Polyamory, page 38
I was in a secondary relationship of 20-plus years. We supported one another through some big life transitions. We both knew we could not live together—we’d drive each other nuts in a week. A long weekend together was about all we could handle. She would say, “We have a great time, and he packs up his dirty laundry and goes home.” I would say that our polyamorous arrangement allowed us to appreciate and enjoy the ways we got along well, while not stumbling much over the ways we did not.
This example points to a nice feature of polyamory. There are many people, like the ones in this account, who love one another and enjoy one another’s company but whose compatibility wouldn’t survive getting married, or living together 24/7. Polyamory enables those relationships to find their own shape and function in their own unique way.
Let’s return to our imaginary polycule. Ralph, Anne’s secondary partner, isn’t seeing anyone else at the moment, and that may lead to some challenges. No matter how egalitarian and warm the primary partners in a polycule are, there will be occasions when Anne cancels something at the last minute that Ralph was looking forward to, and this will happen for reasons that are entirely out of his control. Furthermore, he may or may not know the circumstances of the change in plans, and even if he did, he might not agree with the decision or how it was made. This sets up the possibility that Ralph might feel resentful, sidelined, and a lack of control. Depending on what Ralph’s strengths are, he might thrive with this arrangement. Much will depend on how reliable and dependable Anne is in her relationship with Ralph, and how skilled she is at managing the challenges of being a hinge.
There are a few ways people can set up themselves to better handle the challenges of a secondary relationship. For instance, having a lot of other interests can be a huge help. For some secondary partners, dating other people gives them plenty to do. For someone in Ralph’s situation, who doesn’t currently have another partner, much will depend on how much time he likes to spend alone, how strong his other social supports are, how prone he is to taking schedule changes personally, and how he handles rumination and negative thoughts when his feelings get hurt. If he is dissatisfied with the amount of time he spends with Anne and wishes for more, that will make things harder.
Secondary partners will need to contend with the agreements their partner has made with their primary, and those agreements may have been designed specifically for the purpose of limiting the amount of time they spend with their secondary partner and how. For instance, primary partners may agree to have no overnights with secondaries, limit the number of dates they have in a week, or break off the connection if the other partner ever starts to feel threatened. If Sam and Anne have agreements of this kind, Ralph may be challenged to manage some complicated feelings about both the agreements and the fallout from them.
Jill is also a secondary partner, in her relationship with Sam. But Jill has several other partners, including her nesting partner, Ramona. I wouldn’t want to suggest that Jill will certainly struggle less than Ralph, because it is still possible to struggle with difficult emotions and negative thoughts even if your other commitments keep you busy. Nonetheless, many secondary partners find that it helps to have plenty to do, including having other partners with whom to be intimate. Again, much of what Jill experiences will depend on the quality of connection and security of the emotional bond between Jill and Sam, and how Sam handles the role of hinge.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of imagining what might have been: If only we could have a few more nights a week, or if only we could go on that trip together. Rather than getting caught up in these fantasies, secondary partners will need to take a clear-eyed, pragmatic look at how it benefits them to be in a relationship, exactly as it stands, and without any “if onlys.”
If someone has difficulty controlling their thinking, they might collapse into anger and resentment, or they may obsessively fantasize and ruminate about the positive points of the relationship. The following are some examples of things a secondary partner might tell themselves about their secondary status and situation. You will notice that some of these messages are likely to contribute to feelings of dissatisfaction, and others are likely to help them stay grounded and soothe themselves.
I wish Anne and I could spend more time together. It’s so unfair how Sam can just call her up any time and she’ll do whatever he wants. I feel so good about myself, and her, when we’re together, and I want more. I wish my entire life were more like the time we spend together, and I really resent that she divides up her time the way she does. It is a little easier to bear the time I spend away from her if I let myself get a little annoyed with her. Why does she put up with all those rules anyway? It’s not fair.
I love spending time with Anne. Sometimes I wish we could spend a night together, but honestly, I don’t know for sure that would be as much fun as it sounds. There are some real advantages to limiting the time we spend together, as frustrating as that can be. For one thing, it keeps things hot; we don’t see enough of one another to get bored. For another, we don’t have to manage a lot of business. We can just play. If we spent more time together, it would be a lot less like a mini-vacation. I’m sure I’d start to notice some of her shortcomings; after all, everyone has them.
I wonder when I’ll have spent enough time with Anne to begin to really see her more negative side. Right now, we’re squarely on the honeymoon. It’s blissful to be together, but I know she’s human. If I think about it, having some limitations on how much time we can spend together probably serves us well. Actually, when she stayed a little longer last time, I did notice it was a little hard to think up things to talk about after dinner. Plus, if we spent more time together, she might start to notice some of my shortcomings, too. I guess it’s not all bad that we don’t have to go there.
I did okay without Anne up until now; what did I used to do with all my time? I think I’ll make a list of the things I enjoyed doing before we met and start doing them again. I’ve gotten a little overly focused on having fun with her, but I know there is more to life. I don’t like how I feel when I’m waiting for her to have time for me. I’m going to get busy doing other things and just enjoy it when I’m able to see her.
When secondary partners feel powerless, it can be hard to avoid getting reactive. They may issue ultimatums, for instance, to try and regain some control: “If I can’t see you at least once a week, this isn’t going to work for me.” Unfortunately, issuing ultimatums from a power-down position is a losing proposition, and of course, we don’t always get our way, so while I support the differentiation it takes to figure out what you like and do not like, turning it into an ultimatum for someone else often ends in disappointment. When I have a client or friend who is considering issuing an ultimatum because they believe their situation is untenable, I’m also curious to know if that’s actually true. New love can make us feel desperate, and that desperation doesn’t ever feel good. But what if, instead of issuing an ultimatum, you sat with it a little bit and tried to discover what you can actually tolerate. You might find out that, if you can get enough focus on your own life and your own interests, you actually don’t need to see that partner once a week.
You could also decide to share your feelings, thoughts, and preferences with your partner so they are aware of what you are experiencing, and what you would prefer; it is surprising how often secondary partners don’t take the risk of expressing their desires, or do so only when they are upset. Discussing things honestly and from a position of internal personal empowerment will certainly result in learning something about your partner. They may show warmth and understanding regarding your experience, in which case even if they choose not to accommodate your preferences, you might feel connected, supported, and satisfied with the relationship. Of course it is also possible that you might realize you don’t have much respect for your partner’s way of responding when you discuss your feelings and preferences. This could result in a realization that you’re not interested in being in this relationship with these particular challenges, in which case you may decide to end the relationship on your terms. In any number of ways, and often-times, I’ve seen huge personal breakthroughs come as a result of sitting with discomfort, communicating honestly, and letting things evolve. So often, in fact, that I highly recommend the project of challenging your assumptions and really working on finding ways to hold steady.
Nonprimary partners often have to deal with a lot of uncertainty. That works best for someone who is good at rolling with the punches, releasing attachment to particular outcomes, and not taking things personally. Sometimes the primary partner asserts their primacy with lots of rules, vetoes, emotional emergencies, and sudden and/or dramatic changes of plans. This can end up being pretty painful, even untenable, for the secondary partner. Polyamorous people have a term for this dynamic: couple privilege. Couple privilege describes a dynamic that privileges the primary relationship, often to the point of discounting or minimizing the personhood of the other partner(s). Veto rules, for instance, are often identified as a sign of couple privilege. A veto rule allows the primary partner (at least theoretically) to veto the relationship with the secondary partner if it starts to make them too uncomfortable: “If I start to feel like that person you’re seeing is a threat to our relationship, I can tell you to stop seeing that person and that’s what you’ll do.”
Primary partners often use their veto power when the secondary relationship is beginning to become too serious and emotionally involved in their eyes. Maybe they’re not threatened by their partner having sex with someone else, but they are threatened by their partner starting to fall in love with someone else. On the other hand, sometimes the veto gets used as a last-ditch effort to get a besotted, badly behaved partner to keep agreements, come home on time, and stop texting their lover at the dinner table. I hope it is obvious at this point that the veto rule is not the main problem in this scenario.
Naturally, the use of a veto can lead to a number of problems. On one hand, it’s going to be pretty hard for the partner to respect the agreed-upon veto if they are, in fact, falling in love with their secondary partner. That’s frequently a recipe for resentment or broken agreements, or both. On the other hand, if the veto is respected, that leaves the secondary partner in a very painful place—the rug is pulled out from under them just as they were getting so close, precisely because they were getting close.
I can understand the desire to have a veto rule. It can provide a feeling of emotional security in the face of vulnerability and uncertainty. Sometimes, they are somewhere between useful and benign, and sometimes they are desperate attempts to create order in an emotionally chaotic situation. In any case, the mere existence of a veto rule will inevitably make the secondary partner feel endangered and vulnerable.
I want to share a personal account from a person in the “hinge” position in a successful long-term primary/secondary relationship. The partners in this relationship had a veto rule at first and later reconsidered it:
When I first developed a crush on a close friend, long before I actually acted on it, I told my husband of eight years about it. At the time, it was important to me that he knew that I wouldn’t act on my attraction to my crush unless he felt comfortable with it; opening our relationship wasn’t a totally new concept for us, but this would be the first time either of us had acted on it. I wasn’t interested in risking my marriage, and I felt like his comfort and happiness would make or break the success of the mission. I don’t know what would have happened if he had exercised his veto; he didn’t, and so I can only speculate. But for months, as the other relationship developed, I continued to reassure myself that my partner was okay with it, and I occasionally checked in with him about it to make sure. Every time I checked in, he told me it was fine.
One day, as things in the new relationship were heating up and we were about to take it to a new level, I think I wanted to reassure myself, as much as my husband, that I was in some kind of control of the situation; again I told my husband that I would end it if he felt threatened. Much to my surprise, he said, “I’m not sure that’s actually true, and I’m not even sure I think that would be a good idea; you two have a pretty big relationship, and I don’t think it would be good for our relationship, or even right, for me to say you have to end it, even if you would, or could.” That was a real turning point for me; my husband called my bluff, in a way, by acknowledging the reality that it isn’t a simple thing to end an important relationship.
Now, years later, I don’t think of it in those terms at all; if my husband told me he felt uncomfortable about some aspect of my other relationship, I would want to know why and how to help him feel comfortable, and I certainly might change something about how things were going to help smooth out any problems. But ending the other relationship isn’t something I would offer up as a solution. I learned that from my husband, who was principled enough and smart enough to know that making me choose wouldn’t make us any stronger, even when I didn’t know it myself.
HINGES
A “hinge” is someone who has two or more other partners. Most often, this is something akin to a V. Take our example polycule. Both Anne and Sam have more than one partner, so both of them are hinges in primary/secondary structures: Anne is a hinge between Sam and Ralph, and Sam is a hinge between Anne and Jill. Jill is also a hinge because she has more than one partner, but she doesn’t have a primary/secondary structure. Jill is a hinge between each of her other partners, one of whom is her nesting partner, Ramona.
Being a hinge can be quite complicated, particularly in a primary/secondary structure or with a nesting partner, because both of these situations involve sudden changes in plan due to shared responsibilities or agreements that are in place. Being a hinge requires you to simultaneously hold your needs and desires, the needs and desires of your primary partner, and the needs and desires of your secondary partner, and successfully negotiate between all of these potentially conflicting interests. It’s not really possible to be a hinge without occasionally letting someone down or telling someone you care about something you know they don’t want to hear.
How a person behaves and makes decisions when they are in touch with their highest and best self is one thing, and how they make decisions when they are anxious or triggered is quite another. Once again emotional management comes into play. Someone who is often in a decision-making role, for instance, a hinge partner, will be more likely to thrive if they cultivate emotional management skills so they are able to stay in their window of tolerance most of the time, notice when they are not, and cultivate skills to take breaks and bring themselves back effectively.
You can see that for many reasons, being a hinge requires a high level of differentiation of self. A hinge might feel like they’re constantly being yanked back and forth, trying to balance the differing desires and expectations of their partners. This is especially true for hinges that have trouble with the idea that they can’t fulfill everyone’s desires and will have to let some people down at least some of the time. A hinge can exhaust themselves running between their partners and trying to make sure everyone feels sufficiently comfortable, valued, and loved at all times. They will need to get used to experiencing other people’s disappointment without collapsing. They will need lots of practice holding steady through feelings of anxiety and guilt, and they will need to get accustomed to the hard truth that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Imagine a situation in which Anne is at home with Sam on the weekend and Sam tells Anne about some difficult feelings he is grappling with. They have a great talk, and Anne decides the best course of action is for her to cancel her date with Ralph later in the week, because it will help stabilize and solidify things at home. In the moment, it is clear to Anne that Sam’s feelings are valid, and the sacrifice she will make regarding seeing Ralph later in the week is minimal compared to the benefit that will result from increased stability.
Then imagine that Anne has lunch with Ralph during the day on Monday and tells him she needs to cancel their date for Thursday night. If Anne’s emotional boundaries are not clear, she might say something like, “Sam is having a hard time, so I can’t see you on Thursday night,” or even, “Sam doesn’t want us to see one another on Thursday night, so I have to cancel.” The problem here is that Anne is pinning the responsibility for cancelling on Sam, which might understandably result in Ralph feeling like his interests are being pitted against Sam’s, even though it’s ultimately Anne’s decision to cancel. A better way to frame it would be, “Last night, I had a conversation with Sam about some feelings he’s been struggling with. It’s important to me to be there for him this week, so I’ve decided to cancel my date with you on Thursday night.” This more appropriately boundaried approach requires that Anne take responsibility for the decision and handle any emotions Ralph might have about it herself, rather than blaming the situation on Sam.
Many secondary partners have told me that they feel much more stable and secure when the hinge is strong enough emotionally to have a real conversation about their own choices and responsibility, even if the secondary partner is unhappy about the decision. After all, they care about their lover’s emotions; if it feels important to Anne to connect with Sam, Ralph might be disappointed, but he’s likely to understand where she’s coming from, particularly if she talks about why it feels important to her. On the other hand, if Anne blames the canceled date on Sam, she sets Sam and Ralph up as adversaries. Sam probably wouldn’t like being cast as the villain, and Ralph doesn’t get to have the benefit of empathizing with Anne to help him manage his disappointment.
Let’s imagine that, after her conversation with Sam, Anne decides not to change her plans with Ralph. Here again, she can choose how she frames her choice. She can take responsibility, saying, “I’m sorry, Sam, but I made a commitment to spend time with Ralph, and it’s important to me to honor that commitment,” or she can pin it on Ralph, saying, “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could stay home with you, but I promised Ralph, and he’ll be so upset if I cancel.” Again, I have noticed that the entire situation usually goes better if the hinge person takes full responsibility for their choice. This is one advantage solo polyamory or relationship anarchy has over primary/secondary, at least in theory; in nonhierarchical situations, it is a little easier for everyone to see that everyone is making their own decisions and ideally taking responsibility for those decisions.
