Try not to do this
With grateful acknowledgement to Suzie, for her insight and contributions
There is an excellent guide to screwing up poly relationships on the alt.polyamory site, which describes in some detail the petty, mean-spirited, malicious things that you can do to help ensure that your relationship fails in the most dramatic, painful way possible.
This is not that page.
Image: Sander Sammy
This is some of the mistakes you can make in a non-monogamous relationship even if you are compassionate, honest, and well-intentioned. Sometimes, building a stable, happy non-monogamous relationship is hard, and there are mistakes that can be made along the road no matter how well-intentioned you may be. Ideally, you should learn from other people’s mistakes rather than your own; it’s a lot less trouble.
Don’t make assumptions about your partner or your relationship; talk about everything
There are people who don’t like talking about relationship stuff. The problem with that is you can easily end up in a situation where you think something’s okay with your partner, or that you’re at some place in your relationship with your partner, or that you’re in a type of relationship that allows some things or doesn’t allow others, and your partner has a completely different idea. Finding that out by talking about it is a lot less dramatic than finding it out by crossing a line you didn’t even know existed. Be clear up front about what your partner expects from you (and about what you expect from your partner), and you’ll be a lot happier, trust me.
Assume good intent
We make the world we live in. If you treat your partner with hostility and distrust, your lover will asssume you don't trust them. If you treat your partner with kindness, and assume the best rather than the worst, you’ll find your relationship goes better.
Sometimes, that’s hard. Sometimes, insecurity and fear can gnaw at you. If you find yourself always assuming the worst, therapy can help.
Beware the Four (Five?) Horsemen
The Gottman Institute claims to be able to predict with a high degree of certainty whether couples who go in for counseling will stay together or blow apart. They’ve identified what they call the “four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse,” which spell doom for romantic relationships: Criticism, Contempt, Defensiveness, and Stonewalling. When one or more of these shows up in a relationship, look out.
I personally think there are more than four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse, but regardless, what it comes down to is when you stop treating your lover with kindness, dignity, and respect, put a fork in it, the relationship is done.
Don’t mock or belittle your partner
I mean, I feel like this ought to be obvious, but here we are. By the way, that extends to things your partner likes that you don’t. Making fun of another person’s takes in movies, music, games, entertainment, clothes, activities, food, and so on, and so on simply because you personally don’t get the appeal? Yeah, that’s shitty behavior.
Let other people enjoy the things they enjoy, even if you personally don’t. C’mon, this isn’t hard.
Beware ‘Protest Behavior’
Have you ever felt you’d really like more of your partner’s time and attention, but then when they do give you attention, you give them the cold shoulder, or act abrasive and prickly, just so they know how you feel?
That’s called “protest behavior.” Basically, it means acting out in negative or destructive ways because you feel disconnected, and you want connection but at the same time you also kinda want to hurt your partner for making you feel disconnected in the first place. It’s the way three-year-olds act when they don’t get what they want.
Unfortunately, that inner three-year-old tends to stay with us. Thing is, you can’t act like a porcupine and expect that your partner is going to want to give you a hug. You don’t create connection by acting abrasive and surly. That doesn’t work.
When you feel disconnected, swallow that inner three-year-old’s impulse to act out, and instead ask for what you need.
Don’t play tit for tat
Another classic, brought to you by your inner three-year-old: “My partner hurt me! If I hurt them back I’ll show them how it feels and then the score will be even. Then we can go back to having a healthy, loving, vibrant relationship!”
Pick one: Getting even by hurting them, or having a healthy, vibrant, happy relationship. You can’t do both.
Don’t try to change your partner to better fit you, or change yourself to better fit your partner
The key to successful relationships is compatibility. Compatibility means who you are meshes well with who your partner is: you want the same things from your relationships, your personalities are a good fit, you share similar values, you hold similar goals.
Nobody is perfectly compatible with anyone else, of course, but you’re far more likely to have a vibrant, healthy relationship with someone who shares 99% of your goals and values than someone who shares 27% of them.
Unfortunately, when you really fancy someone, it’s easy to say “oh, I can just change these things about them and it will be wonderful.” And honestly, it can be tempting to tell yourself “well, is it really that big a deal to change these things about myself if I want this relationship to work?”
That’s fine when you’re talking about how to load the dishwasher or whether to hang wet towels over the shower curtain rod or on the towel rack. It’s less fine when you’re asking someone to compromise things they value, give up hobbies they love, change the way they present themselves, or surrender their autonomy.
Significant disagreements about things like moral values, money, religion, how you spend your free time, how you conduct your relationship, what form you want the relationship to take...these are major incompatibilities. Expecting to change these things in someone else, or having a partner try to change them about you, is bound to cause trouble.
Do not surrender who you are for the sake of your relationship, nor ask someone else to surrender who they are for you.
Learn to assert boundaries
I will admit this is something I struggle with. When you are conflict-avoidant like I am, asserting boundaries can feel like conflict. Sometimes it just feels easier to go along with what your partner wants, even if it’s not what you want. This can be anything from having sex you’d rather not have to allowing your partner to control what clothes you wear or what hobbies you have or how you spend your free time to allowing your partner to yell at you when they’re angry.
It’s hard to have a good relationship if you can’t assert boundaries. It feels easier to just go along to get along, sure, but in the long run, failure to assert boundaries erodes your sense of self and undermines your relationship.
Respect your partners’ boundaries
Just as you have the right to have and assert your own boundaries, so does your partner. If they don’t want to do something, your job isn’t to figure out a way to persuade, cajole, or pressure their “no” into a “yes,” it’s to accept that they don’t want to do the thing.
Understand what boundaries are
Boundaries are not rules you place on someone else. I’ve heard people say things like “I don’t want my female partner to have other male lovers. That’s just my boundary.” No, it isn’t. That’s control.
Boundaries are things you place on yourself: Don’t touch me there. Don’t talk to me like that. They concern yourself: your body, your possessions, your agency. Determining what clothes you wear is a boundary. Determining what clothes someone else wears is control.
Don’t ignore the consequences of your actions—even the unintended consequences
The law of unintended consequence is as universal and as inescapable as the law of gravity, and is certainly more than capable of screwing up your romantic relationship beyond all recognition.
Your decisions and your actions have consequences for both your partners and your relationships, and you bear responsibility for these consequences—even if you feel that your decisions were appropriate and justified, even if you feel that your actions were expressly permitted by the rules of your relationship.
The most common example of unintended consequence can be found in relationships that have “veto” rules permitting one partner to veto another partner’s romantic relationships. Most of the time, veto is a negotiated and mutually agreed-upon rule; the people in a relationship that includes a veto power explicitly give that veto power to their partner.
Yet if your partner falls in love with someone, and you then veto that relationship, you are almost certain to hurt your partner. It does not matter if your partner explicitly agreed to that veto power and explicitly consented to give you that power; when a person loses a romantic relationship, it hurts. That’s the way human beings work. When you hurt your partner, that can and likely will affect your relationship with your partner, even if your partner explicitly gave you that power. When you make a decision affecting your partner, seek to understand how it affects your partner, and take responsibility for that. Say “Yes, I know this hurts you, and I’m sorry.” Acknowledge that your decisions may affect your relationship with your partner, and take responsibility for those effects, even if they were unintended.
Everything you do—whether it’s inviting your partner to some function but not inviting your partner’s partners, or seeking to exclude your partner’s other partners from things that are important to you, or even something as simple as not acknowledging the value your partner sees in his or her other relationships—will affect your relationship with your partner, sometimes in subtle ways and sometimes in ways that are not so subtle. Be aware of the consequences of your decisions as well as your reasons for making them.
Don’t try to micromanage your feelings, or those of your partners
One of the more common problems in a polyamorous relationship arises when one of the people involved, in an effort to feel less threatened or more secure, seeks to control the extent to which his or her partner becomes emotionally involved with another partner. People often feel threatened by emotional intimacy—sometimes, more threatened than by physical intimacy. But trying to micromanage emotions isn’t the way to solve that problem.
Emotions don’t work that way; it’s virtually impossible to pass a “rule” that says “you may be physically intimate with another person, but you may not be emotionally intimate past this point” and have it stick. I mean, c’mon. If you could just pass rules against feelings, why not pass a rule that says “don’t get jeaouls?”
We can’t always predict what relationships will become emotionally intimate, or how they’ll become emotionally intimate; attempting to manage insecurity or fear by micromanaging emotional connections is virtually certain to fail. In fact, sometimes, attempts to micromanage emotional intimacy lead to the next problem, which is:
Don’t expect someone to develop the same relationship with both you and your partner
One way people sometimes seek to address the problem of feeling threatened by emotional intimacy is to say “Okay, emotional intimacy is not a problem, as long as a new partner becomes involved with both of us and loves both of us. That way, nobody feels left out, and nobody needs to feel jealous.”
On paper, it looks great. In the real world, however, it’s not usually successful, because it rests on an assumption that isn’t true—namely, that it’s possible to dictate that two separate relationships can develop at the same rate and to the same degree with two different people.
Let’s assume that a person begins dating a pair of identical twins, and that he or she spends the same amount of time with each of them. Even in that situation, it’s not realistic to expect both relationships to develop at the same rate and in the same way. Relationships, like people, are individuals, and it simply isn’t realistic to think that a relationship with two different people will turn out the same.
People will sometimes do this because they feel that it will protect them from insecurity or jealousy—“I feel threatened when my partner has an emotionally intimate relationship, but if the person my partner is involved with has the same relationship with me, I won’t feel left out, so I won’t feel threatened.” The better approach, I think, is to create a relationship that is inclusive rather than exclusive, but that does not rely on an impossible goal like “anyone new must date both of us and must develop the same kind of relationship with both of us.” Inclusiveness does not have to mean “two relationships that are the same”; indeed, it is possible to construct inclusive relationships in which the new person is only romantically involved with one member of an existing couple, but has developed a strong friendship with the other.
And while we’re at it, the second mistake people make along these lines:
Don’t assume that you can prevent jealousy by making sure you and your partner date the same person
This is one of the most common mistakes made by couples who decide to try out polyamory. The idea is that if one of the members of the couple has insecurity or jealousy issues, the way to keep this from becoming a problem is if both of them date the same person. After all, if your partner is sleeping with someone else, but you’re also sleeping with that person, you won’t get jealous, right?
Wrong.
Jealousy doesn’t work that way. Jealousy isn’t rational. It doesn’t make any difference if you and your partner are sleeping with the same person; if you are insecure, or have unresolved fears of loss or of being replaced, you may still feel jealous if your partner has another lover even if that person is also your lover.
The way to keep from feeling threatened or jealous is to figure out what lies at the root of the jealousy and then deal with that, not by creating relationship structures that are intended to make the jealousy go away. Jealousy is rooted in other emotions, such as insecurity or fear of loss. Dating the same person that your partner is dating does not make those other emotions go away.
Don’t forget your priorities
It is completely natural to become so wrapped up in the joy of a new relationship that you neglect your existing relationships; in fact, it often takes a considerable act of will to pay full attention to your existing relationships.
But doing this is necessary. Neglecting existing relationships in the giddy rush to a new relationship can be extremely destructive…to all of the relationships. Don’t get carried away; pay attention to what you’re doing. Take care to make all of your partners feel loved, needed, and secure.
Don’t start new relationships if your existing relationships have problems
Polyamory is not a way to evade problems in your romantic life. In fact, problems in one relationship have a very nasty habit of spilling over into your other relationships if you’re not careful.
If you have a relationship that is facing difficulty, that is not the time to be starting new relationships. Doing so is likely to create problems in the new relationship and exacerbate the problem in your existing relationship. It’s unfair to both your existing lover and to any new lover to begin relationships under these conditions.
And on the flip side of that same mistake:
Be careful about getting involved with an existing couple who haven’t worked out what polyamory is all about
One almost-certain way to run into heartache is to start dating one part (or both parts!) of an existing couple when each of the members of that couple has a different idea about how their relationship should work.
Any time two people are clearly not on the same page about what is and is not allowed, or have different ideas about how their relationship should be conducted, you’re likely to find trouble. And as often as not, when problems occur between the members of the existing couple as a result, you’ll be the bad guy. It pays to do what you can to see that everyone is on the same page before your heart is on the line.
And while we’re on the subject, the flip side of that same coin is…
Don’t get involved in polyamory if you’re still not sure whether or not you have a poly relationship in the first place, or if you’re not prepared to take responsibility for your actions
It should go without saying, but don’t invite someone into your relationship if you aren’t clear whether or not your relationship permits it. If you are partnered, and you think you might like to explore polyamory, be clear with your partner about it before you bring someone else in. And when you do bring someone else in, be clear that this person’s heart is on the line. You are offering this person physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, or both; take responsibility for that. Don’t let him in, create vulnerability, and then turn around without warning and say “well, my partner and I aren’t sure if we’re poly or not.”
Your partners are human beings, not commodities; if you want partners who will treat you well, consider your feelings, and behave with compassion and respect, you need to treat them well, consider their feelings, and behave with compassion and respect yourself. Get clear in your own head and establish with your existing partner how your relationship works and what the terms of your relationship are; don’t make someone else find this out by trial and error! If you’re not sure whether or not you’re in a polyamorous relationship, you aren’t in a polyamorous relationship.
Don’t assume that needs not being met in one relationship can be met in another
Often, people may fall into the trap of believing that if some need is not being met in a relationship, the solution is to meet that need by seeking another relationship. This is particularly common in primary/secondary relationships, where if the secondary’s needs aren’t being met, the secondary may seek out other relationships to meet them.
In reality, many needs are connected to a person, not to a relationship. If you need A, B, C, D, and E, don’t assume you can have needs A, B, and D met from Joe, and needs C and E from Bob. What you may find is that you need A, B, C, and D from Joe, and need A, D, and E from Bob; getting A from Joe does not mean that you do not also need it from Bob.
Don’t try to force your relationships to fit a predefined mold
Many people believe that communication is Rule #1 in a polyamorous relationship. If that’s true, then Rule #0 is: Let your relationships be what they are.
When someone who is in a polyamorous relationship begins searching for a new partner, sometimes the temptation exists to search for a new relationship that will fit within a predefined form—for example, “I want a bisexual female who will date both my partner and me, who is already partnered, and who likes skeeball.”
Like any kind of romantic relationship, a poly relationship isn’t likely to be quite that tidy. Often, a relationship may fail if the people involved in that relationship try to force it to fit some predefined set of conditions, rather than allowing the relationship to grow in whatever direction is natural.
This is particularly true in situations where an existing couple or group seek out a new relationship that will involve everyone equally—for example, “We are a couple looking for another couple in such a way that all four of us will be romantically involved with one another.” The impulse here can be to try to force the new relationships to fit that pattern even in situations where the relationships, if allowed to grow naturally, wouldn’t take that shape.
But this can happen in one-on-one relationships as well. When people say things like “I want a secondary partner,” they may be committing the advanced form of this mistake; you can’t always predict in advance how intimate a romantic relationship will become. You can’t force a light, casual relationship to become deep and passionate—but you also can’t force a deep, passionate relationship to be light and casual!
A very valuable tool that can be used to avoid this problem is to treat any relationship between two people as though it has three components: the needs of the first person involved, the needs of the second person involved, and the needs of the relationship itself. Often, the relationship itself acts like a third, independent entity, and it’s wise to listen to the needs of the relationship.
Don’t try to isolate your relationships
Nothing exists in a vacuum. Often, people try to isolate their relationships from one another, and try to “compartmentalize” the relationships so that each is a separate, distinct entity. This is usually more common with relationships that follow a primary/secondary model.
Trouble is, it doesn’t work. Each relationship can and will exert an influence on the others. It’s important to keep this in mind, and to understand that the things you do in one relationship have consequences for the others.
On the other hand, it’s also easy to go overboard in the other direction, which leads us to the next poly mistake:
Don’t try to combine your relationships, or force them to act as a single relationship
This happens most often in people seeking to create an intentional, equilateral relationship involving three or four people. The impulse is for all the people involved to want to do everything together—to spend all their time together, go out together, and so on.
The dangers here are twofold. First, it can be suffocating to have no space of your own, to always be surrounded by other people. Second, this tends to try to “force” the relationship to fit a mold it might not fit naturally. It’s quite normal for all the people in a triad or quad to relate to one another somewhat differently, even if the triad or quad is equilateral; and two of the people may enjoy doing something together that the third doesn’t enjoy, or doesn’t enjoy as much.
This is normal and healthy. There’s nothing wrong with letting the relationships develop as they will; not everyone has the same needs, the same tastes, and the same desires. It doesn’t mean the relationship is not equilateral.
Don’t try to separate yourself from your lover’s other relationships
There are all kinds of reasons you might try to separate yourself from your metamours: Fear, jealousy, insecurity, and so on.
The reality of your lover’s other relationships is almost never as bad as the fear makes it out to be. Getting to know your lover’s other partners can go a long way to driving out that fear. The fact is, a person who is involved with someone who’s poly is also in a relationship with that person’s other partners—even if it’s not a romantic relationship.
If you see those other partners as competitors, it becomes easy to dehumanize them, and the impulse is to vilify and distrust them. This tends to cause a great deal of stress on your relationship with your lover; it also tends to cause you to go crazy.
Once you see your lover’s other partners as human beings, instead of as competitors, it eases any stress you may be experiencing. It also helps you to establish healthy, happy relationships with them.
Look, nobody’s saying you have to like everyone your partner dates. In fact, how to handle situations where you don’t is one of the Unsolved Problems of Polyamory. But they’re still people, they still deserve some level of respect, and you’re unlikely to have a good outcome if you vilify them.
Don’t triangulate
You have a problem with your partner’s other partner? Take it up with them. Don’t expect your partner to act as your messenger or intercessionary. We’re all adults, right?
Don’t expect human beings to be rational all the time
We are inherently irrational beings. This is a part of the nature of man. Irrational responses are a part and parcel of who we are as human beings, and these things can’t be addressed rationally.
You may find some of your partner’s behavior or emotional response to be irrational in any romantic situation. This is not necessarily bad; love is not rational. Nor is jealousy.
Remember that you are not always rational, either. Do not attack, browbeat, or berate your partner for behaving emotionally; do not expect that your partner will always act in accordance with reason and logic. It’s not going to happen.
If your partner is acting irrationally, you must still be compassionate and respectful—even if you disagree with things your partner says or does! Treat your partner’s feelings with respect and courtesy. Try to find out why your partner feels the way he or she feels. Often, there may be some underlying reason that is not obvious; if you want to address the feeling, it’s necessary first to find out where it comes from.
People often know that it’s important to be compassionate when faced with jealousy, but it’s important to remember that all of your partner’s feelings are important. Even positive feelings, such as love or new relationship energy, can cause your partner to behave irrationally. Try to understand what your partner is feeling, and why, when you address any problems this behavior may bring up.
Develop good communication and conflict resolution skills
This one is obvious, really, but it bears repeating. A relationship is not doomed until the people in it stop talking to each other and start breaking dishes instead.
Talk to your partner. Honestly. All the time. About everything.
Don’t make unilateral life-altering decisions
Partners should include one another in life-altering decisions. Big announcements of major changes in one’s life can often make one’s partners feel alienated.
Talk to all your partners. Don’t relay information through your other partners
This never works. Seriously. Information that passes through an intermediary never quite gets to its destination without getting mangled. If you need to talk to someone, go directly to that person.
And on a related note:
Don’t rely on relayed information
Never trust that what one partner says about what another partner said is entirely accurate (even if no skewing was intended). Go to the source and get confirmation.
Don’t move too fast
There is no such thing as instant polyamory. Don’t think you have to have sex on the first date. Don’t show up with a moving van on the second date. And don’t call it a “relationship” till you’ve actually dating a while. Try letting things grow naturally, and build something lasting instead.
Polyamorous relationships are not different in kind from monogamous relationships, and the beginnings of any relationship are fraught with peril. Take it slow.
Don’t ignore that little voice in your head
This is an easy mistake to make in any kind of relationship, not just a polyamorous relationship. Sometimes, your heart may tell you one thing even when your head tells you another; even if you can’t put your finger on any rational reason why, it’s often a good idea to listen to your heart when it suggests that something might be wrong.
Just because you can’t find a rational reason why something is wrong doesn’t necessarily mean everything is OK. A wise course of action is to start with the assumption that the little voice is trying to warn you about something you have not consciously become aware of, and to delve deeper into figuring out what that may be.
The little voice is not always right, of course, But don’t write it off just because it’s not rational.
Don’t be afraid of change
Often, especially in a primary/secondary relationship, we may have a subconscious expectation that somebody new can come into our lives and our lives will continue pretty much as they were, undisturbed.
But any romantic relationship is going to leave a permanent mark on the people involved. Any time you introduce someone into your romantic life, even as a secondary, that person can and likely will alter your life permanently.
This is a feature, not a bug. If you bring people into your life, don’t expect to continue on untouched.
Don’t assume every problem you encounter is related to polyamory
When you’re involved in any non-traditional relationship model, it can sometimes be tempting to blame every problem you may encounter on that model. This seems particularly true in polyamory, where it might be easy and tempting to blame the polyamory for whatever trouble you may encounter—“If we weren’t poly, we wouldn’t have to deal with this!”
But that’s not necessarily so. Even traditional, monogamous relationships face their fair share of challenges and difficulties.
For example, if you’re in a poly relationship and you feel that you aren’t getting enough of your partner’s attention, it might be tempting to say, “If you weren’t also involved with so-and-so, I wouldn’t be feeling neglected.” But in any relationship, situations exist that may distract your lover’s attention—work, family, and so on. The problem in this case isn’t really polyamory—it’s time management.
Isolating the root cause of the problem, rather than simply blaming the problem on polyamory, is an excellent way to resolve relationship difficulties.
Make sure your actions and your intentions match
This is a valuable rule to apply to any relationship, but it’s particularly important in a poly relationship.
For instance, if you claim to accept or like your lover’s other partner(s), but in practice you manage to avoid acknowledging the other partner(s) as much as possible (such as never asking about them, never taking any initiative to nurture even the most casual or friendly relationship with them, falling silent or changing the subject whenever your lover mentions them, etc.), then you’re sending a clear message that you wish the other partner(s) didn’t exist.
This is very difficult on the lover-in-the-middle, which is made much worse if you deny that you’re doing this.