The Polyamorous Misanthrope

This guest column is by Jenny Ford.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some people do things which are truly unhappy-making.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ummm, no …

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

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

This is a big one.

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

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

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

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

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

Front of the hand, back of the hand …

© 2007, Jenny Ford

Used by permission, all rights reserved

This week’s column is by guest writer Rainy Hannah

A few years ago, while in the throes of a very bad breakup, I stopped participating in the larger polyamorous community. I unsubscribed from everything and spent the next year and a half on sabbatical from the poly community at large. I needed time to think about things and make some decisions about what living a poly life looked like for me.

I’ve recently started dipping my toes back into the community pool and I see a trend over and over that really bothers me. I don’t think it’s restricted to new poly folks either, because I see it coming from people who have been in this community for a long time. I think they ought to know better.

We’ve all seen the scenario where partner A tries to fill up all his or her empty with a new shiny toy (or toys) while partner B stays home, neglected, and hopes that their empty will get attended to eventually by A. Maybe Partner B posts to a lot of poly communities online and we try to counsel them through the process, while secretly wanting to take a baseball bat to Partner A. We’ve all seen the scenario where someone bulldozes over all of the objections, concerns, and fears of their “old” partners in their rush to get to the new. How about the folks who end up with eight secondaries and one primary, and then can’t seem to take care of anybody’s needs?

I’ve been Partner A, just for the record, so I get to go there. I used to have a summer home there. Eventually, I wised up and moved on and began to treat my partners with the respect that they deserved, but not before it ruined some relationships I regret, bitterly, to this day. I don’t have anything to say to Partner A today. Frankly, I think Partner A needs a swift kick in the ass, but that’s not my job. I want to talk to Partner B. And C, D, E, F, G, H…. you get the idea.

Tell me if this sounds familiar to you.

“I am a brave little toaster and will soldier on through the mistreatment and drama that my partner(s) dish out, because of Love. I love them and know that someday, if I am Very Good, I will get my reward and things will be happy.”

Yes, and one day, monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Anything resonating there for you? I know it does for me. I have also been there, done that, from the perspective of Partner B. In light of this well-rounded experience, I feel I am uniquely qualified to cry bullshit on the whole idea. I think we ought to rephrase things.

“If my partner consistently treats me with anything less than a level of respect, consideration and love that works for us both, if he/she does not keep the agreements we have made (both the letter and the spirit), and if they are not willing to engage in an ongoing effort to keep things that way, I will kick his/her ass to the fucking curb. I am not a doormat.”

That sounds a lot better to me.

Here is the truth. There is no eventual Reward on the other side of all the drama and pain. You do not wake up one day happy because you were A Very Good Girl and someone finally anted up with the cookies you earned with your patience, love and self-sacrifice. All you will get is an empty plate.

The reward is NOW.

Live happy now.

Demand respect, now.

DO it NOW.

Chaos is not fun. It is also not love. Don’t be a doormat. Someone who knowingly, unrepentantly inflicts chaos on a life you are trying to build together, who walks on your feelings, who neglects you, who does not give your concerns, fears and needs equal time and weight is not acting with love. It is not okay. Why are you letting them? Because here is the part where it gets really difficult. It is your choice to stick around for that. It is your choice to be trod upon, to live in chaos, and to live with your truth unheard. You are the only person forcing yourself to live with that.

We have places of choice in our lives. Places where we come to a corner or to the end of our rope, places where we are alone in our hearts with the unvarnished truth. Those places hurt and are filled with fear and uncertainty. So often we choose the familiar, even though it is dysfunctional or pain-filled. It is what we know, after all. The point I am trying to make right here is that, every time you sit down and think about how unhappy you are, about how much you wish things would change - you are at a place where you can choose. You are, in fact, making a choice.

Partner B, I am begging you to do something. I am begging you to sit down with Partner A and demand that they make some changes. If you can’t do that or they won’t, then I am begging you to leave. You deserve so much more than this but you will only get it if you stand up and take it. Right now you have the short end of the stick, but only you can grab the big end. Only you can stand up and say, “NO. You may not treat me this way. This is not love, I am not happy, and it is not okay.”

Please try to refrain from beating Partner A with the big stick once you grab it. They probably won’t get the point. It’ll just create more drama for everyone in your community. They’ve got their own process and you can’t fix it. Let them continue the Quest For Shiny if they must. They will get it, or not, in their own time. It is a problem Not Yours.

Don’t be a Brave Little Toaster. Go on out, grab the reward that was inside you all along, get your cookies and live happy.

Do it now.

The Brave Little Toaster © 2007, Rain Hannah

Used by permission

Rainy Hannah is a polyamorous woman living in Southern California with way too much yarn, too many cats, a couple of kids, and a Very Good Dog. She has been there, done that.

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