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

by Franklin Veaux

Whatever your tastes, however ingenious your imagination, the range of sexual experience is so great that someone, somewhere, is doing something you'd love to do that would never occur to you.

If you disregard the needs and feelings of people you're sleeping with, you don't get to sleep with them anymore.

For those of you who imagine that polyamory is a fancy word to excuse your cheating, we have bad news for you as well. "Cheating" is violating trust by breaking the rules of a relationship. If taking multiple lovers does not violate trust, then it's not cheating by definition. Betrayal, not sex, is cheating's defining element.

Desire isn't a button you can push. No matter how much you may care for someone, no matter how much you may want to meet their needs, if sexual desire is not there, it's not there.

When we treat people as components to fit roles we have scripted for them, they are likely to feel disempowered,

Courage is a verb, grammarians be damned: it's not something you have, it's something you do. You practice a bit every day. And if you fall down, if your courage fails you, you always get another chance. Always. Courage happens in increments.

We do not learn courage, or trust, by avoiding the things that trigger our fears

We learn courage by taking a deep breath, steadying ourselves, and then choosing the difficult, scary path over the easy way out.

Know that you are lucky to have people in your life with the power to break your heart, because it means you have love.

Relationships make us much happier when we move toward intimacy with people who bring out the best in us, rather than away from loneliness.

a desire on my part does not constitute an obligation on your part.

failures to communicate happen when we lead with our fears instead of our hopes.

Mistakes happen because someone is trying to solve a problem or meet a need. It's easy, in the emotional aftermath, to see the mistake as a consequence of selfishness or some other moral failing. But recovery from a mistake depends on being able to see our partners as human beings doing their best to solve a problem rather than as caricatures or monsters. Compassion, like communication, is one of those things that's most valuable when it's most difficult.

emotions are transient.

Jealousy isn't really about the person you feel jealous of. It's about you:

The true test of compassion is what we do when compassion is hard.

Successful written agreements are documents that you hold yourself to, not something others hold you to.

If you find yourselves haggling over clauses in an agreement and whether they have been violated, rather than discussing the hurt feelings, the needs behind a partner's actions and ways to make amends, you've probably reached a place where the people are serving the rules, and not the other way around.

fairness is not the same thing as symmetry.

It's vital that both people talk openly, even when talking openly is difficult.

We often cling to things long after they have stopped bringing us joy.

Few breakups involve obvious wrongdoing on one person's side while the other is entirely virtuous in thought and deed.

In one way, metamours are like the family you grew up in: They are people in your life whom you did not choose. And in that sense, it often is useful to think of polycules as being like real families. Not everyone may like each other, but even at worst, you need to be able to sit down to dinner together, smile and make polite conversation at least a couple of times a year.

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.