More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (34 page)

The higher a person's self-efficacy, though, the less likely that person will enter a relationship with a veto provision in the first place. If you value the ability to have a say in your own relationships, you're unlikely to agree to give someone else ultimate authority over whether your relationship lives or dies.

We talk more about setting boundaries with your partners' other partners in chapter 23, on metamours, and about negotiating directly with your own partners in chapters 6 and 7.

LINE-ITEM VETOES AND FORCE OF DRAMA

Many people who don't have a formally negotiated veto arrangement come up with ways to veto their partners' relationships anyway. If you see patterns like this, it's time for you and your partner to talk. Like most ways of getting our way when direct negotiation has failed, these can be emotional blackmail.

First, there's the line-item veto. That's when, on a case-by-case basis, you restrict what your partner can do with her other partners and when. Eventually enough dates get canceled or interrupted, enough activities curtailed, that the relationship withers and dies. You don't have to demand that your partner end a relationship in order to make it end; you just have to starve it of the resources it needs to thrive.

Another form of veto-by-another-name is what Eve likes to call "force of drama." This is a weapon you can use when you don't want your partner to do something—like go on a date, continue a relationship or engage in a certain activity—but you have not been able to negotiate up front what you want. Your partner, after considering your input, has decided to make another choice: go on the date, continue the relationship, do that thing. But instead of accepting your partner's choice, you make sure that it carries a price. You have an emotional meltdown an hour before that date, and he has to stay home with you. You send him anxious text messages every five minutes whenever he's with the partner you don't like. You keep making nonspecific threats of disaster—emotional or physical—when he does what you don't want.

As damaging as this behavior is, we often unintentionally reinforce it when it happens. We want to be there for our partners, we don't want to hurt them, and most of us don't really like conflict. If her objection to that thing I wanted to do is so important to her, I don't
really
need to do it, right? That one date really isn't so important; I can schedule another one… The trouble is, people use this behavior because it works: it gets them what they want.

Some people object to the use of the word
drama
, on the grounds that it is used to minimize and dismiss. In the sense we are using it, however, "force of drama" has another name: emotional blackmail. If you recognize what we're describing, either in your own behavior or your partner's, you owe it to yourself and your partners to read the book
Emotional Blackmail
, listed in the resources.

Of course, we think we have really good reasons—every time we do it. None of us wants to believe that we're manipulating our partner, and we're very good at justifying our actions, even to ourselves. To the person conducting the line-item veto or wielding force of drama, every instance seems necessary and justified. And everyone is allowed the occasional freak-out, outburst or temper tantrum. But if this is happening on a regular basis—and if your partners are giving in to your demands simply to avoid dealing with your behavior—you may want to consider getting professional help to cope with your emotions.

If your partner exhibits this kind of behavior often, if most of your decisions she doesn't like involve you paying an emotional price, or if her drama continues more than a couple of months into a new relationship, then you have a problem—a potentially serious one, with no easy solution. The two of you will need to learn more appropriate negotiation techniques that do not involve emotional threats. Point out the behavior to her and explain the effect it is having on your relationships. Consider reading
Emotional Blackmail
together, and consider getting professional help from a poly-friendly counselor. If the behavior does not stop, you may need to consider ending the relationship.

POCKET VETOES

A "pocket veto" is when you stop your partner from doing something you don't want her to do, simply by doing nothing. In polyamory, this usually comes in the form of "I am afraid of X. Please don't do X until I stop being afraid."

SARA'S STORY
An example of this involves Franklin's friend Sara. Sara was in a relationship with Owen, who was married to Kate. Sara started a new relationship with Mark. Kate told Sara that she didn't feel comfortable with Sara having sex with Mark until Kate knew him better, and requested a three-month waiting period for everyone to get to know each other before Sara and Mark had sex. Sara agreed, and three months passed—three very busy months, in which Kate never had time to get together with Mark. So at the end of the three months, Kate asked Sara to wait another three months, since Kate hadn't had time to "feel safe" with Mark. Sara and Kate were not even lovers; they simply shared a partner.

We've known a few people who have been in relationships with monogamously inclined partners who agreed to a polyamorous relationship, but only after they "felt secure in the relationship." That turned out to be…never. Of course, if your reward for feeling secure is something you don't want, you don't have much incentive to ever feel secure. These relationships can last for years before ending. We know of at least one that has been going on for six years, the polyamorous partner still wistfully hopeful that someday his monogamous partner will "get there."

We have talked of being judicious about when you start new relationships: that perhaps it's better not to bring in new partners when an existing relationship is in crisis, just after a major life upheaval, or when serious mental health issues are erupting, to name a few. The trouble is that this idea of "poly readiness" can become a pocket veto if it does not include a clear statute of limitations. If you need time to work through an issue, get used to a new partner or adjust to the idea, then agree to a time limit on it. If the time limit expires and you still want to say no, or if you want to renew the time limit, understand that you have crossed into pocket veto territory. That is not, in and of itself, a bad thing—provided you're okay with using a veto. But recognize that this is what you are doing.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

The questions around veto fall into three categories: those for people who want to have veto over their partners' relationships, those for people who are considering giving veto power to another, and those for people who are considering becoming involved with someone whose partner has a veto.

If you want your partner to give you veto power over his or her other relationships:

• Under what circumstances do I feel it's appropriate for me to use it?
  
• Who do I think should have the final say in deciding whether a relationship ends? Why?
  
• What do I believe will happen if I ask a partner to end another relationship, and he or she says no? Why will that thing happen?
  
• Do I trust my partner to consider my needs and well-being in his decisions about whether to stay in a relationship that is hurting me? Why or why not? If not, what can I do to improve that trust?
  
• Do I trust my partner to make good decisions about whom she starts relationships with? Why or why not? What might the consequences be if she makes a poor decision, and how might I deal with those consequences?
  
• Do I use the word veto to describe something other than an ability to unilaterally end a partner's relationship—for example, when I give input to my partners about how I feel about their other relationships? If so, why? Is there something about the word that reassures me in a way that words like negotiation and input do not?
  

If you are considering giving your partner(s) veto:

• Am I prepared to bring someone I care about (or will come to care about) into a situation where I must dump them at someone else's will?
  
• Can I think of a way to make a new partner feel safe in a relationship with me under these conditions?
  
• Do I understand the needs my partner is seeking to meet by requesting veto, and have I considered alternative ways of meeting those needs?
  

If you are considering starting a relationship with someone whose partner has a veto:

• If I start a relationship with someone who is already partnered, what kind of input do I feel it's reasonable for their other partners to have in our relationship?
  
• Do I feel safe opening my heart to someone who has given the power to end our relationship to someone else?
  

13

EMPOWERED RELATIONSHIPS

I've worked really hard to eliminate the words "have to" from my vocabulary. Because the reality is, I'm choosing to. I'm choosing to show up and meet my commitments.

LAUREN
BACON

People who are empowered in their romantic relationships can express needs and ask for them to be met. They can talk about problems. They can say what works for them and expect that their partners will try to accommodate their needs as much as they can.

It's not possible to
make
a person feel empowered, just as it's not possible to make a person feel secure. The best we can hope to do is to create an environment that welcomes participation and encourages empowerment. We can, however,
dis
empower people, and that can be very dangerous, as we hope the previous chapters impressed upon you. People who are disempowered have little to lose by breaking the rules. The worst possible outcome—losing the relationship—is something they're already risking by chafing under restrictions; by this point losing the relationship might not seem like such a bad idea.

Some key defining elements of empowerment in a romantic relationship are:

• engaging and participating in the decision-making process for decisions that affect you
  
• having a full range of options available when decisions are made, not a simple yes or no option (or, in extreme cases, the "Accept it or leave" option)
  
• having agency over one's own body, relationships and life
  
• being able to express needs, opinions, desires and boundaries
  
• having access to the information that materially affects your relationship, person, safety or security
  
• being able to propose alternatives
  
• having the ability to object to, and open negotiations about, rules, agreements or structures of the relationship
  
• having the ability to give, withhold or withdraw consent
  

It's no coincidence that many of these characteristics resemble some of the relationship rights.

When we use these criteria to define empowerment, it can become clear that an empowered relationship is not necessarily one in which everyone has equal power. Rather, it is one in which no one is
dis
empowered, intentionally or unintentionally, by a hierarchical structure.

EMPOWERMENT IS NOT EQUALITY

When you bring up the notion of poly relationships without hierarchy, people often imagine you're talking about "equal" relationships, where "equal" means "Everyone has the same things." That might mean, for example, trying to create a relationship structure in which everyone has the same amount of time, the same status or the same resources. Perhaps it means everyone is having sex with everyone else, everyone lives under the same roof or everyone loves everyone else "equally."

You will hear people argue for hierarchical polyamory on just these grounds. It's not reasonable, they'll say, to give the long-distance boyfriend you've been dating for a year the same influence over major life decisions as you give your wife. And that's usually true. But as we've said, we find it more useful, when thinking of alternatives to hierarchy, to speak of
empowerment
. This means full opportunity to voice needs, negotiate agreements and advocate for building the kind of relationship you want. Because different people want different things, empowerment is more useful than sameness as a relationship principle.

To continue our garden metaphor: Attempting to build relationships where everyone is equal is a bit like lopping the top half off pine trees and placing rose bushes in pots on tall pedestals to make everything the same height. What if one person naturally wants more time with a shared partner, and another less? Is it reasonable to tell them both they're only allowed to have the same amount of time? What if one relationship has existed for six years, another for six months? Expecting the same level of commitment and entwinement from each would be high-order foolishness.

VESNA'S STORY
Vesna lives with her partner Ahmad and has been in a relationship with Erin for more than a decade. She has also become close friends (and occasionally lovers) with Erin's wife Georgina. Vesna and Erin clicked powerfully the first day they met, and their connection has endured not just across the years, but across the several hundred miles that now separate them. But their relationship isn't suited to an entwined, live-in situation—they're too much alike, Vesna says, and it's just a kind of relationship she's never craved with Erin. So despite their close bond, they live apart, each with nesting relationships of their own.