I often facilitate a course I've developed called "Exploring Polyamory"
and a similar request is made in almost every class:
"Can't you just make a 10 Points To Successful Polyamory list? Or
4 points? Or 15?"
Our soundbite culture encourages these lists, "3 Ways To A Successful
Marriage", "7 Ways To Lose Weight", "12 Sure Ways To Hook Up With The Partner You Want" Intimacy with our self and others
generally requires a more than a grocery list, it requires a commitment to creation, co-creation, shared communication, self
determination, and everything in between. It requires presence and authenticity in our interactions with our partner(s),
our own beliefs, and the world, and it requires agreement on terms.
So let's start with the term "polyamory." "Polyamory" means "many
loves" and usually refers to someone who is in more than one love relationship at the same time, and it seems to me there
are as many kinds of love and love relationships as there are people: we love our partner(s), we love our parents, our spiritual
advisers, our neighbors, our kids, the extended hearts across the world. We have loving sexual relationships, loving spiritual
relationships, loving parental and familial relationships, we have loving circles of friends, even, if we truly want to extend
it, with our pets, our plants, our homes, the world. Many Loves extend in many ways--the world and our hearts are multiform.
And within the construct of polyamory there are many diverse communities
with as many diverse relationship styles, from sexually open ("swinger"/"lifestyler") to more heart-centered -relationship
focused, and all use the same moniker, "Poly."
So there is a great opening here for discussion and increased communication:
Define what you are, define who you want to be, define your loving, allow your partner to do the same, and that's
co-creation in form. It's the two people (or 3, or 4) in the relationship that define the relationship
and you can define "many loves' in any way you wish. Simply make sure you both understand the shared definition.
By doing so you can avoid the common pitfalls around jealousy and personal sexual expression (which exists in all relationship
styles, whether monogamous or polyamorous, and the vast in-between).
A quick note on sex: there is a lot of exaggerated focus on the
relationship of sex and polyamory by non-polyamorous people. Sex is part of love but focusing on sex all the time has as many
negative consequences as never focusing on it. Polyamorous folks do not necessarily have more sex than others--having more
than one partner might make this pragmatically so but it in no way is a guaranteed road. Sex is part of love relationship,
not The Relationship. Our negative societal attitudes about sexuality often obscure polyamory to
those outside it.
I remember encouraging my mother to simply imagine me loving multiple people,
not being sexual with multiple people. Like the family it is. She said she finally got it.
(thank god for the mothers and the things their children put them through!)
So
the magic list? I could list out negotiations, agreements, extended and shared trust, schedules, kids, other partner's partners,
sex, authenticity, money, openness to the other's desires and true self, honesty, follow through, openness to giving
and receiving, just the kind of quick-figure-it-all-out list with the same words you see on the cover of a fashion mag about
any relationship. The hopes are the same: trust, respect, love, shared agreements, shared values.
My list has one statement in it, one to be fleshed out in the heart as to what it means to each of us. From there,
our hearts and heads and spirits can lead us into all the joy we ever hoped for, or ever hoped to offer back to those we care
for and to the world.
1. LOVE EXTENDS
Stumble It!