The More Than Two (second edition): Cultivating Nonmonogamous Relationships with Kindness and Integrity, by Eve Rickert with Andrea Zanin, will be out on the tenth anniversary of the first edition: September 2, 2024.
I believe, pretty firmly at this point, that the foundation of a non-coercive nonmonogamous relationship has to be the ability to drop to zero-sum at any time, for any reason. That’s not just true for sexual relationships in a group, but also for metamour relationships. But more than that, the foundation of consent is a built-in exit clause for every single relationship. Not happy? Not healthy? It’s OK to leave.
What happens to you when you start a relationship apologizing? Apologizing for taking up space, apologizing for wanting things, apologizing for feeling passion and love? What happens when you go into a relationship accepting the premise that you’re doing something wrong?
Originally published on Medium. Early this month, Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced that unmarried romantic partners of
Originally published on Medium. Please update your links. This is a guest post by Kevin Patterson, curator of Poly Role
“I’m looking for advice on surviving the holidays as a Secondary. My only current partner is married, and also lives very close to his biological family, whom he is also very close to emotionally. He’s told at least his mother that he’s dating someone, but she has essentially bent over backwards to ignore our relationship. Although we don’t subscribe to an emotional hierarchy, there’s still the functional/social hierarchy of him living with her, being accepted by his family, etc., and holidays really seem to heighten that glitch in the matrix.
“My own very small biological family lives too far away for me to spend time with. My partner is spending the holidays with his family (no big surprise) and his wife (also not a surprise.) We’re doing some personal celebration things on days around the holidays, but they’re very solitary activities. I find that it’s very much getting to me that I’m alone during this time of family togetherness. I’m making the best of it spending time with friends, but it hurts to not be able to spend the time with the person I love the most, and additionally to feel like I am socially “erased” from his life during this time. I’d like to know how other people have dealt with similar feelings of being the Invisible Partner during a very rough part of the year to be alone.”
The recent Salon article “Jealous of What?” is aimed at “those who don’t want to be faced head-on with the green-eyed monster,” but there is no other way to deal with jealousy. We cannot outsource facing our own fears and insecurities. If we are to become the best possible versions of ourselves, there is no other way than to assume command of our own potential.
Louisa Leontiades, author of The Husband Swap and an important supporter of our Indiegogo campaign (she’s giving e-book copies of her book to all our $30+ backers), left this comment on our “Training Wheels and Utopian Polyamory” post.
I’m writing this from the couch, where I’m sleeping tonight. My husband has his girlfriend over.
This is among the details of my life that seem to confuse some people, especially–but not always–monogamous people. This practice isn’t as common among poly folks as you might think (or maybe, as I might think). Sometimes I even get reactions of something approaching pity. Which is strange for me, of course, because I’ve consented to all those details, and
Today is my wedding anniversary. My husband and I have been married for three years, together for more than thirteen. On our wedding day, we’d been living polyamorously for two years. His two partners—and their partners—attended our wedding. So today seems like a good day to talk about why someone who’s polyamorous might choose to get married.
