Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (15 page)

If all partners live together, they can draw on multiple incomes to
share expenses and resources; they also have more help with the basic
chores of life like household duties and childcare. Emma is in a triad
with a man and a woman: "My husband works full-time and is the
main breadwinner. My wife works part-time and then throws pots part
time while she tries to get her pottery business off the ground. I am a
housewife. While they are out of the house, I do all of the cleaning and
shopping. This frees up our collective time together. We have more free
time than any of our other friends who are in traditional relationships."

More partners also means more physical and emotional support,
which is especially significant during major life changes or times of
crisis. For example, Leslie was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after
one husband, Ed, moved in with her and her other husband, Colin.
Having both men to take care of her was a blessing for everyone: "Ed
told me that he would not want to be my only husband."

Sandra is a 43-year-old massage therapist from the Pacific Northwest. Her five-person poly circle is made up of herself, her husband,
Rick, her male partner Doug, Doug's wife, Gabrielle, and Sandra and
Rick's girlfriend Joan. Sandra, Rick, Doug, and Gabrielle live and raise
their four children together in a house they own jointly Joan lives on
the East Coast; she talks to the others on the phone every day and sees
them every two months; she has a sexual relationship with only Sandra
and Rick. While each member of the circle is not sexual with every
other member, they are all committed to each other for the long haul. Sandra recalls a time when their circle particularly worked well:
"Recently Doug's mom died. Gabrielle was scheduled to have surgery
on the date of the funeral. Gabrielle asked me to attend the funeral
with Doug and their children, while Rick stayed home to care for
Gabrielle and our children. Joan felt represented by me in the company of Doug's extended family, who welcomed me as an important
member of Doug's immediate family. It seems very logistical, but the
comfort and emotional support that we all felt in this difficult time was
beyond what the usual `friends' could offer." (For more on this circle
of five, see the profile at the end of Chapter 17, Raising Children.)

Polyfidelitous Configurations

triad: three people who all have sexual and love relationships
with each other

V triad: a unit of three in which two of the members are not
romantic/sexual with each other'

quad: a unit of four. The most common configurations are:

1) two male/female couples where the women are sexual
with both men but not with each other, and the men are
sexual with both women but not with each other;

2) two male/female couples where the women are sexual
with both men and with each other, and the men are sexual
only with both women;

3) four people of any gender who are all sexual with each other

poly circle, poly family, W or pod:' groups of five or more

W. a fivesome (think of it as two connected V's)

Some polyfidelitous groups are closed, meaning that all partners are
monogamous within the group. Sandra's five-person circle is closed to
outside partners; four of the five own a house and raise children
together. All the members, including the one who doesn't live with
them, have agreed that they have sex only with each other.

In an open polyfidelitous group, members may have additional
partners. If the group is open to sex or BDSM partners, they practice
something similar to partnered nonmonogamy, with a group at the
center instead of a couple. For example, the triad of Carlie, Alexis, and
Owen has agreed that if one member wants to be sexual with nontriad
members, all three have to be present; they may or may not also be
involved. In Diane's triad, "Rules about playing outside the triad are
pretty simple. All one has to do is ask permission to be with someone,
and it is usually given. If it isn't, there is usually a damn good reason
why not, like the person being skanky or unsafe, or has had personal
problems in the past."

If the group is open to additional relationships, it is simply
another form of polyamory-in most cases, the group is primary and
other significant relationships are secondary. Leslie is a 36-year-old
housewife from Minneapolis. She married Colin, a computer programmer, 12 years ago. Six years ago, she became involved with Ed. The
three now live together in a V triad and she considers both men her
husbands: "We are lifemated. I am legally married to one and would
be to the other if it was legal." They have agreed they can have other
partners outside the triad, as long as they practice safer sex with them.
They are even open to an additional primary partner, but that would
take lots of negotiation. Colin admits that the emotional part of relationships outside the triad is sometimes difficult for him: " [The hardest
thing is] being clear in my own mind about how far I can go with someone emotionally, and how much of myself I can give to a relationship when I have a marriage I'm committed to. I have a tendency to
just want to get more and more intimate with people."

Emma, Penny, and George have been a closed triad for several
years, and they recently renegotiated to become open to outside relationships. "One of the things that have come up is that we are not trying
to open up just so that we can have sex for the sake of sex," Emma
says. "I feel very strongly that the potential lover needs to be someone
I have a connection with. Does it have to be love? No. But it does need
to be more than just fucking. At least for me, presently; I believe the
other two agree. If this openly poly thing doesn't work out because of
other people's inability to do it, then my marriage will come before my
desire to become more openly poly"

Shawn says, "To quote a friend, my life is fairly normal once you
get over the fact that I have a wife and a girlfriend. I can't possibly contemplate the idea of starting a relationship with someone they didn't
approve of, because any time I spend with the other person is time I'm
taking away from them. So they have to agree that its worth it to them
to lose that time for me to spend it with a third person. I love them.
I'm planning on spending the rest of my life with them. I want them
happy"

One of the benefits of having more than one partner is that there's more
than one person to call you on your shit. In his book Pagan Polyamory,
Raven Kaldera calls couples "the most stable form of relationship and
also the most prone to stagnation, rigidity, and self-delusion."3
Members of a couple can grow quite comfortable with the dysfunctional patterns of their dynamic-there's no one around to say, "I
notice that you avoid this topic whenever it comes up." When another
person enters the mix, it can really shake things up. In their book Group
Marriage, Larry and Joan Constantine write about marriage partners' repeated behavior patterns (the script) and the unspoken agreements
(the contract) they make to play certain roles. The Constantines posit
that a multiperson marriage exposes these elements:

Repeatedly we found that the intense, intimate, open environment of the multilateral marriage exposed the scripts and
the terms of the contract to the couples involved. The new
context made old behaviors stand out in sharp contrast;
habituated responses are difficult to see while situations
remain unchanged.'

When one person tells you something about yourself, you can
ignore it more easily-you can think it is just their opinion or chalk it
up to misperception. But when two people who know you well tell you
something, it's much harder to ignore, especially when it's not a friend
or acquaintance looking at the relationship from the outside, but
someone in the relationship-who has deep, intimate knowledge of
the players, personalities, and dynamics. This level of intimacy coupled with accountability can help members of polyfidelitous
relationships change and grow

The other side of that coin, though, is this: the more people in a
relationship, the more difficult communication can become. Every
member must work to stay connected to the others, so no one feels left
out of the loop. In a polyfidelitous relationship, there are more people
to process feelings with, more people's needs and desires to consider,
and often more decisions to make. Plus, since all members are committed to each other, everyone must have a voice in decision making.
If the group is open to outside partners, everyone needs to negotiate
and agree on the boundaries for those relationships.

We try very hard to keep communication open, although, in a
marriage of three, it is hard to keep track of who we have told and
who we haven't. Besides, we joke that people who are married never talk, so there are plenty of times when one or two of us
know something and the third doesn't. -Emma

When three or more partners are involved, the basics of daily life
must be negotiated to make room for everyone in the relationship,
whether is who sleeps with whom and when, whose parents you visit
for the holidays, or how you handle work and vacation schedules.
Whether or not everyone lives under the same roof, you need to make
the time to nurture and cultivate each relationship as well as have time
for yourself. This balancing of time and energy is an issue faced by
most people in nonmonogamous relationships, but it is especially
important when you have multiple primary relationships.

In his book Pagan Polyamory, Raven Kaldera cautions people about one
of the less constructive dynamics that can develop in a V (or what I call
a V triad):

Being at the point of a V is the hardest role in polyamory
because it means you have two people's full-time attention
and needs focused on you. It means that you may be expected
to mediate between them, and perhaps less focus is placed on
their ability to communicate, because of course you're there,
and you've learned to speak both their languages, and since
they're both there for you, why should they bother to have
much of a relationship with each other?5

Kaldera's quote raises the issue of the nature of the relationship
between co-spouses in a V triad or in another group in which all members do not have a sexual or romantic relationship. There are few
models for how to develop communication, trust, even emotional intimacy with a person who is both your significant other's significant other
and someone you've committed to share your life with as well. Daria and Audrey are in a V triad with Shawn; about her relationship with
Audrey, Daria says, "We're family, certainly Any life choices that either
of us makes are definitely going to affect the other. We live together,
we're planning to grow old together. Our relationships are so entwined,
she is definitely my partner as well, regardless of any romantic intent."
"We're very good friends who are in a
relationship, just without the sex," Audrey
adds. In general, women in these relationships seem to have an easier time than
men being close, nonsexual partners.

Two straight men in a V triad are in
uncharted territory, since most men are
not encouraged by society to bond with
other men intimately. For example, to
outward appearances, Timothy, Meredith,
and William are in a V triad: Meredith is
in a relationship with both Timothy and
William, and they all live together (though
this is a new development in the last few
months). They don't see themselves as a
committed, cohesive unit. The men call
each other friends but do not consider
themselves co-spouses or co-boyfriends;
their relationship with each other is tenuous at best-they tolerate each other.
As with most kinds of nontraditional relationships, the dynamics of
intimacy between straight men in a triad are up for interpretation and
negotiation, and they change over time.

Colin and Ed are in a V triad with Leslie; though they consider each
other co-husbands, theirs is a relationship that our culture doesn't really
have a name for. Ed says:

It was the Hawaiian
custom at one time to
permit men and women to
have more than one mate.
A man's wives or a
woman's husbands are
punalua to each other.
The term is also used to
refer to the relationship
between two people who
share a longtime lover,
regardless of marital
status, or between a
person's former and
current mate.

-PLURAL LOVES: DESIGNS
FOR BI AND POLY LIVING6

In the past, I have described my relationship with Colin as like a
relationship with a brother. We don't tease each other like I see most
brothers do, and we are much more comfortable being naked and
expressing sexual thoughts about Leslie to each other. While I was
working and going to school several years ago, it was his suggestion that he and Leslie pay for my housing and food, and give me
a stipend, which was a bit of a shock to me. He is generous in a
way that is different from the way that I am, and it is surprising
sometimes. I expect that we would continue to live together for
some time if we outlive Leslie, and I think the flavor of our relationship is something like family members that share the same
ideology and outlook on life. Colin is like family I never had.

Groups of three or more can create complex power dynamics; for
example, you should be conscious of not ganging up on one partner
or allowing one to feel left out. This can be especially true in a triad,
where one person may easily feel excluded or less valued. In a triad
one person may also feel caught in the middle, having to play mediator between the other two. It could be that two people have a more
forceful arguing style and the third doesn't always feel his or her voice
is heard. Emma, who calls her triad partners "spice" (the plural of
spouse), says, "It is difficult anytime one of my spice comes to rely on
me completely, essentially shutting the other person out. If there is
some sort of rift or fight between the two of them, they come to me for
support, to feel better, and to bitch. Feeling like the fulcrum in the
middle is the worst part about a triad."