Redefining Relationships

Polyamory: the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time

STORY BY DEMI CAVANAUGH
photo illustration by Evan Abell

For most couples, loving and being intimate with someone outside of the relationship would be an automatic deal breaker. For others, such as those who define themselves as polyamorous, this deviation is mutually agreed upon and fulfilling.

As foreign and confusing as it may seem to some, for people like Gray Newlin, it just makes sense.

“Love isn’t finite,” Newlin says. “You can’t really stop yourself from loving other people while you’re in a relationship.”

Newlin’s hair is messily piled atop her head, with only her short choppy bangs, which frame her wide navy blue eyes and flushed cheeks, escaping the elastic band that secures the rest of her mane.

Newlin has been in open relationships since she was 14 years old, even before she knew what polyamory meant.

Like those who engage in a non-monogamous lifestyle, the term polyamory is widely misunderstood. Contrary to the popular assumption that its defining characteristic is the unlimited number of partners, those who understand it will say polyamory is as much about setting limits as it is about removing them.

POLYAMORY 101

Robin Trask, executive director of Loving More, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness and providing support for polyamorous relationships, says these relationships are defined as being, “ethical, non-monogamous relationships done with consent.”

While the number of relationships a polyamorous person can have at once is not limited, balancing too many partners can be difficult, Trask says from the Loving More headquarters in Colorado.

“There’s a joke in the poly community that says while love may be unlimited, time isn’t,” she says.

Newlin echoes this sentiment when she discusses her previous relationships. Four people is the most she has ever been involved with at one time, but she says that she was only committed to two of them. More than that would be too much to maintain, she says.

The healthiest and most successful polyamorous relationships have written agreements, or what are known as “hard limits,” that everyone involved collectively determines, says Chalaina Connors, a poly-friendly licensed professional counselor in Portland.

“Polyamorous couples in a healthy relationship would talk about which behaviors they are and are not comfortable with and determine what their relationships are going to look like,” Connors says.

FEAR OF COMMITMENT?

Trask, who has identified as polyamorous for more than 23 years, says a common misconception about the polyamorous lifestyle is that it is only for people who fear commitment.

“If you look up the definition of commitment, it does not say monogamy anywhere,” Trask says.

Connors, who began counseling people who identify as polyamorous three years ago, says this fallacy is not limited to the general public.

“There are even professionals who don’t understand it,” Connors says. “I’ve heard other therapists say, ‘Oh that person just has a commitment issue and they just need to learn to deal with that.’”

Polyamory can go wrong in a number of ways; one is when people identify themselves as polyamorous, but only as an excuse to sleep around with multiple partners, which does not represent the values of open and honest communication that polyamory emphasizes, Newlin says.

Before she knew what polyamory was, Trask tried swinging, which is based more on sex than committed relationships, and found it was not for her, she says.

For Trask and Newlin, the polyamorous lifestyle works because commitment is involved, sometimes even more so than with monogamous relationships, because more commitments and agreements have to be upheld in order for the relationships to work.

Ultimately, Trask and Newlin and others in the polyamorous community voice no fear of commitment, only fear of missing out on opportunities to connect with other individuals.

“People are great,” Newlin says. “Why wouldn’t you want more people in your life?”

JEALOUSY AND CHEATING

The number one issue polyamorous couples seek her counseling for is jealousy, Connors says. While they might want an open polyamorous relationship to work, they struggle to overcome their jealousy and insecurities over knowing their partners are involved with other people.

“I try to help them be able to articulate that so they can really support each other,” Connors says.

New Relationship Energy, a polyamorous term used to describe the giddy feeling one gets when falling in love with a new partner, is something Newlin has experienced first hand. It can be a major source of jealously in polyamorous relationships, she says.

“She was getting treated differently than I was getting treated,” Newlin says. “That would make anyone get jealous. Polyamorous people get jealous.”

Cheating, another grey area for those unfamiliar with polyamory, also occurs in these relationships the same way it does in monogamous relationships.

“I don’t think it differs at all,” Connors says. “Cheating is when someone goes behind someone else’s back and they are not aware of it.”

While these relationships may look like cheating to someone unaware of their guidelines, the polyamorous community considers a person to be unfaithful only if pursuing someone outside of the relationship goes against an established agreement.

With a practically endless number of relationship combinations and no real societal guideline in place dictating how they should function, polyamorous individuals are forging their own paths and determining their own set of relationship standards that work for them.

“There are limits,” Trask says. “But you decide what they are.”