A letter I got recently and a question I was asked in another forum really got me to thinking.
The question was:
How did you come to realize that polyamorous relationships were right for you? Now that you live this lifestyle, do you think that it’s for everyone or more “natural” than monogamy?
I answered:
Polyamory is absolutely and certainly not for everyone. I get far, far too many letters from people who tie themselves into knots to be polyamorous and are miserably unhappy.
It baffles me why they should do such a thing.
Natural for humans is sleeping in trees and eating dinner while it’s still wriggling. I’m not too worried about “natural.”
I was then asked something that brought me up short. It was such a good question:
What do you think are the signs that someone can be or might not be into polyamory before trying it? Or is it just something people have to try first?
This is good, and you need to think hard about it if you’re considering polyamory. If you are reluctant to try polyamory, or if you feel kinda meh and unenthusiastic about it, if it doesn’t sound like the most awesome thing evah, I would say that trying it isn’t a great idea. You want a deep, from the soul yes to try it.
I’m not saying that’s going to protect you from all screwups. It totally won’t. I’ve had those feelings about things and had them turn out to be a mistake, but I think it has still reduced the number of choices I’ve made that did not make me happy or enrich my soul.
If it isn’t enriching your life, if it doesn’t bring you joy, there is no good reason to do it – nope, not even to extend the length of a relationship.
Hard yes on “don’t try polyamory unless you have a deep feeling of rightness when you think about it,” and this is coming from somebody who made the rare successful transition from being pressured into poly relationships I didn’t want by early partners, to loving it and not wanting to live any other way. The reason it eventually worked out for me was that my partner and I fell in love with a trio together and all of a sudden the whole thing made sense, but you can’t count on that. The reason I’m solidly on the side of “don’t try it unless it feels very right to you” is that I remember the years of trying to fight down nauseating levels of confusion/pain/fear/jealousy whenever my partner was on a date, and feeling dirty and miserable and resentful that I was even being asked to try this, when *I* was. That’s not something to ask anyone to live with, including yourself.
I’m happy now, and even though my quint relationship only lasted a few years, I’ve deliberately chosen only poly relationships since then. It adds a sparkle to my life, and I have no desire to go back to monogamy, even though now I’m in a position where I easily could. But I also would not put myself through the years of hell in between if I could do it over again, either. (Although I might well go back and have a talk with my younger self about what *good* polyamorous relationships look like… much of the reason I used to hate it so much was that the partners who were the type to pressure me into polyamory they knew I didn’t want were also — surprise! — not exactly the type to do polyamory with good ethics and kindness to all partners. It really helped, when I started meeting people who were good at it and who *cared* about being good at it.)