Many thanks to all who contributed toward this post. I agree with many of your points, and I appreciate the roundedness and nuance you bring to the topic.
To add to your “If you’re considering poly” section, I’m excerpting below a Clearer Thinking podcast episode (timestamp: 54:03–73:12) which I think does a great job of discussing polyamory in a balanced way. (Spencer Greenberg is the host, and Sam Rosen is the guest – in the episode, Sam talks about his experience with being poly; I’ve bolded the parts which speak to me the most.)
SPENCER: So let’s switch topics to polyamory.
...
SPENCER: I have to say, the only examples of polyamorous couples that have lasted a really long time (like five plus years) that I know of, have been the hierarchical form where they have a primary that they’re very committed to, and then they have secondary partners. But that being said, I’m sure there are examples of the more flexible kind lasting a long time, I just, I’m not as aware of it.
...
SAM: I’ve actually found that when people try to get other people to become poly that aren’t already poly that tends to — it’s very hard to get someone who’s not already comfortable with that dynamic to become comfortable with it. I don’t know what’s going on with that. But yeah, all of us were already poly and already pretty chill people and there’s not much to fight about.
SPENCER: Okay, what about jealousy, though? Because that’s the natural question is like, “Okay, you’re spending the night with your girlfriend and your wife feels like seeing you that night.” You can imagine there’s a lot of opportunities for jealousy to flare up. And I think to a lot of people, just the idea that their partner might be having sexual relations with another person might make them insanely jealous, just that concept by itself. So what are your thoughts on jealousy?
SAM: So I think that in the same way that if you’re like, in a room with an annoying noise, or bad smell long enough, you don’t smell it anymore. I think jealousy has a similar thing where you — if you are poly for long enough, you just kind of get used to that feeling, and it doesn’t even feel bad. I don’t even really feel jealousy like I used to anymore just because I’ve been poly for so long.
SPENCER: So at the beginning, did you feel significant jealousy?
SAM: Yeah, I felt a lot of jealousy at the beginning.
SPENCER: And so why did you keep pushing through that? Why did you continue being poly?
SAM: I just felt like the benefits of having fun, new partners outweighed the costs of jealousy and it was a simple cost-benefit analysis.
…
SPENCER: I agree with you. I don’t think it’s [love is] zero-sum. I think someone can genuinely, deeply love two people and it doesn’t necessarily — loving one does not necessarily interfere with loving the other just like loving one sibling doesn’t make you love the other sibling less.
SAM: And to push back against some polyamory rhetoric, a lot of poly people say it’s infinite, it’s not zero-sum at all. Like I don’t think that I could love (romantically) four people at the same time. Like, I think that would just be — I don’t think I would really deeply feel the same way about them because I could just not have the emotional energy. Like, maybe if we all lived together, I could see them all the time then I could do that. But there’s something about — I don’t have enough emotional energy in the day to think about all four people in a very positive way. There’s something that feels like it’s not truly non-zero-sum.
SPENCER: Right? And clearly, time is zero-sum. But you only have so much time. So the more partners you have you essentially are taking away time from another partner at some point, right?
SAM: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s, I’ve found that having two partners is optimal for me, like a wife and a girlfriend. When I start having more I find that the relationships start degrading in quality because I don’t pay enough attention to each individual partner. And that just is a fact about my time and how I’m able to divvy up my affection.
…
SPENCER: Well, you know, another factor I think that comes in with the idea of polyamory is stability. I think it’s probably true (I’m curious if you agree) that polyamory, all else being equal, might be less stable than monogamy because you have a situation where, you know, there’s just more parties involved, there’s more people that could get upset about things, there’s more likelihood of shifting dynamics.
SAM: There’s just more moving parts that could get a monkey wrench into them.
SPENCER: Exactly. And also more possibility of emotional flare-ups because one person is like, “I don’t get enough time and the other person’s getting more time,” or jealousy, or your secondary suddenly wants to be your primary, right? And then it’s like, well, what is that dynamic like?
SAM: Yeah, I think polyamory is a bit high-risk/high-reward in that sense that like, I think they’re slightly less stable, but I think they’re kind of more fun. So I think it is true that it’s…there’s more risks of like flare-ups, as you say. And I think if you don’t have the skill of handling interpersonal conflicts well, you just shouldn’t be poly. I think that you should know yourself and think, “Am I the sort of person that can comfortably handle/communicate my needs without it being a shouting match?”
SPENCER: Yeah, it seems like really clear, honest communication is just absolutely essential if you’re going to navigate the complexity of multiple people’s emotions simultaneously, including your own. What other traits would you say are really important if you’re going to try polyamory?
SAM: I think innate low jealousy is probably really, really helpful. Even though I got over my jealousy, I think if you just start out kind of low, it’s probably easier.
SPENCER: Well, I would just add that I think some people are just naturally more monogamous and that some are more naturally polyamorous. Like, I know people that once they have a partner, they actually just seem to have no attraction to anyone else, and the idea of being with anyone else is just odious to them. Whereas other people, it seems like when they’re with one partner, they still actually feel a lot of attraction to others. And you know, if they’re ethical, they’re not going to cheat, but they still have those feelings. And then I actually think there might be a third type, where it’s something like, when they’re in a monogamous relationship, they’re just attracted to that one person, but as soon as they’re in a non-monogamous relationship, they’re actually attracted to multiple people, so is there something like a switch that can flip based on what the rules in the relationship are?
…
SAM: Yeah, I have two thoughts. One is, I don’t think polyamory will work for everyone.
SPENCER: What percentage of people do you think would be happiest in a polyamorous situation?
SAM: My guess is 10% of people.
SPENCER: Okay, yeah.
SAM: It’s a pretty small number. Now, obviously, I could change my mind on this. But I don’t think that — if you don’t have good communication techniques, and have already low jealousy and things like that — that you can do it without it being a disaster for everyone. And also people get into polyamory under duress sometimes where a person’s like,” I want to break up with you,” and the other person’s like, “Well, let’s be poly instead?” And then that’s a kind of a tragic, unhappy situation because you’re like…almost being…you’re not happy with the arrangement, you’re kind of just agreeing to it.
SPENCER: Right, right. And I think that, you know, people can certainly get really badly hurt if they’re pushed into a polyamorous situation that they don’t feel good about. And one has to be really careful about that.
I’m not going to say any of this is decisively wrong because I’m no kind of authority and relatively new to polyamory myself. But here are a few things that struck me:
I think it’s probably true (I’m curious if you agree) that polyamory, all else being equal, might be less stable than monogamy
FWIW this doesn’t seem true to me, or at least not obviously true. The flipside is that if you have multiple partners it’s comparatively less common for all of your romantic relationships to struggle at once, whereas in monogamy it’s obviously pretty easy for that to happen. Having a mixture of people able to meet your needs seems to me like it would be overall stabilizing. The effects mentioned in the passage I’m quoting also seem real, I’m just not sure what effect is strongest.
I think if you don’t have the skill of handling interpersonal conflicts well, you just shouldn’t be poly
I feel confused about this because it’s not like being bad at handling conflict is great in monogamous relationships either. I would guess-agree that polyamory amplifies it, but I think that basically anyone who can’t handle conflict well is going to have a rough time of relationships generally, and I’m not sure they should be categorically screened off from polyamory in particular on that basis.
[zero-sum stuff]
My take on this is that everyone has different capacity to meet the needs of others, and everyone has different needs. In polyamory as in monogamy, you might not be able to be everything that your partners want you to be, but whether you have other partners and how you relate to them is only one part of that picture. When we say that people might struggle to have time for multiple relationships, IMO we should really be saying they don’t have time for multiple relationshps and their job and their hobbies and whatever else they want to fit into their calendar. Some people struggle with only one relationship! Some people struggle with time management without any relationships! We should also understand that some people feel able to sustain a meaningful relationship on only seeing someone every couple of months (many people feel this way about their family, for example, or old friends), and again it’s just about whether what you’re able and willing to offer lines up with what they want from you and vice versa.
Anyway, none of this is central to the point of the article, but while we’re sharing people’s thoughts and impressions, those are mine.
Many thanks to all who contributed toward this post. I agree with many of your points, and I appreciate the roundedness and nuance you bring to the topic.
To add to your “If you’re considering poly” section, I’m excerpting below a Clearer Thinking podcast episode (timestamp: 54:03–73:12) which I think does a great job of discussing polyamory in a balanced way. (Spencer Greenberg is the host, and Sam Rosen is the guest – in the episode, Sam talks about his experience with being poly; I’ve bolded the parts which speak to me the most.)
I’m not going to say any of this is decisively wrong because I’m no kind of authority and relatively new to polyamory myself. But here are a few things that struck me:
FWIW this doesn’t seem true to me, or at least not obviously true. The flipside is that if you have multiple partners it’s comparatively less common for all of your romantic relationships to struggle at once, whereas in monogamy it’s obviously pretty easy for that to happen. Having a mixture of people able to meet your needs seems to me like it would be overall stabilizing. The effects mentioned in the passage I’m quoting also seem real, I’m just not sure what effect is strongest.
I feel confused about this because it’s not like being bad at handling conflict is great in monogamous relationships either. I would guess-agree that polyamory amplifies it, but I think that basically anyone who can’t handle conflict well is going to have a rough time of relationships generally, and I’m not sure they should be categorically screened off from polyamory in particular on that basis.
My take on this is that everyone has different capacity to meet the needs of others, and everyone has different needs. In polyamory as in monogamy, you might not be able to be everything that your partners want you to be, but whether you have other partners and how you relate to them is only one part of that picture. When we say that people might struggle to have time for multiple relationships, IMO we should really be saying they don’t have time for multiple relationshps and their job and their hobbies and whatever else they want to fit into their calendar. Some people struggle with only one relationship! Some people struggle with time management without any relationships! We should also understand that some people feel able to sustain a meaningful relationship on only seeing someone every couple of months (many people feel this way about their family, for example, or old friends), and again it’s just about whether what you’re able and willing to offer lines up with what they want from you and vice versa.
Anyway, none of this is central to the point of the article, but while we’re sharing people’s thoughts and impressions, those are mine.