Polyamory in the 21st Century: Love and Intimacy With Multiple Partners

by Deborah M. Anapol

  The intoxication of a new romantic relationship can easily override the discernment of those involved. Consequently, in an open relationship, cues may be missed by the individual with a new lover but show up loud and clear to an established partner who is then accused of jealousy and possessiveness when they share their fears. For this reason—and many others, as we discuss in the next sections—those who hope for successful polyamorous relationships would do well to clear up their family-of-origin issues before they begin.

  COMPERSION

  Compersion is a word created by the Kerista Community to describe an emotion that is the opposite of jealousy. Compersion means to feel joy and delight when one’s beloved loves or is being loved by another. Compersion is especially strong and accessible when all the people involved have feelings of love for each other, but that’s not a necessary precondition.

  Some people have spontaneously had the experience of compersion, much to their surprise, when they were anticipating feeling jealous. Some find compersion as natural and inevitable as jealousy seems to be for others. People like this instantly recognize their feeling as compersion as soon as they hear the new term.

  However, since most of us have been raised with an expectation of jealousy, compersion is an alien concept. Learning theory tells us that it’s always easier to replace one habit with another than to just eliminate the first one. If you can’t imagine feeling compersion instead of jealousy, you can try the following experiment the next time you feel jealous. Instead of focusing on your own discomfort and fears, try putting your attention on your partner. Think of the happiness and pleasure your partner may be experiencing and how your partner’s good feelings will eventually be passed on to you. If this seems impossible, try imagining a situation which is less threatening to you but still touches on your jealousy triggers.

  Just having a concept that acknowledges that you have an alternative to feeling jealous can go a long way toward transforming jealousy. It really is possible to feel joy and expansion rather than fear and contraction in response to a loved one’s sharing their love with others, as thousands of people can attest. But it’s not always easy. My e-book Compersion: Using Jealousy as a Path to Unconditional Love offers ways to reprogram your thinking away from jealousy and toward compersion while bringing the valuable messages jealousy brings into awareness.

  Jealousy has a spiritual dimension. In essence, jealousy indicates a crisis of faith. It is part of conditional love. If you will love only when you’re assured of having your love returned, then you make yourself vulnerable to jealousy. On a more practical level, we could say simply that jealousy is a sign that your relationship needs work of some kind. For example, jealousy can be a message that your relation is changing. Rather than fearing the changes and struggling against them, jealousy can instead be a message to surrender to change and trust that if you set her free, she’ll return if she truly belongs with you. Or jealousy could be bringing your attention to your own fear of abandonment, showing you that if you fail to address the source of this fear in you, you may indeed drive your partner away.

  In order to make the most of jealousy as an opportunity for growth, I always coach people to discharge or manage the intensity of the emotional reaction itself so that jealousy’s teachings can be received. Sometimes all that’s needed is to wait for a more suitable time to confront jealousy head-on rather than foolishly rushing in where angels fear to tread. If your bodymind is swamped with overwhelmingly chaotic sensations, you’re in no position to learn anything.

  MANAGING JEALOUSY

  I always encourage people to find an appropriate balance between becoming skillful at finding ways to sidestep jealousy and avoid the turmoil it brings and inviting jealousy to become a powerful teacher who can show us the places we most need healing and motivate us to grow beyond our perceived limits so that we’re capable of more love. Part of the difficulty in managing jealousy is that most people have gotten conflicting messages about it. One the one hand, it’s inevitable and part of love. On the other, it’s shameful and a sign of weakness. Hence, working with jealousy always entails working with the shadow. When people manage their jealousy too well, they limit their own potential or may find themselves adapting to a disempowering situation.

  The first step in managing jealousy is admitting to yourself and your partner(s) that it’s a problem. When people try to keep a stiff upper lip and deny that they’re jealous, they usually sabotage themselves by allowing their jealousy to build until it really is unmanageable. It’s far better to acknowledge the first stirrings of jealousy and learn to listen respectfully to the part of yourself that feels jealous without believing everything you hear. If this isn’t a process you’re familiar with, seek the help of an experienced therapist until disidentifying with your emotions and dialoguing with conflicting parts become second nature. Most people tend to leap prematurely into action to change the situation instead of pausing a moment to integrate this uncomfortable experience and reclaim their shadow self.

  Asking for support from friends as well as partners is an important way to take care of yourself even when you’re familiar with navigating these turbulent emotional currents. Communicating as clearly as you can what you’re experiencing and making specific requests without engaging in blame or making demands can be amazingly effective.

  Chuck noticed a churning sensation in his gut when he saw his girlfriend Janice holding hands with Frank and looking adoringly into his eyes. As soon as Janice and Frank disengaged, he asked Janice if she could spend a few minutes with him. “I notice that I’m feeling separate from you,” he said, “and I don’t want to feel that way. Can we hold each other so I can connect with you again?” Janice quickly agreed, happy that Chuck wasn’t blaming her for his upset, relieved that his request was so easy to fulfill, and genuinely appreciating and loving him more than ever.

  Not everyone is as self-aware and skillful at communicating and letting go as Chuck. Just taking some deep breaths, vigorous exercise, yoga, dance, massage, listening to relaxing music, a breathwork session, or even watching a funny or uplifting movie are all good ways to dissipate the charge of jealousy before thinking about or discussing the specifics of the situation that triggered the jealousy. Trying to have a rational and reasonable conversation with a jealous person is useless at best and very likely counterproductive.

  Once the emotional storm has passed or before it has blown in is a far better time to work on identifying your personal jealousy triggers and ask your partner to help find ways to work around them. Many partners will resist taking total responsibility for managing another’s jealousy but are usually happy to negotiate solutions that help each get what they want. The key is to approach managing jealousy as a shared project both can cooperate on instead of pitting one person against another or allowing one partner to use his or her jealousy to manipulate the other or make the other wrong.

  If one partner is resistant to teamwork, it’s worth investigating whether there’s a payoff in having a jealous partner. For example, Joseph refused to empathize with Suzy’s jealous reaction when he ignored her all evening and focused his attention on Jill, whom he’d met for the first time at the dinner party all three were attending. When they came to me for help with Suzy’s jealousy, Joseph rejected Suzy’s request that he give her equal time and express more appreciation, saying that she was trying to control him. It soon became apparent that Joseph enjoyed triggering Suzy’s jealousy. They were in the midst of a power struggle, and bringing out Suzy’s insecurity and fear of abandonment tipped the scales in his favor. Other people may prefer a partner who is more jealous than they are or who they are not fully attracted to so that they never have to confront their own insecurity or vulnerability. These kinds of dynamics need to be resolved before jealousy can be successfully managed.

  When there are no obstacles in the way and both people are genuinely interesting in helping each other get what they want, negotiation can go a long way toward reducing jealousy to
manageable levels. Elizabeth and Tom discussed polyamory on their first date and were delighted to find that neither one of them was interested in monogamy. But after their marriage a year later, Elizabeth found herself feeling possessive. When Candace flirted with Tom at a party, Elizabeth felt the first stirrings of jealousy. Still, she accepted when Candace invited her to lunch, and when Candace asked her permission to have a date with Tom, Elizabeth found her jealousy nearly disappearing. Realizing that being asked for permission made a big difference in her comfort level, Elizabeth asked Tom to instruct any woman he wanted to date to ask Elizabeth’s permission first. Tom was happy to find such a simple means to manage Elizabeth’s jealousy and conscientiously complied with her request. “There’s only been one woman Elizabeth said ‘no’ to in the past three years and one who refused to ask her, out of six women I’ve been interested in. I’m a lucky man!”

  Neil’s jealousy was not so easily dealt with. When Neil and Lynne decided to embark on an open relationship after four years of marriage, he found that while he valued the freedom to enjoy intimacy with other women, he couldn’t stand the prospect of Lynne making love with another man who she might like better than him. Neil asked Lynne to agree that they get involved only with married couples since he felt safer with men who were already in a committed relationship. Lynne was willing to try this for one year if Neil would agree to work on his jealousy during that time and renegotiate at the end of the year.

  I suggested that Neil use systematic desensitization to reduce his emotional reactivity enough to investigate the source of his jealousy. Together we constructed a detailed list of scenarios that triggered jealousy for him, ordered from the least threatening to the most threatening. With Lynne’s support, he chose a time when they were feeling relaxed and comfortable with each other to try imagining the least difficult scene, which for him was a double date with another couple. Neil was able to stay relaxed and free of jealousy until he began visualizing that after dinner and dancing, the two couples returned to their home and Lynne went into their bedroom with the other man, leaving Neil in the living room with the other woman. He’d gone too far too fast and needed to take smaller steps.

  The following week, Neil tried again, changing the scenario so that both couples went into the bedroom and made love side by side with their own partners and then all engaged in “pillow talk” together. This time Neil felt only a small twinge of jealousy. Gradually over several sessions, he adjusted his fantasy to increase the amount of contact Lynne had with the other man. Then he tried imagining Lynne and the other man getting out of bed and going into the living room, leaving Neil alone with the other woman. This scenario felt so comfortable that Neil decided to give his original fantasy of Lynne going into their bedroom with the other man after a double date another try. Once again his jealousy overwhelmed him.

  I advised Neil to try imagining another location, such as a two-room suite in a hotel. The hotel scenario worked much better for him. Neil was able to picture Lynne spending the rest of the night with the other man in their hotel suite without feeling much jealousy at all. Neil had unknowingly hit one of his own jealousy buttons by thinking about Lynne in their own special bed with another man.

  Some months later, Neil and Lynne met a couple both of them liked and were able to develop a warm friendship that slowly became sexual after Neil shared his struggle with jealousy and asked to rendezvous at a hotel. Neil remained jealousy free until Lynne told him she wanted to go away for the weekend with the other man. He again implemented the systematic desensitization technique and after several weeks of work felt he was ready to send Lynne off for the weekend. I coached him to plan some activities for himself during this time, and he decided to take advantage of the opportunity to go river rafting, which was not something Lynne enjoyed. When Lynne asked if he would go away with her the following weekend, Neil knew his hard work had paid off, and he eagerly asked me for some instruction on how to let jealousy be his teacher.

  Systematic desensitization is a useful technique but it doesn’t always work to manage jealousy, especially if the jealousy is intense and the ability to negotiate agreements to avoid the biggest triggers is absent for one reason or another. For some people, in some situations, jealousy does seem to dictate ending a valued relationship.

  Patricia and Bruce met at a polyamory conference and soon fell in love. Their respective spouses were supportive until Bruce’s jealousy became a problem. Bruce wasn’t jealous of Patricia’s husband in the least. “I love my wife,” Bruce explained, “and I want to stay married to her. I’m glad that Patricia has a good relationship with Ellis too. I just can’t stand the thought of her meeting another guy who might take my place. She says two great men are enough for her, and she’s not looking for anyone else, but Ellis wants her to go to parties and on dinner dates with other couples so he can meet someone. She’s a very social person and enjoys hanging out with all her poly friends. Even if Ellis was willing to meet women without her, I don’t think it’s fair to ask her to give up all her friends. Besides, she wouldn’t do it anyway.”

  Patricia and Ellis were willing to temporarily alter their social life while Bruce tried to reduce the intensity of his jealousy and get to the source of his jealous fear. He had some success, but as soon as Patricia and Ellis returned to their usual way of life, Bruce’s jealousy became unbearable. “It’s strange,” Bruce said miserably, “I’m not at all jealous with my wife Zoë, but I just can’t get over it with Patricia. Some relationships are just different. I can’t do this any more! It’s just too hard.” Bruce had made a valiant effort, but in the end jealousy had its way with him.

  POLYAMORY AND CHILDREN

  Many people assume that it’s harmful for children to have more than two parents. Of course, multiple parents are common in stepfamilies, where a child may have as many as four parents from two blended families. In the many cultures where polygyny is permitted, children often grow up with several mothers who cooperate in caring for each other’s children. And from time immemorial, older brothers and sisters, as well as extended families of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, have shared family compounds and taken on significant roles as caretakers. One of the most indelible images from all my travels is a slender elderly man with a wizened face squatting beside a toddler just after dawn in the outskirts of a village in central India. This man looked at the little one, who I imagined to be his grandchild, with a look of such love and devotion that I literally stopped in my tracks, unable to shift my gaze.

  As extended families who live together become increasingly rare, especially in the affluent West, polyamorous families are one way that some people are counteracting the isolation of the lone nuclear family and finding ways to provide at-home caretakers for children. Others gravitate toward cohousing or intentional communities that may or may not be monogamously oriented but where adults share some responsibility for child rearing.

  Several studies have been done on stepfamilies and children reared communally, but there is still a dearth of research investigating the important question of how polyamory affects children. At the same time, the impact on children is one of the most commonly asked questions whenever the subject of polyamory is raised. Dr. Elisabeth Sheff is an assistant professor of sociology at Georgia State University. She conducted her doctoral research on polyamorous families with children in the mid-1990s and later decided to attempt a longitudinal study of these and other poly families. So far, she’s following about thirty families with three or more adults living together who have children between the ages of six and twenty. She’d like to double that and include an ethnically and culturally more diversified group before publishing her findings but says that funding for research on polyamory is scarce.

  Dr. Sheff’s research focuses on families where three or more adults in committed relationships jointly share responsibility for child rearing. However, open marriages are far more common than group marriages and consequently are impacting many more children. Sin
gle parents with intimate networks also are increasingly common and present a similar milieu for children in many respects. All these types of multipartner relationships may shape children’s experiences in a variety of ways that have not even begun to be considered, except by theorists and the parents themselves, let alone researched.

  As a parent who has raised two children of my own in a variety of non-monogamous contexts and watched many friends and clients do the same over the years, I have thought deeply about these issues and written several articles on the subject. As I began to undertake the writing of this book, I interviewed at least one parent and sometimes children in fifteen different families where one or more children lived with a nonmonogamous parent, most often in open marriages. The youngest child is currently one year old, and many of the children are now young adults in their early twenties who are engaged in their own intimate relationships. In addition, over the years, I’ve socialized with, coached, or spoken at length with at least several hundred other polyamorous families with children and a few dozen middle-aged adults who were raised in families where their parents had open or group marriages or where patriarchal-style polygamy was practiced.

  In an open marriage or single-parent household, it’s quite common for secondary partners to visit regularly, stay over on weekends, or stay for weeks at a time and perhaps for them to become housemates or to move in for a trial period as a prelude to a more permanent arrangement. In situations like this, lovers often take on roles similar to those of aunts and uncles rather than coparents. Parents must decide how and when to integrate these visitors into the family and what, if anything, to say to the children about the new lover who is now sharing Mommy and/or Daddy’s bed.