The Polyamorous Misanthrope

Should you have a group marriage or multi-adult household?

No.

Surprised? Really, there’s no reason to be. I do not consider group living The Ideal Way to Live. Oh, yes, it can suit people and and there are many that love it, but that does not mean that I think for a second it would suggest that it is ideal for everyone. It isn’t.

Consider very carefully what it is you do want out of a relationship before you get started with this. For instance, you might decide, especially after careful consideration, that monogamy is the most fulfilling life path you can have. I am not anti-monogamy by any means. I am not in favor of monogamy being considered the only path, merely a path that might work well. One of the most respected members of a group marriage discussion group in which I participate is monogamous. He is deeply in love with his wife, does not want a romantic relationship with anyone else, but joined the list out of curiosity to see what we nutcases were up to. He knows in his heart that monogamy is the happiest and most fulfilling choice for him. What makes him unique is that he understands that while what makes him happiest is something society generally sanctions, it is not necessarily the One True Way.

When deciding if you want a group household, it’s probably a good idea to analyze why you want it.

So, what do you expect to get out of it?

Hot sex?

Reality check: Yes, the sex is nice. Don’t forget about real life! While people do have sex, they also have to wash dishes, take out the trash, rear children, do laundry, pay bills and earn a living. A group household will have just as much difficulty making time for each other as any married couple. Just like in a monogamous marriage, you’re going to get time alone with your love about as often as you can manage to make that time.

Unconditional love?

Reality check: Just because you live with someone, don’t expect it. Polyamorous households have about the same quality of love as monogamous marriages – it can range from wonderful to truly hideous.

Instant Support System?

Reality check: In a good poly household, yes, you’re going to have a somewhat wider “instant support system”. Depending on where you live and the attitude of the community to group marriage in general, though, you may be on your own outside of your household. This is not a way of life that people are used to. Many people disapprove of it pretty strongly. Many of these people will be your very own blood. Be prepared for that. You may wind up feeling a bit isolated. In fact, watch for this, because it can be a warning sign for other trouble. You know, one of the abuse warning signs: If you’re encouraged to drop most former associations, that’s a check mark about whether or not you’re in a terribly unhealthy relationship.

Okay, so you’ve decided this is really what you want.So how do you form such a relationship?

If you do not presently have a partner/spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, you’re cool. Go date polyamorous people. Get to know them. Laugh, have water balloon fights, go play Frisbee in the park with them, heckle bad movies together and have a good time. Relationships of various sorts may form, and chances are good you’ll at least make some close friends. While not all polyamorous people want group marriages, some do. You might meet some people who you love deeply and with whom you want to form a marriage.

Oh? How do you find polyamorous people? That’s easy. Go on the Internet, and join every discussion group you see even vaguely related to group relationships. Be sure to explain how good you are in bed and how your life is unfulfilling because you have so much love to give people. Make sure discussions revolve around sex. Use the expression Hot Bi Babe a lot. This is sure to attract polyamorous people. Be sure to point out to anyone who has a discussion on the list about anything other than sex that they not sex positive. (Not really! This won’t make you any friends at all. It’s just a reality that you do see this from time to time).

In reality, meeting people who are polyamorous, much less people interested in polyamorous group households, can be difficult. They don’t not wear signs, and many keep mighty quiet about our lives. Even more of us have been burned so many times by people that we get suspicious. If you do want to meet poly people, the Internet is a good resource to start with. There are hundreds of polyamorous discussion groups out there – many of the specific to local areas. There are regular conventions, camping events, and get togethers in most urban areas. Rural living is somewhat more problematic for this. But, among these people might be people who are also interested in forming a group household.

The problem here is that just because someone is looking to form a multi-adult household does not necessarily mean that this person is going to be compatible with you. It’s one interest out of thousands possible. Someone who was into Country music and did not like children, thought Renaissance Faires were for idiots who never got over playing dress-up, and was a member of Greenpeace would be about as poor a match as is possible for me. I do not care how hot looking or intelligent the person was, this Just Wouldn’t Work.

Compatibility does make forming a group household somewhat more difficult. Finding two people who are compatible enough to be together to form a marriage can be hard enough. Trying to add to that and you can find yourself in a nightmare. Patience is a good idea if you don’t want to have your life blow up in your face.

So, what kind of things do you look for when looking for people that would be good spice for a group household?

That’s a hard question, really. You do want team players. You want people who can approach something without an agenda. You want to make sure YOU don’t have an agenda, or are bogged down by expectations. You want love and I am NOT talking New Relationship Energy here. That newly in love feeling rocks, dunnit? It also melts your damned brain, and that’s a bad basis for deciding to form a household. Don’t do it. The stupid, it BURNS.

When you do form a multi-adult household, you do want a plan. You want to outline things in the most unromantic fashion possible. You want to outline finances, you wanna talk kids. You want to talk about household duties. I know we poly people love to just go with the flow and there’s no-one so easy to trust as someone you’ve just fallen in love with. That’s your biology and procreative urge speaking, and our technological society is pretty removed from rearing infants in the jungle and trying to save them from saber toothed tigers. Check it out with your present reality.

A good way to do this is to look at the situation. If someone came to YOU and said that they were about to do what you are doing, what would you say? If you would whack said person upside the head with a newspaper, rethink.

I hope I’m not being a downer here, but any relationship blow up can be nasty, and even if you’re entering into things with great caution, you can get burned. Even so, it’s a good idea to unhook your heart from your brain long enough to examine what you’re doing.

You might even find that this has created a lovely and fulfilling part of your whole life.

Delicious

Even though I’m not a parent in a group marriage any more, I still co-parent with my ex-spice.

On a trip to visit my family in Virginia, I was discussing child-rearing with my own parents and we were talking about the different experiences my kids had[1] as a result of being reared by four people. My parents asked what the kids did with the various parents and I told them of SCA events they’d be taken to, hikes they went on, museums they liked, and oh… anything you’d take a kid to do. My parents comment that the kids were lucky that all their parents were willing to share their diverse tastes with the kids.

In fact, I’m writing this on a train. The choice of the train trip was simply for fun – to give the children the experience of a long-distance train trip. I could have flown just about as easily and cheaply, but hey. Experiencing a range of travel is fun, right?

A poly family (even a divorced one), has an opportunity to enrich the lives of the children involved in wonderful ways. Because there are lots of people with different tastes, take that potential source of conflict and try to make it a strength. Abigail and Betty hate museums, but Carlos and David love them? Carlos and David can take the kids around to count dinosaur bones and enjoy the museum experience of the city boy while Abby and Betty plan for a nice camping trip that causes Carlos and David’s pavement-loving souls to shudder.

Thing is, it’s more than just taking the kids on outings[2]. It’s about who and what you are as a person and what you have to teach the child. Are you a musician? Is one of your spice an artist, a good cook or a skilled potter? Do you have a passion for creating geeky gadgetry, or gardening or… God the list goes on forever. What you love and have a passion about is often something you teach a child to give her new opportunities.

Anyone who has been in a large, extended family has experienced this. Like most things poly writers go on about, it’s not entirely poly-specific. Interested, involved adults who care about the children are good for the kids. The variety of experience a child can get from people who care deeply about them is a fantastic benefit to any child growing up.

Besides, for those of us who enjoy the company of kids… Well, it’s fun for us, too!

[2] But make no mistake, the outings are actually important, even if it’s a trip to the park.

Delicious

One of the issues that often arise in poly situations — especially in group living is who decides what gets done.

Sure, sure, a consensus model works. But have you ever gotten more than two people to happily agree on more than 50% of decisions? (The “happily” part is important in the long run. Just going along without being happy means that you’re gonna have some resentment along the line).

When the consensus model won’t work, there’s another option: The Designated Control Freak.

I found out about the whole concept of the DCF from a good friend of mine, and thought it was funny and cute and a nifty way to solve decision issues. I told my roommate about it, who also thought it was cute, so we jokingly implemented it.

It was at least six months before we internalized the awesome power of the system.

Here’s the way it works. When the person becomes the Designated Control Freak (DCF) the dialog will be in italics.

Albert: Let’s go out to eat.

Betty: Great! Where shall we go?

Carl: I don’t want to go to a vegetarian restaurant.

Albert: Okay, where are we going then?

Carl: Let’s go to the Outback Steak House.

Betty: No, I hate chain restaurants.

Carl: Okay, Betty, where are we going?

Betty: There’s the new Thai place.

<silent pause>

Betty: Okay, I’ll call them and see if they take reservations.

The way the one becomes the DCF is to express a dissenting opinion when trying to come to a decision. If you have a dissenting opinion, you become responsible for the outcome and have to solve the problem. (i.e. what restaurant to go to for an outing). If you have a strong opinion about where to go and speak up, it’s up to you to organize it. Notice that in the course of a few sentances, the DCF changed several times. It wasn’t an argument (and usually when you agree to the DCF system there won’t be).

If you speak up, if you express an opinion, you’re the DCF until someone else speaks up with a different solution.

You’d think it would be a way for people to railroad through their decisions. But it isn’t. Sometimes you recognize that what you really want is not to be the leader, and shut up. Sometimes you want something badly enough to take the reigns.

Part of the beauty of this system is that it is impossible to be a Puppeteer and try to be the Hindmost¹. If you have an opinion, you’re in charge.

This model reduces fights in a lot of areas. You have a specific way you want the bathroom cleaned? Then you’re the Bathroom DCF. Go for it. It gets cleaned your way. You think the trash has to be emptied before you have to tamp trash down in the kitchen garbage bin, huzzah! You’re the DCF and get to do it.

Does this mean a lazy person could slack in the house and never have to do anything because he never speaks up? In theory, I suppose it could. In practice, I’ve noticed that even the most housework-phobic and disorganized have their own tweaks and twitches for which they will become the DCF and not so lazy as all that.

The thing is, this model really also works well because no-one is willing to work that hard to get his way about everything when he’s responsible for the outcome. You’ll usually find that if someone is trying to bully to get their way on everything, they’re seeing the other person as their “hands” to accomplish what they want. Puppeteering, if you will. This removes the strings nicely.

¹For those of you who are not science fiction geeks, in the Ringworld series, there is a culture of creatures who lead from behind — their morality is more-or-less based on cowardice: the ruling class is known as they-who-lead-from-behind, and the supreme leader is called the Hindmost. Their leader is called the Hindmost.

Delicious

We talk about communication being important between polyamorous people all the time, and with good reason. It is important.

I got to thinking about ways to ensure good communication and came up with the following:

• Tell the truth

This seems really basic and you know, it isn’t. I’m not talking “Brutal Honesty” here. That’s usually more often an excuse for bullying than it is being genuinely honest. What I mean is that it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re first being honest with yourself, and knowing your motives, then being honest with the person you’re talking to. You can do this kindly.

When you’re communicating with a partner, make sure you’re letting him in on what you’re really thinking and feeling. Your partner has to have accurate information to work with. If you’re not comfortable telling your partner what you’re thinking or feeling, either you’ve got a problem being honest, or you’ve got a problem with your partner that goes a lot deeper than “communication”. A good way to know which it is is to check out how close you tend to play your cards to your chest with intimate friends. If you have a problem telling them the truth about what you’re thinking and feeling, too, take a look at your driver’s license. There will be a pic of the person at fault right there.

• If you have a choice, presume benevolent motives.

You and your partner(s) love each other, right? Of all the people in the world that want your good, surely this person or these people will be them. Sure, people can be thoughtless and hurt feelings, but you can say your feelings are hurt and give a person a chance to explain. “I statements” ¹ are great for this. If you say “I feel X”, you’re owning your own feelings without making the other person responsible for them. It’ll also give the person a chance to elaborate on what’s going on in his or her head, and you’ll have more information to work with. Sometimes you’ll get an “Oops, my bad” or “I didn’t mean X quite that way. Lemme ‘esplain”.

If your partner is actually out to get you (or at least if you have such a deep belief), chances are good you’ve got something more than communication going wrong. For the record, punishment doesn’t belong in any adult relationship outside of the fantasy of a BSDM scene, ‘kay?

• Avoid sarcasm.

I was discussing this article with a friend of mine and she wisely pointed out that the allure of sarcasm is rather like the allure of almost all humor. It’s about pain and the reaction to it. The thing is, while sarcasm may be a reaction to pain, far too often it is often an attempt to cause it as a punishment to someone for being wrong somehow². I don’t need to point out that good communication comes from benevolent motives. If you’re using sarcasm, maybe your motives aren’t as benevolent as all that and your partner(s) are right to feel as if they need to back off and defend themselves.

• Ask questions to try to understand. Then listen carefully to the answer!
  

When you don’t understand something, ask a question. Listen to the answer. It’s a simple, yet powerful technique. Far too often when people are talking, they’re just flapping their tongues. Don’t blow your partner off by asking a question and then wait to find something you can jump on to prove your point. Listen to what they’re saying.

These habits are relatively simple, yet very powerful in relationships. Though, like many good habits, do you practice them? Have you made it a priority to learn good communication skills?

If you haven’t, that’s okay. You really can change how you behave. Don’t expect people in your life to fall all over you accepting the change all at once, though. If you’ve made it a habit not to listen, to use a lot of sarcasm or presume malevolent motives, you may have to go through a trust building period — and I don’t mean just a couple of weeks here. People who’ve needed to protect themselves might be slow to open up. But just be patient and practice your good habits.

The results are really fun!
¹When used properly. I’ve seen some sneaky and passive aggressive uses of “i statements” that would curdle the blood of any person whose goal was actual communication.
²We who have the character flaw of being judgmental can be just awfully sarcastic!

Delicious