The Polyamorous Misanthrope

This guest column is by Jenny Ford.

Polyamory ain’t all beer and skittles. Like your hand, it has two sides, and they can’t be separated. For every wonderful advantage to being polyamorous, there is a corresponding down side, and some of them are mighty difficult to anticipate. Jealousy, time management, communication and boundaries are the obvious ones. This is a little guided tour of some of the more obscure pitfalls.

“I am polyamorous, therefore I must accommodate my partner’s other partners.”

We are people of goodwill. We are open to extended, loving networks of chosen family or whatever else we choose to call it.

There are people in this world who will take advantage of goodwill. They will do less than their share of the heavy lifting, whether that is financial, emotional, or physical.

Just because you are polyamorous, and you partner loves someone, that does not mean that you have to automatically extend to the new lover the same level of trust and support – physical, financial or emotional – that you extend to your partner.

“I am polyamorous, therefore I have no right to be unhappy about my partner’s partner.”

Some people do things which are truly unhappy-making.

In my years as an active member of the poly community, I have heard the following examples. In each case, the first reaction of the party who had been trespassed against was “I have to make this work. I have to get over my reaction for the good of all,” and in each case, it was actually quite reasonable for the person to be upset.

A childless-by-choice couple decide to venture into polyamory. The husband’s new girlfriend accidentally falls pregnant. Twice.

A poly couple invite a V partner to be their live-in child-carer. The carer is consistently late picking the kids up from school.

A partner in a fluid-bonded group has unsafe sex, and keeps it secret from the others.

Two couples decide to move in together. Two weeks before the big day, one person announces they aren’t going to move in, in fact, they have decided to move to another city 600 miles away.

Someone’s partner secretly starts a new relationship, and then introduces it as a fait accompli and expects the poly person to accept it.

“I am polyamorous, therefore I should support my partner in their new relationship.”

Sometimes, hormones and pheremones lead our loved ones up the garden path.

Healthy boundaries means we don’t rush after them yelling “stop, stop, you’re going to get hurt,” but that doesn’t mean we have to turn down the covers on the spare bed and put a chocolate on the pillow to welcome the drug-addicted psychopath of the moment into your family.

You are well within the bounds of reasonableness to say “I am not going to tell you want to do, but I don’t want to watch the train wreck. Keep it away from me.”

“You are polyamorous, so I don’t have to take this relationship seriously.”

Subtle pitfalls come from dating not-completely-poly people. They have subconscious attitudes about poly people which can show up in quite inconsiderate behaviour sometimes.

“You are polyamorous, so you can be my partner – while I am between monogamous relationships.”

This one has caused a mountain of heartbreak for several poly people I know.

“If I have more than one relationship, each one will be less intense.”

Ummm, no …

If anything, poly relationships are more intense, because the people involved are – on average – more willing to talk through issues and more in touch with how they feel.

“I am polyamorous, therefore my jealousy is my problem to deal with on my own.”

This is a big one.

Sometimes “jealous” feelings are a result of one’s own internal wobbles. Other times, the situation is actually violating a boundary or failing to meet your needs, and the emotion is a completely valid flag that something needs to change.

Don’t be too quick to take on 100% of the responsibility as though you are simply inventing a problem. (Consult the brilliant Brave-Little-Toaster post for elaboration on this point!)

Assuming that because you are polyamorous you should be OK with everything that goes on in multiple relationships is like assuming that because you are gay you should be OK with every sexual advance from any person of the same gender.

Whether or not you are in a sexual relationship with any given individual, you absolutely always have the right to say “no” to anything that doesn’t work for you, and without feeling guilty.

Jenny Ford has an Honours degree in Psychology and works as a business consultant and executive coach …. by day. In her other life, she is a polyamorous, bisexual community-builder and relationships coach. She has husband, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, three children (though the teenager could count as three all on her own), and two cats. She lives in Sydney, Australia with a subset of the above family members and is currently researching how to bend space and time so she can live with ll the people she loves in all the places they want to live without leaving Sydney.  She has a blog at raisingentrepreneurs.com. Expressions of appreciation for Jenny should take the form of Lindt chocolate balls. Bonus points if they are the black 60% cocoa ones.

Front of the hand, back of the hand …

© 2007, Jenny Ford

Used by permission, all rights reserved

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The PolyWorks Fund Charity is really taking shape and we’re in the process of starting the site now.

We know that the polyamory community is full of talented, creative people and so, we’re going to ask for a little help and ask for a logo donation.

We need an original logo for the org that is:

1. Easily reproducible in print and on a website.
2. Gives a feeling of sturdy capability. (The name of the charity is PolyWorks Fund, after all, so we’re a workin’ charity).
3. Is not limited to the infinite heart motif one often sees in the polyamory community. While hearts are popular, thinking outside the box for this one is a good idea.

PolyWorks Fund is organized for polyamorous people to unite as a positive force within the global community by giving time, energy, and monetary support to the various needs of people throughout the world.

Send submissions to goddessofjava@polyamorousmisanthrope.com with the subject line: “PolyWorks Fund Logo Submission”. Please make sure that submissions are in .jpeg, .tif, or .gif format for the selection process.

Chosen submission will become the property of the PolyWorks Fund including but not limited to reproduction rights and sales rights. The artist of the chosen submission may keep copies for portfolio purposes. Unselected submissions will not be returned to the artist. Submissions that are not chosen remain the intellectual property of the artist and will not be reproduced nor sold by the PolyWorks Fund.

Deadline for Submissions is February 1, 2008.

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A lot of poly people turn to online groups for support in their poly lives.

As one of the co-founders of one such group, do I think they’re a good thing?

Of course!

Thing is, it’s a good idea to understand the limits of what an online support group is good for and what it’s not.

Polyamory, by its very nature, is just awfully intimate. The problems and issues that arise in poly situations are often about as close to the heart and the vulnerable spots as you’re able to get. When you get that close in, you start getting into things that are messy, private, and often just plain don’t show human nature in its best light.

The Internet, by its very nature, is public, it’s dynamic and can feed explosions. You post to a support group online and you’re very much jumping into the unknown. There may be thousands of people reading your words, even if the group feels cozy and intimate.

These are things you will not find in a good online support group:

Instant Validation of All Feelings

Don’t go to an online support group expecting that you’ll be petted and treated with kid gloves. If you need that, you want an in-person group, and will probably have to pay for it. It’s okay to need it, but even the fluffiest of online support groups is going to have someone who isn’t so fluffy. Online is a bad place to go when you’re feeling fragile.  And yeah, I do feel fragile from time to time, just like the rest of the world.  I talk to my friends, my family, and if it’s really bad, a professional counselor when it happens.

Privacy

I hope this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone. Even a closed forum where one must be approved by a moderator to join isn’t very private. If it’s an open forum, this means when you complain about a love and what said love does, said love might wind up reading it. Then it’s possible to get one of those lovely catfights where everyone’s jumping in. If that’s your kink, okay. But if you’re looking for real solutions, that may not work out so well.

A horde of people to validate your virtue in a situation

I cannot count the times I’ve seem someone who clearly wanted to be told that she (it’s usually “she”, but “he” isn’t exactly unheard of) is the poor innocent victim and that everyone should start doing what she wants because she’s so sweet and nice and self-sacrificial only to turn into Medusa when it turns out that not everyone agrees with her take on the situation.

Validation that your situation is unique, special and that no-one’s ever encountered something like this before.

If you have spent more than five years watching people spill their guts on a polyamory discussion group, you have seen it all before. More than likely, you’ve done some of the stupid shit that’s being posted about, too!

Things to look for in an online support group:

People who’ve been there and done that

You want that. People learn best from experience. Bonus points if someone says, “Oh God, I fucked up like that once and here’s what happened to me…” There are online support groups for Polyamory in general, group marriages, monogamous/polyamorous pairings, poly and almost any kink you can think of… You’re sure to find some relatively sane and sensible people for reality checks in almost any poly situation. If most people in the group are into theory and there aren’t a fair whack of them who have been living poly, it’s probably not a useful support group. Beware the social engineers!

A willingness to deliver a reality check

The whole point of getting involved in a community is for the reality check, after all. If you never ever get questioned or called on anything you say, you’re not involved in a useful or growth-producing environment. While I don’t think the “stick of grandmotherly kindness” is something that needs to be hauled out at every instance, a gentle, “Are you sure X is gonna work out for you?” should come up frequently when you ask a question or present a situation. 100% agreement at all times means you might as well be talking to a mirror.  If someone points out that they don’t think a situation is healthy, it’s worth examining.  If fifty people say the same think, it’s worth hauling out the microscope to examine in detail.  (Please not I do not say that one should automatically heed advice in support groups.  I use the word “examine” on purpose because ultimately you are the only true judge of how to live your life.  You’re only looking for advice and ideas, not direction).

A feeling that the group is mostly “sane”.

This is subjective and that’s okay. If you get the sense that the people are nuts, and not in a good way, you don’t need their advice.

Keep in mind, though, an online support group is not a substitute for real-life interaction. You don’t want to dump your social network in “real life” because you’re so excited to have found a group of people that understand your unique situation. There have been many studies that show that the online communities, while a great boon to some forms of social networking, have really taken a toll in how tolerant we are of people who are different from ourselves. You might have your online group, but keep your face to face friendships. It’s all necessary.

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I’ve been in sexual relationships for over twenty years as well as having made a study of them in the last seven. The more I study, the more I see that many problems in relationships seem to be problems of dependence and commodifying a partner.

Dependence comes in many forms — emotional, physical, financial. If you are in any way of the mindset, “I’m screwed if I must live without my Dear Love,” you’re no longer in a relationship involving equals and choice. You are not with that person solely because you choose to be with that person. At least part of the relationship is tainted by a commodity that your Dear Love supplies.

This commodity could be myriad in nature. If you’re monogamous (or exclusive in any way), it could be something as simple as sex. If you’re a housewife without the emotional understanding that you do have marketable skills, you depend on your SO for food and shelter, for God’s sake — your actual physical survival. That’s heavy stuff. You’ve very much removed an equals mindset. (Remember, I was a housewife for over 11 years, so this is not a high horse, but a deeply considered opinion backed up by painful experience). The commodity could be emotional in nature. I can recall an SO being my basic emotional reason for staying alive. That’s a nowhere place for anyone on either side of that prickly fence. The true relationship of equals can only happen when you say, “Yes, I love you and want to be with you, but if something happens where I am not longer with you, no matter how much it will suck and how painful it will be, I am fully confident that I will have a rich and fulfilling life.”

I’m not saying that it’s desirable to be cavalier about your love. If you lose a loved one, it hurts. There’s just a difference between “hurts” and an idea that your life is somehow not going to be any good any more if you don’t have that partner. It’s important to realize that your quality of life is in your own hands even if things go south between you and your partner.

To have a full relationship between equals, there must be no dependence. You really cannot need ¹ your partner, but must be with said partner because it is a free choice made from a position of strength and independence. No, this does not make for a tepid relationship. No, it won’t have the bright crayon strokes of drama. Instead, the pleasures will be subtler and more natural. Bright and beautiful? Sure, but the brightness will be the restrained choice and beauty of a Maxfield Parrish painting. Instead of the scotch bonnet spiciness of mono-faceted flavor, it will have the blended richness and satisfaction of a good curry while still retaining a fair amount of that wonderful spice.

¹Just because I know I’m gonna get this as a reply from someone please allow me to point out that if you have physical issues your partner is helping you with, your need is for help, not the specific individual.

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Poly relationships have no legal recognition or protection.

Yeah, yeah, I know, tell you guys something you don’t know.

This doesn’t mean you should be an idiot if you decide to move in with your loves. Several years ago, one of my partners and I transcribed (with permission) a sample property sharing contract written for my family by a lawyer friend of the family.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to do and I really encourage any newly-forming, or even old-time poly groups who haven’t to do this. Plan ahead. And don’t think you’re planning to fail by having contingency contracts. That’s not the point. It’s like an insurance policy. You hope you’re never going to need it, but you’d hate to need it and not have it.

If you have done this, though, don’t pat yourself on the back too quick.

Are you updating it?

I know, it’s unromantic, but remember that living room suite the five of you bought? Whose is it? The family’s? That’s great. Now what if the family decides to go its separate ways? You don’t wanna go to court over something dumb like the living room furniture. Just what the world needs, another courtroom drama over something you put your butt on.

Remember when you write these contracts, keep the sex out of it. This is a property sharing contract. Nobody in a court is gonna care that your Master and Mistress collared you and you were living in subservient, trusting bliss as their devoted slave. All they wanna know is who is the damn’ silver gonna go to if you guys break it off and everyone is pissed off enough to land in court. Hence the admonition to update regularly. If you’re reading this, you probably have the resources to buy stuff at least once or twice a year. A yearly review is probably enough to keep things in check with an agreement to update for major group purchases. I’d suggest setting a dollar amount guideline on this one, just for clarity’s sake. Each family will have a different income level and a different idea of “major”, so hammer that one out, too!

If your family owns a business together (OLQ did), have an idea of what will happen to the property the business owns if the family/business dissolves. We decided that since one of the members wanted to continue in the same line, that many of the materials could go with the person who wanted to continue using it. If we hadn’t agreed on that, we would have had to have sold all the equipment and divided the money. In our case, that would have been far more trouble than it was worth! (Computers, software and electronic equipment depreciates fast!) But if you have significant stock/equipment/holdings in your family business, it’s an important point to consider.

I’m not pushing the contract to be pessimistic. Poly marriages last about as long as monogamous ones. It’s just that the monogamous ones have a legal precedent and ways to cope with the physical aspects of a possible divorce. We don’t have that.

<grin> What I hope in my secret heart is that every year when a poly family goes to update the contract it’s done with a chuckle, a “remember when” and laughter at the fact it’s not needed.

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