Poly triad in Sweden is suddenly famous

The Local: Sweden's News in English
TV4 (Sweden)
Expressen

In some countries it's easier to be out than in America, I get the impression. Am I right? This just in from Sweden:

Sweden's blogging 'polyfamily' goes viral

By Maddy Savage

After married couple Linda and Erik Fridland fell in love with the same man, they decided he should move in with them — and their children. The Local caught up with Hampus Engström — their new partner — as the family's blog started to go viral.

Erik, Linda and Hampus

Hampus Engström, 29, says that falling in love with a married couple was the last thing he expected when he met fellow taxi driver Erik Fridland through work.

But after hanging out with the 35-year-old and his wife Linda, 34, he started to develop strong feelings for the couple.

"I used to go round for dinner with them and I found I liked them both and we had so much in common. We could just speak about everything, right from the beginning," he tells The Local.

After an "uncomfortable" couple of months, he says he finally had a conversation with Linda when it became clear that she and her husband Erik both had feelings for him too.

"I didn't think you could love more than one person at a time before this," says Engström.

They all decided to move in together in January 2013 with Hampus bringing his daughter — now five — to join the couple's nine-year-old twin boys and their thirteen-year-old son.

The new family later launched their own taxi business in Strömsund in Jämtland in northern Sweden along with a store selling children's clothes.

"We work together and we live together. I sleep in the same bed as Linda and Erik. Yes, we have a sexual relationship. We all have sex together".

He says that the family decided to start blogging about their experiences to "show that there are other ways to live than those 'normal' relationships".

"We have children, a house, a car and jobs. It is not all about sex, we do all the mundane things too," he adds.

Engström says the three adults were worried about the impact their decision could have on their children, but he insists that none of the kids have been bullied and says that some of their friends "think it is cool that they have two dads".

Polygamy - when a husband has more than one wife or vice versa - is illegal in Sweden, but there are no rules to stop groups of people living together.

Sweden's Centre Party previously lobbied for a change in legislation, while it was part of the previous centre-right coalition government, but dropped its support for polygamy following rifts within the party.

Engström says he is still hoping that the law will be adapted in future, to allow him to marry the Fridlands.

"It is currently tricky for us in certain situations. When you go to the bank they are usually looking for two signatures, there isn't space for three. Usually only two people get a mortgage so that was tricky for us but we managed to make it happen".

Engström says he knows of "several other polyfamilies" living together in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe thanks to a strong Facebook community and thinks that the phenomenon is becoming more common.

"I hope we will eventually be able to get married and that hotel staff won't find it so strange if three of us want to book a room and share a bed together."

The original (Nov. 12, 2014).

Here's their family blog, running for a year and a half now. And their new Facebook page.

Here they are in a large newspaper (Nov. 11).

And here they are on TV (also Nov. 11):



Whatever's going on here, I'd say they need some TV training; they act frozen for all but about five seconds. C'mon, you're on camera! Smile, gesture, interact! Or is this a Swedish thing, or were they reacting to some kind of awful tragedy? Swedish speakers, help us out here?

P.S.: Now they've gotten picked up by the news-cartoon video site of Apple Daily HK, Hong Kong's leading pro-democracy newspaper. Watch here: 戀上同一情人 夫婦大床3人齊齊瞓 (Nov. 16, 2014). Don't ask me what's going on.

Swedish poly site: http://polyforeningen.org/

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More poly i svenska

HBL (Helsinki)
The Swedish-language newspaper HBL in Helsinki, Finland, offers "Monogamy? No Thanks!" — with a photo of four toothbrushes (teethbreesh?) sharing a cup.

By Julia Wiraeus

Why choose? The more to share love with, the better. Or so say Leo and Ida, who opened their relationship to another partner. The threesome has been discontinued, but both still have their own lovers.

"One single person cannot be all in my life. It just doesn't work," says Ida, who is approaching middle age. "Many people believe that I get jealous when Leo meets his mistress, but I lose nothing by him having it good with another."...

"I had known this person a long time and noticed that I was about to be in love," [says Leo.] Before anything got started he talked with his wife. After long talks, they opened their relationship.

To always wake up next to the same person is impossible for Saku Susi. To have and to give love is most important. That is why he stopped distinguishing between friends and partners....

Polyamori has always existed, hidden or open.... [Susi] sees all human relations as unique. They transform and grow over time without being defined in relation to others. Anarchism in general, and relationship anarchism in particular, have been of interest to him since he came into contact with the concept on the web.... Googling on "polyamoria" pops up his blog.

...Around the world are political movements that want to make it possible to register partnership with several people. On Stockholm Pride [English; Svenska], polyamorösa is on the same footing as other sexual minorities....

Read the original article (June 26, 2009), and kommentera. Thanks to Zui Muss for the tip.

The article appeared in the newspaper's magazine insert, Volt. It says you can "learn more about polyamori and Ida and Leo, and Saku Susi and Moa" in the next day's issue (June 27), but if that's online yet, I couldn't find it.

P. S.: Two years ago I posted about a TV report on Poly Pride Week in Stockholm. Can anyone add some more links to Swedish poly media?

Also: note the Polykonferens 2009 in Göteborg, Sept. 6–9.

Also: check out Polyheart.se.

Also: polyforeningen.org.

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Poly Pride in Sweden

DM (Swedish TV)

It's Pride Week in Sweden, Thursday (August 2, 2007) was Poly Day, 45 people showed up for a conference in Stockholm, and Swedish TV ended up doing a report on polyamory and its advocates. Here's the TV site (may require Internet Explorer, and you may have to click through a popup-blocker notice). Search for the item named Älska mera, which means "love more". It's dated 2 augusti 2007.

Can't understand a word of it, but it sure looks nice.

Thanks to Jenny on the Polyfamilies list for the tip. She writes: "The first scene is my boyfriend's girlfriend kissing her girlfriend and then my boyfriend, and it goes on to cover the talk she gave, including a nice bit where she's drawing the triad of me, hubby and our gf, then our gf's other bf and his other gf. (It sounds more complicated than it looks — watch the video!) Dancing on the ceiling....

"We (me, my boyfriend, and his other girlfriend) like to refer to ourselves as a 'poly postcard'. I (and the other two in my triad) are as active in the Australian poly community as my bf and his gf are in the Swedish one. The diagram Charlie was drawing, in full, looks like this : Å-C-K-J-C-A (JCA drawn as a triad)-P-M. Eight connected adults, two are bio parents to three kids who consider four of the adults to be parents."