Pain and Polyamory

My first polyamorous relationship was abusive. Everyone involved including myself, had their own stuff they weren't working on, and we were all controlling, manipulating, and subjugating each other to varying degrees, in an attempt to get from them what we couldn't emotionally get from within. We were also all resisting each others abuse in ways that were counter-productive and contributed to its perpetuation. I touched on this in The Pitfalls of Polyamory, the post directly below this one. Several years ago now I entered what would be my last polyamorous relationship, the fallout of which is covered in Pitfalls.

I am now living in a committed monogamous relationship, and I'm engaged. I've been through years of extensive therapy including couples counselling. I've learned that pain is transformative, and we have to take an active role in the direction that transformation goes. For years I'd let each painful experience turn me into something progressively uglier, and the worse I got, the more pain I brought into my life and the lives of the people who loved me. It took a lot of work and introspection to undo much of that damage, and I'm still not done. I'm a work in progress.

I'm in two minds about the future of polyhorror. In the absence of Mod H who really created this blog, I want to leave it up to the people who carried it, who created the content we posted, who shared the posts and started meaningful conversations in the replies and replies that are still going years later.

I'm no longer polyamorous. Formerly, sure. I've retained all the experiences, and I feel like I can still contribute a lot to the community, but I worry it would be improper for me to do so as an outsider. I understand that some people in the community might not feel comfortable having someone who's been disillusioned by experience serving as Community Agony Aunt. Others might appreciate that this gives me a kind of clarity on the subject as an outside perspective.

I've been avoiding everything polyamory related for a few months, trying to put myself back together and gather my thoughts after the worst blow up I've ever been involved in. Fellas, I've seen hell and come back to tell you all what I've learned.

My entire life spent identifying as a polyamorous person, by nature, my three year poly relationship, running this blog for a further two (Two? Three? Who knows.), and this last year of fuckery has me thinking that monogamy, if not done for the right reasons, by the right people, in the right way, is a cage that limits people's emotional growth and development and can be actively psychologically damaging, while polyamory which presents itself as the perfect counter-structure, when not entered into by the right people for the right reasons in the right way is less about growing as a person and more about mindfucking yourself and relying on repeated exposure to emotional trauma desensitizing you and calling it growth.

Relationships are hard work. You either have to be totally oblivious or brutally analytical or you're going to fuck yourself up. Neither monogamy nor polyamory are perfect relationship structures.

If you are someone who, like I was, is struggling because monogamy feels limiting, you love your partner(s) dearly but one or more of them are monogamous and struggle, you need to have your empathy about you. Truly, and I mean really and truly look at what you are asking of your partner. To a monogamous person it is not simply a closed mind or a refusal to understand, or that they haven't grown past their jealousy or possessiveness. It fucking hurts. It kills to see the person you love happy with someone else. It's easier if everyone thinks in terms of "Not better, just different" and can accept that they are a unique individual with unique qualities and a dynamic with you that is unique to them, but fears of being replaced, of not being enough for you, feelings of inadequacy and jealousy are absolutely debilitating and you had better thank your lucky stars they think you're worth putting themselves through that shit. At the same time, examine yourself very carefully, even with the best of intentions and reading all the books, you very well could be playing a messed up game of emotional chess with your loved ones feelings at times and you absolutely need to examine your shit. It is not easy to admit to yourself you're basically playing build-a-partner, having all the different bits you love scattered amongst different people. Not everyone does this, but I've seen many who do, I have done it myself without even realising it until I looked back and by then it was too late, don't give yourself a pass because I said "Not everyone" either, it could be you, and you have to be brutally honest with yourself about it. It's not so much in what you do, you could be completely above board, nary a manupulative or abusive red flag to be seen, it's in your motives and intentions. If this struck a chord with you, to borrow from Veaux, fix YOUR fridge, you're essentially the inverse of the metaphor, asking your partner to stop putting monogamy in the fridge so you don't need to acknowledge the damn thing's cactus.

If you're monogamous and you're reading this, you probably know already that being poly in a monogamous relationship feels a bit like being a tree in a tiny pot and perpetually needing to prune yourself back to stay in a space you're too big for, because we literally never shut up about it. It's okay to feel horribly fucking hurt even when you and your boundaries are being respected, you are not somehow less evolved than your poly partner who has transcended their jealousy and foolish need to be "The only". That's bullshit, being the only is awesome, it's romantic and it's safe and relationships are hard enough managing two people's sometimes conflicting needs and emotions. It's okay to stand up for yourself, know your limits, enforce standards, and don't shove down how you feel and pretend to be okay when you aren't because that shit will fester and rot until it drops off, sometimes you need to pull out the thorn and it's better to do so than wait until you crack and take everyone down with you.

All my experience with ‘getting over it’ has involved taking time apart and putting in emotional distance, if you’re going to be around each other a lot and still being close emotionally, it’s gonna be harder and take longer.

If you’ve got closure, and you’ve resolved that this is the best thing to do, all you can do is wait it out. Remind yourself of why you’re doing this, invest time and emotional energy in your partner, and tell yourself why it’s not going to happen until it sticks.

This is a blog specifically dedicated to the absolute worst that relationships can be.I’m sure there are a ton of venting spaces for all kinds of issues including relationships, but we made one specifically for polyamory here because if you’re poly and having troubles, for one you’re generally not gonna get any helpful responses from folk who’ve never even considered polyamory a thing that real people do, and you’re under a load of societal pressure to keep it together or be used as a “See look! Polyamory never works! It’s always awful!” and I think that’s bullshit. It’s like saying monogamy never works because divorces and affairs happen.

As for how anyone does it, Why does anybody fall in love ever?Some of us were born for this, some of us chose it because it felt like it fit and some of us can’t have it any other way.