Units of Measure

Liquids are measured in ounces (or milliliters if you're metric), distances are measured in feet (or meters) and people are measured as INDIVIDUALS.

The base unit of any poly configuration is Individuals.  Not couples, or dyads or triads or what have you, Individuals.  Two individuals interact in some dynamic, this is their relationship to each other, whatever form or style that relationship takes (neighbor, co-worker, acquaintance, friend, intimate, partner).  Two individuals can form a couple or a dyad.  Three individuals can form more relationship connections in different forms, i.e. a triad or a V.  Any network or polycule (or however you want to describe a group dynamic), is made up of multiple individuals with multiple relationships.

It makes me a little crazy dealing with people who think somehow that poly is matter of couple+.  These are the kind of people who discuss everything as "WE".  As though the only way to be poly is to start as a monogamous couple and then deign to "allow" other people into "their" relationship.  Its kind of insane, really. If you are in a relationship with someone there are two individuals involved, if there are more people then there are more individual dynamics/relationships. New people are not added to your existing relationship. Yes, new people and new relationships can affect your existing relationships, just as new people moving into a residence can affect the environment.  But your relationship to one person is never the essential part of that persons relationship to someone else.  I'm sorry, but it doesn't work that way, the world does not actually revolve around you or even around the two of you as a conglomeration.  

Poly Blogs

I read a lot of poly blogs (a lot, not "alot").  I read them because I'm curious.  I'm curious about other people, their perspectives, their experiences and any advice they may have about situations that I may find myself in.
Many of the blogs I have been reading lately are written by people who are relatively new to poly relationships, and some are written by people who have been involved in poly relationships for a lot of years and have been blogging about them for a very long time. Some are written by people I know personally or have social connections that are far less than 6 degrees of separation, and some are written by people I have never met or heard of before stumbling onto their blogs.

Here are some helpful lessons I have learned from blogs:

1) Everyone is different, and so their poly will look different:  People come to polyamorous relationships from all sorts of different situations and experiences.  People want different things from their relationships, they view poly in different ways and they have very different values attached to their way of doing poly. I like to think that there are some basic underpinnings that make poly "Poly", but beyond that there are so many versions of poly out there that I am sometimes fascinated, sometimes horrified, by the things that people write about in their blogs.

2) Everyone makes mistakes, poly = more people = more mistakes: People say and do things that do not go well for them or their relationships, and its reassuring to read about other peoples mistakes and what they did about them.  I could be accused of  being a bit of a looky-loo about other people admitting to the mistakes that have been made in their pasts.  I find it incredibly brave when people write honestly about the things that went wrong, either things that happened to them or things they did.  Sometimes I'm not surprised, sometimes I'm saddened, sometimes I laugh, but I always take a moment and think about my current and past and possible future relationships and how something like this might or might not happen to me or someone I care for. It's also my (perhaps naive) hope that I can avoid making those same mistakes in the same ways.
*Note: This doesn't stop me from making very similar mistakes in new and different ways.

3) Just because someone writes about polyamory doesn't mean they are an expert:  This one is big Big BIG!  I don't care how long someone has been blogging about open/poly relationships, they are not an expert by default.  Thinking that any particular number of years is proof of someones depth of understanding, knowledge or ability is a really bad assumption, one that I know that I have made myself.  Just because Person A, or Group B had been has been blogging about poly relationships for XX years does not = they have all of the stuff worked out and they know exactly how to make things work and how to be poly ever after.  As a matter of fact, just because someone writes about how to have poly relationships doesn't even mean that they actually apply any of the things they write about to their real life relationships.
I started writing poetry in Junior High School, so I could claim that I've been doing it for about thirty years now... that doesn't make me an expert on poetry, it doesn't even guarantee that I'm a half-way decent poet. Just because someone writes or talks about a subject for a long time does not necessarily mean they have any better idea than you do how to actually work through things and be successful.

4) All those non-experts have really awesome insights:  These insights may or may not be applicable to anyone else, but they do give me new and interesting things to think about. It is especially interesting to see how people who are new to poly are shaping their ideas about polyamory based on limited information, media portrayals or contact to others in the poly community.  Learning about someones default assumptions can be really fascinating, as is learning about how those ideas evolve and change with time and experience.  These views into other people allow me new opportunities to look at how I talk about Poly and what someone might absorb from my words.

So get out there and explore the bloggosphere... the poly people are out there writing about more things than you might have thought to ask about so far.  "If you're not careful you might learn something before its done!"

Unexploding...

There are times when things happen and relationships blow up. Feelings and emotions abound, trusts get broken and people get hurt.  These kinds of explosions cause a lot of damage.  Its not an easy thing to just come back from that.  Trying to pull a relationship back together from all of the pieces that were blown apart is not easy, sometimes it's just not possible.  But sometimes... Sometimes with enough commitment, energy and dedication, we can work on rebuilding a relationship.

I've been going through this recently, it's a large part of why I haven't posted anything to this blog in over a month.  In order to do this, I find that I needed to focus on the really basic things:
Do I want to save this relationship?
What do I actually want out of the relationship?
What do I expect from this person?
What does person I'm having this relationship with want and expect?
Do we want the same things?
Do I have the time and space and availability in my life to actually have this relationship?
Do they?
Can we both be happy in this relationship?
What are my realistic needs?
What are theirs?
What are the things I will not compromise on?
What are the things I feel able to compromise about?
What are their hard limits and compromise positions?
What other things affect this relationship?
What other things are affected by this relationship?
(as with any list of questions, given enough time I could continue adding more and more to this list.)
The rebuilding process is slow, mending broken trust is the hardest thing for me. I am not known for my expanses of forgiveness or patience.  It's difficult to be open to the possibility that what happened this time does not have to be the way that things play out in the future, even when I believe that to be true.
And so my partner and I are slowly trying to fix things, this process includes taking responsibility for our actions and their repercussions, lots of talking, brutal honesty, explaining and clarifying until we both understand, and a sharp focus on self awareness.  I have to work on my personal issues, and process my feelings about what has happened and how to feel safe going forward and make changes to my behaviors and expectations accordingly.  My partner has to do the same.  It takes a lot of time and energy and focus to do this.  We have to accept that we didn't handle things well and figure out how we could have done them differently, and then we need to commit to doing things better next time.
While all of this is happening, the digging through the past and building for the future, we are also working on sharing things that make us happy today.  Appreciating the love and excitement and pleasure we are able to have in this moment. Enjoying what we have that is good, and beautiful and worthwhile.  Savoring the good things in our relationship right now.
Unexploding isn't anything like rewinding and going back to how things were before. Unexploding is more like taking a box of broken pieces, sorting through them to figure out what is valued and usable and wanted and what should be discarded, and then assembling a mosaic that fills you with joy and wonder every time you look at it.

Sometimes love is not enough.

Its kind of blissful to believe that loving someone is all that we really need to be happy together.  Whether we're in the euphoric throws of NRE or in less new and more deeply connected long term relationship, we all want to believe that "I love you" is the fix for everything.  To think that nothing is out of reach when you have love.

Unfortunately the reality is that loving someone is not enough to make a relationship work.  Even that deep-down-in-your-soul-wanting-nothing-more-than-to-make-this-other-person-happy kind of love that feels like its the most important thing in the world, is not sufficient to hold a relationship together.

There is so much more to a relationship than loving someone.  Is your relationship healthy for both of you? Are you close enough together geographically to spend enough time together to feel your relationship is stable? Are there other commitments in your life that limit your options? Are you already over committed in other relationships in ways that can't really change?  Are you able to talk about and resolve issues that come up?  Are you able to consider one another in your decision making? Are you able to meet their needs and have yours met?

Sometimes, no matter how much you love someone, there is no resolution to the things that make a relationship untenable.  Sometimes you have to decide whether to continue to hurt over the things you cannot change or to let it go.  And no matter how much you want love to be enough to make it all work, sometimes it is simply not enough.

What does your poly look like?

Often people will describe any group of three polyamorous people with relationships to each other as a "Triad". My problem with this is its not really helpful in understanding the actual relationships involved. I have more than once found myself attempting to explain poly involvements by drawing a diagram, especially when trying to explain things to someone who is not poly themselves. I usually find this helpful.  Here are some of the types of diagrams I have created:

To me this is a "Triad". Three people who are in romantic/sexual /committed

relationships with each other. (There are actually three dyads involved here and four different relationships.)

Far more common in my experience is the "V", two separate dyadic romantic/sexual/committed relationships where one partner is common to both relationships (this person is sometimes referred to as a "fulcrum").  The big distinction between the V and the Triad in my mind is that the fulcrum's two partners do not have the same kind of relationship to each other that they do with their shared fulcrum.

A community/family oriented group may have a V that looks more like this.There is a close family/friendship relationship between all three of the participants, though there is still not the same kind of romantic/sexual relationship between the two ends of the V.

It's also possible to have more complicated configurations where dyads and groups are interconnected. 

Two Vs that have one common partner making essentially a "W".

Or any combination of relationships that form an extended network (I like to call these polycules).

This can then be fairly complicated once you start considering group dynamics and community connections.

And  then there is this configuration: 

This is the much sought after "Unicorn", a structure commonly envisioned by people who are new to poly as a pre-established couple.  In a scenario like this the idea is this new person will have a relationship with a couple, but only as a couple. Lots of poly folk find this scenario problematic, and I am one of them... with just a little effort I'm sure you can find dozens of blog posts about Unicorn Hunters.

So... what does your poly look like?

What is Polyamory?

About a month ago there was a fairly prominent poly blog/podcast that was talking about not wanting poly people to tell others, especially people newly trying on the "polyamorous" label, that they are doing poly wrong.  I think the concept that we should just let everyone under an enormous polyamory umbrella regardless of the things they actually do is ridiculous. Would you let a pedophiles or a rapists call themselves poly too?  By the logic given in the podcast no one should voice a dissenting opinion of they did.  In their minds they have had sexual relationships with multiple people, who are we to tell them they are not poly because those people didn't consent.  

Who are we?  We are the people who are living polyamorous lives and therefore we should definitely speak out against people who are doing something that is unconscionable and claiming its "polyamory".  If someone is doing things that are abusive or harmful to others we should speak out against it.  To shelter them under some "I'm OK, you're OK" notion is completely asinine.

I personally think that we need to be actively and vocally defining what polyamory is and is not, we need to have a definition that is clear enough and exclusive enough to help others understand what polyamory is and what it isn't. If you are going to identify as poly, then you should have a clear understanding of what that means.  And if you are doing something that is not within those accepted definitions then you should be told directly and often that you are not practicing polyamory and those behaviors are not acceptable in our community.

So, what is Polyamory?

Well, according to Wikipedia Polyamory "is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved", and it is often described as "consensual, ethical, and responsible non-monogamy." I think that is a fairly good starting point... polyamorous relationships should hold to the standard of ethical and responsible non-monogamy with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved.  

Some, examples of what is NOT Polyamory...

"Not ethical"
What qualifies as non-ethical?  Well the most commonly sited non-ethical behaviors include cheating, lying, coercion, abuse, and non-consensual behaviors.
If you are lying to or concealing information about your activities and/or relationships from your existing partner or any new/perspective date or partner, you are not polyamorous.  
If you don't tell your spouse about dating or having sex with others, you are cheating, you are not polyamorous. 
And if you don't happen to mention to someone that you have existing partners and/or you're married, you are lying, you are not polyamorous.  
If you are using threats of withholding love, affection or sex to manipulate or coerce anyone you are involved with to do what you want, you are not polyamorous.  
If you tell your current partner you have decided unilaterally that you will now have an open relationship and like it or not they better just deal with that or you will divorce or dump them, you are not polyamorous.  
If you are doing things that affect someone else and not telling them about it, you are not allowing them to be able to give informed consent, you are not polyamorous.   
If you are gathering people together and place yourself in the role of teacher or poly leader and you use your position of authority to fish for and manipulate people into having sex with you, you are abusing their trust, you are not polyamorous. 
If you engage in any of a thousand and one scenarios that are unethical, irresponsible and/or non-consensual, you are not polyamorous, and I personally think that people should tell you that to your face whenever you claim that you are.  

"Not non-monogamy"
The most obvious situation that is not "non-monogamy" is well... Monogamy.  
If you have agreements or understandings with your partner that your romantic/sexual relationship is exclusive,or you've made a vow "forsaking all others keep yourself only unto" that one person, you have agreed to be monogamous. 
 If you have made those agreements and are still seeing/seeking other people for romantic/sexual relationships without the knowledge of your partner you're a liar and a cheat, you are not polyamorous.  Any poly person would be reasonable to avoid you and make sure that the people they know in their poly communities (and anyone else) avoid you too.

Things that that skirt the edges...

There are some activities that may sound like they fall within the framework of ethical and responsible non-monogamy with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved, but are still rather distinct from polyamory.  A few prime examples:

Religious Polygamy...
Religion based polygyny (and in a few rare cases polyandry) is distinct from polyamory in that there are strict religious doctrines that only allow one gender to have multiple partners of the opposite gender.  The most commonly seen religious polygamy forms in the western world are strictly one man and with multiple wives, and even discussion of a woman having multiple husbands is considered disgusting and sinful.  Polygyny or polyandry may be consensual, but it is not accepting of partners choosing to have more than one intimate relationship.  To me that puts it outside the boarders of polyamory.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell...
There are lots of people who claim to have an agreement with their existing partners where they are allowed to do whatever they want and see whomever they choose, so long as they never mention it or discuss it between the two them.  This to me is questionable at best in a polyamorous context.  If you never discuss whom you are involved with and what you are doing with your partner how can your partner give informed consent.  DADT creates environments that facilitate manipulation, coercion and deceit.  DADT scenarios lack the ability to be open about ones relationships, DADT partners remain extremely closeted to prevent accidental information getting back to other partners, and I have seen too many instances of people claiming DADT relationships when they are actually just cheating on their partners.  Yet, there are people who claim to be happily in DADT situations, I am still dubious.  In my mind Don't Ask, Don't Tell is distinct from poly in that it lacks the features of knowledge and consent.
(I will admit, I would not get involved with anyone claiming they have DADT agreements and I would caution anyone I know from doing so either, all of my experiences with DADT have ended in misery and tears.) 

Swinging...
There is a fair amount of overlap in the swinger and polyamory communities, but these are still two distinct things.  There are swingers who are definitely not poly, and poly people who are assuredly not swingers.  In my experience, swinging is about finding partners to have sex with. The general connotation of swinging casual sexual partners, and not specifically about romantic or committed relationships.

Partners are not Possessions

What I find in a lot of monogamous and heteronormative style relationships is this attitude that people own or possess their partners.  This is something that I find incredibly disturbing. This is an unspoken belief that so many people in our society just assume is the way that "relationships should work", they don't even think about it.  They talk in a way that reinforces this, statements that include "allow my" or "make my" partner/spouse are simply disgusting and harken back to the days of women and children being chattel of their spouses or fathers.  This is horrific, it leads to behaviors that are controlling, manipulative, coercive and abusive.  If you own something, you can ignore it, break it, or discard it without a thought.  If a partner is a possession, then they are not allowed to be full people.  Possessions cannot have freedom of choice, independent thought or the ability to pursue happiness.  I have yet to meet someone who is mentally or physically abusive to their partners who doesn't believe that their assumption of control and possession of this other person is reasonable and expected, it's their god given right to abuse this other person because they gave them a ring or spoke some vows or agreed to this relationship.  

To me this is also part of the pervasive idea where someone is not a complete person until they have found the "one", this idea promotes all kinds of dependency and codependency that are just frightening.  The thought process goes something along the lines of this other person being absorbed into them, making the two of them into some kind of amalgamated being, is the thing that will make them (and their lives) whole and meaningful.  As though people are not worthy unless they have been assimilated into coupledom.  If someone is incomplete without their partner, somehow that justifies behaving like their partner is a possession or an extension of themselves.  I find this entire idea and the thought processes that go along with it painfully damaging to human beings of any sort, and especially damaging in polyamorous relationships.  I think that a lot of fear and envy and jealousy come from these base assumptions about relationships making people possessions or extensions of another.  What happens if the assimilated partner is going to do something that doesn't include them, or that isn't directly about them, or that may remind the assimilated partner that they have a life and value as an individual?  They can't do that, they can't allow that, they can live with that.  This is the essence of loosing control of their partner, taking something away from them or damaging to them, and so out of fear comes this grappling with the autonomy of another person. You cannot be without them because they cannot be without you, you can't be whole alone and if they are whole beings then they don't "need" you.  

This is where I see the seeds of a lot of the issues I struggle with in poly communities, the hierarchies and one-penis-policies and couple privilege stuff seems to me to link back in whole or in part to these basic assumptions. If  you can't be whole without completely consuming or controlling your partner, but your partner has other partners then you can't have all of them all the time and therefore you cannot be whole.  It's saddening and annoying and heartbreaking and infuriating to run into these same things over and over again, and its exhausting to try and work through them with people you care for. 

I do not want to be anyone's other half. I do not want fuse myself into another person. I am not interested in defining the whole of who I am by my relationship to a particular person. When someone behaves as though this is "how relationships work", it's incredibly disturbing to me.  Relationships, to me, are about wanting to be there and choosing to build a connection between people.  A partner is someone who chooses to take your desires and needs and feelings into consideration when making their decisions, not someone who is incapable of doing anything without your say so.  If I cannot be whole without another, then no other person can make me whole.  If I cannot find value in myself then no one will truly value me.  The things I choose to do and have in my life and the people I choose to share it with add to my life, but they are not my whole life.  When I refer to someone as "my" partner/lover/friend/family member that is clarifying our connection to each other, it is not a flag denoting my possession of them.

Some thoughts on hierarchies...

A friend recently asked me some questions about hierarchical relationships, so I thought I would share some of my thoughts here.
First things first, I want to make sure that I state clearly from the beginning of this that I greatly (GREATLY) dislike even just the idea of hierarchical relationships. Personal experience has introduced me to people who have structured their hierarchical relationships in ways that I find unethical and downright distasteful. My experience has led me to the believe that strict hierarchies simply will not work for me in any position. Anyone who thinks they can force a structure on my emotional relationships by giving them a title like "primary" or "secondary" is not someone I want to be involved with. Anyone who expects a relationship to be prioritized by start date should probably steer clear of me. And anyone who thinks they get to tell me what I am and where I will fit, will not fit in my life at all.

So, with all of that said, I am no expert on hierarchy and it would likely be smart of anyone to take the following with a grain of salt and be sure to get perspectives from people with experience in long term hierarchical poly relationships (long term meaning more than two people have been involved in that structure for years, not "the two of us" have been doing this for X years, its a shame that none of our other partners have stayed with us). I don't believe I have any such resources to point you to.

I'm believe that hierarchical relationships are inherently problematic. I also think that getting involved in hierarchical relationships is a choice. All relationships are choices, and how you choose to structure your relationships is strictly between you and your partners. I do think there are lots of unhealthy and unethical behaviors that are much more common in relationships that are structured to be hierarchical, and people who choose to get involved in hierarchical poly relationships are likely to have more issues and will need to be extra careful.
If you're choosing to have a hierarchical relationship you should really have investigated this idea and broken down what it means to you (and your partners if you have any currently) and be able to explain up-front what that means, how you expect that to work, and what your existing agreements are to any new person that you may become involved with. Just because you (and your "primary" partner) think you understand what you are expecting doesn't mean you can actually verbalize or explain it. If you think that just saying "My primary will always come first" is sufficient, you need to work on your communication skills. To me that sort of statement is not an explanation, it's sad convenient poly-speak and indicative of lazy communication. 

Plus, if you have never actually discussed the structure and mechanics of your expected hierarchical "primary relationship" with your "primary" partner, there is a painfully high likelihood that the two of you have expectations that are out of alignment (sometimes they aren't even in the same hemisphere).
I have had so many experiences with people who think that they have discussed how things will work in advance, only to find they created one single ideal hypothetical scenario and discussed how they think they will react to it. The problem with these hypotheticals is that when real life comes down it almost never matches that scenario. Remember the hypothetical "new partner" will be a real person with feelings and and wants and needs and history and opinions, they will not fit neatly into the cookie cutter space laid out for them.
If you have bought into ideas about the virtues of hierarchical relationships, but you haven't ever considered what your position on hierarchy means and how it could and/or would not work... then perhaps you weren't paying attention. People who think that they can just overlay polyamory on top of their societal default expectations of normative monogamous relationships and everything will be hunky-dory and easy as pie, are going to hurt a lot of people, possibly including themselves.
Please, take some time to think about what you are looking for in poly relationships, and if you have existing partners make sure you are discussing all of the options, ideas and plans for your poly lives with them. Think, and ask yourself (and your partners) some tough questions, and then be prepared to be forthcoming with information about the structure, expectations, and limits you define for your hierarchy at the forefront of conversations with any potential new partner/playmate/paramour. No one should be expected to accept "secondary" status without being given clear understanding about the demands and limits they will be expected to live under, because no one enjoys slamming their head, or their heart, against a glass ceiling.
Here are some questions you might want to start considering if you think that what you really want is a hierarchical poly relationship structure. This is not a comprehensive list, its just a beginning, and I would expect there to be lots of processing and discussion coming out of the answers to these questions. Also, be aware that whatever you do discuss is likely to change over time and with experience and with the input of any prospective or new partners, so you will want to have these conversations over again periodically. (Also, some of these questions are not specific to hierarchies and it wouldn't hurt for everyone who wants to be in poly relationships to consider them):

What sort of relationship(s) is a "primary" relationship?
How is that different than a "secondary" relationship?

If you are (or plan to be married), how do you envision new partners fitting into your existing life?
Are you expecting to prevent new relationships from changing your "primary" relationship and how?

How are you planning to keep your "secondary" relationships at the agreed upon limit of emotional investment and connection? 

Are you expecting that you and your "primary" are only going to date people together?
Are you expecting to have a closed poly-fidelity relationship where the three (or more) of you are only involved with each other?
If that is the case, why would you expect anyone to want to be in an exclusive relationship with the two of you while always being treated as a lesser partner?

Are you and your "primary" going to have other relationships individually? 

Are you expecting to date only people who are currently in a "primary" type of relationship with someone else? 

If so, what happens if their primary relationship ends for whatever reason?

Time is a limited commodity, how do you expect to divide your time?
Are you going to have a set maximum of time allowed to spend with other partners?
If so, what are those limits?
Are these limits per day, per week, per month?
Are your time limits per partner or a total divided among all of your non-primary partners?
How will you handle things like scheduling time with various partners?
Will there be a limit to how long relationships with your non-primary partners are allowed to continue (6 months, a year, 2)?

What do you do if your partners can't get along?

Will you and your "primary" have veto power over each others relationships?
Is there a time frame for invoking this veto?
Is there a requirement to have a reason for or discussion prior to invoking veto power?

I'm pretty sure I could add more than a dozen questions to this list, but since I have no interest in structuring this sort of relationship, or getting involved with someone who has, I'm going to leave it up to the hierarchy people to figure the rest of it out.
Beware and good luck.

My Real Life

In my real life, I am a woman with two long term partners. I am out about being poly, to all my friends and family and anyone else that wants to talk about it. (I'm also out about pretty much everything else I am in this life: kinky, pagan, pansexual, artist, rabble-rouser, hedonist, dancer, etc.).
My partners are both married, they live with their spouses while I live alone, in an apartment in Portland with two cats. I occasionally date others, but mostly in the last two years I've been rather focused on my existing relationships and my outside social/sexual/dating activities have been limited to a very few close friends and special people. I love my partners deeply, and I honestly expect them both to be part of my life going forward. I don't know for certain what my future holds but my desire is that they both be there to share whatever it is that happens.
I work at having open, stable relationships with my partners and my metamours and, as an extension of that, I try to keep in touch with the others that are connected to this polycule around me. The friends, companions and playmates of my partners and metamours matter to me. These people make up a lot of my world, some are close connections and others are more distant but they are all linked into my life in important ways. In addition to this network, I have my birth family and my own collection of friends, these are people who are vitally important to me.  Most of them live hundreds or thousands of miles away from where I am currently so I don't get to see or talk with them as often as I might like. They don't know my poly peoples all that well, because they haven't really had the opportunity to meet face to face and get to know one another, but they know them by name and by relationship to me. The things that go on in their lives profoundly affect me, if a friend on the other end of the country is sick or hurt it matters to me, if a family member 1400 miles south of here is doing something awesome I celebrate, if a friend on the opposite end of town (or the state, or the country) is in need, I'm there as soon as I possibly can be (if I can be). Its a big part of who I am, my connections and commitment to people I care about, and that is a big part of how I do poly. This is my web, and like any web what shakes one strand will reverberate throughout the web.

I find that many folks can’t fathom egalitarian relationships. Relationships  have history and unplanned turns and I know that I cannot tell my heart how to feel evenly for everyone.  Each relationship is unique and touches me in a different way, and that does play out in my planning and prioritizing. Egalitarian relationships are about giving each relationship the space to grow and be whatever it is that the people involved in that relationship want it to be, they are not about keeping score or giving exactly the same thing to everyone, and they are most certainly not about an outside person determining what can or cannot happen within a relationship that they are not directly involved in.
I despise hierarchical language, and more often than not I think people are just lazy when they think relationships are simple enough to be defined in these ways.  Being referred to as a "secondary" makes me want to hiss and scratch and bite, not in a good way. If someone wants to have a relationship with me that has set limitations, I expect them to be honest with me about that from the beginning.  Though I will admit, the likelihood of my wanting to start a emotional/romantic/sexual relationship with someone who says, we can't ever spend holidays together, or weekends are off limits, or overnights are not an option, is slim to none. On the other hand, if I find out later that this is the case and they were not honest enough to tell me about it or they haven't actually made the effort to think or talk out any of this until now, I'm unlikely to stick around.  So, yeah, if you and your "other" have a yearning for strict hierarchies, I'm probably not interested in letting you into my heart or my inner circle.
In my real life, I am a mass of chaos and confusion, nothing is simple or plain (and if it was, I'd likely get bored).  So yeah, polyamory.  Because I require connection and independence.  I think that there is space enough in the world and in my heart for more than one person, more than one friend, more than one lover, more than one anything.  I believe in soulmates, they are the people in this world that just belong in your life, there can be lots of them for different times and places and reasons.  But I don't believe that a good relationship means I am "part" of another person, or that I am incomplete without any particular relationship. I want to love whole people who choose to love me. Because I choose this life, every moment of every day.