#polyfacts

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Polyamory is about loving someone who encourages you to share that love with others.

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Myth: Polyamory is just a new fad

Polyamory isn’t a new concept—in fact, it has a longer history than monogamy. Throughout the Bible and other ancient texts, most men had multiple wives. Only through the evolution of family structures, agriculture, and industrialization, did the idea of one partner for each person become the ideal. Still, around the world, many tribal communities practice many forms of polyamory, including polyandry, where one woman marries multiple men.

Polyamory is not immature, cheating, miserable, or a newfangled idea. It is also not the right choice for everyone. Each person must explore and understand what works best for them. This can include having a primary partner plus casual partners, allowing for occasional sexual hookups, having no primary partner but many equal partners, and a wide range of options in between. All of these relationship styles can be good, healthy, and long lasting. No matter what kind of relationship you choose, make sure you are mindful to embrace the love that is right for you, not just one that adheres to the status quo.

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Myth: Polyamorous people are less emotionally mature or afraid of commitment

"Why can’t you just pick?” is a statement that many poly people know far too well. Our society often depicts having multiple partners as “youthful exploration” or a sign of a mid-life crisis. Poly people are supposedly just sowing their wild oats until they age, mature, and finally settle down.

The truth is polyamorous people come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. In fact, many polyamorous people grew up engaging exclusively in monogamous relationships. It wasn’t until they matured that they were able to express their full range of needs, work through jealousy and insecurity, and embrace the possibility of having multiple partners.

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Myth: Polyamorous people just haven’t met “the one.”

We all grow up so focused on finding our one true love that trying to wrap our heads around having more than one perfect match can often be confusing. Are polyamorous people just buying time until they find their real soulmate? Isn’t true love synonymous with monogamy? Many people feel as though they should be “enough” to satisfy their partner.

Polyamory asserts that no one person could, or should, have to meet all of your needs and desires. That is a heck of a lot of pressure to put on a single human being! So many people grow tired of one person’s routine, long for their partner to hold different interests or beliefs, or simply are not having all of their physical or emotional needs met. So, what do they do? They beg their partner to be better, to think and do things differently, all in the hopes that, maybe then, all of their needs will be met. In reality, this rarely works; instead, it usually creates resentment between partners and an overall sense of dissatisfaction. With polyamory, different partners can satisfy different needs, leading to a genuine sense of fulfillment.