Five Lessons I Learned From Polyamory
By: Riley Black
Tags: Nonmonogamy, Relationships, Polyamory, Love

Photo by Lucas Marconnet on Unsplash

I wish I could be mad at polyamory. Not that it’s at all mature or helpful to be grumpy with an abstract concept. (Argh, Mondays.) But if polyamory were a person, I’d want to sit them down and have a nice long chat about why opening up to new relationships — intentionally and consensually “bringing more love into my life,” as I had described it to curious and concerned friends — wound up with the swift dissolution of my core relationship followed by the departure of the partner who I’d explored ethical nonmonogamy with in the first place. More love very quickly turned into so much less. I sat in the smoking crater of what my relationships once were and watched my former partners go on not only as if they never loved me, but as if I had never existed.

And yet I don’t regret opening to multiple romantic relationships. Not at all.

At the outset, when I started talking to my core partner about polyamory and the ways we’d edged up to it in the past, I didn’t expect to go exploring. My partner and I had joked that dating is a wide-awake nightmare and we were grateful to be freed from the chaos — and the number of dates I had where I felt I was being interviewed to warm someone’s bed on their one free Sunday a month eventually proved me right on that score. But my deepest hope was that talking about a more open relationship would lead my partner and I to communicate more clearly about what we wanted and desired from our romantic lives. Maybe we’d stay closed but gain knowledge from really looking at who we were and what we wanted.

The effort was a little lopsided. I immediately picked up The Ethical Slut and More Than Two. I set up times for my partner and I to read the chapters one by one and discuss our impressions. I felt caught in a weird purgatory of yes but no. Yes, my partner was interested in polyamory, but no they didn’t like the books I picked. I suggested they gather some resources to share and they said yes, only to find reasons not to. And so it went, even as — in a strange set of circumstances that left my head spinning — my partner and I agreed to open up. I went on dates. I took it slow. I eventually jumped to cultivate a romantic relationship with a friend who was more seasoned in the ways of ethical nonmonogamy than I was. And over the following year and a half, I learned a few things. Some hurt. Some are still precious to me. All have been critical.

You don’t get to start over

A lifetime of serial monogamy had left me with the expectation that my first poly relationship would be its own creature, unfettered by my past. I’d get a chance to make an entirely new connection and grow that relationship as something fresh.

I learned how wrong I was the first time I opened the door to my girlfriend’s bedroom and totally froze. I wasn’t ready for that. We had talked for months about our desire for each other, playing out everything we wanted to do in sexting bouts that lasted hours. But when we could finally touch, the unspoken expectation of sex hanging in the candlelit bedroom, all the unknown trauma I’d been carrying crept up my legs and rooted me to the doorway. I was afraid of being a disappointment, of doing the wrong thing, and my brain played out every vicious thing my spouse had said to me in the dark.

I asked my girlfriend if we could sit on the bed and talk first, to go over boundaries and expectations. And we ended up having a lovely evening. But no pocket of time my girlfriend and I could make for each other was totally free of the old fractures and bruises. Our lives with our other partners formed the walls around what’d be possible for us, and our relationships with them had brought the mix of nourishment and curses that many such connections do. The effect was something like a hotel room you’ve been living in for more than two days — you not only carry baggage, but after a little bit the baggage starts to get comfortable being laid around the room.

Jealousy will happen and that’s ok

I’m far from the first person to point this out. Any book on polyamory worth the sticker price has at least a short consideration of jealousy and how response — rather than an absence of an ugly emotion — is more important. But the fact that “I’m poly” is often met with the response “Oh I could never do that, I’m too jealous” is reason enough to reiterate this point.

It’s not that I was totally beyond jealousy. Not at the start. It just never seemed to come up. My core partner liked when I visited my girlfriend. I worked from home, and my absence gave her room for a staycation. On the darker side, she’d tell our friends that she was glad when I was gone so she wouldn’t have to deal with my emotions. But it seemed I had her blessing and encouragement. When I visited my girlfriend, we mixed alone time and group time such that everyone seemed to be happy. Sometimes, during the usual stretches when my girlfriend and I would be apart, we’d wish we were present for a special occasion or event but it wasn’t anything that seemed as sharp as jealousy.

Then came a particular night when I found myself a little shell-shocked. My core partner had started dating and had spent the day with her other partner, a partner she was getting closer and closer to while getting colder towards me. My girlfriend made a decision to spend some time with one of her partners that I felt was toxic. In the middle, finding myself with the evening to myself, I’d gone to an event where I was surrounded by couples having a wonderful, giddy time, and it only highlighted how isolated I felt. I needed care and affection, too, and somehow being available to more love had left me feeling like everyone was enjoying it except me.

Results varied. I talked to my core partner about how I felt. They reminded me that they had put a moratorium about talking about intimacy. They idly patted my shoulder while I sobbed in bed. The next morning, I talked to my girlfriend at length about what happened and why I felt the way I did. It wasn’t easy. It felt about as complicated as emotional surgery. But simply feeling safe enough to say that yes, I felt jealous, and had some difficult emotions, was something I hadn’t known. I didn’t like how I felt, but swallowing it was worse. The back of my throat itches just thinking about that, even now.

In the end, it’s an extension of the therapy 101 point that your emotions are what they are. Telling yourself not to be jealous, angry, sad, or whatever it is doesn’t have much point. You feel what you feel, but you have control over how you respond and the choices you make in the context of those feelings.

Waiting for the stars to align is a mistake

At this point it probably sounds like I made a string of bad choices. When I’d talk to therapists, they’d caution me that my core relationship already sounded unstable and all the resources they had at hand were for “the traditional dyad.” I went ahead anyway. In the end, I’m glad I did.

There’s a common refrain in the poly community that you need to have your own house in order before you start any new intimate or romantic relationship. I’m not the first to say this, and hopefully I won’t be the last, but that’s gatekeepy bullshit. That’s the kind of bunk people say when they’re comfortable and they don’t care to stretch or consider what your needs are. In other words, it’s treating polyamory like you’re interviewing someone for a job rather than forming relationships with people.

By the time my longtime partner and I opened to polyamory, our relationship wasn’t good anymore. In fact, part of the initial consideration was “Well, maybe if we can make new connections that additional love will spill over and we’ll feel more energized about each other.” Looking back, I regret using that train of thought to inform my decision, but that effect had happened before. And I was upfront about the situation. My girlfriend had talked me through some of the turbulence before we started dating in earnest, and knew that I was under more than a little bit of stress.

And yet, we had something wonderful. We were open with each other in a way I’d never experienced before. My girlfriend was someone who I could be entirely transparent with, even if the truth was difficult or sad, and feel like we were on the same team. When I wanted to get up and fuss and help in the kitchen, she told me to sit down and enjoy being served for once. When we ate together, she remembered what I liked so she could surprise me next time. She had a delightfully sneaky way of recalling my favorite things and making them appear. (When I described this to my core partner, they just said “I wish I could do that” as if buying a bit of cheese and meat from the grocery store was a trek to the top of Everest.) I wasn’t used to it at first. And of course I did my best to return every favor to make sure she felt as cherished by me as I did by her. Over the months, the warmth started to seep in. My girlfriend made me feel loved. She made me feel seen and cared for. All the things that I thought would be asking too much, or impossible to reclaim, she did as easily as sleeping next to me.

One of my therapists underscored the point. “She really showed you what it’s like to be loved,” they said of my girlfriend. And they were right. I had been making myself smaller and smaller in my core relationship. I was afraid of speaking up for anything I wanted lest I get bitten with a rebuke or assertion that I was ungrateful. I accepted that. I kept choosing my longtime partner, asking what I could do for them and how I could assist, and I kept taking more and more on in the hopes that with a little more effort and a little more time and a little more space, they’d choose me back. I treated my core partnership as a guarantee of love and care. It wasn’t. My girlfriend showed me how much I had distorted myself, but also how much I was still worthy of the affection I craved. Had I waited for my core relationship to be totally repaired, or even for it to completely fall apart, I could have missed a love strong enough that it changed how I felt about myself.

It’s not about having all your needs met

Here’s where I’m going to disagree — a touch — with what I’ve seen as a common piece of the polyamory welcome pamphlet. I’ve seen poly advocates and educators often state that ethical open relationship styles can allow people to have all their needs met, or meet needs that one partner can’t fulfill. And this can indeed be true. Touch, intimacy, and other connections are important, for example, and it can make sense for a long distance couple to have other partners while still maintaining the close connection between the people who are far away.

But I feel like “needs” is often coded language for sex, and if we go down another layer we find a sub clause about frequency or availability of sex. American culture, especially, puts so much pressure on having partnered sex vigorously and often that we think there’s something wrong with us if we don’t get laid every few days, weeks, or whatever time frame you have in mind. We forget that we can have fulfilling sex lives on our own. We forget that sometimes people go through times — long or short — where sex isn’t all that appealing and can safely go on the back burner. We can feel entitled to frequency or types of sex that once we’ve unlocked them, are always on the menu because we’ve already reached that tier. I say this because I used to hold some of these misapprehensions.

Part of why I wanted to try poly was because I craved affection that made me feel desired. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But what I came to realize was that my main need was safety and trust. It took me years to realize my core partner was neglectful and even emotionally abusive. Once that relationship ended, and I healed a bit, I started a new relationship that gave me that security and has left me feeling happily monogamish. Finding out what our needs are sometimes has to go a few levels beyond our basic actions and their availability to what it is we really want.

But aside from all that, I don’t think I should have 100% of my needs met. Or, at least, I want to challenge the idea that we need to have all our needs answered at all times to feel content. I can’t draw up a list and check the levels each day. What I need on one day or another will be different. Maybe it will even change within a given day. My needs are likely to shift over time, and naturally sometimes I am going to have to sigh, self-soothe, and deal with a bit of hurt or disappointment. I think it’s dangerous to say poly can meet all your needs without explaining what that means or that it’s a matter of flexibility rather than a shopping list.

New relationships may cause old ones to end… but that may have happened, anyway

If my core partner and I hadn’t tried poly, maybe they wouldn’t have left me for someone else. If I hadn’t started a relationship with my girlfriend, then I wouldn’t have been heartbroken a second time in such close succession. But there’s no guarantee that my relationship would have remained stable if I’d remain closed. I don’t need a divorce lawyer billboard over the highway to know how often monogamous couplings fail, no matter the promises made at the beginning.

One of the greatest fears about polyamory — at least in couples who are opening up, rather than solo poly folks — is that a new partner is going to be shiny, better, and ultimately lead someone you love away. That the intensity of new love will always outshine longstanding affection and commitment, and it’s a fear that’s as present for veterans of nonmonogamy as novices. There’s little more terrifying that a new unknown, a sense of potential and excitement that familiarity has winnowed away from your cherished partnership. Yet these relationships are fundamentally different. Your dynamic with someone you share a checkbook or a home with isn’t the same as your relationship with someone you just get to share cake with. And even over the long term, dynamics are likely to change — just as they do in friendships. Too often we treat relationships like an application process, where someone fills a role and is expected to do so in the same way, at full capacity, forever, and this only ratchets up the tension when someone seems to do the same job better.

But all of that is irrelevant to a basic fact of life. Relationships end. One way or another, they all do. Sometimes you can see it coming and prepare. Other times it’s incredibly sudden. You may never get a reason why, which is all the more painful when that’s a person’s choice rather than a matter of accident. There really is nothing you can do to keep someone with you. You can choose them, and you can wake up every day hoping they choose you back. It’s wonderful when they do. Someday, for reasons you may never know or understand, they may not, and that’s the risk we take by loving at all.

Relationships shouldn’t be passive things. We don’t win love like it’s a stuffed toy at the boardwalk ring toss. It’s something we make happen, and, like anything we make, there’s the possibility that love won’t last. There’s no point in arguing with that. Love is impossible without loss. That makes every unexpected and affectionate moment all the sweeter.