More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (57 page)

21

POLY PUZZLES

We can easily be hurt and broken, and it is good to remember that we can just as easily be the ones who have done the hurting and the breaking.

DESMOND
TUTU

Our experiences with polyamory have taken us nose to nose with some thorny difficulties, some of which we have not yet discovered solutions for. Those puzzles are the topic of this chapter. Some of these problems lack graceful answers. Others seem to lack answers at all. Should you run into one of these, the best advice we can offer is try to keep focused on behaving as ethically as you can, treat those around you with gentleness, and seek to be the best version of yourself. Above all else, use love and compassion as your guiding stars. If you discover a solution to these problems, we'd love to hear from you!

You may see yourself in some of the examples we give. That's okay. We're all still trying to carve trails through this terrain, and some of the dead ends and quagmires along the way look like tempting paths. Our purpose is not to chastise, but rather to alert you to hidden traps that might open unexpectedly beneath your feet.

ENTITLEMENT CREEP

In any relationship, we can become so accustomed to a status quo that it slowly morphs into an entitlement. When this happens in polyamory, the disruption and resource reallocation that a new relationship brings can erupt into anger and conflict if an established partner feels something that is
hers
is being taken away. Entitlement to another's time is the most obvious sort of entitlement creep. Say you have two partners, Linda and Richard. Richard is a busy fellow, so for the past year you've only been able to go on dates with him once a month. This lets you offer more time to Linda, who is used to seeing you three or four times a week. Then Richard's life changes, and he becomes more available to you. So now you see both Linda and Richard twice a week.

Linda might naturally grieve the loss of the more-connected relationship. But she may also have become so accustomed to it that she sees it as a
promise
that you will always spend the same amount of time with her. So when you begin paring back time with Linda, her feelings of sadness or loneliness may be mixed with betrayal or outrage. You've broken a "promise" you never offered. That's entitlement creep.

We've heard this phrased as "He's not respecting my relationship!"—even if the new partner is still receiving less time than the existing ones. Sometimes people do neglect their existing partners in the rush and glow of a new relationship. But "neglect" can be hard to define. New relationships
will
require diversion of resources from somewhere else—if not other relationships, then hobbies, work or even time alone. Not just time but also activities, support and money can be subject to entitlement creep. Communicate explicitly about expectations, rather than assuming that nothing should ever change. As we talk about in "
Who owns your time?
", it's important to recognize the agency of your partners and remember that their time and resources are always their own to give.

This recognition helps clear the way to another part of the solution, which is
gratitude
. If you believe you are getting something by right, it's easy to take it for granted and not recognize its value. Remember that your partner is acting freely, out of love for you and a desire to be with you. Be grateful for what they give, but understand they do not
owe
you the same thing forever.

FATAL CASCADES

When we are afraid of something—losing a partner, say, or being replaced, or not getting a job promotion we feel we deserve—we can act defensively, which can cause exactly the calamity we're trying to prevent. These actions can create cascading feedback loops that are often fatal to a relationship.

Franklin created one of these self-fulfilling prophesies of doom in his relationship with Ruby, described in
chapter 8
. He felt so threatened when she started dating Newton that he began to act defensively, criticizing her and withdrawing from her, until she broke up with him. He was not originally in danger of being replaced, but his fear of being replaced caused him to destroy the relationship.

When problems arise, look carefully to yourself. Are your actions making the problem worse? Are you blaming a partner for something she hasn't done yet, just because you're afraid she might? Are you actually pushing her toward doing what you don't want? What are the expectations between you? Have you communicated them clearly?

Another version of a destructive feedback loop is what we call the deadly chain. It usually begins simply, perhaps with a compromise that ends up bargaining away something you need to be happy, or with a series of concessions that turn into entitlement creep. Or maybe you've given up some degree of bodily autonomy, like agreeing not to choose a certain type of partner or agreeing not to have certain kinds of sex with new lovers. So now you've agreed to something, and you feel unhappy. Over time your feelings drift from "I'm unhappy that I made that choice," to "I'm unhappy," to "My partner is asking me to be unhappy," to "My partner is making me unhappy," to "I have the right to make my partner unhappy too." Now you're playing the tit-for-tat unhappiness game, where each of you considers your own comfort over the happiness of your partners—descending the deadly chain toward its bitter end.

You can avoid the deadly chain if you are willing to closely examine your priorities, especially as they relate to your happiness. What boundaries can you set to protect your actual needs? How important is your own autonomy? Are you communicating your boundaries and needs? If you have negotiated away something that turns out to be an essential part of your happiness, you always have the right to renegotiate to get it back.

THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE

The Caucasian Chalk Circle
is a play by Bertolt Brecht, based on the story of the Judgment of Solomon. It involves a young boy whose parentage is disputed: two women claim to be his mother. To decide custody, the judge assigns a test: a circle is drawn on the ground in chalk, and the boy is placed in the middle. The two women stand on either side of the circle, and each take an arm. The judge says that whoever pulls the boy out of the circle gets him. If they pull him apart, they will get part.

You can probably tell how this ends. One of the women refuses to pull hard enough. The judge declares her the true mother, because she is the one who refused to hurt the child. In poly relationships, there are overt cases where two (or more) partners try to pull a pivot person away from the other; the one who cares least about the damage being done to the relationships pulls hardest. And there are plenty of cases where a partner comes right out and says, "You have to choose between him and me." But the tug-of-war is often far subtler than that. Conflicts over scheduling or other commitments, or ongoing struggles with jealousy, or a desire to limit another relationship or to create a relationship structure that makes the other relationships more difficult can create chronic tension, with the pivot feeling pulled in two.

There's no wise judge, of course, to decide who is the more worthy partner. Even following the metaphor of the chalk circle—that the partner who is pulling the least is the more "worthy"—isn't always the best decision. A partner who's demanding that you make a choice might be engaging in valid boundary-setting: "I can no longer remain in a relationship with you if you continue your relationship with Ellen." If you're one of the people "pulling," and you see your partner in pain, it may seem obvious that the thing to do is stop pulling—but that's often harder than it seems. When you see someone else pulling on the other side, it can be terrifying just to let go—because if you do, they'll just go flying out of the circle, into the arms of the other partner. Right?

Of course, in poly relationships, the person in the circle is not a helpless child. She is an adult with agency, capable of making her own choices. To trust enough to stop pulling is to trust your partner to make choices to be with you and nurture your relationship of her own volition. And for the person in the circle, the best survival strategy is firm, clear boundary-setting, such as "I need you to stop pulling on me"—repeated as often as necessary. Make clear and specific commitments about allocating your time, attention and other resources, and then stick to them (see also
ping-pong poly
).

One possible coping strategy comes from the original story of the Judgment of Solomon, a solution known as "splitting the baby." In the Judgment of Solomon, the setup is similar: two putative mothers arguing over custody of a child. Solomon commands that the baby be cut in two, with each woman to receive half each. One woman proclaims, "It shall be neither mine nor yours—divide it!" The other woman begs Solomon to spare the child, even if it means giving it to the other woman. Solomon, of course, awards custody to the second woman. In legal parlance, "splitting the baby" has come to refer to splitting the difference in negotiations. In the poly version of this story, "splitting the baby" might be a zero-sum relationship (discussed in chapter 16).

MISMATCHED DESIRE

One of the advantages of polyamory we've talked about is not being dependent on one person to meet your sexual needs. In monogamous relationships, mismatched sexual desire is very common and can become an enormous source of stress; in polyamorous relationships, there's at least the option for a person with the high libido to seek multiple lovers and for the other to have some guilt-free peace.

However, mismatched sexual desire still creates problems in polyamory! Sexual desire is not always general; sometimes a person is drawn to one particular other more than the desire is reciprocated. This can create just as much tension in poly relationships as in monogamous ones. There's no easy solution. All healthy sexual relationships are consensual; we don't believe it's reasonable to expect someone to have sex more often than he wants to. Feelings of guilt or pressure around sex breed resentment, and resentment tends to depress sexual desire even more, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.

Sexual desire isn't necessarily something that can be summoned with the snap of the fingers. If your partner desires you more than you desire him, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with either you or the relationship. It happens. Gentleness with yourself and each other is likely to be much better for your relationship than guilt or blame.

Some positive steps may help rekindle desire. Taking time to be in touch with yourself and your partner without distractions or outside stressors can help set the mood. Spending time touching without an expectation of sex or orgasm at the end can also help. Some couples are happy to grow close by one masturbating while the other cuddles and squeezes. Laurie B. Mintz's book
A Tired Woman's Guide to Passionate Sex
has been found in a peer-reviewed study to help improve the sexual connection in long-term relationships.

But sometimes the only thing that can be done about mismatched desire is to accept that it is what it is, and that a relationship is more than an exchange of sexual gratification.

BAR-RAISERS

Bar-raisers are a specific kind of
game changer
, and they may just be the scariest monster hiding under the poly bed. No one wants to talk about them, yet many—if not all—of the rules and structures imposed on new relationships are designed, at least in part, to protect against them. But they happen, they hurt a lot, and like all game changers, they can't be prevented.

Poly people like to say that one of the advantages of polyamory is we don't have to give up an existing relationship when someone new comes along. That's true, but…sometimes we meet a new person who highlights the flaws in an existing relationship and teaches us that there's truly a better way to live. Or maybe your existing relationship was just fine, but the new partner may show you new things, make you happier, help you realize you can have something you never thought possible, help you see the world in a different light. They may lead you to want more, or they may help you to
be
more. After that you can't quite go home again.

Sometimes a bar-raiser can change what we want from
all
our relationships, or change what we look for in a partner. Sometimes they end up making our other relationships better—though often not until after a fair amount of strife. Sometimes we may decide that other relationships should end. Bar-raisers show us that things we had taken for granted aren't necessarily true. In doing that, they show us paths to happiness we didn't know existed. Suddenly, things we had always accepted don't look so acceptable anymore.

FRANKLIN'S STORY
My relationship with Amber was a bar-raiser. Many of the compromises I had taken for granted as part of polyamory—giving up the freedom to choose my own partners, always having to keep others subordinate to my relationship with Celeste—became too painful to bear with Amber. But more than that, Amber showed me that a different approach was possible: I could have poly relationships without these compromises.

I have also been on the other side of this process. When I started dating my partner Vera, she had three other relationships. Two of those met some, but not all, of her relationship needs. Each offered something she wanted, but with strings and conditions: one was hierarchical, with Vera as a secondary partner, and the other was a good sexual fit but not a good partner fit. Her relationship with me threw the problems into sharp relief, altering those relationships.