The Polyamorous Misanthrope

I follow my intuition, go with my gut, all that. The times I haven’t? Well, things didn’t exactly have what I would call an optimum outcome.

Does this mean I think, “Well, I feel this way, so it must be true!” is the way to go.

Not. Even. Close.

We get a lot of pushing to follow our feelings, trust our intuition, go with our guts — as if digested waste can think. The problem comes in with the misunderstanding of what “gut feelings” are for and how they work.

It’s not mystical, really.

The human brain is set up to gather and integrate data very quickly — so quickly that we’re doing so without thinking of it consciously. Think of catching a frisbee. It’s physics, and you can write the equations by which you perform the actions, but you’re not consciously figuring vectors when you see the disc coming at you. You just catch it. Doesn’t make it magic.  But if you study the physics, you can describe the exact mechanism pretty clearly.

If you just go with your feelings without looking for facts, you’re running around with one eye poked out. You have no depth perception.¹ You’re missing the other viewpoint, and it’s an absolutely necessary one to make sure you have a clear 3D picture of what’s going on.

I wanna digress a little bit and talk about facts. It’s basic and simple and people get it wrong all the time. If it happened, it’s a fact. If it hasn’t happened, it’s a theory or a prediction. If you hold a kitten over a working blender and open your hand, the prediction that it will fall in is actually not a fact. It’s a theory. It’s a theory that has a whale of a lot of evidence to point to the probability of kitten puree², but it’s not a fact. We clear? Good.

So where does someone who finds her intuition a good tool get off lecturing about facts?

Simple. If you trust a feeling without digging for supporting facts, it will bite you. As Franklin Veaux wisely commented, “Just because I feel bad doesn’t mean someone else did something wrong.” If you feel bad, the fact is that you feel bad. Doesn’t prove a thing.

I’m gonna admit to a slight hypocrite moment here. Recently I made a business decision based on no facts I could find. I had taken a temp job that felt wrong — I mean, soul-suckingly, sleep-deprivingly bad. From a factual, logical point of view, the job was mostly positive. It got me a shot as some experience I would not have otherwise had, had more secure income than I’m used to as a freelancer, and several other good things. I decided to go on feelings and resign from that job. Yeah, it turned out quite well. I found other avenues to replace in the income and experience. But I cannot pretend for one second that I found appropriate backing facts before I made that decision. I tried, but at the time, the thoughts weren’t thinking. I can see now that taking a temp job with no specific end date or end to the project wasn’t going to work with my business plan, but that was hindsight in terms of my decision-making, and hindsight should be suspect because justification is easy at that stage.

What I didn’t do was fool myself. I didn’t pretend facts that I wasn’t seeing. I didn’t make anyone else responsible for how I felt.³ I didn’t fool myself that it was risky. The fact (it happened, so it’s a fact) of the positive outcome wasn’t some mystic anything. It was that I was not fooling myself about the risk and got my ass in gear in a big way to hustle and get the positive outcome I wanted.

This applies to relationships. If something happens where you feel bad or something feels “wrong”, you owe it to yourself to examine your feelings then look for facts.

Scared a Dear Love is gonna leave you?  Well, are you scared for a genuine reason or not?  What are the supporting facts?  What, specifically has happened that says that it’s in the Dear Love’s character?  Can you recall at least one (if not more) instance?  If there’s nothing, your feelings are coming from somewhere else.

Is a Dear Love late home for the umpteenth time?  Are you spinning out of control because you’re edgy about it?  What are the facts of the matter?  Not the supposition, not the extrapolation. What are the facts?   Don’t know them?

Give it up. Go take a hot bath.  Have a cup of tea.  Think about something else for awhile.

Wait till you can get the facts.

¹Which could lead to an interesting essay on ole Mr. Wednesday, but that’s not for a poly column.
² This image was shamelessly stolen from a friend of mine. Ten points if you can find the essay. It’s a favorite to which I often refer.
³ ‘Cause… well, they aren’t.

Raise your hand if you’ve developed a friendship or a relationship online.

Betcha a doughnut that just about everyone reading this has had one.

This means a fair whack of you have had that weird beast in your life — the Long-Distance Relationship (LDR).

Communications and networking being what they are, we simply do see a lot of interaction conducted online over long distances. When romance gets thrown in, it can be a lot of fun or a big mess, depending on how you conduct it.

To ensure that it’s fun, keep a few of these things in mind:

Texual communication has its limits.

Sure, you can feel close to someone through online communication. You can exchange your thoughts, feelings, secrets, inner desires, and all that. It’s great. But the physical component does make a difference. Studies show that over half of our communication is non-verbal, so that missing component can be significant.

I recall some years ago finding the writing of someone a pain in the butt to deal with. All I could see was the text. I wound up meeting the person and dating him for a few years. When I could tie his writing to what I knew to be his vocal mannerisms and body language, I wound up interpreting texual communication very differently.

I’ve found this in myself as well. People who’ve met me in person are considerably more likely to see humor in my casual texual communication because they know the facial expressions that go along with certain modes of expression.

It’s a human trait. Keep that in mind when you meet someone on the Internet.

Meetings are “vacation time”. Do not mistake how fun they are with what living together would be like.

When you get together in meatspace with your LDR, it’s a “special event”. You’re up, you’re on, you’re more likely to be glittering (or at least making an effort). This person does not get the dailyness of you.

There’s nothing in the world wrong with enjoying that specialness. I find my visits with my FWB delightful because of the break in routine. We have a good time together — which, to me, is kinda the point. But, that vacation, that fun, that sense of adventure even when things are going All Wrong? Unless that is your natural state of being,¹ it’s not going to stick in any relationship where you’re hanging out on a day to day basis. That sort of thing is more about who you are, not who you think you are in relation to someone else.

Don’t let the LDR keep you from living in the present.

“Now” is all you have. Yes, yes, yes, spend time communicating with your long-distance loves. Don’t drop the rest of your life in the face of it. The house still needs cleaning, you still need to make sure you’re paying attention to the kids. Oh, yeah, that partner you’re with… your local SO(s) needs attention, too. That life you had before the LDR? It’s still there. But it won’t be if you don’t live it.

If you are planning to move closer to each other, don’t put your life on hold until this becomes a reality. If you have goals and projects, for goodness’ sake keep working on them in the meantime! You could get hit by a truck. The world could explode. Do you want your life to have been lived “on hold” because you were waiting for something exciting?

Enjoy it for exactly what it is.

There’s a lot to be said for having a relationship where there are short bursts of intense fun. That’s a good, real and valid thing to do. Fun counts. It counts for a lot! So, don’t knock it or dismiss it as less “serious” or less “worthy”!

And remember everyone, the PolyWorks Fund Logo Contest is ending in a couple of weeks!  Click on the link to find out more.

¹And if it is, bless you for adding joy to the world!

I’ve been watching on several polyamory boards to see people trying to make themselves okay with being in polyamorous relationships. I’ve seen descriptions of people feeling like their hearts are being ripped out. I’ve seen descriptions of people wanting to curl into a ball and cry while their partners are with other people. I’ve even had communication with people who wanted me to help them be okay with having sex with people they didn’t want to sleep with, but partners wanted them to because they thought that was “how you did poly”¹.

I find these posts heartbreaking.

Poly is not martyrdom, and taking pride in being a martyr isn’t going to help you live to the fullest. If you hate it, if it feels wrong, if you feel dirty or betrayed or like you have to force yourself into something:

Maybe poly isn’t for you.

It’s not an enlightened way to be. It’s just a choice that works for some people. It’s a preference that has no more to do with goodness, enlightenment or value than preferring linguine to rice.

There are dozens of reasons why people make themselves try to be okay with poly. Maybe she don’t want to lose a beloved partner. Maybe her partner tried monogamy for her and was unhappy. Maybe they saw it as a way to try to stay together. These things all look so loving and noble. I’m all for love, I really am. I just don’t think that going through pain and suffering is somehow the hallmark of a “worthy relationship”. I don’t find choosing suffering necessarily noble. It’s too close to the mindset of the woman who is proud of herself for her endurance when it comes to accepting an abusive mate.

I’m not saying polyamorous/monogamous pairing are bad². Not at all! But in the good ones, the monogamous member isn’t curling up in a ball when his polyamorous partner is out with another love, either. In a healthy poly/mono pairing, the monogamous partner has his own full life, ya know. She’s not curled into a ball weeping when her partner isn’t with her. He’s got friends and projects and family and is living a busy, happy life — when his partner is around and when he’s alone.

I’m also not saying that twinges of discomfort are reasons to drop a relationship. There’s an enormous difference between, “Dammit, I feel lonely and at a loose end and wish I were out having fun, too” and curling up in a little ball and crying your eyes out because you feel so abandoned, alone and unloved. The healthiest of people have down times and the best relationships do, too.

So what do you do when you’re really not okay with poly and your partner is unhappy monogamous?

That’s a rough one. I’ve been accused, since reviving the Polyamorous Misanthrope column, of seeing relationships as disposable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Commodities are disposable. People and relationships are not commodities. Relationships are forever and always about individuals humans and the different ways we merge and change and bump against each other.

I do not believe that there is any great value in white-knuckling it through a romantic relationship. Suck it up and deal to make sure the kids are properly taken care of and nurtured? Sure. I will point out that doesn’t require a romantic relationship³.

I’m increasingly of the opinion that the only good ways to conduct a relationship are going for the “win-win” or the “no deal”.   If you can find a way to be happy and fulfilled with one partner poly and the other not, that’s wonderful! Go for it and enjoy.  It can and does happen.   It doesn’t happen by making yourself do or be what you are not.  At that point, I strongly encourage the “no deal”.  When I say “no deal” I don’t mean anger, bitterness or hostility.   Just, with a blessing let ‘em go.   It’s probably gonna hurt.   But it is a good way to happiness  in the long run,  no kidding. Some people, no matter how much they love each other, aren’t compatible in the long run.   Believe it or not, you can and do get over it and into creating a life for yourself where you’re not curled into a ball weeping several nights a month.

¹ That’s not “how you do poly”. It comes very, very close to (and sometimes is) “how you do abuse”.

² It’s rarely the relationship form, but how you conduct the relationship that’s the issue.

³ Of all the bills of goods we get sold, the one about parents having to stay in love until the kids are grown to rear children properly is one of the more obnoxious and destructive ones.

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

I’ve been in sexual relationships for over twenty years as well as having made a study of them in the last seven. The more I study, the more I see that many problems in relationships seem to be problems of dependence and commodifying a partner.

Dependence comes in many forms — emotional, physical, financial. If you are in any way of the mindset, “I’m screwed if I must live without my Dear Love,” you’re no longer in a relationship involving equals and choice. You are not with that person solely because you choose to be with that person. At least part of the relationship is tainted by a commodity that your Dear Love supplies.

This commodity could be myriad in nature. If you’re monogamous (or exclusive in any way), it could be something as simple as sex. If you’re a housewife without the emotional understanding that you do have marketable skills, you depend on your SO for food and shelter, for God’s sake — your actual physical survival. That’s heavy stuff. You’ve very much removed an equals mindset. (Remember, I was a housewife for over 11 years, so this is not a high horse, but a deeply considered opinion backed up by painful experience). The commodity could be emotional in nature. I can recall an SO being my basic emotional reason for staying alive. That’s a nowhere place for anyone on either side of that prickly fence. The true relationship of equals can only happen when you say, “Yes, I love you and want to be with you, but if something happens where I am not longer with you, no matter how much it will suck and how painful it will be, I am fully confident that I will have a rich and fulfilling life.”

I’m not saying that it’s desirable to be cavalier about your love. If you lose a loved one, it hurts. There’s just a difference between “hurts” and an idea that your life is somehow not going to be any good any more if you don’t have that partner. It’s important to realize that your quality of life is in your own hands even if things go south between you and your partner.

To have a full relationship between equals, there must be no dependence. You really cannot need ¹ your partner, but must be with said partner because it is a free choice made from a position of strength and independence. No, this does not make for a tepid relationship. No, it won’t have the bright crayon strokes of drama. Instead, the pleasures will be subtler and more natural. Bright and beautiful? Sure, but the brightness will be the restrained choice and beauty of a Maxfield Parrish painting. Instead of the scotch bonnet spiciness of mono-faceted flavor, it will have the blended richness and satisfaction of a good curry while still retaining a fair amount of that wonderful spice.

¹Just because I know I’m gonna get this as a reply from someone please allow me to point out that if you have physical issues your partner is helping you with, your need is for help, not the specific individual.

We talk about the polyamory mantra being communicate, communicate, communicate. Do I agree with it? Good Lord, yes! Communication is the cornerstone of a good relationship. When you stop communicating, things fall apart.

Most people who’ve been on this spinning globe more than twelve years or so have had the dubious pleasure of entering into a situation where people are flapping their tongues at each other with about as much noise, but less information delivered than if they’d been Howler Monkeys. At least with Howler Monkeys you know what they really want is for you to go away.

I want to outline a few things that communication is not.

Communication is not agreement.

“My partner won’t stop seeing his SO with the drug problem who keeps stealing from my purse. I feel like we’re not communicating here.”

We’ve all heard stuff like this. If you’ve stated, “I don’t like it when you’re involved with people who steal from me” and stated it that baldly, the problem isn’t communication. It’s that you’ve got a partner that isn’t agreeing with you. Different other problem. The statement was also a little badly-framed, as you’re still directing the other person’s behavior. A better way to put it would be, “I don’t like it when there are people in my life that steal from me.” and outline what steps you’ll take to keep from being stolen from, up to and including leaving the relationship).

Sometimes when you’re communicating effectively, you’ll find out that you might not be in agreement about something. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re communicating badly. It might mean… well, you don’t agree! My son and I have hung up on this one a few times. He’s still at the stage where he thinks if he explains Transformers well enough to me, I’ll get the point and become a fan. That’s not gonna happen any more than if I tried explain how cool it is to get up at five in the morning and go out in the cold to hit the pool and swim laps until I’m out of breath. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the sleek feel of the water over my body, the sense of accomplishment when I come home to the hedonistic pleasure of a bowl of plain oatmeal. He’s still gonna look at me like I’m Calvin’s dad or something. We don’t agree. We’ve communicated our viewpoints well, thoroughly and clearly. We’re just never gonna agree on it.

I make part of my living teaching various MS Office programs. As a teacher, I often lecture. You teachers out there are probably already grinning and nodding, knowing where I’m going with this.

When you lecture, you’re looking for feedback, scanning your audience for clues that they understand, that they’re absorbing the information. You stop at frequent intervals to ask if there are any questions or comments. You do everything you can to make sure that you’re getting feedback. If you stop getting feedback, it’s become a one-way deal. It’s okay to stop trying at that point. In fact, it’s a good idea. You can go back to it, later, when people are ready to communication. (If they stop wanting to communicate, again, you’ve got a different problem. You cannot make someone want to communicate).

Effective communication is about giving the accurate information, not telling the other person what to do with it.

The point of communication is to help everyone make as accurate choices as possible (though we know nothing is perfect). If you, say, hate country music, saying you hate it might not be enough information. You might never want to hear it ever. Then a partner knows not to invite you to the Willie Nelson concert. If you dislike it, but are willing to put up with it to hang out with someone, you can say that, and the person knows that hang out time is valuable enough to you that you’d like to go with him to see Willie. But, even if you can deal with country, but your partner has another partner who adores it and would be eager to see that concert. Just because you communicated that hang out time is important, your partner doesn’t owe you that concert. He might decide any of a number of things based on a dozen factors (as do you). The best choices are usually made with the most accurate information. So your job is to give such (and ask for it!)

So yes, communication is the cornerstone of a decent relationship, do doubt about it.  But don’t expect “good communication” to mean, “this is the way to get other people to do what I want most of the time”.  That’s not what good communication is about.

You’re poly, you’re new to it and you’re excited. Then some jerk starts picking apart your happiness and excitement and you feel smacked. What the hell? You know the community you joined said it was talking about polyamory. Aren’t these people supposed to be sympathetic?

A newly poly person, having a new interest, is probably very absorbed in the ideas, wanting to learn what other people think, excited to try out the joys of multiple partners. This is all good and valid and the way it should be, I think. I’m all for diving deep into new interests and ideas.

What’ll happen is that they’ll encounter an established community start talking to someone like me, and it’ll feel like a damn’ brick wall. It’s not that I’m jaded and cynical… Okay, fine, I am jaded and cynical. But the point is that the newly poly who truly does want and need to explore all the options around hits into the person who has done an awful lot of exploring and isn’t really excited about talking about the shiny new, nor is this person willing to overlook some things that one does (and maybe even should) in the shiny new phase.

This is not to say that cynically shooting people down is okay just because you’ve been around the block a few times. It’s not okay. I think a little sympathy and understanding is a good thing, even when you’re hauling out the “stick of grandmotherly kindness.”

I’d like both sides of this to understand each other. If you’re over 35 and cannot look at a 17 year old who is newly in love and hormonally carbonated and put your own mind back to those days when it was you, you need to work on your empathy for a little while before you start mouthing off in the poly community. Remember when you got into something new and exciting and overwhelming to your life. Keep that in mind as you’re trying to explain things you think are necessary to talk about to the new ones.

On the other hand, you newly polys, when you get a comment that seems a bit negative or jaded? That person is probably opening her shirt and saying, “See this? Over my heart? Big fucking scar, innit? I want to explain to you how I got it so maybe you can avoid one of your own.” Believe it or not, that person is not trying to blow off your happiness, excitement or joy in the new, but is trying to help you keep your happiness. Poly is not new to that person, and unless she’s a psycho like me who writes about it all the time and starts communities on it, the concept of poly probably does not absorb even as much time as what a churchgoer spends on religion.  They don’t have lifestyles so much as… well… LIVES.

I’m not gonna say I’m innocent of the “Been there, done that” eyeroll routine.   You really do see a lot of the same issues over and over and over and over and over and over.   What I try to remind myself when I’m actually concentratin’ on bein’ a decent human being and all, is that while it’s not new to me, it’s new to the person talking about it.

But you new people?  Keep in mind it’s new to you.

Mama Java, out…

Anyone over the age of 13 ought to know that sex can have consequences.

We all know you can get pregnant, get a disease, blah, blah, blah, that safe sex isn’t¹ and that contraception is not always perfect.

Do you ever talk about this sort of thing with your partners? If you don’t/haven’t, please do.

Things that it would be helpful to discuss openly with any partner that might be affected in a poly situation:

What do we agree to do if there is an unexpected pregnancy?

Remember this is not necessarily just between two people. If there are other long-term partners, especially legal spouses and/or other children, involved it’s going to affect a lot of lives. The adults in the situation need to sit down and make sure that everyone knows how everyone else feels so that intelligence plans can be made. If none of you are parents, talk to people who are – especially poly parents. Things you think would be big issues when you’re childless might not be, and things you think are trivial aren’t. Talk. Discuss. Get information.

Also, it’s important to take something into account: Sometimes pregnancy can trip some very visceral responses in a woman, especially when it’s her first pregnancy. If you find yourself in this position, please keep in mind that you’re bound by agreements you make. Yes, I am alluding to the fact that if you agree not to have a child in the case of an unexpected pregnancy and then change your mind about it, it’s pretty tacky to demand that the father be involved with time and/or money. Ultimately it’s your choice, but put on your big girl panties about it and let it be your choice.

If you’re a guy and you’re not interested in more children, and want the pregnancy to be terminated in case of an accident, make sure you have on your big boy pants, too, and be diligent about the birth control as well as choosing not to have sex partners where you think they may be unsure. Ideally, get snipped. I’m hoping everyone’s being loving here. It’s not loving not to let partners know how you feel and why, then step up to the plate and take responsibility for those feelings’ consequences. ‘Kay?

Decide on what you consider is intelligent risk management in terms of STDs.

I like this article very much, and really encourage you to check it out. It’s incredibly sensible and doesn’t sugar coat, but isn’t a Chicken Little type STD article either. Check out all the links down the right sidebar, too. Good stuff. This is better than anything I could write, so I’m not going to bother to reinvent the wheel.

If someone does get an STD, how will you handle it? How do you plan to tell everyone who needs to know. (Hint: If you’re having sex with them, you need to tell them. Then they need to tell everyone they’re having sex with and so on… Got it? Not telling someone is being a damn’ asshole. Don’t do that).

If you’re interested in being loving, you need to talk stuff out first. That whole “swept away in the heat of the moment” seems great for a movie. But do you really think your life should be a good movie script?² More to the point, would you wish that on people you love?

¹ There are those who refer to risk management when it comes to sex and disease as “safer sex” as the more accurate term. Nothing’s perfect.
²As a writer of fiction, I sure as hell hope not. Good fiction means torturing your characters!

Community is important. (Yeah, yeah, I know, big shock that I’d say that. Stop pretending to have a heart attack).

I’ve been preaching boundaries and acceptable behavior for many months here, and the reason I do it is because community is important and you cannot have a good relationship without interdependence. Thing is, you won’t choose that if you’re not solid and safe in your boundaries first.

This is where the title to the article comes in. You see, there are stages of growth that every person goes through¹.

First, you’re dependent. We typically associate this with childhood because the way children are dependent is big and obvious. They cannot care for themselves, but over time, they learn the skills necessary to do so. The thing is, often people are emotionally dependent long after they’re no longer so physically. You are emotionally dependent if your sense of self-worth and security derives from the continuing nurturing of another person.

I’ll tell on myself. I was in my late thirties before I moved away being emotionally dependent on someone. So, just so you know, there’s no high horse about this sort of thing coming from me. I got lucky and was forced into the next stage.

Yep, Independence.

Now many people are physically independent even before they hit their twenties. That’s really cool. But to be in keeping with the poly theme, I wanna talk more about emotional independence. Boy, oh boy, that sounds all cool and self-sufficient, doesn’t it? Yep, I can take care of myself, I don’t depend on anyone for my needs…. Wow, this is awesome!

It is awesome, and a fun feeling.

But there’s one more step — Interdependence. This is when you’re relying mutually on each other(s) in support of a common goal such as family, childrearing or some other community goal.

Interdependence can’t happen, by the way, unless you’ve been independent. It’s a necessary stage. If you’ve skipped the whole independence thing, you’re probably dependent, no matter how it looks otherwise.

Interdependence is where a good poly relationship happens. It’s where individuals, perfectly capable of and relaxed at the prospect of being self-reliant, self-supporting and perfect fine and happy with self-care can mutually agree to a level of support and care between each other. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that until you reach the whole interdependent level, you’re really not ready to have poly relationships at all.

So, where are you in your personal development?

If you’re saying, “I need my SO.” or “Life wouldn’t be worth living without X”, you’re dependent². It might be productive to take a hard look at yourself and ask yourself if you like where you are. If you do, well, good luck with that. It’s a somewhat dangerous path, but can be a valid choice. Just do it with your eyes open. If you aren’t too happy with it, there are a range of options. Counseling can be useful. You might find mental exercises where you mentally replace the word “need” with “want” for anything not having to do with your physical survival³. Try exercises that make you aware that you’re responsible for your own emotional well-being. Consistently ask yourself how you can meet your own emotional desires. Make sure you’re not throwing them aside to care for others, as well.

If you’re independent, make sure you check that it’s a choice rather than a fear of closeness. It’s a valid choice in a lot of circumstances, but you want to be sure you’re open to the benefits of community — of serving and being served.

When you get to an interdependent situation, do keep in mind that there’s a serious mutuality going on there! You might be spending a lot of time in service to others, but those others are going to be spending a lot of time in service to you. Remember to accept the help. If you’re not accepting the help and care as well as giving it, you’re actually in a weird cycle of dependence or co-dependence. Mutuality is the key. I mean, we all know giving is fun, right? Yes, yes, yes, enjoy yourself in it, but don’t hog all the fun. Let your loves have the pleasure of doing the same!

¹Please note that I did not say, “Every child goes through”. Sure, it’d be great if we did all go through these stages in childhood, but the simple fact of the matter is that in our culture and the way many people are reared, we don’t. So don’t beat yourself up no matter what stage you’re in. It won’t help you and just makes you feel bad.

² Like I said, been there, done that, and it wasn’t so long ago. No beatin’ yourselves up if this is where you are. It’s not productive, but it doesn’t make you bad.

³ Don’t go overboard with this. If you don’t thrive in a household where there’s a lot of shouting or little privacy, you don’t. Just do your very best to detach how you thrive emotionally from a dependence on other people’s behaviors.

Okay, how many of you suckers really, really think I’m going to do a post about that?

What I am going to do is explain a bit about why there isn’t, nor will there ever be, a Misanthrope article analyzing OLQ’s breakup¹.

The first is merely the tacky factor. I have a strong distaste, shared by my exes, for public displays of negative emotion. Friends, even the most amicable of divorces is painful, and really sucks. Feeding the suckiness isn’t something I wanna do. And at this late date, the suckiness is gone. That’s a good thing!

“Okay,” you say, “but what about the fact that you guys had this huge site about building a poly family and making it work. It didn’t work and we don’t know why! You owe an explanation.”

I actually did get an email to the tune of this back in July 2005 when I thought I was retiring from the poly community, but found I was really taking a sabbatical.

I never did write a response, but I actually did get up from my computer and swore for about five minutes without repeating myself before I was calm enough to decide I’d just let it go without saying anything.

As a response two years later: No, we don’t owe an explanation. Sorry.

But to be more forthcoming, you’ve heard the old saying, “There are three sides to any breakup: His side, her side and the truth.” Just as there are something like sixteen relationships within a quad, there are an equivalent number of sides in its breakup. Within months of that breakup, I wasn’t capable of a rational analysis and had the sense not to try — certainly not in a public forum.

Two years on, I feel like I have a more rational handle, and am even more disinclined to do a public postmortem than ever. The information that people need to solve problems in their own relationships is out there, and my own analysis would not add sufficiently to the body of knowledge to overcome any pain showing my own limited, and possibly inaccurate, point of view would cause my exes.

But you know what? You won’t go far wrong by following the advice on the PolyFamilies site. That showed a lot of what we did right, and problems we were right to work on. I don’t read any of those articles and cringe, nor do I feel ashamed of anything that’s up there. If I’ve changed an opinion, it’ll probably show up here with some level of analysis, but you ain’t gettin’ any juicy dirt.

I will say that OLQ, even in its breakup, did do something right. We decided “Screw the personal. How do we at least do our best for the kids?” We’re doing okay. Not perfect, because no-one’s perfect, but I’m proud of the fact that we do focus on the important stuff.

So, in the face of that, if you’re in the throes of a breakup, I’d like to give this advice which has worked for us:

• It’s a damn breakup, not a war. You don’t need troops to defend you. Look, in a breakup, you might be seeing things in black and white. You might very well feel like you are totally right and you want people to agree with how right you are. Enjoy your rightness quietly and don’t wave it like a damn flag, ‘kay? Trumpeting your rightness or jumping up and down to defend yourself in public because you were so badly wronged makes you like like a damn’ idiot. (Note that OLQ handled the breakup privately for a reason!)
• Never put anything in writing you don’t want to show up in court. This was not so applicable in my case. The legal issues were resolved without recourse to a court mediation. But if you’re facing one, remember that online forums ain’t private. Not even friends locks on LJs. Don’t be an idiot.
• The children are children, not messengers, nor allies. Keep the kids out of it. Don’t badmouth the other parents to the kids. Remember, the kids love your exes, even if you might have stopped. Being a good parent in the face of emotional upheaval is hard, I’m not going to say otherwise. But suck it up, buttercup, ’cause you have a duty.
• Of course you’re going to want to vent. Carefully choose to whom you will do so. Every time you say something privately to another person, it increases by an exponential factor the chance of what you were mouthing off about to get back to an ex and start drama. If you have a deep need to vent, a really deep need to just blow, get a professional counselor. If you want something nasty to get back to your ex, I’m sorry, I have scant sympathy. That’s bloody tacky. When it’s over, you shut up, suck it up and move on as best you can. Show a little damn’ class.

Anyway, this is about as much of an answer as I feel good about giving in terms of OLQ’s breakup and what have you. We’re still parents to the kids. We don’t have fights. We communicate about as well as can be expected in a very complex divorce. There are friendships among the exes, even if we’re not the Bestest Buddies Evah.

In my book, I call that good.

¹And if I’ve not already discussed it with you privately, I’m going to decline to do so privately, too.