Polyamory doesn't come easily for everyone. That doesn't make it wrong.
People deserve grace to make mistakes in all relationship structures.
When I picked up Lindy West’s new memoir, Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane, I expected to have moments where I felt compassion for her and moments that made me cringe.
Especially given The Discourse™ I’d seen online about the book—mostly, folks claiming that West’s spouse is abusive and coerced her into polyamory—I worried that this book would paint polyamory with the broad brush that memes are made of: “Oh, you’re polyamorous? So which one of you was forced into it?” And if there’s one thing the non-monogamy community doesn’t need, it’s more bad press.
But as I read the memoir—by far, her best yet, in my opinion—I found myself solidly on West’s side and not at all concerned about the safety of her relationship.
That isn’t to say that there weren’t moments when I wanted to scoop the folks involved up and into a coaching session. But rather, the issues that popped up about polyamory in the pages of Adult Braces felt very normal, average, par for the course.
Because in my experience, both as a polyamorous person and as a relationship coach who works with non-monogamous people, polyamory is hard. Many people struggle with it.
And as my non-monogamous friends who come to me for advice will tell you, I often respond with, “Sounds about right.” As in: You’re not alone. This is something a lot of people struggle with. This is a common point of contention. Practice makes perfect, and you’re new at this, and that’s okay. And oh yes, it is most definitely a nervous system disaster for many, many people.
Does this sound like you? Are you thinking about or new to practicing or struggling with non-monogamy? Are you looking for guidance, validation, and a safe space to develop the skills you need to move through this? I got you. Let me help you.
For the month of April, I’m running a sale on coaching packages: buy four sessions, get one free! They’re even offered at different price points. Do this for yourself.
Because the thing about non-monogamy is that no matter how strongly it resonates with you, no matter how deeply aligned it is with your values, it fundamentally lacks the (albeit false) promise of safety and security that monogamy offers.
It might make sense in your head: Of course we don’t belong to one another! We aren’t one another’s property! Love is an infinite resource! We should be able to explore our relationships organically! Why do we limit ourselves? We all deserve autonomy in our connections!
But the body is a different beast entirely. And as we’ve learned to find safety in monogamy, non-monogamy can feel like danger in our bodies.
And this actually is not an indication that non-monogamy as a whole is bad or wrong—or even that it isn’t for you. It’s simply your body encountering a brand-new context that is lighting up your threat-detection system.
Non-monogamy can feel, to your body, like cheating. It can feel like abandonment. It can feel like insecurity, not-enough-ness, and unlovability. It can feel like competition. It can bring up feelings like jealousy, envy, and possessiveness that you haven’t actually developed regulation skills for, because monogamy allows you to wave the threat away.
And when these (validly terrifying) feelings pop up when you have no solid practice for working through them, they can be all-consuming. And no one wants to live like that.
“So,” we tell ourselves, “non-monogamy must inherently be a threat. And maybe it’s okay for other people (weirdos), but it could never work for me!”
And that’s okay. It’s okay to decide that non-monogamy isn’t for you. That’s awesome information to have.
But other people might come to a different conclusion: “Oh. If I want this, I’m going to have to do a shit-ton of work.”
And that’s okay, too.
When I first started my polyamory practice ten years ago, the information available on how to be “good” at it was limited, and it was problematic.
The ideas that were spread in books and forums were based in a very white supremacist, patriarchal, colonized, and cisheteronormative foundation. And they lacked a trauma-informed lens.
As a person who is committed to her values (and has a ~preoccupation with morality, according to her therapist), I wanted to do polyamory The Right Way. And as such, I got caught up in the ideological purity of mainstream polyamory culture.
The common prescription for how to be “good” at polyamory looks like this: You can only ever be non-hierarchical; even better if you’re a relationship anarchist. Kitchen table polyamory is the only acceptable way to engage with your polycule; you should be able to be cordial, if not besties, with your metamours. If you’re having difficult feelings, those are yours to manage—not your partner’s responsibility. If you express a need for a slower pace, you are being controlling. Folks’ autonomy is paramount to the point of being more important than any individual’s sense of security.
And falling for this strict set of rules is the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in polyamory.
Indeed, it ultimately played a huge role in destroying my last two long-term relationships.
Because this way of understanding non-monogamy is not relational. It isn’t based in the reality of people’s emotions. It doesn’t take folks’ trauma into account. It sets up a good-versus-bad dichotomy that helps no one and hurts everyone.
And it creates the (very false) myth that if polyamory doesn’t come easily for you—indeed, if it triggers you at all—then it must not be for you. And if you try to move through that discomfort, you must be doing so under threat, under fear of abandonment, under duress.
And yes: This is something that comes up in non-monogamy. There are plenty of people who feel coerced into it. But that isn’t a point toward the argument for monogamy, a system that we’re technically all coerced into via our socialization. It’s just not always what’s happening.
Sometimes people are just choosing to do the hard thing.
And the truth of the matter is, relationships are hard. All relationships are hard. And all relationship structures come with difficulty.
But because we’ve normalized monogamy (and the struggles inherent to it), we attack polyamory (and its associated problems) much more harshly. And we’re much quicker to abandon the practice of non-monogamy for its pitfalls than we are of monogamy and its.
And in social justice spaces, we can be especially judgmental.
This is exactly why I became a relationship coach—a politicized relationship coach. Because when I was struggling in my own romantic connections and behaving in ways that were outside of my value system, I felt like I had no where to turn.
Either service providers couldn’t quite grasp the importance and depth of my politics, or social justice spaces were judgmental of the harm I was causing myself and others.
I felt completely at a loss: How am I supposed to fix these problems when no one seems empathetic to my experience?
And that’s what I kept thinking about as I read Adult Braces: In the book, Lindy West is at her most raw, her most honest, her most vulnerable—and therefore, her most authentic. She’s sharing her messy emotions, the complexity of her marriage. She’s in a process, reckoning with what her values dictate and what her emotional body can handle.
And that is a gift. It shows us that we are not alone, that even our feminist heroes struggle—so of course we’re allowed to, too!
And maybe instead of claiming that this is a “negative” portrayal of polyamory or feeling disappointed that someone we placed on a social justice pedestal is imperfect, we should be celebrating her willingness to tell us her truth. Because it can make us feel less lonely in our own.
No, polyamory doesn’t come easily for everyone. But that doesn’t mean that it’s bad, that it’s wrong, that they shouldn’t do it (although that would be a fair decision, too). It means that we all make mistakes in our relationships.
And personally, I think we all deserve grace for that.
And not just grace—but spaces that can hold both compassion and responsibility to help us move toward our happiest, healthiest relationships to self and others.
Because looking at our mess, coming face-to-face with the parts of ourselves that we hate, and putting in the hard work to actually change not just our environments, but our internal landscapes is the work.
That is feminism. That is social justice. That is how we live our politics.
Love,
Melissa
PS: I have space in spring and summer for new clients! And I would love to work with more babes who are moving through difficulty in non-monogamy. If this is you, please send me a note, letting me know what you’re struggling with.