The Polyamorous Misanthrope

“I’m in a mid-life crisis, I guess.  The passion is out of my life and I’m looking for something more.   My wife doesn’t understand me.”

Any polyamorous person on a dating site is almost sure to get a message like this from time to time.  No, it’s not exclusive to men.  Women do a serious version of it, too.  So get off your high horse.

But male or female, if you’ve been in a long-term relationship that’s gotten blah, you might find  yourself saying, “Oh, it would be so much better if I had a partner that understood me.”

While I’m not saying that your relationship problem isn’t that you’re misunderstood, do you really think something so commonplace and cliché is really because partners of decades don’t understand each other?  Really?  After decades together.

You people aren’t paying attention, are you?

And you know what?  That’s rather the point.  Now, you know ole Mama Java.  She’ll never advise you to try to get someone else to behave the way you want to fix your problem.  But honestly, this kind of intimacy problem is a genuine big deal.  More than that, it’s often pretty tragic.

I want to offer a possible solution, and it’s a good one.  If you’re feeling like your partner doesn’t understand you, do something a little counterintuitive:

Put all your energy into understanding your partner.

Now, I’m not suggesting long, drawn-out conversations where you’re prying like a parent with a non-communitive teenager.  It doesn’t work then and it certainly isn’t going to work isn’t going to work in an adult relationship.  When I say put your energy into understanding your partner, it means understanding the lack of communication, too.  Sometimes, it can be as easy as, “Baby, we haven’t been talking much.  Is there a reason you’d like to tell me about?” and find a floodgate opens.  Sometimes, it’s a courting process.

Don’t confuse “understanding your partner” with “getting the information you need to have a good lever with your partner”.  Understanding means exactly that.  If you don’t love and care about and want to know your partner down into his bones, my dear, you have a far worse problem that your partner not understanding you.  Got that?

If you think this is sounding a bit like Stephen Covey’s Habit Five[1] of the Seven Habits o Highly Effective People, there’s a lot to that.  If you’re having trouble connecting, if you’re having a hard time communicating, seeking to understand and understand deeply does two things.  The first thing it does is give you a clearer grokking of the issues involved.  It is never a bad idea to seek to understand a partner deeply.  Prying and being invasive is something else entirely.  If you’re seeking to truly understand, you’ll avoid being invasive because you’re developing the empathy and compassion to understand how your partner is feeling.

The second thing that seeking to understand does is build trust.  ‘Member how you were all upset and had your kickers in a bunch because your partner didn’t understand you?  We all want to be loved and understood by our partners.  You partner(s) want you to understand them, too!  It’s much easier to make that connection with someone you have seen demonstrate on a consistent basis that s/he wants to understand you!

Remember to take it slow.  If you’ve gotten to the “My wife doesn’t understand me” phase, your relationship has been sliding for a long time.  This isn’t something you can gloss over for a couple of months and expect everything to be all lovey-dovey and dandy.  It’s going to take time and patience.  Me?  I think good intimate relationships are worth it.

This won’t solve every single relationship problem you have.  Sorry, there’s no shortcuts.  But this is a fantastic first step to repair and expand relationships.

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[1] Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

I’ve been seeing more than the usual amount of discussion about jealousy on various poly boards lately, so I figure this might be a little topical to people.   I have pulled out of the air the Definitive[1] Five-Point List of Ways to Fuck Up Handling Jealousy.  I am sharing this because I am wise and all knowing about polyamory and I will deign to share my knowledge with you, puny mortal.[2]

1. Blame your partner

“Hey, I wouldn’t be feeling jealous if my partner were doing things right, right?  If only she weren’t making me feel insecure, everything would be dandy!”

Making your partner responsible for your feelings is a sure way to mess up a relationship.  There is a significant difference in, “I don’t like X behavior” and “You’re making me feel jealous.”  If you don’t grok this difference down in your bones, learning about emotional boundaries is a really productive thing you can do for yourself and your relationships.   It is not unusual for jealousy to be about personal insecurity.

As Franklin Veaux once commented, “Just because I feel bad doesn’t mean you did something wrong.”  Don’t assume that your feelings prove anything but that you’re feeling something.

2. Blame the partner’s partner

“If only my partner’s partner would not make me feel insecure, I wouldn’t be so uncomfortable, right?”  (See a pattern?)

Again, feeling bad on your part doesn’t necessarily mean malfeasance on the other person’s part.  People aren’t saints, but assumptions don’t help.

3. Blame yourself

“If only I were more secure/better looking/better in bed/more evolved I wouldn’t feel so upset.”

Feelings might be uncomfortable sometimes, but they’re not necessarily because you did something bad, either.  Jealousy isn’t always about personal insecurity.  Sometimes there really is, no kidding, a problem among the partners.

I break with some of the more New Age polyamorous writers, in that I do not feel that jealousy is always some sort of weird emotional aberration of the spiritually unevolved.   It can and often is a personal security issue, but sometimes partners do take us for granted, or are not giving us what we all agreed upon.  It’s okay to talk about that.

4. Lie about it

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Don’t do this.  In a good relationship, it’s okay to say, “Actually, I’m feeling kinda jealous right now.  I want to: examine this by myself and get back to you/talk with you about how I’m feeling/have a backrub so I can relax.”

Notice this isn’t making your partner responsible for how you feel.  But it is communicating.  I mean, you want an accurate picture of what your partner is thinking and feeling, right?  What makes you think your partner is any different?  When people love each other, they do care how the other feels even if it’s hardly healthy to take responsibility for it.

5. Ignore it

Like physical pain, emotional pain is a sign that something needs attention.   There are dozens of reasons why you might be feeling jealous – some of them internal, some to do with externals.  Unless and until you sit down and examine them with an open mind and without preconceptions, you can’t know.  But if you don’t take a good look at what you’re feeling and why, it is going to fester and infect your relationships.

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[1] Not really.  It’s the number that came to me off the top of my head.  I’m sure my Faithful Readers could come up with more.

[2] <grinning at one of my Guest Columnists> I should be ashamed of myself.  But I’m not.

Mama Java is lounging on the beach right now.  Well, okay RIGHT NOW, I’m probably getting sunscreen on squirming little children, collecting beach chairs and making sure everyone has their towels, but I am at the beach this week.  Here’s a column from Rain Hannah.  Enjoy!

It can be easy, when you’ve been doing this poly thing for a while, to get complacent and fool yourself into thinking you’ve got it nailed. I guarandamntee you that you don’t have it nailed. Not a one of us does.

I’d like to get “Mind the Gap” tattooed on my forehead so that the next time I start feeling all like Saint Griselda, Patient Patroness Of Good Poly, I remember that I’m about to fall onto the third rail and get roasted with my own hubris.

You see… there will be times in any relationship, mono or poly, where the shit hits the fan. Where, because of work, conflicts, new relationships or ghost spiders from Mars, things may not be as harmonious as you would like. Perhaps, in that event, you assure yourself that things will get better when the ghost spiders from Mars have been removed from the equation. That if you are just patient and deal with it bravely, it will all be okay in the morning and everything will get back to “normal.”

Allow me to venture a few thoughts, to elaborate upon the theme of patience. It is fine to be patient. It is good to be patient. It is noble, wonderful, kind, gentle and all manner of good things. It is important, in life, to acknowledge that shit happens (constantly), and behave like an adult when it does. Sometimes it isn’t all about you and you just need to sit on your hands for a while until things get sorted, because other people really need your patience and good sense to win out or things won’t work.  Here is where it gets tricky: you have to be on your guard about letting patience turn into something less healthy. Ask yourself… “Why am I doing this?”

Seriously. Ask yourself. Take a little extra time to examine your motives. That, ultimately, is the point of this wee essay.

I fell into this pitfall recently. Shit happened, like it does, and my partners needed some space to work things out. I, wanting them to be okay, happily gave them the space and time that they needed.  I was patient. I behaved like an adult. I was being Generous to my partners and here is the rub. I realized later that I wasn’t really being generous. I was being selfish as all get out.   I, very temporarily, stuck my needs on the back burner, because other people’s needs were more pressing. Let me say up front, that was okay. What wasn’t okay was the extent to which I took it or why I was doing it. What wasn’t okay – and I didn’t figure this out until later – was that somehow, deep down, I thought that there would be some kind of a reward in it for me. Some emotional reward, a special cookie, something I hadn’t really asked for but felt I’d earned with my patience and self-sacrifice.

Hey does that last line sound familiar? Oh my GOD it totally does!  It was the whole Brave Little Toaster thing, only in the short term, looking very different, and there was no bad guy!  That attitude? That was not so grown up. It was not so generous or patient. It was… I don’t know what it was, but absolutely the opposite of what I was aiming for.  That attitude stinks.

“They got special cookies,” my subconscious said. “That means I get equal special cookies because I’ve been so patient and good. I’ve been Super Nice and a Good Poly Partner and now I am going to be rewarded with extra love and attention!”

Yeah, not so much with that.

I was rewarded with plenty of loving appreciation, but I did not get the special cookies I wanted. My cookie jar pretty much stayed about the same. There was no magical sparkle pony moment with ice cream and a parade, either. When these things failed to materialize, I might have behaved badly. I was resentful and angry because I didn’t get what I thought I deserved, in return for being so awesome.

The glitch in my mental scenario was easy to identify once I sat down and thought about it. My partners did not agree to give me special cookies in return for being so awesome. That was not part of the arrangement we made. That was something I filled in by myself, an expectation I penciled into the margins after they’d signed off.  I got actively pissed off at my partners because they’d taken me up on what I’d freely offered and then I didn’t even get a cookie.

It gets worse.  I used the situation to justify acting like some saintly, long suffering martyr. I got off on feeling really sorry for myself. I caught myself behaving in ways that were subtly guaranteed to make my partners feel guilty for taking me up on my offer in the first place.  That was when I realized that I had my head up my ass and needed to remove it, stat.

It would be easy for me to wallow in shame about all this, but I’m considering it to be another level of a lesson I will probably spend the rest of my life learning.  I’m grateful for the opportunity. Embarrassed, sure. Publicly so, if this gets published[1]. But I think it is important enough to risk that.

It isn’t always the big things. It isn’t always the long term things, the huge life issues. Sometimes it is the simple things, the small things, that trip us up and make us act in ways that are not so cool. Our partners take us at our word, and so it is important to make sure that our word and the agreements that we make are coming from an honest place, not from a place of unspoken expectation. Sometimes our motivations aren’t as altruistic as we think they are and sometimes everyone isn’t on board the cookie train because they didn’t know there was an agreement. Getting that stuff straight is important. Patience in the face of overwhelming trouble is good. Knowing why you are being patient and being upfront with yourself and your loves about what (if anything) you expect in return is better.  It’s okay to ask for something in return. But you gotta ask.

Mind the gap, kids. It’s there.

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[1] Editor’s note:  It did.  You masochist, you!

Patient Griselda, or, Minding the Gap

© 2010, 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.

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.

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[1] These are situations where we’d be socializing around our kids, which makes some sort of connection pretty immediately obvious.

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

This letter is an edited highlights version – just for clarity’s sake:

I am attracted to the idea of polyamory for the spiritual implications, perhaps even more so than the physical ones. I feel it can help us to grow more as people, and can elevate and expand our love and oneness to new heights.

All that being said… I am confused and I need help!!

So, first thing is… I have tried to break up with my boyfriend, we’ll call him “Steve”, a few times throughout the course of our relationship, mostly from feeling smothered, wanting independence space and freedom– not for any lack of love towards him. (More clues to my natural poly tendency…) Most recently, about… 3 weeks ago, I was feeling stunted, claustrophobic, and like I needed to regain my wholeness. Basically, I kicked him out of my place. He was paying a little more than a quarter of the rent, and I felt I had a right to, since I was the original renter and paying the greater portion of the rent. This threw him for quite a loop, understandably. I may have acted a little rashly… When the move was over, and I had finally collected myself– I came out with what I really wanted: openness. It was a very natural discussion, and he very naturally agreed that it would be a fun and interesting thing to try out. Great! Exciting! Only thing is… he was still pretty pissed at me for kicking him out.

Next matter is… I’m really into his best friend, we’ll call him “Bob”. Bob and I actually dated for a little while before I even met Steve. I know he likes me, but I think he is unsure of whether “going there” with me would create a lot of drama. Bob HATES drama!

As far as I know, in my circle of friends I am the first to state that I am “open”. What if I scare everyone away?

I would greatly appreciate your help and support for a young, budding polyamorist! Thank you!

*gently lays the Stick of Grandmotherly Kindness slightly out of impulsive reach*

Cupcake,  you need to sit down and get your head on straight before you have a hope in the world of any relationship working out.  You’re zipping around making impulsive decisions that affect people around  you in really basic and profound ways.

Knowing what you really want is great.  You want openness and can ask for it.  That’s all cool.  Thing is, now you’ve got a problem with Steve, and it’s huge.  See, in kicking him out of his home, you’ve hit him at a deep and basic level – a need for physical security.  He’s naturally going to find trusting you hard at this point.  If you want a relationship with him you’re going to need to rebuild trust.  This is going to take more than holding hands in a circle and getting your Kum-ba-ya-yas out.

As far as being interested in his friend, I’ve seen this go a few ways.  When I was (probably) younger than you are, I did get involved with a close friend of my then fiancé (now husband).  We were romantically involved for a few years, and know what?  Twenty years on , we’re still friends and deeply value each other.  But I sure as hell didn’t start that relationship before I’d established a pretty decent and strong relationship with my other partner.[1] I mean, we were gettin’ married and all.  You ain’t there yet, m’dear.  Steve’s  still reeling from being tossed out on his ear.  Being poly and involved with a couple of close friends needs a major amount of trust building, and as far as the emotional bank account is concerned, you’re in the hole.

Is rebuilding trust possible?  Yes.  Thankfully.  But it takes time, patience and a hearty whack of humility and self-examination.

As far as not scaring people away for being poly?  You won’t.   If you’re scaring people away, it’ll be about being crazy, not about being poly.  Sane, stable people are remarkably chill about sane, stable polys.   If you and your friends aren’t sane and stable, ya’ll need to be working on that first, anyway.

As far as the spiritual aspects?  I’m afraid you have probably come knocking on the wrong door with that one.  I don’t think polyamory makes you more loving.  I’ve seen about the same percentage of selfish, insensitive jerks and the same percentage of kindly, tender loving people in the poly community as the monogamous community.  I expect people just act like people, and that’s really what it boils down to.

I hope this isn’t too much of a downer or anything, but as a takeaway, trust can be built by being consistently trustworthy, Poly relationships can and do work best if the people in them know themselves and are honest with themselves and their partners, and it really can be awesome if you can be the best person you can be.

Good luck!

Mama Java

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[1] This is not to imply that I have not pulled any Stupid Relationship Tricks.  I have.  Sweet Baby Jesus, have I ever!

A Faithful Reader Asks:

My husband and I have been discussing polyamory over the past couple months. I feel comfortable with the idea, and I know we communicate very well with each other. I am actually concerned about how my reactions could possibly hurt his relationships. I know I have had jealousy issues in the past, which I think come from fears of abandonment or neglect. I believe I am past that point, and I trust the relationship with my husband, but nothing has happened that I think would have provoked that ‘jealous’ reaction. I don’t want my husband to find someone he can have a good relationship with, and end up having to break it off and potentially hurt another person’s feelings because I become upset or jealous. Is this a normal concern for people in polyamorous relationships?

Yes, it’s quite a normal concern. How the two of you handle your relationships between you is definitely a matter you need to settle between yourselves.  I cannot discourage enough, however, from mapping “I feel jealous” to “you have to break it off with the other partner”.

Yes, you need to be able to say if you’re lonely, and trust that you’ll be able to be listened to.  I’m not saying to suck it up or suffer in silence.  I’m saying bring things up to your partner.  The theory is that you guys love each other, right?  A very good thing to do in a poly relationship is for everyone on all sides to do their best to concentrate on that part.  It really helps nudge everyone into treating each other well.

In my own relationships “I feel jealous” (and yes, of course it has happened) does not map to “you must break it off”. It leads to discussion. Sometimes it’s that I am feeling insecure. Sometimes it really is because a partner is ignoring our own relationship for the new and shiny.   Sometimes it can be an indication of another relationship issue that’s serious.  It can be from many roots, some of them internal, and some not.   It would be a bad idea to assume either way.

But make no mistake. Polyamory is most certainly a risk. (Not that monogamy isn’t, it’s just that the risk is more obvious in a poly relationship). I encourage you to look into yourself and think about where you feel good and secure, where you don’t and where you feel your strengths and joys lie.

Good luck!

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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[1] Usually the male.

This column is written by guest author Holly Bernabe.  She wrote it to try to help people posting sex or relationship ads to polyamorous discussion list why the list reaction tended to be less than stellar, and to help them be successful in finding the relationships they wanted.

I received your email/ad on my group list/social networking site, etc. And I’ve got some advice for you:

1. When looking for an addition, look locally. I’m likely in a state you aren’t in. You’re in BFE, wherever.  Why are you looking out of state? LDRs are possible, but pretty hard to accomplish.  Are you expecting the new person to move to your state?
2. Write intelligently. I don’t generally bother writing back to people who can’t write a full sentence with proper use of punctuation and spelling. I know in this day and age of IM-ing and cell phone text messaging, everything is getting dumbed down for sake of brevity. But in an email where you are introducing yourself, brevity is a MISTAKE. Brevity sounds like someone who has no education and is an idiot! For crying out loud, make an effort. First impressions are important. Is the first impression you want to leave your potential new spice with one of idiocy or laziness?
3. If you are going to bother to create a blanket email ad to post on a group list to try and find an addition to your family, add some detail to your email so you don’t look like a spambot. Blather on about your details and add some interesting quotes and so on so that we have some way of judging who the heck you are, so that we can figure out whether or not we even want to give you the time of day, let alone get to know you. As it is, I have no idea what kind of music you like, what you like to do for fun, what movies you like, or anything else about you.  Your email is a meaningless blank slate.
4. Sign up for okCupid and let us know how to find you on that site.  That way, if people want to check you out some more, they can.  OkCupid is poly friendly and has some fun features.  Lots of poly people are signed up there, already.
5. If you have joined a poly list, ask the list some questions.  Join in on some discussions before you post your ad. Then we will know that you’ve even bothered to READ our list and that you really are interested and you aren’t just spamming thousands of people out there with generic messages in hopes by playing the numbers someone will bother to write back to you. If you had bothered to read our list, you would know we allow most any type of post–however, we PREFER discussion and don’t like personals ads very much that have no personal information.  If you had read our list at all, you likely wouldn’t have spammed our inboxes in the first place with your ad.
6. Read the discussions on our list and make friends.  Then privately, if you all really dig someone, and you think they might like you, too, you can pursue them off list, if you feel that is an appropriate course of action.

Follow those tips, and maybe you’ll have some luck on our list.

Tips To Couples Looking to Add an Additional Person Into Their Relationship

© 2010, Holly Bernabe, used by permission

Holly Bernabe is a film student and mom of two (five counting the fuzzbucket dog, the spastic cat and the hubby).  Her biggest wish in life is to figure out how to stop time, so that she can cram into the day everything (and everyone) that she wants to do.

One of the sad facts of being an alternative lifestyler of any sort is in this political climate, you’re liable to be labeled a dangerous pervert.

For the most part, it’s not actually illegal to be a pervert or anything, as long as you never have interaction with kids.  Well, if you’re poly and a parent, good God yes, you’re going to be interacting with children!  Yours.

Should this worry you?

It depends on a lot of things.  Where do you live?  Is it a conservative area?   Do people have a live and let live policy, or are they all up in your bidness?  What about your relatives?  Are there control issues going on?  Are you accepting significant financial support from them?[1]

But more than that, I want to point out one more thing, which is the big subject of my rant.

Are you a good parent?

Seriously, dewd.  Don’t get on your damn high horse until you’ve evaluated your parenting.  If being poly is interfering with being a good parent[2], then you have a more serious problem than poly persecution.

So to evaluate:

The Basics

• Are the children fed properly?
• Do they have clothing appropriate to the weather?
• Are they being educated appropriately? (sent to school regularly/homeschooled so that they keep up with grade level)
• Are they getting medical attention as necessary?

Not Basic, But Important

• Do they get appropriate attention?  This is a biggie.  When there is adult processing, sometimes kids’ needs can fall through the cracks.  Be very careful and wary of this one.  I wish I could sugar-coat it, but I can’t.
• Are they getting personal growth opportunities?  Are they learning an instrument, learning fun skills, learning Life 101 skills?
• Are they getting an opportunity to be involved in the community they live in?  Don’t isolate your kids because their household might be different.  They live in the real world and need to learn to relate to it.[3]

I’m not saying you have to be Superparent to justify being polyamorous.  You don’t.  But, dammit, do your job as a parent anyway.  Yes, it takes time.  Yes, you’re gonna screw up.  That doesn’t let you off the hook from consistently trying.

For those of you who have direct reason to worry about custody issues, I cannot recommend the following article highly enough. Even more, the organization, the Sexual Freedom Legal Defense and Education Fund.  It’s run by fantastic and caring woman, Valerie White.

Dos and Don’ts to Avoid Custody Challenges.

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[1] Financial support is not only money, but reduced rent, childcare and a number of other things.  I’ll reiterate something I say consistently:  DO NOT ACCEPT FINANCIAL SUPPORT FROM PEOPLE WHO DISAPPROVE OF YOUR LIFESTYLE.  That way lies trouble.

[2] And by God, it can.  Don’t try to wiggle out of being a good parent by claiming poly persecution or Mama Java will have to get all strict on your butt.

[3] And maybe even change it for the better!

The holiday season is fast approaching and many people often wonder how to handle alternative lifestyles such as polyamory and holidays.    I’d like to offer a list of Useful Tips that will help with the Cool Kids/Backward Family interface.

1. If you’re thinking of coming out at a family gathering…. DON’T.

Good grief, have a heart!  I’m all in favor of being out, yes.  Yes, I think being truthful with one’s family is a great idea.  But you know what?  There’s a time and a place for emotionally charged conversations and it’s not when Dad’s got the knife and is carving the Thanksgiving turkey, ‘kay? If you’re going to come out before the holidays and all the gatherings, you’ve really only got a couple of weeks to do so to give ‘em time to adjust to the shock. Otherwise, go ahead and wait until after the New Year.

2. Having a heart doesn’t mean being a doormat.

In all things, moderation and balance are important.  You know those boundaries I keep pushing?  You don’t have to accept being called names, threats or anything of the like.  Have plans for a graceful retreat if things get hairy.

3. Be careful with assumptions.

It can be hard to predict how family will react. Give ‘em a chance to react well to you being poly. Who knows? You may find you were unnecessarily edgy.

4. Those communication techniques you learned for good poly relationships can apply to your birth family.

Good communication, good boundaries, a willingness to truly love? All those things are important outside of the fun romantic relationships, you know. You’ve spent a lot of time using and practicing them. Here’s a chance to practice even more. Love’s love, for pity’s sake, and the world needs loving people.  All relationships take work, care and focus.  Be willing to do the work.