Over the years, when I have told people in my life that I am in a non-monogamous relationship, I have been asked many questions. Being in an open relationship, although increasingly common, is still quite an unusual relationship choice, and not an option that many people even think about. So I thought I would take a moment on my blog to answer some of the common questions about polyamory that people have asked, and provide a basic understanding of responsible open relationships.
Just a quick disclaimer here: I am by no means an expert on non-monogamy and there are so many different forms of open relationship that I can really only talk from my experience, and the experience of a few people around me who are in similar relationships. But if you are interested, there is a plethora or very accessible writing on the topic – and I can point you towards some useful books.
What is polyamory?
Many terms are used to describe this sort of relationship, such as: ethical non-monogamy, relationship anarchy, polyamory, and open relationship. These seem to each have a variety of different definitions. The overarching thing they have in common, however, is that a couple discusses openly their personal preferences, and each follows a non-restricted or less restricted path of love, whilst remaining committed to their friends and lovers. Instead of requiring their lover to provide everything they would want in a partner, they recognise that we need and want a network of people in our lives to feel satisfied.
In practicality, non-monogamous relationships can look vastly different from each other. For some, it means being completely open and allowing each other to pursue whatever form of love they would want with other people; for others it means allowing sexual relations outside of the primary partnership; but mostly, it involves a lot of discussion and open, emotional communication, to define what sort of relationship works for everyone involved.
Is polyamory the same as polygamy?
Polygamy seems to be far more well-known than polyamory – possibly because it is more infamous. But the key difference between the two seems to be about hierarchy.
Greek: poly: many and Latin: amor: love
Greek: polygamía: the state of marriage to many spouses
In polygamous relationships it tends to be only one person who is allowed multiple marriages, such as within polygamist religious cults. Polyamory, however, is more equal, with more of a network of different lovers on both sides of the relationship.
But isn’t it cheating?
This is often one of the most common questions about polyamory that I am asked when I say I am in an open relationship. And the answer is no. Everything that is done should be done consensually, following whichever rules have been previously established. In my relationship, we discuss adding new lovers into the mix, and have the ability to veto people, or ask each other to slow down the dating process if we are getting overwhelmed. People within the poly community are also more aware of the fact that things might need to start off a little more slowly, to allow for everyone’s emotions to be dealt with.
Of course, it is possible to cheat – meaning that someone breaks the rules. However, unlike in many monogamous relationships, there is less need to keep a relationship secret, so it makes it unnecessary to cheat. And I think that because the boundaries are made so much clearer, and have to be so very explicit, there is a lot more conversation about what would hurt somebody. Also, if someone has overstepped a boundary, it doesn’t immediately have to lead to a break up; more likely it leads to a renewed conversation about boundaries.
Don’t you get jealous?
This is the other topic that gets a lot of questions. I do get jealous. In fact I’ve discovered I’m actually far more of a jealous person than I expected. But jealousy is, after all, just an emotion. And like all emotions, there is a cause for jealousy, and jealousy is there to tell you something. So instead of feeling guilt for being jealous, it is helpful to be able to explore where this emotion comes from, and with a bit of soul searching you can usually come across an answer that helps. This is why a friend of mine considers his open relationship as therapy for free!
Jealousy commonly indicates a few different things. It can suggest a lack of trust in a partner, in which case this either comes from insecurity, or it comes from the partner not giving enough affirmation in the relationship. These suddenly become much more easily remediable things if they are explored.
If I use an example from my life: there was one summer where I was very sick and living back at home with my parents because I was too sick to live alone. My partner was living in the Netherlands, a different country from me, and having an amazing summer visiting all sorts of festivals and partying a lot. I was lying ‘rotting in my bed’ and feeling very sorry for myself and miserable. This meant that whenever he happened to hook up with a random person at a party, I felt incredibly jealous and upset.
After exploring this jealousy, we came to a couple of conclusions. Firstly the party girl in me was very upset that I was too sick to be joining him at these festivals, where we used to go when I was healthy; I had a bad case of FOMO and had still not really accepted the limitations on my body which required me to be stuck in bed. My jealousy was more about my low self-esteem and other issues, and less about the fact he was hooking up with random people.
We also concluded that, because we were in a long-distance relationship, I was not getting the affirmation I needed in the relationship and that was a problem. Phone calls were not cutting it. So we prioritised visiting each other and having a little trip away to reaffirm our own relationship and rebuild the closeness that we had. At the same time, I asked my partner if he could avoid hooking up with strangers at the festivals for a while, until I sorted my head out a bit – something he agreed to, and we renegotiated some months later when I was in a better head space.
Can this be difficult? Yes. But I think that the beauty of polyamory is that instead of hiding jealousy and letting it fester, it can be openly acknowledged, talked about, and dealt with. Jealousy is not by any means something that exists exclusively in poly relationships. You only have to look at the number of monogamous relationships where people are not allowed to be friends with certain other people due to jealousy, and you will realise that it exists everywhere. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that jealousy can suck sometimes, especially when it is ignored – but it can also be an excellent tool for self-growth and understanding your relationship dynamics.
Is it a lot of work?
This, in many ways, relates to the question about jealousy. And for sure it can be a lot of work, but any relationship takes work, poly or not. The work is worth it if you enjoy the outcome. Polyamory relies on trust, communication and empathetic understanding. But, in my opinion, non-monogamous relationships should also rely on these things. Life is always going to throw challenges at your relationship, regardless of the form it takes, and it is the trust and communication that will get you through these challenges… or not.
But it is important to go into an open relationship with all parties consenting fully to it and willing to give it their all. If one party is doing it to please the other, it will inevitably cause problems further down the line. But if all parties are fully committed to the realities of a poly relationship, then they will also be willing to put in the effort to maintain communication and trust.
It is not for everyone…
One of the things I found when I first started researching polyamory was that a lot of websites and blogs about it come across as very anti-monogamy, and as someone who felt very monogamous, that just made me feel guilty. I don’t believe polyamory is for everyone, nor is it a better form of relationship. It is just an alternative form.
What I do think, is that it is important for people to define the boundaries they want to have in a relationship, whether it be monogamous or poly. Not everyone wants the faff of more than one relationship and that is also completely fine, but it is an option – and one that is so little considered or fully understood.
Friends and lovers
What being poly and reading about polyamory has taught me, more than anything, is ‘to treat my friends more like lovers and my lovers more like friends’.
Adopting this life philosophy, and the idea that we don’t need to have one person satisfying all our needs, in any given area of our lives, has allowed me to really work on having and forming a broader support network – something which, as a disabled person, living in a different country from my family, is and has been incredibly useful.
After all, the way that I see it, I don’t have a limited amount of love to give, it is an abundant resource.
