Deciding to get into a long distance relationship

Some of my first serious relationships were long distance. It was hard, but as a teenager it was a little easier, simply because I was still living with my parents and stuck going to high school every day, so living with a partner or having the freedom to go out on adventures any time we wanted wasn’t an option. So I had a few relationships that involved eight hour phone conversations through the whole night, ending sleepily as the sun rose. Figuring out how to use a webcam in the early days of chat messengers, and sometimes leaving it on as we went to sleep so we could see each others peaceful faces during the night if we woke up. It was hard at times, I was deeply lonely and felt very isolated, and we would eagerly count down the days until they could visit. When we fought, because in at least one dynamic we had our share of problems and fights were unfortunately frequent, there was no ability to offer physical comfort or intimacy to mend our closeness afterwards.

Once I had my first relationship in college, where we moved in together within the first week, long distance became harder. I got used to a constant presence of a partner, the ability to take an impromptu midnight run to Taco Hell, or walk through the woods together when we needed an escape from the world, and share a moment of intimacy on the bank of a stream. I got used to sharing a bed, something which I was extremely attached to for many years after, until I re-discovered my ability to be independent and learned the equal joys of sleeping alone sometimes. I had a few long distance dynamics in my early adulthood, but after a couple years I decided I wasn’t willing to put myself through the inevitably painful part of missing someone so much and struggling to connect in every day life. I set a boundary, I would not do long distance relationshipping anymore. I kept to it for quite a few years. The most I was willing to do was start relationships that were long distance for a short time, with the goal of quickly narrowing the distance and moving in together. Not a hard thing to do since I had an ever fluctuating household of partners and friends, and we always managed to cram another person in when the need arose.

Well, that changed again, probably when my partner Shara went from living with me, to moving back to their hometown a couple hours away. Our relationship improved in some ways, they were in a place that was healthier for them when back home with their group of friends, and we worked hard on figuring out a communication level and visit schedule that worked for us. Because it was an already established relationship of a few years at that time, I was willing to put in what it took to make long distance work. Then I got involved with Kwik, a partner in Canada. I hadn’t considered beginning a long distance relationship that I knew would stay long distance, but I decided on a whim to give it a try and was happy with how it functioned. When I met Hoffy this past year, I had already changed my views and was willing to get into LDRs again, and I’m glad for it, because that has grown into one of the most impactful relationships of my life. So, I do long distance relationships again. They are not easy, they require a lot of dedication to work well at times, but for the right person I have found it is worth it for me.

I think it also might be easier when polyamorous, or a relationship anarchist. Polyamory accepts more then one relationship at a time. With a long distance relationship, a lot of the struggle is often a lack of physical affection and intimacy, and not being able to share little every day moments as well. If you have the possibility of a relationship in your life that already provides those things, it can be easier to not feel starved for them when getting into an LDR. Of course you may miss those things with that particular partner, but you don’t get so touch starved overall that it impacts your mental health even more. As a relationship anarchist, relationships are custom build from the ground up, made to fit the needs of the people involved with a respect for autonomy, and limiting expectations only to what both are comfortable committing to. Because of this absolute possibility of fluidity in structure, you can go into a dynamic with the knowledge that you will see someone infrequently, but leaving behind societal and cultural expectations that a relationship is less valuable if you don’t cohabitate or spend time together daily. While not having certain regular daily interactions may still be painful, you remove the societal expectation that things must be a certain way to be valid or real, so that pain is not compounded upon.

Tomorrow I’ll go into ideas I’ve compiled over the years for making LDRs work well. I’ve found them to be a very integral part of my happiness because of the wonderful partners I have, and am grateful I opened back up to the idea. Still, they are difficult, and I hope I can offer some helpful suggestions on how to connect more with someone even when not there in person.

Facing judgement for non-traditional relationships

When folks ask about large scale changes in the dynamics of my polycule, often its simply interest in my personal life, because the asker is someone I’m close to. Often is curiosity, humans lives are interesting and how we relate to others is one of the most interesting aspects of them. I’m a nosy little fuck, so I completely understand why someone would want to know details of my personal life to satisfy their own curiosity. Sometimes though, especially with large changes that face a certain amount of societal judgement, it is hard not to feel as though someone is asking so they can pass their own judgement on a person, usually not positive.

This is something I encounter more these days as a relationship anarchist. My dynamics are tailored to fit what both individuals in them want and need at the time, and are fluid, so they can shift as our needs change. This has served to create great dynamics with a much higher degree of comfort and intimacy, because we can establish trust that we truly respect and nurture each others needs and wants. It has also served to create greater longevity, because needing to change the structure of a dynamic does not as often necessitate that it end, simply that it change shape.

When Kelev confronted me with his decision to move out, that was a moment that may have well shattered many typical monogamous or relationship escalator based mono or polya dynamics. In fact, despite us practicing relationship anarchy and having been fluid in the past about -big- things, such as sleeping arrangements, relationship titles, kink dynamics, and room sharing, he was scared to bring it up. I had proved again and again in practice that I was more then happy to adapt to dynamic changes, and our emotional connection would endure and strengthen through them. But society is not as flexible, so even with years of past experience of me being understanding and adaptable, he had many more years of societal conditioning that this was something you are broken up with for. This is a thing that causes people to walk away, that will create enough anger for someone to cut you out of their life, etc. When he expressed the fear that I would do those things, I immediately supplied reassurance, but it was sadly not hard for me to see the origins of those fears. So many people are willing to toss a wonderfully functional healthy dynamic to the curb simply because it does not take the perfect shape they always dreamed of, or disappoints certain expectations. I support realizing what you do need to have a relationship be worth while and having boundaries for yourself of course. But with polya folks where often you do not live with -every single one- of your partners, there is still a large contingent who would end things if a nesting partner suddenly stopped nesting, because they center their needs for that relationship in particular, over their connection with the person. They would rather attach themselves to the role they fit that person into, than attach to the person themselves in a way that allows people to grow and change while maintaining intimacy. So even within a very fluid and adaptable dynamic, there is still sometimes fear of judgement.

It isn’t surprising then, that when people ask about those kind of large scale changes, the sort that often spell doom in society’s rigid relationship structures, I wonder how what I say will be twisted around into a negative judgement. When I told my parents about his decision, I did so with considerable apprehension, ready to leap to his defense. I knew his decision was not a betrayal, it was not a reflection of any damage or cracks in our relationship, but I also was prepared for it to be seen that way and to fight those assumptions off. I was waiting for them to suddenly see him as less of a partner, and terrified they would treat him as such, especially knowing how much their love and acceptance has always meant to him. I felt like I had to balance my words just right, find the exact placement for them when giving my explanations, so that the message could be conveyed with absolute understanding.

I suppose what it came down to was, our relationship was not existing in a vacuum between the two of us. We had built a beautiful dynamic from the ground up, tossing off societal norms and deciding to love each other completely without rigid rules and structure and expectations that would stifle our growth. We wanted to be able to change and grow as individuals, have fluctuating needs in the moment, and enhance our intimacy by embracing that in each other and providing support and companionship through those changes. But other people in our lives related to our relationship, they had ties of love and family and friendship to our dynamic as well as to us as individuals. So, while we had dropped the silly notion that society should tell us certain changes should feel like our relationship was less strong or one had committed a betrayal, they may not have done that emotional work and might feel for us, something we had decided made no sense for us to feel. You see this often with polyamorous people just coming out. Their friends decide to feel righteous anger and indignation for them, for their spouse cheating on them, despite the couple having done the emotional work to detach feelings of betrayal from the idea of sexual or romantic fidelity.

This all results in a feeling I’ve had with big relationship shifts, like deciding to un-title things, deciding not to cohabitate, deciding to have a platonic dynamic, that I must justify and defend these choices to people in my life so that my partner is not judged harshly for them. Or at times, so that I am not. Sometimes it is a matter of finding reasons that allow it to be understandable or forgivable to people who do not relationship the way we do. Sometimes there are no explanations that would fit into societal norms, so that isn’t possible. When that is the case, what I really am asking of people is that they do the emotional work we have done, not nearly to the same extent, but enough so to look upon us favorably for the love and intimacy we share, instead of condemning one or the other or both partners for violating a societal taboo of what happily-ever-after must look like. It is their right to choose not to do that work and pass judgement instead, but I always hope that won’t be the case. Because if you do bend your mind to step into our wonderful fluid polyamorous or relationship anarchist world for a moment, you will find not only the relief of not having to judge harshly the “betrayals” that are hurting no one, but you may also get to enjoy some of the beautiful growth and personal discovery that makes this life worthwhile for us.

The time I tried hierarchical polyamory

My first adult experience with polyamory started when I met my ex-fiance when I was seventeen and had just started college. Now a lot of folks venture in to the polya life as a couple with a hierarchical model of polya, and I wasn’t all too much different. Ex-fiance was a monogamous fellow, and I freaked out a little when I started falling in love with him, cue a few instances of pushing him away because I thought I would end up hurting him. It was all very melodramatic really, but I eventually had a conversation with him about making our relationship “official” and all. My two questions for him, before I agree to it were A) Would he have any problem with the idea of me getting gender reassignment surgery later in life (and I didn’t realize I was trans until seven years later how???) and B) Was he completely and totally certain he was alright with a polyamorous relationship. He said yes to both, and so we became a couple.

We didn’t negotiate a strict hierarchy that I remember, but we fell into one easily as though it was the “right thing to do”. As I ventured into dating other people, I always reassured him that he came first, he was always my priority. I would check in with him constantly, “are you sure you’re okay with this? But are you really sure? No, are you really really sure that you’re sure?” I don’t recall him every really asking for hierarchy, though I believe there was some assumption of that, since he seemed to assume a relationship escalator style relationship that ended in marriage and potential podlings and all. I thought hierarchy was the way to go though, even though I did feel some vague discomfort with it, because after all, I was making a huge ask of being polya at all from someone who self identified as mono, so I better toss in some concessions to make him feel okay about it. That my friends, was a mistake.

There is no story here of how eventually hierarchy didn’t work for me and it resulted in things blowing up terrifically, because there was a web of complex issues that I can guess caused him to cheat six years later and then walk away. I won’t even know all the reasons, because we didn’t communicate well. I don’t think he ever fully explained them, and if he did, I wasn’t about to grasp it at the time between the betrayal, the drinking, and the bipolar swings I hadn’t yet gotten under any semblance of control. I would say though, that while I do remember him giving a half reason here or there, it was something we never did fully unpack, because we both had different flaws in our abilities to communicate in healthy ways.

Here’s what happened with the hierarchy though. I shut people out in a lot of ways. In elevating ex-fiance above everyone else, I made an effort to keep other people at arms length. There was other trauma mixed in there, I was sexually assaulted my first year of college as well, which led to some persistent trauma that evolved into me being pretty touch averse, something I’m only now just starting to heal. The way I shut people out though was definitely a harmful factor in that. I denied myself resources that may have helped in healing from that, and created an island of myself and ex-fiance, which grew into an intense co-dependency. In fact, having a hierarchical dynamic at all was a huge player in me becoming so codependent. Structures and titles matter, they can shape out expectations in ways we aren’t aware of, and the ones I put in place caused my to depend on him as my sole source of support. That codependency was one of the most unhealthy addictions I’ve ever had, it rivaled my alcoholism in things that nearly destroyed my life.

Finally a few years down the line we had transitioned from strict hierarchy to more of a descriptive hierarchy. “Well two primaries could totally be a thing” could have been my catch phrase. I was at that time still reassuring ex-fiance that he would always be -one of- the most important people in my life, and I refused to call any relationship secondary, but I still used the word primary for the ones that tended to have the extreme life integration we did, I just also accepted that other folks might join him in having that place in my life. It wasn’t until he was gone for a while, taking a semester off school, working down at his mother’s workplace, and never around, that it happened though. I met Cat, and I don’t know if ex-fiance being gone allowed me to let Cat in to that extent, but once I did, he became one of the greatest loves of my life, and my intensity with him on a romantic level could not compare to any dynamic I had ever had before, or at that time. That opened the floodgates, once it was real to me, that was when the hierarchy truly started to crumble. After that I went on to meet Kelev, and not too many years after ex-fiance left (and Cat was gone as well by that time), and by that point I was firmly on egalitarian polya/solo polya ground and running full force towards relationship anarchy.

Looking back I wonder often why I ever tried hierarchical polyamory. It really isn’t in my nature, and from day one the idea of some people being “secondary” galled me. I am not even sure how I didn’t recognize a more relationship anarchist mindset early on, why I spent time idealizing romantic relationships above all others when I even at the same talked about how my best friend and sibling growing up, River, was as close to me as any partner ever was. Hell, I had written long rambling tomes that read like a teenage description of a Utopian society combined with the relationship anarchist manifesto back when I was a young teen, so you know, it was all right there from the start.

What I did learn from hierarchy is that it just plain didn’t make sense. It does not work to decide that life is going to be a certain way, it just doesn’t. To say that your relationship with one person fits in this shiny special box, and all other relationships are in smaller different boxes, and that is just how things are and will always be. Think of it in terms of jobs, or kids. You can expect a certain thing, you can work towards a certain thing, but life is gunna throw you a curveball and fuck up all your neat little plans and you’ll end up with something entirely different, but also potentially even better. There are very very rare people who truly choose to single-mindedly stick to one path in life and follow it, and manage to do so completely, still coming out in the same place on the other side after every bump in the road. Hierarchy is like that, it works, until you realize how much it hurts a secondary you love deeply, or until you find that with the billions of people in the world there actually is one you may love and be more compatible with then your husband, or you get tired of fucking rules. I don’t want to choose one single-minded path and come out in the same place after every bump in the road. I want my life adventure to be a free roving journey where the bumps deposit me in new and unexpected places, and where I may have a few destinations in mind, but if I end up somewhere else entirely I’m going to dust off my trench coat and forge ahead with a grin, ready for something new.

Prescriptive versus Descriptive relationship titles

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about labels and titles in a relationship. I know I’ve talked before about titles in this post but that led to me thinking about my particular relationship with titles, how I feel about them and why.

I’ve discovered, or already knew but confirmed, that I do not like prescriptive titles. I do not enjoy getting close with someone and deciding -we are going to be this word to each other specifically, that is just what it is-. I don’t like being someone’s boyfriend, I’m not keen on the idea of being someone’s spouse, except in the case that it’s necessary for the legal benefits it confers (and that would have to greatly outweigh my hesitation there). I don’t like the decision that myself and another person have confirmed that because we right now have a certain dynamic shape, that we now are -that- and intend to continue being that for the long term with all it implies. Prescriptive titles often come with specific expectations. In monogamy for example, the boyfriend title would come with the expectation of sexual fidelity. In polyamory, I’ve had folks who expected that because I was their boyfriend, I would drop everything to be with them when they needed someone at 3AM. I mean sure, I usually will do that, but sometimes I will not, sometimes I need my fucking sleep as much as you need me to listen about your latest problem with your other partner. And the fact that I’ve been told “that’s what a good boyfriend does” as though having this word means that I can either be succeeding or failing to live up to the title, but they do not feel their friends are equally failures for not being there at that time, that makes me shy away from those.

I may often take the boyfriend shape, but I do not want to make it official in a way that heaps the constant expectations on me, especially the subversive hidden ones that don’t get discussed, that most people never even realize they have. The other thing with prescriptive titles is the idea of a break up. When you’ve made a big decision that you and someone else -are- this thing, this word, then deciding it no longer applies is a whole ordeal. People tie up a lot of their identity in being someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend/lovefriend or wife/husband/spouse. To suddenly change that is often traumatic for most people, they feel they are losing a part of themselves.

I do like descriptive labels. I like discussing with someone the words that seem to describe our dynamic. Not one word, words plural. There is no one I would consider a partner who is not also a friend. As a relationship anarchist, I don’t consider friend to be a lesser descriptive word, simply a different one. Partner to me implies a connection that shares a possibility of romance feels, and a greater likelihood of physical intimacy. Friendship is platonic for me for the most part, though there have been some exceptions. Partner also for me is something that I use sparingly, for people that have a level of longevity and intertwinement in my life or an intent for such that is more constant and steady then most of my platonic friendships. That is not to say friendships don’t have that, but for example there may be a financial intertwinement in my friendship as I give a friend money to fix their car one time, but one of my partners and I share finances monthly in taking care of the needs of our cats. The thing with descriptive titles is we use the ones that are suited to the time and situation. I’ve spoken of Kelev before, a person who holds a very central roll in my life. We often cohabitate, we have pets, we share sexual intimacy, we got to each others doctors appointments, we share a bank account, there is a lot of levels of intertwinement there. Sometimes when we’re joking around at the grocery store and elbowing each other while exchanging sarcastic remarks, and we run into a person I knew from one of my times in college, I might introduce him as my best friend. It conveys the dynamic we are sharing at that time, it gives the information necessary for that interaction and is most accurate to what we are sharing in that moment. If I go with him to the doctor and the nurse gives me a questioning look when I follow him back for a procedure to hold his hand, that “who the fuck are you look?” because people don’t expect two masculine presenting people, especially of such varying ages, to be together, I say “I’m his partner”. It conveys what I need to at the time, that by their normal ideas of societal privilege being centered on one main romantic relationship, that I deserve to be there, I have that right. If I say I’m his friend, I’m usually asked to wait behind, despite him wanting me there to offer comfort, and my comfort is just as effective regardless of what word we gave them. It doesn’t matter that the intimacies we share that are tied to partnership for how I define it aren’t relevant in that moment, it’s the word that makes the most sense to convey who we are to each other in the way they need to understand.

With descriptive labels, when the dynamic transitions in a way that one of the words no longer applies, it often just falls from usage more naturally. Since we’ve discussed that we are using words as they are relevant, though ones that we have consented to and feel apply, if the dynamic shifts and a word drops from relevance, it also just drops from usage. Often there is a discussion, I love communication and being open and checking in about ALL the things ALL the time, but I’ve found it is less of a traumatic change. Also in regards to expectations, I’ve found this leads to less unrealistic ones. With descriptive labels, what we are doing is allowing for actions to occur and the words to follow, rather then deciding on the words and changing our actions to fit them. That usually negates the problem of “your actions aren’t measuring up to this word we’ve decided we are”.

Another thought I had that crystallized this for me was related to my focus on honesty and authenticity. I had a titled partnership with someone in my life that I recently untitled. I realized that the title, regardless of whether pressure was put on me or not from the other person, did come with some unspoken expectations of behavior. I was not measuring up to those, there were things I simply did not feel a want to do regularly or consistently enough that the word partner made sense to me. Like I’ve said, some of the associations I have with the word partner, even as a descriptive word but especially as a prescriptive one, is a certain constancy or consistency. When I was not acting in the way that partner implies to me, in a dynamic where partner or boyfriend was a prescriptive title we had decided upon, I felt inauthentic. It felt like I was lying to refer to that person with those words at a time where I wasn’t fulfilling the expectations of that dynamic. I was not meeting many of the needs and wants that person looked for in a relationship of that sort, so with the title, I either was a shitty partner, or I was using a word that was quite dishonest to what we were. My response was to recognize that and un-title things. Thankfully I tend to relationship in all forms (platonic, romantic, sexual, partnership, friendship, lovefriend, queerplatonic, etc) with people who are accepting of fluidity and change, so this was received in a compassionate and understanding way. We spoke of how we would use descriptive labels with others to describe things accurate to how they were with us in that moment or in such a way as was relevant at the time.

Now I understand that this may seem like splitting hairs. Does is really make a difference if you are using a prescriptive or descriptive title? Ask most people (especially a monogamous or hierarchical polya person) how they would feel if their partner were to remove that official label and the expectations that came with it, and no longer be obligated or beholden to that role. The same people who say that it doesn’t make much difference, are in my experience often quite upset at that suggestion. Words have power, and so do the contexts we use them in. My goals are to have flexibility in my relationships, to allow for fluidity and for each dynamic to stretch out into whatever role is most comfortable and makes the most sense at the time, and to live an authentic and honest life. So, I take how I give those words power and what power I allow them to have over me, very seriously.

Does helping someone else cheat make you a cheater?

There are many bumps and pitfalls when you engage in relationships outside of the societal norm, such as polyamory and relationship anarchy. In a monogomous relationship, sharing sexual or romantic intimacy with someone else is almost always seen as cheating. In a polyamorous relationship, cheating is still possible, just not so easily defined. Since polyamory involves engaging in multiple romantic or sexual dynamics, cheating is usually defined as breaking a relationship agreement. This almost always refers to relationship agreements relating to intimacy with other people though. After all, while your spouse might get jealous if you watch the newest episode of Desperate Housewives with your friend Jay, even though you may have promised to watch it with your spouse first, they are unlikely to label this as cheating. If on the other hand, you have sex with Jay and tell your spouse afterwards, and you have agree to run new sexual partners by each other beforehand, then your spouse would likely feel that you had cheated on them. When a relationship agreement is broken, in a monogomous or polyamorous dynamic, and it does relate to intimacy with other people, the label of cheating is often applied. And cheating is often seen as the worst offense, the sex you had with Jay is a much greater betrayal then your watching of Desperate Housewives together. So what about when you are not the one breaking an agreement, but you are Jay, and are just the third party involved in the breaking of the agreement?

So you have ventured into polyamory, or maybe you have been polya or a relationship anarchist for years. You befriend an adorable creature who shares some social circles with you and begin to get to know each other. You meet up for coffee and get lost in their eyes, your discussions stay with you for days after. Soon you realize well fuck, I really want to kiss this person, but alas, they are in a monogomous relationship. What do you do? Okay, well obviously don’t kiss them without consent, you have to make sure they want to kiss you too, but assuming mutual desire has been established, do you go ahead because you both want to, or do you refrain from doing so out of respect for their relationship? The cry I’ve heard echoed in most all the polya circles I’ve been in is full stop! Respect their relationship! For many years I was in Camp Respect, I would have said that you were enabling cheating, and in doing so you were just as bad as a cheater yourself. If that were still the case this writing would be pretty boring, as it would end here. I no longer believe that.

This boils down to an ownership mentality. While polyamorists often try and unpack the idea of owning their partners much more then monogomists, it is hard to completely throw off that societal conditioning. But I don’t feel like I own my partner! they may say incredulously. Well, do you accept that your partner is a completely autonomous being who has every right to have and express their emotions as they come up, and share their own body as they wish? If not, do you feel you have a right to restrict how your partner feels and expresses their feelings or shares their body? If you answered yes to the second question, there is a sense of entitlement over your partner’s body and mind. That possessiveness is the ownership mentality I’m speaking of. You may have answered yes to the first question, you do accept that your partner is autonomous and can share their body and heart with who they choose, and that means we’re on the same page. As a relationship anarchist, this principle is of extreme importance to me. Shrugging off the ownership mentality, the idea that I had some say over how the people I am close to could share themselves with others, was no easy task, but one I continue to put a lot of effort into. The motivation behind that is the most important thing. I truly do believe in the importance of autonomy. I do not believe your partner is ever your possession, or that anyone has a right to treat someone else as a commodity they can keep to themselves or only rent out to others as they choose. So, in a situation where a person is in a relationship where their partner has dictated, or the societal norms have dictated, that they may not do the delightful kissing or other such things with other people, respecting that is buying into that ownership mentality and acknowledging that they are a possession of their partner. I refuse to take part in that coercion any longer and as such, if I consent to the kissing of the new adorable creature over the coffee date and they consent to kissing me as well, I will not respect a monogomous dynamic that allows their partner to dictate what they may consent to, and in doing so disrespect their own autonomy to decide. Now I do acknowledge that them breaking the agreements of fidelity with their partner are hurtful, even if I believe imposed monogomous relationship agreements are unethical. I also acknowledge that cheating usually includes an element of deception, and that is not a dynamic I will walk into, so usually I end up refraining from the kissing for that reason. I have no interest in helping someone lie, because while I do not find a disregard for possessiveness and restriction of autonomy to be unethical, I do find dishonesty to be unethical. My response would likely to be an expression of my desire to kiss the person, but an acknowledgment that I have no intention of being part of a secret where we mutually work to keep it from their partner. And if they express that they will keep it from their partner, and I need have no part in that, possibly because I don’t know or will never meet their partner, well the desire to do the thing is gone because I don’t really need to be swapping spit with someone who is happy to lie. So, it’s often a non-issue, but I feel the reasoning behind it to be very important from an ethical standpoint. Especially when my ethics dictate bucking against a culture of owning-ones-partner as much as possible.

Now what about if the person you are interested in is polyamorous, and it’s not a matter of coercive monogamy structures in which fidelity is assumed and there is an expectation of a persons body belonging only to their partner, but instead you have people who respect each others autonomy and desire to explore with others, but have made agreements to guide how they do so? This is where it gets sticky and even I am still working out my hard feels about this. So if you make an agreement with your partner that you will let them know before you have sex with other people, is that coercive and ownership based? Sometimes I think the answer is yes, I’ve seen these sort of agreements made, where one partner felt they had to agree to restrictions to be “allowed” to be polya, and that is clearly coercive. Assuming though, that there wasn’t overt coercion, is there a problem? Well, if you want to tell your partner beforehand, and your partner wants to tell you beforehand, you both will do so, is there need for an agreement there, that if broken = cheating? If the agreement is truly being made out of a mutual desire to do so, there really isn’t a need for an agreement at all, because both people will do the thing anyway when acting out their wants. If one person no longer wants to do the thing, then honestly, they are no longer a mutually consenting participant in the agreement. I think though, brains are not that simple, and desire is not that simple. If we are assuming agreements made without coercion, without any pressure from the other person that restricts autonomy, and with a deep respect for each others desires, then a person might agree to something that they know is an overarching want, even if their in-the-moment wants might conflict with that. I have agreements with some of my partners to discuss new partnerships with them as I am considering them. I have these agreements because my base wants are to share my emotions as I enter new experiences, and to give my partners a platform to share their emotions. I will not let a partner control my new connections, but I do want to know and understand what they are feeling and address that with them, and also include them in my emotions and life experiences, even ones that don’t directly involve them. In the moment I may at times find these agreements restrictive, and for that reason I do question them, and I may evolve away from them over time. But at this point I have chosen those agreements and they are my primary want, even if they conflict with other momentary wants. So I keep to them.

What do you do when you are the third party in these situations though? You don’t know if agreements that a polya person has with their partner might contain some elements of coercion, or if they are agreements gone into with a respect for autonomy. When the adorable creature you want to kiss tells you that it would be breaking their agreement but they wish to do so anyway, is there wish to do so a passing fancy that conflicts with their overarching desire to do the thing they agreed to, or are they bucking against and agreement they did not desire to make? For this matter of ethics, I would say you can’t really know. All you can do is ask and then trust their answer, and if they say that they truly with to do the kissing, more then they wish to do the keeping of the agreement, you are not ethically bound to hold them to an agreement they do not want to be engaged in. Now again, I would likely have other reasons for not moving forward. One reason would be again the possibility for dishonesty here, are they someone who would lie to their partner about this later, or are they letting their partner know and informing them that the agreement is no longer something they can keep to? And also, I would likely disengage at this point because I do take agreements so seriously due to my distaste for ownership and coercion. I want to make sure my partners will only agree to things with me that they are sure they want to make a commitment about, because they know they do have a strong autonomous overarching desire for it. I want partners who are self aware to be able to see these things about themselves and determine their own wants and needs. Someone who is going around making and breaking agreements, when coercion isn’t a factor, is lacking a measure of self awareness and understanding of their desires before making commitments, and I don’t want to get involved there.

I think in the end what we need to understand is that ethical blame is often misplaced due to the normalization of ownership mentality and a lack of respect for autonomy. Cheating is not unethical because you are sharing yourself in an intimate way with another human, it is unethical because of the dishonesty and breaking of commitments involved And breaking those commitments is not always even unethical when they were not made in an environment free of coercion in the first place. When you are participating from the sidelines, not the person who is breaking their agreements to begin with, but the person who is just engaging with an individual regardless of their agreements, you are not taking an unethical action. Respecting someone else’s choice to decide for themselves what to do with their body is not unethical. You are not required to buy into respecting their agreement to hand that control over to someone else. You are not required to buy into the concept that someone else is owed or deserves that control. And you are not responsible for deciding which of their wants are most prominent or overarching, especially if they tell you otherwise or don’t have the self awareness to tell you at all. I would advise against engaging in those kind of dynamics for many other reasons, dishonesty and causing hurt being some of them. But I would like to dispel the myth I once perpetuated that helping someone cheat makes you a cheater as well, and put forward that instead we dismantle the structures where we feel we can own someone else’s body and cheating is even a thing.

Relationship anarchy vs polyamory – What the heck is the difference?

What is the difference between relationship anarchy and polyamory?

That’s a good question, but not an easy one, because there are many types of polyamory, and relationship anarchy is a newer term and the concepts it includes have been evolving over the past twelve(ish) years since Andie Nordgren wrote the relationship anarchy manifesto.

So first let’s define what each of these are. My definitions are a lovely chimera made of the commonly used definitions, what I found through research as a supposed standard, what I’ve most heard repeated in my experience with both communities, and what I feel fits from my own personal experiences with each.

Polyamory is the style of relationshipping that involves negotiated dynamics of having, or the possibility of having, multiple romantic and/or sexual relationships. Most people include “with the knowledge and consent of all involved”. I prefer my addition of “negotiated dynamics” at the beginning instead because the basis of polyamory is deciding with a partner, or deciding on your own and informing a partner, that you are going to potentially date multiple people at once. There is not always knowledge in that some polya folks do have DADT (don’t ask don’t tell) agreements. There is also not always consent, someone can be ethically polya with the consent of their partner in some of their dynamics and end up cheating in another dynamic due to an agreement or rule broken, but they are still practicing polyamory (although they probably aren’t doing a very good job of it). I think the point of the knowledge and consent portion is meant to rule out people who just decide one day they are polya, don’t care to inform their spouse, and run around sexing ALL the peoples behind their spouses back. FYI, that isn’t polyamory, but I think you knew that.

Relationship anarchy is the act of treating each relationship as it’s own individual dynamic, and the individuals engaged in it determining exactly how that dynamic will be shaped, while respecting their own autonomy and each others. Relationship anarchy is a more amorphous term once you get past that, likely because it is so new. Andie Nordgren wrote the original Relationship Anarchy Manifesto back around 2006, but since then as more people have adapted it, the definition has evolved and been expanded upon. It remains similar to the original though, in that most people use it to represent a few key ideas.

One key idea of relationship anarchy that varies from polyamory is that the focus of polyamory is on multiple romantic and/or sexual dynamics. While there are types of polyamory that have hierarchy between partnerships and types that do not, relationship anarchy forgoes hierarchy altogether between all sort of relationships. For a relationship anarchist, there is no strict hierarchy where friendships are less then lovers or romantic partners, which is often commonplace in polyamory. In that way, polyamory mimics the amatonormativity (“the assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in the sense that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types,” – Elizabeth Brake) of society but simply extends it to multiple relationships. Relationship anarchy goes “fuck that noise” and either does not prioritize people at all, or does so on the basis of the dynamic in particular, and not the basis of it being a platonic, romantic, or sexual one.

Another key point in relationship anarchy is the focus on personal autonomy. Relationship anarchy highlights the individuals in the relationship deciding what the relationship will look like, and any agreements they have in it. Some relationship anarchists don’t even prescribe to the idea of agreements as a whole, and favor a way of relating that focuses on sharing what can and can’t be expected of them and if that changes, but not choosing to tie themselves down to any specific agreed upon commitment. For most though, agreements are about figuring out what they want to and can bring to the dynamic, and committing to share that until such a point as it is discussed and renegotiated if need be. This is something that is found in some polyamorous dynamics as well, but not all types of polyamory center this. In some types of polyamory, partners agree on not only what shape their relationship will take, but on the shape other relationships they each can have with other people. This idea of putting rules that may restrict the way a person can interact with and have other partners is antithetical with the practice of most relationship anarchists.

One other deviation between polyamory and relationship anarchy is the use of labels. Relationship anarchist tend to favor either not using relationship labels (titles like boyfriend/girlfriend/lovefriend, husband/wife/spouse, etc) or only using descriptive labels as opposed to prescriptive ones. Descriptive labels are ones used to describe in shorthand what the relationship is at that time. For example, nesting partner is a term that is used to mean a partner that you live with. Descriptive use of that would be to describe the partners you live with at that time as nesting partners. Prescriptive labels are ones that are meant to create structure that informs people of the place that relationship is allowed to fit in your life. For example, spouse is often a prescriptive label, because most people do not walk into marriage with an expected end date. Spouse confers a certain amount of societal privilege, implies certain things about the dynamic, and therefor is more used as a “I have given this person this specific role in my life, this is the role they have, yes” as opposed to a descriptive label of “right now this person means this to me and here is a shorthand way of conveying that.” Prescriptive labels don’t work with relationship anarchy, partly because they often effect relationships other then the one they are labeling, and partly because relationship anarchy is all about dismantling those relationship structures that prioritize people or create dynamics with implied privileges or structures. In polyamory it is not uncommon to see a hierarchy created with prescriptive titles such as primary, secondary, tertiary, and so on. Some polyamorous folk do favor descriptive over prescriptive labels though. Its more a venn diagram, with RA folks using either no labels or descriptive ones, and polya folks using prescriptive or descriptive ones, with descriptive labels being the potential overlap.

One final thing I think about when I’m considering the differences between relationship anarchy and polyamory, is something I see covered less in similar guides. Most comparisons focus on the ways relationship anarchists and polyamorists structure their relationships differently and interact within them, as I have above. There is one other core difference that I feel bears mentioning though. Polyamory is a different way of approaching romantic and/or sexual relationships. Relationship anarchy is a different way of approaching all relationships in life, but it is also a deeply political concept. Relationship anarchy is not, as many believe, just a spin off of polyamory for those who wanted even less restriction and more fluidity. RA overlaps with polyamory in many ways, but it has deep roots in political anarchism. As such, casting off relationship hierarchies and amatonormativity, and centering autonomy, are not just a product of seeking greater freedom to make tailored individual relationships. Relationship anarchy is also about rebellion against the societal institution that prioritizes certain types of connection and the traditional romantic dynamics that isolate people into nuclear families. It is about centering community and connection. It is about deconstructing to coercive relationships as a whole, and it makes no sense to hold those ideals specific to only romantic and platonic relationships and not apply them to the coercion workers, sex workers, children, marginalized communities, and others face in our society. While there are people who engage in relationship anarchy in their personal relationships and never question the overall societal structure that exploits workers, marginalizes minorities, focuses on small nuclear family units over community, glorifies capitalism, etc, it is important to remember that the roots of relationship anarchy are deeply political and it was born from anarchist concepts and still continues to embody those.

So in conclusion, there is overlap between the concepts of relationship anarchy and polyamory, and a person can in fact practice both in their life, or they could fall firmly into one category and not another. With the varying types of polyamory, some have more in common with relationship anarchy and some less. Relationship anarchy has roots in more then just a movement to have multiple romantic and/or sexual partners though, and is a structure that embraces ideals that have deep political ties to changing societal structure and bucking the current coercive systems. Polyamory also allows for hierarchy and rule based relationships in ways relationship anarchy does not. In the end it is up to the individual to decide what structures and ideologies they will adapt and explore in their own life. Hopefully this helps you in understanding each a little better and taking your next steps in that exploration.

Some resources to look into for further information:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mae-bee-a-green-anarchist-project-on-freedom-and-love

http://www.relationship-anarchy.com/videos/2016/6/20/the-difference-between-relationship-anarchy-and-non-hierarchical-polyamory

https://www.thecut.com/2018/10/what-does-relationship-anarchy-mean.html