Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook

by Michael Makai

  So, how does one manage jealousy in a poly relationship? The techniques are essentially the same as those used while managing jealousy in any relationship, though your approach may change, depending on whether it is you or your partner(s) who are the jealous parties.

  If you are the one who is jealous:

  · Learn to identify the emotions you’re feeling, and the triggers that prompt them. Sometimes, keeping a journal can help you, in this regard.

  · Unlearn the notion that every time you feel a strong emotion, that you are required to do something about it. Decisions made in the heat of high emotion will almost always turn out to be bad decisions.

  · Work on improving your communication skills. One way to do that is to use precise language to avoid coming across as being judgmental or blaming. Instead of saying, “You ignored me,” try saying, “I felt left out.” Discussing your feelings, instead of another person’s actions works far better, because no one can ever deny how you felt, yet they could (and probably will) argue the issue of what they did or didn’t do. Avoid any language that leads to guilt trips, blaming, martyrdom, tantrums or threats of violence or self-destructive behavior.

  · Seek reassurance from your partner(s) on their feelings about you and/or the relationship, their willingness to work with you to resolve the issues, and their understanding of what is actually happening.

  · Avoid viewing your jealousy as a problem that can only be solved by a change in someone else’s behavior. Yes, it is a problem that can be solved, but only by making changes in your own thinking and behavior.

  · Learn to love yourself, despite all of your flaws and insecurities. Acknowledge that you are loved, and that you have unique gifts, talents and qualities that no one else has, and that you have value. This is, and forever will be, true regardless of whether or not your current relationship endures.

  · Recognize that your emotional state and any resulting drama also affect everyone else in the relationship, and the effect is almost never a good one. This can cause a ripple-effect of unintended consequences, which may become self-fulfilling prophecies.

  · Consider desensitizing yourself to your jealousy triggers by deliberately exposing yourself to them in small, manageable doses with the help of your partner(s). Evaluate how you react to and handle each instance, and look for ways you can improve.

  · Be patient, forgiving, creative and strong in your efforts to overcome the negative effects that jealousy can have on your relationship. Ask yourself, at each step of the way, am I making things better or worse?

  If your partner is the one who is jealous:

  · Don’t introduce new partners into a relationship that isn’t already built on a firm foundation. Polyamory can sometimes make a good relationship better, but it will almost always be a deathblow to a fragile or dysfunctional relationship.

  · Avoid dismissing your partner’s feelings as irrational. Jealousy, almost by definition, is irrational – as is emotion in general. Try to acknowledge and validate your partners feelings, even if you don’t necessarily agree with how they are expressed or the decisions that are made as a result of those feelings.

  · Improve your communication skills, and take a hard look at what you may be doing to make matters worse. This may include things like pushing your partner’s hot buttons, resorting to low blows in arguments, unnecessarily stoking your partner’s feelings of insecurity, making comparisons, encouraging competitive attitudes and behaviors, and being inconsistent in your standards and priorities.

  · Be willing to ask yourself whether you may actually be in the habit of seeking out jealous partners because it strokes your ego or keeps things exciting.

  · Keep your cool, and refuse to reciprocate with verbal abuse or emotional outbursts just because your partner does. Refuse to engage in discussions that involve threats of violence or suicide gestures of any kind. Learn to walk away from discussions or arguments that threaten to spiral out of control. You can always pick up where you left off once you’ve both cooled off.

  · If the discussion involves three or more partners, try to avoid any tendency to gang up on one individual. That person will typically feel ambushed and overwhelmed, even if you are taking great pains to be scrupulously fair.

  · Affirm your feelings and commitment to your partners, and reassure them in ways that tell them that they are appreciated for their unique qualities, and are valued.

  · Be trustworthy, consistent and disciplined. If you agree to something, keep your word.

  Focus. Another potential disadvantage of poly relationships is the issue of focus, which generally falls into two categories: time and attention. It is always a difficult balancing act to know when to focus these resources upon one partner like a laser beam, and when to broaden your focus to include more than one mate and/or others, such as children or friends. One-on-one quality time, which is typically comprised of highly focused attention on one individual, can often compensate for far larger quantities of unfocused time and attention. One-on-one quality time usually includes, but shouldn’t necessarily be limited to, sex and intimacy. It can just as easily consist of any activity that is unique and special to the individual who is the focus of your attention. The key to overcoming this challenge in a poly relationship is to regularly schedule inviolable one-on-one quality time with each of your mates, and stick to your schedule.

  Expense and Resources. The cost and viability of a polyamorous relationship can be another one of those double-edged swords that we seem to encounter with great frequency in the poly lifestyle. On one hand, a poly relationship can sometimes mean multiple incomes flowing into a single household, which may equate to a higher standard of living and increased cash flow for everyone involved. On the other hand, it could also consist of a relationship where all of the partners aren’t able to work and contribute a portion of their income. That could, for example, mean trying to support three people with the same income that previously supported just two – which rarely works out very well. While there isn’t a cookie-cutter solution to these kinds of challenges, it is almost always a good idea to sit down with any potential poly partners to have a frank discussion about personal finances and perhaps even a proposed budget.

  Personal Space. Contrary to popular belief, personal space can become an issue even in poly relationships where each partner lives in his or her own home. Allowing another person to muck about in your kitchen or sock drawer can definitely be a little unsettling for some. Multiply that by two or more people doing it, and it can be more than just unsettling, it can cause some people to become absolutely unhinged. Add two cups of living under the same roof and a dash of the common misconception that poly living somehow equates to communal property, and voila! – you now have a recipe for epic relationship failure. If you are considering entering into a poly relationship where your partners will be living in the same household, be sure to hammer out the details of what is or isn’t considered your personal space that is off-limits to the other members of the household before you move in.

  Scorekeeping. One of the most enduring myths concerning polyamorous relationships is the notion that everyone should be treated equally. It’s even more curious that many of the people who perpetuate that myth just happen to be the very same people who want to be appreciated and recognized for their own unique qualities and contributions to the relationship. How does one recognize an individual’s unique qualities, yet still treat everyone exactly the same? Any parent with more than one child knows that equity is always an issue that must be dealt with, when it comes to sibling rivalry. The solution typically involves treating everyone fairly and equitably, even if they are not treated exactly the same. Unfortunately, the adults in a polyamorous relationship can sometimes behave like children, by engaging in scorekeeping. Scorekeeping occurs when you feel cheated because another person in the relationship appears to be getting more time, sex, gifts, or attention than you are. Keeping a tally of the days, hours or even minutes one partner spends with an
other, compulsively tracking expenditures, and attempting to quantify enjoyment are all manifestations of scorekeeping. Imagine a partner who claims, “Yes, I know you spent all day with me, and only an hour with her, but I still got cheated because you enjoyed your time with her more.” Obviously, there can be no effective rational response to an irrational anxiety. Author Erica Jong probably said it best when she wrote, “Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.”

  Odd-One-Out Syndrome. We live in a predominantly monogamous society and, as a result, our environment tends to be structured in ways that support that paradigm. Think about it. Our cars have one driver’s seat, one passenger seat, and a back seat. Free-standing restaurant tables are set up for two, four, or more chairs. Booths typically allow two people to sit side-by-side, while the third must sit across the table. You can buy a double bed, but not a triple bed; larger sizes are called queen and king-sized, as if only royalty are allowed to have poly sleeping arrangements.

  Polygamous marriage is still illegal in most western cultures, so only one poly partner gets to be the “real” spouse, while others are relegated to being mere cohabitants. The list goes on and on, but you get the idea. Someone is always forced to be the odd one out, and this can often become a sore spot if it is not recognized and dealt with effectively. It may be useful to discourage competition and rivalry for those coveted number two seats by implementing a simple system that randomizes or assigns seats fairly for all concerned.

  Children. The presence of children in a polyamorous relationship adds a level of complexity and potential for problems that many people would rather not have to think about, but it is a subject that should be given some thought, whether or not the current partners in the relationship currently have any children. Typically, when a vanilla person hears, for the first time, that you are in a poly relationship, the very first question they will ask is “Do any of you have children?” This question usually arises for one or more of the following three reasons. First, they may be confusing polyamory with sexual promiscuity or swinging, and are worried that the children will be exposed to orgies in the living room. Second, they worry that having multiple pervy partners in a household with kids will increase the potential for child abuse. And third, they worry that the children may grow up believing the crazy notion that it’s okay to love more than one person at a time. In defense of your vanilla friends, two of the three concerns actually do have some validity, and ought to be considered. Obviously, polyamory is not swinging, so that issue can usually be laid to rest with a simple explanation of the differences. But introducing any new adult into any household (mono or poly) with children increases the potential for abuse, and this potential can be significantly higher if that person is, for example, a sadist. Further complicating the matter is the unfortunate reality that if any allegation of abuse is made, the fact that a person is living an alternative lifestyle will be counted as a strike against the alleged perpetrator in any court of law. Finally, while you may believe that polyamory is the perfect lifestyle for you, you may want to give some serious consideration to whether you want to pass that mindset and way of life on to your children. For some, the answer may be simple. For others, perhaps not so much.

  The Final Straw. You may be familiar with the old Arabic proverb that describes how a heavily-laden camel’s back is broken by a single straw that is added to his already heavy load. This final straw parable perfectly describes what happens when an already overburdened and barely functional relationship is transformed almost instantly into a completely dysfunctional one by the addition of another partner. When this occurs, it is not indicative of any systemic flaw in the concept or practice of polyamory; it is the predictable consequence of introducing unknown variables, new personalities and additional stresses to a pre-existing bad relationship. Stress is how the mind and body react to perceived changes, threats or challenges that we encounter in our lives. Even positive changes can result in stress; just ask anyone who has ever won the lottery.

  The introduction of a new partner into a relationship, household or both can be an incredibly stressful event, even under the best circumstances. The closest mono-vanilla parallel would be a couple getting married and establishing a shared household for the first time; obviously not something one should be considering if your current relationship is not a healthy one. Polyamory may have the potential to make a good relationship better, but it also has the potential to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.

  If You’re Not Poly

  Now that we have discussed the potential advantages and pitfalls which you may encounter in a polyamorous relationship, let’s talk about why it may be important to be familiar with polyamory, even if you are not poly yourself and never, ever, not even in a million years plan on becoming poly. After all, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll go to bed one night as a monogamist and wake up the following morning with the sudden epiphany that you’re now a polyamorist. But there are plenty of other scenarios which are far more likely to occur. You could, for example, one day end up the concerned confidant who feels compelled to ask your poly friends, “Do any of you have children?”

  Being properly informed about the true nature of poly lifestyles can mean the difference between an expression of interest versus an expression of condemnation. You probably already have poly friends you don’t know about who haven’t come out of the closet simply because they don’t expect you to understand or approve of their lifestyle.

  You could also end up being a monogamous person who falls in love with a polyamorous person. If this happens to you, don’t panic. It is entirely possible to not only survive the experience, but to thrive on it, if you can successfully manage your own expectations and behavior. First, you should understand from the beginning that it isn’t going to be easy being part of what is sometimes referred to as a mono/poly relationship. Second, you must be willing to go into it knowing that you have about as much chance of converting your poly partner to monogamy as you do of converting a gay partner to heterosexuality. In other words, the odds are somewhere between zero and the proverbial snowball’s chance in hell. Third, don’t delude yourself into thinking that just because your poly partner doesn’t have multiple partners now, that you can somehow prevent them from being added to the relationship later. A poly person is still poly, even if he or she currently only has one partner.

  Polyamory is a paradigm; it is a way of thinking. It is founded in the notion that the human heart has an infinite capacity for love. Perhaps one of the easiest ways to explain the concept of polyamory to a monogamist is to compare it to our attitudes about friendship.

  When we make a new friend, we never ask ourselves whether this friend puts us over some imaginary limit on how many friends we should be allowed to have. We don’t feel the need to drop one friend in order to make room for another. We instinctively understand that just because someone is our friend, that we don’t have the right to control their feelings or behavior, nor should they feel entitled to control ours.

  We don’t expect each of our friends to meet all of our needs and interests, nor are we willing to give up our interests just because our current friends aren’t much interested in them. We may enjoy going to the movies with one friend, dancing with another, and enjoying Thai food with a third. Even if it were possible for one friend to match every one of our needs and interests, we’d probably still want to make new friends. We also usually consider any friend who is irrationally jealous of all our other friends to be somewhat problematic.

  In spite of all of the challenges that must be overcome, a few of our select friends occasionally somehow manage to navigate the tortuous path that takes them from being just friends to becoming our lovers. And suddenly, everything changes.

  Perhaps the question we should be asking is, why does it have to?

  Poly Glossary

  To bring this chapter to a close, here are some useful terms and phrases that are unique to polyamory. They are listed here, at the end of this c
hapter, rather than at the back of the book because, for the most part, they are not inherently part of the D/s or BDSM lifestyles. While there is often a great deal of overlap between the poly and BDSM lifestyles, the majority of the people in the BDSM lifestyle are not poly, and most poly folk are not BDSM.

  The definitions provided here represent my earnest effort to give the best and most useful rendering of the meaning of the listed terms. Please keep in mind that many of the terms listed have been recently coined, may be controversial in their interpretation, or may differ in meaning from one region to the next, or in different organizations or social circles.

  Bright-eyed Novice. Typically a derogatory term for a person who has recently discovered polyamory and whose head is full of theory, but has little or no actual experience with any practical application of a poly lifestyle. Someone who tells everyone how poly should be practiced, even though they’ve never actually done it themselves.

  Closed Marriage. A marriage that allows for no outside emotional or sexual relationships.

  Closed Group Marriage. A poly marriage that allows for no outside emotional or sexual relationships.

  Cluster Marriage. A poly relationship consisting of two or more married couples living together under one roof and engaging in cross-couple romantic and/or sexual relationships.

  Cross-couple. Any relationship or activity between a member of one couple and a member of another couple.