Staying Present: The Secret for Healthy Polyamorous Relationships

The Power of the Escalator

The seduction of the relationship escalator is the built-in expectation of what comes next. It also can be a measuring stick to check in with your partner about where, when, and how you take the next step as a couple. In that way, you seem to know where you are on the map of the relationship and how much further you need to go to get where you intend to be.

Some of the challenges that loving multiple partners may bring come from getting off of the relationship escalator. By choosing to love in this non-traditional way, there is no map of what’s ahead. Relationships are co-created between partners. In almost every aspect that has been the most beautiful and freeing part of my relationship with my dearest. We get to decide. We get to choose. It can be exhilarating.

It can also be a bit frightening when the fear from your past that have programmed from a traditional view of what relationships should look like and the conventional pathways that define what is seen as healthy growth. It takes a good bit of attention to address the source of the internal discomfort that haunts the land of shoulds.

Taking time to recognize these challenging spaces and the places in our expectations that are running on autopilot has helped me grow in my understanding of self, my ability to be honest with my dearest, and my willingness to honor uncomfortable emotions.

Welcome to the Real World

One of my greatest strengths is as a planner. I like to know what is coming even if that means I have to create it myself. This makes the things I design exceptional. My creations demonstrate thoughtful consideration of every detail. It is an area where my mastery shines through.

This is a great skill in my professional life and comes in handy for creating amazing spaces and celebrations for those I hold dear. But it is not helpful in building healthy polyamorous relationships.

While I like to plan, part of what I want is the ability to know what the future holds. The lack of the relationship elevator gives me a clean canvas to design amazing future stories of a life shared with my dearest.

My greatest challenge is getting all entangled in the fantasy island that is created in my head about where our relationship could go — perhaps even where it should go and somehow expecting my dearest to meet me there.

That sounds pretty bad when it’s spelled out that way but it actually gets worse.

The harder part is that my frustration often builds when my dearest is not in the same place in real life that I am living in my head. I mean, duh… why can’t he be a mind reader and just stay on script?

The real problem here is the tendency to build the relationship I want in my head and use that as the measuring stick for the relationship that we actually have.

It is like a personalized relationship escalator with only my wants and desires as inputs.

But that is not how any of this works. It will never work this way in the real world because everyone in the scene gets to write their own script with their own life and choices.

No one has assigned me to be the playwright for the universe. That’s something we can all be grateful for!

Only One Thing Matters

It all comes down to something really quite simple. The only thing you actually have with a partner is what you have at this moment. That’s it. It doesn’t matter what fantasy island I build in my head or the map I create for what next.

The only real question is whether or not the relationship that you are in right now at this moment is what you want and what you choose.

That’s not to say that every moment is perfect. You may not be getting along with your partner at the moment but you choose to have the grace to work through your differences.

Your partner may be having their own struggles and not acting as the best version of themselves so you choose to be loving and supportive.

You may be watching your partner painfully sort out a toxic relationship with another partner or go through an unwinding of a decades-long marriage.

Of course, we have plans and shared hopes but those should not be the driving force in the relationship. I would not want to waste the beauty of today pining for a tomorrow that may not come or fearing for one that may.

I want our relationship to be a place where we can each show up as we are right now and know that we are fully loved and accepted. By setting that intention each day, there is no place to measure against a future that is not yet here or hold grudges over a past that has gone by.

The gift of staying in the present together — knowing that whatever we are facing we are not alone. That is a great love and no maps or escalators are anywhere to be found.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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