The day Guin came back from Scotland, Art and I wanted to make everything ready to welcome her. Because we had been painting, there were paint stains all over the house, in the hallways, the bathrooms, the stairs, the couch, even on the dishes. We scraped and scrubbed every stain so that no speck remained. We washed two loads of laundry, cleaned all four bathrooms, swept and vacuumed, and took out the trash and recycling. We went grocery shopping and bought flowers to put on the table. I took everything that was mine out of the master bedroom and remade the bed with clean sheets and a duvet cover. I wanted to cook a large dinner but Art told me they were going to get back late so made something light instead.

Art came back with Guin around nine o’clock. She had a long journey but was otherwise her normal self: tall, thin, blonde, and very beautiful. Their twelve year old daughter Piper was very excited to show her all the changes we made to the house. First Piper showed her own bedroom, which we had painted a powder blue. “Did you guys have permission to paint this color?” Guin ask skeptically. “The landlord told us no dark colors,” said Piper, “and this is not dark.” She then showed her my room, which we had painted beige and furnished with furniture I bought. “The dressers are massive!” Guin said disapprovingly, “How am I going to get them out when she moves out of here?” She then sat down to the dinner that I had made. But no sooner had she had two bites when something caught her eye on the kitchen counter: a microwave.

Before Guin left, the four adults debated whether or not to have a microwave. Guin was adamantly against it because she was convinced it emitted harmful radiation and promoted bad eating habits. I did not agree and resented the extra work not having a microwave burdened me with, especially since I was doing most of the cooking and cleaning up. Art and Lance were indifferent, but each subtly defended their girlfriends’ position. Art and Guin also had a microwave in their kitchen the year before when they were living in Kingston and used it fairly regularly, so it seemed ridiculous to me that she was so opposed to it for health reasons in the new house. I had brought my old microwave when I moved into the house, so when Guin went on vacation for two weeks, I had no qualms about setting it up in the kitchen and using it to my heart’s content. Art and I debated whether we should remove it now that she was coming back, and decided if she really hated it we’d remove it, but we were not going to be proactive about it.

Boy were we wrong. The moment she saw the microwave, she dropped her fork and burst out, “What is that doing here? I told you NO microwave!” She stormed off to the bedroom and slammed the door. Art followed. From the kitchen I could hear her yelling at him: “Microwaves are toxic! It’s chintsy! None of our friends back in the States have one! When a woman says no, she means no! Why would you test my no?”

“You’re being extreme, Guin,” Art protested. “You were gone, we only used it to heat up leftovers, and the kids didn’t use it at all.”

“All I wanted was to come home to where I felt safe, and you do this to me! I feel violated!”

Art moved the microwave to the garage. I cleaned up the dinner she had abandoned. A few moments later, she threw out into the living room the duvet comforter I had spread out. Art came out clutching his pillow.

“She’s upset.” He said, “Can I sleep with you?”

“No,” I responded. What I meant was, “I did physical and emotional work so that you could spend this night reconnecting with your wife. I want you to go back in there and work this out with her.” What he heard was neither woman wanted to sleep with him that night.

“Fine,” he said, “I’m going to sleep by myself,” and trod off to the basement.

I headed upstairs on my own. Some polycule this is, I thought, each of us sleeping alone.

I was really upset with Guin. Not only had I spent most of the day cleaning and cooking so she could come back to a nice home, but the last two weeks I had taken care of the household,  painted three bedrooms with minimal help from her husband, and gotten up at 6:30 every morning to make healthy lunches for her children. She could have at least had the grace to be upset another time.

We all slept poorly that night. The next morning, I found Art in the study while Guin was in the basement doing her morning meditations.

“How are you feeling?” I asked him.

“Upset and confused,” he said.

“We’re not forcing her to use the microwave,” I complained, “but what’s wrong if we want to use it to heat up our own food? Why does she get to tell us what to do?”

“I think she feels like she’s losing control with our new living situation,” Art said compassionately, “She’ll probably realize that she overreacted and apologize.”

We didn’t see Guin until 3pm that afternoon. And it was her boyfriend, Lance, who offered to facilitate a meeting between all of us.

We began the meeting as we usually do, with a moment of silence to tune in, and going around checking in on how everyone was feeling.

“I’m sorry to hear that the re-entry was not as smooth as we all hoped for,” Lance started.

“Art and I worked very hard yesterday to make everything ready for Guin, and I was disappointed she didn’t appreciate it more.” I said as mildly as possible.

“I think this is a great opportunity for us to learn how to resolve conflicts,” Art said, “It was going to happen sooner or later and it’s good that we can work on this together now.”

Guin sat in a corner of the sofa looking tired and contrite. “I appreciate you guys cleaning the house, and Morgaine for making healthy lunches for the children. It really made me feel at ease while I was away. At the end of my trip I attended the conference for midwives at Findhorn, where we all had our wounds reopened around the trauma of our births, so I think I’m still sensitive because of that.”

Art said, “When we decided to move in together we said that we weren’t going to exert couple privilege. I want everyone to feel like this is their home. So what can we do to ensure that?”

Lance said that he wanted to be a part of decisions, like putting art up on the wall, even though he couldn’t be there right then to help us make those decisions.

Guin consented to having the microwave in the garage on the condition it would only be used to heat up leftovers.

Art said that he would buy some non-ticking clocks to put on the walls because the clocks that I had ordered ticked and bothered Guin.

We all hugged at the end of the meeting and had dinner with the children.

The next day Guin was polite but stayed out of the way. Art came up to my room where I was reading in bed in the afternoon.

“I just had a long walk and talk with her,” he said, lying down on my bed.

“How was it?”

“Frustrating. I’m having a hard time getting through to her. I really think we need to talk to a therapist.”

It was not the first time that his frustrations triggered mine. But it was more than just my frustration at Guin’s behavior. I felt vulnerable, like I wasn’t really wanted there. I felt, how do I put it, as I often do in this relationship, devalued; because the fullness of our connection, as beautiful and significant as it was to me, seemed so little compared to the monolith of their 25 year marriage. When he and I sleep together, we have ecstatic sex, and when we take a break so that he could spend nights sleeping with her, they do not have sex at all; they barely even talk. Yet in his mind, our love is equal to theirs. So no matter how badly Guin behaved, he didn’t love her any less, and no matter how good I was, he didn’t love me more. Where is the justice in that kind of equality?  

But I didn’t say that. I just held him. All my emotions turned into passion and desire for him. Our lovemaking, that day, he said, felt different. He felt as if he were falling into me, letting go of inhibitions and all sense of ego and becoming one. That’s something that astonishes me about him. Whenever I think that we couldn’t possibly be closer, we are.

Cover art by Henri Matisse. “Henry Matisse Family” 

When Art, Guin, Lance, and I decided to move in together, we had to figure out how we were going to sleep together. No, this is not some poly fantasy where everyone is having sex with each other in a California King bed. Guin and Lance were in the second year of their relationship, and Art and I were in a relationship but I was not in a relationship with Guin or Lance. Our sleeping arrangements had to accommodate the needs of each relationship without impinging on any others. Not an easy feat when we weren’t all involved with each other.

Art felt that he and Guin should have the master bedroom because they were married and had the most things together, and because it would allow both Lance and I to have turns in the master bedroom. The master bedroom was the largest one in the house, on the main floor, has a walk-in closet and a huge on-suite master bathroom with jacuzzi tub. It was much superior to the other bedrooms in the house which were smaller, had less privacy, and no bathroom. Ever the egalitarian, Art wanted the master bedroom to be a communal space that everyone could use.  

Lance felt that the most equitable arrangement was to have us rotate rooms. He wanted Art and Guin to have the master bedroom for three months, then Guin and himself for the next three months, and Art and I to have it the next three months. The room would “belong” to one person while it was their turn and that person’s partner(s) would be able to use it. Guin wanted to be in the master bedroom, and she wanted to accommodate Lance, so she was in favor of this proposal as well.

I thought that Lance’s proposal was ridiculous because who would want to switch rooms every three months? I didn’t really care to have the master bedroom because I liked having my own room, and I paid the least rent. It turns out that Lance was not only uncomfortable sharing the master bedroom with the other couple in the house, but he also did not want to sleep in someone else’s bed. So under his proposal, all three queen sized beds and the rest of the bedroom furniture would be moved to a different room every three months as well.

As is the case of most poly decisions, the person with the greatest discomfort wins. We settled on Lance’s proposal with Art getting the master bedroom first, and we would all switch rooms after three months. Art and I secretly hoped that Lance would realize switching rooms was too much work after settling in and change his mind. As to who would sleep with who, our plan was that Guin and Lance would have three nights together a week, Art and I would have three nights a week, and Lance and I would have three nights on our own while Art and Guin were together. The seventh night would be for us to all be on our own or figure out otherwise. We would need a schedule on the door and a lot of sheets!

It seemed like a pretty good plan, and it was abandoned the moment we settled in.

First, Guin and Lance were on vacation for two weeks when I moved in, so Art and I enjoyed the master bedroom the entire time. When Guin came back from vacation without Lance, should she sleep with Art for two weeks because that’s how long she had been gone? Or should she sleep with him for three days according to our schedule? But the first night Guin was back, she and Art had a fight and we all slept separately. On the second night she was still angry. On the third night their daughter Sage slept with her and he slept with me again. Does he then sleep with her for the next three nights even though according to our schedule it was my turn to sleep with him?

We weren’t sure when Lance was going to come back (he also had a house in Toronto, where he intended to live part of the time), and when he did a few days later, he wasn’t sure how long he was going to stay. On day four we talked about switching beds, but since Lance was going to be away again for another week, Guin wanted to sleep with him for the remaining time. Lance declared that he supported his lover spending nights with her husband, but we all knew that it was a challenge for him. We did not switch beds.

Art and Guin finally got their time together after Lance left. While I had been annoyed when Art and Guin did not sleep together the first night she got back, when it was finally my turn to sleep alone, I was surprisingly emotional about it. I had spent four weeks in the house by this time, and the family was my entire life. Guin was away or at work most of the time, and when she was at home, she wasn’t interested in socializing with me. Sage and Piper adored their father and loved their mother, but they mostly ignored me. Art was in the process of launching a new business, and worked day and night at his new venture. When he wasn’t working we were eating or spending time with the family. I felt lonely, and stressed by the lack of predictability in our sleeping arrangements, the tension between Art and Guin, and my growing resentment over the lack of help I felt around the household chores, which I seemed to be doing the most of. So after a lonely day spent working, studying, cooking, and cleaning, instead of being rewarded with a night with my lover, I had to deal with him sleeping with someone else.

I lay in bed not able to sleep. I could hear Art and Guin’s voices in their bedroom below me. What were they talking about? Lately, they haven’t been agreeing about the chores, or how they should look after the kids. Why does he want to sleep with her anyway? They never have sex. We have sex every day when she’s away. We have amazing sex. I bet he wishes he were having sex with me right now instead of pretending to be intimate with her. The next morning, much to my chagrin, they were still in bed while I made breakfast for the family. Even though I was sleeping with Art regularly, knowing he was in the house sleeping with someone else was still very difficult. 

Two weeks later, Lance had not returned. He had begun a new relationship in Toronto and wanted to spend more time there. Guin spent hours on the phone processing this with him. I had readily given up the master bedroom when Guin came back, but now Guin showed no sign of intending to give up the master bedroom. She had an erratic schedule as a midwife and said that she slept better in the orthopedic master bed. She was not interested in talking about it, like she was not interested in talking about the chores that were assigned to her but which she ignored, or the dinners that I cooked when it was her turn. Art was completely absorbed in his work. I stopped trying to figure out who was supposed to be with who each night, and left it up to Art where he wanted to sleep. It was sort of a game for me to guess who he would choose to sleep with that night, as now we were not on any kind of schedule. 

A few days later, we heard that Lance had decided to break off his relationship with Guin and become monogamous with his new lover.

To be continued. Please “follow” if you would like to get an email notification for new posts. 

I reluctantly became polyamorous 25 years ago when my wife, Guin, asked to open our marriage.  Over time, however, poly has shifted my worldview and identity to the point where it’s hard to imagine living any other way (you can read more about my shift into poly here).

Many friends expected our marriage to end decades ago with one of us running off with another lover, but I was convinced we lasted so long because we allowed space for other lovers.  I was proud of what we achieved together and thought our marriage was bulletproof.

Until now…  

After losing a deeply significant relationship a few months ago, Guin decided she now wants to be monogamous.  This would be fine except she has also demanded that I become monogamous too and drop my longstanding relationship with Morgaine. I felt it was unethical and even cruel to make such a demand and, after some hemming and hawing, refused. Guin is now debating whether she wants to stay married to me and is considering leaving to “create space” to attract a monogamous partner.  It has been a deeply painful and confusing time in my life, but also a period of deep learning and insights. I hope to write about it when I have more distance and clarity.

In the meantime, I’ve been revisiting what I experience as some of the pros and cons of polyamory to keep my bearings in the storm.  I hope they prove useful to others exploring whether or how to be in loving, consensual relationships with multiple partners.

POLY PROS

PERSONAL GROWTH
In another blog post I shared how polyamory has repeatedly compelled me to let go of old ways of being and expand into larger and better versions of myself.  After I got married, but before becoming poly, I actually felt relief that I never had to “date” again, but this also meant a part of me was going to sleep.  Whether it is being open to flirting or contact improv or staying fit, polyamory keeps me more on my toes, introduces me to new ideas and ways of being, and reminds me to not take any of my relationships for granted.

FREEDOM AND ACCEPTANCE
MLK Jr. famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  I would add that it also bends towards liberation and tolerance.  Over generations, marriage has become less about property and politics, and bi-racial and gay marriages have expanded its definition. Polyamory is further pushing this envelope by releasing the concept of ownership in relationships (unless, of course, if you’re into that sort of thing ;-).  While often difficult at first, there’s no feeling like compersion, which comes from offering our partners an unrestricted ability to share love with others and delighting in the joy they find.

EXPANDED LOVE
When it comes to love, our society suffers from a scarcity mentality.  Love is often seen as a zero-sum resource and we often feel we have to prevent our partners from loving others for fear that it will deplete the love they have for us.  Similar to switching from fossil fuels to solar energy, polyamory reminds us that, like the sun, love is abundant and can be shared with multiple people in non-threatening ways. And really, on our deathbeds, will any of us regret trying to have loved more deeply and more often?

CLARITY
People often think of monogamy as something black-and-white — you either are or you aren’t.  But to me, it is all gray areas.  Is it okay to have close friends of the attractive gender(s)?  Is it okay to share secrets with them?  Difficult emotions?  A massage?  A kiss?  Monogamous couples generally think they are on the same page without having to discuss boundaries, but discrepancies will arise over time, which can be painful to process, especially when they are discovered “after the (f)act.”  With polyamory, there’s no illusion of “one way” to do things so we are forced to talk about what works and doesn’t work for each of us.  This requires a lot of communication, but hopefully results in greater clarity around our relationship dynamics, comfort levels, and boundaries.

EXPANDED OPPORTUNITIES
With monogamy, most or all of our needs are expected to be met within the relationship.  This can be a challenge when only one partner enjoys spooning all night or PDAs or winter camping or strip poker or BDSM or … well, you get the idea.  With polyamory, it is more likely we will find relationships that fulfill us without needing to pressure our other partners to do things they don’t enjoy.  On the downside, this can also raise the bar for our original partners, which I will discuss below.

ADDED SUPPORT
Life is hard sometimes.  You’re home with the flu.  Work sucks!  A family member is in trouble or passes away. Having multiple partners to bring chicken soup or vent about your boss with or cry on their shoulders can offer incredible emotional and physical support.  And when living together, combining incomes and extra help with household chores and raising kids can make life much easier for everyone.

POLY CONS

Lest we become pollyannaish about polyamory, here are some of the downsides of loving multiple partners:

JEALOUSY
While also a problem in monogamous relationships, opportunities to experience jealousy and FOMO are more common when there are multiple partners.  Those new to poly may even feel disgust or repulsion towards metamours, particularly if they are icked out by coming into secondhand contact with others’ bodily fluids.  Feeling jealous is a very natural emotion and doesn’t mean you’re bad or not cut out for polyamory.  However, it can be very unpleasant to experience (on both ends!) and suffering can also become a self-fulfilling prophesy.  As Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”  Exploring what is beneath these feelings and how we often unconsciously play out cultural narratives can often help sort them out.

COMPLEXITY
While the feeling of love is abundant, time and energy are often scarce resources and polyamory demands a lot of both.  Balancing schedules and parenting duties (when kids are involved), processing emotions and relationship dynamics, and striving to meet diverse expectations can sometimes make poly feel like a Cirque du Soleil act.  More relationships can also mean more heartbreaks and “growth opportunities.”  Sometimes it can all just feel like too much to handle and make one yearn for the simplicity and sense of control (at least imagined) within monogamous relationships.

HEALTH RISKS
Obviously, being with multiple partners, who themselves may have multiple partners, increases the chance of becoming infected with an STD.  Yes, safer sex reduces these risks, but the key word is “safer”, not “safe.” and no technique is 100% guaranteed.  And there’s perhaps no easier way to strain the relationship between metamours than by introducing an STD into the equation.

SOCIAL OSTRACISM
While being openly poly generally does not carry the legal, professional, and even physical threats that being openly gay did (and still does in some places), polyamory is generally considered unacceptable behavior and “coming out of the poly closet” can risk prejudice and ostracism from parents, family, and friends.  As a result, secondaries often pay a heavy toll when their partners do not acknowledge them publicly. They may not be invited to family functions; they may be invisible on social media; and they may not be allowed to engage in PDA in public or in front of their partner’s children.

SMALL DATING POOL
It is hard enough to find one partner who is within an acceptable age range, geographically available, physically attractive, and emotionally compatible.  Adding polyamory as a dating criteria reduces this pool of potential partners considerably, especially in less populated areas and locations where there is widespread intolerance of alternative lifestyles. And men tend to have an even harder time finding poly partners than women, which often leads to imbalance and frustration within open couples.  

NEGOTIATING CHANGE
All relationships evolve over time and change is difficult enough to negotiate between two people.  In poly relationships, there is both more change and more people to negotiate with, which makes boundaries and expectations an ever moving target.  New partners might fall deeply in love and want more than was originally agreed to…  A primary partner might decide to become monogamous and demand that you do likewise (it happens!)… When only one partner wants to change (or not to change), the result is often heartache.

RAISING THE BAR
With polyamory, it is common to get certain needs met in new relationships to an extent you did not expect or even think was possible. You may develop a deep intellectual connection with someone that makes your old partner seem dull in comparison. Or a new partner takes your sex life to a whole new level and you are no longer interested in the vanilla sex (or lack of sex) you had before. This can be scary for the original partner, especially when it seems their worst fear is being realized by their partner being lured away by a [younger or more beautiful, intelligent, compatible, etc.] lover.  OR, it can be an opportunity to appreciate and accept our differences and perhaps even to explore new ways of relating to those we love.

 AVOIDING PROBLEMS
It is often said that couples should not have a child in order to “fix” their relationship and this is also true for bringing new people into poly relationships.  While full of growth opportunities and NRE, new relationships can also make it easy to avoid the hard and often painful work of resolving problems and maintaining passion within existing relationships.

COUPLE PRIVILEGE
Finally, secondaries in relationship with a member of a couple can often feel the needs of their metamour come before their own. Boundaries may be set around when, where, and how much time a secondary can spend together with their primary partner; there may be constraints around what kinds of activities, emotional or sexual involvement are permitted; their relationship is often put in the closet, and they have limited access to the partner’s everyday life. Check out Morgaine’s post on The Challenges of Being a Secondary for more.

Polyamory is clearly not for everyone, but then again neither is monogamy.  Like any style of relationship it comes with pros and cons that we each need to weigh for ourselves.  Hopefully, polyamory will eventually become just another choice that is available without social stigma or judgement.  Until then, I appreciate those who are openly loving multiple partners as it is making it easier for those who follow and it is also challenging some antiquated cultural narratives in order to allow more love in our lives.  

Please add your thoughts about the pros and cons listed here, and perhaps new ones we should add, in the comments.  Thanks!

I love relationships. I believe that a long term, committed relationship gives us the opportunity to experience joy and personal growth in a way that really nothing else can, and that relationships require work, patience, and compromise. In addition, long term, committed relationships often have a lot at stake besides the relationship itself: children, family, friends, money, property, and memory, and can be very hard to disentangle when a relationship falls apart. Therefore, I understand why people hold onto relationships long after they have become unfulfilling. However, the events of this past year have convinced me that no matter how much one loves one’s partner, and how much one wants to work things out, sometimes a relationship needs to dissolve, for the sanity of all involved. When one is pushed to the point of compromising one’s values, core needs, and health, it’s time to admit that a relationship is no longer salvageable and it’s best to let go.

So here’s 10 reasons for calling it quits:

Your basic relationship needs are ignored. I get that in poly it’s not about satisfying all of one’s needs through one partner. But everyone has basic relationship needs, which may include the need for sex, physical affection, respect, and quality time. You can have a good relationship if your partner doesn’t share your love of vintage black and white photography or your penchant for greyhounds, but what if your partner is not physically affectionate with you, hardly ever spends quality time with you, never wants to have sex, and does not consider your needs when it comes to finances or partnership in other areas of your life? Do you stay with her, hoping that a second relationship will meet the basic needs you can’t get met through your primary? What if you’re a secondary, and your partner has all kinds of restrictions on when and how he can spend time with you? Do you stay together even though the level of connection is far from what you want? Is polyamory a euphemism for “I’ll take whatever I can get?” I hope not. Just because we’re not restricted to one relationship, doesn’t mean that we have no standards when it comes to what we expect from our partners.

Your partner always sees their needs as more important than yours. You have something important to discuss with your partner, but they puts it off for days because they’re not in the mood. Your partner needs help with something on their computer, but you are in the middle of working. You need more quality time with your partner but they are too tired, too busy, or it’s too inconvenient. You need sexy time with your partner but they never put out. Loving partners will do things for you even when it’s inconvenient or not interesting to them, but when your partner is a narcissist, they don’t care what your needs are. All that matters is theirs, and they will be upset with you if you don’t satisfy their needs.

Your partner is unable to compromise. If one person wants to go to bed early and snuggle, and the other person wants to stay up late and surf the internet, they can compromise by going to bed together some time in between, or have some days where they go to bed together and snuggle, and some days where they go to bed at separate times. If one person is messy and the other person is neat, the neat partner can loosen up a little and the messy partner can try harder to pick up after himself. But when a relationship is dysfunctional, one or both partners is unable to compromise. They have to have it their way regardless of how you feel about it, or they lack the imagination to find a solution so they give up. The other partner’s dissatisfaction is not a problem that they concern themselves with.

Your partner does not treat you with respect. Your partner interrupts your phone conversation for an extended exchange. Your partner spreads out her craft materials all over the living room and leaves it out for days, even though you need the space too for your work and you don’t like the mess. Your partner turns the TV on when you’re in the middle of a phone job interview. Your partner calls and texts you multiple times when you are on a date with your other partner. Your partner takes phone calls and responds to texts multiple times when you are on a date with him. Your partner is often late or cancels at the last minute. Treating someone with respect is something we should expect from everyone. Ask yourself, would you allow someone you are dating to treat you this way? Would you allow a roommate to treat you this way? Would you allow a friend to treat you this way? If the answer is no, why would you allow your partner to treat you this way?

Your partner blames you and refuses to take responsibility. When your relationship isn’t going well, your partner blames you and refuses to take any responsibility for his contributions. If your partner isn’t happy, it’s your fault. If your finances are a shambles, it’s your fault. If they don’t like your other partner, it’s your fault. They expect to be taken care of, satisfied, and entertained, and if things are not going as well as they want, they don’t want to take any responsibility for making it better. To them, taking responsibility would mean admitting that they were wrong, and their self-esteem is too fragile to handle being wrong.

Your partner does not honor basic agreements. You agreed that you would not have unprotected sex with other partners. Your partner breaks this agreement. You agreed that you would spend the weekend together, and your partner makes plans with someone else. Your partner feels free to do whatever she wants with her partner, but she doesn’t allow you to have the same freedom. People are human and they do make mistakes, but when your partner repeatedly breaks rules, is not remorseful, does not extend the same privileges that she feels entitled to, and imposes rules that she does not follow herself, then something is wrong.

Your partner does not respect your other partner(s). When your partner vetoes your relationship with your other partner….after the relationship has been underway for more than a year….after the other partner moved to another country and divorced their other partner to be with you. When your partner does not respect that your other partner also needs your time and attention. When your partner interrupts your date with your other partner with their phone calls and texts. When your partner resents you helping your other partner. When your partner restricts your ability to spend time or express affection for your other partner(s). When your partner is not grateful when your other partner does something nice for you or for them.

Your partner’s needs are incompatible with yours. Your partner wants a sexually and emotionally monogamous relationship with you, and you want to live in a poly commune. Your partner wants to live like a real housewife of LA and you want to live like a hippie monk. Your partner wants to have another child and you don’t. Your partner wants to see you once a week and you want to see him six days a week. Your partner needs a lot of space in a relationship and you need a lot of intimacy. A lot of problems can be worked out by compromising and meeting your partner half way, but sometimes your interests are so far apart that meeting half way is not enough, or it’s too much. People are often times flexible and adaptable, but we shouldn’t expect that a partner will completely change who they are for us, or that we should change who we are for them. Rather than making both people miserable, it may be time to go separate ways so you can both live the life you want.

Your partner does not do their share of the finances, chores, childcare, relationship maintenance and other joint responsibilities. A relationship isn’t about making everything fifty fifty. Sometimes one partner makes a lot more money than the other, or are skilled at things the other partner isn’t. In times of hardship, one partner often does more to support the other. However, if your relationship is very lopsided, and there is no external reason for the imbalance (such as an illness or a job that takes the person away from home a lot), then this is a sign that your partner has checked out of the relationship. Does he leave all the childcare and housecare to you? Does she show no interest in your joint finances? Are you always the one planning things to do together? Are you always the one traveling to your partner, and he never makes the effort to travel to you? If one person is doing the lion’s share of maintaining the relationship or the household, and the other person is just coasting, that is not a loving, mutual relationship.

Your body sends distress signals. When you are in a physically or emotionally toxic environment, your body reacts to it and sends signals to let you know that a change of course is needed. But like the proverbial frog in the pot, we are remarkably adaptable to suffering and resistant to change. So we allow the status quo to continue, and succumb to obesity, addictions, or depression for many years before we realize we have a problem. Sometimes it requires something drastic like a cancer diagnosis to shake us up to how far we’ve let things slide. A bad marriage or dysfunctional relationship is as bad for one’s health as a toxic work environment or living environment. But people are often more willing to leave a bad job than they are willing to leave a bad relationship. We know that stress depresses the immune system, increases inflammation, damages DNA, and accelerates aging. Symptoms include insomnia, high blood pressure, weight loss or gain, bowel problems, headaches, susceptivity to the common cold and other infections, loss of sex drive, fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles, among other things.

I started experiencing these physical symptoms towards the end of my relationship, but I was terrified of losing my partner and the pain that this would cause. The pain got so bad that I was taking pain pills first thing every morning so that I could function throughout the day. My migraines became more frequent. My weight dropped from 112 pounds to 102. Interacting with my partner, whether it was a phone call or a visit, would trigger the pain and cause me to lose hours of productivity. This put a huge strain on my work as well as my other relationships. I realized that if I didn’t immediately embark on a wellness program, including avoiding the trigger that was my partner,I would permanently damage my health, if not outright kill myself. So please, listen to your body! A loving relationship should make you feel healthier, not make you sick!

I know of men and women who remained in toxic and dysfunctional relationships for far too long in the hopes that their partner would change, for the sake of the children, because they were afraid of the unknown future, etc. Those who did ultimately get divorced reported remarkable improvements in their wellbeing and wonder why they didn’t do it sooner. Polyamory is not a bandaid for dysfunctional relationships that should come to an end. Using other partners as a way to “cope” with a dysfunctional relationship is a deeply shitty way to treat people you love.

If you’re thinking that you should stick it out even though your relationship is unfulfilling, remember that life is too short to stay unhappy when you know that there is a way out. What helped me finally jump ship was my friend saying to me, “Is it possible for the two of you to stay together in a passable but unfulfilling relationship? Yes, it is, but why? You are not marooned together on an island; you are not the last humans on earth; the peace of nations doesn’t depend on your union. To what end are you sacrificing your own happiness?” I only had to imagine waking up 15 years from now, in the same state of misery, wondering why I didn’t end it years ago, to walk away and never look back.

Artwork by Dina Goldstein, “In the Dollhouse”

“I feel like my life is a train. I pull into a station, cry for ten minutes, the train goes on, only to stop a few hours later to have another emotional breakdown,” I said to my friend in Chicago. I had been riding this train for six months, ever since my partner’s wife revoked her consent for our relationship. When his wife’s lover left, she declared that she no longer wanted to be poly and therefore he should break up with me. He didn’t do that, which resulted in our relationship being downgraded from that of a beloved live-in partner to a reviled mistress. She was ready to divorce him if he did not leave me, so we took a six month break in order to save their marriage.

Any breakup is difficult and painful, but the nature of the polyamorous relationship made it degrading in a way that was truly soul crushing. Over the two years we were together, he had become an inextricable part of me, a partner I loved deeply and wanted to share my life with. I moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Windsor, Ontario to become a part of his family, only to be kicked out by the Canadian border agents a few months in. Instead of compassion and help in getting back into the country, I was basically told that that option was now closed because his wife had changed her mind. I felt abandoned and used, like a toy that could be tossed aside once it lost its appeal. Losing her meant to him losing his family, his identity, and a thirty year relationship, while losing me was just losing a girlfriend.

The inequality of this relationship reopened wounds in other parts of my psyche. It stirred my insecurities about race and nationality, that because I was not white or native, I would never be as popular or as loved as the white American children I went to school with. It reminded me of how I wasn’t taken seriously at work because I was young and Asian and female, even though my education and resume were impeccable, and it even brought back the trauma of my Mormon upbringing. All this took place within the larger context of Trump winning the election, and the legitimizing of sexism, racism, xenophobia, and climate change denial (my degree was in environmental studies) across America. Not only was there a Trump terrorizing people like me at the highest level of government, but I also had a Trump in my personal life in the form of my partner’s wife, a figure of monstrous narcissism and entitlement whose motto for our relationship was, “You will not replace me.”

I lost myself in sorrow and felt completely worthless. I would wake up crying at 4am every morning, feeling as if the darkness and silence would swallow me whole. I would burst into tears in the middle of the day, in public and private, feeling constantly as if a disaster was about to happen. I had a hard time eating and exercising dropped to my lowest weight of 102 pounds. I would go to bed as early as nine, only this made me wake up even earlier, starting the cycle of misery all over again. Even more concerning was the cervical dysplasia, for which I was diagnosed last fall and had undergone surgery to remove the low-grade cancerous cells from my cervix. I feared my emotional state was breeding new cancer cells in my body. I imagined my lover at my deathbed wracked with remorse for having killed me with a broken heart. All this while I moved across country in the middle of winter, started a new job, held down sideworking assignments in editing and tutoring, and started a PhD program that piled a mountain of work on my already full schedule.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I sobbed on the phone to my friend, “I’m slowly killing myself. I don’t know how to make it go away.”
“Oh honey,” she said, “You gotta take care of yourself! Get yourself to yoga as soon as possible.”
I couldn’t just go on with the status quo, passively coping with my mental and physical deterioration. If I was going to get better, I needed to fight for my life, and I wasn’t going to get help from my partner. So I went to yoga.

“Stretch your right arm out infront of you, and your left leg out behind you; take five breaths; now pull them in and touch your elbow to your knee.” The instructor was a young Asian woman in grey leotards and a French braid that seemed to relish torturing her students. Fifteen minutes into Vinyasa yoga and I was losing my balance and sweating like a glazed pig. For months, all I wanted to do was contract into the fetal position, therefore, it felt unnatural to open up my body in these long poses. But as I stretched my fingers to the sky, face turned upwards, tear came into my eyes and I thought, more light please, I’m a seedling coming out of the dark ground after the winter. When I finally lay down on the mat, I felt a sense of serenity and groundedness that I hadn’t felt in a long time.

I made a list of all the things that would help me be happier: food, exercise, nature, friends, lovers, and avoiding contact with the source of my unhappiness. I started going to yoga three times a week, getting stronger and more flexible each time. I made affirmation cards such as “I am light,” and “I am loved,” which I flipped through each morning and night, imagining a sun coming into my heart and filling me with light and warmth. Detroit isn’t known for having a lot of nature, but at least once a week I walked to the Detroit River and looked over the rippling waters to the Windsor skyline, and nodded my head to the bicyclers with stereo systems strapped to their rear seats, blasting music on two wheels. Being outside gave me a chance to connect with myself and my environment after a long day at work sitting in front of the computer all day.

Avoiding my partner was the really hard part. I tried everything from deleting his number from my phone, to defriending him on Facebook, to deleting all chat apps. But I still broke down and called or texted him within days of doing those things. Finally, I set up a calendar in a word document and blocked the day in purple if I called him, green if he called me, and yellow if neither of us called each other. By monitoring my behavior around those calls, I was first able to refrain from calling him, and then to stop the phone calls all together. Some days it felt like I was hanging on hour by hour and it was all I could do to not pick up the phone. When I had gone two weeks without talking to him, I felt what a person trying to quit smoking must feel like when they finally go for a week without picking up a cigarette. The victory of self-control was sweeter than the healthful effect of not indulging in something toxic.

I also started dating. Even though I didn’t feel much like it, just the act of looking, my friend Stephanie promised, would pick me up and remind me that there are other options. On the first day of reactivating my Okcupid profile, I received 55 messages. After I had eliminated the one word ones, the stupid pick-up lines, and the blurry, serial killer photos, I narrowed my prospects to twenty. I messaged a handful back, and ended up making plans with four. One of them was Greg, a thirty-nine year old doctor from Flint, Michigan.

One our first date we met at an Asian restaurant where Greg ate a bowl of spicy noodles while I ordered Philadelphia and spicy tuna rolls. Greg worked in Flint with a resident population ravaged by unemployment, water poisoning, drug addiction, obesity, and all kinds of mental and physical illness. He was not the best looking of everyone I met, but he was the most interesting to talk with. Because he grew up in poverty as the son of a single mother with multiple abusive boyfriends, he knew what it was like to be the people he served. As a political activist, I was fascinated by his first-hand stories of the people that our government lets fall through the cracks (or in this case, outright poison), and admired his compassion in helping them. He literally swept me off my feet on his motorcycle, and three months into the relationship we were looking at furniture together for his new house and dreaming about living together in Colorado. However, even though he knew about my relationship philosophy, he turned out not to be polyamorous. Once he understood that I hadn’t stopped dating even though our relationship had become more established, he no longer wanted to see me.

The person he specifically could not get over my seeing was Kevin. Kevin and I had only gone on two dates, but hit it off enough that we were planning on a third. On our first date we met for coffee. I admired his boyish looks and he confessed that my smile made him forget what he was thinking. We talked about polyamory and our agreement that monogamy messed up relationships. On our second date we went to a leather shop with a sex section in the back that sold bondage gear, followed by a visit to the ice cream shop where he gave me stunning kisses that intimated what would be possible if we took it further. He was an actor, director, musician, and writer with a boundless sense of humor and confidence to match. He radiated a life-giving energy that I soaked up like a sponge.

Kevin lived three hours away on Lake Huron and he didn’t come down to the city very often, but he made sure that I had a good time when he did. He took me out to eat at all the greasy, local joints coney dogs, burgers, and meat pizzas. We went to parks and malls and the beach, even having sex in a forest while being eaten alive by mosquitos. He took me to his childhood haunts, told riveting stories about his adolescent antics, and his many romantic encounters in exotic parts of the world. He was not only thoroughly entertaining, but also a great listener and with a storyteller’s sense of empathy for human longings and travails. We talked at length about my situation with Art and Guin. “You deserve so much better,” he said, “Why would you go back into a relationship that has caused you so much pain? I know you love him, but you want a primary partner, and he can’t be that for you.” I struggled emotionally with what he was saying, but I was touched by his caring of me, and kissed him tenderly on the forehead.

Despite his passionate nature, Kevin was never interested in long-term committed relationships at any point in his life. “I like my relationships to have expiration dates,” he said. In October, he left for Atlanta, Georgia, where employment prospects are better for a career in film. He told me that I was the one bright spot in a bleak year of moving back to Michigan to live with his parents, with no job, and childhood friends in various states of dysfunction. This was even more true for me, struggling as I was with my horrible primary relationship. “But you never let that get to our relationship,” he said, “you are always so positive, and I have no doubt you will get through this.” In November I received a postcard from him from Atlanta, in which he wrote, “You are my favorite thing of 2017!”

Greg and Kevin gave me physical and emotional sustenance in a dark time in my life. Their presence alone enabled me to focus on something other than my depressing situation. For one hour or one day, I would be absorbed in their stories or lose myself in the pleasure of their touch. They served as a mirror in which I could look at my emotions objectively. But more than being pleasant distractions, they made me feel that I was lovable. They saw beauty in me and freely gave me their time, attention, and affection. If my relationship with Art made me feel worthless and despicable, my relationship with Greg and Kevin made me feel seen and appreciated.

But there is a difference between distracting myself with friends, lovers, and work, and grappling with my emotions and come to terms with them. I was finally able to do this in September at a five day silent meditation retreat with no phone, no internet, and no talking to other meditators. I was nervous whether this kind of isolation would be good for me, but it seemed the only way I would really get to the bottom of this.

I had attended other retreats before, including a ten day one in the aftermath of a very long and painful breakup, but I found this one even more difficult than the first one. My first day of meditation was dominated by anger. I was so angry at Art for betraying my trust, so angry at him for justifying his poor treatment of me because of his partner, and so angry with the world for all the bullshit in politics, I couldn’t sit still. I imagined myself screaming and screaming in a field. I called Art on the phone, asked him the same questions and received the same responses that made me feel worse about myself, and missed hours of meditation and risking a migraine. On the second day my anger was tinged with more sadness. My thoughts were mostly, why doesn’t he love me as much as I love him? Why can’t we be together? How can I go through life missing him as much as I do? I meditated with a towel in my lap to soak up all the tears. The meditation teacher recommended that I meditate on compassion, compassion for myself and not hurting myself more by judging myself for my reactions. She also taught me to meditate on suffering in general, how everyone has suffering, and that having compassion for our own suffering is also helping to heal others.

On the third day I began to meditate on my state with more compassion. I thought of myself a child whose parents thought they wanted and then changed their mind after it was born. I offered my only toy to the child that already had a room full of toys, while my beloved watched and did nothing. I felt compassion for Art who was torn between his love for two women, who never really experienced love and understanding in his marriage, and who was so eager to please that he repressed his own needs to satisfy others. I even felt compassion for Guin who did not get the love she wanted in her marriage and felt that the only way to get what she wanted was to drive out her competition. And I thought about my fellow meditators, my friends, and everyone in the world who have all experienced heartbreak in some form, or are going through crises much worse than my own–a debilitating illness perhaps, or the illness or death of a loved one. Thinking about their suffering made me feel less alone and less unfortunate.

On day five of the meditation I spent hours lying in the grass, the September sun warming my back. It felt good to just lie there, among all the growing things, breathing the last of the summer air. Whereas before it felt like the sun was above me, now I felt that it was inside me. More light please. Let me be the sun so that my love and compassion could heal the world. At home, I bought myself a sun pendant to remind me that I am the source of healing energy.

A few weeks after I came back from meditation retreat, Art felt that his marriage was still salvageable so he decided to stay in it. I met James, a twenty-nine year old scientist who was polyamorous, single, and as interested in a serious relationship as I am. I was amazed by how easy our relationship feels without all the compromises and complications in my relationship with Art. With no children, other partners, or commitment issues to overcome, we could spend time outside of work together whenever want, we don’t have to ask permission of anyone, and we can plan our future without consulting anyone. It feels wonderful to be in a relationship with so much compatibility and possibility.

In addition to lovers, my friends also provided countless hours of empathy and support, and I am so grateful for their love. My friend, Katie, who actually is a therapist, called me every week to talk about our relationships and she heard my every complaint, frustration, strategy with superhuman patience and good humor. My friend Jane also talked to me throughout the summer and we texted almost daily to share our struggles and give sympathy. My friend Stephanie, who I only met in April, went out to dinner with me at least once a month and was always a source of inspiration and reason. Other friends, Wade, Josh, and Zach, who started out as dates, turned into friends who let me cry on their shoulder. I also started my own poly support group with a group of polyamorous friends; we text each other and I host a call every two weeks. These relationships were lifelines in addition to the romantic relationships.

I spent Christmas with James and his family in Michigan, who welcomed me as if I were their own. As I look around at the live Christmas tree sparking with golden lights, the pile of presents we just opened, and this lovely man who adores my company, I recognize that I made this all happen. There was no Prince Charming to rescue me from a bad relationship and whisk me into a good one. I could have succumbed to depression or suicide, or resorted to unhealthy eating, drugs, or alcohol, instead I proactively sought to improve my well-being and open my heart to laughter and intimacy. I also gained ten pounds!

I’m still open to polyamory, and I want my lovers to have the freedom to pursue other relationships, but I’m a lot more wary of the harm that it can cause to others, and more aware of my own need for something more stable and reassuring. I’m learning to ask, how can I love myself? Instead of trying to please others and hoping that they will give me the love I want. I want to learn to say “no” to situations that hurt me. The relationship I healed was not the one with Art, but with myself. This winter solstice, the sun shines brightly on the freshly fallen snow, like love waiting to be discovered.

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, directed by Angela Robinson, came out in October 2017, and has been hailed as a groundbreaking, trailblazing film that positively portrays polyamory. “For Professor Marston’s Bill, Elizabeth and Olive, polyamory isn’t a one-off tryst; the three start a life and family together,” writes Jill Gutowitz of Vice, “Their relationship is balanced, equal and brimming with mutual respect. Each character is starkly different, they each experience lust and desire, and their relationship is by no means just Bill’s idea. Elizabeth and Olive share a romantic love of their own.”

Polyamorous critics gushed even more. Leigh Monson, a self-identified poly movie reviewer, said, “I cried tears of joy at this movie.” Minx of Polyamory Weekly said on her podcast, “This is a fucking awesome movie for poly people. It is the most beautiful portrayal of polyamory that I have ever seen.” Gaby Dunn, a bixsexual YouTuber and author (I Hate Everyone But You) who has advocated for polyamory much of her adult life, declared, “I have never seen polyamory centered or treated with respect in a movie before ever in my life. It was beautiful to see that yes, you can love more than one person, and have a family, and be happy.”

Professor Marston is a trailblazing movie in that it depicts polyamory in an empathetic and feminist way. Previous movies have depicted polyamory as cheating, sex-oriented, deviant, or a comedic distraction. No other movie has featured a committed, long term polyamorous relationship that is truly about love and the struggle to practice it at a time when it was deeply taboo. The fact that it’s based on a true story is even more remarkable. The movie is also masterfully done with nuanced and sympathetic characters. However, to say that it depicts a healthy polyamorous relationship based on mutual love and respect is a bit misleading. My partner and I both found it pretty disturbing at times, and the fact that it was so empathetic and love driven made what we deemed abusive behavior between the main characters even more upsetting.

I also want to preface this review by saying that this is not a review of the relationship between the actual creator of Wonder Woman and his partners. From what I understand, the director took much artistic license in portraying a relationship even the members of the Marston family understood very little of. The three historical figures were very private about their private lives. This is a review of the story that the director chose to tell. 

The relationship between the trouple starts out on unequal footing. Bill Marston is psychology professor at Harvard who works with his wife to study human sexuality. They toy with the idea of having a third, and joke about what a cliche it would be for Bill to have an affair with one of his students. When they first see Olive, a student in one of their classes, they discuss her as a sexual object. “I would like to study her,” he says, as if she were a specimen under the microscope. “I’m your wife, not your jailer,” says Elizabeth, not exactly encouragingly. They view Olive as an innocent, sweet girl that they can recruit for sexual experimentation. In poly circles this is called unicorn hunting, a much reviled practice that typically exploits a young bisexual female in order to satisfy the sexual curiosity of a typically older couple. “The stereotype at least is that unicorn hunting couples are looking to treat a partner as an object in their relationship,” said Alex, an interviewee for The Business Insider, “They want someone — maybe anyone, reducible to their gender, sexuality, and availability — that fits into their lives and fits their relationship without thinking about the needs and human perspectives of the person they’re looking for.” This fits Bill and Elizabeth’s attitude to Olive pretty well. They want someone who will fit into their lives; they don’t consider how their relationship will impact her.

Olive becomes a research assistant to Bill and Elizabeth Marston, and the couple immediately begin to use their dominant position to coerce and seduce her. First, before Olive has even started her employment, Elizabeth confronts her and says, “Don’t fuck my husband.” The poor girl has a genuine interest in the couple’s research, and she is immediately accused of being a homewrecker. Not a good way to begin! Next, they take part in a bizarre scene where Olive is forced to spank a sorority sister while the Marstons watch. Afterwards they pressure her to describe her emotions during the incident. It’s obvious that Olive is very uncomfortable with this, and when Olive flees the room crying, they dismiss her as not being tough enough for science. Olive is so distraught that she considers quitting her job, but she goes back to them, apparently drawn by the couple’s magnetism, or her own masochistic enjoyment at being submissive. Still treating her like an experiment, they hook her up to a lie detector and basically force her to confess that she’s in love with both of them. When Olive flees again, Elizabeth goes after her and they kiss. At this point Elizabeth invites Bill to join them.

The three become romantically involved, but the couple privilege continues. When the Marstons are fired from Harvard, Elizabeth insists that they have to break up with Olive because their relationship is “nice in fantasy but not reality.” Bill basically agrees with her and they literally turn their back on Olive and walk away, except Olive cries out that she’s pregnant. We can imagine that had she not been pregnant, they would have left her in the dust while congratulating themselves on how they escaped a close call. But since they are such ethical non-monogamists (sarcasm), they take up house together and move into a new neighborhood.

To not raise any eyebrows, they make up a story about how Olive is a widow whom Bill and Elizabeth took in. Granted, this is almost a hundred years ago, but it is revealed at the end of the movie that the real nature of their relationship was never made public to their friends and family, not even to their own children, even after having lived together for decades. Today, this would be unacceptable to most committed polyamorous partners who want to be acknowledged as legitimate partners. However, Olive did not seem bothered by her closeted status. While they live together, Bill and Elizabeth do paid work and Olive cleans, cooks, and takes care of their four children. Even if this arrangement had been consensual, by putting Olive in a state of economic dependence, she basically had to do whatever they wanted or risk losing everything.

The most shocking abuse of couple privilege comes towards the end of the movie when the family is accidentally outed by neighbors and Elizabeth’s son is beaten up at school. “You have to go,” Elizabeth says baldly to Olive, “the safety of our children is at stake.” Bill does nothing to stop her. So Olive, after spending a decade with these two, raising their four children together, is kicked to the curb as soon as the couple’s respectability becomes endangered. They punished her for society’s bigotry, and in order to not put themselves at risk, treat her with the same contempt that society would heap on Olive.

Once they got rid of her, the two of them would still have the safety net of their marriage, but what about Olive, and her children (who are also Bill’s children)? What kind of problems are they going to have now that she’s become the other woman, with no home, no family, and no means to make a living? Is this how you treat a partner you’ve loved for more than a decade? The fact that they would even consider such an action cast doubt whether they ever regarded Olive as an equal partner.  

The movie tries to recover from this egregious mistake in a tear jerking scene where Elizabeth and Bill beg on their knees for Olive to come back. Olive, at this point, has been living on her own for months, and she agrees to come back if they get her a new stove and give her a break from housework on the weekends. And then, my friends, they lived happily ever after.

My partner and I left the movie in shock. We agreed that Bill and Elizabeth’s actions towards the end of the movie exemplify the worst of polyamorous relationships: extreme couple privilege, disregard for their partner’s well-being, taking advantage of Olive’s weaker social and economic position without giving her respect and commitment. Like many partners in open relationships, Olive was ultimately dispensable, someone who could be sacrificed to protect the couple’s interests at any moment. There is no way that this polyamorous relationship would have worked if Olive had been a less submissive partner who stood up more for her rights. By portraying Olive as happily going along with everything, the movie creates the dangerous impression that everything Bill and Elizabeth did was ok and this is how a second partner in a polyamorous relationship should behave.

This movie was also disturbing to me because my partner and I had undergone a similar experience that year. We had been together for almost two years and were living together when his wife decided to revoke her consent for our relationship. I was subsequently kicked out of the house (and out of the country by Canadian border agents), and she threatened to divorce him if he didn’t leave me. My partner came to the realization that her actions were cruel and unethical, and he eventually apologized to me for not defending me against her attacks. I’m still not fully recovered from the trauma of it all. The experience has, if not put me off polyamory completely, made me deeply wary of the harm that couples can cause to others when they attempt polyamory without giving up couple privilege.

I recommend this movie for its artistry, its moving depiction of an organic relationship, and its groundbreaking depicting of polyamory. However, the praise that has been heaped on it by mainstream and poly audiences actually makes me feel less understood as a poly person. Granted, polyamorous people often struggle mightily and egregious mistakes are often made, but what this couple did to Olive at the end would be unconscionable to ethical polyamorous people today. Most polyamorous relationships also do not involve sexual attraction between metamours, or a metamour who does all the housework for you. Most polyamorous relationship involve much more difficult negotiations regarding sharing a partner with someone who you are not in love with. The fact that Elizabeth did have a relationship with Olive, and she still treated her with such disregard, is the opposite of a healthy, loving, polyamorous relationship. The lack of outrage over Bill and Elizabeth’s actions in the media is a silent indicator that even within the poly community we have a poor understanding of what a healthy polyamorous relationship should look like.

The marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle made me a romantic again, but love is not always roses and tiaras. My partner recently went through a crisis where his wife withdrew her consent for our relationship a year and a half into our relationship. She felt that our relationship was a threat to their marriage and that he could not love her in the way she wanted if he continued his relationship with me. After struggling for more than a year, he decided that it was too much for him to fight with her every day and he needed to prioritize his family, so he withdrew from our relationship. As much as he tried to maintain our relationship, in the end, there was no way he could satisfy her and me, so he chose the path of less resistance. I wrote this “manifesto” in response to what I saw as a not ethical or loving way to deal with conflict in a poly relationship. If anyone is wondering what to do when a partner tries to control your relationships, or if your partner tries to force you into opening your relationship, I hope this helps to clarify the ethical framework.

1. No one has a right to tell you who you can have a romantic relationship with, or how. As late as 1967, it was illegal in many parts of the US for a white person to marry a person of color, and as late as 2014, it was illegal to marry someone of the same sex. Today these laws are regarded as bigoted and unethical. The right to marry your chosen partner regardless of their gender, race, or religion is considered fundamental and belonging to everyone. Exceptions still apply to cases like minors and blood relatives, but even those are being challenged.

2. Your family and friends do not have the right to control your relationships. People you already have relationships with do not have the right to tell you with whom and how to have your romantic relationships. Parents may have strong preferences about who they want their children to be partnered with, and sometimes children decide to abide by those preferences because they do not wish to alienate their parents, but in Western, developed countries, parents don’t make that decision for their children. Children also sometimes have preferences about who you are in a relationship with, but they do make decisions about partners for their parents. Parents can and often do help their children adjust to partners they object to, but ultimately parents make the decision. Friends and other less intimate relationships have even less right to interfere.

3. An exception is your spouse, because you mutually agreed to forsake other partners when you got married, and that agreement is enforced with a legal contract. Should you breach that agreement, your partner has the right to invoke divorce and bring legal and social ramifications upon you.

4. However, agreements can be altered if they no longer serve the individuals involved. Agreements are written to serve the people involved, and they sometimes need to be updated in order to address new circumstances. Marriage contracts by default stipulate monogamy, and changing that requires explicit consent from both partners. Some couples agree to alter the wedding vows, and some couples decide to change their agreement after the marriage through discussion, or after an infidelity.

5. Changes to agreements need to be consented to by all parties involved. When someone decides to change an agreement, drastically alter it, or terminate it all together, they must raise the changes to the other parties involved, and the other parties need to consent in order for the agreement to be valid. If two people in a business partnership agree that they have equal say in decisions about their business, one person cannot decide that he will make major decisions for the other, without the other’s consent. A tenant cannot stop paying rent without the landlord’s consent. It sometimes happens that one person decides to renege on an agreement, and if the agreement has legal force, then the agreement holder can bring legal action against the agreement neglector and force them to uphold the agreement. An alteration to an agreement that has not been consented to by all parties is not valid.

6. Manipulating a partner into giving consent is not ethical. If the person who wants to changes the agreement cannot get the other person’s willing consent, they may resort to tactics to wear down their partner’s resistance. Tactics could include 1) making them feel guilty about things their partner has done, 2) gaslighting them into thinking that the agreement was something other than what was agreed to, 3) withholding benefits from their relationship, or threatening to withhold those benefits, 4) using their children, finances, possessions, or their reputation as tools of extortion, 5) Resorting to physical, emotional, or psychological abuse, 6) Generally making their life difficult or unpleasant. Through these means, the person may eventually obtain consent from the other person. Consent obtained under duress is not consent, and using tactics to obtain someone’s consent this way is manipulative, unethical, and not loving.

7. If one person stops upholding an agreement, the other parties involved are not obligated to uphold the agreement. If a business partner starts doing business in a way that is not agreed to by the other partner, then the other partner has the right to terminate that business partner. If a renter stops paying rent, then the landlord has the right to evict the tenant. In a romantic relationship, when one person stops being loving to their partner, then the partner is not obligated to continue being loving to them at his own expense. They may still feel love for that person, and try to talk them into upholding their agreement or come up with a new agreement, but they are not obligated to provide the deliverables in their agreement if the partner has ceased to provide theirs. Of course, people go through illness, depression, disability, stress, or other hardships that make it difficult or impossible for them to do their part in a relationship for a while, however, those cases can be differentiated from ones where the partner is simply uninterested, unwilling, or incapable of upholding their obligations in a relationship.

8. Love does not mean that you have to uphold an agreement that is no longer valid. Love is 1) not harming the one you love, 2) Supporting their personal growth, even if sometimes that means causing them pain and inconvenience, 3) Respecting their freedom and autonomy, even if you do not agree with their choices. Love is not 1) changing your values for the other person, 2) causing yourself harm, 3) restricting your autonomy to a degree that it causes you unhappiness. If someone loves you, they should not be intentionally causing you harm, restricting your growth, or suppressing your freedom. If they are doing that then you have every right to let them know what they are doing and demand that they stop.

9. All needs are not equal. People have different needs in relationships and compromises are sometimes necessary to meet them. However, needs are not all equal, and just because someone has a need, does not mean that one should sacrifice her own needs to satisfy another’s. For example, one partner’s need to work will sometimes supersede the other partner’s need for fun. A need to maintain relationships that are important to one partner may supersede the partner’s need to not be inconvenienced. A need for sexual freedom may not supersede the other partner’s need to feel safe physically and sexually. The importance of each need is relative compared to the needs that are compromised to meet it.

If we think about a relationship as an agreement, the way a business relationship is an agreement, then it becomes clear what can and cannot be done. When an agreement is disregarded, altered, or terminated without discussion or consent, it is a breach of contract and an ethical failure. Just because one is in a romantic relationship or married does not excuse someone from behaving unethically and abusively.

He was married, nineteen years older, and my supervisor at the start-up he founded. We “met” when I published a blog article about Findhorn, and he emailed to tell me that he liked it. This led to a year-long conversation about ecovillages, sustainability, relationships, and working on a start-up together. Then one summer evening, he was in town visiting his mother. I met him for dinner, and as we talked about our work and relationships over spicy salmon rolls, it felt like reuniting with a long lost family member, a father I hadn’t seen since childhood perhaps, or a twin brother separated at birth. We talked until midnight on the porch under the magnolia tree. The next day I wandered about in a daze, recalling his hands on my face, the audacity of his lips on mine. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, and when I tried to describe to my best friend what happened, I was as astonished as she was to hear myself say, “I met Art in person for the first time last night. I love him.”

He had been in an open marriage for 25 years. When he and his wife lived at Findhorn in the 1990’s, she fell in love with someone in the community, and after six months of talking about it, they decided to open their relationship rather than call it quits. At the time, several affairs came to light in the community, heartbroken couples split up, and people left the community. Years later, he recalls how their agreement kept their marriage intact. “I am sure that we would not be together today if we had not opened our relationship,” he said.

I discovered polyamory a few years before I met him after reading “Sex at Dawn,” and then verifying on the internet that it was a thing. My discovery that there was a way to ethically be in more than one romantic relationship at a time was as liberating to me as accepting that I wasn’t going to hell for having sex with my boyfriend when I was twenty. There was nothing wrong with me for loving more than one person at a time. In fact, it felt like a gift that I loved with so little jealousy and so much generosity.

In December I visited him and his family. He and I slept in the guest bedroom while his wife slept in their bedroom. The next morning she made eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast. Their daughters, age 11 and 15, acted as if it was perfectly normal for their dad’s girlfriend to sit down at breakfast with their parents. They left to visit her family for the holidays leaving us to spend a blissful seven days alone together. On New Year’s Day they came back with her boyfriend, John. We all unwrapped presents, and I took photos of us: Guin smiling goofily as her husband and her boyfriend leaned in to kiss her cheeks, Art with one arm around his wife and the other arm around me.

By March, we were talking about moving in together. Having lived in intentional communities for over 25 years, Art was no stranger to the pitfalls entailed, but this was different, because the people involved were in intimate relationships with each other. We would be sharing our beds as well as our home, our partners and our families. How would we split the finances, make sure the house was clean, and dietary differences accomodated? Who would sleep where, when? How would we make decisions and deal with conflicts? There was a lot to figure out, but with everyone being a mature adult and Art and Guin’s experience living in communities, we were excited to try to figure it out.

In September, I packed everything that could fit into my four-door sedan, including my dog, and drove the ten hours to our new home halfway across the country. Art and Guin had found a huge house in the suburbs with six bedrooms, a hot tub, and fenced back yard. It was bigger than anything any of us had lived in, and big enough, we hoped, to contain all of our relationships and all of our dreams.

The first month went fairly well. Guin and John were on vacation at Findhorn, Art and I painted rooms, bought furniture, and confused the neighbors about our relationship (are you the daughter? The wife? What are you?). But once Guin came back and John went home, problems started. She complained that I woke her up when I walked around my room in the morning, that I stacked my shoes incorrectly by the door, and left my mug out on the table after breakfast. She wanted a cat, even though I am allergic to cats. She didn’t bother to tell me that she would be late at work and wouldn’t be able to make dinner. Her back hurt and she wanted to sleep in the master bedroom, even though it was Art’s room and we were supposed to take turns being in it with him. Since I was the new person, I tried to please her and brush off the injustices, even though I knew it was setting a bad precedent.

In October came bad news: John was not moving in with us. He had started a new relationship with a woman back home, and even though he loved Guin, it was no longer working for him to be partnered with a married woman.

Guin was devastated. Ironically, she had encouraged John to pursue this new love interest, thinking that it would help him understand polyamory, but he chose monogamy instead. She cried inconsolably, lamenting the loss of “the love of her life.” She complained bitterly that Art never paid attention to her like John did, and now that he was gone, there was nobody to love her. While I was visiting my parents for the holidays, she flew into a rage when she found him talking on the phone with me, and it took him hours to calm her down. She said she was polyamorous all those years only because of the lack of intimacy n her marriage. She demanded that her husband and I break up so they could work on their marriage.

After recovering from his shock, Art refused. Not only did he not want to break up with me, he felt that her demand was unethical given their agreements.

“If we had two children,” he asked, “and the child that you liked better died, would you give away the other child?”

“Well yeah,” she answered unsympathetically.

“Wrong answer.” He told her.

I found an apartment on the other side of town and we continued our relationship as best as we could with him coming to see me twice a week. His family life was increasingly unbearable. They no longer slept together, and she was angry all the time and they fought whenever he tried to talk to her about our relationship. Every time he came to my place, he arrived shaken from the fight he just had with her, and I spent hours trying to comfort him, counsel him, and imploring him to make some hard decisions.

“I am ready to commit everything, Art,” I said with tears in my eyes, “Are you?”

He was silent. He wasn’t ready to give up on thirty years of marriage. He wanted to be with his children and for them to be with their mother, and he wasn’t ready to turn his life upside down. If only they could talk with a therapist, work out their resentments or their sexual hangups, or even try Ayuhuasca (a psychedelic drug), then perhaps she would understand and accept our relationship. “I don’t want to give up until I have tried everything,” he said.

…

It’s been almost two years since Art went home to his wife and didn’t come back. He tried valiantly to stay in touch with me, braving many fights and abuses in order to see and talk to me.  We tried a six month break where we did not have sexual contact and saw each other rarely, and I spent six months living in a different state where we did not see each other at all. She continued to berate him about talking to me, so we went two months without talking to each other. They went to therapy and worked with two poly-friendly counselors, but could find no compromise that would make both of them happy. She insisted that monogamy was what she needed to stay in the marriage, and he said he needed autonomy to have a relationship with me. But when the reality comes down to defying his wife and living in a disharmonious household, he chose to stay home.

It’s taken me almost as long to recover from the depression that ensued. I suffered frequent migraines, chronic back pain, heart palpitations, and suicidal thoughts. My weight dropped from 116 to 102 pounds. I have had bad breakups before, but nothing this soul-crushing. With yoga, therapy, and a lot of help from my dog, I slowly, slowly, brought myself back to life. In the process, I developed some insights to help me move forward.

I learned that trying to convince someone to do something they don’t want is like leading a calf to slaughter: the more you pull, the harder they pull away. I would love for Art and Guin to love each other and to love me, but I can’t make that happen. Even though I’ve talked to Art many times, I cannot convince him to act differently. Accepting that people are not going to change was the biggest part of my letting go. All I could do was focus on getting myself better, which I did by dating, going to the gym, and trying to eat as much as possible.  

I accepted that sometimes good people do stupid things, and that’s just a fact of life. I don’t understand why people shoot children in schools, why our government doesn’t take action on climate change, or why Trump was elected President. Volumes have been written on why things are the way they are, but the world is still a mess and I’m still disappointing to my mom. Even Buddha or Christ probably broke someone’s heart at some point in their lives. Understanding why Art made the choices he did helped me have compassion and forgiveness, but I still suffered the consequences of those decisions. I cannot prevent bad things from happening to good people, including myself, but if I were to be frustrated with everything I didn’t understand or like, I would explode and not be able to function. “Why me?” is not a productive question, shit happens, and we just have to do the best we can.

The most helpful lesson was that even if my beloved stops loving me, I don’t have to stop loving him. Just like if someone you love died suddenly, you’d continue to love them and remember them, even if they can’t love you back. Love is too strong an instinct to be dismissed, repressed, or restricted, even if it is not returned. If Art doesn’t come to see me, I can still text, “Good morning.” If he doesn’t talk to me, I can talk to him in my head. I can build a shrine or light a candle, and find some expression for my emotions, even if he’s not able to receive it. I can hold my partner a little longer, or take my dog for a longer walk, or call some friends and care about how they are doing, instead of always bemoaning how terrible things are for me. As the Rolling Stones sang, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.”

The fact of the matter is, I am at the source of my love. I can generate it, give it, and attract it, regardless of whether I get it back. In fact, people do this all the time. Babies are born and loved even though we still don’t have universal health insurance, people work even though wages suck, and activists keep acting up even though the coming global warming apocalypse shows no sign of abating. Love is a rose blooming in December. Love is a smiling baby in poopy diapers.

Eventually I found a new partner, and we moved in together after nine months of dating. He is polyamorous and we truly support each other and our relationships with other partners. Sometimes I wake up in the morning next to him, and I cry about everything–the loss of my soulmate, the best sex I ever had, the home I wanted with him and longed for all my life. My partner holds me tightly in his arms and his shirt becomes wet with tears. Then I cry that in spite of everything, I love someone who loves me, someone whose beauty and kindness brought me back to life. I’m moved to tears by the simplest things—the smell of his hair, the warmth of his hand, his quiet and constant devotion.

I learned that relationships work not because they are polyamorous or monogamous, but because of the kindness and dedication of the people involved. I learned that intimacy doesn’t depend on how much sex you have or how much time you spend together, but mutual understanding and compassion. A couple who sleeps in the same bed and lives under the same roof can have no intimacy, while two people hundreds of miles apart interacting only through their phones can feel that their hearts are one. Love is more hardy than it is delicate, like a cactus.

Sometimes I can’t believe how lucky I am, the world seems so full of love, my heart can hardly stand it. It’s the 31st of December, and I’m dancing with friends at a New Year’s Eve party at their house. As we count the seconds to midnight under a swirling disco ball, I feel myself part of a community–people who show up to wish you happy New Year, people who spill champagne on your couch by accident, who call you when you are having a bad day, or when they get their heart broken. We don’t have to live in the same house to be a community, community is anyone who cares. Love is all around us, and all we have to do let it in.

Photo: istock photos

I invite you to suspend disbelief for a few minutes and follow me on a radical thought experiment, or better yet, a radical heart experiment.

First, if you don’t already share this assumption, I ask you to allow the possibility that there is an unnameable Love/Divinity/Oneness/<your word here> that precedes and transcends everything. And further, that the whole point of the Universe is to manifest this … let’s call it Oneness for now … into the physical world.  And counter to this unchanging, undifferentiated Oneness, that the physical world is always changing and all about evolving relationships between separate “parts’.

Are you with me so far?  Okay, good…

If we accept these assumptions and step back from our personal, cultural, and even genetic narratives, then wouldn’t our ultimate purpose as “spiritual beings having human experiences” be to love as deeply and as often as possible?

I’m not talking about a superficial, “Sure, I love everybody!” or “Yes, we’re all children of God” kind of love.  I’m talking about that soul-to-soul connection you may feel with a parent, a child, a lover.  The kind of deep and permanent bond you can always access, regardless of circumstance or proximity.  The great loves we carry with us on our deathbeds and perhaps beyond.  The type of love we reserve for a select few in our “inner heart circle”.

What if we didn’t reserve this love? What if — and here comes the radical part — What if, over the course of a lifetime, we develop 100, 500, 1,000 love relationships where we touch each other from the core of our beings?  What if we all got so good at expressing our own and regarding others’ unique selves and vulnerabilities that we could fall deeply in love at the drop of a hat — with a stranger we meet at an office party, with a colleague we have a 5-minute breakout session with on Zoom, with the cashier ringing up our groceries? What if we were continually open to a depth of love that we repeatedly come away from the briefest of encounters feeling our souls will be connected forever?

Okay, I’m imagining at this point, you’re saying something like “Dream on Art! That may sound well and good, but we live in the real world! You’re forgetting about those annoyances called ‘space’ and ‘time.’ Leaving aside sexual relationships, we don’t have enough hours in a day or the emotional bandwidth to create anywhere near the level of heart-to-heart relationships you’re talking about, much less maintain them! I mean, seriously! Imagine the unceasing longing we would feel for so many loved ones and the unfathomable grief with their inevitable passing!”

Good points!  And so, here’s another radical idea…. What if, the fears and limitations we assume prevent us from loving more deeply and often, such as longing and grief, finite time and great distances — are actually less limiting and fixed than we thought? 

Two examples to explain what I’m getting at… The first comes from Joanna Macy, the beloved Buddhist scholar, systems thinker and peace activist who has been such a passionate advocate for us waking up to our fundamental interbeingness and us leaning into a “Great Turning” towards a more ecological age. She has also been a pioneer in facilitating despair and empowerment work to help many thousands process and release their deep feelings of grief and anger with the current and likely future state of the world.   According to Joanna…

The anguish we feel for what is happening to our world is inevitable … and normal … and even healthy. Pain is very useful. Just don’t be afraid of it. Because if we are afraid, we won’t feel where it comes from. And where it comes from … is love. Our love for this world, that is what is going to pull us through.

Might we also apply this perspective to our loved ones that are far away or have passed on? Might this be a skill we can develop? Might we learn to use “negative” emotions like longing and grief as beacons in the night that can help us navigate back to a sense of gratitude and fulfillment in the love that lies just beneath the surface?

This was confirmed for me personally when my wife (now separated) proposed we open our marriage way back in 1992.  At first, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to deal with all the associated fears and jealousies.  Over several weeks and months I meditated on these emotions and, every day, would ask myself two questions.  The first was “How am I feeling?” and the second was “Okay, how am I really feeling?” because I found it extremely difficult to separate how I was actually feeling from how I was supposed to feel.

To my great surprise, when I followed these feelings to their source, I discovered a wellspring of love for my wife and a deep desire for her happiness. Over time, my fears and jealousies, while never disappearing completely, took a backseat to a new feeling of compersion — empathic joy in her finding happiness with other lovers.

This second example awoke me to the fact that all is not as it seems or as we have been told when it comes to emotions and love relationships.  If feeling jealous was not as compelling and consuming as our cultural narratives have led us to believe, I began to wonder what other societal norms and beliefs are just … stories. I began to wonder what else might be possible in our conscious evolution towards manifesting Oneness into the physical world.

Which brings us back to where we started. Imagine a world in which we are open to love in every moment and learn to not restrict our hearts for fear of the longing, grief or jealousy that might ensue. We would still enjoy householding relationships, but we would not feel strapped to the “relationship escalator” where we find our “one and only” and progress from dating to marriage to death do us part.  Could we embrace all forms of consensual relationships, both in partnership and in community, both proximally and virtually? Could we truly allow ourselves to experience both our essential uniqueness and our fundamental interbeingness with each other and everything?  Could  we sink into our collective purpose and live together like cells in a beating heart?

Humanity is at a fork in the road of our evolutionary journey.  With climate change and social injustice coming to a head, we have a stark choice to make. If we continue along the path of fear and separation, of greed and ego, I am sadly certain we will go extinct as a species and likely take most life on the planet with us.

But if enough of us allow the coming crises to strip away our illusions of separation and ignite a passion to heal ourselves, each other and the planet, I am convinced we will not only make it through this bottleneck, but we will be a fundamentally changed species on the other side.

Sit for a minute and recall the most significant love you’ve experienced and imagine feeling this love — or even something deeper — not with just one or a few others, but with multitudes.  And now imagine everyone you love also loving – and being loved by – countless others.  Imagine the joy, the connection and belonging, and collective purpose this would bring.  Can you feel it?

This is where miracles happen.  This is where everything changes.  This is where our hearts connect and bring into being a global network of love, a web of intimacy so profound and alive that, by comparison, the internet and our vast halls of information will seem like handprints on a cave wall.

For years, I imagined the next step on our evolutionary journey as the development of our collective consciousness and a planetary “sphere of reason” akin to Teilhard de Chardin and Vladimir Vernadsky’s concept of the Noosphere — like the internet come alive.  Now, my gut is saying this Great Turning will be driven less by our heads and more by our hearts — by expanding our capacity and willingness to fall in love with the divinity in each of us, wherever it appears, over and over again, and together birthing a new world.