Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

by Jessica Fern

Attachment theory offers an important—even revolutionary—framework for understanding the biological and psychological necessity of being securely bonded to others.

As children, when we feel afraid, threatened or in need, and seeking closeness with our parents is not a viable option because they’re not available or because turning towards them doesn’t make things better, we learn to rely more on ourselves. We become more self-reliant and we minimize our attachment needs. When we deactivate our attachment system, we suppress our attachment-based longings—not because we don’t still want closeness and connection, but in order to adapt and survive.

Caregiver behaviors that could lead a child to take on a deactivating attachment strategy include: Neglecting or abusing the child. Being emotionally cold or rejecting the child. Giving the child hostile, angry or threatening responses. Discouraging a child’s expression of vulnerability. Encouraging (whether explicitly or implicitly) the child to be more self-reliant and independent.

Caregiver behaviors that can incite hyperactivating attachment strategies include: Being unreliable, unpredictable or intrusive, where interactions are sometimes gratifying and connected, but at other times mis-attuned and disconnected. Punishing or criticizing a child for their independence or curiosity. Conveying messages that the child is not enough, or is incapable, stupid or failing in some way. Taking on a helicopter style of parenting, which might include excessive praise but also excessive control, protectiveness or perfectionism. Experiences of abuse or traumas that occur when the child is separated from their primary attachment figure, which can reinforce the notion that it’s dangerous to be apart from them. Both of these strategies can also occur simultaneously, meaning a child may experience both hyperactivation and deactivation, or may vacillate between the two survival strategies. We’ll discuss this more in the section about fearful-avoidant attachment.

Not necessarily all of the time but enough of the time, when the child has an attachment need, they reach out to their attachment figure and that attachment figure moves towards them in an emotionally attuned way that calms the child’s nervous system.6 This in turn teaches the child that allowing themselves to feel their needs and communicating those needs to others is an effective strategy.

As a child, being responsible for a parent’s well-being is a misplaced, confusing and overwhelming responsibility.

When autoimmunity is at play, someone will experience a paradoxical situation where the immune system that is supposed to be protecting them is actually harming them and the body that is the vehicle for life is the very thing taking it away.

But bigger traumatic events can activate our natural stress response to such a degree that our nervous system is overwhelmed and dysregulated to the point that this chemical cocktail is unable to be processed and we are left unable to fully recover. This can have a lasting effect on the nervous system, and when left untreated, trauma can interfere with our ability to inhabit our bodies, exhibit mental flexibility, function in everyday ways, learn, grow, love and securely attach. Left unresolved, trauma can cause us to experience ongoing adverse effects on our physical, psychological, social, occupational and spiritual well-being.

However, enormous stressors or big overwhelming events are not the only ways that a person’s nervous system can be activated and overwhelmed to the point of experiencing trauma. We can also experience smaller but ongoing stressful events that have a cumulative harmful effect.

When this happens, we are living in survival mode, stuck in sympathetic dominance and unable to access our ability to recover and thrive.

the absence of safe nurturing relationships can lead to trauma, and having safe and nurturing relationships can serve as a shield in the face of other traumas.

relational level experiences of having our attachment needs met or not shape how the self is formed and developed.

relationships further re-shaping the individual and so on repeatedly.

our insecure attachment styles can be healed through this relationship level.

Distinguished from physical violence (yet often intertwined), structural violence refers to a type of violence that is often invisible yet intricately built into social structures. People’s lives are complicated, confined or even lost because of heterosexism, classism, racism, ableism and sexism. Structural violence may be less obvious and direct than physical violence, but it is just as impactful and harmful. It creates a disparity between a person’s potential reality—the life they could conceivably live—compared to the limited reality that they find themselves in.

Is it honestly possible to feel safe and secure in a capitalist society that defines our human value based on what we do and how much we make, rather than who we are?

Is it honestly possible to feel safe and secure in a society that bombards us with messages asserting (even aggressing) that in order to be secure in our self or with our place in the world we need to acquire more money, more religion, more objects, more products, more body-altering procedures or more property?

People practicing CNM value transparency, consent, open and honest communication, personal responsibility, autonomy, compassion, sex positivity and freedom for themselves and others.

love is not possessive or a finite resource;

it is normal to be attracted to more than one person at the same time;

Both groups had the relationship benefits of family, trust, love, sex, commitment and communication, regardless of whether they were in a monogamous or nonmonogamous relationship. However, people in CNM relationships additionally expressed having the distinct relationship benefits of increased need fulfillment, variety of nonsexual activities and personal growth.

Instead of expecting one partner to meet all of their needs, people engaged in CNM felt that a major advantage of being nonmonogamous was the ability to have their different needs met by more than one person, as well as being able to experience a variety of nonsexual activities that one relationship may not fulfill.

The other notable relationship benefit unique to people in CNM relationships was personal growth—people reported feeling that being nonmonogamous afforded them increased freedom from restriction, self and...

personal growth and development that nonmonogamy inevitably catalyzes.

three other reasons for being nonmonogamous: sexual diversity, philosophical views and because CNM is a more authentic expression of who they are.

For these people, nonmonogamy is not so much a lifestyle choice, as it is for some people, but rather an expression of their fundamental self.

All important people get a seat at the table and everyone gets to have a voice. Each relationship is allowed to grow into what it naturally wants to be.

In some cases, nonhierarchical polyamory may include prioritization of certain relationships in instances where people have children together or live together, but the nonhierarchical structure does not endorse power differentials and allows for more flexibility in how relationships can change and evolve over time.

people who identify as relationship anarchists make less distinction between the importance or value of their lovers over their friends or other people in their life, and they do not only reserve intimacy or romance for the people they have sex with.

I wish she said more about this