The Polyamorous Paradigm for an increasingly mobile world?

Polyamory (from poly=multiple + amor=love) is the desire, practice, or acceptance of having more than one loving, intimate relationship at a time with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved. Polyamorous perspectives differ from monogamous perspectives, in that they respect a partner's wish to have second or further meaningful relationships and to accommodate these alongside their existing relationships.

I haven’t seen the man I love for over 6 months. The likelihood is that we will never live together in the traditional sense, well not for many years in any case. Its not what I would choose if I had the choice but its something I am coming to terms with slowly. Maybe its my history in the research community but many of my friends spend most of their time on a different continent from the person they love. As the world gets more mobile, the need to have an interesting and fulfilling work life will make more and more of us used to be being on our own, in one way or another. Researchers and other global players are disconnected and mobile…how does this affect our intimate relationships?

I first picked up the concept of polyamory from a friend in Switzerland who was happily telling me that his new girlfriend was fully polyamorous, and by the way would I like to go to dinner with him. I became intrigued with the idea that a person could be in love with two (or more) people at the same time and that all could live together in an open and honest relationship and I did some research. There are a few community sites for people living in polyamorous relationships and even families. Many poly families cited the advantages to child rearing of have a bigger pool of wages earners and adult “energy” as one of the biggest advantages of their way of life. It harps back to an earlier concept of community upbringing for children. However polyamory is not to be confused with polygamy, the swinger scene or even with extra-marital affairs, and there are various types of polyamory involving various numbers of partners who may or may be sexually involved with other members. For example in the simplest case of 3 people, there is a poly-V, where two people are sexually involved with the third but not with each other. And there is a poly-tri where all three are sexually involved with each other. In fact poly-people don’t even frame their definitions in terms of sexual contact, they might simply state one relationship pair is closer than another, as 3 people are very much involved in each others lives regardless of sleeping arrangements.

Two interesting things struck me from the various stories of poly relationships which I found on the Internet. Naturally, there was a period of readjustment and jealousy and breaks-ups involved in most stories before they could settle and play happy families. However, in almost all cases, particularly when all 3 people in the relationship are heterosexual, I found that there was a first relationship and a period of geographic separation which allowed the third person to become close to one of the partners in the first relationship. Perhaps without the separation its quite difficult for most of us to have the “space” to develop deep feelings for a person outside of our relationship. Its face it, intimate relationships take up a lot of CPU time…if we are serious about someone it takes up our time, our emotional energy and our brainspace.

Not that this is a bad thing, just that for another meaningful relationship to appear, one which is not replacing or in any way subordinate or superior to the relationship we are already in, there needs to be some degree of separation. They way we are living our lives today, more and more people are mobile and this will allow or force separation on otherwise loving couples. Many of the contributors to polyamory discussions also cite a love of community, of sharing living beyond the nuclear family as both an unexpected advantage to polyamory and as a large draw to the arrangement. Mobility and the general culture of the individual found in many developed countries, tend to place people in situations where families are not close. But we are still social animals and this will drive us to create that sense of community in new ways.

So I wonder, as our lives are increasingly mobile and spending a lot of time away, or chunks of time away from our partners becomes the norm – will the separation, the need for individual fulfilment and the search for community edge polyamory towards the mainstream?