Back many moons ago when I used to write for PolyFamilies, my spice at the time and I used to muse over the fact that the site would be useful to almost anyone. It was mostly about running a household, with the quirkiness of being a multi-adult marriage thrown in. The principles, however, could be applied to almost anything. I still use versions of them in my much smaller, not-a-group marriage household now!
Relationships are similar, you know. The principles of conducting good relationships don’t only apply to the ones you have with people you’re doinking!
There’s an excellent article on the Polyamory Society site by Brian Frederick that lists a series of relationship skills crucial to the polyamorous person. At the very end, Frederick comments that his article could apply to any relationship — business, family or otherwise, and he’s right.
What good personal interaction really boils down to is approaching people with respect and insisting on being respected — on drawing good boundaries around what’s good and what’s not. It’s about communicating honestly.
While I’d be the last person to say that Polyamory Makes Us Better People, I will say that if you are going to dedicate yourself to the skills necessary to maintain good multiple relationships, yeah, it’s gonna have a self-improvement effect in general.
I whole-heartedly agree that with poly comes self-improvement. I can’t say enough about how much more clearly I am able to communicate my wants/needs/desires since being in a poly relationship. I’ve been into kink for some time, and it’s always been easy to tell someone what I need sexually, but I’ve never done well with telling people what I need emotionally. Poly has definitely helped me with that over the past two years.
Whatever the reason for doing it, most of us will surely benefit from working with Brian Frederick’s principles (or similar). If poly makes us more inclined to take on emotional challenges, (including telling others what we need) that will be a nice side-effect. Which I suspect occurs rather frequently:-)