The joy of polyamory
By: Anne Hunter
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In my first year at university, I developed a major crush on a man. He didn’t appear to return it.
Seven years later, he was married with children, and I was good friends with him and his wife. He and I had dinner one night and ended up kissing. We weren’t prepared for the torrent of passion that was unleashed by that kiss.
Monogamous wisdom taught me that in order to avoid breaking up his marriage, we should stop seeing each other, and so we did. Over the next five years, I did everything in my power to change the way I felt about him, including marrying someone else. I was determined to control my emotions.
If willpower alone could have done it, I would have succeeded. But I just couldn’t suppress those feelings. Although we never had sex, we did have an emotional affair – the connection between us felt deeper and more authentic than either of our marriages.
My integrity has always been important to me, so I was truly shocked to find that, in spirit at least, I couldn’t keep my marriage vows.
Five years later, after our respective marriages had ended and we finally got together, my attitude to relationships changed. I didn’t want to make any promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. I wanted to allow for sexual and emotional freedom. I wanted to be open to change over time. I didn’t ever want to limit joy for myself or my partner, no matter where that joy was to be found. And so we became polyamorous.
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In the beginning, we didn’t have a term for what we were doing – all I knew was that I didn’t want to be monogamous. I wasn’t interested in the forms of non-monogamy I already knew of. I didn’t want to swing: I wasn’t into sex for its own sake. I had no interest in clandestine affairs: I wanted to be honest and open about my intimate liaisons. Neither was I interested in polygamy: I understood it to have religious overtones, and to take the form of a man married to several wives, who were not allowed multiple spouses of their own.
So, we made it up as we went along. It was hard work at first. Along with the glorious freedom from traditional monogamy, there was a commensurate effort to sort out what form we wanted our relationships to take. Our perceived notions of ‘how relationships work’ were inadequate for multiple relationships. We grappled with questions such as “What do you need to know before I start something with someone else?” and “What if a new relationship becomes more important to me than my other ones?”
Where were the other people like us? We kept falling in love with people who were fundamentally monogamous, or who only hooked up with us while they were between ‘serious’ relationships, and then dumped us. A lot of people tried out non-monogamy with us and found it wasn’t for them. All of these situations caused us heartache.
When we finally heard the term ‘polyamory’, we knew we’d found our thing. Fundamentally, polyamory is a claim that the heart is capable of loving more than one person deeply and intimately at the same time. In polyamory, everyone is free to choose multiple lovers, partners and intimates if they wish. Poly relationships are often sexual but may not be, and they may shift in and out of being romantic and sexual.
For me, one of the strongest reasons for being polyamorous is freedom; in particular, the freedom to ask myself deeply and honestly, “What do I want?” For example, I have discovered that I love kissing. I love the sensation and the intimacy. I love the freedom to kiss heaps of luscious people, where everyone is clear that a kiss is just a kiss. Also, I choose to live alone despite having several deep, committed relationships, because I need my own space. These are two needs that wouldn’t have been considered normal or acceptable in my old monogamous circles.
Image by Sarah Mifsud
As I peeled off the expectations of the mainstream, I came to realise that there are several kinds of connections we can experience. Friendship is one of the most common: it may be activity- or sport-based; it may be low-key, but still important; it may involve emotional intimacy, in which we share our feelings and experiences deeply and honestly. Then there’s romance: flirting, candlelit dinners, falling in love. These may or may not include sexual intimacy – you can have romance without sex, and sex without romance. Then there’s BDSM play, which is different again.
There are plenty more forms of connection. Two common forms I personally don’t want are co-habiting and co-parenting (I never wanted kids, although I am an enthusiastic aunt). Neither do I have deep financial links with any of my beloveds.
Such connections can be experienced with different levels of involvement. In the monogamous ideal, you are expected to have almost all your needs satisfied by a single relationship, and to maintain them in that way for life. I found that to be an impossibly tall order. If you are poly, you don’t have to have all of your desires met by one person. Nor are you required to meet all of your partner’s desires. I developed chronic fatigue syndrome some years ago and my libido went out the window. It was a relief that my partners had other sexual partners at that time.
With polyamory, you can negotiate the forms and levels of connection you want to explore in each relationship. For example, I know people who have kids together, are happily co-habiting, are financially blended and have a good friendship, but who look to have their sexual, emotional and romantic needs met outside of that relationship.
One happy household I know comprises a married couple, the husband’s same-sex partner, and the wife’s other de facto husband who is monogamous to her. All but one have other lovers and partners outside of that household.
Currently, I live alone. I have one life-partner who lives with another partner in another town, but who stays with me about a third of the time; a same-sex intimate who lives nearby; a ‘platonic boyfriend’ (his term) with whom I can hang out and share practical and emotional support; two interstate intimates; and some friends-with-occasional-benefits. I am on snogging terms with a large number of people. I also have heaps of lovely, long-term intimates within cycling distance.
Archer #3 is out in November, 2014. Subscribe to Archer here.
Many of my relationships don’t have a simple label available to them. For example, I have some beloved intimates with whom I will jump into bed, naked, and talk about absolutely anything. The relationship is way past what most people think of as a friend – there’s no sex, so it’s not a lover; we don’t make life decisions together, so it’s not a partner. There is no term that accurately describes our connection.
Clearly, the possible permutations are complex. The media mostly portrays polyamory as a heterosexual couple with secondary relationships outside the primary one. Perhaps this is closer to the monogamous ideal, and therefore easier for people to understand. In my experience, it is also the most common shape adopted by couples when they first step out of monogamy.
In reality, within the constraints of consent, honesty and intimacy, polyamory seems to be infinitely plastic in form. Over the years, I’ve seen people in polyfidelitous groups, which look like an extension of monogamy: three or more people commit to only engaging sexually, romantically and intimately with each other. I have dear friends who love lots of sex with lots of different people and proudly reclaim the term ‘slut’. They are always clear about what they are offering, they are honest about their other connections, and they express a level of emotional intimacy and care, even in one-night stands. Some people will remember a one-night stand that touched them deeply for the rest of their life.
It’s also worth noting that you can identify as asexual and still have polyamorous romantic and/or intimate relationships. Polyamory can be shaped into whatever works for an individual and their loves.
You also don’t have to break off an existing relationship to start a new one. So much unresolved pain experienced in monogamy is generated by this ‘out with the old, in with the new’ approach. With polyamory, you can allow relationships to change and morph over time. I’m on friendly terms with someone who was my partner for eight years. I’ve had relationships that were exciting sexual and romantic connections in the beginning, which are no longer sexual, but are now deep loving friendships.
Many people who’ve experienced infidelity have said that it’s the lying, not the sex, that does the damage. The ability to be honest with my partners about my other loves feels much healthier to me than cheating. I’m often surprised at how many people are morally more comfortable with infidelity than with polyamory.
Image by Sarah Misfud
Alongside all its benefits, there are plenty of challenges to polyamory, too. It takes a lot of time and energy to maintain several intimate relationships. There is no well-worn societal groove to slip into, and little support for insecurities. I’ve been confronted with many uncomfortable truths about myself and have had to be willing to undergo a lot of personal development. I’m grateful for these challenges, but those 3.00am deep-and-meaningful conversations can be wearing at times.
My partner had a major issue with jealousy in our early years, which nearly split us up – this is a common stumbling block for poly people. Fortunately, we both had the necessary communication skills to navigate the difficult parts of our path; without those, it would have been even harder.
One of the biggest problems faced by poly people is a lack of understanding and support from the community at large. I come from a conservative Christian background, and I have had to deal with a lot of shame and guilt around my sexuality. I found it painful when friends reacted negatively to my lifestyle. I found it even harder when a therapist I was seeing pathologised my polyamorous choices.
If a monogamous relationship breaks up, people never consider monogamy to be ‘the problem’, or take it as proof that monogamy doesn’t work. But they do with polyamory.
I suspect this has something to do with the number of myths about polyamory that exist in wider society. Only a tiny, weird fraction of the population is non-monogamous. It’s all about sex. Or, my personal pet hate: you’re polyamorous, so I guess you must be interested in, and available to, me (as if I have no taste). We’re seen to be untrustworthy, dangerous, immature and unable to commit.
A very common myth is that loving a second person must diminish the love available to the first person. This suggests that we have a finite bucket of love and if you take a scoop out for someone, there’s less for someone else.
My lived experience tells me something different: the more honest, vulnerable and deep I am with one person, the more love I experience and have available for others.
My experience right back at the beginning of this journey was that when I tried shutting down my feelings of love, I shut down my ability to connect honestly with others, too. For me, truly opening up to how I feel has enabled abundant love for many people in my life.
Perhaps the biggest myth out there is that polyamory just can’t work – that when we grow up, we’ll naturally revert to monogamy. My best response to that argument is that Pete, my longest-term partner, and I have been together for 20 years. He has another partner of 15 years. I had another relationship that lasted for eight years.
The members of the happy household I referred to earlier have been living together for about five years, and the relationships have all been going longer than that. There are also some fabulous historic examples of life-long, ethical non-monogamists, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.
So, yes, polyamory can work.
As with monogamy, it can be done well, or done badly. It’s definitely challenging – few things are tougher than when all your relationships are going wrong at once. Conversely, nothing matches the happiness when all your relationships are shining.
For me, the freedom to ask myself “What do I truly want?”, which is pretty much the same question as “Who am I really?”, has been incredibly beneficial. Polyamory has been a voyage into depths of myself that I didn’t know existed, and probably couldn’t have found had I been living within the constraints of monogamy. If for no other reason than that, it has been worth the journey.
Anne Hunter is a relationships coach and one of the most experienced polyamory educators in Australia. Anne co-founded PolyVic, Melbourne’s thriving polyamorous community, and co-authored a chapter on poly parenting in the e-book LGBT-Parent Families.
Images by Sarah Misfud
This article was originally published in Archer #2, June 2014.
Archer #3 is out in November, 2014. Subscribe to Archer here.
Fascinating and True
I found that I was always lonely until I found myself in the company of some incredibly loving and open people who embraced the freedoms that come with being solo poly.
I struggle with the idea of monogamy. I never have been able to walk that straight and narrow path in the past. It makes more sense to me to love more than one person. We sort of do already in friendships. It is the sex and the closeness of a relationship that I guess determines a definition. I have always been happy when I get to share intimacy and sexual experiences with people I have a connection to. Right now I’m trying out monogomy again and it’s hard. I don’t feel I get to express myself fully. I even find myself slipping and struggling to accept a monogamous existence. Thank you for your insight. I feel it has given me something to think about and to listen to my heart.
The best article I’ve seen yet on this topic. So glad to have come across it.
ditto @ Beyond Dubious!
My question (ideally for the writer if she has the time) is about the suggestion that the love for the additional partnerships could take away time and/or love from the first. You write that “the more honest, vulnerable and deep I am with one person, the more love I experience and have available for others.” Does the love you have available for others ever seem to take away from the primary partnership? I’m guessing no, or only when there’s jealousy involved (?) or lack of clear limits? Because each relationship connection is unique so the way of loving sort of changes too … and is exclusive to each. But I guess you have to be pretty clear with yourself on where your limits are … Have you ever felt yourself start to get “carried away” (ie having ideas about a more serious future with a secondary partner)? Personally I feel that monogamy is not for me, but I worry that I am brainwashed to want to fit into that square peg, so I think “maybe with this one it would work.” I can see how living alone could also really help a person such as myself as a final turning down of that monogamous ideal and removing complications of financial interdependance. That is, if no one was planning for kids. Any thoughts?
I am often disappointed at how close minded people can be. This article articulated so beautifully the problems with our current societal beliefs about love and marriage. It was well thought out and logical and makes a very clear and simple case for why polyamory can alleviate a lot of the pain that people go through in relationships. 50% of marriages end in divorce. Of those that stay together a lot of them are either loveless/sexless or both. Just look at how many marriage counselors are out there. Just look at how many message boards about marriage problems are out there. Just anecdotally how many couples do you see married for 10 or 20 years are happy and full of life and vigor?
Isn’t it possible that society might be better off having other choices rather than being forced into choosing monogamy or being single? Forced into participating in a system where he/she risks a 50% chance of divorce, and in the other 50% where divorce doesn’t happen, runs the very real risk of having a loveless/sexless, let’s stay together for “the kids sake” marriage. These are horrible odds and the stakes are so high. If you lose this “game” you pay with the trauma and huge financial burden of divorce, or at the very least being stuck with a person you don’t “love” anymore. It’s like a roulette wheel where at least 75% of the numbers are black and you have to bet on red. I really don’t understand why people defend this system. People just aren’t thinking this through. You don’t have to be polyamorous, but why don’t you see that the current system is totally broken and needs to be fixed?
This was a great article and people need to read this. Open your mind and try and learn something from this. It might help you in your own relationships going forward. Much love to the author – you’re doing a great job and a service to society, keep up the good work!
Saying cruel and judgmental things about someone’s identity is bigotry, pure and simple. Just as my desire for monogamy is central to the way I see myself, polyamory seems to be an integral part of Anne’s view of herself, and that is perfect and beautiful. Everyone should spend more time asking themselves what they really want.
Great article. People think poly people are deviants, or selfish. How often to monogamous people do things for love and desire, and are often spoken about in positive lights? But you do it, and suddenly you are selfish. As for finding someone who suits you the most, that is what is expected from monogamy. You are expected to find a partner who fulfills most of your desires. A lot of people divorce because they get bored, or their partner stop fulfilling a desire. According to this society, we are suppose to accept this and turn to other means of fulfillment (legal or not).
I know you had to be aware of what kind of comments you would get. 12 of these are pretty much what I read in articles on gay marriage and even responses over interracial relationships nearly 50 years ago. (automatic “what about the children?”, or prayer requests, or “You think you’re better than me”, etc )As someone who was once made guilty over my own poly feelings, thanks for this.
I love that all of the comments on the article are from mono people who have no experience with how a poly relationship works in real life,or how it can work with kids involved, yet have no problem taking a big fat shit on the poly path in general. Kinda like if I said “Monogamy doesn’t work for me… never tried it but I know it couldn’t possibly work.” Total BS… there are no absolutes. My wife and I, happily married for 8 years now, are poly and we have two amazing children (2 and 4). The most common comment we receive from others about our kids is that they are the most well adjusted, intelligent and emotionally stable kids they have ever met. We have boundaries that set a priority for the primary/family relationship that help to mitigate difficulties (which happen, but are always worked through with honest, open communication) and we choose not to co-habitate with secondary partners in order to keep things less complicated for the kids. When they are older we fully anticipate being completely open with them about our relationship status. Being poly with kids absolutely works as long as the adults involved are mature, good communicators and know how to sit with/work through difficult emotions without triggering unconscious, conditioned reactions.
Being poly within a family structure with kids also allows lots of possibilities to use real life situations as examples of how to work through conflict successfully, how to work through difficult emotions (jealously and possessiveness in particular) and how honest and open communication is required for a successful relationship. It’s definitely not for emotionally unstable, needy, or immature people, but feels like a natural human progression for those deeply set on deepening self-understanding.
Thank you so much for your article. It’s so uplifting to read of another person’s experience that I can relate to as similar to my own.
Your article on Archer: The Joy of Polyamory was a very increasing read indeed. It has certainly provided me much fodder – food for thought on life, relationships, sex, personal growth and ultimately maybe a glimmer of that elusive “happiness”. It has made me “think”. Thank you for writing your experiences down on your journey towards discovering “what do I truly want/who am I really” and sharing with the world or more importantly, people of perhaps similar inclination but just not yet there! Thought provoking. Thank you.
Sam = right on the money.
Kids needs consistency, this won’t work for them, but otherwise completely agree with the premise of this article.
All I get from this article is that polyamory is for those who are self centered and can not say no to their own desires. Love is about much more than what makes you feel good. There’s sacrifice, sometimes you have to say no to your desires. I find this post and worldview sad.
In a way, telling mono people how wonderful and much more superior polyamory is compared to monogamy is like telling a person who is strictly heterosexual or homosexual how awesome it is to be bisexual, because all people are hot as fuck, and you shouldn’t limit your dating options.
It seems that a lot of poly people don’t quite understand what monogamy really is.
No, I do not expect to have all my needs satisfied by a single relationship. I don’t even expect to have “almost” all of them satisfied. It’s just that I feel comfortable being romantically and sexually intimate with only one person at a time, and I don’t feel good having casual sex when I’m in a relationship. It’s nothing wrong with doing this if you feel like it – it just doesn’t suit me. My partner is free to pursue other romantic and/or sexual relationships as long as he keeps me in check with what happens.
Being monogamous doesn’t mean that your partner is your whole universe, and any other connections you might have with other people become unimportant. It can be said that we are all a bit polyamorous in a certain aspect – we love a lot of people in different ways. But please don’t try to justify polyamory while subtly implying that it’s somehow more logical or enlightened than monogamy, because that’s exactly what you do when you’re saying “monogamy asks me to do this, and it’s totes impossible, polyamory is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay much better in this aspect!” No. It works for poly people, and that’s perfectly okay, and I support them with all my heart. But that doesn’t mean that it works for everyone.
I pray that the spirit of deception be removed from your eyes.
The only reason monogamy is useful is to produce kids. Of course polyamory works if you aren’t having kids. If you don’t want kids you can have the weirdest sex life imaginable and it will work.
Kids need a consistent connection to their parents in their formative years, and the chaos and constant mutation their parents’ real sexual desires is hazardously destabilizing to the system they depend on.
I would be more interested in an article that explained how polyamory could work in a situation where children are involved.
There are many examples of families healthy families in which the parents aren’t monogamous (and are honest with each other about it). For understandable reasons, most people are quite private about it – which is why you are unlikely to know that your neighbours or your kids best friend’s parents are poly…
The topic is gaining a lot of ground in the public sphere, however, and so you will likely see, in the near future, more and more documentaries and articles and public talks that will provide the discussion of monogamy and children that you are interested in.
Leaving my opinion in the cumends.
Were you a psychologist, social behaviour expert or similar, I might be inclined to listen to you. This just seems like you are the neediest person on earth, and that you are not strong enough to say no to your desires.
“Appeal to authority” is a most common logical fallacy, and your insistence that the author should somehow be “accredited in a field by an educational institution” in order for her thoughts and opinions to be valid is narrow-minded at best. Here is someone who has learned how to be actually honest in her life, and has also found a community of people who do the same.
Lucky you, who has found his way to full self control and has no need to express himself sexually/romantically/emotionally beyond his primary relationship. Would that the millions of divorced couples across the world, all victims of failed monogamy practice, were as lucky as yourself. You are obviously living in such a rarefied state of purity, to validate yourself as fit to judge the author and others like her.