I’ve been wanting to talk about several aspects of my life that revolve around my relationship style for some time now. It just feels like such a big topic, and I want to make sure I do it justice. But this is another reminder for me yet again, in progress over perfection. Just do the thing. I can always edit it or add more later. The important part is that I start.
In this article I’ll talk about polyamory, relationship classification and maybe more. I’m not too sure, my plan is to just take my own advice and write from the heart.
I’ll start with the most frequently asked questions I get: why polyamory? Isn’t it really difficult? Do you not get jealous? There’s so much I have to say here.
Polyamory has really been a crazy catalyst for growth for me. Yes, it is harder. But it’s harder because you must communicate. You can’t lean on societal norms to hold your relationship together. But when you are forced to communicate, you are also forced to look deep within and find out why you feel the way you do. You can’t shove anything down, because I promise you, it will come back up, and most likely explode in your face.
I hope this is making sense. For someone who preaches communication, I don’t feel super confident in my words a lot of times. Which leads to another point. Insecurities. You can’t just depend on the fact that your partner is only committed you, to ease your insecurities. You have to see the hard parts of yourself and actively work on them. You have to work towards being secure in yourself, because chances are you won’t be your partners only person.
Which leads into the next question of jealously. Yes. Girl, I get sooo jealous sometimes. And that’s normal! Everyone gets jealous. What really matters what you learn from it and then what you do with it. Jealousy is always telling you something. It’s often a need not being met. Not enough quality time, words of affirmation or physical touch. Or maybe you just don’t feel that your emotions are heard. Jealousy is a lot like anger, in the fact that it’s a secondary emotion. There is always another feeling underneath anger, whether it be fear, hurt, anxiety, etc. There’s always something deeper going on underneath jealousy.
In traditional monogamous relationships, jealousy can be seen as a positive thing, because it supposedly means you love your partner more. Which may be true, but there’s more going on that needs to be uncovered. In monogamy, you can ignore or even glorify your jealousy, but you can’t do that in polyamory. You have to find the root of the emotion and work on yourself.
All of this rambling to say: YES polyamory is a ton of work. It’s really hard and there is a high chance you’ll feel some tough emotions, BUT…not to be cliché…but good things take hard work and are very fulfilling in the end. So that is one reason why I choose polyamory. I love working on myself and growing alongside some beautiful people.
Another reason I choose polyamory is because I love to love and prefer to allow my relationships to grow organically. What do I mean by that? When I meet someone, or reconnect with someone, I have no expectations of what will become of it. I always start off with friendship, and if something more becomes of it, great! I don’t have any reason to hold back my feelings. Whereas if I was in a monogamous relationship and really hit it off with someone, that would be emotional cheating and I would not only have to discontinue seeing them, but I would also most likely not be able to remain friends with them, which is just sad to miss out on a potential beautiful connection in my opinion.
As far as relationship classification goes, there are many ways people practice polyamory. One common way is hierarchal, which is just like it sounds like. Your relationships are ranked and the higher up, the more priority the person has in your life.
For me personally, this is NOT how I identify. Each relationship in my life is like a beautiful snowflake, unique and different, not one is better than another. No one person has more say in my life than another, it’s all about communication. For example, in a hierarchal relationship, if one person starts dating someone new that their partner doesn’t like, they can veto it and make them break up. I don’t believe in that personally. I believe in having my own autonomy and making my own choices. Of course, this doesn’t mean I don’t take my partners opinions, thoughts and feelings into account, it just means I don’t let them dictate my decisions.
The type of polyamory I most identify with is solo poly. This means I’m not necessarily enmeshed with someone. I prefer to live on my own, have my own finances, do my own things, and also have my relationships too. It’s too easy for me to fall into codependency with someone at this point in my life, and I don’t want that. Maybe down the road, I will want to be more tied down, but currently, I love being a free bird.
Well I feel like I’ve ranted enough for one article, though there is so much more I could talk on, so maybe a part 2 article will be coming soon!
I would love to hear your feedback, questions, comments, etc. so I can better educate people on the topic.
Thank you for reading my short novel! Much love always ❤️