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

by Franklin Veaux

Many problems we encounter in polyamory, particularly when we’re in a relationship that was previously monogamous, come from attempts to explore new relationships without having anything change. Sometimes those changes involve coming face-to-face with our deepest fears: abandonment, fear of loss, fear of being replaced, fear of no longer being special. Relationship change is scary. Sometimes it comes on us in jarring ways. On the blog “Journals of a Polyamorous Triad,” the blogger Polytripod wrote about something she and her partners called “the sushi factor.” Polytripod loved sushi, and she tried to share it with her partner—who expressed in no uncertain terms that he was not interested in raw fish. Long after she gave up trying to take him to the sushi house, he started dating someone new, who also loved sushi. High on the buzz of NRE, Polytripod’s partner agreed to try it—and discovered he loved it. Polytripod was, in her words, “less than thrilled.” It hurt her to, as she said, make a request of her partner, get a no, and then see him doing the thing she’d requested with someone else. In her post, she stressed what she saw as the importance of continuing to extend to longer-term bonded partners the same willingness to try new things as you’d give to a new partner. While it may take more conscious effort to maintain the same openness and adventurousness in a long-term committed relationship as you might naturally have in the early stages of a new romance, Polytripod arg...