Category: Let’s Talk About Poly

A person told me they don’t like me as a polyamory advocate because I tell people to leave their partners because I am SoPo, immature, and don’t value commitment.

I find that entire statement to be hilarious because I actually don’t promote this because I personally do not get into relationships unless I have the intention of those relationships to be lifelong relationships.

I do not causally date and I heavily believe in commitments as a solo polyamorous person ( as many SoPos do and want y’all to be clear with us why you think we don’t have commitments). I value my autonomy and negotiate relationships based on this.

I don’t need to negotiate a romantic or queerplatonic relationship with you if I don’t have the intention of doing everything in my power for us to maintain a healthy lasting relationship.

When I go into relationships, I go into it with the intention that we communicate and that we will maintain this lifelong or a long-term relationship as long as maintaining this is not harmful to us.

And when I say maintaining that relationship. I mean that we are evaluating the problems that we are having and why we are having those problems which means maybe we have to go to therapy because we can’t see eye to eye, etc, etc. Ya know.

So why would I ever advocate for people to break up?

I can definitely understand that many ways of relationship-ing do not align with the autonomy and self-advocating that I teach, so that can sound like I want you to break up just because it is hard.

The point is that I advocate that if you’re not able to do the work it may take to recenter your relationship back to health, that it is OK for you to leave.

I advocate that no one is required to stay in a relationship that they do not feel is a good fit for them, period.

I advocate that people should look at their relationships periodically to make sure it’s where they want their relationship to be and that it is healthy, fulfilling, and allowing for their own personal growth and if it’s not to address that. And for some people that means leave. For some, that means loving harder.

To be clear if I see a bunch of red flags and abuse, I’m gonna tell a person that my recommendation would be for them to remove themselves from an unsafe situation.

Removal from an unsafe situation may end the relationship permanently or it may cause individuals to start reevaluating things and seek to become healthier.

My advocacy cannot be to just leave relationships because you find them temporarily unfulfilling because I understand that the nature of humans is that we are not going to be constantly enthralled with the people in our lives at all times.
They will not always be a source of happiness and enjoyment.
Sometimes we are going to “hate” them and dislike them because we may have to make choices that we don’t necessarily want to because we have decided that the person is going to be a part of our lives.

Did you know that it is completely valid and okay to decide that what you negotiate in your relationship at one point no longer works for you?… But it’s not necessarily ok just for you to say well this doesn’t work for me so I’m not gonna act on that anymore without having a conversation with your partner. Sometimes it is sometimes it’s not.

Relationships are about communication, often resource sharing, and partnerships. I recently explained to a tiny child who decided I need to be his big sister, that love is love and relationships are not always simply love. Relationships require interaction. Love is a state of being.

None of that means that you can’t be autonomous and when people start saying that relationships that require them to communicate effectively with their partners ruin their autonomy I also challenge them to consider what they think autonomy, freedom, and control in relationships mean to them.