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The strongest, healthiest homes for children are those with happy, emotionally healthy adults who model integrity and good communication.
Building poly relationships means carefully assessing how we define our commitments and expectations, how we think about partnership, and how we think about the paths our relationships should take.
Part of setting good boundaries as the pivot is to speak only for yourself, not your partners.
Good communication about time includes being clear about what time commitments you are available for, how much time you need in each relationship (including how much needs to be dyad time as opposed to group time), how much you need for yourself (especially important if you're introverted), and what time commitments you already have.
While promises can certainly be made, and should be honored, gifts of time in the absence of promises do not constitute entitlements for similar gifts in the future.
when you understand that time spent with a partner is a gift and not an entitlement, this will help you cultivate a sense of gratitude for it, and gratitude is a powerful shield against jealousy and fear.
Sometimes compassion dictates that a rigid schedule should change.
You have a right, and a responsibility, to advocate for all your relationships.
each of us has the right to build a life suited to our needs.
The cornerstones of ethical polyamory, as we've discussed, are consent and communication. Cheating undermines both, and it's nearly impossible to rebuild a relationship until trust and communication are restored.
Calling cheating an accident is a way of avoiding responsibility for making the decision.
Surely the most ubiquitous misunderstanding of love is "love hurts." Loving never hurts—it's wanting others to be different from how they are, and not getting what you want, that we find so painful.
learning to extend compassion to a partner's other lovers is a vital skill in mono/poly relationships.
It can be difficult to shake the notion that commitment and exclusivity are the same thing.
Polyamory might look like a need for sexual variety, but a better way to think about it is in terms of openness to deep personal connection, not too different from the way most people are open to making new friends.
If you have a child and you decide to add another, it probably isn't because there's something wrong with the first child. It's about bringing more love and intimacy into your life. Polyamory is the same.
There's nothing wrong with discomfort; challenging our comfort zone is how we grow,
Relationships live or die on the quality of the communication in them.
If you negotiate away your integrity, ethics or agency, you are no longer a full and equal participant in the relationship.
Be careful not to compromise on behalf of other people.
no matter how much you love each other, you are not obligated to be in a relationship with each other.
Two keys to having low-stress conversations about sex are being direct and asking questions.
Sexual health protection begins with you. You are the person most responsible for your health,
Barrier use, regular testing and open discussion about sexual history are an effective combination for STI prevention.
Entitlement to another's time is the most obvious sort of entitlement creep.
You've broken a "promise" you never offered. That's entitlement creep.
If you know or suspect that a partner is in an abusive situation, you may find there is little you can do directly—other than tell him your observations, express your concern, and let him know you're there to support him if and when he decides to try to leave.
Many primers on abusive relationships list "cuts a person off from other sources of support" as a prime warning sign. Other classic markers include someone making decisions for a partner and expecting her to obey without question, requiring her to check in frequently and report what she is doing, sharing her private information without consent, dismissing or disregarding her feelings, or restricting her access to other people in general. These are ways an abuser creates control, helplessness and isolation.
This is one of the downsides to polyamory; the odds are good that, sooner or later, someone else will hurt somebody you love, and there's not a lot you can do about it.
We're taught that marriage should mean our relationship never changes, rather than meaning we can be family for life but the shape the family takes can change.
It's not the shape of the relationship that's important; it's whether it meets your needs.
only relationships that enrich our lives are worth striving for.
Relationships that make us the best versions of ourselves are successes. Those that don't are not, regardless of how long they last.
An ethical relationship is one where nobody feels compelled to stay against their will.
A guarded heart is a closed heart.
Accept whatever happens. When meeting any new person, you're best to meet without agenda or expectation.
Treating a relationship as a tool for dealing with our own fears is a covert way of treating people as things.
Respect for a partner means respect for her choices.
As with just about every other part of polyamorous relating, the impulse to deal with the unknown by trying to control the outcome is less likely to succeed than allowing relationships between you and your partners' other partners to take their own course.
If we focus on the relationship we're not in, it's easy to become invested in what our metamour is getting that we aren't, rather than on what we want and need.
Nobody can break up a relationship unless someone in that relationship agrees to it.
Treating polyamory like bad news that needs to be broken gently also isn't a great approach. People take their cues about how to respond to something from the way you present it.
The notion that we don't choose our relationships is surprisingly widespread. Compatibility, shared vision, mutually negotiated relationships—none of these things matter in the face of True Love, says the fairy tale. When we fall in love, we are obligated to start a relationship. And once we're in it, the love is the fuel that makes it go. As long as we're in love, we will be happy. Many grown-ups believe this.
If we, like Franklin's fellow panelist, accept the idea that we do not choose our partners, we tend to wake up and find ourselves in relationships by default, not design.
Good relationships grow by careful tending, but they start with good selection. (Or as gardeners like to say: "Right plant, right place.")
If the idea of dating someone doesn't prompt an enthusiastic "Fuck yes!" then the answer is no. Ambivalence has little place in romance.
Does this person have wisdom I find attractive? Has she done something that shows me she is likely, when faced with a difficult decision, to choose the path of greatest courage? Has she done something that shows me that, when faced by a personal fear or insecurity, she is dedicated to dealing with it with grace, and to investing in the effort it takes to confront, understand and grow beyond it? Does she show intellectual curiosity, intellectual rigor and intellectual growth? Has she dealt with past relationships, including relationships that have failed, with dignity and compassion? Is she a
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It's a form of romantic relationship where you have more than one romantic partner at the same time with everybody's knowledge and consent. It's not a form of cheating, sanctioned or otherwise. The focus of polyamory is different from the focus in swinging, which tends to be more concerned with recreational sex rather than romantic relationships. It's not the same as polygamy, which is the practice of having multiple spouses. It's not about collecting a harem, as polyamory tends to give all the people involved freedom to be involved in more than one relationship at once. It doesn't mean that
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People take their cues for how to respond from the way you present something. If you're open and casual about coming out, people will tend to react like it's not a big deal. If you act like it's shameful or embarrassing, people will think it is.
When we make ourselves vulnerable to others, we do more than show them how we value their friendship. We show that we trust them and are willing to be seen by them.
