Why We Are A No Veto Couple
“Would you say we are a ‘no-veto’ couple?” I asked Bryce. I mean, I thought we were, but the first rule of polyamory is communicate. (The second and third rules are also Communicate).
“Yeah. I don’t think I have veto power over your partners.”
“I don’t have it and don’t want it,” I say.
So yes, Bryce and I are a “no-veto” couple — we’re in an open marriage, but we don’t want and don’t seek to have “veto power” over any outside relationship our spouse might have. That means that Bryce can’t (and wouldn’t) ask me to dump Holly. I won’t ever ask him to dump another partner.
“I’m trying to think of someone who would be so crazy that I’d say GIMME THAT VETO POWER VETO I WANT IT NOW!! I mean, if someone shot up the house, maybe — but then, I wouldn’t need it, because you’d dump them anyway.”
“Yeah,” Bryce says. ”You trust me not to be crazy, and I trust you not to be crazy.”
Trust.
****
Like a lot of married couples who decided to open their relationship, we started out with tons of rules that were designed to “protect our relationship” and “put our relationship first.” Most of them went by the wayside, because the rules were developed in response to our fears, which bore little resemblance to anything we encountered in real life.
For a lot of people, “protecting the primary relationship” just seems like a no-brainer. So why don’t we have a veto rule?
Two reasons:
We’ve switched our mindset from “protect” to “build.” If I’m not getting my needs met inside my relationship with Bryce, and he’s not committed to doing something about that, closing our relationship will change nothing. When we switched our mindset from “protect” to “build”, I immediately felt less defensive and anxious — it’s hard to be anxious when I see Bryce working every day to make our relationship better. In short, transitioning to nonmonogamy changed our ‘game plan’ from defense to offense. There’s a reason so many people admire our relationship, and that’s because we work hard at having a good sexual bond, going to the gym to stay healthy (and energetic and sexy), and thinking of what we can do to make what we have not just adequate, not just good, but this-is-the-only-life-we-get fantastic. We could do home renovation, but fuck that nonsense. Except for the first 3-6 weeks of a partner having a new partner, I actually spend zero time fretting about what Bryce does with someone else. I care about what he does with me.
We believe adds an element of unfairness to any nonprimary partners we have a relationship with. If I “put my foot down” and told Bryce that he had to dump someone he was dating, what does that look like from the point of view of someone dating him? Basically, it means that they got dumped because of the opinions/feelings of of someone who they’re not in a relationship and might not have ever met.
As a primary partner with nearly two decades, two kids, and a mortgage with Bryce, I have an overwhelming power and “sunk cost” advantage over anyone coming into our relationship. To layer on a veto rule seems completely over the top to me.
I believe that people should get out of relationships what they put into them — and even if Bryce is dating someone and they have one or two dates, that’s their investment. It’s not fair of me to use veto power to “zero out” their investment, even if theirs is small and mine is big. It doesn’t mean that a new partner gets to reduce the value of my investment in my relationship with Bryce either — but just because my investment is big doesn’t mean that their emotional investment, and their investment of time and attention, doesn’t exist and doesn’t have value. It does, and I feel like if I want to get the benefits of non-monogamy, I have to honor that. That’s why we’re a no-veto couple.
Here’s some stuff I’ve read that has helped me:
Non-primary partners tell: how to treat us well
Franklin Veaux on couple privilege
Nonmonogamy for Men: The Big Picture (this is one I recommend ALL THE TIME)
