Some see me as a wife, lover, mom, sister, daughter, coworker, or friend. Married 19 years and we are poly. I love my family, history, photography, art, music, puzzles and nature.
“So, wait - you only date one person at a time, on purpose? Okay. But - FOREVER?! On purpose? You both talk about it and agree to that? You both WANT that? Is this - I think I saw this on TV one time. Is this, like, part of a religious sect?”
“Rhonda, I just realized - I don’t think I’ve seen your husband out with another woman for, gosh, it must be years now. Is everything ok with him?”
“Aren’t you worried you’ll become totally codependent and wrapped up in each other and not be able to put energy into other important relationships in your life, like close friends and family?”
“Monogamy, huh? Kinky.”
“Want me to set you two up? … oh, my bad. I don’t know a lot of monogamous people. How does that work, anyway?”
“So you never date anyone else? Ever? Do you at least have sex with other people? … wow. I could never do that.”
Hopefully you'll have more time to prepare for this conversation than this author's metamour did! And you'll probably need answers for these tough questions.
1. ‘Aren’t You Being Exploited? / Aren’t You Exploiting Your Partner?’
People often assume that a polyamorous person is taking advantage of their partners, using it as an “excuse” to sleep around or avoid commitment.
Thanks to binary gender stereotypes, women and people who don’t currently have more than one partner tend to hear, “Why are you letting your partner do that? You’re being exploited!” Men and people who do currently have multiple partners more often hear “Aren’t you taking advantage of your partners? Why can’t you commit to anyone?”
2. ‘Isn’t This Immoral and Wrong?’
Some people have a knee-jerk reaction to polyamory as “wrong” because it violates what they’ve always thought of as a core ethic of relationships: that you are sexually faithful to your partner.
It can help to talk about the different ethics that are important in your relationships. What does it mean to you to be responsible and caring toward your partners?
3. ‘But What About Our Grandchildren?’
Whether you have children or not, your parents are often going to be concerned about how polyamory will affect their grandchildren.
We don’t have a lot of studies yet, but what we do have says that a polyamorous family can be just as healthy for kids as a monogamous one.
4. ‘Do We Have to Meet Your Other Partners?’
Planning how to introduce multiple partners to your family can be tricky, especially if they’re very resistant to the whole idea. This is especially true if they’ve already met one of your partners, on the assumption that you were monogamous.
With holidays approaching, it’s tempting to want to push your family quickly to a place where you can bring all your partners to the big family gathering. In some families, this might work, but many will need more time to adjust to the idea.
5. ‘Is This Just About Sex and Perversion?’
You’re probably already aware that many people hear polyamory and think, “ORGIES!” We have to tell people over and over: “It’s not (all) about the sex.”
Unless your family is unusually open with each other about each other’s sex lives, though, this is one you can shut down with “Mom, our sex life is private, and I’m sure you don’t really want to hear about it.”
You can set the boundary here and defend it as much as you need to.
“Do you ask [monogamous sibling] about their sex life? Then why would you ask about mine?” “How about, instead of imagining us all having sex together, you imagine us all talking about who’s doing which household chores this week? Because believe me, that happens a lot.”
6. ‘When Will You Grow Out of It?’
Ah, every queer person’s favorite phrase!
As with many identities and choices that don’t follow the path your family expected of you, they often comfort themselves – and dismiss you – by asserting that it’s just a phase.
“You’ll grow out of it” is infuriating because it takes a deeply personal thing you’ve revealed to them and turns it into just another sign of “immaturity.” It’s also not something you can actually argue against.
Neither of you knows the future, so there’s no way this conversation can go but “No I won’t!” / “Yes you will!” until someone gets bored.
Instead of having the pointless future argument, it’s productive to focus on two things that are in the present: how you each feel, and how your family is going to act.
Often, “you’ll grow out of it” stems from a fear of losing the future they’d dreamed of for you. By telling themselves that it’s just a phase, they don’t have to process any grief and loss they feel about your future.
Families often don’t realize how their attempt to protect their own feelings is incredibly invalidating to you. If you feel safe addressing feelings like this with them, calling out that dynamic can be a powerful way to move forward.
7. ‘How Will I Explain This to [Extended Family, Co-Workers, Whoever Else]?’
The surface question here is easy to answer: “Well, you can say everything I just told you: It’s a loving and open relationship involving more than two people.” But what’s underneath is often concern about being judged by others for your lifestyle choices. It also may be that they’re using “what others will say” as a way to express their own discomfort without saying so directly.
Boundaries are good here. It’s not your job to tell them how to navigate their other relationships.
The best approach here is to give them resources for learning about polyamory, and then let them decide how much and how to explain things to other people in their lives.
Your family may not get it right away, and that’s okay.
I would love a little tattoo like this. I feel like poly things like this are kinda like secrets wide out in the open. Like most other people see it as infinite love, but others will know what it stands for.
Polyamory is tough. I’ve lost dozens of great catches to it. I’m grateful I’ve found a few people who understand or try and work it for me, but I can’t help but feel there’s this stigma about it meaning I want to have ten partners at a time. Monogamy is great if it works for you. But I see every partner as different, and I can’t measure the amount of “love” I need to be satisfied. If I am compelled I am compelled.
I do like having a few friends here and there that due to circumstances, we can’t be together for long…but we can still be intimate and hang out when the stars align…but for a while now that’s been all I can hope to achieve. Perhaps its been a good training ground for me…or good while I learn more about myself and my sexuality, but its starting to grow thin.
I also feel most of the polyamorus people I’ve met tend to want those ten partners which they spend tiny amounts of time with…
If that works for some folks great…but I’m looking for commitment. I don’t -need- multiple partners. I want the ability to see and discover new people in a relationship, should it interest me.
That all coupled with most of my suitors being straight dudes who wanna experience sucking cock or people just generally fetishizing me as a priority or seeing me as poly and thinking “oh, a play partner I can pull out every now and then” really is stressful.
Polyamory has made me lonely and even took my last relationship away from me…but I wouldn’t change the way I love even if it means I’m going to have to be a lot more picky and patient.
It’s all the same. Without love I turn into that work machine. And it’s not so bad…as I continue to grow my businesses. But it’d be nice to have a partner or partners in crime to take the edge off.
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