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Polyamorous as Part of a Relationship Orientation

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Category: Polyamory
Created on Friday, 03 February 2012 20:44
Last Updated on Sunday, 05 February 2012 21:43
Written by Katie, Anne, Angel and John

Much of this is pulled from an earlier article on why we are polyamorous.

A lot of people are asking us whether we view polyamory as a part of our sexual orientation. We have discussed the topic with other poly people we know. We've heard a lot of answers. The people we know don't all agree upon the answer.

Personally, We find the question a little disturbing. What investment do people asking have? Why does the question matter to them? We suspect that the question and their response to our answer will tell more about their (the questioner's) world-view and issues than ours. However here is our answer. This answer IS TRUE FOR US. We view the attraction to multiple persons (the reason we are poly) as a part of our relationship orientation, not our sexual orientation. Here is our answer why:

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: the types of people that one is attracted to. Most often this is described in terms of the sex and/or gender of the people to which one is attracted. We feel it should also includes  

  • physical characteristics
  • intelligence
  • temperament
  • personality

and many other characteristics. For some of us, those items make much more difference in our attractions than someone's sex and/or gender.

RELATIONSHIP ORIENTATION: The style of relationship one is drawn to.

  • This can include the number of people one is drawn to "fall in love" with, attracted to and/or start a relationships with at the same time (i.e., polyamory or not polyamory)
  • Whether one is more an individualist keeping their daily life separate from the daily lives of their partner(s) and focusing on special moments with their partner(s)/ or is more communal wanting their partner(s) to be involved in every aspect of their daily lives/or somewhere in between
  • Whether one is inclined to form long-term relationships that involve planning and experiencing life long dreams, goals, etc/ or prefers to think shorter term focusing more on what is going on at that time.

These and many other aspects form what we (but maybe not other people) call relationship orientation.

We'll use a ourself to explain relationship orientation. Part of our relationship orientation is that we are polyamorous. 

There are any number of reasons why someone may be polyamorous. Some people view it as a choice they made. It may comes from a social or political ideology. For others it comes from a place of spiritual growth. While these are perfectly valid, for us it comes from practicality. Each of us have fallen in love with someone while we are in love with someone else. One of our members promotes this as the "Joey Potter Effect" based on the central plot device in Dawson's Creek. (if you are unfamiliar  with Dawson's Creek you can see a trailer at http://www.sonypictures.com/tv/shows/dawson/ but be warned the site shamelessly promotes a cheesy teen soap opera from the time when Part of Five/Dawson's Creek/Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the WB Network's Sunday night lineup).

For many years, each of us tried unsuccessfully to live and be happy with having a romantic relationship with only one other person (it was what we thought we were "supposed" to do). If we wanted to live monogamously, this left several options when we would fall in love with another person while we were already in love.

  • Have an affair with one while maintaining a relationship with the other. Technically, this is not monogamy, but in our minds it is still a monogamous response. More than one of us considered this, but we could never do. All four of us have a hard time telling convincing lies and keeping secrets from those we love (lying to and keeping secrets from at least one person you love is necessary to having a successful affair).
  • Stay with the one you fell in love with first. Unless you are good at hiding your attraction and keeping secrets from the person you love, this doesn't work. More than one of us tried this. Each time it would end. In one case, our partner (who wanted us to commit to only them) became insecure and jealous about our obvious, long-term, ongoing attraction to another person. In the another case, our partner grew distant feeling like that our relationship with them was not real or valid.
  • Break up with the person fell in love with first and start a relationship with the other person. This creates linger doubts and regrets that can be emotionally toxic. There is someone on twitter that keeps messaging poly people to do this. She states if you fell in love with the second you weren't really in love with the first. Two of us have gotten her messages. Some of us have tried this too and failed (Yet, the lady that sends those messages is committed to this as a solution - We guess that is her baggage). This creates a difficult situation when your lover realizes that you are still in very love with your ex-partner. Jealousy thrives in this situation. In one of our cases, the jealousy became so toxic things couldn't be worked out and that person returned to their first partner. In another one of our cases, the insecurities lead to constant verbal arguments where she eventually left that partner, but didn't return to the first - that ex-partner had moved on into another relationship.

The other, entirely practical response for US is polyamory. Create meaningful, loving, honest, full relationships with all the people you love.

While many people only fall in love with only one person. FOR US, We view polyamory as an aspect of our relationship orientation (we fall in love with people while we are in love with someone). This is something that we can not control. The choices are between lying, keeping secrets, deceit, regrets and/or emotionally toxic situations OR honesty, openness, trust, fidelity and happiness. We chose the latter. We chose to be polyamorous.

An overview of relationship orientation of the four of us: We are four people attracted to more than one other person, inclined towards forming long-term relationship, and very much enjoy/prefer being very involved in all the mundane moments of each others lives (like living together, buying a house, sharing mundane tasks like cleaning, paying bills, grocery shopping) as well as those moments where you are hanging out or having special together time with one or more of our partners.

We believe that there is no right or wrong relationship orientation (although society seems to have a fetish on single partner, long term, highly involved relationships). For some, one or more aspects of their relationship orientation may be chosen, for others, all of them may be things that they didn't chose. What has us most perplexed is why the question: 'Is polyamory part of one's  orientation' even matters. We will reiterate, whether someone chose some aspect, or they did not (for instance we do not feel we chose to be attracted to more than one person) it (the orientation vs. chosen question) should not matter. Their is no right or wrong subset of people to be attracted and their is no right or wrong style of relationship.

We are out about our polyamory to let others know that there is a valid, ethical, honest, caring option available whether they find themselves in love with more than one person or choose to look for more than one romantic interest.