That is not to say that you did not make many other good points, but those were the ones that were more specific to items that we had not yet worked on as thoroughly as other issues

*grin* I consider someone who doesn’t want to be with me leaving ultimately a positive outcome.

But in all seriousness, there’s been no “formal” study, and that’s admittedly anecdotal. In the years I’d been on the PolyFamilies yahoogroup and reading other various polyamory forums, I have about half of the people who faced with a “go poly or break up” continue a decent relationship. Thing is, it was *how* it was handled. Something that bald as an ultimatum? No. Wouldn’t work.

I will note that the ones who worked out wound up finding additional partners themselves pretty quickly, too. The poly/mono ones did not seem to do as well.

In the paragraph in which you address the outcomes of people in mono relationships being faced with the choice of ‘go poly or break up’, you cite about a 50/50 ratio of outcomes, from ‘fairly well’ to ‘nightmare’.

This is the most optimistic observation/prediction I’ve ever seen. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who had a positive outcome in this scenario, over the long run (tho I have seen some unstable unhappy things drag on for a few months before they finally, mercifully, died). I’ve believed it nigh impossible for some time now.

Do you really personally know success stories that originated this way? Is there any research -even informal- along these lines? Do you know of any resources where such people have told their stories?