Game Changers

Image: Suzanne D. Williams

Unpleasant truth: Change happens

When you have a good thing, of course want to keep it. For a lot of polyamorous folks, that might mean hierarchy, naming one relationship is designated as being The Primary One, to which all other relationships must be subordinate. It’s a seductive idea, but has deep roots in insecurity, fear of losing a partner’s time or attention, a sense of entitlement, even good old-fashioned monogamous conditioning that says a person can “really” only love one other person.

And, I’ve made no bones about the fact that I am deeply suspicious of protecting relationships with rules and walls. I don’t think they work in the real world, and I think they’re often unnecessarily and pointlessly cruel to new partners coming into a rules-bound relationship. But today I’d like to take a slightly different tack, and talk about the game changer.

The game changer is the relationship that comes along into your nice, tidy world and turns everything upside down. It’s the relationship that changes the familiar landscape of life, rearranging the furniture in new and unexpected ways. Game-changing relationships are rare, but when they happen, they happen like tornados, leaving a trail of upset applecarts in their wake.

Game-changing relationships cause people to pull up stakes and move to the other side of the country. They make people do things they never thought they’d do: die-hard opponents of marriage might find themselves in wedlock, otherwise reasonable men could end up watching chick movies starring Sandra Bullock. They are unpredictable and chaotic, and when they happen things change.

Any relationship brings the possibility of a game-changing event. Even small things can become game changers. And for a lot of folks, that’s scary. The idea that your partner might meet someone and start a relationship that disrupts what you have? Yeah, of course that’s scary! And just to make matters even more uncomfortable, new relationships can change things for you in ways you can neither predict nor control and you might not even benefit from. Something that changes your partner’s life in wonderful and amazing ways might change your life in ways that are rather less wonderful and amazing.

So it might feel very compelling to seek reassurances that things won’t change when your partner starts new relationships, or at least won’t change in ways that you don’t like. It can feel very reassuring to extract a pledge from your partner that you will always have some measure of control, by being able to tell him to end any new relationship that he starts or by being told that you will always come before anyone else.

The psychological security that these agreements give is powerful, no doubt about it. But is it real? Bluntly: No. It’s not even a very good illusion.

I mean, think about it. Game-changers happen even in monogamous relationships. I doubt many people wake up one morning to say “wow, you know, things are going really well at home, I’m cozy and happy. I think I’ll have an affair!” Game-changers are unpredictable, and when they come along, no rules—not even monogamy—can stop them. People confronted with a game-changing relationship will not be likely to abide by old rules and agreements; the whole point of a game-changing relationship is that it reshuffles priorities and rearranges lives.

Anatomy of a game-changer

Let’s start here: Game changers are not necessarily romantic relationships. A promotion at work, a pregnancy, a car accident, someone getting fired, a death in the family—all these things can be game-changers that permanently and irrevocably alter lives in ways that can’t be predicted. (I’ve read that financial stress is the single most common reason for divorce, even more common than infidelity, and I believe it. Nobody wants to say “Hey, I’ll marry you as long as we don’t have problems with money,” but financial problems are far more potent game changers than most folks realize.)

We don’t usually hear about people saying “I want veto power over any job you take or promotion you get.” People talk about things like career changes or job relocations with their partners, and if they’re reasonable they listen to their partners’ feedback, but we would probably scratch our heads a bit if someone insisted on that kind of veto power.

Game changers come in many guises; anything that changes the dynamic of a relationship can be a game changer. And often, game changers are less about the thing—the new partner, the new baby, the new job, the illness in the family—and more about what the shifting load reveals about the flaws and stresses in the relationship.

If you look at why people have affairs, the top reasons include boredom, disconnect from a spouse, feeling unappreciated or unwanted, or feeling unloved. That’s not why polyamorous people have multiple relationships, of course, but it does illustrate a point: Sometimes, a relationship that seems happy and stable, even a relationship that the people involved describe as good, can have hidden fault lines that come to light when things change.

In polyamory, game-changing relationships, in my experience and observation, are often less about the game-changer than they are about the existing relationship. The game-changing relationship might not even be all that great. What’s important about it is what it reveals about the existing relationship. A person who, for example, feels trapped or confined in an existing relationship, and maybe isn’t even consciously aware of feeling that way, might start a new relationship with a partner who offers a level of freedom or agency that seemed impossible, and boom, there’s your game changer.

Adapt or perish

We all implicitly understand, at least on some level, that life is full of change, and sometimes that change isn’t what we asked for. We all understand that no promises of “forever” can really stand up to the #39 bus with bad brakes that careens through the front of the house and puts someone in a coma. These are the risks we take when we open our hearts to someone else; anyone who can’t take the risk shouldn’t play the game. Relationships aren’t for cowards.

So we try to insulate ourselves from that fear by creating the illusion that no matter what happens, we will be in control. This idea of control is powerfully seductive. It’s one of the reasons that people are often more afraid of flying than of driving, even though driving is far more dangerous; we feel more in control in a car, even though if someone runs a red light and broadsides us, our real control over that situation is pretty much nonexistent.

“Yes, you will always be #1” is true until it isn’t, and there is no rule that can change that. If someone comes along who your partner genuinely does love more than he loves you, whatever that means…well, agreements aren’t binding on feelings. Game-changing relationships change things; that’s what they do. I get the desire not to lose what you have because your partner meets someone new; that’s totally reasonable. But here’s the thing: You can’t tell your partner “okay, sure, yes you can have other relationships, but only if they change nothing for you.”

So what do you do?

There is a different approach, but it requires courage. You stop hanging onto what things are, and adapt to inevitable change when it happens. You grant yourself the courage to say, “My relationships can change, and that is OK; my partner and I can still build things that will make us both happy even if they don’t look exactly the way they do now.”

That’s the starting point. From that point, the next step is to say “Even if things change, I have worth; my partner will seek wherever possible to make choices that honor and cherish our connection, whatever changes may come, because I add value to his life. My goal is to build a connection with my partner that is resilient enough to last through change, flexible enough to accommodate change, and supportive enough to create a foundation that welcomes change, without fear or doubt. Change is the one essential feature of life; what I have now I will cherish, and what we build tomorrow I will also cherish, and I will do so without fear.”

Like I said, it takes courage. Letting go of the idea that the way things are now is the way they should always be is gutsy. But then, life rewards courage. The game changer that turns everything upside down might just leave you in a better place than you are now; you might find that rearranging the furniture makes the room even more appealing to you. The illusion of control that rules give you is false; the real control you have is the control you exercise as a partner, not a dictator. It comes from working together to express the things you need even while change is happening all around you, not by trying to prevent change at all.