I met my secondary partner earlier this year and we took our time getting to know each other before we played, and agreed to start a play-partnership.

Then a few months ago she met a new primary, and I only found this out when she added a new relationship status up online.

As a result I haven’t seen her since August. She’s in the throes of NRE and has bailed (last minute) on every one of our 5 arranged dates since meeting him.

Well, one of my own rules for myself that a string of bailing means I stop initiating. (If I ever did initiate.  I tend to be bad about that and am trying to work on it so my partners get the message that they are valued.)

I’ve communicated that I want to see her, it’s been too long since our last meeting and that I miss her, which she reciprocates in words but not actions.

Okay, while I’m all into believing one’s partner, when one’s words and actions do not agree, believe the actions.  What are her actions saying?

Part of the annoyance is that she lies about her reasons for bailing, citing illness or lack of funds to see me yet managing to see him and go clubbing etc.

 

I feel like I am the only one doing the chasing, messaging her, arranging meets. I feel like I have communicated the desire to see her.

From what you’re saying, it looks like you are the one to take the initiative and that it’s not being reciprocated.  I’d say this is a good time to stop initiating and be done with it.

As far as the lying thing?  You could ask her to explain discrepancies between her words and actions if you want to.  I do say “ask” rather than “accuse” on purpose.  It is just possible you don’t have all the information.  Then again, she could be a lying flake, but if you value the relationship, I’d go with the assumption you don’t have all the info, first!

I don’t want to end the relationship, I really like her and I am happy for things to be very laid back and to only see her every few months if needs be. But I don’t want to be bailed on, and treated badly as I see it. I realise she loves her new partner, but I also think she needs to make time for our relationship too. Ultimately if she takes months to make some time for me I can only interpret that as a lack of feeling for me, and end the relationship.

I don’t know that I automatically would assign seeing someone irregularly to the “lack of feeling” category, but bailing several times in a row does indicate that maybe she’s just not that into you.  I mean, it sucks and it hurts, but it doesn’t look good to me.

You don’t have to make it all official and “end the relationship.” You can just stop initiating.  Now, if what you’re saying is that there are things that are deal-breakers for you, you do need to express that.   Bailing five times in a row in general would be for me —barring professions or activities that duty requires one to be “on call” frequently.  You know, like being an on-call medical/rescue professional, on-call tech support, or new parent.

Words of wisdom and advice on how to deal with this would be great. I do worry that because things are new with us and we haven’t done much poly negotiating, she won’t be prepared to discuss boundaries and stuff. She added this primary without even telling me until after the fact, which I also felt was a bit bad of her. Im at a loss really – I do like her but I feel hurt by her. I don’t have a deep emotional attachment to her at this point (luckily perhaps) but the way she is behaving is making me unhappy.

I actually do have a relationship with someone who I see quite infrequently.  He added a primary and did tell me about it after the fact.  Did it bother me?  No, actually, I thought it was cool that he fell in love.  Why?  We only see each other every few months and we’ve never explicitly negotiated anything about each others’ other relationships.  Of course he’s free to add a primary if he wants to!  And… well, he’d established a pattern not only of keeping me in the loop, but being quite willing to listen if I asked for something and to give a clear yes or no.  What I didn’t have was the baggage of getting bailed on or felt like I was being lied to.  That does make an enormous amount of difference.  I knew damn well he was (and is) interested in me about as much as usual.

Do I challenge her on her behaviour and explain that bailing on me all the time makes me feel unwanted? Do I leave her to it and see if she comes to me? How long do I leave it before I finish the relationship?

Certainly it is okay to say, “I don’t like being bailed on.”  Is that going to change her behavior?  Dunno.  You’re going to have to try that and see.  I wince a bit at the use of the word challenge, though.  Approaching a partner in an adversarial frame of mind has its drawbacks.  (Enemies and Allies discusses this.  It was written by a wise and wonderful friend of mine.)

I will say that since you don’t have a deep emotional attachment to this person, that in terms of a relaxed life, you might just want to let this go.

One of the things that I’m seeing a bit more in poly discussions is the importance of good partner selection.  I don’t mean that any worthy human being would make a good partner.  In fact, they wouldn’t and that’s exactly the point.  You’re a unique human being with unique needs and desires.  What’s good partner selection for you?  It sounds to me like this person isn’t a good match for you.   You might benefit from thinking about what qualities make a good partner for you and decide if this person has them.

I hope things work out for you!

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This guest column was written by Peter J. Vinton, Jr., aka The Prince.

It’s Just A Trifle

Lily innocuously asks a favor of you one day.  Say, a quick phone call asking you to pick up her friend Orlando in front of the hardware store, and then to drop him off at the grocery store, where he works.  Both stops are on the way to your work, so it won’t be any extra time or mileage out of your way.  She gives you a pickup time of 6:30.  This is perhaps ten minutes earlier than you normally pass by the hardware store, but you figure it’s no real problem and you agree.

The next day you swing by the hardware store at 6:30.  Orlando is there, along with his friend Shnerf who also works at the grocery store, and he asks if this individual can also ride along.  You don’t want to leave this person stranded and make him late for work, so you agree.  The ride is uneventful; both of these strangers are polite and cordial.  You drop off both Orlando and Shnerf at the grocery store, they express their thanks, and you’re on your way.

That evening you get a text (not a call) from Lily, asking if you wouldn’t mind showing up at the hardware store at 6:15 tomorrow.  You’re a little puzzled; you didn’t explicitly agree to more than one day, but Lily insists that you did.  Since you don’t have anything in writing (a text or an email), you’re not able to effectively argue the point.  The next morning you swing by the hardware store at 6:15 and sure enough, Orlando is waiting, but Shnerf is running a few minutes late.  After some delay, the three of you are on your way by 6:30 and you drop them off at the grocery store at the same time as yesterday.  Again, since you yourself aren’t being made to arrive late to work, it’s not really an issue.  Your day passes normally.  Nobody calls or texts you that evening and you figure this 2-day run of weirdness is over.

The next morning, you proceed to work at your normal time.  As you pass the hardware store at 6:40, Orlando and Shnerf are standing out in front, wildly waving and trying to get your attention.  They’re both upset and flustered because “you’re more than 25 minutes late.”  On the way Shnerf apologizes for being a bother, but that he needs to swing past the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for his mother.  This takes you a few streets (and about 10 minutes) out of your way.  You don’t want to make your passengers later for work than they already are, and you also don’t want to penalize Shnerf’s poor uninvolved mother, so you agree.  You drop off Orlando and Shnerf at the grocery store 15 minutes late for their shift.  As Orlando steps out of the car he asks if you can swing by the hardware store 15 minutes earlier tomorrow “to make up for the shortfall.”  Adding to the confusion is the fact that you now don’t know if he means 15 minutes earlier than yesterday, or 15 minutes earlier than the first day, when all this began.

See what’s started happening here?  Graphing things out from this point, it’s easy to envision that over time you’re somehow leaving your house earlier and earlier every morning, and yet at the same time arriving to work later and later.  An element of chaos has been injected into your life, and you wonder how it got this way.  Even more disconcerting, when you try to do a mental recap, you discover to your great discomfort that you can’t even pinpoint exactly when it started becoming this big of a hassle.  Worst of all, in the absence of any hard facts or clearly-communicated agreements or intentions, you start questioning your own memory, a worry which piles itself on top of all the other difficulties.

Everyone must accept some share of the blame here: 1) Lily for not decisively explaining the exact need; 2) Orlando for failing to give you a heads-up about a second rider; 3) Shnerf for just assuming you’ll accommodate him; and of course 4) the person pictured on your driver’s license for not putting your foot down at… well, at some point.  You’re not sure when.

Some Working Definitions

Gaslighting is an expression that refers to a deliberate act of psychological manipulation; while it doesn’t necessarily imply malevolent intent, it certainly lends itself to malevolence.  The term comes from the Patrick Hamilton play Gas Light, in which the character Jack uses a variety of tricks, including incrementally turning the gas lamps lower and lower over time, to convince his wife Bella that she is consistently misremembering facts and is therefore crazy.[1]  One example of gaslighting in literature is in Roald Dahl’s humorous story The Twits, in which every night the husband surreptitiously glues a penny-sized sliver of wood to his wife’s walking stick, making it appear to grow ever longer over time, to the effect of ultimately convincing his wife that she is in fact shrinking.   Another telling example of gaslighting in literature appears in Frank Tashlin’s The Bear That Wasn’t, in which an unsuspecting bear is consistently told by ever higher and higher-ranking individuals that he is not really a bear but
“a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat;” to the point where the bear himself begins insisting –to other bears– that he is in fact just “a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat.”  The 2005 film Flightplan revolves around a systematic attempt to convince Jodie Foster’s character that that she is entirely mistaken about her daughter’s disappearance, and the conflict between what she remembers versus what she is being told, drives her very nearly insane.  It might even be argued that the 2010 science-fiction film Inception represents a complex, drawn-out act of deliberate gaslighting; a team of professional swindlers manipulates the “mark” below three layers of subconscious, making him believe that a deliberately planted falsehood is in fact an idea he came up with entirely on his own.

Convincing a person that their memory is not in accord with the facts ultimately leads to a distorted view of reality and an inability to trust one’s own judgment.  The desired end result is usually to foster a sense of extreme dependence (often on the part of a spouse or significant other); that the victim desperately needs the gaslighter to help him/her remember facts correctly.  The abuser may, for example, move objects from their original locations and then insist that the victim in fact misplaced them.  The abuser may consistently deny ever having said a thing (that was in fact said), or may repeatedly insist that their victim did in fact a say a thing (that was in fact never said).  The victim eventually comes to believe the gaslighter’s definitions of “what really happened” and accept this false projection as truth.

Creeping concessions is an expression coined by The Polyamorous Misanthrope[2] and it refers to any situation in which a friend, romantic partner, or an employer (or even a government), incrementally expects more and more out of a person –a little extra time, a little more money, a little extra help, a teensy indulgence, a few more “other duties as assigned.” Since the requests for “something extra” never amount to much on their own merits (after all, what’s one more dollar or just five more minutes?), it might seem selfish or unreasonable to refuse.  Next thing you know, you’ve lost large amounts of money and/or huge chunks of time to something you’re pretty sure you didn’t explicitly agree.

Again it would appear that childrens’ literature may provide one of the best illustrative examples: the entire plot of Laura Numeroff’s If You Give A Mouse A Cookie may be safely said to be an ever-escalating string of creeping concessions.

Taken together, creeping concessions and gaslighting can be a formidable obstacle.  Both are very slippery to pin down, very hard to detect.  At a surface level, the gaslighters almost always come across as affable (even charming) and entirely reasonable.  By the same token, the creeping concession almost always begins as an entirely reasonable request; a trifle, certainly nothing worth worrying about.

Even the example given at the beginning of this essay is hard to decisively attribute to a deliberate act of gaslighting or a deliberate act of creeping concessions; indeed there may be no malevolent intent at all (not on Orlando or Shnerf’s part, and perhaps not even consciously on Lily’s part), yet events have still snowballed into something unmanageable.

Okay, I Get It, It’s Hard to Define.  So: How Do I Guard Against It?

Gaslighting and creeping concessions, particularly when taken together, can be especially brutal on relationships.  These twin forms of psychological abuse can destroy self-esteem, alienate, and lead to depression (potentially even suicide).  Both acts ultimately lead to a loss of control over one’s own perceptions and priorities.  Psychologically defined as forms of ambient abuse, they can be employed to trick the victim into staying in an abusive relationship (or employment situation), induce an ever-present sense of disorientation, or to erode the victim’s own confidence in themselves, to the point of even seeing themselves as the antagonist and their abuser as the one who must endure the suffering.

Perceptions aren’t easy to refute –after all, the truism “You see the world from where you sit” applies to everyone regardless of their station in life.  This includes people who are being systematically and deliberately lied to.  Whether you are a bear or just a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat, it is perception that drives everything else about you.

So how do we reconcile actual truth with what we are being told?

First and perhaps foremost, gut instincts often go a long way toward unraveling the gaslighter’s plans.  If your boss or your friend or your significant other seems to repeat phrases like “no, we talked about this already, don’t you remember?” a little too often, this might well be a warning sign –particularly if the “don’t you remember?” applies to your own preferences (i.e., what you like versus what you dislike) more so than actual events –when your memory is openly challenged, doubted, or outright refuted, it is time to pay attention.

While nobody’s gut instinct is infallible, there’s a lot to be said for following a hunch.  Your intuition is there for a reason –make a habit of listening to it.[3]  Admittedly sometimes it may be in error, just as surely as your other five senses might occasionally misidentify a smell or a taste or a sound, but the simple fact is: they’re not usually wrong.  Neither is your intuition.

Second, write that stuff down.

No, seriously. Write that stuff down

Lily may or may not have been the instigator in the opening scenario, but she certainly didn’t help matters by asking the original favor over the phone and not via text or by e-mail.  Whether it’s just jotting a quick reminder in a calendar or archiving every email ever sent or received, a little documentation goes a long way towards establishing where perceptions diverged from reality.[4]  Pay particular attention if the individual is actively discouraging you from making any kind of written record (i.e., “Oh, you can remember that.  You don’t need to write that down.”)  Again, the direct challenge to your memory could be a sign of something deeper.  Ignore the slight and write it down anyway.

Finally, how’s your personal account balance?  Not just your bank account, but your own personal time bank?  Does it seem to be diminishing, and not just for the usual reasons (you’re a parent, you devote a lot of time to a particular hobby or enthusiasm, you work a lot of hours)?  Does it ever seem as though, far from being able to plan things out in any kind of long-term, that you’re instead hopping from one emergency to the next, and that there’s never quite enough time to satisfactorily resolve Problem No. 81 before Problem No. 82 crash-lands on you? Does it feel as though there’s a consistent pattern of never-quite-resolved turmoil, and that brief moments of relative calm are just that: brief?  A state of constant crisis is not healthy, be it a friendship, a romantic relationship, a term of employment, or a government in relation to its own citizens.  Conduct periodic audits of your time bank (and be just as ruthless about it as an IRS agent).  There could well be some creeping concessions lurking just out of view; somewhere back in the fogginess of your own memory, the mouse may have demanded more than just a cookie. Repeated patterns of sleep deprivation and never-ending financial shortfalls could conceivably also serve as a heads-up. [5]  Again, see what your gut instinct has to say about it.

Your memory is one of the very few possessions that you get to keep with you for your entire lifetime, and anything that threatens its integrity is by definition paralyzingly fearful.  People far wiser than I have generated a great deal of informative literature on the dual subjects of gaslighting and creeping concessions, and I would recommend them heartily, starting with the various footnotes in this essay.  They are excellent building blocks and I sincerely hope the knowledge contained in them might offer some hope to anyone who might find themselves at the wrong end of this kind of ambient abuse.

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I wanted to message you (as I’m sure most people who message you do) about a poly/open relationship I’m in. As for the background, I’ve been separated for about 11 months and have been seeing someone for the last two and a half. He is also divorced and on the third night that he stayed over, I told him that I was not interested in an exclusive relationship. He said he felt the same and we agreed on condoms with others. I told him I wanted to know what was going on with him and that I was potentially interested in meeting, hanging out with or even being involved with other women he dated. He said he wasn’t sure what he wanted regarding my dalliances, so we agreed to play it by ear. First time try at poly/open for both of us.

Recently, he went on a dinner date with another woman without telling me. He later texted me what happened after he went AWOL and I didn’t anticipate how insecure I would feel after finding out. I decided, though, that I wanted to be open because I wanted to know that our time spent together was because we *wanted* to be together, and not because exclusivity made each of us our only options.

But then he brought his “date” to a party that he had invited me to. He didn’t tell me she was coming and when I arrived she was clinging to him in that tell-tale way that women in the early stages of an exclusive relationship do.

I would like to say that I flipped out, but instead I bit my tongue and ignored the two of them until such time as it was no longer socially awkward to leave. And then I cried my eyes out.

I know that part of my hurt was because I got blindsided. I also felt betrayed because I was honest with him about my intentions, and I was honest with my secondary about my intentions, but because he was not honest with his date about *me,* I suddenly felt like a mistress or a dog eating the leftover scraps.

In all your entries (well, the ones I’ve read at least), I’ve never read your stance on information sharing and honesty with the “others.” Why is it that when I imagine him with other women, I see myself meeting them, laughing, chatting about our time with him, and just generally getting along and being friends, but now that I see it actually happening, the very fact that I know what’s going on and she doesn’t just boils my insides?

I updated our contract and told him that my new conditions were that he be honest with the women he sees as well. I told him I’m out if he doesn’t. Is this unreasonable? Uncommon?

Thanks for being out there!

I think that asking your partner to explain why he didn’t want to give you what you asked for in terms of disclosure specifics would be an excellent start. Note the way I phrased that: “ask your partner”. Be open to an explanation rather than make an accusation. However, if I’d outlined something that specifically and had gotten a yes to the request (I’m presuming you got on here. Did you?) I would feel pretty insecure, myself. Habits of evasiveness or concealment can come from a lot of places and many of them aren’t necessarily teh ebbil, but they’re not very trust-building. This is a bit of rules-lawyering, but if you didn’t specifically say, “I want to know about dates before they happen” then he can very legitimately point out that he did volunteer the information about the date to you.

The party incident? That was pretty insensitive, if nothing else. Asking your partner if he’d explain the choice not to tell you that his other romantic interest was going to be there would be a good way to open some communication. Again, ask. While I’m having a hard time thinking of a good reason he would have neglected to convey the information, there are people in this world who are emotionally clueless on occasion, and direct and explicit dialog about what you want can be a real help here.

I have no idea in the world why you say you would have preferred to flip out about the zinger you got at the party. I think it’s perfectly okay not to make a scene at a party and wait until a more appropriate time to display/discuss your feelings. Wait, go cry one’s eyes out, then get a bit of equilibrium and talk about what you want strikes me as a good way to handle intense emotions. By the way, calmly stating, “I felt hurt” is expressing the emotion, too, as well as giving some information. We’re presuming the man cares whether or not you’re hurt so saying how you feel is a good idea. It’s not necessarily a command to him to make it all better, mind, but information is good.

I also think that not wanting to be a dirty little secret is a pretty common desire among poly people. It is not unreasonable or uncommon for this to be a pretty hard boundary with many polys. I would say that among the poly people I know, it’s more common than not. That’s the way I like to do things, myself. If you think about it, not telling someone something that they would end the relationship if they knew means that you’re coercing the person to have a relationship with you. I’m into freely-chosen relationships, myself.

I hope this works out for you.

Addendum:  Now that I’ve made this blanket statement about whether or not it’s common to agree to be someone’s secret, I gotta ask you that have been poly awhile, would you be someone’s secret?  Never.  Sometimes?  Under what conditions?

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I talk a great deal about setting boundaries and expressing preferences, and sometimes have struggled to differentiate this between being controlling and giving orders.

I was less than perfect about this this morning, and realized while the incident was trivial, the example was beautifully illustrative.  As my sobriquet might suggest, I am fond of coffee.  First thing I do every morning is downstairs and grab a cup of this sublime elixir.

The Prince tends to be the one to set up the coffee pot the night before.  We have a coffee maker with a timer, so most days the timer is set to go off when people expect to be getting up the next day.  Waking to coffee is a wonderful thing.

Usually.

This morning, being a Saturday, we got up later, and yes coffee happened.  The Prince was already improving his mind,[1] so being a Dutiful Wife, I brought him a cup when I got my own.

I settled down to Important Business[2] and enjoy my coffee when I took a sip and—

“Ewww.  Honey is this flavored coffee?” says I in horrified tones.

Not catching my abject horror at the sacrilege to the purity of the libation, he said proudly, “Yeah, I put just a pinch of the blueberry coffee in with the regular stuff.[3]”

“Flavored coffee is why we have cup-top brewers,” I sighed.

So, mah poly children, can you catch Mama Java’s boundary-setting and preference-establishing mistake?  ‘Cause I made one.[4]

[1] Actually, he was noodling on Reddit and reading Cracked pseudo-scientific articles, but let’s not be small-minded.

[2] Well, figuring out how to explain on a PolyFamilies thread why squirrels were really nasty, destructive tree-rats.

[3] Espresso roast brewed drip style.

[4] Though trivial and I caught myself.

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Dear Polyamorous Misanthrope,

I recently started a relationship with a person who has never been poly before. We’ve been dating for a little over a month and things have gotten really emotionally intimate, really fast. It’s wonderful and we’re both really happy being with each other. The complicated part for him is that I’m very poly. I have long-standing primary and secondary relationships.

The take home point here is that he’s not going to be my primary and if he wants a primary he’s going to have to keep dating other people and find one (hopefully someone ok with him still seeing me, but I don’t want to be selfish about this point). When we first started dating I met some of his non-poly friends and it wasn’t a big deal. He introduced me as a friend, we kept the PDAs minimal, and if they assumed anything they assumed we were casually dating.

But now that intense emotions are involved he’s starting to wonder what, if anything, he should tell his friends. He’s afraid to come out, afraid they’ll judge, but he really cares about me and is considering biting the bullet if being in the closet is likely to harm our relationship. My general rule for my non-primary relationships is that I don’t introduce them to or introduce them as platonic friends to people I’m not out to as poly (I’m out to my close friends, but not out at work, and not out to family). Trouble is with him that ship has sailed.

I feel weird about the idea of having to lie to people about our relationship. Not saying is one thing, but if they ask??? At the same time I don’t want to push him into making any major life changes just because I’m this big, bright, shiny new person in his life. Got any advice?

Signed,

Cramping His Mono Style

While it is many people’s strong preference to have relationships acknowledged socially, sometimes it’s awkward.  Our society does have a monogamous paradigm with perceived rights and obligations towards couples as a unit.  This can make things kind of weird.  When I lived in a group marriage, I preferred that my spice be acknowledged as exactly that.  In retrospect?  I think I was expecting the world to conform to me, rather than just moving through the world on my own terms and not trying to mold other people.

I’m not sure, though, that I understand.  Is your boyfriend asking you to lie about your relationship, or does he just not want to bring it up?  I do tend to tell the truth when asked a direct question — sometimes with a note of horrified surprise if I feel it is too direct or intrusive.

A friend of mine tends to introduce his friends and lovers by name only.  He doesn’t use relationship titles.  If someone wants to get nosy about it, it’s on the other person.  I rather like this approach as it works from a presumption of personal privacy about things that don’t matter.  The idea that we’d treat someone differently that we’ve been introduced to because those friends’ binkies have touched is really weird, when you give it some thought.  After all, what other people do privately between themselves is hardly our business nor does it affect us.

Of course, the real point is that couples are often treated as units with certain socially-perceived rights and privileges simply because that couple is an acknowledged unit.   My thought is that if you’re poly, you might want to re-think that convention as you’ve rethought many others.  I don’t have a full answer on how to handle it, because it’s an individual thing.  For the record, I’m married, but don’t tend to do all the proper social “married couple” things.  The Prince and I have worked out what works for us and it’s hardly conventional, but hey, that’s par for the course for poly people.  There are people who know The Prince and his girlfriend and have socialized with them, but not me.  I expect they’d be a bit surprised to know he has a wife.  Shoot, even people who have socialized with all of us might very well think that The Prince and I are divorced but on good terms.[1] We choose not to volunteer, though if directly asked, we tell the truth.

We’re rarely asked.

Not giving full disclosure about your relationship to your partners would be deception, yes.  They expect that information.[2] I’m not sure in a social context that you owe anyone a detailed explanation of the exact nature of the relationship.  If people are that close to you, they can ask, I would think.  If they’re not that close, they’re just being nosy.

Miss Manners, of all people, actually has encouraged the same thing… twice.  She’s amazingly tactful about the concept of polyamory and other socially non-mainstream issues.  She’s my hero and if I ever grow up, I hope I show that level of grace.

[2] I’m assuming… Maybe you don’t have such an agreement, and that’s okay, too.  But many poly people do

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A New Reader Asks:

I have been seeing a guy,living and working with him for about 4 months. He introduced me to the idea of polyamory. I had honestly never heard of it, but the more I learned the more I wanted of it. Secretly I had been bisexual and interested in women for some time, and finally I met a guy that wasn’t just interested in having a threesome, not jealous of my relationships with my girl friends, but promoted it. I was in awe. Now suddenly something has changed. Since finding this love inside of me, I have felt insanely happy, giving, loving, and learning more about plolyamory and yoga each day. We run a yoga center with two of my old roommates (how i met him), doing massage, etc.

The thing is this, we have had some good times with girls we’ve met, and some good times with friends of mine, and it all goes cool. About 2 weeks before he met me he was seeing another girl, and then me and we are on a much deeper level with one another, and see eye to eye on many things. Not that it really matters, this guy loves everyone and I know thats the way it should be. The thing is, this girl wants nothing to do with me. She isn’t interested in group sex and it really makes me feel left out and alone when she is around. He has agreed to not be with her alone, but this girl won’t even hug me for a picture. What to do? When she’s around he completely drops me, doesn’t even pay attention to me at all, rarely talks to me. It’s like I’m put on the back burner. When I ask why I’m being treated as if I don’t exist, or I’m just the back up babe, he tells me it’s my fault for not involving myself, but I try…I just know this girl doesn’t want anything. He has told me int he past that she says, lets get alone and we’ll do anything you want together. I mean, what the hell!! I live with him, can she not respect that and try to include me? This morning we were all in bed together and he asked how we both slept, we both said fine. Then they started talking to eachother in spanish, I’m in Panama if I didn’t mention that and am still trying to learn spanish. They continued for a very long time and the next thing I knew, I realized no one was talking to me at all. Instead of trying to butt in their conversation and be rude, I just got up and left. I find myself crying and unhappy and I just feel like I want out. I don’t know how to handle myself,but how can this be? I believe all that he has taught me, yet he seems to act like a different person when she is around. He says she needs more attention than me because I’m stronger, yet I am the one here crying. Please help Goddess of Java, give me some helpful advice.

Okay, first of all, just because you’re poly doesn’t necessarily mean that all loves will sleep with all other loves. The woman you’re discussing doesn’t owe you physical contact just because she’s sleeping with your boyfriend. If the girl isn’t into group sex, she isn’t. Not every polyamorous person is, I assure you.  I wouldn’t be very pleased with anyone who felt I owed them hugs and would be pretty unlikely to have much incentive to cultivate their acquaintance, much less a friendship.

Since you’re trying to learn the language, I don’t think it’s inappropriate to ask for the occasional translation when you don’t understand it when they’re speaking Spanish.  Since you live in a Spanish-speaking country, I can’t imagine they’d be foolish enough to think they were speaking in a private code in front of you (which would be pretty rude).   Learning a language is pretty intense, but if they’re bilingual, they know that.   It might be that they think they’re including you and don’t realize how much you’re feeling confused and left out.

I do sometimes discuss letters with partners, and mentioned this one to The Prince.   He frowned and said that the idea that your boyfriend has tried to turn this around and put it all on you doesn’t have him feeling very confident about how well the two of you are communicating.

He’s right, as it happens.  Relationship problems just aren’t on one person, any more than wonderful relationship interactions are.   While it’s certainly possible you’re holding yourself aloof (and God knows that North Americans can seem damn emotionally reserved in the face of some Latin American cultures), it is also possible there’s an expectation that you should be “convenient”.

I suspect that there’s some cross-purposes are going on here, and something that might help is to think clearly about what it is that you want.  I don’t mean the band-aids that you think will make you feel better (i.e. your boyfriend never being alone with another woman), but what it is you really want.  Maybe it’s more focus when you’re together.  Maybe it’s clearer communication.  Maybe it’s a backrub.  (Hey, wants aren’t always complex!)  But do think hard.  Because in good relationships, you’re totally responsible for figuring out what it is what you want, and then communicating that.

Here’s the scary part.  Sometimes, when you ask, you don’t get a “yes”.   Getting a no sucks.   The thing is, sometimes it’s something you can suck up, and sometimes it’s something you can’t.

Sane polyamory is damned near impossible without a certain degree of not only self-knowledge, but a deep understanding of what’s acceptable to you and what is not.

Probably the best thing for you at this point is to find a way to think uninterrupted about what it is you really want out of life and a relationship so that you can ask for that.  What are your dreams?  Your goals?  Things you love to have happen?  What are your dealbreakers?  When you know all of that, you’ll be in a better position to know where you want to go with this.

Good luck!

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There’s a popular situation in sitcoms and romantic comedies.  There’ll be this couple — one of them[1] being presented as having their life a bit out of order.  The couple sleeps together, and then the more together partner starts getting the other person’s life in order for them.

I’ve never been too happy with this one.  The implication is that sleeping with someone means you’ve rights over them.  I don’t care if you’re monogamous or polyamorous, this one is obnoxious!

Just because you’re sleeping with someone doesn’t mean you can:

1. Try to become their band manager.

When I speak of trying to become their band manager, I mean that as a kind of blanket euphemism for trying to manage any point in their professional lives.  It’s just that the classic example of this is the girl starting to date a musician and then wanting to manage the guy’s band.

Yes, when you get into relationships, you do want to entwine your lives.  I get that.  But wait to be asked.

2. Manage old, long-term relationships for them.

This part may seem poly-specific, but it’s not.  For monogamous examples, think of dating someone and then trying to help them manage their relationships with their parents – either trying to reconcile or defending the person against them.

In polyamorous situations, for goodness sakes, don’t try to help someone with his problems with long-term relationships!  I’m not encouraging you to be heartless, but if you haven’t known someone for more than five years, chances are slim that you have the whole picture.  If you’re dealing with new and shiny, you can’t possibly have all the facts to give good enough advice.

3. Get them to make a Life Change.

It’s one thing to want someone you love to Be All That They Can Be.  It’s quite another to immediately start encouraging them to go back to school, make a career change, blah, blah, blah.  This is especially true when you start offering to help with applications, business forms or whatever.  Don’t.  Just don’t.  It’s fine to listen and find out what the other person wants, but sleeping with them doesn’t give you a right to manage that sort of thing for them.

I get that you might think they’re in a Relationship That’s Bad for Them.  Might even be true.  Even so, wait to be asked.  Seriously.

When you are in a relationship, you have these rights:

1. You may ask for what you want.

No, you don’t get rights over another person’s time.  You do get to ask for what you want, and in fact if you want a good relationship, you’ll do exactly that.

2. You may set boundaries.

I’m not going to go into a big lecture about boundaries.  A lot of my columns talk about them.  Click here for a series.  The basic takeaway is that a boundary is about what behavior you’ll accept to be in a relationship.  But, it doesn’t tell the other person how to behave.  Yes, that’s subtle, and I spend thousands of words analyzing the difference in other columns.

The point here is that I think that translating some very, very wrong monogamous norms into polyamorous situations really has the potential for a lot of wacky hijinks that might be fun to watch on a comedy of errors.

But, dear oh Lord, you wouldn’t wanna live ‘em.

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Polyamory is about love and intimacy, right?  So poly people are the lovingest, mostest intimate cuddlemuffins out there.  If you find someone wants to keep the slightest bit of themselves to themselves, they’re not really poly.  People that need space cannot possibly be polyamorous.  They’re sneaky monsters with an agenda to torture the poor loving cuddlemuffins.

Okay, I can’t go on with this without laughing so hard I burn my sinuses with hot coffee.

Love certainly does have an intimate component.  You’re not going to be able to have a loving relationship without a strong degree of intimate communication and interaction.  Cranky misanthrope I might be, but even I know you can’t love in a box.  It’s a two-way street, and you really do have to open yourself up to give and receive love.  But sometimes you’ll object to a behavior only to hear, “But I thought we were poly!”

The problem comes in when people confuse loving intimacy with stomping on personal boundaries.   Intimacy is closeness, but look out for some warning signs that say that what you’re experiencing is a boundary violation rather than intimacy:

• Emotional Blackmail

Emotional blackmail is use of negative emotions, especially guilt, to control behavior.

You probably won’t notice it the first time you experience it.

You’ll be approached, possibly hesitantly, and your love will say that something you did or didn’t do hurt.  You’ll feel bad and try to correct your behavior.  Now, ya know, in good relationships, sometimes you do screw up.  It happens!  You get called on it, and will get an explanation about how to avoid it in the future.  That’s not emotional blackmail.  That’s human.  Don’t chalk every single time someone doesn’t like your behavior up to emotional blackmail.  We’re none of us perfect.

It’ll be the second or third time within a relatively short period when you notice that it’s emotional blackmail.  You’ll experience strong attempts to make you feel guilty.  They might even work, if you don’t have a clear vision of good boundaries in place.

Luckily, you are in control of this.  Take the time to make sure you have a good sense of what you’re okay with, how you want to behave and the person you want to be.  When you’re solid and grounded in yourself and your own sense of who you want to be, it’s a lot harder to use guilt to manipulate you.

• Creeping Concessions

You know old canard that if you put a frog in a pan of cool water, then gradually heat it, the frog will not notice when the temperature rises to a dangerous degree and will boil to death?

While the literal story is false, the moral of the story has a point.  You can agree to one small concession, right?  That’s okay.  Now if that small concession is treated as a precedent rather than a single exception,[1] someone who is ignoring boundaries is likely to ask for another oh, so small concession that’ll become a precedent, until you’ve found you conceded way the devil more than you ever intended.

You can’t blame this one on the other person, though.  You’re responsible for your own boundaries.  You’re in control of this one.  If you give a concession, be clear whether it’s a precedent or a one-time deal!  You’re responsible for communicating your intention, so you can handle this pretty easily when you get into the habit.

• Confusing intimacy with intrusiveness

Intimacy is voluntary.  Intrusiveness involves a demand, sometimes combined with emotional blackmail.  You get to decide what you’re okay with sharing or not.  The other person doesn’t.  Sure certain sorts of info can be dealbreakers,[2] but the person who owns the info is the person who gets to make the final call on this.

Do you get frequent calls at work?  Do you find when you are not in the person’s physical presence that you get contacted more than you want?  If you’re on vacation, are you called more often than you’d like, interrupting your free time[3]?

If you object to these things, do you get a tearful reproach about love and poly?  Remember, even poly people are allowed to set boundaries about how they want to spend their time.

• Attempts to tell you how you are allowed to live

If you’re poly, ever had a new love tell you that you needed to change how you associate with an old love?  Big time boundary violation.   There are many others to choose from, but keep in mind that just because you have a romantic relationship with someone doesn’t mean you’re allowed to tell them what to do[4].

Good relationships require good boundaries, no matter what the relationship form.   Far from separating loves from each other, a respect for a person’s individuality and free choice is a wonderful way to promote loving relationships –even with yourself.   You’ll find that a careful respect of the other person’s free choice causes you to treasure the unique individuality of that person, allowing for even greater opportunities for love.

[2] Not wishing to share STD history leaps to mind.

[3] Notice the “more than you want to” caveat.  You wanna spend your life on the phone with a love who isn’t physically present, enjoy.  Free choice and all.  This is about what you WANT.

[4] As an aside and slightly off topic, I’ve often found it amusing and confusing that sleeping with someone is perceived in our culture as granting the other person rights over you.  You see it in sitcoms, where once a girl is sleeping with her love, she gets to “straighten him out” and reorder his life.  The plot usually presents this as a good thing.  I think it stinks.

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I mentioned in last week’s column that there are legitimate reasons why one might want to keep one’s romantic life quite private.   A poly person in the military or any other profession where witchhunts for sexual deviance are likely is probably either gonna want to change careers and be out or keep her mouth shut about it.

I have stated before that I think it’s safer for the poly family to make sure they live somewhere where nothing they’re doing is illegal and to be “out”¹.  I stand by that.  Notice, I say that I think it’s safer.  Not more moral.  Not more noble.  Not “better”.  I personally think that transparency is safer in the long run.

But, ya know, that’s easy for me to say.  It really is.  My financial status is enhanced by being a weirdo and being quirky.  I have no exes who would care to try to draw me into a lawsuit or custody battle.  I’m not important enough to “go after”. I’ve made some very specific and solid choices in my life to ensure that this is so.  Now, if we have A Handmaid’s Tale style government takeover, I will be considerably less safe and I know it. But given our present circumstances, I’ve made choices that make it pretty safe for me to be a weirdo publicly.

Those choices aren’t noble.  I think that’s really what I want to get across.  They’re just choices with a price just like any other choice people make.  Other people might choose not to be out about poly. Those choices are just as valid and no less noble that one’s choice to be out.

I remember many years ago there was a big discussion on one of the larger internet polyamory discussion groups where people who found being “out” valuable were commenting with some self-pride that they could never date someone who wasn’t “out”.  Know what?  I’d be unlikely to, as well.  That doesn’t make me a better person.  It was the undercurrent of virtue that got to me at the time, the idea that one might have compelling reasons not to be out was an inferior way to live.  That it was somehow hypocritical.  I don’t think it’s necessarily hypocritical to keep quiet about one’s love life.

Now, if you make a career out of chasing down and punishing alternative lifestylers, but you, yourself are a practitioner, I’ve neither sympathy nor mercy towards you.  If you’re participating in punishing people for being poly and you’re poly yourself, and if I find out about it, I won’t keep my mouth shut.

But that’s not what I’m talking about when I say that choosing not to be out can be a very valid choice.

I’m talking about the elementary school teacher, the people that don’t want to sacrifice other parts of their lives that they value to be poly.  I’m talking about people who don’t want to be activists.  You don’t owe the world activism.   I don’t flatter myself that I’m sticking my neck out for you.  ‘Cause frankly, my neck is in no damn danger and I lack the necessary arrogance to give myself airs that it is.  You people who are activists, don’t be trying to put the claim on the people you’re ostensibly trying to serve, either!

You own you, each of you, and you own your choices.  Don’t let anyone try to guilt you into doing something different.

If you’re on the fence, though, about whether or not to be out, examine it.  Why do you want to?  What do you hope to gain?  What might you lose?  Face up to it and make your own choice.  Then you can feel good about what you’ve done because you’ve made the choice with your eyes wide open.  I made the choice to be out mostly ’cause I’m chicken.  I felt like being transparent was safer for me. But you might not feel that’s the best way for you and your relationships to go.

My father used to tell me “There’s a price for everything.”   It’s true.  In or out, there is a price attached.  The important thing is to think clearly, don’t evade the fact that no matter what you choose, you’re gonna have that price attached and do it with a clear understanding.  When you do that, you will face up to the ups and downs of being poly a lot better.

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One of the big things that often becomes a serious Talking Point in polyamorous relationships is the nature and detail of personal and emotional disclosure — most specifically, disclosure of actions/feelings between your, your loves and your loves’ loves.

This is an area where people often make assumptions that wind up biting them in the butt later. You’ll think that of course your love is going to volunteer comments about romantic feelings she may be having for someone else, and she’s thinking that she doesn’t need to bring it up until she’s contemplating physical action. You feel hurt, she feels intruded upon and WHAM! you’ve got yourself a Relationship Situation.

Allow me to offer an end-run around this nonsense.

A lot of times, though, when you start examining your desires for disclosure, you’ll find a pattern. What you’re really looking for is self-protection – be it from an STD, being abandoned, being surprised out of nowhere with an emotional shock. Not all self-protection in a relationship is bad, but make sure you’re owning your own responsibility for yourself, your wants, your emotions and your needs before you start asking for stuff.

Be specific with what you want. For the love of Anoia[1], please don’t say, “Of course I want full disclosure!” and leave it at that. It’s non-specific, and way the hell too open to interpretation, confusion and irritation. Since we love our partners and the goal is communication rather than brow-beating, give ‘em an easy chance to understand what it is you really want in terms of disclosure.

Ferinstance:

• I want to be told if you or one of your partners gets an STD.[2]
• Please tell me if you’re having sex with someone new. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m defining “sex” as “intent for someone involved to have an orgasm.”
• If you’re considering sleeping with someone new, I’d like to know about it before it happens.

Yes, the last two reflect somewhat different approaches to the way multiple relationships can be handled. It’ll depend very much on what you and your partner(s) mutually agree upon.

There are dozens of others, but we don’t have to get into detail. The point is, what do you want to be told? Think about it carefully, and then ask for that. Sure, you might realize that you didn’t completely envision the ramifications of exactly what you asked for and need to refine. And yes, of course you can ask for something different at a later time. But as a Real Grownup, you are responsible for stepping up to the plate and admitting that your self-knowledge was incomplete and that’s your own problem.

You won’t always be told yes. That might be a dealbreaker. If I had a partner who said, “I want to know about every person about whom you’ve had a sexual fantasy,” chances are good I’d decline. There’s no real way I could honestly commit to doing that. I might have a fantasy I forget about an hour later, ya know? That could be a deal-breaker in some relationships. It’s better to get that out on the table immediately so no-one’s time is wasted.

Does this require self-knowledge? You betcha. In fact, successful relationships in general do. Will you make mistakes and ask for what you thought you wanted in terms of disclosure only to find that’s not quite right? Oh very yes! Welcome to the Human Club.

[2] I choose only to take it to that level. I’m not the CDC here and feel that tracking down three or four levels is not worth my time. You might feel differently and that’s your call.

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