Life as a Poly Family

This weekend, Killian, Elle, and I spent a lot more time than usual together. You see, our general arrangement is both Elle and I get 2 of what we call "date days". The three of us share a calendar and we plan our date days around work, school, and other social activities. Generally we each get a night during the week and then another on the weekend. On Saturday the three of us hiked around a state park here in Milwaukee for a bit and had lunch, then on Sunday we hung out at the coffee shop with friends, Killian made Elle and I dinner while we did some knitting (Elle just taught me ;D), and we watched some Arrested Development.

I think for me it was the first time since identifying as poly, that I have felt part of a poly family. Previous to now my and Killian's relationships were kept pretty separate from each other - we'd see each other's partners in passing, but we never really took the time to get to know them or to spend time with them. In our mind's we expect our lives ahead of us to be more like this weekend - spending time together as a family, but also getting our own personally time with our SO's and ourselves.

Killian and I have long talked about how we imagine the future to be. We have talked about how we would work the home situation - ideally everyone living in the same house or next door to each other, sharing meals and chores, separating personal space, explaining to family and friends our situation a little further, since, by then it will have had a little more time to settle in their minds. We've talked about how we expect our lives with children will be (Killian and I plan on having two kids) - how would we explain the relationship with our secondaries to them, their friend's parents, that kind of thing. We've discussed how we would manage finances - separate accounts for each person with everyone putting in X amount into a joint account for bills and expenses, effectively splitting everything evenly.

It's a hard thing to sit down and draw out. None of us have had any mentors as far as poly life goes. We sort things out as logically as possible and then what we can't figure out or decide on we consult the few poly resources that we can find online and fill in where they left off. We just want to live a happy, stress-free [as possible] life together - nothing different, really, than a monogamous couple would.

If you are poly, how do you work these situations? Do you live together/separately? How do you manage finances? Does everyone work? I'm interested to find how you deal with these situations, so please leave your responses in the comments.