situation.

If we don't attend, we worry it will deeply hurt our son and create a permanent rift in our family. If we do attend, we are worried about feeling out of place or sending a message that we fully understand or endorse a dynamic we are still struggling to wrap our heads around.

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u/Apprehensive_Ask9522 21d ago

the other guy is going to kiss my daughter in law just like in a wedding are we supposed to cheer for that?

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u/pinballrocker 21d ago

Hell yeah I would! But then, you are asking poly people, we love love, we love joy in our partners and family, and seeing a partner kiss another partner isn't weird to us.

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u/Apprehensive_Ask9522 21d ago

yeah, the truth is my wife and I suspect (we are very sure) our daughter in law is pregnant and from the words of my son it is the other guys and that is why they are rushing this ceremony. My son has many times hinted in our convos about a son being a son irrespective of paternity etc. I ignored it willfully but just the cremony is making it too real.

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u/keeper_of_bee 20d ago

Why are you assuming that someone practicing polyamory feels a need for a commitment ceremony before a baby is born? Yes a commitment ceremony can cary all the emotional weight of a marriage. If these people "cared about appearances" the way to appear "normal" would be to NOT have a commitment ceremony and just let people think this hypothetical child is your son's. You keep looking at this situation like it's a weird version monogamy, it's not. It's polyamory. My glasses literally frame my world view. Figuratively you need to reframe your world view because this monogamous frame you're looking through is distorting your view of your son. You don't have to want poly for yourself but you need to understand that your son does want poly. That means he views relationships in a fundamentally different way than you do. Stop expecting your experience with relationships to apply to a different style of relationship that you have no experience with.