Loving More Polyamory Blog

Image from the movie Caberet

The weekly drama series House recently aired an episode in which the patient was in an honest open relationship.   True to Hollywood style all was not as it seemed.  The show was in many ways a train wreck of what can go wrong when people are not fully honest.  The episode featured three stories, the open relationship, the cheating doctor and House’s best friend’s dishonesty about his feelings with his girlfriend and former wife.

The open relationship is greeted in the beginning with the doctors wagging their tongues about the impossibility of a couple have an open relationship and being happy.  It is the “unicorn” they proclaim, it never truly works.  The show goes on to show how the husband has been dishonest both in his feelings, his relationships and the couple’s money.  He lies about being ok with an open marriage because he “loves” his wife so much.  He does not want her to feel bad about what she is doing.  This of course implies that the audience all knows that what she is doing is bad or wrong.  According to the character House he lies about the money as a way to get even for her sleeping around.  Her other partner shows up and is severely reprimanded for intruding on their family.  They after all have to protect the sanctity of the family.

All of this is a reflection of people who wander out into the open relationship arena without a guide book or guide to help them through the process.  Since most people have no models it can be very tricky to navigate the feelings and challenges that come when people open up their relationship whether to dating, swinging or polyamory.  The show of course does not address this; it simply points fingers at how this kind of relationship never works.  They never address the underlying real challenges that are basic lack of communication and honesty.

Meanwhile the cheating doctor, who was the one to speak out the loudest about the impracticality of an open relationship, brings the subject up to his wife.  He is currently not cheating but has long history of doing so and is flirting with a nurse incessantly.  His wife is hurt and angry but the next day gives him one night a week to do whatever.  She declares she loves him and needs to accept who he is, a non-monogamous man.  She does not however want to meet the women, hear about them or discuss any of it.  Sounds promising and he immediately asks out the nurse.  In the end his wife changes her mind and he insists it is fine that he really only wants her.  A few days later he runs into the nurse and they leave in her car together after a passionate kiss.  He is lying but he is doing it of course to protect his wife because he loves her.

The third somewhat back story is about the lack of honesty and communication House’s friend has with his former wife he is now dating again.  He is not being honest about little things that annoy him and House makes sure to play it up.  They fight but in the end they talk.  They talk about how they really feel and in the end it heals much of their relationship.  Wow, what a concept, honesty can be healing.   Of course they are a happily monogamous couple.

It is great that Hollywood is including open relationships in their story lines.  Other shows have also done this.  Most of the time however, these relationships are shown to be isolated and highly dysfunctional.  I do understand that many people are totally unaware that open relationships, swinging and polyamory even exist much less can and do function well for many people.  These shows totally miss that often people in successful open type relationships have a culture, community and support system that can help them navigate these challenging relationship pitfalls.  It is true that non-traditional open relationships can end in disaster and so do many traditional monogamous ones.    Like monogamy, the open relationships that really work involve effort, communication, trust and honesty.

This episode of House was an example of the attitudes reflected in the greater society.  The belief that lying to your partner can be noble and that honesty and openness never work even while the show is showing it does.  It is a dichotomy of mixed messages.  In truth people lie to their partner because they are afraid of confrontation, they are afraid to lose them and they are afraid of big boom arguments.  They will hide their real feelings, live in unhappy and unfulfilled circumstances and let go of their real desires, needs and wants.  We consider this noble.  Where though is the intimacy?  When you lie about who you are and what you want then you are sharing an illusion with others.  With honesty and a willingness to truly be you, comes true intimacy.  Is it easy?  Often no, it is not.   It is through the darkness and vulnerability we find ourselves and our partners.  It can be an amazing journey that actually builds a stronger relationship as in the case of House’s friend.  Yes, you can sometimes lose someone by being honest.  In most cases this is not what happens and in those where it does both people usually end up glad to move on to a more appropriate relationship.

These concepts are probably too grown up for Hollywood at this point.  Polyamory and open relating are still in the stages of being the joke. Change will come in time.  More people are exploring polyamory and other open relationship styles, especially the younger generations.   More shows are including open relating as a story line, albeit a disaster usually.  We are making head way and things are changing.  It would be nice if there was more awareness of the polyamory movement and the organizations, books and people available to help those exploring navigate the pitfalls of multi-partnered relating.

Lying results in loss of trust, which leads to insecurity, jealousy, drama and many challenges for the people involved.  Often when spouses cheat the biggest challenge is building trust again.  Lying is not noble and really not done out of love but out of fear.  It takes guts, respect and tremendous love to be really honest in our culture.

Honest open relationships where all parties are happy, included and family, are not mythological, they do exist.  They are not so different from anything else.  They are based on love, and work best when all parties are honest, considerate and real about their needs.  Like all relationships they are challenging long term and require us to deal with our insecurities, fears and see ourselves clearly.  The rewards are numerous from expanded love and family to adventure and exploring sexuality.  Each person in this world is different, for some monogamy is fantastic for other swinging is great and for some it is polyamory, most share a desire for intimacy, honesty, connection and most of all love.

When I first heard the Tiger Woods hoopla, I ignored it as just another gossip fest about someone famous.  A few days later, I was personally dismayed when I saw Tiger Woods leading the headlines in USA Today while a story about four police officers being killed in Washington State was not as important.  The officers, it was believed, were targeted while sitting in a coffee shop.  This was only a headline with the story somewhere in the pages within while Tiger Woods possible infidelity had text on the front page and a bigger headline.  Are the American people really so twisted in their reality that we care more about the, at the time, alleged infidelity of a sports super star then of the shooting of men who serve the public?  People cry out in message boards about Tiger and his “immoral” behavior and barely notice the story of police officers being targeted in a shooting.  I find this to be the sorry state we find our culture in and I wonder if this fascination with infidelity is the same reason people find polyamory so challenging.

This prompted me to take a look at the stories and rumors circling and find out what was being said.  This revelation of Tiger Woods cheating falls on the heels of numerous infidelities by celebrities and politicians.  Each time one of these stories hits, the media jumps on it like ravenous dogs.  This is because people seem to have an appetite for gossip on infidelity.  People are poised to name call and point fingers every time some celebrity we have put on an impossibly high pedestal does something wrong, especially when it involves sex.  Since media is totally in it for the money these days it makes sense, sex sells.

In all of these articles and revelations of infidelity by prominent and apparently upstanding men there is harsh judgment of the men, their values, their morals and even their worth, but no one ever questions that there might be an underlying issue behind the constant straying.  Despite what extensive and numerous studies have shown that our nature as humans is to stray, very few in the mainstream media raise the question of monogamy itself being the problem.  If we look at some of the important and respected men who have shaped our history and even women, we find many are philanderers; Benjamin Franklin, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth I, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt to name a few.  The empirical evidence has shown and continues to show that animals, including humans, are not monogamous.  The constant headlines of infidelity seem to support this and yet despite all the data people are shocked and outraged.  And no one in the mainstream appears capable of talking about this intelligently, especially the media.

In 2007 my family and I appeared on the Montel Williams Show about “alternative families”.  The show consisted of a woman who was a porn star and prostitute, a family who ran a naturist resort and us.  The audience was more challenged by polyamory and open relationships than anything else.  I find this is often the case when polyamory comes up in the conversation.  People will puff up and look indignantly saying it is just wrong.  I actually understand this.  Our culture has programmed us to believe monogamy = love = commitment and is the only valid relationship model, for many the only model period.  Cheating betrays trust and hurts people in many ways.  The gap that most people can’t seem to bridge is that polyamory is not cheating, it is not about deceit and it involves serious commitment.  When you talk of polyamory as an alternative to monogamy many people only visualize cheating.

On a few occasions we will see mainstream media look at the issue and conclude that, despite the facts, monogamy is more desirable, more evolved and what we humans should strive for.  We are given this skewed picture of limited choices; monogamy, cheating or staying single.  Most people will pick monogamy since most people want to be with someone and want to be honest.  There is little to no discussion or suggestion that there might be something else possible; a way of relating beyond monogamy and infidelity.  Committed relationships in which people are honest and open to other partners, or polyamory, is not even part of most people’s thought process.

As a young woman I never considered I had another choice despite the fact that I was often in love with and seeing more than one person.   In the back of my mind I knew at some point I had to choose one person and settle down.  Anything else was not even considered as it never entered my mind that I could do something else.  When I did finally come to terms with the fact I was not monogamous by nature and that I no longer would lie about it, I believed that it meant I would be single and alone.  For me I preferred that scenario to monogamy or cheating.

If our society recognized another possibility, another option, how many people would choose non-monogamy?  We have what has been coined “compulsory monogamy” in our culture.  Monogamy permeates our literature, music, movies and education.  Entertainment media is full of love triangles, jealous rages and unfaithful spouses that always end in pain and hurt for those involved.  We even go so far as to make jealous rage an excusable reason for violence and murder.  This all makes for dramatic stories and gossip but where would we be as a culture if people were given another image, another possibility?  Would Tiger Woods  have chosen something else if it was culturally acceptable?  Maybe, maybe not, but at least it would have been a conscious choice.  Can we truly judge a man or woman for seeking sex outside a marriage when we give no other choice and most people are not naturally monogamous?

Polyamory, open relationships and swinging can come in many different configurations but these relationships share something in common.  They are about choosing what relationship configuration works for you, consciously and honestly.  Infidelity is hurtful but this is more about betraying trust than about the sex.  Infidelity can be sexual or emotional and can happen in both monogamous and non-monogamous relationships.    It is really about not being honest and lying about relationships outside a committed partnership.  Unfortunately this happens often in monogamy because we as a society in general do not know how to talk about emotions, desire and sexual needs.

Polyamory and other open relationship styles do require commitment and agreements.  People in these relationships need to develop skills in negotiating boundaries and agreements as well as communicating their needs honestly.  It is important to understand and recognize that people change, needs change and renegotiation is important in growing a relationship.  Monogamous relationships also need these skills.  In traditional monogamy however people often make assumptions that their partner wants what they want and they never actually ask.   As a result these relationships go into a kind of auto pilot of day to day routine and many times people negate their needs, fail to communicate and become resentful.  While multi-partnered relationships can have similar challenges, it is less common and by the nature of dealing with many people, things usually go south much faster when people fail to communicate honestly.

What would happen if relationship choice was part of our cultural makeup?  What if people learned to be honest and communicate their desires?  I know an awareness of choices would have made a world of difference in my life and my feelings about myself as a young woman.   Would the Tiger Woods of the world choose something different?  I believe many people would, though not all.  I know that some people would consciously choose monogamy and not simply default into monogamy.  Other people would choose swinging, polyamory or some other arrangement.  I know others would still cheat simply for the thrill of getting away with something.  Having choices would not get rid of infidelity but it might reduce it significantly.  Having choices would save many people from the pain and hurt of broken trust and/or forcing oneself to be monogamous when it is not ones desire or nature to be so.

My hope is that all this media frenzy over infidelity and cheating initiates a real dialogue and an awareness of relationship choice will begin to emerge.  Of course I am an optimist looking for anything that brings attention to the outdated mind set of one size fits all relationships.  We can accept that some people like to live in Manhattan while others prefer a Nebraska farm in the middle of nowhere.   I believe we can learn to respect that some people want a monogamous relationship for all time while others might want to commit to a network of twenty lovers.  Relationships and the choices we make about them should be as unique as the people involved and can be when made with awareness, honestly and communication.

I personally wish Tiger and his family find the solutions that are right for them.  I do not think less of him or more for that matter.  He is a great golfer and sportsman.  His personal relationships and marriage are none of my business.  I hope that we can move on and the media can cover something that really matters like the continuing casualties in Iraq or the challenges with American jobs going overseas.  These are things are worthy of our time and consideration.

It is obvious to me that ABC news had no interest in having an intelligent adult discussion on the subject of why so many people across all cultural lines, religious background and nationalities have extra marital relationships or cheat.  If they did they would not have set up a talk about fidelity, sex and marriage in an evangelical church.  The setting certainly was dramatic and sensational but it is not objective or in my opinion worthy of what used to be a very good current affairs news show.

What I found interesting was the constant referral to the Bible and “Marriage as God designed it”, though it is expected given the setting.  Christians did not invent marriage and many cultures around the world have marriages that do not fit Evangelical version of marriage.   Why do we need to constantly ask the evangelical minister what marriage is?  Marriage, I believe in this country, is currently sanctioned by the government and I do remember that our constitution was resolute about separation of church and state.  To define marriage by the Bible is to put one religion above others and to bring the state into the business of dictating personal beliefs.  Furthermore, the argument of GOD designed marriage has little to do with the scientific fact that humans and other animals are often not wired for monogamy.  This is a fact and one we as a culture need to discuss in a mature and thoughtful manor.   We need to be discussing alternatives to cheating, lying and betraying the trust of those we love.

I must say as a person who has studied the Bible both in high school and in college I would prefer a discussion that leaves the term adultery out all together.  Adultery in the Bible sense is the adulterating of a man’s bloodline by another man having sex with his wife (his property).   The traditional marriage that most people think of is one that came out of the fifties in the USA, it is not the Bible tradition.  In Biblical times marriage was an exchange of property from one man, a woman’s father, to another man, who became her husband.  Polygyny is found throughout the Bible and fidelity only applied to married women or a man’s property.

Cheating in our culture is a problem.  It can be emotionally devastating for all parties involved.  There is real pain when we find someone we love and trust has lied to us and has been deceitful.  It can bring up insecurity, anger, hatred, jealousy and many other challenging emotions.   It is hurtful and those who cheat feel guilt and anguish over their own behavior.  Cheating and loss of trust can crumble families and hurt kids.  It is worthy of serious and hard discussion.   Good people, who fully understand the challenge, feel pulled to connect with another person emotionally and/or sexually.   If we take the Bible out of the discussion we can have a frank discussion about cheating and the loss of trust when we deceive our partners. How about real discussion about learning honesty, allowing openness and recognizing the tendency of humans towards non-monogamy?

Polyamory is one option that for some people can solve this challenge.  It was great to see Jenny Block on the show speaking to this.  She was articulate and spoke of possibilities beyond monogamy.  Jenny made it clear that in her view open marriage was not cheating and that different people have different needs in relationships.  When the host asked the pastor weather Jenny was cheating his reply was a bit frightening.   He basically said she was wrong for her open marriage, that is was adultery.  He went on to say that he had all the right answers because his world view was that of Gods and we should all have to live by “God’s creation of marriage”.  Basically any other way is not valid since, according to him, God ordained and created marriage and man has no right to change it.  This need to force one’s own belief system on others makes my head spin (I think Jenny was feeling this too).  I really want to know what  the great need is for some people to homogenize our world and create one size fit all way to live, love and be human.  There are wonderful options people can explore beyond cheating; polyamory, swinging, open relationships and other possibilities.  It is my hope that at some point an honest adult discussion will take place and I challenge any major network to have the balls to host such a discussion without the obvious set up for sensationalist journalism.

My thanks to Jenny Block for the courage to be out and public as a polyamorous person and parent.  I know the challenges that can come from being so public.  She is an example to us all of what is needed to help facilitate a discussion about real possibilities and solutions to modern relationships and family.  Jenny did a great job of holding her own in a hostile environment.  I challenge our community to have her courage and to come out of the closet and show the world polyamory and other alternatives can work and even benefit healthy, happy relationships, marriages and families.

To see the aired version go to http://abcnews.go.com/nightline.   I do recommend watching the entire debate at  http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/10Commandments/affairs-cheating-nightline-face-off-debate-adultery-infidelity/story?id=8645026 .  Keep in mind that the videos are not in order but are numbered.   You will notice how the editing cuts out so many important points and information.

I was standing in line at the grocery store when an issue of Time Magazine caught my eye.  The cover was a badly made wedding cake with a plastic bride and groom plowed into the top, the cover article, Unfaithfully Yours, by Caitlin Flanagan.  I had to buy it and read this article.  In the contents under the cover story listing the byline was “The two-parent family is in trouble.  Why we still need the nuclear unit-and how to save it.”

The article talked about Sanford and other high-profile cheaters and of these men being “blatantly self-centered”.  The article went into numerous studies of how divorce is awful for kids, how children need a father and how single parent families are destroying children.  The solution of course is the institution of marriage.  There was an underlying feeling as I read that really it was men who lacked commitment.  The article never did really give a “how to save it” answers. There was the impression that traditional marriage in which people stay together forever no matter how tough or miserable was the only solution.

This is what fascinates me.  Yes divorce is a challenge and kids get hurt, but is it divorce and lack of commitment or is there a deeper underlying cause that no one is willing to see?  We as a culture seem to unwilling to look at our traditions of marriage itself as possibly being the problem and not the solution.

Traditional marriage is not a good fit for a changing culture seeking connection and acceptance.  Marriage as an institution has its roots in slavery.  In the early Judeo/Christian system women were property sold in marriage.  When the Bible speaks of adultery, it is referring to polluting or adulterating the family line.  To covet a man’s wife was to covet his property.  Less than one hundred years ago this was still true of marriage, women had very few rights, not even the right to vote.  Marriages, until very recently, were a subtle form of slavery or as some have referred to it “legal prostitution”.  As late as the seventies if a man raped his wife it was not considered rape.  Can an institution or tradition with such negative roots be changed or salvaged?  Should it be salvaged?  If not what are our options?

There is bit of myopic challenge going on in our culture.  We know something is not working and many long for acceptance, somewhere to belong and feel safe.  Traditional marriage was not built for this.  The roots of marriage are from a time of small villages, extended family and close ties to the community.  Nuclear family is a poor substitute for peoples need for acceptance and community.  In our modern age we move often for jobs, money or simply because we can.  We have few connections of extended family, little real community and we rely on our partner or spouse and children to fulfill these needs.  This is a lot to ask of two or three people and then the kids grow up and move away.  This leaves us relying on one main person for a sense of connection, purpose, acceptance and other needs formally met by extended family and our village.  The traditional marriage was about survival, children, family and property.  People had considerably shorter life spans and lifetime marriage meant 20 or so years.

Today we marry for love, we live much longer and both people work outside the home.  Is it even reasonable to expect a nuclear family to fulfill the promise of lifelong acceptance and connection from just one person?  Perhaps we as a people need to take a long hard look at the reality of failing marriage and ask what might work better.   What is it we are really seeking and how can we both give stabilitu to our children and fulfillment to ourselves.  How do we create extended family and real communities where we have a village of people to help us, to be there for the children and help us when we are down.  Isn’t the very notion of a nuclear family going it alone completely counterproductive to fulfilling our human need to be part of a tribe or pack.  The nuclear family isolates us from one another and the modern work world of two career households divides spouses from each other.  When most couples spend more time with co-workers then with each other, of course they will form connections and bonds with colleagues.

The ideal of lifelong marriage is not working.  It is crumbling at the foundations, yet many people are so attached they can’t conceive of alternatives.  We need to look for solutions that actually work for all parties concerned.  Polyamory is one possibility that just might work for many people but a lack of awareness and acceptance keep it on the fringes.  We as a culture really need to support the possible alternatives, gay marriage, polyamory, domestic partnerships, civil unions done by specific contract and parenting agreements.

Polyamory has so many possibilities that for some can be a wonderful alternative.  Take the couple who marry young, have kids and love them deeply, with poly they can stay together, be good parents and still find connection and acceptance they may not have with each other.  There are possibilities of three, four, five adults or more forming extended families with real commitments to the family and the children.  With more people there is more connection, help and support which can be awesome for kids.  Why not support forms like polyamory that can meet innate human needs better.  If people could stay together, partnered, as parents and still find relationships to grow, feel alive and connect this could provide the stability so badly missing for many.  Currently this form of relating is looked down on by society, parents and therapists and is not even in the realm of possibility for many.  We are surprised by infidelity even though every study done confirms most homo sapiens are not monogamous.

I do agree with the article that many people lack real commitment.  Polyamory takes honesty, commitment and communication.  It is work and many people see it as too much work.  Even among polyamorists themselves it is often difficult to really commit and do the work needed to form long term stable relationships.  All too often people are seeking acceptance and connection through sexual encounters instead of deep relating.  It does not help that polyamory as a committed family relationship is not supported.  There have been no studies of plural families.  For people who want this kind of family there is no map, no ceremony, no recognition and no rights, making it very difficult to sustain or even be open about.  It would be nice to one day see polyamory as a solution and possibility for modern families.

The article also spoke of single parent families and absentee fathers.  The article implied that marriage would make men better fathers.  Sixty years ago men worked and women stayed home.  We had clearly defined roles in marriage and as parents.  Men brought home the paycheck and women ran the house.   In today’s world many men have no idea their role or their importance in a child’s life.  When women can have children single, bring home the bacon and run the household, many men feel disposable.  Maybe this is what really needs to change.  To help men be better fathers they must first know they matter.  Women often feel unsupported by men not knowing how they fit and so they take control.  It is not malice but by necessity to care for children.  Women for the most part still run the household, take the kids to the doctor or dentist, stay home when their child is sick.  This leaves men feeling unneeded and women overworked.  Men have not really found their role in families in this modern time following women’s liberation.  Women are so tired from fulfilling both roles, they have no time for the partner they married and love.  This makes it easy for men to leave or to have affairs as they feel abandoned, alone and most of all unaccepted.

When Ms Flanagan wrote of marriage being what we needed she missed the entire reason it is not working.  We no longer live in single income families with carefully defined roles.  Most women and many men have no desire to return to that.  We need to look at how we empower men to be fathers, how women can find more balance and how all of us can find the connections we need.  Children need two parents and this generally means their father.  Mothers need the support o a partner to find balance and people need each other for connection.  Men, and for that matter everyone, need to be needed, to know we matter.  Instead of looking back a tradition fraught with negative connotations of slavery and suffering, let’s look for solutions.  We can as a culture become more open and accepting of same sex couples having legal commitments to each other and their children.  We can study polyamory and other plural relationships and help people to make them work.  We can empower men to know they matter to their kids and women to know they do not have to do it all alone.  We can encourage people to form communities and/or extended families with people they feel connected to.  We can honor choices of family style and relationships that support everyone’s wellbeing, adult and child alike.   We can grow into honesty, make real commitments, have lasting families/relationships and discover new traditions of partnership and family beyond traditional monogamous marriage and the nuclear unit.