Discomfort

“Poly” does NOT mean “Be ok with everything”. If you’re uncomfortable with something, that’s valid. It’s ok to bring that to your partners and ask them to “partner” with you to see if there’s a way that that discomfort can be mitigated, especially if you are acknowledging their autonomy to do as they please and aren’t trying to control them.

For example: it’s ok to be upset if it’s your birthday and your partner decides to keep their standard date night with another partner instead of spending it with you. It’s ok to ask your partner if they can reschedule their date night so you can spend your birthday together. If they choose not to, it’s ok to be upset about that. None of that would make you “bad” at polyamory.

We need to stop acting like folks just got to smile and giggle about everything their partners do in these poly screets and if they don’t, it’s a problem.

“He Only Wants Her For Sex”

So I may not articulate this well but I’ll try. There is something I have noticed in my polyam journey in relationships comprised of a man and a woman that date separately. The woman may be dating and her husband/nesting or “primary” partner will feel a way if she is engaging a man that he feels “only wants her for sex”. Often times, this comes from a place of love and protection, I get. They don’t want to see their partners hurt by fuck boys. They see immense value in their partner and want others to see that, too. I often imagine, too, that for men, watching your woman partner date men can be a whole new way to see the bullshit that women deal with from men.

The trap is that this can have a undertone of being paternalistic to your partner. Your woman partners are adults and capable of making their own choices about whom they engage. One of the hardest things to deal with in non-monogamy is letting your partners learn their own lessons when it comes to dating and relating.

I also think that sometimes….and this one might smart a bit…..it has an air of “I didn’t treat her like that. I valued her and saw her as more than just sex and here this dude comes along and just gets to fuck her without dealing with all the other stuff that I deal with.” It’s a little judgmental. Like, yeah, you can feel a way about dude for just wanting your lady for sex but if you’re a “good dude” who doesn’t treat women like that, what does it matter if there are other men that do? You being good is about you and not them. And she may WANT just sex from him. That may be ok for her. I think sometimes that it can result in you subconsciously devaluing your partner a little if you are not careful. The ills of slut-shaming misogyny are deep-rooted and not always visible to the naked eye within ourselves.

Remember, you have the relationship that you CHOSE to have with your partner. If you wanted just sex from her, you could have asked for that. If you saw more “value” in her, then that’s what you wanted. Focus on what YOU want to have with her and let her deal with what she wants to have with others.

I hope this isn’t harsh because it’s not intended to be. It’s just something I have noticed considerably and wanted to highlight. Just like I hear women say “It’s not fair that I have to wash his socks and pick his pants up off the floor meanwhile his other partners get to just enjoy him.”, I feel like this is the other side of that.

On Veto Power

The subject of “Veto Power” came up in one of the polyam groups that I’m in. For those of you that don’t know what a “veto” is in polyamory, it’s when you give your partner (usually a spouse/nested partner/“primary” partner) the right to “veto” your other relationships or tell you to end things with someone that you are seeing/in a relationship with.

We don’t have veto power in our marriage and never have. I also wouldn’t knowingly sign up for a relationship where I could potentially be subject to one. I have mixed feelings about vetoes, personally. I understand why people feel the need to have them but to me, they are superfluous. I just don’t get the method that states that I am going to deal with an issue I am having with my partner and their choices by getting rid of the other partner.

Like say your partner has a partner that is abusing them. Your issue isn’t your meta; it’s your partner. Why do you have a partner that is signing up to be abused? Have a meta that’s a crackhead thief and steals your shit? Why is your partner with a crackhead? Have a meta that your partner goes out with to gamble away your mortgage money? Why is your partner ok with gambling away your mortgage money? The issue always circles back to your partner.

And most of the time, the vetoes aren’t enacted for extreme circumstances such as these which is what people will SAY they have them for but what they actually USE them for is to keep themselves from feeling too threatened by a partner’s partner. They will cite all these arbitrary reasons for enacting the veto that really just boil down to “I’m worried that this person/relationship is eclipsing me/my relationship with my partner.”

Also, do ALL of your partners get veto power or is it just the one that you live with/are married to/is primary? Because that is blatantly unfair. And I learned from PERSONAL experience that wonky shit happens when you try to keep two people apart that have a connection to each other. Like yeah, your partner may agree and break up with the person but I can guarantee you they will resent the fuck outta your ass and will take some time to get past that if they ever do.

You also have to keep in mind that it ain’t no fun when the rabbit got the gun. So just remember your staunch support of the veto when they are shooting down your folks, too.

Folks be having vetoes on the low any way. They may not outright say they have a veto because that’s a taboo word in Polywood but they may make their partner’s life with another partner so fucking miserable that they feel like they have no other choice but to end things.

Partner Passport

Polyam Peeps! There’s a phenomenon I have to watch out for within myself that I like to call a “partner passport” or “partner Pokémon” (gotta catch ‘em all). It’s where you move through non-monogamy collecting partner experiences or “stamps” for all the different types of partners you’ve visited. So you gotta get your “black” stamp, your “lesbian” stamp, your “stud/MOC” stamp, your “Asian” stamp, etc. There’s nothing wrong with finding a particular demographic of person desirable but engaging someone based on the sole reason that they are one thing or another reduces them to a singular part of their identity instead of treating them like a whole ass complex human being. It objectifies and fetishizes them. I have to make sure I’m outchea treating folks like whole human beings same like I want to be treated.

A Revolving Door of Partners

One of the things you hear from people in discussions surrounding telling children about being polyamorous and having them interact with partners is that they don’t want to introduce their kids to a “revolving door” of partners. My take on that is that people coming in and out of your life is part of the human experience. Your children will have teachers that come in and out of their lives, neighbors, classmates, friends. That’s a normal occurrence.

I also think it’s good for children to see a model that says not all romantic relationships are for forever. Very few people marry the first person they date. I think it’s healthy for children to see people letting go of relationships when they are no longer working for a person and to also see people transitioning from romantic partners to friends. I think it sets them up to have healthy attachments to people and to deal with the emotions that come from losing a person in your life that has significance to you for one reason or another.

I think this concern has to do with the fact that we conflate romantic partnerships with parenting. There’s this subconscious expectation that if you are romantically connected to a person and they have children and you interact with those kids, you will do so in a parenting role. I don’t expect my children to relate to my partners as “other” parent figures. I expect my children to see my partners as just that, my partners. They are free to have their own relationships with them or no relationship at all if they don’t wish to.