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

by Franklin Veaux

People often think of jealousy as evil. It can certainly make people do evil things, but by itself, jealousy is morally neutral. Like all emotions, it is the way the ancient, reptilian parts of our brains—parts that don't have language—try to communicate with us.

Being immune to jealousy is not a prerequisite for polyamory, and feeling jealous doesn't make you a bad poly person.

Eventually, I realized an inescapable truth: Our relationship had been destroyed because I destroyed it. It wasn't destroyed by her new relationship with Newton. It wasn't destroyed by anything she had done to me. I had destroyed it, because I had felt something I believed myself incapable of feeling and therefore couldn't handle when I did.

Everyone has the right to leave me.

Step 1. Accept the feelings. You can't deal with jealousy by wishing it away or by shaming yourself. Our emotions are what they are, and telling yourself "I shouldn't feel this!" won't work. When you look around at the polyamorous community, it can be easy to convince yourself that everyone else has conquered their jealousy, and you're not a good poly person if you still feel it. That absolutely isn't true. Very few people say they've never felt it, and frankly, we suspect that just means they haven't felt it yet.

At some point, if we are to be free of jealousy, we have to confront the monster directly. That means digging deep to uncover and deal with the internal things—the wobbles in our sense of worthiness,

Step 5: Practice security. A particularly insidious thing about insecurity is that it tends to find—or invent—"evidence" to support itself. It sneaks up on you to whisper in your ear that you're not valued and not loved and your partner doesn't really want to be with you, even when those things aren't true. These things feel real. There is always the possibility that they are real, but regardless of whether they're real or not, it can be very difficult to tell whether you're

Again, we become good at what we practice. When we practice convincing ourselves that our partners don't want us, don't value us and don't really want to be involved with us, we become good at believing it.

And often a relationship becomes what we believe about it.

Our social values tell us it's okay for our partners to leave us for big chunks of time: for work, for errands, for military service, for all sorts of things. Yet we still tend to assume that if a partner is left behind for another romantic relationship, the natural response is to feel alienated and alone.

Keeping score Keeping score will drive you insane. Don't do it. If you start counting the nights (or dollars) spent together, the sexual acts engaged in, the hours on the phone or anything else of value, to compare it with what you're getting, believe us when we say that no good can come of this. You may be somewhat reassured if you come out ahead, but all keeping score will do is make you, your partners and their partners crazy and bitter without meeting the needs you're trying to get met.

Keeping score will drive you insane. Don't do it. If you start counting the nights (or dollars) spent together, the sexual acts engaged in, the hours on the phone or anything else of value, to compare it with what you're getting, believe us when we say that no good can come of this.

The idea that people are interchangeable is fundamentally flawed. When we value the things that make our partners who they are, no one person can ever replace another. This is one place where that leap of faith to believe in our own worthiness really pays off. When we feel ourselves worthy of love in our own right, not for the things we do or how we look but because of who we are, we become more able to recognize our own unique irreplaceability—and the irreplaceability of our partners. When we believe ourselves to be worthy, we more easily see our partners as worthy too.

But there's a different kind of comparison, and that is noticing differences in a way that helps you remain aware of what makes everyone unique. That kind of comparison, which is more about treasuring the things that make people who they are than about ranking people, is awesome, because it reminds us that people are not interchangeable. Remembering that people are not interchangeable can go a long way toward calming the fear of being replaced.

Separating reality from falsehood Believing the best of your partner isn't always easy. And devils lurk in the details. Every now and then you may find yourself in a relationship that is genuinely unhealthy, or with a partner who really does have one foot out the door. It's hard to sort that out from your own insecurities and determine what is true if you don't

If you ask for concrete reminders of how your partners love and value you, do you get them?

example, let's say you answer yes to the question "Am I worried that if someone 'better' comes along, my partner will realize I'm not good enough and want to replace me?" That might mean that your self-esteem is not high enough for you to recognize that your partner wants to be with you because he values and cherishes you; some part of you may be thinking, Well, I'm not as good as he thinks I am, so I better keep him away from other people! Otherwise, he'll dump me in a heartbeat.

Or say you answer yes to the question "Do I believe that if I am not my partner's only sexual partner, I am not special anymore?" The remedy there is to understand that value in a relationship comes from who you are, not from what you do, so if your partner has the same experience with another person that he has with you, the feeling of that experience

Do I feel that most other people are sexier, more good-looking, more worthwhile, funnier, smarter or just generally better than I am, and I am not able to compete with them?

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others. brené brown

When more than one person has access to our heart, this balancing act becomes much more complicated—and scary.

When we engage in intimate relationships, we open up our mental boundaries. We let a chosen few affect us, deeply. This is beautiful and amazing, and one of the things that makes life worth living. But your mind always belongs to you, and you alone. Your intimate partners, your family, your boss and the woman at the grocery store only ever get your mind on loan, and if that intimacy is damaging you, you have the right to take it back. Always.

loving someone—or giving to someone—is not supposed to hurt.

Agreements also allow for renegotiation by any of the people they affect. An agreement that does not permit renegotiation is more like a rule. An agreement that is binding on people who did not negotiate it is a rule.

Agreements empower people, whereas rules enforce power imbalances.

The people in the relationship are more important than the relationship.

A good relationship is not something you have, it's something you do.

Compulsory sharing is always a bit suspect. When others demand that we reveal ourselves, intimacy is undermined rather than strengthened, because something that is demanded cannot be shared freely as a gift. Intimacy is built by mutually consensual sharing, not by demands.

How hierarchies emerge Connection can mean a whole bunch of things, but here it represents what people see as the exciting bits of a relationship: intensity, passion, shared interests, sex, joy in each other's presence. It's the things that bring you together.

When we open our hearts to multiple relationships, every now and then someone comes along who changes everything. This is one of the truths of polyamory rarely talked about: the game changer. A game changer is a relationship that causes us to rethink all our relationships, and maybe even our lives, entirely. It may be a relationship with someone who fits with us so naturally that the person raises the bar on what we want and need from other relationships. It may be a connection so profound that it causes us to look at our lives in a new way. It's a relationship that alters the landscape of life. A game changer doesn't even have to be a good relationship. It can be one that's dysfunctional on such a deep

Game changers change things. It's in the name. They upset existing arrangements. People confronted with a game-changing relationship will not be likely to remain happy with old rules and agreements for long; the definition of a game-changing relationship is that it reshuffles priorities. Expecting an agreement to protect you from a game changer is a bit like expecting a river to obey a law against flooding.

The biochemistry of NRE is becoming fairly well understood. During the early stages of a romantic relationship, our brains go a little haywire. Several neurotransmitters, most notably dopamine, serotonin and norepinephrine,* are produced in greater quantities, generally producing emotional effects that are part attraction and devotion, part obsessive-compulsive disorder, part mystical experience and part physical lust. We become infatuated and twitterpated whenever the person is near. In this state, we're biochemically predisposed to overlook their flaws and faults, see the best in everything they do, convince ourselves that we are meant to be with them, and crave their attention. When people make distinctions between "love" and "being in love," what they describe as "being in love" is generally something like new relationship energy.

For the partner of a person starting a new relationship, NRE is scary stuff. The overwhelming feelings can make existing relationships feel drab by comparison. Worse, the tendency to idolize new partners can easily trick us into making too many commitments too quickly, which can create chaos in the existing relationships.

A more effective way to deal with with a partner's NRE involves both communication and patience.

In either case, the chemical high of NRE is mistaken for love, and the sufferer seeks the next new hit like an addict.

Being in a consensual romantic relationship means you are never obligated to any future intimacy, meaning anything that enters your personal boundaries. It can be sleeping together, having sex, hugging and kissing, sharing emotions, living together, having certain shared experiences or making shared choices. You can state future intentions, but you cannot pre-consent, and both people must recognize and respect personal boundaries in the present time, regardless of intentions stated in the past.

Many people build structures against free exercise of consent in the future to protect themselves from their fears: "Never leave me." "Love me forever." Such statements are you or your partner asking for future control of the other's feelings and choices. But

The moment you begin expecting any form of intimacy from a partner because of a commitment he has made to you, or ignore boundaries because you feel your partner has no right to set them because of prior commitments, your relationship has become coercive.

We're accustomed to judging a relationship's significance by how far it's gone up the escalator. So when we don't see the conventional markers of a "serious" relationship, we may underestimate its depth and how much investment has gone into it.

Your choices are always yours, regardless of whether they make you or your partners happy or unhappy. Own up to them. If you use phrases such as "Jill won't let me," or "Karen made me," or even "The rules say I have to," you are shifting responsibility.

One of the default assumptions that many of us carry from monogamous culture is that in a long-term relationship, especially when we live with a partner, our partner's time becomes "ours" by default. So when he chooses to do something social that's independent of us, it's outside the norm—and thus can feel like he's taking away something that rightfully belongs to us.

If one of your partners feels like he's getting all the cucumbers and someone else is getting all the grapes, remember that you and your partner chose to have the kind of relationship you have.

This is another reason why fairness is not the same thing as symmetry.

Although your partner has to do the heavy lifting himself, there are things you can do to help make his work easier. The first is to listen. Nobody wants to be jealous. Nobody enjoys it. Your partner isn't doing this to hurt you, or out of spite. So listen, compassionately, without judging or shaming. Allow space for him to feel what he's feeling. Remember that saying "You shouldn't feel that" probably won't change anything. Creating a safe space for your partner to talk openly about his feelings goes a long way toward making a solution possible.

For most people, the bottom line in dealing with a partner's jealousy is listening and loving. Reassure your partners, be diligent in honoring your commitments, and let them feel all their feelings. And remember that, as long as everyone is committed to working through the issues, it won't stay this hard forever.

When my partners have competing desires, how well do I express what I need? Do I make sure my own desires aren't lost in the shuffle?

There's a snarky saying among poly folks, often delivered with an eye-roll: "Relationship broken? Add more people!" This expression is used to refer to people—often but not always in monogamous couplehood—who seek new partners to try to fix issues in their own relationship. Perhaps they're feeling bored or stifled. Maybe the sexual spark is gone. Perhaps they're having difficulty talking about their needs. Regardless, the solution (or so it seems) is to open up to new, exciting relationships, in hopes of turbocharging what's already there or fixing the broken bits.

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.

You won't change each other Poly folks have heard this story a million times: George and Iris have been together a couple of years. He's poly, she's mono. In fact, Iris says the very thought of polyamory exhausts her. But George believes she will someday "wake up" to its advantages. Iris believes that George will eventually "settle down" to monogamy. George has even said he would marry Iris if it didn't mean pledging a lifetime of exclusivity to her. They're in love, and each is prepared to patiently wait for the other to change.

A monogamous partner may see polyamory as a problem to be managed, rather than a source of joy for a loved one.