As I’ve said in earlier posts, there isn’t one best way to do or be something. There are a multitude of ways, and nowhere have I encountered this more evidently than when discussing and reading about polyamory. What works for me is quite likely to disastrously not work for someone else. What works for someone else, really isn’t the thing for me. There is a wide range of ways that relationships work (friendships, romantic attachments, one-night stands, family, soul-mates, etc). And as there is that wide range of relationships and different ways of them working, there is a wide range of ways to make polyamory work.
I could sit down and take apart an article my sister gave me the link to discussing polyamory, how what is mentioned in the article doesn’t work for me, how I understand where the author is coming from, and yet the levels of formality and hierarchy would just upset me, but it’s far easier for me to say to myself, this is what worked for them, and like most things in life will change and grow with them for as long as it’s useful. (that sentence is nice and long, but anyway)
Even things mentioned in The Ethical Slut, a book many people consider to be the bible of polyamory, aren’t necessarily the only way to do polyamory. These things are all suggestions, some useful, some far less so. If your version of polyamory is working for you and your partner/s, and someone else is screwing their nose up at the way you’re living your life and relationships, then that’s their problem and not yours.
Take what I and others who write and talk about polyamory with a grain of salt, think on it as useful information, but stuff that doesn’t necessarily apply to your situation. It’s great if it does, and it’s great if something I share or say makes a difference, but no one is under any obligation to try and fit their unique situation into a copy of my (or anyone else’s) situation. Doing that is unlikely to lead to anyone else’s happiness.
[Cross posted here]
Thanks for the post. Important to add, I think, that because of this diversity of approaches, then the label ‘polyamory’ can be misleading/dangerous if people assume they know what it means, and expect certain behaviours from partner(s) as a result – i.e., ‘you’ve agreed to be poly, therefore [this course of action] is ok’. Hrumph. I speak from bitter experience. I don’t have a solution, except for to mark on the map, ‘here be dragons’.