The Polyamorous Misanthrope

Relationships can be good and fulfilling things — no doubt about it. They can bring joy, help and mutual comfort to all involved.

However, there is a problem. People are people.

Sometimes they’re just fine people.

Sometimes they’re rescuers.

Sometimes they’re users.

I’m aiming this article mostly at the rescuer. You know who you are. People have said things like, “Yeah, Mary? She takes in stray dogs from time to time.” Your sofa often has someone sleeping on it. You’ve carted people around to look for jobs. You might even have the number to the local women’s shelter memorized.

Now none of this is bad.

None of it is bad. I’m all in favor of being helpful, being charitable and helping people who are in trouble – if you’re maintaining proper boundaries.

The problem comes when you mix it with a romantic relationship. This is not poly specific, mind, but boy oh boy, when you find that elusive hot bi babe, you can get real blind real fast to a lot of stuff. If you are that single hot bi babe, you can make a racket out of it if you want to. So can anyone else, mind. People do the most astonishing things when they’re in love, and the feeling of falling in love is cause for a lot of people to ignore sane boundaries.

So, what are the warning signs you’re being used?

• Habitually working all day and coming home to a messy house when your partner does not have another job.

Obviously there are times when someone Just Can’t Get to the Housework. Kids break arms, cars break down, toddlers can get into things you thought were out of reach and strew them across the house in seconds… Stuff Just Happens. I’m talking about the norm.

I’m not saying that if you’re a breadwinner you have a right to expect a house that would pass a white glove inspection, including the person having picked up the trail of clutter you leave throughout the house, h’ors d’oeuvres and a martini waiting and the smell of a gourmet meal wafting through the house. In fact if you get it, you’re being bloody well spoiled rotten and I hope like hell it’s not you that is doing the using. What I am saying is that you have a right to expect that there be no more dirty laundry in the house than the laundry baskets can contain, a few dinners a week have been cooked, some shopping done, and a basic level of cleanliness maintained.

Now honestly, do I think that the stay at home person is automatically a user? Fuck no! I was a housewife for nearly 11 years. I was a full-time employee with a housewife at home for somewhere around four years. I would love a housewife at home even now. My personal choice would be that if I were in a household where the was a full-time homemaker at home that there would be a fairly clear job description and the person would get a stipend (each member of the household having his own personal money is also a strong preference!) Keeps things clear and there wouldn’t be any feelings of “loss of rights” or “say” in what goes on in the household.

So no, housewife is not equivalent to user. What I am saying is that if someone is not working (home businesses count as work), if he’s spending all day playing on his X-Box and there are pizza boxes everywhere, maybe you want to look into whether or not there’s a problem.

• Much of your financial resources going into fixing emergencies for the person

Now financial emergencies do happen. That’s okay. It’s okay to help out, too. But there’s a limit. If the person is consistently in financial turmoil and is not clearly doing something about it, that should be a big ole red flag, as is a lack of control about the difference between wants and necessities. If you have a partner who gets his car repossessed, but immediately upon having that happen, cuts his cards, goes into debt counseling and gets a second job, you’re more likely to have someone on your hands who really is trying to take responsibility for his life.

• Inequitable agreements

The partner wants veto power over your relationships but will not tolerate the reverse. If you’re getting a lot of “special exceptions” to the “official agreement” pay attention to those exceptions, because that’s the reality of what you’re agreeing to, no matter what the official version is! It is my strong opinion if your partner is not okay with you having a life outside of the relationship that you’re in trouble. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s time to look for other signs of abuse.

• Grand plans for the future

If you’re being assured that if you just support this person until he gets his business off the ground…

Now, again, people do start businesses that don’t work out sometimes, and it might be that nothing is amiss. If this person is not working more than 8 hours a day trying to build the business, you’re being taken for a ride. If you’re being begged to continue supporting a business that is losing money for more than five years, you are really being taken for a ride. If they’re working longer hours than you do and you see evidence that they are seriously studying how to market their ideas, you’re more likely to be okay.

If the person has already had a failed business or two, or seems enamored of get-rich-quick schemes, run.

If the person has a reasonable expertise in the subject, presents you with a contract about how profits will be shared, has gotten an accountant and all that, you’re on less shaky ground. Entrepreneurs are pretty self-motivated people and it is not actually difficult to tell the difference. The serious entrepreneur will treat work time as work time. The best ones tend to set boundaries around “work” and “home” life. You won’t find them screwing around with video games during designated “work” time.

Oh, and never invest in a restaurant. (So says a friend of mine who has been a cook for 20 years).

• Requests for support through higher education

If you’ve got someone with whom you’ve already negotiated a deal where their job is to run the home, they’re supporting themselves through providing a service. That’s okay. It’s if they’re not doing an agreed upon deal, or are not paying rent in some other way, then it becomes an issue. Get this agreement in writing if you make it. Verbal agreements are more subject to interpretation and points of view involving what really constitutes self-support vary widely. Be very careful to be clear. If you’re subsidizing the education through a loan or a co-sign of a loan, make triply sure you’re outlining exactly what this is going to entail and what you expect to get out of it. Get in writing. I don’t care how in love you are and what a model of “trust” your relationship is.

• Requests for personal loans

One of the things I sometimes see on some online forums these days is a paypal button and a sob story about how the person cannot afford to go to Pennsic or Burning Man or some other entertainment. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for that. Sorry. If you’re getting a lot of requests like this, especially for entertainment, take good look. Now, if you’re going somewhere, want your partner to come along and can well afford to bring him along, that’s all good. Benevolent is fine. It’s how you’re treated if you say you cannot afford it that is the key. Temper tantrums and shrieks involving the word “unfair” are often a big tip-off in a lot of things.

• Personal emergencies of a non-financial nature consistently interfering with your personal plans

Emergencies happen. That’s okay. But if you’re dealing with anxiety attacks, emotional meltdowns, relationship issues (and anxiety-related medical issues), or the like consistently when you have other plans, you need to examine what’s going on. This is more being used emotionally rather than financially, but being used is being used.

If these issues crop up so that you are discouraged from getting enough sleep, this line creeps from use to abuse. Beware the partner whose favorite time for discussion is at 2 am when you have to get up for work in the morning — especially if he can make up for the lost sleep or has a considerably lower need for sleep than you do! Sleep deprivation is a useful brain washing tool.

When consistent claims of needing overly special treatment because of childhood issues interferes with your life, you need to take a look. In this, I don’t mean little things like, “Please don’t tap me from behind,” or “Please do not touch me to wake me,” or “Please call me when you’re going to be more than ½ hour late”. I mean things like, “I have abandonment issues, so I need you to make sure I am never left alone in the house,” or “I can’t learn to drive because I was in a car accident, so you need to drive me everywhere.” If it doesn’t interfere with your life and you feel the requests are reasonable, that’s one thing. But, watch for little requests here and there gradually adding up to more and more requests for special treatment that start to look like demands (the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie syndrome again). Especially watch for temper tantrums and accusations of being insensitive if you cannot meet these demands.

If the person objects to you having a life outside of the relationship, you’re in serious trouble. I know I’ve already said this, but it’s a big ole honkin’ sign of Bad News.

• Substance abuse

I am not for once second saying you cannot stick by someone who has a substance abuse problem. I am saying if it is interfering with the person’s life and she’s not getting help, evaluate the situation. You’ve heard of enabling, I know. Are you enabling?

• Bad credit, bankruptcies, etc.

Again, I don’t think it’s okay to throw out the relationship because someone made mistakes, but it’s important to make sure you keep an eye out. Any one thing isn’t the big deal that several items on this list or a pattern is.

• A history of broken relationships

This is not only romantic relationships. How many friends does the person have? Do they still see them? If not, why not? Sure, you can find out you’ve been in a few toxic friendships — we’ve all made dumb choices. But keep an eye out.

• A really dramatic hard luck story

Yeah, problems happen. A LOT. Life can SUCK sometimes, and we’ve all made stupid choices. Watch. What is the person DOING about it?

I hate to add this, but tales of abuse (If used to excuse outrageously bad behavior ONLY!!!!) falls into this category, too. It ain’t that horrid things don’t happen to people. They do. What are they doing about it? Are they in therapy? Are they working to overcome that? If so, you can deal better. If they’re insisting you make up for their hard luck, run.

• A string of broken educational pursuits/difficulty keeping a job consistently/inconsistency in sticking to things

I keep coming across things that I’ve done! No high horse here. Check it out and watch carefully. The person might be all right to be involved with. Might be looking for a sucker.

• Anything that smacks of abuse

Abuse is not just physical. Sleep deprivation, belittling, being demanded to give up personal goals, having one’s appearance consistently attacked, attempts at social isolation, finding yourself walking on eggshells to keep from activating your partner’s temper, feeling like you have to give in to keep the peace at the expense of your own interests, gaslighting… That’s all signs of abuse.

I know it seems so contrary to the whole principle of love and trust to even think about these issues. However, the simple fact of the matter is that people are people and you’re looking at a big range of behavior. It all boils down to boundaries. What are you okay with? What are you not okay with? This is important. Figure it out before it becomes an issue.

Greetings Misanthrope,

I have a difficult problem and I am not sure how to go about dealing with it. I live in a quad arrangement with my husband and another couple but I do not have a sexual relationship with the other husband. We are basically roommates. I do have a sexual relationship with the other wife. I thought that a little background was needed but the problem is I hate the other husbands behavior with “our” wife. He does things that I find demeaning and disrespectful, such as groping her relentlessly if he decides he’s horny, even if I am in the room and the wife and I are having a discussion. This is after she has asked him to repeatedly stop. His other offensive behaviors are of the same type. If she doesn’t stop and pay attention to him when he wants it he pouts, gropes her or finds some other way of trying to get her attention.

This behavior is driving me crazy. My question is what do I do, if a person treated my daughter or husband this way I would not hesitate to tell them to “get the hell off of them”. In this situation I am not sure how to handle it. The Wife does not stick up for herself in any way she is so passive with men it hurts me. I would love any insight you have to offer.

I suppose the quick and easy thing to say is that you’re not responsible for protecting someone else’s boundaries. *grin* Feel free to click on “boundaries” in this site and point your wife in the direction of those posts. Good boundaries are really important to being happy in your life in general — poly or not.

It is natural to feel protective of the ones we love, certainly. The thing is, your wife is not a child under your protection, but a grown woman. If someone were treating your daughter this way, it would be one thing. It is your responsibility to protect your daughter from unwanted touching and to teach her how to do that for herself. Your husband is also an adult, and therefore responsible for his own boundaries.

This is not to say you cannot give backup to the people you love. My question would be, has your wife asked for it, or are you defending her without being asked? Learn from my bitter mistakes and don’t do that. Being protective without being asked might seem noble to you. It’s actually not very respectful because what you’re really saying is that the person isn’t a full, self-responsible adult. Grownups ask for the help they need.

This letter also brings up another point. How are boundaries respected in general in your household? Have the four of you discussed this and agreed upon what you consider acceptable behavior? Have you discussed what will happen if there is unacceptable behavior?

Assertive communication is a big help here. I strongly encourage you to check out the Boundaries article on this site, as well as checking out the links on assertive communication at the end of this article. Do remember that you cannot control the behavior of another person. You can ask for what you want. You can choose not to be around someone whose behavior is unacceptable to you, but you cannot make someone change behavior.

Assertive Communication Links:

• Assertive Communication at Mentalhelp.net – The thrust of this is more for anger management, but the ideas are still very sound.
• Assertive Communication Builds Relationships — I like this one, because it explains how to avoid weaseling and using “I statements” to beat someone over the head, which is passive-aggressive at its best/worst.
• Important issues with assertiveness and listening use in the real world — This site is a bit workplace oriented, but poly families, being larger, often play out similarly.

I’m also taking a serious leap, and offering a new service on the Polyamorous Misanthrope. I have an advice line through Keen.com for Polyamorous advice voice to voice (I may add a cam service later, as body language tends to be important with this kind of thing). Nothing else on this site will change. The column is and always will be free, and I’m certainly going to answer emails as before. But if you want a voice to voice advice session, it will be available for .99/minute.

I ran across the acronym H.A.L.T for a reminder in times of stress or distress on the Flylady mailing list.

Basically, it runs like this.

Self: I feel like crap. I’m ruminating. I’m upset, I hate the world (or myself, or whatever tends to be your danger signal for negative emotion).

This can be a trigger to H.A.L.T — examine yourself.

The acronym stands for four things that it is useful to check for:

Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired

The order is actually important.

First is Hungry.

Humans are not meant to function well when we are hungry. Hunger means that we need to make it our first priority to fuel our bodies or we’ll die. Oh we take pride in “forgetting to eat” or some such nonsense, sometimes — proof of God knows what. Maybe you think it means you’re being focused. Maybe you want to prove to yourself that you don’t have a bad relationship with food. Whatever.

Not fueling up on a regular basis doesn’t help your mood. Me? I’m lucky. I get cranky as all hell if I fast. I know it. I get clear signals. So, I try to eat about five times a day. Yes, you heard me right. Five times a day (I follow more or less a weightlifter’s regimen. It takes off the excess fat while keeping me comfortably satisfied). I don’t drive myself into negative moods that are too difficult to control from lack of eating. I challenge you to do an experiment and keep an hourly mood chart sometime. I guarentdamntee that you find a correlation between negative mood and a meal too far in the past. If you feel you’re losing control of your feelings and are hungry, often fueling up with something healthy will calm you down and help you gain perspective.¹

Second is Angry. Anger is an emotion with a strong imperative. It’s also biologically based as a protection mechanism. If you’re angry, you’re feeling a need to protect yourself. It’s a healthy enough trigger if you treat it properly and check out what you’re angry about. Are you setting good boundaries? Are you enforcing them? If you’re spiraling and you’re not hungry, check out the anger issues. Plenty of people don’t acknowledge anger and what it means. Is that what’s going on? Do you need to speak up about something? Are you hanging on to something that it would be useful to let go?

Third is Lonely. We humans are social creatures. Yes, even cranky misanthropes need company from time to time. Spiraling emotions, if you’re neither hungry nor angry, can be loneliness. This can be a trickier one to satisfy immediately. If you’re reading this, though, chances are good you’re online in a forum where you can at least chat with someone. Try it. If it helps, that might be your issue.

Last on the list is Tired. We’re not meant to chug along like steam engines and never stop. We need sleep. We need rest of other sorts. If you’ve eaten, don’t feel angry, and you find that you’ve had enough company to satisfy you, then it might very well be that you’re tired. Take a nap, if you can.

Following this won’t mean that you’ll always feel great. Life isn’t like that. As people we have our ups and downs. What this is meant to do is to help you in times of stress to help you keep your cool and stay balanced. It’s meant to help you make helpful decisions instead of merely reacting in times of stress.

¹ Yes, this can be the basis for emotional and binge eating. My own personal touchstone for whether or not it’s actually hunger vs. a desire to eat emotionally is if cobb salad will satisfy me. If it will, it’s hunger. If it’s chocolate or bread or somesuch, chances are that I need to go further down the HALT list and see what need is unmet.

This week’s column is by guest writer, Jenny Ford.

Forget those piles of paper, bulging closets, and kitchen cabinets full of lidless plastic containers. The real stressor in life is not physical clutter, it’s emotional clutter.

Just as the physical clutter can be dealt with by a big one-off effort and a little daily maintenance, the emotional clutter doesn’t need to dominate your space, either.

What is emotional clutter?

Have you ever noticed that some people seem to have lives absolutely jam-packed with dramas? They have piles of needy friends, closets bulging with work crises, and a seemingly endless supply of angst-ridden personal conflicts.

We have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of these dramas are avoidable, or perhaps being blown out of proportion – as evidenced by our use of the term “drama queen”. to describe these people. One of my friends said that he had stopped using the term “drama queen” because it carried the connotation of femaleness, and having a drama-filled life is not a gender-specific trait. He suggested “drama capsule” as an alternative.

For me, I tend to start to categorise a person as a “drama capsule” when the drama they were dealing with at the time I met them has been replaced by several others in turn, with only small gaps or even overlaps between them.

I have distinguished two types, though many people are both at once.

Type 1 drama capsules have unconscious processes which create dramatic situations around them (for example, they are drawn to relationships with addicts or abusers, they abuse credit cards, they overcommit in high-stress jobs, they chronically cheat on their partner/s, or whatever). In those cases, the “drama situations” tend to be those which I would agree were dramatic if they happened to me (for example they wind up in hospital, in court, having panic attacks, with an STD, with their partner leaving them, etc). You could also call this type of person a “drama magnet”.

Type 2 drama capsules are people who can take relatively small bumps in the road and magnify them into prolonged, exhausting, emotional situations. You could perhaps refer to this type of person as a “drama addict”.

For example, I recently saw a situation where poly guy and poly woman got together for an evening, with the prior knowledge and consent of all partners, to explore sexual touch. Due to both individuals’ past histories, all concerned expected this would stop short of actual intercourse. In fact, through some fluke of compatibility, neither person bailed and actual intercourse occurred.

Because the intercourse was unexpected, his girlfriend very upset. She was too devastated to go to work for a couple of days, had to pull out of her uni course for the semester, and couldn’t even discuss the issue with the other woman for a month. In proportion to the triggering event, a fairly extreme emotional response.

The ultimate exhaustion arises when multiple Type 2s get together. Just about anything can be ricocheted around, escalating at every turn, with more and more hurts and upsets to be pandered to, almost indefinitely.

I think that we all have Type 2 tendencies when we are depressed, sick, tired, or otherwise stressed and resource-depleted. We can all over-react to things that would simply wash under the bridge on a better day. I wouldn’t consider someone a Type 2 unless there was a consistent, long-running pattern of it.

How To Declutter

First, look to yourself. Are you abusing drugs or alcohol, are do you have partner who is? Are you running up debts without knowing where the money will come from, or do you have a partner who is? Are you lying to your partner? Are you working (or exercising or anything else) far too many hours a week? Are you winding up in jail, in court, in hospital, or depending on the kindness of friends and relatives on a regular basis? There are organisations to help with each and every one of those drama-generating conditions. Call one. Deal with yourself.

Second, if you’re not generating dramas directly, consider the last three things which produced strong emotional stress for you. Exclude stressors which have happened to you (death of a close associate, unexpected job loss, unplanned pregnancy, moving house, etc). Include those stressors if they happened to someone else but were very emotionally stressful for you, but otherwise focus on emotionally upsetting situations you have had with other people. Write them down. Put dates next to them. If all three happened within the last three months, there is a real possibility that you have a drama addiction.

Grab a self-help book on cognitive behaviour therapy, get some counselling, and/or take up meditation. Keep reminding yourself “Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff,” and “It’s All Small Stuff..”

Third, if you don’t seem to fall into either category, ask yourself whether most of the stress in your life comes from supporting your partners through their dramas. Maybe one or more of your partners is a drama capsule.

Assuming you want to maintain the relationship (a drama capsule can be very sweet , supportive and loving between crises, after all), I recommend that you get very, very good at boundaries. Go to Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, or another codependency support group. Find a good self-help book on behaviour modification, co-dependency and/or boundaries. Stop rewarding your drama addict for being overwhelmed by drama. Start rewarding them for dealing with situations calmly and detachedly.

We all have times when events conspire. We all have times when we are physically run down, or sick, or under-resourced, and we over-react. Cleaning up your emotional space after those times is like cleaning up after a party – a bit of an effort, and then back to normal.

A habit of over-dramatising is like a habit of untidiness – it will take self-discipline and a long period of practice to change your ways.

But the results are worth it.

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. Expressions of appreciation for Jenny should take the form of Lindt chocolate balls. Bonus points if they are the black 60% cocoa ones.

Decluttering Your Emotional Space

© 2007, Jenny Ford

Used by permission, all rights reserved

Do you have Rules for Dating?

If you don’t, you should. Yes, I know, “should” is bad and evil and I’m stomping all over boundaries to tell you that you should be doing anything.

Feh. I suck, I know.

Okay…

You might find it helpful to write yourself a series of dating rules. (Better?) I certainly have found it helpful and useful in my own life! If you’re writing it to yourself, you can pretty much make it as funny/harsh/sentimental as you like. It’s important to write it in a way that suits you and illustrates your personal principles. I wrote mine as “one of those letters you’d never send, in response to a Worst Case Scenario that thankfully hasn’t happened (at least, not all at once to me. After eleven years of reading people bitch on poly discussion groups, though, I’ve seen all of them happen at one time or another to someone else.)

Being newly single and have been around the lighthouse more than once in the stormy seas of Romance as that so elusive of creatures, the single, polyamorous Hot Bi Babe, I have come up with these Rules.

1. On a date, I wish to enjoy social company and have a good time. My only interest in dating is laughter, pleasant conversation, fun (for whatever value of “fun” upon which we mutually agree) and good will. If that’s what you want, we’ll have a delightful time when we meet.
2. I am not a therapist. If the date startes to feel like a therapy session, there won’t be any more.
3. I am not dating you to get a mentor. You like being The Wise One? Then be wise and don’t try it. If I decide that your advice on matters would be helpful, I’ll ask. Trust me, I’m an information junkie, and not shy about it. However, if you give me unsolicited advice on things outside your real, live areas of expertise, it makes you look like a damn’ fool, and yes, I am snickering at you behind that smile and comment of “You might have a point.”
4. For partnered dates: If I find out I am the first person either of you have dated outside the relationship, there will be no more dates. “Practice” polyamory on someone else. Yeah, yeah, I know it sounds like I’m rolling my eyes and saying “been there, done that”. Well, dammit, I have. Fire’s hot, and if you put your hand over a candle flame, it burns. Just sayin’.
5. If I am expected to make the couple a package deal, there will be no further dates. I deal with people on an individual basis only. If there is an individual attraction between your partner and me, we’ll work it out on our own. We’re mature adults. Your help is not needed. Honest. Even if we’re both “just women”.
6. If any single date is interrupted for an emergency, my warning system goes on. If a second emergency happens in less than 5 subsequent meetings, there will be no more dates. No, I don’t care if you’ve “had a run of bad luck”. (This rule will be suspended for the professional activities of on-call medical personnel, sysadmins and the like. I’m talking more about drama from home).
7. On the flip side, I don’t want to date people that don’t take previous commitments into account before making new ones. If you’ve got a sick child, and your partner is starting to get sick, call me to cancel and stay home. If you’ll blow off one person for new and shiny, you’ll blow me off for new and shiny down the road. (I generally expect that eventually I’ll be treated as you treat the “old” partner, and buddy, you’d better believe I’m watching carefully. I do not have the necessary vanity to think I am somehow “different” as I have never seen an exception to this rule).
8. No, I won’t collaborate on a book with you unless you’re hiring me outright, or are an established author with a specific project and pitch ready that you’ve discussed with your publisher or agent. If you have an “idea”, get out your butt glue and develop it. Trust me, you really don’t need me for this. (This one has happened to me. One would think I would not have to put this on the list, but I’ve had several guys think I’ll be impressed by “ideas” that seem to be Ian Flemming knock offs. The first time it happened, I was surprised. The second, dismayed. The third, depressed…)
9. I don’t do threesomes any more. You may ask. If you try to argue me out of my answer, there will be no more dates. In fact, attempts to tell me why I shouldn’t think/feel the way I do will result in me walking away laughing.
10. Just because I usually phrase it as “No, thank you” rather than merely “No” doesn’t mean that it’s not as serious. I have no qualms about punctuating it. I just prefer dignity first. If you do, too, we’re all good.
11. Grand Unification Theories about relationships do not interest me, and attempts to bring me into a social engineering projects will result in me walking, too. I’m enough of an amateur sociologist to know they can get really nasty. You will be assessed even more negatively if you’re “writing a book” about it, unless it’s your real, live professional field. I work in academia and I know what questions to ask, so trying to fake it will make you look like a jackass.
12. More than one panicked phone call after my early bedtime with severe emotional issues gets a hangup and there will be no more dates. I make really dumb decisions when I’m not sleeping enough and neither of us will like it. Trust me on this one.
13. I am not looking for another parent for my children. No, not even you. Make friends with them if you meet them and want to make friends. That’s fine. My kids have plenty of parents thankssomuch!
14. I am enjoying the freedom of being single. I’m not looking to move in with anyone. If my living arrangements change, it will be to a household where I am the sole adult. No, you’re not the exception. Not even if you’re a millionaire Tyr Anasazi look/sound-alike with a cunnilingus fetish who thinks reading aloud is one of Life’s Great Pleasures, is just pantingly eager to fund a poly activism organization, and has a thing for short, “ample” chicks with big blue eyes¹. I’m not kidding. I most certainly don’t want to move in with you, take care of your kids, contribute to the household budget, be a buffer between you and your spouse, and clean your house. (This is mostly for the blissfully rare jerks who want a “junior wife”).
15. Evil Ex stories=no more dates. I have exes, too. If everything had been blissful and wonderful, they wouldn’t *be* exes, now would they? You’re a self-deluding fool if you think your Evil Ex doesn’t have an opinion about you that’s just as unflattering. In the game of Romance, there are no innocents. We all know breakups suck and hurt a whole bunch. If you can’t own up and be a grownup about it to a virtual stranger, I don’t wanna know you. Vent to your intimates. If you don’t have any, I really don’t want to date you. If I actually become an intimate, I’ll listen to stories of your past, but by then I bloody well hope you’ve got some perspective on your past.
16. I understand if this seems too hardassed. Feel free to flee! If you’re still attracted, I’m already in love…(Well, no, but mightly impressed…)

Your rules will be different from mine, of course. We’re different people, and we have different buttons, issues and what have you. I’ve put my own out there² because I want to point out that thinking about such things are useful. It’s important to know where your lines are, why, and what you want.

It helps guard against what I shall name the “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” syndrome. (If you’ve never read the book, do. It’s a children’s book, will take you three minutes, and it’s hilarious). If someone asks you for a little favor, you’ll do it, right? Well, who wouldn’t? We all like to be nice.³

If you haven’t outlined what you’re about, what you want, what you’re okay with and what you’re not, it’s entirely possible to find yourself having said “yes” to something, over time with little bits, concessions, favors and whatnot, to something you would never have said “yes” to if asked for all at once. You wake up to what you’ve said yes to over time, find yourself pissed, your partner is shocked that you’re so upset at such a little thing, and it can all blow up.

Think in advance.

Embrace the inner hardass and write yourself your personal rules.

¹But if you are, I’d like to meet you. For purely scientific purposes, of course!

² Ensuring that no-one is ever, ever going to want to date me after reading that. Please applaud my generosity and sacrfice to the poly community. I’ve ensured it will be my only solace, after all. <sniff> I do it all for you^*…

³ Yeah, I know, I call myself a misanthrope. Shaddup…

^*And we “Relationship Experts” (BWHAHAHAHAHA!) call this Emotional Blackmail. It’s supposed to be something to be wary of.

I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that each and every one of the relationship problems I have ever had can be traced to one single thing. Now me? I’m usually suspicious of the “silver bullet” or the “instant solution” or the “single answer” to anything. I like things to be black and white – simple. Thing is, they’re usually not, so I rarely permit myself to get excited or happy when some genuinely is, always looking for the catch.

But this time, it’s true. Every single relationship problem I have ever encountered in my life has been because of a lack of appropriate boundaries.

Okay, note the qualifier “appropriate”. We have that little shade of gray that makes it acceptable after all. <grin>.

So what is a boundary? At its simplest, it is a line that says, “This is me. This is my locus of control and where I have total say.” A big and obvious boundary that many people have is, “I will not permit myself to be hit. If I am hit, I will leave the relationship. If you pursue me, I will take legal action to protect myself.” A small and subtle one might be, “It is important to me to be on time to an event. If you are not ready in time to go to an event, we can work out an alternative –among which could include separate cars or me getting a ride with someone else who also finds it important to be on time.”

Notice in both cases you’re not telling the other person what to do. You’re saying what you will do. You’re also not telling the person how to act. You’re not judging the person for her choices, you’re not telling him he has to have the same desires or needs as you. Not that it does the least good to say these things, ’cause people are individuals and have their own needs and desires.

Boundaries improve relationships because they take the pressure off. You accknowledge that you’re completely responsible for meeting your own needs, and you get rid of any emotional investment in the other person doing so.

For your boundaries to work for you, you have to have a few tools, though.

1. You must know what you want - This can be a subtle thing, and often you need to focus on “meta wants”. When you’re fuming that someone is late out the door, what you want isn’t necessarily for the person to stop primping at the mirror, but that you want to be on time! Make sure you are very grounded in the “meta want”. It makes step two easier.
2. You must detach your wants from the other person’s behavior. This can be a rough one, because it often looks like your wants are dependant on what other people do. Thing is, as long as you attach your wants to another person’s behavior, you’re just asking to be frustrated. You have no control over how someone else acts! It is supremely important to separate your needs from others’ behavior.
3. You must choose to ask for what you want – I once heard someone comment, “If you do not ask for what you want, you deny the other person the opportunity to say ‘yes’.”
4. You must know what you want to do if the person says “no”. While the other person has the opportunity to say “yes”, they also have the right to say “no”. What do you do then? Well that seriously depends. Boundaries are not hard, fast and rigid at all times, nor should they be. Let’s say you want the dishes washed, have asked for it, and the other person says “no”. (For this example, we’re going to presume that this is an adult relationship, and you’re not enforcing parental boundaries here…) You could say, “It is one of my personal boundaries that I will only be in relationships with people who will do the dishes when I ask it of them.” After all, boundaries are individual, and that’s your right to choose. You could say, “What I want is a clean kitchen. Therefore, I shall do the dishes.” Keep very much in mind what it is that you want. Was the “meta want” a clean kitchen, or a relationship with someone who does housework on command? That will help you choose how to act.

For all of this to work, you must understand your own locus of control. You own your own life, and you own your own time. No-one else does. However, you do not own another’s life or time, and if you make claims on it, you’re impinging on someone else’s boundaries. That’s not a healthy way to have a relationship.

Like so many of these articles, they’re more relationship specific than poly specific. Notice, you could apply this to any non-romantic relationship quite as well as you could to romantic ones.

In fact, I believe you might like the results if you did try it!