Q. In a polyamorous relationship is the first wife expected to be emotionally involved in the joys and sorrows of the other wives?A.
POLYAMORY: Literally,
poly = many +
amor = love. The state, practice, or intention of maintaining multiple romantic relationships simultaneously, with the full knowledge and consent of all the people involved.
POLYGAMY: Literally,
poly = many +
gamos = marriage. The state or practice of having multiple wedded
spouses at the same time. This term does not imply the gender of any individual within the relationship.
POLYGYNY: Literally,
poly = many +
gynos = woman. The state or practice of having multiple wedded wives at the same time.
POLYANDRY: Literally,
poly = many +
andros = man. The state or practice of having multiple wedded husbands at the same time.
In the US, it is currently illegal to have multiple spouses of any gender. So, as Jessica said, the only way you’d have multiple wives is if two women married each other. And in that case, I would *
hope* that the two wives were emotionally involved in the joys and sorrows of the other. At least, if they had the standard sort of marriage where they got married for love, rather than the “traditional” sort of marriage where they got married to join families and houses and merge land and property. If the latter is the case, then I suppose it wouldn’t be expected for either of them to be emotionally involved with each other.
Polyamory is an overarching term that means only “many loves”. That phrase can be interpreted in a very wide variety of ways. Implicit in the definition are the concepts of “ethics” and “consent” and often “romantic love” (although not necessarily that last one), but even when you imply many ethical romantisexual loving relationships with the full knowledge and consent of everyone involved (the tightest definition of the term), that’s still a pretty broad term that includes a lot of variation.
For example, I am kitchen table egalitarian solo poly with a hint of RA. That’s 4 overlapping subtypes of polyamory right there.
Kitchen Table Poly means that everyone in the
polycule (colloquial; a group of people related by
polyamorous romantic and/or sexual connections) - that is, your partners and their partners and their partners’ partners, etc. - everyone in the polycule knows each other and is comfortable *
enough* with each other to sit around a kitchen table together, sharing conversation and coffee, or a meal, or whatever. This term was coined by
Kimchi Cuddles.
The opposite of Kitchen Table Poly would be
Parallel Poly, where one has multiple romantic and/or sexual partners that run parallel to each other and do not interact at all. It is implied by the “polyamory” part of Parallel Poly that the other partners at least *
know* of each other and consent to being in a non-monogamous relationship, but they generally do not interact with each other and each relationship is highly compartmentalized and segregated.
Egalitarian Poly is a relationship structure where each person in any given relationship is equal in power to the other person in that relationship to shape and control that specific relationship and no one outside of that relationship has any more power over that relationship than the people in the relationship.
A lot of people think it means that the
metamours (my partner’s other partner) are equal in status and priority *
to each other*. I cannot stress enough that this *
is not what egalitarian poly means*. It means that if I am in a relationship with Bob, then Bob and I are full equal partners in our relationship and nobody has more power over the course of our relationship, the shape, the look, or anything about our relationship than Bob and I have together.
Egalitarian polyamorists can have relationships that look different. An Egal Poly can have a legal spouse, a cohabiting partner, a casual partner, an anchor partner, a nesting partner, a comet partner, an FWB, etc. All of those terms are defined at
The Inn Between - Polyamory btw, but you don’t need to know what they all mean for the purpose of this discussion.
The point is that Bob here can have all different kinds of relationships and still be Egal Poly. As long as the reason why each relationship looks the way it does is because Bob and that partner both want their relationship to look that way, they’re the only two who negotiated what their relationship looks like, and nobody else can tell Bob what one of his other relationships has to look like or what he can and can’t do with any of his other partners.
Each relationship that Bob gets into has to have the full freedom to grow in whatever direction it wants to go that Bob’s “first” relationship had when he wasn’t involved with anyone else.
The counter to Egalitarian Poly is Hierarchical Poly. There are 2 different definitions for this term, and it is my opinion that one of those definitions is grammatically incorrect and because of that, the use of that definition confuses and obfuscates a serious problem in the community.
So when *
I* use the term
Hierarchical Poly, this is what I mean: A term used to denote an unequal power structure among participants in any kind of
non-monogamous relationship or group. This is where certain people are given actual power over other people and certain other people are disempowered by this relationship structure. Other people will use the terms “power” and “priority” interchangeably. For more on my thoughts of the misuse of the term “hierarchy” and the dangers of hierarchy, you can visit my
blog post tag on the subject.
Solo Poly is the practice or philosophy of engaging in polyamorous relationships as an individual person and prioritizing the autonomy and agency of everyone involved over the group as a unit, regardless of how emotionally intimate or even logistically entwined each of the relationships are.
So, what this means is that a “sopo” or a solo polyamorist can have no partners, one partner, or several partners, but we always think of ourselves as an individual with partners, never “half of a couple”. We make our own decisions, we often live alone (but we don’t have to), and we move through life as an independent person.
This does *
not* mean that we don’t develop deep, emotional connections or that we don’t *
consider* how our actions affect our partners. Solopolys are often *
interdependent*. That is, we often build close networks of people that we have deep intimacy with and with whom we can rely on, much like any other family. We just don’t give up any of our autonomy or subsume our identities into the “couple” or family unit.
Every person in a relationship is more important than the relationship itself. Which means a solopoly person will not try to “protect the relationship” at all cost. If the relationship is not bringing joy or value to everyone in it, then the relationship is not worth protecting. The safety and happiness of the *
individuals* in the relationship is more important than the longevity of any relationship.
Solo Polyamory is actually a pretty complex and nuanced concept, so there is a whole lot more I go into here, if you really want to read more about it:
But What Does Solo Poly Even Mean? - A Personal PerspectiveNow,
Relationship Anarchy (RA) means the practice or philosophy of not ranking partners according to type of relationship and sometimes refusing to label relationships at all to avoid the sorts of priority or ranking assumptions that accompany certain labels. Often there is no distinction between romantic and non-romantic relationships and platonic relationships can be held in as much importance as romantic or sexual relationships.
Western cultures have the
Relationship Escalator. This is the presumptive path that romantic relationships are expected to take with an order to events or milestones and a pace that is assumed and imposed by society. The children's song "first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage" is a simplified example of the Relationship Escalator.
RAs reject this Escalator. They do not accept a hierarchy of relationships imposed from the outside. They might have some relationships that have higher priority over others, but they do not assign that priority based on a predetermined hierarchy ladder that our culture has assumed.
So, for example, in the US, very generally speaking, we assume that a legal spouse would have all the priority and power for a given person, and family-of-origin comes second (except perhaps in cases of medical emergencies), friends come after that, and coworkers and acquaintances come last. Some individuals may rearrange this hierarchy for themselves, but the point is that the class of relationships that a person has comes attached with default priority, and the only way for someone to have their priority changed is to change the relationship.
RAs do not feel this way. A platonic friend could have the “highest” priority in their lives while a romantic partner might come in “second” in a case of competing priorities. An RA might choose a life partner and co-parent from among their family or platonic friends rather than a sexual partner. An RA might choose to prioritize themselves first and maintain only loose commitments and connections with everyone else. There is no structure to Relationship Anarchy - that’s kind of the point. Everyone gets to decide for themselves what everyone and everything in their lives looks like, not have their lives or their relationships dictated to them by society.
So, back to my original point… I am kitchen table egalitarian solo poly with a hint of RA. This means that I *
prefer* to develop, at the very least, an acquaintanceship with all of my metamours - with my partners’ other partners. I like to meet them in person, to know who they are, and to build friendships with them where possible.
But I do not have any say whatsoever in the relationships my partners have with other people. I do not get to impose on them any restrictions or limitations or contribute to any discussions about how their relationships will look, even if I “was here first”. If I don’t like one of my partners’ other partners, I have no say in whether or not he dates her or how that relationship goes. I can choose to limit my own contact with my metamours if there is a problem, but that relationship exists outside of and independent of me.
I prefer to live alone and I make all my own relationship decisions by myself. I consult my other partners because their feelings and thoughts are important to me and I am considerate of how my actions affect them. But ultimately, any decisions to be made rest with me alone. And I reject any power over their decision-making even if they want to give it to me. I want to have some *
influence* because I view my relationships as *
partnerships*, where we are working in tandem to build something together. But I don’t want *
power over* another person’s autonomy and agency. They have to be responsible for their own decisions and actions. I will support, encourage, and sometimes even disagree with, but never control the thoughts, actions, or decisions of my partners.
So to finally get around to answering your question, no, I am not “expected” to be involved with my metamours’ “joys and sorrows”. That would be giving up my freedom of agency and that of everyone else. I am free to build whatever kind of relationship with my metamours that my metamour and I want to build together, including becoming best friends, becoming lovers ourselves, or even having no contact, and everything in between.
My partners cannot dictate to me what my other relationships look like, and that goes for my romantic relationships, my friendships, my familial relationships, *
and my metamour relationships*. My partner and their other partner do not have the power to decide on my behalf what kind of relationship I will have with either my partner or their other partner.
As a legal spouse, I do not expect my spouse’s other partners to be friends with me or to be to be emotionally involved in my joys and sorrows, even though I “was here first”. My spouse also does not expect me to be to be emotionally involved in the joys and sorrows of his other partners, or vice versa.
However, I do very much enjoy the friendships I have built with some of his other partners. My metamours bring value to my life. Half of the reason I do polyamory in the first place is because of the metamour relationship. There are a lot of different types of non-monogamy, but the term “metamour” is only used in polyamory.
Polyamory is the style of non-monogamy that best honors the relationship between one’s partners other partners. Some forms of non-monogamy block that connection entirely. Some forms of non-monogamy “expect” that connection and force it even when it does not make the participants happy.
But in polyamory, we honor the idea of “metamours”, which includes respecting the freedom of said metamours to build and develop their own relationships (or not) without undue pressure from the culture, the community, or even the mutual partner.
It’s true that some individuals within polyamory do not live up to these ideals. Some individuals who do polyamory do, in fact, attempt to restrict contact among their partners, or who do, in fact, attempt to force connections among their partners. Poly people are still people, after all, and we all still make mistakes and often are subject to the social programming we were given from our larger culture. But this is not the polyamorous *
ideal*. Neither extreme is an assumption of polyamory itself. Polyamory itself leaves the question of metamours open to the interpretation of those participants.
And in my own life, I have found that my metamour connections are the best part of non-monogamy. Multiple partners are great and all, but there are a variety of ways I can get that. And often I only have one partner at a time, or no partners at all. It’s my metamours who make this style of relationship worth it to me.
My metamours bring joy and value to my life. They are my family. They are my support network. They are my friends. They are my confidantes. They are my co-conspirators. They are my rocks, my anchors, my steady ground.
Not all of my metamours have developed such close connections with me. Some of them I never even met. Some of them I actively disliked. Some of them brought such conflict that my life was disrupted and made worse because of their presence. Just like the diversity of any sort of relationship that someone else has control over - like in-laws or coworkers.
But when they *
do* work out, it’s the best relationship in the world to me. My life is enriched by some of the women my various partners have dated over the years, and I am a better person because of their presence in my life. And they would not have had that kind of presence in my life (if they had any at all) had it not been for the mutual partner who chose to date us both.
So, no, I am not “expected” to be emotionally involved in the joys and sorrows of my partners’ other partners. I don’t expect it, my partners don’t expect it, and those other partners don’t expect it.
But I cherish it when it happens naturally, organically.
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You know what I'm really fucking sick of? People who see all my independence and my relationship and poly experience and think that means that I don't need any care and feeding at all.
Although this article was about breaking up, recovery from breaking up, and the study was most likely exclusively about monogamous relationships, my take-away from this article is that solo poly is one relationship style that can give people a leg-up in breakup recovery. Since solo poly 
