Dear Carol,

I'm a therapist and I'm working with a couple who is considering polyamory. They want stability, especially for raising their daughter. While I want to encourage them to explore and do what's right for them, I flash to teacher Stephen Levine who said at workshops that you won't find intimate [non-monogamous] couples very long term, i.e. decades, who successfully pull it off; there's too much energies stirred up, i.e. jealousy, insecurities, and the endless desire/lust for more and different that the Buddhists point to, he'd say. Another well-known proponent of this relationship style comes to mind, but I have inside info that says he doesn't exactly walk his talk.

I flash also to you and your partner, who have been, last I heard, a thus far enduring alternative couple.

Thinking back, have you seen decades-lasting, intimate, non-monogamous couples?

Thanks!
–HC

Dear HC,

Yes. I can think of several such relationships lasting from 10 to 40 years. Not that we get lots of public examples of these couples and triads; polyamory is just a bit more challenging, I believe, for its relative dearth of high-profile role models.

Here’s what I can tell you about open relationships from both my own experience and that which I see in the community. First, plenty of people are not cut out for polyamory, and to make it work, both people in the primary relationship must want it. Not just be willing to try it because their partner wants it: *Each* must desire it, at least philosophically. As I once heard Deborah Anapol (of Love Without Limits) say, “Some people are monogamous; some are non-monogamous. It’s the mixed marriages that get into trouble.” In other words, people have relationship orientations much as we understand them to have sexual orientations; maybe they’re inborn and maybe not, but our preferences for the kind of relationship we want and need is deep rather than superficial, and it’s not easy just to switch from desiring monogamy to desiring polyamory if we meet a partner who really wants the latter. As a therapist for this couple, it might be useful to help them assess whether both of them are really committed to an open relationship and what sorts of hopes, hesitations and expectations each brings to this possibility. This is not to say that even a born-in-the-bone non-monogamist will know exactly how to proceed; but s/he’ll want to learn to communicate well, trust (and be trustworthy), and master jealousy. Now, the Anapol quote sounds a little either/or, and I have to say that I think that just as there are lots of bisexual people as well as gay and straight ones, there are many “bi-relational” folks: people for whom either/or isn’t the right way of understanding their relationship preferences. Maybe they prefer monogamy with one partner but with another feel more like an open relationship. Maybe they can maintain complete comfort with an open relationship if their partner only has casual sex with others, or only does it out of town; maybe they feel the reverse, only trusting the situation if their partner’s other lover/s are part of the family. Some poly couples hope deeply for a third (or even third and fourth) partner with whom both can share intimacy. (Three In Love is an interesting book that deals with this triadic form of polyamory.) Another very helpful element you can bring to the therapeutic relationship is an assessment of these sorts of possibilities, which amount to fleshing out the type of poly commitments each would desire, given their ideal situation. Watch out for one partner wanting something pretty incompatible with the other’s vision: that’s about as problematic as a “mixed marriage,” in fact is one variation on a mixed theme.

Of course, as a therapist, you know that most couples are not completely compatible in their desires, and most couples can learn to work with whatever limitations face them, if they are truly desirous of doing so. “Desire discrepancies” are usually thought of as couples’ opposite preferences about what time of day they want to make love, or how often; sometimes it’s more an issue that one partner has a fantasy or erotic preference the other doesn’t share. But this relationship style is in fact a kind of sexual preference too, isn’t it? It has to do with whom each member of the couple wants to be able to have sex with, if s/he chooses. So if the people are mature, somewhat flexible, sex-positive, desire their partner’s happiness, have good boundaries, and are good communicators, they’re ahead of the game whether the issue is “I want to try on your panties” or “I want to spend Wednesday evening and half of Sunday with somebody else.” (These qualities are also splendid bottom lines for a monogamous relationship, and I want to state in so many words that I don’t think one relationship type is preferable over the other.)

Levine is partly right, I think, about the question of intimacy. (I also think he carries with him the expectation, as so many commentators do, that he understands the general rules that work for everyone; my bias is that folks are a little more diverse than psychoanalytic training and even Buddhist practice prepare you for.) If a couple is happy with a relatively low level of interdependence, if each is satisfied with a certain degree of emotional independence, and (this is pretty important, I think) they don’t seek greater levels of intimacy outside their primary partnership than they do within it, they might have a better-than-average chance of comfortable long-term polyamory. But I think the most important factor here isn’t whether a couple is joined at the hip; it’s whether they seek greater intimacy from somebody else. In Levine’s scenario as you describe it, it would also matter whether a partner feels threatened by her/his lover’s so-un-Buddhist lusts for other people or experiences. If yes, a poly relationship could be endlessly painful. If not, it might be just fine. In my view, it’s way too pat to say that a successful poly couple must not be deeply intimate... unless intimacy is going to be defined as monogamous focus, but then the discussion becomes pretty useless.

As you know, some couples have issues just sharing each other with family and friends, much less other lovers. In some pairings intimacy and jealousy are such issues that non-monogamy would be an explosively bad idea (though I note that jealousy is often an explosive problem in such couples, even when there’s nothing to be jealous *of*). I suppose you might find such a couple desiring to find a way to make polyamory work, but in that case they would need to be capable of managing the jealousy they feel.

Sometimes that means working to strengthen the partnership, developing ways the partners can show each other they’re primary. Sometimes it means strengthening one or both parties’ sense of self-confidence. Sometimes it just won’t work: Many couples are not cut out for this kind of relationship configuration, which can be challenging and feel, at least sometimes, isolating and without social support. (If a partner is without *individual* support from his/her partner, that’s another matter; in fact, it’s a very red flag.) Since this couple has a kid, they’ll need to especially explore how to configure these relationship changes in light of her ability to understand the role of their other partner/s (or their willingness to let her know they have other partners to begin with).

But if both partners are marching to the same different drummer, or the beat is compatible enough, polyamory can also leave the couple feeling that each (and, sometimes, both together) has extra sources of support, not fewer. Aside from the sexual elements, which may or may not be primary in one’s desire to live a poly life, it has to recommend it that your intimate adult family can have more than two members. When my partner was seriously ill a few years ago I was nothing but grateful for his other playmates’ presence in our lives. Some poly folk create extended families who are vital parts of raising kids and taking care of elders. So even though we don’t have many obvious examples of these kinds of networks, some people find in them very positive opportunities even beyond a challenge to sexual partner exclusivity.

Let me say one more thing about a poly couples’ other partners. If it’s important for the primary couple to be on the same page, it’s equally important for any other partners they have to also be comfortable with polyamory. It’s uncomfortable and destabilizing for everyone when Lover #2 has fingers crossed that Lover #1 will leave. Sometimes, of course, that happens. But it isn’t optimal, nor in my view a positive example of polyamory. So yet another element for therapy, as your client couple explores whether they want to take this challenge, is education around that sort of other person or persons might be positive additions to their lives. Just as everyone is not cut out to be in a polyamorous primary relationship, not everyone is cut out to be a “secondary” partner.

I know no better book to help prepare a willing couple for this experiment/adventure than The Ethical Slut, one of whose authors is a therapist. If your client couple hasn’t had a chance to read it, I hope you’ll suggest it to them.