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Why poly didn't work for me...(Score: 4)
by Britva(britva1066@yahoo.com) on Sep 08, 2003 - 08:54 PM | I agree with a lot of the things written in the article about polyamory. I'm all for exploring alternative relationship styles, and I think our society would be better as whole if everyone lightened up a little on who and how everybody loves.
That said, I'd like to talk about a couple of difficulties I found with polyamory that I don't think get discussed very often This is not meant to dissuade anyone from experimenting with polyamory or choosing it for themselves, rather, speaking as someone who has tried it and decided it wasn't for me (at least not at this point in my life) I'd like to toss my two cents in about the trials of a polyamorous relationship.
One problem, social pressure, gets brought up a lot, but I think people tend to underestimate it. Now I bet that most of you reading this are scoffing (hah! I flout at least three social conventions before breakfst!), and I'm with you. I, like most of the people on this site I'm guessing, get a preverse pleasure from going against social norms. And when your relationship is going fine, you hardly feel any social pressure at all... but when things get ugly.
If you try to talk to a non-poly friend about problems in your poly relationship, chances are their first reaction is going to be "Well, maybe this polyamory thing wasn't such a good idea." The bottom line is, because of the dominance of the monogamous ideal, it's easy for people (even the people involved) to see any problem in a poly relationship as something wrong with polyamory itself. I know quite a few people who have given up on polyamory because of relationship problems that a monogamous couple would have taken in stride.
There's also a danger of going to the other extreme, though. You get so defensive about your polyamorous relationship that you feel the need to be perfectly happy so you can prove to the rest of the world (and to yourself) the viability of your chosen relationship type. You ignore problems, or persist in a relationship that you're not really into, because you don't want all those naysayers to be right.
For example, imagine you have a nose ring. One day you realize this thing is just a pain in the ass, so you decide to take it out. But before you do, some moron comes along and says, "wipe your nose you fucking freak," and so you go and get an eyebrow ring and a labret and you run a chain between them and your nose ring because FUCK HIM! ...Well, that's all in good fun if all it costs you is fifty bucks at the Piercing Pagoda, but that's not the kind of pressure that makes for a healthy relationship.
The only two ways I've found to fend off this social pressure are to either 1) Not give a damn about what anyone else thinks (which seems counter to the spirit of polyamory, if not the letter) or 2) Build up a network of poly people around you for friendship, support, and encouragement. Thanks to a new invention called "The Internet" option 2 is getting easier all the time.
Warning: do not get in a relationship with your poly "buddies." That defeats the purpose Try to pick a support network of poly people who are old and unattractive :).
Anyway, enough about social pressure. It's tough, but it's manageable. The real difficulty in polyamorous relationships, in my experience, is much simpler. Poly people (myself included) are always spouting great "unlimited love" cliches, such as "the more love you give away, the more love you have to give" (this is from the poly article linked above), and you know what? They're all true. But time is limited.
No matter how much unlimited love you have, building intimacy is a time consuming process, and it never ends. You never get to the point in a relationship where you can say "I know everything about you." People are constantly changing and if you want a relationship to last you have to reconnect with your mate(s) on a regular basis. I don't mean to imply that this is in any way hard or painful, in fact it's one of the most gratifying things about being in a relationship, but you do have to put in that face time.
And, although I don't have any scientific data to back this up, I feel like the amount of time required to maintain additional relationships is some kind of exponential function.
So, for a personal example, after working 40 hours a week and writing 20 hours a week, I just didn't have the time or energy to be maintaining two or three intimate relationships, and as a result, they all began to suffer from my inattention. After a while, we just grew apart.
Now I've pretty much decided that one serious romantic relationship is all I have the time and energy to maintain, if that. I still have that Heinlein-esque dream of having two husbands and three wives and living on a farm off the grid somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, but I think that dream may have to wait until I retire.
In any case, I still have a lot of stuff I want to say about Devin's repsonse above, which really got me thinking, but it will have to wait until tomorrow, after I've had some sleep. Besides, looking back at how long this post has become, I think you've all had enough of me for now anyway :) |
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