Increasing publicity about polyamory and other forms of consensual non-monogamy (CNM) is both a cause and an effect of more people finding out about and deciding to attempt these relationships themselves.
Of the various forms, like polygyny and swinging, polyamory is among the most demanding in terms of the amount of communication and negotiation it can take to sustain. Using data from my 20+ year study of polyamorous families with children, I explain how to sustain a polyamorous relationship.
Know yourself
Because serial monogamy is the current social norm, attempting CNM relationships means having to (or getting to) negotiate novel agreements with loved ones. Knowing yourself helps tremendously when asking for what you want, because it's difficult to know what you want if you don’t know who you are.
If you're not sure who you are, take some time to explore and consider your values, boundaries, needs, and priorities. That will make the conversation much easier when it comes time to negotiate your relationships.
Honesty is also very important to polyamorous relationships, and it's difficult to be honest about who you are, and what you want, if you do not know those things about yourself.
Consider consent
Among CNM and sex positive communities, true consent is founded in an authentic and non-coerced consideration of all options. At the most basic level, be sure that everyone who is involved truly wants to be in an open relationship. If someone must be talked into it, that can bode poorly for future conflicts that will inevitably arise (as they do in all relationships).
It's a common cliché among poly communities that some heterosexual men who want to have sex with two women simultaneously can badger their female partners into trying polyamory, and the women try it begrudgingly, because the cost of saying no is too high.
In my research (and personal experience), those not-truly-consensual polyamorous relationships tend to self-destruct rather spectacularly when the women get lots of offers for dates, and the men have a harder time finding new partners.
Take self-responsibility
Self-responsibility comes about not only when people consider what they want and ultimately choose polyamory, but in how they handle their relationships. For people in CNM relationships, taking personal responsibility includes negotiating compassionately for what they want in a relationship.
Another important element is the willingness to face their own feelings – especially jealousy - instead of demanding that their partners change what they're doing so the feeling will go away.
Get the balance right
Even though polyamory (like most relationships) is grounded in personal choice and self-responsibility, it does not mean that poly folks live in a vacuum where they make absolutely independent decisions. Rather, these relationships are founded on mutual reliance, and the choices one partner makes can affect their entire polycule —the term polyamorists use to describe their interconnected web of relationships, like an extended chosen family.
Balancing choice with personal responsibility, and mutual reliance, can be an incredibly difficult task, even in relationships with just two partners. When three or more partners enter the mix, the delicate balance can take on a whole new level of complexity. This is especially true when partners have conflicting or competing needs and demands.
For that and other reasons, polyamorous people rely on extensive and honest communication to navigate the potentially tricky arrangements of meeting their own and each other’s needs, while taking responsibility for their own choices. Partners who negotiate in bad faith, or prove unreliable, can make an already challenging relationship style like polyamory even more difficult.
Anticipate jealousy
Many people who find themselves drawn to CNM are delighted at the idea of the guilt-free sexual variety they could enjoy. It seems less common for people to truly consider how they'll feel when those partners have other partners. Although some people in my study have reported that they do not feel jealousy ever, the vast majority of people who have CNM (or any other kind of) relationships grapple with jealousy on occasion.
Even among the research participants who said they never felt jealousy, some reported that over the years, they eventually encountered situations that made them feel jealous.
Prior to jumping in to CNM, consider how much jealousy affects you in general, and how large of a role jealousy plays in your personality. If you struggle with jealousy frequently, then attempting CNM can be like playing with fire. Facing your personal challenges could make you stronger, but it can also involve a lot of stress and be very high impact on the others in the relationship. For people with strong streaks of jealousy in their personalities, CNM may not be a good life choice.
Design your ideal relationship
There are many different ways to structure relationships, some with much higher levels of mutual reliance and others with much more independence. Rather than unthinkingly accepting conventional relationship rules, actively considering the range of possible relationship options can be a great way to foster flexibility and happiness.
There are many ways to be monogamous, lots of forms of consensual non-monogamy, and more options to remain single than ever before. Such active consideration of the form and structure of relationships also allows for them to change over time.
Choose partners with compatible orientations
For the smoothest CNM relationships, try to choose partners with compatible orientations. Some people want CNM for the sexual variety, others want it for the emotional intimacy, and most want it for both. It can be challenging when one person’s sexual freedom feels frightening for the others’ emotional intimacy, so talking about motivations and boundaries with prospective partners can help clarify expectations from the beginning.
In some cases, people with extremely different orientations fall in love with each other, and that can create some significant difficulties. My research indicates that desire for multiplicity is an element of sexual orientation that I envision like a Kinsey scale, with some people completely orientated towards multiple partners (1) and others completely oriented towards a single partner (7), and most people falling somewhere in between (3,4,5).
When a 1 and a 7 fall in love, that can be difficult and painful for everyone because it is very hard to compromise on monogamy. Some are able to establish mono/poly relationships in which the monogamous partner generally could have multiple partners but chooses not to for a variety of reasons, and is OK with their partner having other partners. Difficult to establish and tricky to maintain on an equilateral footing, mono/poly relationships only really work when the monogamous person feels well-loved and is happy with the relationship – not coerced to allow their partner sexual freedom.
Be flexible
When people approach a CNM relationship after thinking about it for a long time, they frequently come with a specific - and sometimes quite elaborate - idea of what the relationship will be like. When the reality of their poly dating experience does not live up to their fantasy expectations (often a female/male couple looking for a single bisexual woman), some of these folks have a melt down and leave the poly scene.
In some cases that is the perfect thing – they might have realised they were truly monogamous and did not actually want to pursue CNM. In other cases, they truly want CNM and could continue with a different form that does not match the fantasy they had at first.
Flexibility fosters resilience, especially for unconventional relationships that do not get as much support from mainstream society. Opening the relationship to a wider range of dating possibilities can help to explore CNM with flexibility and resilience.
Redefine success
Now that many people have much longer life spans than their predecessors, “til death do us part” does not seem to work as well any more. If the only successful relationship is one that remains in the exact same form until one of the partners dies, then very few relationships - polyamorous or otherwise - are successful. If, however, relationship success is conceived as the ability to meet people’s changing needs and retain a familial connection even if/when the sexual connection no longer persists, then many polyamorists are able to build successful and resilient relationships.
When relationships change form over time, it does not have to mean they've failed. It can mean simply that the people involved have evolved, shifting their needs and personalities as the years pass. Even if two people no longer have sex, they can still rely on each other for assistance in times of need, remain emotionally supportive, and even co-parent effectively. That can be a successful relationship!
De-emphasise sexuality
Even though CNM relationships get the most attention because they allow people to have sex with multiple partners, it turns out that the emotional aspects of the relationships are far more important – especially in the long run.
My research indicates that it's the relationships among the metamours – partners’ partners who are not themselves sexually connected (ie. your girlfriend’s wife) – that can make or break a polycule. When the metamours develop a polyaffective (emotionally intimate, non-sexual relationships among people in a polycule) relationship in which they love each other like siblings, co-husbands, or chosen family members, then their collaboration can support the polyamorous relationships over time.
If the metamours detest each other, it can make it very difficult to maintain a polyamorous relationship. The happiest, most functional, and resilient polycules in my research have strong polyaffective relationships to sustain them over time. Sex can be fun and a great expression of intimacy, but sex alone is not enough to sustain these complex and sometimes demanding relationships over the decades.
Sociologist Dr. Elisabeth Sheff is a researcher, expert witness, educator, and coach. Sheff has written three books so far: The Polyamorists Next Door, Stories from the Polycule, and When Someone You Love is Polyamorous. She blogs at Psychology Today and on her own site.
