The "no breakup" dynamic

The person who first introduced me to polyamory when I was a wide-eyed 20-something used roughly this same argument when explaining what it meant to be poly: no one ever has to break up this way. That was about a week into our fling (during which we were sharing a bedroom in a collective house), and about a month before he violated the only rule I'd come up with, which was "just don't bring your other dates to the house to hook up." I remember walking in on him and a new date canoodling in the room next to ours and being so confused. Why would this champion of egalitarian relationships be so rude? A little less wide-eyed, I kicked him out of our room and he and his new date went on to have a long and dramatic relationship, being socially inappropriate together in a variety of settings.

We're all friends now--and even managed to stay friendly then--but I am so glad we broke up. Break ups aren't always bad, is my first point.

Second, I want to highlight that with any depth of intimacy and interdependence there is a risk of heartbreak, no matter what you call the relationship. Part of my poly nature is that I tend to partner with platonic friends. When I have a friend I love deeply, to the degree that our lives are intertwined domestically and creatively--cooking, cuddling, making music, and planning our future--it is devastating if they decide to move away for graduate school or move in with a romantic partner. We haven't "broken up" as friends, our love and shared interests haven't changed, but they've gotten excited about something new that feels important enough to change our domestic intimacy. When that desire isn't mutual it's always going to hurt.

Third, in my experience, people aren't replaceable. I've often wished it could work that way--that if I wanted A and A was busy with B, all I had to do was go hang out with C. Maybe it works that way for some of you? But if I'm heartbroken that my domestic partnership with my friend Amy has ended, spending more time with my lover E may distract me from my loneliness, but won't fulfill me in the unique ways Amy did. Worse, I'm at risk of trying to force E into an Amy-like domesticity with me that wouldn't work for my relationship with E.

In summary, we are all way more complex than the theoretical math of polyamory sometimes supposes.
 
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