More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (12 page)

EVE'S STORY
I have always been pretty profoundly insecure. Not long ago, I had an epiphany: it's as though I imagine that each person casts a circle of light around them. That light is their affection. People bring you closer in, into brighter light, depending on how much they like you. In all my relationships—personal and professional, romantic or friendship—I have always felt I was standing just outside that circle of light, always hesitant to take a step forward, always petitioning for entry. And always a bit sheepish about that petitioning, never sure I would be welcome.

Even in my closest relationships I never pictured myself included in the circle, so I could never simply feel calm and confident that the relationship
existed
and would continue. To say it another way, I always felt I was the one asking, never the one offering—as though time spent with people I cared about was something I took from them, not something I gave to them. This perception caused the end of at least a couple of my relationships, because it caused me to pull away, to stop investing: I felt that investing in relationships with the people I cared about was a burden on them.

I had a close friend in university who, for about a year, I spent most of my social time with. One weekend we spent three days backpacking together in the Olympic Mountains. I remember sitting by the fire with him, feeling insecure (of course), worried that I might be getting on his nerves. The thought crossed my mind,
I hope he doesn't hate me
. Then the absurdity of the thought struck me:
If he hates you, why would he be spending three days in the mountains with you?

It took another, oh, decade and a half for this kind of realization to become normal. When I had the epiphany about the circles of light, I realized that in most of my relationships, I had been standing in the light
all along
. All it took for me to be inside it was to realize that I already was. I found that simply imagining that circle, and that it contained me, changed my interactions with the people close to me. That visualization is now an ongoing practice.

Franklin has talked to many people who say things like "I'm just an insecure person," as if feeling insecure is something they're born with. In reality, it is something you can control. "Insecure" is something you can, if you want to, choose not to be. We are big believers in the affirmative power of choice, and we believe that people are often insecure because they make choices, dozens of times a day, that confirm and reinforce their own insecurity.

Changing the way you feel about yourself is painful and uncomfortable. For that reason many people choose, without necessarily even being aware that it is a choice, to hang onto destructive ideas about themselves rather than face the discomfort and fear of changing those ideas.

Self-image, like playing the piano, is something you become good at by practice. If you practice being insecure—if you accept thoughts and ideas that tear down your sense of self, if you lie in bed at night and think about the reasons you are not worthy or good enough—then you become highly skilled at being insecure. On the other hand, if you practice security—if you reject thoughts and ideas that tear down your sense of self and accept ideas that build it up, if you lie in bed at night and think about the qualities that make you special and give the people in your life value—then you become skilled at being self-confident and secure.

On his website, Franklin's "guide to becoming a secure person" is one of the most popular essays he's ever written. Here's a three-step exercise that he has found incredibly valuable for building internal security:

Step 1. Understand that you have a choice.
You did not choose your past experiences, of course (the people who made fun of you in fifth grade, or a past partner who told you you weren't good enough), but right now you have a choice about continuing to believe them, or changing the things you believe about yourself. The single hardest thing to do to change your self-image is to realize that you have the choice. The rest gets easier.

Step 2. Act like someone who is self-confident, even if you aren't.
"Fake it 'til you make it" is a great personal development strategy. You might not control your feelings, but you do control your actions. You control your body; you can choose to act self-confident even if you don't feel it. When faced with something that scares you or makes you feel threatened, think what choice you'd make if you were confident and secure…and then do that. Even if it scares the hell out of you. No one will know. Do you feel insecure when you see your partner kiss his other partner in front of you? Take a deep breath, say "I feel insecure when I see this, but I want you to do it anyway," and let it happen. Acting self-confident will feel phony and forced at first, but gradually it will become normal.

Step 3. Practice.
You become good at what you practice. A person who is insecure becomes very good at being insecure because he practices all the time. You practice being insecure by thinking about those old insults you heard in fifth grade and telling yourself they are true. You practice being insecure by going over in your mind all the reasons you are not good enough to be with your partner.

People who are secure practice being secure. Stop thinking about those old insults; when they come to mind, tell yourself, "No, these are false, and I choose not to believe them anymore." When you find yourself thinking about all the things that are wrong with you, stop and say "No, these are wrong. Here is a list of things that are good and sexy about me instead." (Corny as it sounds, writing a list of things you like about yourself and keeping it in your pocket helps.) When you find yourself thinking about why your partner doesn't or shouldn't really want you, stop yourself and say "No, this is not true."

Practicing security means continually turning toward the best version of yourself. Each belief about yourself that you choose to hold onto, in each moment, is a step toward or away from the person you want to be. As Canadian entrepreneur Lynn Robinson says, "Our beliefs about ourselves are all made up. So it's a good idea to make up some good ones."

FEAR OF LOSS

We love our partners. Hopefully, we are with our partners because they bring us joy. And allowing that joy inside makes us vulnerable, because life is uncertain. With joy comes the fear of losing the thing that makes us joyful. For many of us, the kind of vulnerability that comes with letting in deep, heartfelt joy is a little scary. For some of us, it's terrifying. Some of us protect ourselves from that fear by never allowing ourselves to fully open up, or numbing ourselves by imagining worst-case scenarios. Others of us protect ourselves by trying to control the people around us, to keep the possibility of loss at bay.

Our distress may be compounded by the cultural script that says if you aren't torn apart by the thought of losing a partner, it means you don't really love them. In reality, commitment and fear of loss are only indirectly related. Often the fear of loss is more closely linked to a fear of being alone than commitment to a partner; in monogamous relationships, losing a partner means being alone. And, paradoxically, if you want something too badly, the fear of losing it can become greater than the joy of having it. When that happens, we hold onto things not because they make us happy, but because the thought of losing them makes us suffer. Both having them and not having them become sources of pain.

This is all a bit ironic, because the truth is that we
will
lose everything. Every one of our partners, friends, family members, everything that brings us joy will one day leave our lives—either through life's normal uncertainty and change, or through the inevitability of death. So we have two choices: embrace and love what we have and feel joy as deeply and fully as we can, and eventually lose everything—or shield ourselves, be miserable…and eventually lose everything. Living in fear won't stop us from losing what we love, it will only stop us from enjoying it.

What's the antidote to that fear? Gratitude. Welcome the people who care for you and the experiences you have together. Take joy in them, be thankful for them. Eve has found a gratitude journal to be incredibly helpful. Making an active practice out of gratitude creates constant reminders of what you have in your life. Know that you are lucky to have people in your life with the power to break your heart, because it means you have love.

THE INEVITABILITY OF CHANGE

We know our readers are approaching polyamory from a lot of different places. Some of you have never had a monogamous relationship. Others will be exploring polyamory after decades of monogamy. Some of you will be venturing into polyamory single, while others will be opening a previously monogamous partnership.

Eve's experience fell into the latter category. Like many couples venturing into poly, she and Peter initially tried to change as little as possible—
especially
their existing relationship. And like many, they gravitated toward rules and structures to try to preserve the relationship as it had been to create a feeling of security and stability. They agreed that the marriage was primary, and they had rules: things like "We will never spend more time with another partner than with each other," and "No one else is allowed to try to come between us." In fact, Eve's first online dating profile said (she shudders to recall), "Try to come between me and my primary and you'll be out of my life faster than you can say 'polyamory.' "

It's easy to understand why Eve and Peter wanted rules like these. Security, some basic predictability: these are fundamental human needs. At the same time, autonomy, independence and self-reliance are also fundamental values for many people, including both of us. We've seen how a focus on these latter values alone can lead to some pretty poor treatment of partners. It's important to build relationships in such a way that the people within them
can
feel secure, can feel a sense of belonging, and can have some basic expectations they can rely on. But it's also essential that people have agency in their relationships, that relationships be built on a foundation of choice and free will. These are not mutually exclusive goals.

Here's an uncomfortable truth, though. If you decide to do this, if you decide to open your heart and your life to loving more than one person and letting your partners love others too, your life will change. You will change. If you started this journey with a partner, your partner will change.
Every
new person you let into your heart will disrupt your life—sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ones.

Disruption is a fact of life. And that's okay. After all, almost everything else you do in life risks disruption to your relationships. Taking a new job. Losing a job. (Couples counselors say that financial stress is more likely to ruin a marriage than any other single factor, including infidelity.) Having a baby. Moving to another city. Getting sick or injured. Having problems in your family of origin. Taking up new hobbies. Experiencing a death in the family. Hell, every time you walk outside your door or step into a car, you're risking serious injury or death, and that'll disrupt a relationship real quick!

We don't live in fear of disruption when we're offered a new job or decide to have a child. We accept that these choices will change our lives. Ethical polyamory is similar: you accept that changes in your romantic life will affect your relationship, you resolve to act with integrity and honesty to cherish your partners to the best of your ability, and you trust that your partners will do the same for you.

Many problems we encounter in polyamory, particularly when we're in a relationship that was previously monogamous, come from attempts to explore new relationships without having anything change. Sometimes those changes involve coming face-to-face with our deepest fears: abandonment, fear of loss, fear of being replaced, fear of no longer being special. Relationship change is scary. Sometimes it comes on us in jarring ways.

MELISSA'S STORY
Melissa, a friend of Franklin's, loves sushi. She tried for months to get her husband, Niko, to try sushi with her, with no success whatsoever. He expressed in no uncertain terms that he was not interested in raw fish strapped to rice with electrical tape.

Long after she gave up trying to take him to the sushi house, he started dating a new partner, Naveen, who also loved sushi. One day Naveen suggested they go out for sushi, and this time he said, "Okay!" Unsurprisingly, he discovered he loved it.

Rather than think,
Hey, this is awesome, now I can finally share my love of sushi with him!
Melissa was less than thrilled. It hurt her to, as she said, make a request of her partner, get a no, and then see him doing it with another.