Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

by Jessica Fern

Conversely, securely functioning adults are also comfortable with their independence and personal autonomy. They may miss their partners when they’re not together, but inside they feel fundamentally alright with themselves when they’re alone. They also feel minimal fear of abandonment when temporarily separated from their partner. In other words, securely attached people experience relational object constancy, which is the ability to trust in and maintain an emotional bond with people even during physical or emotional separation.

Additionally, having a secure base with a partner can increase sexploration, a term coined to describe “the degree to which a person co-constructs a sex-positive, supportive, and safe environment with their partner(s).”15 If you’ve been to one of my talks on attachment, you will have heard me say that secure attachment is the new sexy!

Lastly, your attachment style is not an excuse for abuse! I’ve heard people use their attachment style as an excuse for their actions, blaming their unskilled or even harmful behaviors on the “fact” of them having a certain attachment style. Please don’t do this! If you are acting out in harmful ways towards yourself, your partners or anyone you’re in contact with, please take your traumas and wounds seriously and seek professional support.

People with the dismissive attachment style will also tend to be highly linear and logical, showing many forms of competence and ability in the practical or professional realms of life. This overdevelopment of the logical brain can also create challenges with certain aspects of autobiographical memory—people with a dismissive attachment style might have little memory for childhood experiences, as well as simplistic narratives about their parents and childhood being “just fine.”

Questions to Consider How do you find yourself over-giving in relationships? What beliefs about yourself play into this? What beliefs about others play into this? How do you find yourself under-giving in relationships? What beliefs about yourself play into this? What beliefs about others play into this? In what ways do you find yourself over-receiving or over-taking in relationships? What beliefs about yourself or about others play into this? In what ways do you find yourself under-receiving in relationships? What beliefs about yourself or about others play into this? In what ways do you experience your boundaries as porous, whether by being absorbing, being intrusive or both? In what ways do you experience your boundaries as rigid, whether by blocking, restraining or both? Do you need to focus more on tightening up your boundaries and protection of yourself, whether on the input or output? How can you do this? Do you need to focus more on softening the rigidity of your boundaries and allowing more connection, whether on the input or output? How can you do this?

CNM is unquestionably having its cultural moment, and it’s not just a passing trend. Distinct from cheating, where sexual or romantic relations with more than one person are deceitful, consensual nonmonogamy is an umbrella term for the practice of simultaneously having multiple sexual or romantic partners where everyone involved is aware of and consents to the relationship structure. People practicing CNM value transparency, consent, open and honest communication, personal responsibility, autonomy, compassion, sex positivity and freedom for themselves and others. Moreover, people practicing CNM typically embrace the following ideas and principles: love is not possessive or a finite resource; it is normal to be attracted to more than one person at the same time; there are multiple ways to practice love, sexual and intimate relationships; and jealousy is not something to be avoided or feared, but something that can be informative and worked through. Mystic Life, author of Spiritual Polyamory, states, “This path requires owning jealousy as it arises, accepting others as they are, developing [one’s] own sense of personal wholeness, and letting go of the belief that loving someone more means loving someone else less.”43

Let’s explore these three reasons, starting with the sexual.

For people whose reason for engaging in nonmonogamy is philosophical,

The final motivation I see in my nonmonogamous clients is that people practice CNM because it just feels like this is who they are.

Solo Polyamory: An approach to polyamory that emphasizes personal agency. Individuals do not seek to engage in relationships that are tightly couple-centric or financially and/or domestically entwined. People who identify as solo poly emphasize autonomy, the freedom to choose their own relationships without seeking permission from others, and flexibility in the form their relationships take. It is a common misconception that people practicing solo polyamory are either more casual or less committed in their relationships, but this is not necessarily the case. Solo poly folks can be deeply emotionally involved and committed in their relationships, but they typically choose not to take on the traditional roles that some partners assume like living together, having shared bank accounts or doing each other’s laundry (at least not as a relationship obligation). One principle of solo poly that I think everyone can benefit from is the notion of being your own primary partner and prioritizing your relationship with yourself first and foremost.

Commitment can be expressed in many ways. Traditionally it is solidified through marriage, owning property, having kids or wearing certain types of jewelry, but legal, domestic or ornamental undertakings are not the only ways to show dedication. In a 2018 talk on solo polyamory at the Boulder Non-Monogamy Talk Series, Kim Keane offered the following ways that people practicing nonmonogamy can demonstrate commitment to their partners: Sharing intimate details (hopes, dreams, fears) and being vulnerable with each other. Introducing partners to people who are important to you. Helping your partners with moving, packing, homework, job hunting, shopping, etc. Having regular time together, both mundane and novel. Making the person a priority. (I suggest defining what “being a priority” means to each of you.) Planning trips together. Being available to partners when they are sick or in need. Collaborating on projects together. Having frequent communication. Offering physical, logistical or emotional support (e.g. at doctor’s appointments or hospital visits or by helping with your partners’ family, pets, car, children, taxes, etc.).

What does commitment mean to you? What aspects of commitment are most important to you (e.g., structural, emotional or public)? Why do we want to be attachment figures for each other? What does being an attachment figure look like to you? Do we each have the time and availability to offer this level of involvement?

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?

Give emotional support and comfort. Listen to each other with full attention. Inquire and share about feelings and needs. Track what is going on in each other’s lives and make sure to follow up and inquire about those things. Help in practical ways when a partner is tired or sick. Discuss or debrief events of the day or things that are important to each of you. Let your partners know how and why they matter to you.

How does this partner already act as a safe haven for me? In what ways do they show up for me that feel supportive and comforting? How can this partner help me feel even more safe with them? How can this partner help me feel even more supported or comforted by them, in general or in specific situations? In what ways can I show up more as a safe haven for this partner?

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.

HHere (being here and present with me) EExpressed Delight AAttunement RRituals and Routines TTurning Towards after Conflict SSecure Attachment with Self

The Gottman Institute also found that how skillful someone’s repair attempt was did not necessarily predict how effective the repair was. Repairs didn’t have to be perfectly executed as much as they had to be genuine. I often tell couples and multiple-partner relationships that you can have all the communication techniques and conflict resolution skills in the world, but they do nothing if you still have an attitude of wanting to either be right or prove your partner wrong. I still recommend acquiring more communication and conflict resolution skills, but even without these, the right attitude—one of repair responsibility, humility and openness—goes far.

We can make our partners into the source of our hope, love, strength, ability to feel or regulate our own emotions, as well as the source of our meaning and purpose in life. Our partners can be the inspiration for these things, as well as the objects or focus of our love, but they should not be the source of it. You are the source of your happiness, love, courage, emotional regulation and purpose, and the sooner that you can release your partner from being the source of these experiences the better for everyone involved (metamours included).

Go HEART Yourself The HEART of secure functioning is not just for your relationships with partners, but can be directly applied to your relationship with yourself.

When we start to clear away the debris of our insecure attachment styles, we reveal a secure self that can be cultivated and aligned with. Many of us already have a sense of the parts of us that we might refer to as our better self or higher self, or what I refer to as my secure self or aligned self (this is the part of me that is aligned with my better skills, values, visions and morals).

Let’s look at an example. When I hear my inner critic say that bringing up that I’m hurt by something to my partner is petty of me and that I’m being overly sensitive or needy, I can get curious about what this part of me is trying to do. In this case, my inner critic is trying to keep me from getting further hurt based on the fear that if I reveal myself, I won’t be cared for and listened to in the way I need and I will ultimately lose the relationship for having needs (yes, this is a history of neglect speaking).

Dick Schwartz, the developer of the Internal Family Systems Model, makes an important distinction that in relationships we can speak for our parts, but should be careful not to speak from them.75 When I speak directly from my inner critic, I am likely to be blaming my partner or myself, which pushes us further apart. If I am able to speak for the part of me that has been hurt, more possibility opens up for both of us to be understood and get our needs met.

Just as how we want to speak for our parts instead of from them, we also want to learn how to respond to our triggers instead of reacting from them.

In the nonmonogamous world there is a popular saying that love is infinite, but time and resources are not. This saying highlights the paradox of ultimate versus relative reality—love is not a finite resource, so it is possible for us to love more than one person at a time, but we are all in bodies that are limited to the relative realities of space and time, so having infinite partners is not actually possible.