Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

by Jessica Fern

Our bodies need time to metabolize the chemical cocktail released from stress and when we are in a chronic state of stress—whether big or small, physical, emotional, psychological, environmental or existential—we can get pushed over the edge into a state of sympathetic nervous system dominance. This means that the survival response that was meant to be temporary has now become constant. The threat that we experience does not even need to be real, but the repeated perception of a threat, day after day, can push our nervous system into a traumatized state. When this happens, we are living in survival mode, stuck in sympathetic dominance and unable to access our ability to recover and thrive.

But the trauma of broken connection also occurs through the massive disconnection that someone has with their self and another when enacting interpersonal harm.

In many ways, we can see attachment as a nice feedback loop in which relationships shape the individual and individuals then shape their relationships, with relationships further re-shaping the individual and so on repeatedly. We could easily keep the discussion limited to these two levels, but there are additional facets to our experience of attachment and trauma that are important to explore. The levels of home, culture, society and the collective all factor into how safe and secure we feel in the world, with others and within ourselves.

Regardless of which level our attachment wounds first take place in, our insecure attachment styles can be healed through this relationship level. This can occur by having our needs met from attuned responsive partners or even having reparative experiences with the ones we have been hurt by.

Attachment ruptures with siblings can occur when there has been overt emotional or verbal abuse, bullying, physical abuse or outright rejection. Disconnection resulting from a large age or personality difference, competitiveness and consistent mis-attuned teasing also show up in the therapy room as attachment disruptions from sibling relationships. These experiences can impact a person’s ability to make meaningful connections with romantic partners as an adult.

But our relationships with siblings or close friends can function as some of the most important attachment bonds that we have. For many, a friend or sibling can serve as a primary attachment figure, and when there has been attachment wounding with partners or parents, it is these very connections that can provide the corrective attachment experiences and healing from the attachment disruptions we’ve had with others at the relational level.

Were you an introvert (self level) living within a family of extroverts,

People who do not fit into the norms of their communities can experience attachment insecurity and trauma if they feel that being themselves or expressing who they are will cause harm or be dangerous. If we have to conceal and contort who we are, our foundational relationship with our self can get severed and interfere with how we then experience the levels of relationship and home.

Looking back, I can see how the ways that each of my friends was parented had a lot to do with the language, culture and religion of their parents, with each culture having different expectations about what it meant to be a parent, what discipline was, how and when you used it, and how a child was supposed to behave. These cultural narratives, which are often implicit and taken for granted, shaped how available, responsive and attuned these parents were to their children’s attachment needs.

Today, the local culture and communities level also includes virtual culture and online communities.

although many different types of attachment traumas can happen at this level, it is also a level that can offer needed healing and attachment repair. The homes of friends, spiritual communities, substance abuse support groups, sports and dance teams or online communities can become our safe havens where we are freer to be ourselves, are understood and are seen and loved for who we are.

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?

But what happens when the same societal structures that grant men superiority also deny them the full range of human emotions and threaten their status as men if they experience even the slightest form of sensitivity, vulnerability or indication of their needs for love, emotional safety and tenderness (basically, if men admit to having any attachment needs at all)? What happens when men are paralyzed by shame and made to feel unworthy of love and partnership unless they meet certain masculine expectations around financial or professional success?

Many of the personal problems and relationship struggles that we face are actually societal issues impairing our ability to bond, connect and love in secure ways.

Zhiwa Woodbury explains that humans are being confronted with a new type of trauma that has never been confronted before—one that is ongoing and continuous without immediate solutions, and which calls into question our shared identity as humans.

“If the environment isn’t OK, then I’m just not OK.”

Where for many it appears to be a given truth that we are working towards a better future for the next generations, infusing our individual life with a larger sense of meaning, for this client the future was no longer something secure that she could hang her sense of meaning and fulfillment on.

With both of these clients, I found that by treating their attachment anxiety with the environment the same way I would work with relational attachment trauma, they were both able to rebuild an inner sense of safety and security. Each of them developed a larger felt sense of trust in the wisdom and support that the earth has to offer, while also feeling more empowered, rather than overwhelmed or complacent, about their environmental efforts.

Thomas Hübl is the cofounder of the The Pocket Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the healing of collective trauma. He posits that we currently exist in a traumatized collective and the main symptom of being in a traumatized world is that we feel separate from each other, from the world, from spirit and from the natural world as a whole.39 These symptoms are not just present in the collective or even individual psyches, but can become evident through actual changes in our genetic expression. Unresolved trauma from previous generations can alter the expression of DNA, making subsequent generations more susceptible to certain health issues, increased anxiety, PTSD and wariness to danger. This means that certain mental health or physical symptoms that you are experiencing today at the self level may have actually been inherited from collective traumas that your ancestors went through generations ago.

Traumas that continue to occur at the levels of culture, society and the collective cannot entirely be healed by the individual, but that does not mean that they are beyond cleansing and repair at the self and relationship levels where we do have more power to take responsibility for our own healing.

As I’ve already alluded to, healing is available to all of us at these different levels too. When ruptures occur at one level, we can focus our healing on that specific level, but we must also utilize the repair and respite that the other levels have to offer us—whether through self-compassion, a warm embrace from a loved one, a home where we can relax, being acknowledged and accepted within a community, receiving legal rights or benefits that were previously denied, or a quiet walk in nature to restore our inner equilibrium.

However, the romantic ideal of the monogamous couple has mostly stayed intact as the dominant model for love and relationships. Well, at least on the surface. The divorce rate in the US is at 40 to 50 percent, and an estimated 30 to 60 percent of married men and 20 to 50 percent of married women in the United States admit to cheating on their partners.

When comparing people in monogamous relationships to people in consensually nonmonogamous relationships, researchers have found that CNM relationships have similar levels of commitment, longevity, satisfaction, passion and love as monogamous relationships do.46

it is important to distinguish between the intentions behind specific sexual behaviors instead of just looking at the sex act itself. If someone is pursuing multiple partners to avoid intimacy or using sex in an attempt to secure intimacy when they feel insecure, then in those cases such behaviors can be seen as an expression of insecure attachment. But many people engage in these very same behaviors from a secure place, where they are able to have multiple sex partners, one-night stands or BDSM play in intentional, highly attuned, connected and meaningful ways.

They found that people practicing polyamory exhibited secure attachment styles with both of their partners and, interestingly, having more of an insecure style with one specific partner did not affect the attachment functioning of their other relationships. Similar to how a child can be securely attached to one parent, while simultaneously insecurely attached to another parent, polyamorous adults can have different attachment styles with different romantic partners that are independent of each other.

my critique of this article is that it is relying too much on the structure of the relationship to ensure and safeguard secure attachment instead of the quality of relating between partners to forge secure attachment. When we rely on the structure of our relationship, whether that is through being monogamous with someone or practicing hierarchical forms of CNM, we run the risk of forgetting that secure attachment is an embodied expression built upon how we consistently respond and attune to each other, not something that gets created through structure and hierarchy.

The narratives people have about love, marriage, primary partnership and how to achieve relationship security are powerful, so much so that just the idea of being in love, married or in a primary partnership can lead us to think we are experiencing attachment security when in reality we might not be. We often assume that having more structural ties in a relationship means more security.

Allow your direct experience with a partner to be the vehicle to secure attachment instead of having certain relationship concepts, narratives or structures be the vehicle. When our experience with a partner is the route to secure attachment, we might still want certain relationship structures, benchmarks and milestone experiences, but the urgency at which we define, solidify or need to nail things down can relax and occur more organically.

Research shows that it takes babies up to seven months for their attachment to their caregivers to become securely established, and for adults, a securely attached romantic relationship takes approximately two years to really solidify.60 So, while you might feel an instant resonance or connection with someone, building an actual relationship based on trust, seeing each other in multiple contexts, deeply understanding each other and relating in securely attached ways requires time.

I want to make an important distinction here that we will return to again. In CNM, it is not necessary for all of our relationships to be attachment-based. There is a difference between being in a secure connection with someone and having a securely attached relationship. Secure connections are with people or partners who we don’t have daily or regular contact with, but with whom we know that when we reach out it will feel as if a moment hasn’t passed. We are secure in the bond that we have with such people, and this bond might be immensely meaningful, special and important to us, but it’s not necessarily a relationship that requires us to invest regular maintenance and attention.

Securely attached relationships are based on consistency and reliability. These are the people who are there for each other in responsive and attuned ways more times than not. They are our “go-to” people who have our back and to whom we can turn when we feel hurt or threatened and or need support, comfort or reassurance. They’re the people we are excited to share our latest news or discoveries with. Sue Johnson simplifies what we are looking for in our attachment relationships through the three questions: are you available, are you responsive, are you emotionally engaged?61

From the perspective of attachment theory, we need to be connected to people to survive, so our nervous system equates emotional connection with safety and emotional disconnection with danger or threat. Attachment-related threats include the potential loss of our attachment figure, separation from our attachment figure or loss of access to them for periods of time longer than we are used to. These threats don’t have to be actual to activate the attachment system—even theoretical or symbolic threats can initiate attachment distress and what is called primal panic.

However, there is much growth that can come from this hardship. Just as scar tissue is stronger than regular skin tissue, traumas can lead to what researchers and mental health professionals refer to as post-traumatic growth, where 30 to 70 percent of individuals who experienced trauma report positive changes arising out of the traumatic experience they went through.66 Psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun define post-traumatic growth as occurring when “someone’s development has surpassed what was present before the struggle with crises occurred. The individual has not only survived, but has experienced changes that are viewed as important, and that go beyond the status quo.”67 Such people have described profound changes in how they view their relationships, as well as how they conceive of themselves and their philosophy of life.

Since we are talking about attachment-based polyamorous relationships, we are talking about relationships in which you are committed to showing up for each other regularly, prioritizing each other (from choice, not obligation), actively cherishing each other, doing the work required to build a relationship and possibly even building a life together (though having a life commitment is not a prerequisite for secure attachment). Your attachment-based relationships might be with the partners that you refer to as your primary partners, inner circle partners, nesting partners or anchor partners.

For us to feel safe and secure in our relationships, we need to know that our partners want to be there for us and will be to the best of their ability, and so some level of commitment to being in a relationship together is important. Depending on what stage of relationship you are in, this might look like: A commitment to staying in exploration of the relationship together, without specifically defining the future or integrating your lives. A commitment to building an official relationship that you want to have longevity and/or be more interwoven in. Commitment to building a life together where you are in it for the long haul.

In search of relationship safety, our attachment system is primed to seek the answers to certain questions regarding our partners. Both consciously and unconsciously we are looking to know: If I turn towards you, will you be there for me? Will you receive and accept me instead of attack, criticize, dismiss or judge me? Will you comfort me? Will you respond in a way that calms my nervous system? Do I matter to you? Do I make a difference in your life? Can we lean into and rely on each other?

In simple terms, I see being a safe haven as serving the role of accepting and being with me as I am, and a secure base as supporting me to grow beyond who I am.

Both partners came through for me exactly how I needed, and neither needed to be or do more than they did.

we do not always have to turn to our partners to meet our safe haven or secure base needs, especially when our pre-established relationship dynamics are working well. We can focus on cultivating a more secure attachment with ourselves, which is one of the pillars of being polysecure.

Prioritize regular time with your partners when you are both fully here and present with each other. This is especially important when you only get limited time together, but it is just as important when you live together and spend a lot of time in each other’s company, but are not actually connecting without the distractions of kids, house, work, pets, meals, etc.

Even though attachment-based relationships do require regular maintenance, when we are functioning from secure attachment with our partners we will be flexible, gracious, tolerant and even appreciative of time apart.

When you are with non-nesting partners, clearly let them know when you need a certain amount of time to be on your phone and that you’ll be fully present when you’re back.

When you are struggling with being present because you are in conflict with another partner or have other life stressors going on, the next best thing you can do is to just name what is tugging at your presence.

In your relationships, discuss how available you want to be to each other (i.e.,

As best as you can, clearly communicate when you will be unavailable, whether that is times during the day, specific days of the week, standing dates with certain partners, trips, holidays, etc.

We can express the delight we have for our partners through our words, our actions, our touch, as well as just the look in our eyes. Diane Poole Heller and her colleagues use the term beam gleam (also known as the attachment gaze) to refer to the nonverbal expression of warmth, kindness and love that radiates from our eyes, letting our partners know that they are special to us.

In nonmonogamy, expressed delight is imperative. The paradigm shift from the monogamous mindset of I am with you because you are the only one for me to the nonmonogamous view that I am with you because you are special and unique, but not the only one, can be difficult to grasp.

There is nothing wrong with needing to hear why you are wanted and valued by your partners and it is important for you to be able to communicate to your partners why they specifically matter to you. Experiencing expressed delight and knowing the ways you are precious in your partners’ lives can be an important resource to lean on when feeling jealous or threatened by a metamour or potential new partners. Instead of spinning out into doubt and fear, being able to recall the ways your partners experience you as special, even irreplaceable, can soothe the anxious mind and allow for more compersion to arise.

Would your partners like more or different expressed delight from you? How can you provide this?

How do your partners let you know that you are unique, special and precious to them? Are there additional or different ways that you would like to experience expressed delight from your partners?