Who Do You Choose In An Emergency?

[joreth]

"But what if two of your partners have an emergency at the same time?!  Polyamory can't work!  You have to have a hierarchy or else anarchy reigns and everyone loses!"

A few days ago, my great aunt, who has leukemia, slipped and broke her hip.  My dad, who is retired and spent 2 months last year out of town to care for her when the cancer got really bad and she was hospitalized, went down again to care for her with this latest emergency.

Today, my mom tripped and broke her ankle while my dad was out of town.

My parents are not poly.  Yet they also have to answer tough questions like what happens when two loved ones have emergencies at the same time.  Who should my dad choose - his wife or his ailing aunt with whom he has previously set a precedent for being her caretaker?

This is a rhetorical question, of course, because the answer isn't anyone else's business.  The answer is between these three people, their specific needs, and the agreements that they all come to after all relevant parties discuss it because no one could have anticipated this exact set of circumstances.

Kinda like polyamory.

We already have these scripts.  We already have these skills.  We already have to face these kinds of challenges.  Ethical and compassionate relating doesn't change just because there is sex involved.



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Comments

[belenen.livejournal.com]

*nods emphatically* that pro-hierarchy argument relies on the idea that there is only one person who you have any real level of commitment to -- no friends, no family at that level. Untrue, for most people, though they don't think about the fact that they balance their parents and their partner for example.