Home > Work > More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory
41 " A sense of worth is critical to counteracting the scarcity model of love and life. If we do not believe in our worth, we become disempowered, unable to advocate for our needs. We do not see or embrace the love that is actually around us in our lives. "
― Franklin Veaux , More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory
42 " So it’s important to keep your commitments, to show up—not just physically, but with your whole heart. When you’re with someone, work on being present with her. She will feel it if you’re not, and if it happens enough, it will damage your relationship with her. Maybe someone else is on your mind, but the person you’ve committed your time to is in front of you right now. This is essentially a practice of mindfulness—being fully present with each of our loves, and open to the person we’re with in the moment—and it’s an advanced but essential poly skill that isn’t often discussed. It takes years to become good at. But it makes us better partners. "
43 " When we feel unworthy, we feel disconnected—even when our loved ones are craving connection with us. We feel isolated and alienated, even when we're surrounded by love and support. "
44 " An omission is a lie when it is calculated to conceal information that, where it known to the other party, would be materially relevant to her. "
45 " Be flexible. Be compassionate. Rules can never cure insecurity. Integrity matters. Never try to script what your relationships will look like. Love is abundant. Compatibility matters. You cannot sacrifice your happiness for that of another. Own your own shit. Admit when you fuck up. Forgive when others fuck up. Don't try to find people to stuff into the empty spaces in your life; instead, make spaces for the people in your life. If you need a relationship to complete you, get a dog. It is almost impossible to be loving or compassionate when all you feel is fear of loss. Trust that your partners want to be with you, and that if given the freedom to do anything they please, they will choose to cherish and support you. Most relationship problems can be avoided by good partner selection. Nobody can give you security or self-esteem; you have to build that yourself. And if you remember nothing else from this book, remember this: Love more and be awesome. "
46 " A willingness to question yourself, to challenge yourself, and to explore without fear the hidden parts of you are the best tools to gain that self-knowledge. "
47 " Ideally, the power flows within intimate relationships would always be equal. In practice, they often are not. Power imbalances tend to arise when the other flows are asymmetrical: when one person feels more connection or commitment than the other. That's normal. The person who feels less connection or commitment tends to hold more power. Other things influence power dynamics too, of course: things like economic or social status, physical dominance or persuasion skills. "
48 " Good relationships always change us; it’s one of the best things about them! "
49 " if we don't understand our value to them, we are more likely to feed our jealousy and fear of loss. "
50 " Expectations are often invisible unless we specifically look for them. "
51 " We would like to suggest the radical notion that being uncomfortable is not, by itself, a reason not to do something, nor to forbid someone else from doing something. There is more to life than going from cradle to grave by the path of least discomfort. Furthermore, refusing to face discomfort can, if we are not careful, lead to unethical behavior. "
52 " Talk about what you need and how your partner can help you, "
53 " when you seek to reduce risk by imposing constraints on other people's behavior, you transfer that risk onto others. By doing this you say, "I want to explore polyamory but I don't want to take this risk, so I will transfer it onto any new partners, by asking them to be open and vulnerable while also limiting how much they are allowed to advocate for their own needs. "
54 " happiness is something we re-create every day. And it comes more from our outlook than from the things around us. "
55 " We were so busy thinking about protecting ourselves that we didn't think about the happiness of anyone else who might become involved with us. As a result, our rules focused on our own relationship. We thought that if we preserved the relationship between the two of us, the "core relationship," we were doing the right thing. We never considered that rules that worked for us might not work for the other people we would come to love, and we certainly never looked at our relationship from their perspective. "
56 " Love is the great clarifier of values "
57 " Some poly lesbians find it especially difficult to come out in their communities, because lesbian couples have fought so hard to gain social recognition that they are wary of anything that seems to risk undermining that recognition. The small size of such communities can make it difficult for some gays and lesbians to have the same freedom of choice and expectations of privacy that cisgender, heterosexual people enjoy. ("Anyone can know except my softball team!" is something we've heard more than once—really!—and on opposite sides of North America.) We've also heard from trans people who have been told that polyamory "de-legitimizes" them by preventing them from finding "true" intimacy. Franklin has heard people say polyamory is something that trans people settle for when they can't find "real" relationships of their own. "
58 " The word polyamory was coined in the early 1990s from the Greek poly, meaning "many," and the Latin amor, meaning "love." It means having multiple loving, often committed, relationships at the same time by mutual agreement, with honesty and clarity. "
59 " a person who has already shown a willingness to cheat in a monogamous relationship may well cheat in a polyfidelitous relationship. "
60 " But while it is often necessary to make sacrifices of time, short-term gratification or non-essential desires for the long-term benefit of a relationship (or a partner), it is never desirable to sacrifice your self for a relationship. "