{"id":3442,"date":"2024-05-29T17:35:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T00:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.morethantwo.com\/blog\/?p=3442"},"modified":"2024-06-04T13:08:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T20:08:37","slug":"some-thoughts-on-polyamory-and-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.morethantwo.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/some-thoughts-on-polyamory-and-abuse","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on polyamory and abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There was a time\u2014a time not too long ago, in fact\u2014I believed that polyamorous relationships were less prone to abuse than monogamous relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I can be forgiven a certain degree of nativity here. When you read books or papers about abuse, or you talk to abuse survivors, or you take courses about domestic partner abuse, or you look at any of the clinical literature on abuse, one theme emerges over and over again: Abusers isolate their victims. Abusers control the social connections of those they abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is such a common and central part of abuse that it\u2019s almost a defining element of the abuse dynamic: if you want to find an abuser, look to the person who tries to control who their partners see, who they make friends with, who they spend time with. Control over a person\u2019s social connections, friendships, and other relationships is so central to the abuse dynamic that it alone can often cut through confusion and lay bare the power structures inherent in abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abuse is about power and control. Control over another person\u2019s social connections is central to control in an intimate relationship, because it makes the survivor more dependent on the abuser, and removes the survivor from his or her support network. This isolation enables everything else, and keeps the victim in the grip of the survivor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image: AnnaPhri<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPolyamory involves multiple people!\u201d thought the naive I. \u201cYou can\u2019t isolate people in polyamorous relationships!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boy, was I ever wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the amazing thing is, I kept on believing this even after my ex-wife demanded that I break up with another partner, and<\/em> forbade me ever to speak to her again. I kept believing this even when my ex Shelly broke up with our mutual girlfriend, and demanded I do the same, telling me \u201ccan you believe she actually thinks she still gets to have you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019ve been doing a lot of soul-searching over the past several years. I am blessed to have found a wonderful therapist with experience in non-traditional relationships and intimate partner abuse, who\u2019s worked with me to unpack a lot of the baggage from my previous toxic relationships. After I was diagnosed with complex PTSD, she\u2019s helped me develop tools to better deal with the lingering consequences of controlling exes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve also spent the past several years examining the ways abuse plays out in non-monogamous relationships. Almost all the available literature looks only at cishet mononormative relationships between two cisgender people in a traditional middle-class monogamous relationship; there\u2019s a smaller body of research on same-sex relationships, but virtually none on ethical non-monogamy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polyamorous relationships are not more resistant to abuse than monogamous relationships. Instead, the same controlling dynamics play out differently. Much of the literature focuses on isolation as a defining element of abuse, but I think it\u2019s more true to say social control is a tool<\/em> of abuse, and it works differently in polyamory than it does in monogamy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In monogamy, the easiest way to control a person is simply to make yourself the sun-center of everything, and the easiest way to do that is to cut off the survivor\u2019s other social connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In polyamory, this same kind of control is more subtle. Rather than \u201cyou\u2019re not allowed to have any other friends,\u201d it becomes \u201cyou can have the friends and partners I approve of.\u201d So instead of \u201cyou can\u2019t have any other friends,\u201d it turns into:<\/p>\n\n\n\n