Discovering Polyamory

Don't assume everyone in the polyamory community wants the same things as you...

It's easy to think that when you are in a polyamorous space, everyone will be the same as you. After all, that's part of the joy of finding your tribe.

But not everyone is comfortable being open about their sex life. Not everyone has the same political views. Not everyone has a desire to be loudly open about their polyamory. 

Always be aware that it's possible to make people feel uncomfortable without realising it. 

Just because you are in a safe space to be yourself doesn't mean you might not accidentally make someone else feel shame or discomfort by assuming they will automatically be okay with the things you are okay with. Especially if they are new to the scene. 

Why are people polyamorous? 

Some people argue we are born this way. Others that’s it’s a conscious decision. But whatever you believe, we all have our own reasons why we decided to first explore this lifestyle.

And while it’s important to recognise that there are many unhealthy reasons to begin exploring polyamory, these are outweighed many times over by the valid and healthy reasons there are to start this journey, either alone or with a partner. 

Cowboy

Someone who dates a polyamorous person with the intention of forcing them into monogamy

Cowboys are so named because their aim is to separate you from the "herd" so they can get you alone, away from support. 

Cowboys can be direct, insisting that you need to "grow up" to be in a real relationship, or they can be subtle, growing an emotional connection and then using it to manipulate you into giving up elements of your life they disagree with. 

There is nothing wrong with moving from a polyamorous relationship dynamic to a monogamous one, as long as this is a decision you make on your own. 

The problem with Cowboys is the lack of respect they have for polyamory and their partner's autonomy.

One of the biggest barriers to polyamory is not being honest with yourself about what you want...

When I began exploring polyamory, I found it hard to admit exactly what I wanted out of it. Partly, I was worried about upsetting my partner, but I was also afraid that I would look like a failure if I expressed my desires but was then unable to make them a reality. 

But the biggest problem was that I simply didn't know how to recognise my own desires. 

Learning to recognise, understand, and then express what we want from our relationships is harder than many of us expect, because the moment we want anything outside of the "norm", we are conditioned to feel shame, even if those around us support us.

But you can't truly be honest with your partners until you have learned to be honest with yourself. 

Polyamory isn't off-the-peg, it's pick 'n' mix...

Exploring polyamory isn't about copying what other people are doing or trying to discover a "correct" way to connect with someone. 

Relationships are a smorgasbord. Some options will work for you, while others won't. It's up to you and your partners to decide what your relationships require. 

This idea can seem strange, even stressful, because mononormative culture has taught us our relationships have to look just like everyone else's to be "valid". 

This is just one of the behaviours we need to unlearn if we want to explore polyamory and create healthy relationships that work for us. 

Dealing with jealousy in polyamory can be hard. Jealousy is a deep, insidious feeling that burrows away inside us, cutting us off from the happiness of seeing our partner sleeping with, dating, or falling in love with someone new. Oh, we might be objectively happy with the idea, but the heart often refuses to listen to the brain in matters of love. 

"Couple Privilege"

Behaviours and beliefs that grant a "couple" benefits and rights over the people they are dating

Couple Privilege is insidious because it happens without anyone realising it. The concept of the "couple" being the centre of all relationships is deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that we automatically give it precedence. 

And it's not only newly opened couples who are at risk of falling into this trap. 

Experience doesn't make you immune. Couples new to polyamory are seen as the usual culprits, but I've seen it with people with years of experience, and I've seen people develop it with new partners over people they'd already been dating. 

Every two-person dynamic is at risk of displaying Couple Privilege if you're not careful. 

Relationships change over time, and it's nothing to be afraid of...

A lot of people are scared of polyamory because they see it as creating impermanent, less committed relationships. 

But polyamory isn't about less commitment. It's about recognising that all relationships change over time and learning how to steer those changes, rather than letting them take us by surprise. 

Every relationship changes over time. Sometimes those changes bring you closer together, and sometimes they drive you apart.

But without change, we become stagnant. 

Change can be scary, but without it, nothing can ever get better. And if properly handled, even changes we don't want can take us to a better place. 

Hearing about or thinking about my partner being intimate or sexual churns my stomach but I can't figure out if it's out of jealousy or if it's because I'm on the ace spectrum.

If it were jealousy, I expect to want to be in their place - want my partner and I to be doing those things. If it were insecurity I would expect to feel inadequate. But I dont feel those ways. I just feel sick, and my chest gets tight.

Do I have to want to be in their place or want us to do those things instead for it to be jealousy? Do I have to feel inadequate for it to be insecurity? Or is it related to being ace-specrrum? Or is there something else?

Short answer: Yes, it’s possible to feel jealousy around your partner being with other people even if they are doing things you don’t want/need to experience yourself. 

What we think of as “jealousy” is a mixture of insecurity and envy. These feelings could be coming from a place of insecurity, that you are not enough to satisfy your partner, and they might prefer someone more sexual. Or it might be envy that they can experience something you don’t. 

My wife and I are poly, but we're still new to it. I've had some toxic poly in the past (not with her).

My wife already has partners, but we haven't set boundaries, and I haven't figured out some really important things about myself and my needs and what I want out of polyamory yet... Everytime I think of the question - "what do I want out of polyamory", it's always "i want her to be happy and free, i dont want to stand in her way," but the unspoken part is "even if Im hurting."

Is it healthy to ask she hold off on getting too romantically/sexually involved with her new partners so we can set boundaries first?

Short answer: Of course, it is healthy to ask your partner to hold off or put things on pause if you are having a hard time. Boundaries are important at all stages of a relationship, and if you are encountering problems, it’s healthy to express these. 

But on the flipside of that, you don’t want to feel like you are holding them back. Or to worry that they will resent us for holding them back. That can be just as painful, I know. 

My advice here would be to sit down and try to figure out what you want from polyamory, separately from her. Saying “I want her to be happy and free” is great, but that’s about her, not you. What do *you* want from this situation? Are you struggling to find partners? Are you struggling to see her with other people? Are you fine with her dating other people but feel like you’re being ignored? You mention you’ve experienced toxic polyamory dynamics before, so I assume this could be playing into the current situation as well. 

When you explore polyamory, you learn about so much more than just relationships...

Exploring polyamory doesn't just lead you to learn about ways to effectively date multiple people. 

Dating requires a collection of skills, such as communication, time management, mediation, and compromise. Universal skills that we often don't think to actively work on, but will undoubtedly benefit your life once you do. 

Exploring polyamory can also put you on the path to being more open and aware of the world around you. 

Stepping out of the social "norm" will inevitably lead you to a place where you see the many ways in which doing so can benefit the world. 

Sometimes, deciding to explore polyamory is the catalyst for transforming our entire lives for the better. 

If monogamy is supposed to be humanity’s natural state, why is it so hard? 

Ever since Darwin, cultural anthropologists have published study after study “proving” that humans have evolved to be monogamous. They demonstrate behaviours in other primates. They examine human biology and physiology to show how we have clearly evolved to have one sexual partner and one sexual partner only. They highlight the consistency of marriage in societies throughout the history of civilisation. And together they have provided a massive collection of evidence that humans are naturally monogamous. 

But if that’s the case, why are we so bad at it?

Compersion

The positive feeling experienced when you see your partner experiencing happiness, separate from you 

Compersion is often called the opposite of jealousy. But this is not the case, as you can experience compersion and jealousy at the same time. 

Compersion is also not simply being happy that your partner is happy.  

Compersion is about separating your ego from their happiness. 

Compersion is the joy in seeing your partner experiencing happiness that is completely disconnected from you. 

It's about the understanding that our partner having their own joys and experiences isn't a sign that something is wrong in your relationship, and knowing that no matter how happy they might be, they still choose to come back to us. 

It's okay not to know what you want from non-monogamy...

Considering how new non-monogamy is to most of us, it's completely understandable not to know precisely what you want from it. Most of us are figuring things out as we go. 

It's okay to admit to people that you are not settled on exactly what you are looking for. It's all part of your journey. 

Of course, this doesn't mean you are free to mess people around. It's not okay to play with people's feelings just because you are experimenting. If you decide an agreement or situation isn't for you, there will be other people impacted by your decision to walk away. 

Never be ashamed to explore, but keep other people's feelings in mind as well. 

If you want to explore polyamory, you're going to have to work on your time management skills...

There's an old joke that polyamory never existed before online calendars were invented. 

And while that's obviously not true, the joke reflects the understanding that effective and collaborative time management is a vital part of healthy polyamorous relationships. 

Shared calendars are maybe the greatest tool of polyamory, as they simplify the process of making sure everyone is up to date on plans, and no partner feels slighted because everyone else forgot to keep them in the loop. 

But it's also important to keep time for yourself. Your time spent with yourself is just as important for your relationships as time spent with your partners. 

Polyamorous people, like many others who are either born to choose to live in ways that go against "The Norm", are often faced with that perennially insulting judgement, "It's just a phase."

For people born a certain way, this is more than just insulting. It's outright prejudice. But whether or not polyamory is something we are born to or something we choose (which I'm not going to go into in this article), it's still incredibly insulting when our lifestyle is simply dismissed out of hand. 

But just because calling polyamory a phase is insulting doesn't mean it can't be true. 

"Comet"

A parter you only get to see infrequently when you come into each other's "orbits" 

A Comet Partner might be someone you only get to see when travelling for business. Or they could be someone who was once a lot closer before one of you moved away. Or possibly someone you met online and only travel to see in person occasionally.

But that distance between you doesn't mean you can't still have a fulfilling relationship. 

The quality and importance of a relationship is not determined by physical proximity or the frequency of how often you see them. It's determined by the feeling you have for each other and how you choose to connect.

In fact, sometimes the finite nature of your time together is precisely what makes a connection so special.