Free Love Isn’t Free

In a previous post, I speak about how self-comfort and expression can bring us to “accidental” monogamy, falling into the relationship of a lifetime. But isn’t this the age of “free love”? Isn’t monogamy an old-fashioned idea? Shouldn’t we be able to love who we please, as we please, and know that love is shared by all of us?

Well, not exactly.

I believe that people can have beautiful monogamous relationships. And people can have beautiful polyamorous relationships. But if the opportunities for growth are amplified exponentially in a polyamorous relationship, so are the challenges.

I’m not an expert, but here’s what I’ve seen, mostly from a place of “Well, that was clear why THAT blew up” as well as some personal experience.

So what is this thing, anyways?

When I speak of polyamory, I mean “relationships between more than two people.” Frequently people use the word polygamy to describe multi-partner relationships, and although the word is technically correct, it tends to have connotations in the Western World of relationships with a single man partnering with multiple women, or polygyny. Ironically, the most successful polygamous relationships tend to be polyandrous – one women with multiple men – not polygynous.

I’ve seen polyamorous relationships fall into two categories: pivots and partnerships.

With a pivot relationship, one person is the central point – the pivot – with two or more peripheral partners. The peripheral partners may or may not share time with each other as well as the pivot partner, but the pivot is the focus of the relationship.

With a partnership relationship, there is a primary partnership, with one or both partners exploring. It can look like two pivot relationships, where each partner has their own peripheral partners, but there is always the strength of the link between the two partners that the peripheral partners acknowledge and respect.

3… 2… 1… hang on!

In a monogamous relationship, growth patterns are readily recognizable. As people get closer, their elbows bounce into each other. We discover each other’s sore points, we react, reflect, adjust, and expand. We grow together.

With polyamorous relationships, the growth is exponential. There are a lot more elbows involved. Even when there’s only one more person in the relationship, the number of individual relationships balloons.

Each person has a relationship with themselves. (“What do I think of myself?”) Then they have a relationship with the other people. (“What do I think of them?”) Then they have a relationship with the relationship itself. (“What do I think of us?”)

So, for a monogamous relationship, there are six relationships – three per person (self, other, relationship). Add one more person, and suddenly there’s twenty-one relationships between three people (self, other A, other B, relationship with A, relationship with B, relationship between A and B, and overarching relationship – times three people). Four people involve sixty relationships.

There’s lots of different perspectives there, and the growth that comes with incorporating each of them.

In polyamorous relationships, growth proceeds at the pace of a rocket. And if one of the partners isn’t ready to grow at that speed, it can throw the whole relationship off course. When someone grows, their relationship with themselves changes, and that changes their relationships with everyone else. Anyone who is in relationship with that person will have to adjust themselves, to maintain a new, grown relationship with that person.

The necessity of gratitude and awe

In both pivot and partnership relationships, the key ingredients that make polyamory work are gratitude and its bigger sibling, awe. That sense of wonder and amazement at being part of this opportunity is what keeps the relationship together.

In a pivot relationship, the pivot is growing from these experiences with the peripheral partners. In order for the peripheral partners to maintain these relationships, they have to see the value the other relationships give the pivot. The glow of the pivot, created by expanding and growing, makes it all worthwhile. Each peripheral partner needs to be grateful for the input the other relationships provide.

This is why many successful pivot relationships are polyandrous. The glow of a pleased, expanding, evolving woman is something magical to men who appreciate the female form. If they don’t feel jealous towards each other, men tend to want to do everything they can to keep their collective woman in perpetual pleasure and growth. It simply feels amazing. It’s a different dynamic from polygynous pivot relationships, which culturally have become power structures instead of growth structures.

In a partner relationship, those partners must be in awe of each other. Each one has to be in a space where they are simply blown away by the fact that their partner chose them. This awe is what makes the bedrock of the foundation, and is why the peripheral relationships for each partner are peripheral. If the partnership is based solely on love and appreciation, there is always room for someone to come in who inspires awe as well, and the original relationship is destroyed.

So… don’t go there unless you’re really ready.

That would be what I see in some ideal world. But what I see is that many polyamorous partnership relationships started monogamous out of need fulfillment, not out of awe. As the needs are fulfilled, one or both partners feel safe exploring their newfound confidence, only to discover that their confidence was built off of having their partner’s full attention. The energy being sent to other people reignites the neediness from the other partner as they no longer feel that attention coming from their partner. Resentment grows, and the relationship cracks.

Alternatively, a pivot introduces themselves as polyamorous, and typically that comes from a place of fearing intimacy. They don’t value the peripheral partners and is just looking for need fulfillment without caring about the costs.

The only people who I can imagine having a chance at being successful in open or polyamorous relationships of any depth are people who absolutely love their own energy and feel no need to be with another, yet value the presence of others.

In a pivot relationship, they are grateful for the value and depth their peripheral partners bring to their lives and love the connections between each member. In a partnership, their partner appears from nowhere and blows them away when they already had a fulfilling life. Any attempts to do this before feeling self-fulfilled will, at best, lead to painful growth experiences and, at worst, destroy the relationships.

So… totally doable. A helluva painful experience if not done consciously. I’ve seen verrrry few people do them consciously, and a lot of explosions. But the growth and expansion potential is huge.