On Hierarchy: People Are Not Secondary

Early on in my poly dating, I didn’t realize it, but I naturally drifted toward a non-hierarchical model of polyamory. It wasn’t planned that way, it just made sense to me on how you treat human beings.

Others that I have met on my journey are not so great at that.

I’m sure many of the folks who read this blog are familiar with the Secondary Bill of Rights, and when I read through them the first time, I was like “well, duh… these are just common sense.”

Going back and reading through them again the other day, I realized one of the main reasons a relationship I had pretty early on didn’t work out – and it was because the guy I was dating was treating me as a secondary human being. I would *always* come second to his relationship with his primary partner. Plans were constantly being canceled because his partner’s plans had fallen through and he didn’t want them to be alone.

Looking back on my own relationships, I try not to smile in smug satisfaction that I’ve avoided most of the couple privilege pitfalls, for the most part. And not just with my own partners, but with my husband’s partners as well.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not perfect. But I’ve avoided using my position as “wife” to arbitrarily control how much time and what type of interactions my husband has with his other partners. Sure – early on I was much more cautious about what type of things I was comfortable with, but I was testing soft boundaries all the time, and allowed myself to experience scary shit because I knew it was important.

Do my opinions and suggestions and thoughts carry a lot more weight with my husband than his new partner’s opinions do? You bet your ass they do. But the same can be said of his best friend of 15 years. It’s about how well we know one another, and everything we’ve been through and experienced. The fact that I’ve known my husband longer than his new partners just means that I’m a more trusted adviser – not that I have some arbitrary position of power to dictate his personal life. And yeah, we share financial obligations and chores and mundane shit, so anything that impacts our shared resources will involve my input.

My husband HAS canceled plans with others when I’m having a particularly heinous day – but it was never at my urging, and has happened maybe once or twice. And in those situations, it was always a decision weighed BY HIM on what actually took priority in that moment – not based on the arbitrary fact that I’m “primary” and thus my needs, no matter how small, take precedent over others. Even if in some small selfish way I wanted to make him drop everything, I resisted, because couple privilege is intoxicating, and letting it seep in has a damaging impact on your partner’s ability to grow new relationships.

When entering into a relationship with someone, there are always considerations to be made.

If I were to date a single father, I would understand that the needs of his children outweigh my own. In those instances, I would tread carefully in dating them.

If I were to date someone with a demanding work schedule (like this emergency medicine resident I’ll be seeing soon), then I would understand that the demands of his job would take priority in a lot of cases, and I will tread carefully in dating him.

If I were to date someone who was the primary caregiver for their partner, or a parent, I would understand that the needs of those people who depend on him would supersede my own in many cases.

But if I’m dating someone who is in a long-term relationship, with no children, and nothing beyond the normal obligations of work and maintaining a healthy relationship with their other partner(s), it would not be my assumption that every need, whim and desire of their “primary” would automatically invalidate my own very basic needs. And if that were to be the case, then I would expect it be the responsibility of that individual to disclose that information so that I can make the best decision for myself, which is namely: run the fuck away.

I am not a pretty, shiny thing to be picked up and played with when it is convenient for you, only to be put away and forgotten about until you wander by again and remember I exist.

I should not be made to feel guilty for wanting to spend time with you.
I should not have to beg for your time.
I should not have to constantly reschedule dates because your partner’s plans fell through.
I should not feel as if my time is deemed less valuable than yours.

In turn, I will do everything in my power to make sure you *never* feel like a secondary human being, either.

Along Came Poly

I figured I’d give a little background and current context for my poly relationship(s).

When I was in college, I met an “older man” who identified as poly (I was 21 and he was 34). He was married and he was pretty cool, and so I decided to enter into a secondary-type relationship that was more of a friends with benefits type deal. This suited me fine at the time because I had no deep emotional investment and didn’t really have to deal with any particular feelings of jealousy. I also had no desire to ride ye olde relationship escalator with him.

Eventually I met another a guy, who was monogamous, and I broke things off with Mr. Poly. He was a little upset about it, but I was searching for my relationship escalator guy and most of them are monogamous.

I’ll point out here that I’d consider myself poly-flexible in nature. I’m perfectly happy in either a monogamous relationship or a poly relationship because the pros and cons of each, for me, are about equal. Whatever relationship model works best for everyone to be happy is fine by me.

Anyway – relationship with monogamous guy failed, eventually. Mismatched priorities, long distance, other crazy shit, etc.

So after that failed spectacularly, I wasn’t looking for anything serious. A few months went by with various casual relationships, including a very volatile FWB situation that I should’ve bailed on much earlier (but that’s a story for another time). Eventually, I stumbled across a man on OKCupid who was poly, engaged and who lived an hour and a half away. I figured “Why not? I can do the secondary thing again, and he seems cool.”

That turned out NOT to be the case, as it didn’t take me long to develop some ridiculously deep feelings for him. And at a certain point I realized I was going to have to tell him that I wasn’t able to continue the relationship as it was – I either needed the relationship to be monogamous, or I was going to have to move along before things got more serious. I was honestly expecting us to go our separate ways, because he identified as “naturally” poly (whereas I identify as learned poly).

Luckily (for me, as you’ll see), around that time, his friends had finally started to clue him in on the fact that they had tried for over a year but could not stand his fiancee. Further, if he went through with marrying her, they would likely continue to distance themselves. He was rightfully pissed that no one had told him they felt this way – including his best friend of 15 years! They were also simultaneously saying how much they liked me, and were a huge fan of having me around. I’m not sure if that was just in contrast to his fiancee, but I’d like to think that there was some realistic understanding of how well I meshed with the group.

After much consideration, he broke off his engagement. We continued dating.

Things after that were pretty much a whirlwind. About 2 months after he broke off his engagement, I lost my job (on his birthday), and moved in with him. A month after that, I proposed. 10 months after that, we got married.

We’ve been married for 5 and a half years now, and were monogamous for almost 5 of them, and I can say that throughout that time, I’ve never been more happy and content and less annoyed by any single human being ever. Many couples fight and bicker and argue – but we just don’t. We trade playful insults if the other person isn’t living up to their adult responsibilities, but there’s no malice or resentment there. Before we opened up in January of this year, the biggest disagreement or “argument” we ever had concerned EGGS. Not even kidding.

Our opening up got off to a rocky start. I don’t want to go into those details just yet – I think that deserves its own post or two – but I realize now that I should have gone to a poly-friendly counselor around that time to help me make sense of what I was feeling. After some distance and reflection, I believe that a lot of what I was feeling was not actually caused by the opening up process, but by the mental illness that my meta possessed, which has a tendency to confuse and wreak havoc on the emotions of the neurotypical people around them (Borderline Personality Disorder). My husband was not really affected in the same way, because he’s not actually neurotypical (a little bit on the spectrum).

Anyway – long months of weirdness and ups and downs has led me to where I am today: I have my amazing husband, and I now have my amazing boyfriend.

I feel like I won the lottery for a second time. AND, I met him on OKCupid, too. (Way to go, OKCupid. You’re crushing it!)

The boyfriend and I are not in the “I love you” stage yet – but I feel it building toward that. I honestly haven’t felt this kind of deep connection since I met my husband over 6 years ago.

In contrast, I had a brief, yet passionate, relationship with my best friend when my relationship first opened up in January. Looking back, that seemed more chemical and fanciful. It was meaningful, and one of the more exciting and fulfilling relationships of my life up to that point – but it burned brightly at both ends, and was ultimately doomed by the monogamous nature of my best friend.

This relationship I’m building with my boyfriend seems more permanent. It’s still amazingly exciting, and the NRE is definitely there, and there’s giddiness, but there’s this undercurrent of intense connection that cannot be accurately described.

I’m going to steal from Twilight here (don’t judge me), but my best friend was more like a drug to me, and my boyfriend is like the sun.

With my husband and my boyfriend in my life, it looks like I’m a regular Tatooine over here.