Polyamory does not mean you get to take the hurt from one relationship and use it like a knife in another.

There once were two polyamorous nesters, let’s call them Ted and Sylvia (because it’s easier for me to steal the names of writers than come up with my own names for characters). Ted and Sylvia had been together for many years, they cohabitated and loved each other very much. They each also had long and short-term relationships with other people, with varying degrees of involvement. For the most part, this went well, but each time they faced problems in their relationship with one another, the repercussions permeated into their other relationships. Sylvia was in the habit of picking fights with all of her partners when she was having issues in her relationship with Ted, and Ted was in the habit of dumping, ghosting or taking a break from all his other partners whenever he faced issues with Sylvia or felt the need to prove to her that he truly loved her.

I know a lot of people will feel the need to immediately state that these people were not truly or at least, not ethically, polyamorous, and perhaps they would be right, but that does not change the fact that this situation seems to come up, in different forms, in a lot of poly setups (and not just ones that are hierarchical). Some of it, in its most benign form, is a bit unavoidable. As a polyamorous person, you may have multiple relationships, but you are still one person, and it’s hard to separate your emotions into neat little compartments. Sometimes a difficult situation with one partner will mean you are a little upset when you are with another partner. Being upset is not necessarily destructive. For instance, about a month ago, I broke up with my girlfriend of one year. There wasn’t so much wrong between us as there wasn’t so much right, but I expected our parting to be extremely amicable, respectful and communicative, because that is how our relationship had been, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t contentious either, it was just abrupt, she wanted to immediately cease all communication forever, even before we could have the talk about how we got there. Okay, I understand, some people need a clean break, I’m not like that, I can remain in the lives of people I used to love in different roles without issues, but it’s okay, people do things differently, I cannot hold that against her and I don’t. I was still upset by the nature of our breakup, though, and I was in my house where I live with my husband with whom I also have a romantic relationship.

So I was sad, about my girlfriend, around my husband, and I talked to him about it, and he provided comfort and the space to talk about it. Does that technically qualify as bringing the issues of one relationship into another? I suppose it could. I mean, maybe my husband had a romantic evening planned for us, and because of my state of confusion, shock and sadness, I didn’t want to partake anymore so he was disappointed. I wouldn’t have wanted that to happen, but it could have. I also suppose you could have the kind of polyamorous setup where you absolutely do not have space to discuss another partner or reel from them in front of another, but I don’t want that, because for me being poly also means that you see and understand that the love I have for the others is as real as the love I have for you and as much as you have the ability to impact my emotional state, they do too, and as ongoing as our love is, that’s how ongoing the other loves are too, after all, to someone else you are the other and that means from time-to-time, I’ll be around you and still be sad because of something that happened with someone else. You would talk to me about it if that someone else was a friend or my mother right? You would be okay with my unexpected emotional state if it were caused by a fight with my father or coworker, right? Then, I wish that you would be able to talk to me about it also when the someone else is another lover. That’s my style, it’s not right or wrong, it’s just how I like it. If it’s incompatible with potential partners, then perhaps we are just incompatible as people.

I insist that’s not the same thing as Ted and Sylvia.

I know that they can both be described the same way, as one relationship permeating into another, or one partner bearing the consequences of another relationship, but what happened with Ted and Sylvia was not about impact, it was about influence. The health of Ted and Sylvia’s relationship had the power to dictate exactly how their relationships with other people would play out, leaving the other people subject to a condition that they did not know and perhaps would not consent to if they had known. I realise there could be those relationships of hierarchial poly where one partner does have veto power and so long as all involved are aware of and in agreement with that, I don’t see how it’s my business to pass judgement, but a lot of times this type of influence plays out more subtly. Sometimes it plays out very simply, as simply as forgetting about other partners when around another. See, with that too, there are gradations.

I know one issue my husband faces in his other relationships is that he tends to end up with people who have relationships in phases. If they are with other partners, or actively involved in conflict with other partners, they suspend other ongoing dalliances or relationships until the situation at hand resolves or ends. Personally, all my relationships are as ongoing as others, but obviously I have more physical proximity to some partners than others, that proximity does not mean that my engagement or communication with the rest of my partners, or my love for them, or my sexual desire for them, lies suspended until we are physically together (and it also does not mean you cannot completely focus on one of your partners for a while, it’s more about dropping completely out of existence for other partners when with one). I think a lot of poly relationships follow the suspension model, wherein you are entirely with the person you are physically with, or completely focused on the one relationship in which you have issues. Sometimes, that may be warranted, if you see a particular partner only once a year for four days, during those four days, it could be okay to be less available to others (than is the norm between you) or if the issues you are facing are in a relationship that impacts a child, for example, you may be entirely distracted and emotionally unavailable, but those are extenuating circumstances, there are many people who practise the suspension model as the norm. Again, if all involved agree to that, I am not required to have an opinion, but we’ve all seen dozens of relationships where all parties haven’t agreed right? I feel like I see a dozen a month (and I am prone to hyperbole so don’t quote my numbers please).

A friend of mine recently left her partner because of this very reason, she felt like her presence in his life was wrest out of the same space as another relationship. She had to make space in his life for herself and the space tended to be filled up immediately, as soon as she wasn’t around him anymore, until she had to beg for attention, which wasn’t freely given either. Another friend of mine is pursuing a situation where the person she is in the early stages of dating cites problems in other relationships to routinely disappear or justify non-communicative absences. It’s like dolling out microdoses of ghosting, except in poly setups it is often contingent upon other relationships to which you are not privy or party. There are circumstances in which those things may be okay to the parties involved, but those circumstances rarely arise or are the reason in relationships with poor communication.

No one said poly was about complete, clinical compartmentalisation. Surely, it could be, but at least for me, I need the space in every relationship to be a person who is impacted by the things that are ongoing in her life. What I do not need, is the power to dictate how one partner’s relationship with another should go, nor would I like to be the person who mistreats other people I love because of what is ongoing between me and another. I reserve the right to take an (informed) moment should I need to reset myself, but not to hurt you because I am hurt. What I do not need to be is the person who takes destructive urges from one relationship to another, who carries around deceit and poor ethics because one relationship is less serious than another. Is it sometimes hard to do this well? Of course. But it is never hard to talk about it. It’s never hard to exercise compassion for and awareness of the other people loved and impacted by your lover. It’s never hard to retain perspective about the fact that your relationships with all people are as real as one another, and deserve that respect, even when one may contain more socially-accepted signifiers of commitment than others. Ted and Sylvia were not necessarily bad at poly, but they were necessarily selfish. They were thoughtless with the potential influence they had on their metamours and dishonest about it. You don’t have to love your metamours, you don’t even have to be friends, but can be a decent fucking human being. Poly is not an excuse to treat people poorly in relationships, it is not an excuse to have lots of relationships which require no effort and offer only pleasures, lying suspended when they require your attention with no reward. Poly is not an excuse to treat people like shit. If you cannot be a decent fucking human being, poly or not, maybe you should take a step back from dating itself.