New Examiner article up

[kitchen_kink]

Somewhat per cos's request: Can polyamorous relationships last?

If you want to help me out, please clicky even if you can't read right now: I get paid in part by page view. :)

Also, if you like my articles, feel free to signal boost them - no need to ask me.

Comments

you're too quick!

[yagagriswold.livejournal.com]

"This article is currently being published.
It should be available for viewing in 5 minutes."

I'll keep trying.

Re: you're too quick!

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Linked fixed! Thanks.

[catling.livejournal.com]

FYI, it looks like that one may not be up quite yet. I just clicked and got this error:

Article Not Ready
This article is currently being published.
It should be available for viewing in 5 minutes.

Thanks,
The Examiner.com Team

Edited comment to include:

Or it may just be an issue with the direct link in this entry, when I go to your main articles page and click on the link there, it loads just fine.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Link fixed. My bad.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Does it still count if the article is in the process of being published?

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Nah, bad html, my fault. Fixed now.

[bkdelong.livejournal.com]

Try this link.

[bkdelong.livejournal.com]

Signal boosted.

[coraline]

.... it might just me (though a quick poll of acquaintances indicates otherwise) but i have an instictive "UGH" reaction to the use of "polys" as a shorthand for "people engaged in polyamorous relationships." i try not to be utterly prescriptivist in my language usage, but anything which makes me dismiss an article out of hand seems worth mentioning to its author. since in general, i agree with most of your article...

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to say, it rubs me the wrong way, too. It sort of has the same ring to it as "gays"; plus it makes it sound like being non-monogamous is the sum total of our identities.

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

Huh. I think I did that totally by accident. I fix.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

heh. One of the two couples therapists we tried out asked me something in the second session about being "a poly". We looked at each other and tried not to roll our eyes. We ended up going with the other therapist. ;-)

[greendalek.livejournal.com]

Have I mentioned lately what an incredible writer you are?

[cos]

Ooh, that was on old one! Cool :)

Hmm. You spent a long paragraph on how the lack of well-defined models to follow is a challenge, and only balanced that out with one sentence at the end of the article about how being forced into a model that doesn't fit can be a challenge. I'd have liked to see a more even treatment about how the lack of well defined models can be a challenge and/or an opportunity, and can make a relationship more challenging and/or more rewarding, more fragile and/or more solid. You didn't actually say that the former in each of those pairs I'm positing is the more significant one, but I think most people reading this article would walk away with that impression if they're not already familiar with polyamory.

P.S. Interestingly, I think the poly communities that form in large cities that you refer to have gotten to a stage where there are models that people are familiar with them, and in the past less-than-decade I've seen more and more poly people fall into the same pattern as many monogamous people always have: following a model as a substitute for examining what they actually want (to some extent, not necessarily entirely).

relatedly

[cos]

This is a bit of a tangent, but connects to part of what you wrote: People who are unfamiliar with polyamory and find it strange, and know one poly relationship that breaks up due to problems, have a very very strong tendency to attribute the relationship's problems to polyamory because it's the part they find strangest, the thing they suspected couldn't work out. So when they already suspect a cause, then see the effect, they attribute that effect to the cause.

Conversely, they do not attribute relationship failures to monogamy even in those cases where it might very well be the monogamy at fault. For example, they surely know some relationships where person A left person B in order to date person C. We can't know for sure, but it would be surprising if at least *some* of those aren't cases where they'd have stayed together if A could date C without having to leave B first. So it's really easy to logically blame monogamy for the bad situation, yet people who are comfortable with monogamy and suspicious of polyamory never think of it that way. They blame A's fecklessness, or a poor fit between A and B, or C's evilness, or whatever. All valid possibilities, and just the sorts of things they *could* think of when a poly relationship ends, instead of blaming polyamory itself.

As a result, someone may see one poly breakup and so many monogamous breakups they can't possible remember them all, and yet that only people breakup will stick in their memory as significant, and give them the impression that polyamory is unlikely to succeed... even if they actually know one or two other poly relationships that have lasted for years and are still going well. That is, I think even when the actual ratio of success someone has seen is *higher* for poly relationships than monogamous ones, they may still perceive it the other way 'round.

[packbat.livejournal.com]

That is a lovely final paragraph.