Not every discomfort you experience in polyamory is something that needs to be worked through and eliminated, and you don’t have to work to be okay with absolutely everything your partner does. Sometimes discomfort just needs to be felt and experienced, not “processed” away.
Some folks seem to believe the entire point of polyamory is to work towards eroding all your boundaries so your partner can have “true freedom and autonomy”, and that having and setting boundaries is “controlling”. I cannot overstate how uncomfortable a concept that is to me.
It’s okay to struggle with aspects of polyamory as long as you don’t weaponise that discomfort to control your partner. The key is to figure out what your window of tolerance is, i.e. if it’s something you’re okay handling (with support if necessary) or a complete dealbreaker. Once you’ve identified your relationship dealbreakers, set your boundaries and find people who are happy to respect them. If you make relationship agreements based on boundaries, and you and your partners freely choose to agree to them, then no one is controlling anyone 🤷🏻♀️
Also, if your aim is to never have to feel any discomfort in any relationship ever, you probably have highly unrealistic expectations, don’t actually care about your partner, or have emotionally numbed and gaslit yourself to the point of total apathy.
📕 For more resources, comment “EBOOK” to receive a free, 65-page guide with all my top tips and essential ingredients for exploring non-monogamy!
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A lot of people who are new to polyamory find the reality of practising non-monogamy vastly different from what they imagined. This means that sometimes, even if someone says they’re okay with their partner doing something in theory, they get upset when it actually happens.
Sometimes, you can do everything right and things can still go wrong. You may feel betrayed or even guilty about the pain your partner is experiencing, but it’s important not to take their jealousy personally, or worse, to shame/punish them for having feelings they didn’t expect. Just because your partner seemed okay with something doesn’t mean they aren’t allowed to be upset about it later. It’s not that they changed their mind or that they tricked you, they just didn’t know better, and neither did you.
The person who has been hurt also has to try not take their partner’s actions personally. They did the best they could with the information they had at the time, and you discovering that the reality was more difficult than expected isn’t anyone’s fault.
To move forward, you have to work together and be patient with each other. Don’t put blame on each other, and talk about your feelings instead of repressing them to please your partner, or shaming your partner for having them in the first place.
Ultimately, the only way to know whether you are polyamorous is to actually do polyamory. No amount of research and reading is going to prepare you for all the possibilities. You can do things to prevent conflict, but it’s more important to get good at repairing from it.
📕 For more resources, comment “EBOOK” to receive a free, 65-page guide with all my top tips and essential ingredients for exploring non-monogamy!
💡 For more non-monogamy tips and resources, comment “DEEPDIVE” for a 🔗 to my Patre0n and access exclusive content to help you on your journey.
🤗 If you’d like a confidential space to explore your thoughts/feelings/struggles on your non-monogamous journey, comment “PEERSUPPORT” for more info on my 1-1 work with individuals, couples, and groups as a trained peer supporter, certified s-x educator, and trainee therapist 💕
Emotional awareness isn’t just about handling your own feelings, it’s also holding space for others without getting dysregulated. If you’ve never felt jealous in your life but feel unable to support a jealous partner, that is something you might want to look into working on! For more on this, comment “FYF” for my emotional awareness workshop, or “DEEPDIVE” to join my private community where you can access my exclusive P@treon content 💛
Sometimes I wish I could be in multiple places at the same time, but I'm polyamorous, not superhuman. Missing your other partners while you're spending time with someone is very normal as @nosugarformethx articulates here, but there's a difference between holding space for multiple people in your heart, and actively letting those other connections derail your quality time with the person right in front of you. It's all about compartmentalisation. How do you deal with missing your partners when you're apart?
There are two situations where I hear this phrase: from monogamous people who don’t understand that polyamory is who I am and not something that I just choose to do, even when it’s a struggle sometimes (like all relationships can be!), and from polyamorous people who think that their partners struggling means they’re not actually polyamorous. And I don’t know which pisses me off more 🙄 how would you respond in either situation?
There’s nothing wrong with being a hopeless romantic, until your blind optimism leads you to vastly overestimating your capacity in polyamory 😬 If you want to practice polyamory with ethics and responsibility towards all the people you’re connected to, this post is for you.
Top tips for couples seeking a third: don't do this. If you want to find someone who would be attracted to both of you relatively equally, then show an equal number of photos of each of you. And bisexuals, don't use sapphic dating apps to try and bait lesbians into sleeping with a male partner (which unfortunately does happen). There are apps now that facilitate exactly what you're looking for, leave the women who only want to date other women alone!
