Growing Pains in Polyamory
The potential (internal) processes of your polyamorous debut
By Quinn McClurg with art by Natalie Williams
Much like coming out, transitioning, or otherwise infringing upon a social or cultural hegemony, acclimation to a polyamorous lifestyle requires deep unlearning, conditioning, and reinforcement. However, an individual new to polyamory may not be aware of how to locate these incorporated pressures and concepts within themselves. This, I believe, is where hurt comes in. Before we delve deeper, there’s three important factors to note:
Just like any other relationship, polyamorous relationships have potential for collateral damage (i.e. multiple people’s time and emotions [including yours]).
Just like any other relationship, polyamorous relationships will conjure experiences and influences (ex. potential traumas and insecurities) of previous relationships.
Polyamorous relationships are built on the foundations of trust, growth, and higher-than-usual levels of communication. Most importantly, this includes the negotiating and establishing of boundaries throughout the relationship.
For the purposes of this article, I assume all parties in a polyamorous relationship are decent, kind, and lovely people and are all intent on growth, communication, and vulnerability. However I understand that these things can be difficult and uncomfortable at first. If you are not in it for (or willing to do) these things in a polyamorous relationship, it’s best to take a step back to reevaluate your intentions / where you are at. Otherwise, when entering into a relationship, know your availability, communicate your intentions, define your boundaries, and jump in.
Now with the past pains and expected discomforts laid bare, we are still left with something else, a present hurt that is not explicitly of the past. Occasionally this is felt when one new to polyamory is with their partner(s): some reactionary, unnameable panic will seep from the depths of somewhere, from beyond the cuts of memory and deeper still—it’s animalistic in its eye-widening, stomach-dropping speed and scale. This hurt may seem unwelcome, but I have found it an effective means to locate unhelpful concepts, ingrained pressures, and incorporated attitudes that are unwelcome in the self or, at the very least, the polyamorous lifestyle.
But it is easy to forget this potential for growth when the hurt occurs: automatically, there is the easy desire to lash out, to run away, or to dismiss everything; but the best option is to stay calm and breathe. A feeling cannot kill you, so let your reason (and coping mechanisms) catch up with your emotion (this assumes this hurt is not warranted and does not infringe upon your boundaries). Then effectively communicate what you are feeling with your partner, how you do not want to feel it, and how you do not believe it. These feelings do not make you a bad person, only human; hastily acting upon them or being consumed is what gets you in trouble.
From there, do not lock these feelings away, but make space to feel them fully in order to understand them in their complexity. This process is confusing and time-consuming, but it will always be worth it, as you will gradually become more comfortable and less driven by monolithic pressures.
An example: you are with your partner, and they are talking about how great the playlist their other partner made for them is, then—boom, a pang of hurt. Communicate this, take a moment to stop and breathe, then interrogate it. Where was that from? Was it some latent jealousy? Was it a tendency toward ownership or control? Could it be an inferiority complex? Take another breath.
As previously mentioned, these reactionary feelings do not make you a bad person; even though you feel them, they are not you: you are the reason, the understanding, and the reassurance that says, “This has nothing to do with you or your music taste; someone else makes your partner happy? Good for both of them! You do that in your own ways too!” Write this down, repeat it, and return to it later for further internalizing. Then, continue communicating, moving on, and reinforcing until the next occurrence. Practice this to appreciate the good things too.
This process is never finished, as past understandings need current reinforcement to be truly known again; gradually, though, they will start to hurt less.
Being in a healthy relationship is not easy; neither is being poly nor undergoing deep unlearning and conditioning. However, the fact that polyamory is highly stigmatized by society does not help either; in fact, these incorporated stigmas are often the ones that need to be unlearned and reconditioned.
There is nothing shameful, superficial, or cowardly about polyamory; as demonstrated by this article, time, effort, courage, and vulnerability are required for the growth, trust, and love that is integral to a polyamorous relationship—that doesn’t sound like a cowards’ game to me. So get out there, be kind, and keep hurting in productive ways.