From: webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber)
Subject: Re: Poly breakups?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 23:54:58 GMT

In article <MUFFY.92Nov12164256@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>
...
>What happens when part of a poly relationship breaks up?  I've seen or
>thought of some examples:
>
>  A secondary relationship breaks up.  The non-involved member of the
>  primary relationship has to deal with the effect on the involved
>  member.  It seems a little rough on the non-involved member, even
>  though they presumably want to provide emotional support to their
>  partner when they are needed.  Of course, the non-primary person is
>  without this sort of support at all.

When I was married the sexual part of a r'ship I was in fell off, and
my ex-wife had to deal with the fall out, but I think that was mostly
just me sitting around feeling sorry for myself.  The r'ship taking
the lumps was getting them from the other person involved getting
exclusive with a fourth person; it was her choice to do this for
her own reasons, so she had that to buffer her against the pain of
the lumps.  She was also busy getting married, planning to move
to Europe (in the end it was only the U.S.), but I think she
felt some pain from cutting off her relationship with me.  I don't
know whether or not she talked it over with the man she married;
I hope she did, but it was a very compartmentalized arrangement for
many reasons.

>  Both members of a primary relationship get secondarily involved with a
>  third person.  One member wants to split with the third person, the
>  other doesn't.  This is difficult to manage, since anyone your SO is
>  involved with is at least a little involved with you.

I blush to admit that the "both" part has never happened with me (or
not while the "both" were together, anyway)(That's not exactly true
either, but this is getting digressive.).  The woman I was married
to was involved with someone I greatly disliked for a while and I
tried some to get along with him.  It didn't really work, he just
smelled wrong or something; her other other lovers didn't bother
me that way, so I think there was something actually between us
that worked wrong.

I hope that if I got into the situation you describe (now, after
oh, so many mistakes and learning experiences) and I were the
person who wanted the break-up I'd work hard and successfully
at building a working r'ship with that other person.  If I couldn't
work it, I guess it would distance me from the person I liked who
linked me to the person I disliked.  Backing out of a r'ship shared
with someone you had an existing r'ship with would probably be
even more difficult.  If I'm involved with Grace and she and I
become involved with Favour, but I don't like Favour so much as I
get to know her better, but Grace likes her more and more I guess
I have to say how I feel and deal with the consequences, which
might be:

>  A poly person is involved in a non-primary relationship with someone
>  who gets involved in another non-primary relationship.  The first
>  person doesn't like the third person (but there is no "veto"
>  agreement) and ends the first relationship.  Is it necessary to like
>  all the people involved?  If so, how much?

The first person had to like the third person more than he did like
him to keep the relationship with the second person good for him.
I guess it's good if the second-third relationship made clear aspects
of the second person's personality that weren't clear before.  Maybe
I learn things about Grace that I dislike a lot.  On the other hand,
if it's just that I'm jealous of Grace with Favour because I
dislike Favour that seems less good.  I mean "good" in some vague
sense of increase in knowledge; if you see jealousy as a good thing,
your mileage will definitely differ.

>  A poly person is in a primary relationship with a "veto."  They get
>  involved with another person, who their SO seems to accept.  After
>  they get very close, the veto is invoked, and the second relationship
>  is ended.  Is this "fair"?  It's certainly hard on the people who
>  thought it was okay.  What if there were problems all along?  Is there
>  a limit (time or emotional) past which a veto either cannot be used or
>  is much more negotiable?

I think that if you grant someone a veto in the first place you have
agreed up front that exercising it is automatically just, even if
not fair.  "Fair" kind of depends on your point of view; the person
exercising the veto might regard it as an unfair imposition for
the SO to continue dallying with the non-SO, in complete disregard
of the viewpoint person's feelings.

I think that if I were getting a lot of "unfair" noises from a partner
in a r'ship I'd look for trouble in the arrangements.  People should
not agree to regard things as just if they can't regard them as fair.

>  A primary relationship breaks up, but one of the members has a
>  secondary relationship.  How does this secondary relationship change
>  with the loss of the primary?  Is it likely to become a primary, or
>  will the person find some other primary and keep the secondary as is
>  (I know either is possible, but what have people seen happen?)

In the aftermath of primary relationship break-ups I've gone through:
no intimate relationships; secondary relationships get stronger, maybe
become primary; secondary relationships stay about the same; suddenly
more "secondary" relationships, then one suddenly becomes "primary."

>Note that there are a lot of assumptions about arrangements in here, and
>I have only described arrangements with three people.  I'm not saying
>that any particular arrangement is better, required, or whatever.  I'd
>be particularly interested to hear examples/perspectives from other
>arrangements...I'd like to see how they compare.
>
>I'm basically interested in information or speculation on how breakups
>happen and affect people outside of serial-monogamy arrangements.
>
>Muffy
>--
>
>Muffy Barkocy                               muffy@mica.berkeley.edu
>~Weavers' fingers flying on the loom/patterns shift too fast to be
> discerned/all these years of thinking/ended up like this/in front
> of all this beauty/understanding nothing~ - Bruce Cockburn


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