Part 5 of 5
[continued from above]
I think we are in agreement that polyamory will tend to have different benefits for different people. What makes it agreeable for me probably isn't quite what makes it (grand and/or) agreeable for my housemates.
Kevin said:
One weakness in Dr. Ruskin's article is she tends (despite her early disclaimer) to stereotype polyamory -- as if most polyamorists are "revolving-door polyamorists" (NRE junkies?) -- people with new lovers cycling into and out of their lives all the time.
Dinged said:
"Are we hair-splitting here? What's the exception and what's the rule ... and to quote Hillary Clinton, What difference does it make ... if the revolving-door style is proven to be harmful to children?"
Kevin says:
Oh, it doesn't make that much difference, and I will admit to a little hair-splitting on that point. (But I did go on to address the revolving-door issues.)
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Re:
Polyamory: When Three Isn't A Crowd ... was written (October 26, 2013) by Emanuella Grinberg, not Karen Ruskin. Which is fine, but what does it (and Ruskin, wherever it quotes her) say about poly (and more importantly, about how poly affects the kids)?
Well one thing it (Billy Holder) says is, "It takes a lot of work and it's not for everybody."
Elisabeth Sheff, who wrote the book "The Polyamorists Next Door," does not consider herself a polyamorist. But her research led her to believe that polyamory is a "legitimate relationship style that can be tremendously rewarding for adults and provide excellent nurturing for children." In research and interviews with poly families, Sheff found that children ages five to eight didn't seem to care about how the adults related to each other, so long as they were taken care of. Overall, they seemed to fare well as long as they lived in stable, loving homes.
Making it work, she acknowledges, is "time-consuming, and potentially fraught with emotional booby traps." It can be rewarding for some "and a complete disaster for others."
Ah, and then Dr. Ruskin makes her appearance.
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More often than not, non-monogamy leads to the demise of relationships, said Karen Ruskin, a Boston-area psychotherapist with more than two decades of experience in couples counseling. Instead of focusing on the primary relationship, partners are turning to others for fulfillment.
"Even if non-monogamy is consensual, it's still a distraction from dealing with each other," said Ruskin, author of "Dr. Karen's Marriage Manual."
"It all goes back to choice. Non-monogamy is choosing to be with someone else instead of being attentive to your spouse when the relationship is troubled."
Couples can establish rules and parameters to limit jealousy, she said. But in her experience working with couples, "those rules never end up working out for everyone."
"It has been shown to be damaging and destructive to a person as an individual, to the couple's relationship and the family unit as a whole."
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Alas, Ruskin said little if anything here about the problems of poly childrearing -- just of the adult relations. But, I'll respond briefly to what she said.
Re:
More often than not, non-monogamy leads to the demise of relationships.
First of all, how does she know that? For someone so accomplished in her field, I wish she'd provide more citations about specific studies and the numbers. But maybe she did and Emanuella Grinberg didn't put it in the article. Oh well.
One reason non-monogamy may lead to the "demise of relationships" is because common monogamous wisdom defines a successful relationship as one that endures "til death do us part." But lots of polyamorists (and I think I agree) feel that not all relationships are meant to be lifelong. So if a boyfriend and girlfriend (or even husband and wife) break up, it may actually be a positive thing, a learning experience and a step up the stairs of their lives -- especially if it's an amicable break-up and they remain friends afterwards. Obviously, I couldn't say that about an "ugly break-up," though even those can be "necessary evils" for people trying to get past a dysfunctional relationship and move on with their lives.
Another reason may be that much more support (books, articles, life-choice friendly counselors, friends and relatives, etc.) tends to exist for treating ailing monogamous marriages than what tends to exist for treating ailing poly relationships. The situation is improving (e.g. with the advent of forums like Polyamory.com), but we've got a ways to go. It's hard for poly newbies to find a "road map" to show them how they're supposed to make it work.
And mono-centric conditioning probably makes it harder for people to wrap their minds around polyamory, so that even if they try to practice it, guilt and misgivings might get the best of them and then they'll decide they just can't do it anymore. And there's probably other reasons, but those are three off the top of my head.
So, what about poly relationships breaking up because they're handled poorly (e.g. with a lot of pseudo-enlightened selfishness)? Yeah I think that often happens too. Does jealousy often kill a poly relationship? It does, along with stuff like (impulsively-used) veto power.
Re:
"Even if non-monogamy is consensual, it's still a distraction from dealing with each other."
Yes -- sometimes.
And that's another reason why quite a few poly relationships crash and burn. But in all fairness, most of what I've seen on Polyamory.com (and Poly Percs) warns us not to let our "original relationship" die on the vine while we throw ourselves into a shiny new relationship. It warns is against the perils of NRE. Not everyone listens to those warnings, but those who do usually fare much better.
It's the same old mantra: Some people handle their poly relationships well; others, not so well. And some monogamous couples just don't have the basic tools to make poly work (e.g. if one of the spouses absolutely can't tolerate a spouse being poly, or if someone breaks the "poly rules" that the spouses have agreed upon).
Re:
"It all goes back to choice. Non-monogamy is choosing to be with someone else instead of being attentive to your spouse when the relationship is troubled."
Yes -- sometimes.
Which is why popular poly wisdom urges us to get our original relationship on firm footing before seeking out a new relationship. Not that everyone heeds that counsel, and there's a lot of pain involved in working a poly relationship with an ailing marriage at home -- though some poly arrangements do work out in spite of that rough beginning. But it's definitely easier (on everyone) if the marriage (or other original relationship) is tended to first.
Re:
Couples can establish rules and parameters to limit jealousy, she said. But in her experience working with couples, "those rules never end up working out for everyone."
Not for everyone, no.
Having said that, I'll note that rules (especially the rigid, non-negotiable kind) tend to be clumsy tools for dealing with jealousy. It usually works a lot better to engage in dialog, research, and introspection, and try to get at the root of what's causing the jealousy. This is something you do voluntarily, not because a rule is constraining you.
Re:
"It has been shown to be damaging and destructive to a person as an individual, to the couple's relationship and the family unit as a whole."
(By "it" I assume we mean polyamory.) It has been shown -- in how many cases? and in what percentage compared to the whole? Again I wish we had a citation to a specific study, with its statistical results.
My personal experience (mostly on poly forums) indicates a 50/50 failure rate (that of course being a very rough estimation on my part). But I take that to mean that in the whole world, the percentage of successful poly arrangements is probably much higher than 50. Poly forums, as we've mentioned, will have a tendency to attract the "problem cases."
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The article touches briefly on the kids in poly homes. It says that Billy and Melissa Holder's nine-year-old daughter often calls Jeremy Mullins (their poly companion) her "other dad."
"I'm happy because there's more people to ask when I have problems," she said.
Melissa Holder had two sons from a previous relationship. The boys were 15 and 16 when the Holders sat them down and told them things were getting serious with Jeremy.
The younger son didn't take it well and moved in with relatives in Louisiana. He declined to be interviewed for this story. Her older son, Sebastion, learned to live with the situation. It was an adjustment at first, he said, but it helped that the family had moved into a bigger home where everyone had their own space.
Jeremy Mullins is "a generally cool guy," who suggests great books and talks with Sebastion about electronics, Sebastion said.
"It's like having a full house with someone else to talk to and help out with housework," said Sebastion, now 20 years old and stationed in South Korea as a combat medic in the United States Army.
The Holders said a family member reported them to Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services, alleging child abuse and prompting a weeks-long investigation. The Holders said it ended with no charges being laid and their daughter remaining in the home. Georgia's Division of Family and Children Services did not return multiple phone calls seeking comment.