The Polyamory Paradox: Finding Balance Without Riding the Relationship Escalator
I’ve seen a lot of discussion in polyamory forums about the relationship escalator and how to avoid it. What I haven’t seen much about is what to do when you want to expand a relationship and it’s difficult to add more time and energy to that relationship. Growing and deepening a relationship can be difficult when it means negotiating with multiple people. Try factoring everyone’s jobs, careers, households, responsibilities, children, and more, and it can lead to a whole slew of complications in the relationship dynamics.
We often say love is an unlimited resource. The love we feel for one person doesn’t diminish the love we feel for another person. But time, energy, space, and money are usually limited resources. And even when everyone involved wants to accommodate the expansion of a relationship, it can be difficult.
Take, for example, the case of Ferdinand, who has a very demanding job. He works about 60 hours a week, is often on call, and is also ambitious and wants to advance his career. He and his nesting partner, Unique, have important roles in a local non-profit, as well as the usual household chores. Ferdinand is usually exhausted when he comes home from work. He has two days off each week, and he spends one with his nesting partner and the other with his other partner Chase. Ferdinand goes to Unique and tells her he wants to expand his relationship with Chase.
Unique wants to accommodate this but struggles to see how this can happen without feeling resentment. If Ferdinand spent two days each week with Chase, Unique wouldn’t have quality time with him at all. Unique also doesn’t feel comfortable with the thought of the three of them living together yet. She and Chase get along, but living together is a big step.
Ferdinand needs to take full account of where his time and energy actually go and be honest with himself about his current capacity and the capacity that would be required to grow his relationship with Chase. The increased time and energy have to come from somewhere. If he takes it from his quality time with Unique, she has signaled this will damage his relationship with her.
At this point, there are many options for Ferdinand, but this can be an overwhelming choice for obvious reasons. The fear of expectations is why many relationship dynamics get further complicated and make it harder to avoid the relationship escalator. So let’s put some of Ferdinand’s choices into perspective:
He could reduce his time spent on household chores. To avoid being unfair to Unique, they could hire other people to do house cleaning, yard work, and house maintenance.
He could hire a virtual assistant to handle scheduling things and promote him in his career. Of course, this would cost money, and for most people that’s also a resource with limits.
He could choose to give up or reduce his active role in the non-profit, or he could choose to take time and effort from his career by working less.
He could try working smarter and more efficiently. Or examine if growing his career is less or more important to him than growing his relationship with Chase.
These are all hard decisions and are not meant to diminish the importance of Chase in his life. It’s just that people sometimes avoid the tough questions, and they act as though time is unlimited. They charge ahead and don’t face the truth about time until some important part of their life implodes.
It’s important to also be honest with people about what you want. It might hurt them, but you have to be honest. Sometimes the hinge partner avoids expressing what they want out of fear of causing damage or conflict. In this case, imagine Ferdinand telling Chase he wants to expand their relationship, but when he talks with Unique about it, she objects. Then when he talks to Unique, he says Chase wants to expand the relationship, and he feels pressure to accommodate this request.
This usually isn’t intentional manipulation. There’s no gain for Ferdinand when he does this. This tends to be a fear of hurting someone he cares about. But if his truly honest answer is that he doesn’t want to expand his relationship with Chase, then he should (gently and kindly) say so. Chase has a right to the truth, so Chase can decide if he wants to continue with Ferdinand knowing the limits or if he wants to stop seeing Ferdinand and free up time and energy to invest in other relationships that might be more suited to meeting his needs.
If Ferdinand’s truthful answer is that he wants to expand that relationship, he needs to be honest with Unique so they can brainstorm solutions to how Ferdinand can free up time and energy without damaging his relationship with Unique.
Our fear of hurting or disappointing others can often block us from telling the truth. So we must remember how honesty and communication are the foundation of all genuine connections and relationships if we are to make an effort to avoid passively riding the relationship escalator.