More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory (35 page)

None of them planned their relationships to be this way. For example, Erin and Georgina never had an agreement that Erin couldn't form a life-entwined partnership with someone else. And Vesna is open to the possibility of having more than one such relationship at a time. The current arrangement is just the way things developed: a way that expresses the differently compatible personalities of everyone involved.

Vesna describes every one of these relationships as remarkably low stress. She says it helps that her relationships—and most of her social circle—are queer, poly and feminist. They talk a lot, and they have a shared language for doing so. She feels their involvement with kink helps them with its focus on negotiation. Vesna says, "I love the synergy with which all of this comes together in how my life and relationships are constructed."

Eve and Franklin each have one partner we live with, and other partners who are highly independent and choose not to share a home with us (or with anyone else); they prefer living alone. A literal take on "equality" might be that everyone should have the same obligations to share a home and same vote in how to handle the mortgage. A more rational take on equality might mean that everyone has equal power to choose how they run their lives.

A partner who doesn't live with us might, for example, someday ask, "I would like to consider sharing a home with you. How do you feel about that?" but would not have an equal say in whether we decide to sell the house we currently live in.

People who have long been together often have a vested "sweat equity" in the relationship. They've made sacrifices and incurred obligations together. Those obligations look like the big commitment arrows on the illustrations in chapter 11. In an empowered relationship, a person is not told, "You have the same standing and the same voice in these existing obligations and responsibilities." Rather, that person is told, "As you invest in the relationship, you, too, will build sweat equity. You will not be denied the opportunity to do this."

In the context of polyamory, an empowered relationship means that no one outside a relationship has the authority to place restrictions on that relationship. The flows of connection, commitment and power within a relationship can be of any size, and can even be unequal within relationships. But the defining element of hierarchy—
power from within one relationship that controls or restricts another relationship
—is absent.

Franklin's partner Amy likes to say that empowered poly relationships are not ones where every person is "equal" to every other, but rather relationships in which you are negotiating from an equal footing with
your
partner. That is, third parties, such as your partner's other partners, do not have more power in
your
relationship than you do.

We've seen cases where "equality" meant an equality of bad behavior. Franklin knows a married couple who had opened their marriage to polyamory. The wife had a girlfriend for many years before the husband finally found another partner. When the husband started dating, the wife became increasingly jealous. Finally, after several months, she told her husband, "I can't do this anymore. I want you to break up with your girlfriend. But it's okay, I will break up with my girlfriend too, so it's fair." This might be an extreme example, but the impulse often exists, when we're faced with unpleasant emotions, to treat people as expendable.

OWNING YOUR POWER

Non-monogamous relationships clearly highlight the gap between our
perception
of our power and the
reality
of our power. It is often easier to see someone else's power than to see our own. If our partner begins a new relationship, we might see how he invests in the new relationship, and we feel powerless—without recognizing how the established structures, history, commitments and shared life experiences in our own relationship give us a tremendous amount of power that the newer partner doesn't have. The new partner, however, is often
keenly
aware of the power the existing partner has.

A key to practicing empowered relationships is to recognize and understand the power we hold. For this, we need to return to the ideas about security and worthiness in chapter 4. Without a strong
internal
sense of security and worthiness, we will find it nearly impossible to be aware of our power in our romantic relationships. When we feel unworthy, we feel disconnected—even when our loved ones are craving connection with us. We feel isolated and alienated, even when we're surrounded by love and support.

While we're working on the project of our own worthiness, though, we can also seek to understand our own power—even if we don't yet feel it in our hearts. Here, to go back to our mushroom-hunting metaphor: we look for evidence. If you are terrified of losing a ten-year relationship, step back and think about the fact that your partner has chosen to be in a relationship with you
for ten years
. This didn't happen by accident! It happened because for ten years, you have added value to your partner's life.

If you feel you need hierarchy to protect a co-parenting relationship, think about what it means that your partner has chosen to make the enormous commitment of having children with you, and look at evidence she gives you daily in the form of care and investment in your children. Practice gratitude for all of the ways, large and small, your partner invests in your relationship. It will help you understand the value of the relationship to them.

STARTING NEW RELATIONSHIPS IN THE FACE OF EXISTING COMMITMENTS

When starting a new relationship, it's important to be forthright and clear with the new person about your existing commitments. In fact, demonstrating that you keep your commitments to others is a good way to show a new partner that you are worthy of his trust and investment as well. But remember, there's more than one way to shave a walrus. Most poly commitments should offer multiple paths to meeting those commitments while still making room for new partners.

Agreements to support existing commitments succeed best when they offer flexibility about
how
the commitments are met. First and foremost, flexibility honors the agency of the people involved. An agreement to meet your obligation to pay the mortgage offers more flexibility than a rule that you may never spend more than $30 on a date—even if the purpose of the rule is to make sure the mortgage gets paid. A flexible agreement spells out the nature of the obligation and empowers adults to make decisions as they see fit, so long as the obligation is met.

Flexibility also allows for renegotiation of agreements, including the ways in which commitments are met when new relationships alter the playing field. We aren't suggesting, of course, that someone who begins dating a partner already in a long-term relationship be given the keys or invited to sign the mortgage on the first date. Instead, relationships usually work best when the newcomer is not forbidden in advance from doing such things
ever
, but rather knows that the situation has room to evolve. As with everything in polyamory, flexibility is key.

EMPOWERED RELATIONSHIPS AND CHILDREN

Children are the most important commitment many people will ever make. If you're a parent now, they are probably the most important things in your life. Children are dependent: they need people to take care of them, and their parents need to prioritize meeting those needs. Only slowly do they develop good judgment and free agency, and decision-making power on their way to adulthood, so they need special consideration and protection for many years. These overriding needs can get in the way of adult partnerships, which is tough. If you have or want children, you likely (and hopefully) choose partners who understand this fact.

So surely, given the unique vulnerability of children, hierarchy must be necessary for poly families with kids—right? Surely, as someone we know put it, "Coupled-with-kids, especially young kids, is intrinsically a hierarchical situation. No way around it. And without some guidelines or structure, the hierarchy can descend into chaos and the kids would suffer." Are empowered poly relationships even possible with children?

CLARA'S STORY
When Clara and Elijah decided to open their marriage, their two children were very young, one a toddler. They did not enact a hierarchy before opening their relationship, but adopted open communication as their main strategy. Instead of rules, restrictions or veto power, they agreed that if one of them was having trouble with another relationship, they would negotiate a solution case by case.

Their children meant that time management was a central concern. As part of their agreement to open up, Elijah agreed to take on more of the household responsibilities to fill in when Clara was away with another partner.

Clara became involved with Ramon, who had three children with his wife, Caitlin. With Elijah and Caitlin's help, Ramon and Clara worked out a schedule for seeing each other that involved minimal time away from their children. Caitlin often took her children away from home on short trips and to visit family, allowing Clara to spend the night with Ramon alone in a quiet house. Because Elijah worked early in the morning, Clara needed to be at the house before he left. She left her own house after her children were asleep and returned in the morning before they woke up. Ramon would also occasionally spend the night at Clara and Elijah's home.

Just as many monogamous people would, Clara waited to introduce Ramon to her children until she was certain their relationship had staying power. Rather than asking her non-co-parenting partners to babysit (or requiring it, as discussed in "
Service secondaries
"), she prefers to rely on friends. She also makes sure to schedule time alone with her children, so they understand how much she values her relationship with them and they never feel like Ramon is "taking her away."

As far as we know, no magic pixie dust gets sprinkled on parents at the moment of their child's birth to make them incapable of honoring commitments and responsibilities on their own. If you were a responsible adult before your kids were born, you will remain a responsible (if highly sleep deprived) adult after.

Responsible adults do not secretly want to ignore their children's well-being so badly that, if not for hierarchy, that's what they'd do. If people can be trusted to make good decisions in other realms of life, such as friendships, employment or hobbies, they can be trusted in their romantic relationships. We have the optimistic view that if you are given the ability to make your own choices, you will honor your agreements, uphold your responsibilities and care for the people you love—partners and children.

Perhaps the best way for parents to work toward stable and loving homes is to seek partners who are other mature grown-ups and share their values and priorities, then work to build a strong foundation to all their relationships, demonstrate over time that they are reliable and trustworthy, and then trust each other to make decisions that will benefit their relationships and their families.