as someone who has re-negotiated a marriage from monogamy to polyamory, the many, many concepts, behaviors, and advice applicable in monogamy carried over into polyamory, and issues that were supposedly poly-specific have been useful in my marriage, parenting, employment.

i want to really hear my loves, my kids, my managers, my co-workers, my friends and relatives. i want to say what i mean and mean what i say, and be receptive to input, and identify whether i’m reacting to an emotion or to an actual behavior, or some combination. in each type of relationship, i want my feelings to be a catalyst for self-introspection and possibly change; not a catalyst for lashing out or other drama. i want to behave kindly and effectively with each set of people and dyads that i am part of.

the polyamorous aspect of my life is very, very important to me. otherwise, i would not have risked everything to re-negotiate a happy 12 year monogamous marriage.

but when i think about the polyamory aspect of my life, it’s like this john muir quote: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

for me, the good advice on this blog spills over to be useful just about everywhere! thank you!

Even things that seem poly-specific at first, for instance dealing with “caught in the middle between your two partners” situations, occur fairly frequently with other sorts of relationships, for instance a friend feeling caught in the middle between two friends.