Never Do This: Common Poly Mistakes, Part One
by Franklin Veaux, Polyamory? What? Why? How?
Copyright by Franklin Veaux
RD081705


Editor's Note: This will be a two part article. Part two, featured in September 2005, can be found here.

This page is designed to describe some of the mistakes you can make in a non-monogamous relationship even if you are compassionate, honest, and well-intentioned. Sometimes, building a stable, happy non-monogamous relationship is not intuitive, and there are mistakes that can be made along the road no matter how well-intentioned you may be. Ideally, you should seek to learn from other people's mistakes rather than your own; it's a lot less trouble.

Don't ignore the consequences of your actions--even the unintended consequences

The law of unintended consequence is as universal and as inescapable as the law of gravity, and is certainly more than capable of screwing up your romantic relationship beyond all recognition.

Put simply, your decisions and your actions have consequences for both your partners and your relationships, and you bear responsibility for these consequences--even if you feel that your decisions were appropriate and justified, even if you feel that your actions were expressly permitted by the rules of your relationship.

The most common example of unintended consequence can be found in relationships which have "veto" rules permitting one partner to veto another partner's romantic relationships. Most of the time, veto is a negotiated and mutually agreed-upon rule; the people in a relationship that includes a veto power explicitly give that veto power to their partner.

Yet if your partner falls in love with someone, and you then veto that relationship, you are almost certain to hurt your partner. It does not matter if your partner explicitly agreed to that veto power and explicitly consented to give you that power; when a person loses a romantic relationship, it hurts. That's the way human beings work. When you hurt your partner, that can and likely will affect your relationship with your partner, even if your partner explicitly gave you that power. Now, I'm not saying you should never exercise a veto; but I am saying that when you make a decision affecting your partner, seek to understand how it affects your partner, and take responsibility for that. Say "Yes, I know this hurts you, and I'm sorry." Acknowledge that your decisions may affect your relationship with your partner, and take responsibility for those effects, even if they were unintended.

This is probably the single most crucial factor to the success of any relationship. Everything you do--whether it's inviting your partner to some function but not inviting your partner's partners, or seeking to exclude your partner's other partners from things that are important to you, or even something as simple as not acknowledging the value your partner sees in his or her other relationships--will affect your relationship with your partner, sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes in ways that are more obvious. Be aware of the consequences of your decisions as well as your reasons for making them.

Don't try to micromanage your feelings, or those of your partners

One of the more common problems in a polyamorous relationship arises when one of the people involved, in an effort to feel less threatened or more secure, seeks to control the extent to which his or her partner becomes emotionally involved with another partner. People often feel threatened by emotional intimacy--sometimes, more threatened than by physical intimacy. But trying to micromanage emotions isn't the way to solve that problem.

Emotions are resistant to being managed that way; it's virtually impossible to pass a "rule" that says "you may be physically intimate with another person, but you may not be emotionally intimate past this point" and have it stick. It's not always possible to predict what relationships will become emotionally intimate, or how they'll become emotionally intimate; attempting to manage insecurity or fear by micromanaging emotional connections is virtually certain to fail. In fact, sometimes, attempts to micromanage emotional intimacy lead to the next problem, which is:

Don't destroy the village in order to save it

It's a given in most relationships of any sort at all that hurting one's partner will hurt the relationship. It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you break your lover's heart, you will cause damage to your relationship.

One way to break your lover's heart is to force your lover to withdraw from a person he or she loves, which is where rules forbidding emotional intimacy generally end. Because emotions can't be arbitrarily controlled, and because it's not always possible to predict in advance when a relationship will become emotionally intimate, people who build relationship structures in which emotional intimacy is forbidden often end up unintentionally violating those structures. When that happens, a choice must be made: the rules forbidding emotional intimacy can change, or the person who's become emotionally intimate with a new partner can withdraw from that partner. Doing the latter is going to cause a lot of pain, both for that person and for his or her new partner; eventually, that pain is going to affect the existing relationship.

In an effort to avoid making this mistake, though, people sometimes commit the next, which is:

Don't expect someone to develop the same relationship with both you and your partner

One way people sometimes seek to address the problem of feeling threatened by emotional intimacy is to say "okay, emotional intimacy is not a problem, as long as a new partner becomes involved with both of us and loves both of us. That way, nobody feels left out, and nobody needs to feel jealous."

On paper, it looks great. In the real world, however, it's not usually successful, because it rests on an assumption that isn't true--namely, that it's possible to dictate that two separate relationships can develop at the same rate and to the same degree with two different people.

Let's assume that a person begins dating a pair of identical twins, and that he or she spends the same amount of time with each of them. Even in that situation, it's not realistic to expect both relationships to develop at the same rate and in the same way. Relationships, like people, are individuals, and it simply isn't realistic to think that a relationship with two different people will turn out the same.

People will sometimes seek to do this because they feel that it will protect them from insecurity or jealousy--"I feel threatened when my partner has an emotionally intimate relationship, but if the person my partner is involved with has the same relationship with me, I won't feel left out, so I won't feel threatened." The better approach, I think, is to create a relationship that is inclusive rather than exclusive, but that does not rely on an impossible goal like "anyone new must date both of us and must develop the same kind of relationship with both of us." Inclusivity does not have to mean "two relationships that are the same;" indeed, it is possible to construct inclusive relationships in which the new person is only romantically involved with one member of an existing couple, but has developed a strong friendship with the other.

Don't forget your priorities

It is completely natural to become so wrapped up in the joy of a new relationship that you neglect your existing relationships; in fact, it often takes a considerable act of will to pay full attention to your existing relationships.

But doing this is necessary. Neglecting existing relationships in the giddy rush to a new relationship can be extremely destructive...to all of the relationships. Don't get carried away; pay attention to what you're doing. Take care to make all of your partners feel loved, needed, and secure.

Don't start new relationships if your existing relationships have problems.

Polyamory is not a way to evade problems in your romantic life. In fact, problems in one relationship have a very nasty habit of spilling over into your other relationships, if you're not careful.

If you have a relationship that is facing difficulty, that is not the time to be starting new relationships. Doing so is likely to create problems in the new relationship, and exacerbate the problem in your existing relationship. It's unfair to both your existing lover and to any new lover to begin relationships under these conditions.

And on the flip side of that same mistake:

Be careful about getting involved with an existing couple who haven't worked out what polyamory is all about.

One almost-certain way to run into heartache is to start dating one part (or both parts!) of an existing couple when each of the members of that couple has a different idea about how their relationship should work.

Any time two people are clearly not on the same page about what is and is not allowed, or have different ideas about how their relationship should be conducted, you're likely to find trouble. And as often as not, when problems occur between the members of the existing couple as a result, you'll be the bad guy. It pays to do what you can to see that everyone is on the same page before your heart is on the line.

And while we're on the subject, the flip side of that same coin is...

Don't get involved in polyamory if you're still not sure whether or not you have a poly relationship in the first place, or if you're not prepared to take responsibility for your actions

It should go without saying, but don't invite someone into your relationship if you aren't clear whether or not your relationship permits it. If you are partnered, and you think you might like to explore polyamory, be clear with your partner about it before you bring someone else in. And when you do bring someone else in, be clear that this person's heart is on the line. You are offering this person physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, or both; take responsibility for that. Don't let him in, create vulnerability, and then turn around without warning and say "well, my partner and I aren't sure if we're poly or not." Your partners are human beings, not commodities; if you want partners who will treat you well, consider your feelings, and behave with compassion and respect, you need to treat them well, consider their feelings, and behave with compassion and respect yourself. Get clear in your own head and establish with your existing partner how your relationship works and what the terms of your relationship are; don't make someone else find this out by trial and error! If you're not sure whether or not you're in a polyamorous relationship, you aren't in a polyamorous relationship.