The Polyamorous Misanthrope » relationships

Trying to Break Us Up

Goddess of Java — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:00:50 +0000

What to do when a secondary female is trying get the primary male to breakup with the primary female in a polyamorous relationship?

This was not an Ask the Misanthrope Question, but a search term that appeared to link to this blog. In casting around for a topic upon which to write, I figured this was a good one.

If you do primary/secondary poly (and not all do) there is a time-honored and wonderful response to this.

Not a goddamned thing.

No, don’t look at me like I have three heads. I’m serious on this one. While I really do, no kidding, believe in being proactive, this isn’t in your hands. If your primary wants to stay, s/he’ll stay. If s/he doesn’t, s/he won’t. Simple, simple, easy-peasy. Ultimately, you’re being done a favor, no matter how much it might hurt or suck in the face of it. And yeah, losing a partner hurts and sucks. I’m not trying to blow that off, ’cause, man… Ouch. You can feel like someone’s performing an autopsy on your living body in the process. I get that.

But…

If another person really can break up a relationship between yourself and a love, you need to let it happen. Seriously. Otherwise, you’ve got someone who is only half-heartedly committed or interested. Who wants or needs that crap? You’re only going to be let down, and maybe in a worse way than is facing you.

If the relationship can’t be broken up, then you’ve got some tempered steel there in the relationship that is truly awesome, wonderful and valuable. Try to be worthy of it!

Now, maybe you favor a little more communication than what I’ve advised. You know, communication can be good, too. So, here’s some things you can say:

“I love you and want to stay with you. I am concerned about what’s going on. Do you want to stay with me?”

Ain’t nuttin’ wrong with asking for what you want and saying how you feel. This can take some courage, especially if you’re feeling insecure. But if you’ve got a good relationship with someone who tells you the truth,* you’ll get the truth and will have somewhere to go from there.

“I see doing , , and . It worries me. What do you think about it?”

You have to be absolutely concrete about behavior here. You might have a “feeling”, but unless there’s behavior to hang it on, discussions about it aren’t going to be very productive. In fact, if there’s nothing concrete to hang it on, your best bet is to observe rather than be reactive. In this instance, once you’ve identified the behavior, you’re still not interpreting it. You’re also showing that you’re open to learning what’s going on. You’ve got a concern, you’re bringing it up and you’re willing to listen to the answer.

But the big takeaway here is that no matter what, if you’re looking for a magic formula to enforce a specific dynamic, it ain’ta gonna happen. If you’re looking for advice on “how to keep your man”, I can’t help you. I don’t even think it’s wise. If he wants to go, let him go. I hope you’re too stinkin’ proud to remain in a relationship with someone who doesn’t want to be there, anyway. Certainly you deserve better.

_________________________

* If you have a partner that habitually lies to you, that’s an entirely different problem.

You Might Like:

Will a Baby Change my Poly Relationship?

Goddess of Java — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:00:22 +0000

Okay, go read the title. Then think a minute.

Damn right one of your partners having a baby is going to change things. Jesus, where’s your brain? Reams of paper go out with printed whinging about fathers who feel jealous of the attention their wives give their new babies. It’s something even monogamous people have to deal with. What in hell makes you think you’re so special?

Okay, rant aside, will a partner having a baby change your relationship for the worse?

It doesn’t have to, but that depends on a lot of things. Like, oh… Do you like babies and small children? If you don’t, friend, you’re facing issues in this department. Having a new baby is like NRE only more so. The average new parent tends to be a bit gaga about the new baby. It seems weird from the outside, but all that silly play and goofiness is important, because it makes the baby grow right.

Me? Well, in the last couple of years, my own poly relationships have been a bit baby-centric and I rather like it, but I like babies and I like playing with small children. I’m also a parent, myself, so as far as the whole baby thing? Getting to enjoy playing with ‘em when I don’t have to deal 24/7 is a treat. Kinda grandparenting lite, I suppose. If you really like babies, you’re all good. Play, have fun. When the baby’s asleep, play and have grown-up fun –from intellectual discussions to something more physical.

But what if that isn’t your thing? Do you have to abandon your loves as being Lost to Breederhood?

Not if you don’t want to, but it will be useful to accept a few things.

New parents are temporarily insane.

No, it’s not your imagination. If parents of very small children seem a little crazy, it’s because they are. You know how I go on and on in this blog about the dangers of sleep deprivation? Those dangers are real and the average new parent is damned sleep-deprived. Keep that in mind, and be patient. It gets better, but it takes a few years.
Being a new parent is like being in NRE up to eleven

Ever notice how most new parents think their baby is the most perfect, beautiful, intelligent creature ever to grace mankind, when all you see is a smelly, squalling, red-faced lump who has turned your brilliant love’s mind into a pile of goo? That infatuation with the kid perpetuates the human race, friend. The same chemicals that drive NRE are keeping those people from selling that baby to the Gypsies.
Even new parents like to remember that they’re something besides food, cuddling and diaper-changing machines

When The Prince and I had our son, we used to occasionally refer to ourselves as the baby’s keepers. Everyone was all excited to see the baby, but dammit, we were still intelligent adults who liked to debate politics and unscrew the inscrutable. But noo…. Everyone wanted to get out the stuffed animals and make the baby laugh. Gah!

If you’re not majorly into babies and are involved with a new parent, you can be someone who helps remind them that they’re more than baby keepers. Those intelligent conversations might have to be a bit more carefully scheduled, but they can still happen. Your loves will enjoy it, trust me.
Spontaneity in terms of getting together has gone bye-bye

Sorry. I know that sucks. But if you value the relationship, you’re going to have to suck it up and deal with scheduling.
That communication thing is still important

You know the temporary insanity thing I talked about? It’s okay to communicate how you feel in the face of it. Boundaries, negotiation, love, caring and all that stuff still count and it’s still important. Don’t neglect it.

So, the short answer is YES, one of your partner’s or partner’s partners having a new baby will change your relationship and how you interact. So does adding a new partner. So does a lot of things. That’s okay. It’s all in how you handle it. But keep an open mind, because it can be fun.

You Might Like:

Secondary Relationships Follow-up: They Ain’t All Bad

Goddess of Java — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:21:38 +0000

Yesterday, I posted a tongue-in-cheek collaboration between a couple of snarky, but very wise men who were expressing concerns about how secondaries are often treated. Is it funny? Yes. Will it make some people cry because it was true for them? Sadly, yes.

This is not to say that a secondary relationship is automatically bad. It is a sad and painful truth that secondary relationships are often treated as disposable or experiments by newly-poly couples.[1]

While I don’t label my relationships according to a hierarchical standard, the reality is you could label some of my relationships as secondaries.[2] I don’t feel in the least disposable to them. I’m free to express concerns, ask for time, laugh, play, weep, and any of the other things one does in a human relationship without being treated as if my concerns or needs aren’t important, or that if I’m “inconvenient” I’ll be disposed of!

So, if you are in a secondary relationship, you do have the right to ask for what you want. You have the right to express concerns. You have the right and responsibility to own your own feelings. You’re not the caretaker of anyone else’s feelings.[3]

So, even though there is this snark going on in the poly community about being a secondary to a couple, keep in mind that it’s not that being a secondary is bad.

It’s being treated as a disposable thing that’s bad.

And we all know that sin begins with treating people as things, boys and girls, don’t we?

[1] At least, it seems more common among the newly-poly. That’s not to say that old-timers are never guilty of this.

[2] I don’t live with them, nor do I plan to. I do tend to mentally label primary/secondary according to physical realities rather than muddying it up with ranking according to emotional intensity. That’s way too variable for my life!

[3] There is a significant difference between wishing to be considerate and taking responsibility for another’s feelings. If you’re feeling like you’re walking on eggshells, you’ve fallen into the latter.

You Might Like:

Are Polyamorous Relationships Hard?

Goddess of Java — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 12:09:45 +0000

There’s a common thread that I’m noticing in relationship talk that I’d like to address. It’s not necessarily polyamory specific, but I’ve never let it stop me before, so here we go:

“Relationships are hard.”

I first ran across this in a Focus on the Family publication back in the 1980s when I started reading about sex, families and relationships. I was a teenager and was still in the David St. Hubbins mode of believing virtually everything I read. So I bought it.

Then as I got older and married, I was told a good marriage was hard from all sorts of quarters. Then when I started being involved with the online polyamory community in the mid-1990s, I was still being told relationships were hard with the added caveat that polyamory is hard.

I’m less inclined to go with this common wisdom these days. What’s hard is when you don’t know yourself well enough[1], haven’t yet developed appropriate emotional self-sufficiency[2], and are making decisions from wishful thinking rather than facts[3].

I just don’t buy that relationships are anywhere near the hard work that self-development is. Once you start focusing on the self-development part, the relationship part seems to be a pretty nice side effect of that.

Is self-development hard? I’m sorry to say I find it so. Perhaps others don’t. I’m even a little embarrassed to admit that when I realized (well into my thirties) that I was not being a grown-up, that it wasn’t about romantic relationships at the end of the day that got me to try to clean up my act. It was about setting an example for my kids[4].

The only thing that made relationships hard were my own foolish choices and expectations. When I cleaned that up, a great deal fell into place.

[1] Been there

[2] Done that

[3] Bought the T-shirt

[4] When my son was born, my father said, “Children will not pay attention to much of what you say, but they WILL notice EVERYTHING YOU DO.” I do find this so. It is also why I started eating my vegetables. No, seriously!

You Might Like:

The Key Factor to Polyamory Relationship Success

Goddess of Java — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 20:22:16 +0000

In talking about polyamory relationship success, I do take as a given that you’re a rational grown-up. Relationships are for grown-ups. If you’re not a grown-up, fix that, first. Own your own shit, realize the world doesn’t revolve around you, have some basic self-knowledge and the ability to communicate honestly. If you don’t have those things[1], this article isn’t going to be worth a damn to you.

(Waiting)

Okay, now that the children are upstairs listening at the doorway[2], I want to talk a bit about the single factor that makes the most difference in the success or failure of polyamory relationship success – partner selection.

I want it clear that you are a grown-up. You know better than to map “good partner for you” to “good human being”, right? There are billions of good people in this world that would make a crappy partner for you. Got it?

Poly partner selection breaks down into two basic classifications. The first question you need to ask is, “Is this person a grown-up?” Only date grown-ups. That’s flat. You might make a badly-informed decision otherwise, but if you restrict your dating to grown-ups, even the mistakes will be considerably less painful and will not involve peripheral drama and nonsense. Really, if you follow the rule of only dating grownups you’ve solved a good 90% of the problems right there.

A grown-up:

Owns his own shit.
Tells the truth.
Knows how to set appropriate boundaries
Knows that ultimately he is the one finally responsible for getting his needs met.
Knows how to ask for what she wants.
1. Knows the difference between a request and a demand.
Knows that the world does not revolve around him, so is not quick to take everything personally.

There. Really you can stop reading. If your partners meet those criteria, you’ve eliminated a lot of problems. Even so, sometimes even two grownups are not a great match, though. Once you’ve gotten past the “Is this person a grown-up?” the questions start getting really individual. You need to know yourself and your personal tastes. Here’s some good questions to ask:

Do I like socializing best one on one or in a group?
What sorts of things do I like to do? Does the candidate for a relationship with me like to do any of them?
How okay am I with people doing things without me? If Significant Events in your life are ruined without the presence of all your partners, not only do you need to be up front about it, you want to select partners within a small geographic area who have few commitments outside of the relationship. (This almost borders on “Not a grownup” in my book, as the joined at the hip paradigm is often an unspoken expectation. But I let it slide because if you ARE up front about it and select for it, you’re owning your own shit, which means Grownup).
Do I favor a communication form? What kinds of communication make me happiest?
How important are spiritual beliefs and practices (or the lack thereof) to me?
How much time do I need to spend with a partner to be happy?
1. Does the candidate actually desire to give and have that level of time to give?
2. If the candidate wants more time than you were thinking of giving, do you have as much time as the candidate is happiest having and are you happy giving it? Be cautious with this one. Relationships are great, but we poly people tend to have a strong creative component to our lives. Keep time to draw, knit, paint, blow stuff up, build siege engines, etc. Yes, this can be something you do with a partner, and you’ll be getting a Cool Partnership with Extra Sprinkles. It’s awesome when it happens and might even be something you want to look for.
How strongly do I feel about kids or the lack thereof in terms of socializing with partners? Is this in harmony with the candidate’s actual life? (Hint: If said partner has kids under 12 and lives with the kids full-time, if the kids are not a huge factor, he or she might be avoiding parenting responsibilities in favor of extra-curricular activities. i.e. Might not be a grown-up. Just sayin’ Be careful and aware).
Do you agree on what’s “quality time” together? You might find sitting together watching a movie a great thing to do together, or you might consider it a waste of time when you could be interacting. Make sure you know what’s quality time for the both of you. You might have differing views and that’s okay. If you know and are cool with mutually meeting those differing needs, it’ll work out. But not knowing can be a recipe for disaster, even among grown-ups. Make sure you’re actually cool with it, though. If you’re tolerating it for TEH HAWT SECKIN go up a few paragraphs. You really don’t have to compromise on that when looking for good relationships.

Are you patting yourself on the back and saying, “Oh I can get along with anyone and can make my style match anyone else’s for a good relationship?”

Stop pattin’. No, seriously, stop it. Either you’re so tapioca bland and tasteless that you aren’t worth having a relationship with, or your self-knowledge needs some work. You do have tastes, desires, things that make you happy, and things that don’t. If you pretend you don’t, that nonsense is just gonna explode all over the place one day like an overripe zit. Even the most easygoing of people have tastes and preferences, for pity’s sake. Don’t sell yourself short. Choose wisely and your relationships will be awesome.

And if you don’t, realize they’re learnable skils.

Why yes, not only am I a parent, I remember my own childhood.

You Might Like:

Can a Polyamorous Marriage Last?

Goddess of Java — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:19:33 +0000

Today, my husband and I have been married twenty years.

Now, unlike a lot of married couples, we never were monogamous. It’s part of the reason why I choke when people ask how to transition from a monogamous relationship to a poly one. Buggered if I know a thing about it.

So, things should have been wonderful, smooth sailing for we, the couple who had everything on board and saw eye to eye about such things, right?

Everyone that knows us can stop laughing hysterically now.

The reality is that we were kids when we married – just twenty and twenty-one years old. We spent the next two decades trying to work out a lot of really serious stuff. We misunderstood how each other thought, where certain values came from, what was the motivation for each others’ incredibly irritating behaviors.

This is not to paint a picture of a bad marriage, though[1]. Those things did happen. And like in many relationships, it nearly drove us to dissolve the partnership.

Except for a big honking basic – and one that caused us not to want to dissolve it at all. Love? Naw. Love’s great and yes, I love The Prince a great deal. But no, love wasn’t it.

We’re actually really good partners.

Once we got over some rather childish communication issues, we got back to what got us together in the first place. It took longer than grownups should have taken to learn to be open with each other, to say no when we didn’t want to do something[2], and to realize that given that we’re the damnedest mixture of traditional and outré, that we were going to have to do a lot of Relationship Rulebook Writing on our own.

Strange as it may seem, even though we were poly, we still had a hard time chucking a lot of the joined at the hip stuff a lot of married couples think they have to have to be a good marriage. Our marriage is a lot more about two independent people choosing to be together than social constructs.

And there’s where poly marriages can be difficult. There’s no real roadmap. We have certain ideas about what marriages and relationships should look like. Once you step off that map, you have a considerably less clear idea about what to look for when checking on the health of a relationship.

Here’s my personal checklist for my own life these days:

Are we telling each other the truth?

This really should be a no-brainer for any relationship. What we’ve found interesting between ourselves is that both of us have a terrible habit of wanting to be kind and accommodating, only to find we’re saying yes to stuff we’re not cool with. Life’s gotten a lot nicer now that we stopped that nonsense.

Are we having fun regularly? Do we laugh together?

Yes, fun in a relationship is really important. REALLY important. I put it up there with earning a living and making sure that the kids get proper meals. When you stop laughing together, things have gone really wrong.

Do we give each other courage in the bad times?

This is a hard one. When everyone is stressed out and upset, it’s easy to turn in on yourself. I think a mutual commitment to help each other keep spirits up during difficulties is an important part of long-term commitments.

Do we have things we create together?

This is possibly a personal quirk, but I prefer relationships where we’re creating something together every now and thing.

Are we supportive of individual projects?

We have our own projects, too. Being supportive of the individual as well as the group relationship efforts is important.

So, in closing, Happy 20^th anniversary to The Prince. I’m glad I chose to be with you, and am glad that I chose to continue to do so. I love you.

[1] Not that parts did not get very bad, indeed.

[2] Liking to be accommodating isn’t always a relationship plus, believe it or not.

You Might Like:

My Wife Doesn’t Understand Me

Goddess of Java — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:09:09 +0000

“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.

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

You Might Like:

Want to be valued? Value YOU!

Goddess of Java — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:07:23 +0000

I need advice.

My girl and I began exploring the “lifestyle” about 2 years ago. At some point mid way, I discovered that I was having nervousness block my performance, in my opinion because many encounters seemed rushed. I talked with my partner about doing solo dates, and she was very much against it. So I let go of it.

Meanwhile, my partner gets involved (solo) with a popular social club, and from her explanation it has really helped her in areas of being social, something she had been struggling with. She attended a larger event, held at a campground, and calls me to say she drank too much, and had been offered a spot to spend the night. She was approached by a male member of the group sexually, somehow he gets the opportunity to explain to her the group is full of swingers, and apparently sparks fly between the two of them. She asks me if she could have my blessing to have sex with him, and I agree to it.

I attend their next event to meet this gentleman, nice guy, apparently the woman seem to love him, and all of the sudden I start noticing that he and my girl are doing things like hugging/light kissing/and at one point hand-holding. That night she tells me they are going to sneak out into the woods, and tell her to have fun. After several hours they got back, and my mind had started getting restless.

Somehow I overlooked the fact this person had the potential of being a very frequent potential dating partner for her, so the next day I kindly explained how I felt to her, and that turned very nasty very fast, and she began threatening to end the relationship, but we reach some sort of simple agreement to lay it to rest until we are clear enough to deal with it in the future. Now I have not ever had a solo playmate, and I am not sure that it’s in my genes to be able to eventually achieve this.

I am starting to feel anxiety from this situation, I fear it’s going to spin out of control, will be left with over-exaggerated tokens of affection from her, and much less of her time, while feeling inadequate because I don’t believe I have what it takes to even find someone who would be interested in doing the same with me. I tried explaining this to her, but the results we the same. She feels I should have no problems what so ever, but I am just not in that space right now, and confusion had taken over in this relationship.

Thanks for reading, any advice or comments are greatly appreciated.

Shouldn’t have a problem, huh? Well, maybe it’d be better all around for everyone if you didn’t, but let’s accept for the moment that you do. Problems can be solved, so this is hardly a hopeless situation, but don’t let “should” get in the way for now. Don’t let anyone tell you how you should feel either.

It does sound like you’re feeling pretty insecure about your own attractiveness. That sucks. It’s beyond the scope of a single blog post to give you really useful, solid advice about how to overcome insecurity about oneself or one’s attractiveness, but I will give you a tiny, minor piece of advice that might be useful:

Be yourself just as hard as you can.

As a unique human being, what you really have to bring to the table in terms of a relationship is the unique human being that you are. Be that to the hilt.

You did not give a lot of detail about the conversation between the two of you “getting nasty fast” and your girlfriend threatening to leave the relationship, so unfortunately I can’t give much clear advice about that. I can think of a dozen reasons why it might have, but without more facts on hand, I can only give you some general advice.

Always tell the truth about how you feel
Don’t put up with emotional blackmail
Never agree to what you don’t want, but understand that sometimes these things can be dealbreakers. Ideally, it’s best to accept that outright.
You are allowed your feelings, but clinging to insecurity isn’t really helpful. If you feel insecure, work on that. (You might want to start with Franklin Veaux’s excellent article Becoming Secure.)
You don’t have to accept inequitable agreements.
Be your own primary.

I really do think that in your specific case, working on valuing yourself is really the key log that’ll unblock a lot of problems.

Good Luck. I bet you’ll do great.

You Might Like:

Ask the Misanthrope: Jealousy?

Goddess of Java — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 12:00:08 +0000

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!

You Might Like:

We’ve Done It, Now Let Me Fix Your Life

Goddess of Java — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:00:28 +0000

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:

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

[1] Usually the male.

You Might Like: