More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (69 page)

• Do I have access to a social support system that is friendly to and knowledgeable about polyamory?
  
• Do I feel like I have friends I can discuss relationship problems with who will not blame polyamory as the problem?
  
• Who in my life is important for me to be able to talk to about my relationships? Whom do I think it's important for my partners to meet?
  
• If I am thinking about staying closeted, how will I feel about concealing my important relationships from people who are close to me?
  
• What risks do I face—including personal, professional or physical—in being public about my polyamorous relationships? Are these risks I can afford to take?
  
• If I am thinking of staying closeted, is it because I face genuine and serious risks, or am I concerned about being inconvenienced or losing status?
  
• Who else is affected by my decision to be out or closeted? Do I understand the effects my decision will have on them?
  

LAST WORDS: LOVE MORE, BE AWESOME

He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day.

Choice: that was the thing.

SHERMAN
ALEXIE

Amid all the boundary-setting and agreement-making, the time management and the emotional processing, the balancing of needs and desires and the realities of life, it's easy to lose the thread of
why
we're doing this at all. Why are we poly? Hell, why do we have any relationships?

It's important, and useful, to come back often to the root of polyamory: love. We have relationships because we, as human beings, are wired to love. And without love as the core of our relationships, and as the principle we come back to in everything we do in those relationships, the other principles—as indispensable as they are—aren't going to get us anywhere. Love is the great clarifier of values. Without it, whatever framework we create will remain hollow and, ultimately, lifeless.

For a surprising number of problems, the solution is in fact
more love.
The principle of more love can cut through many dilemmas in relationships. Listen. Cherish your partners. Cherish
yourself.
Trust your partners. Be trustworthy. Honor others' feelings and your own. Seek joy for everyone involved.

As we researched this book and collected people's stories, we were struck by how often it seemed like the people who were able to navigate their way through poly situations that would have devastated others did so by
being awesome
. They did the hard work, they cared about each other, they didn't give in, they reasoned with their overpowering emotions. They set compassionate boundaries. They honored their loves' agency even when they were afraid of losing what they valued most. They faced their own deepest fears for the sake of themselves and the people they cared about. Being awesome is such a valuable skill to cultivate that we offer it here, along with more love, as a key takeaway from this book. When faced with a challenging situation, the simple pledge to yourself to be awesome will carry you and your relationships very far indeed.

In the end, a recipe for successful relationships might look like this:

Be flexible. Be compassionate. Rules can never cure insecurity. Integrity matters. Never try to script what your relationships will look like. Love is abundant. Compatibility matters. You cannot sacrifice your happiness for that of another. Own your own shit. Admit when you fuck up. Forgive when others fuck up. Don't try to find people to stuff into the empty spaces in your life; instead, make spaces for the people in your life. If you need a relationship to complete you, get a dog. It is almost impossible to be loving or compassionate when all you feel is fear of loss. Trust that your partners want to be with you, and that if given the freedom to do anything they please, they will choose to cherish and support you. Most relationship problems can be avoided by good partner selection. Nobody can give you security or self-esteem; you have to build that yourself.

And if you remember nothing else from this book, remember this: Love more and be awesome.

GLOSSARY

You'll find a more comprehensive glossary of terms related to polyamory and other forms of open relationships at
morethantwo.com.

ANCHOR PARTNER.
A partner with whom you share a close, long-term, committed connection. May be a live-in partner with financial entanglements; relationship may include an expectation of a significant time commitment.

ASEXUALITY.
A lack of sexual interest in other people, or a lack of interest in sexual activity. A person who is not sexually attracted to others may identify as asexual.

BISEXUAL.
Used to describe someone who is sexually attracted to or sexually active with partners of both sexes, though not necessarily equally.

CHEATING.
In a relationship, any activity that violates the rules or agreements of that relationship.

CISGENDER.
A person who identifies as the same gender that was assigned to them at birth.

CLOSED GROUP MARRIAGE.
A polyfidelitous relationship in which all the members consider themselves to be married.

CLOSED RELATIONSHIP.
Any romantic relationship, such as a conventional monogamous relationship or a polyfidelitous relationship, that specifically excludes the possibility of sexual or romantic connections with others.

COMPERSION.
A feeling of joy experienced when a partner takes pleasure from another romantic or sexual relationship.

CONDOM COMPACT.
An agreement within a group to use barriers for sex with people outside the group, but not with others in the group.

COUPLE PRIVILEGE.
External social structures or internal assumptions that consciously or unconsciously place a couple at the center of a relationship hierarchy or grant special advantages to a couple.

COWBOY, COWGIRL.
A monogamous person who engages in a relationship with a polyamorous partner with the hope or intention of separating the poly partner from any other partners and bringing him or her into a monogamous relationship.

DEMISEXUAL.
Used to describe a person who is largely asexual but may develop sexual attraction after a stable emotional connection is established.

DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL.
A relationship structure in which a person who is partnered is permitted to have additional sexual or romantic relationships on the condition that his or her partner does not know anything about those additional relationships and does not meet any of those other people.

DYAD.
The relationship between any two people, distinct from the connections either person has with anyone else.

EXCLUSIVE RELATIONSHIP.
See
closed relationship.

FLUID BONDING.
1. Practices that involve the exchange of bodily fluids from the genitals, such as barrier-free sex. 2. A set of boundaries, agreements or rules between two or more people who are engaging in unbarriered sex designed to protect the fluid-bonded status.

FRUBBLE, FRUBBLY (BRITISH).
See
compersion.

GROUP MARRIAGE.
See
closed group marriage, polyfidelity.

HETERONORMATIVE.
Assumptions and presumed social roles that promote the idea of heterosexual relationships as the norm and that equate biological sex, gender identity and gender roles.

HIERARCHY, HIERARCHICAL RELATIONSHIP.
An arrangement in which one relationship is subject to control or rule-making by participants in another relationship. Usually involves veto; may also involve restrictions on activities, commitment, entanglement, time or emotions.

INTIMATE NETWORK.
See
romantic network.

LIFE PARTNER.
A partner, usually a romantic and/or sexual partner, with whom one has the intent of a long-lasting and intertwined committed relationship.

METAMOUR.
A partner's other partner.

MOLECULE.
Used to describe a set or subset of polyamorous relationships, such as a triad, vee or quad, or a complete
romantic network.
See also
polycule.

MONOGAMY.
The state or practice of having only one sexual partner or romantic relationship at a time.

MONO/POLY.
A relationship between someone who self-identifies as polyamorous and someone who self-identifies as monogamous.

NEW RELATIONSHIP ENERGY (NRE).
A strong, almost giddy feeling of excitement and infatuation common in the beginning of any new romantic relationship, which usually lasts for a few months but can last as long as several years.

ONE-PENIS POLICY.
An arrangement in which a man is allowed to have multiple female partners, each of whom is allowed to have sex with other women but may not have any other male partners.

OPEN MARRIAGE.
Any marriage whose structures or arrangements permit one or both of the members involved to have other sexual relationships, romantic relationships, or both. The term
open marriage
is a catchall for marriages that are not emotionally or sexually monogamous, and may include such activities as polyamory or swinging.

OPEN NETWORK.
A relationship structure in which the people involved are free to add new partners as they choose.

OPEN RELATIONSHIP.
1. Any relationship that is not sexually monogamous. 2. A relationship that permits "outside" sexual entanglements, but not loving or romantic relationships.

OTHER SIGNIFICANT OTHER (OSO).
1. A partner's other partner. 2. A person's partner when that person has more than one partner:
Bob is my husband, and Joe is my other significant other.

PIVOT.
The person "in the middle," with two or more partners.

POLY.
Something that is polyamorous or about polyamory: a poly relationship, a poly person, a poly discussion group.

POLYANDRY.
One woman with multiple husbands, the less common type of polygamy.

POLYCULE.
A
romantic network,
or a particular subset of relationships within a
romantic network,
whose members are closely connected. Also used to describe a sketch or visualization of a
romantic network,
as these drawings often resemble the depiction of molecules used in organic chemistry.

POLYFAMILY.
1. A set of polyamorous people who live together and identify as part of the same family. 2. A polyamorous group whose members consider one another to be family, regardless of whether or not they share a home.

POLYFIDELITY.
A group of people who are romantically or sexually involved with one another, but whose agreements do not permit them to seek additional partners, at least without the approval and consent of everyone in the group.

POLYGAMY.
Having multiple wedded spouses at the same time, regardless of the gender of those spouses.
Polygyny
—one man with multiple wives—is the most common form of polygamy in societies that permit multiple spouses. For that reason, many people confuse the two.

POLYSATURATED.
Describes someone who is polyamorous, but not currently open to new relationships or new partners because of the number of existing partners, or because of time constraints that might make new relationships difficult.

PRIMARY/SECONDARY.
A hierarchical relationship structure in which the partners who are higher in the hierarchy are referred to as "primary" and other partners are referred to as "secondary." Sometimes used to describe a non-hierarchical relationship structure in partners are not equal to one another in terms of interconnection, emotional intensity or entwinement in practical or financial matters. (We discourage the latter use, which is becoming less common among poly people.)

QUAD.
A polyamorous arrangement involving four people, each of whom may or may not be sexually or emotionally involved with all the other members. This arrangement often begins with two couples. Quads may also be part of a larger
romantic network.

RELATIONSHIP ANARCHY (RA).
A philosophy or practice in which people are seen as free to engage in any relationships they choose, spontaneity and freedom are valued, no relationship is entered into or restricted from a sense of duty or obligation, and any relationship choice is considered allowable. Relationship anarchists often do not make a clear distinction between "partner" and "non-partner."

RELATIONSHIP ESCALATOR.
The default set of social assumptions concerning the "normal" course of a relationship, usually proceeding from dating to moving in together to getting married and having children.

ROMANTIC NETWORK.
The sum total of a person's partners, those partners' partners, and so on. Usually used to describe an open network. Usually includes smaller molecules such as vees, triads or quads.

SECONDARY.
See
primary/secondary.

SWINGING.
The practice of having multiple sexual partners outside of an existing romantic relationship, most often engaged in by couples as an organized activity, and with the understanding that the focus of those relationships is primarily sexual rather than romantic or emotionally intimate.

TRIAD.
A polyamorous arrangement in which three people are involved with one another. Occasionally applied to vees. Triads may also be part of a larger
romantic network.

TRIGGER.
A specific thought, action, sight or event that sets off an emotion that is usually linked to past traumatic events and may not actually be related to the current, triggering situation.