Many people have asked, ”Isn’t there a better way to end a poly relationship without such pain and acrimony?” The short and grossly oversimplified answer is “sometimes.” As in monogamous relationships that come to an end, there are all kinds of people and situations that lead to the demise of poly relationships.
There are some factors that may significantly reduce the suffering. The key to a civilized breakup is that both parties have demonstrated reasonable levels of honesty and kindness throughout the relationship, and have behaved pretty well during the breakup. Another important variable is whether both people made efforts to solve the problems in the relationship before making the decision to end it altogether. Probably even more central to a low-drama and less painful breakup is that both people are able to see that there are specific areas of incompatibility that have caused a lot of conflict in the relationship. It’s also much easier if both people have gotten past the honeymoon period, and are able to realistically see each other and the relationship. If one person is still in the grips of NRE, and believes this partner is the perfect love of their life, they are going to fight like hell against any move to end the romance.
Dissolving a love relationship should not automatically be viewed as a failure. Many couples have reported that being in a polyamorous relationship gave them insight into their problems and helped them transition into happier and healthier relationships. Many poly people believe that ending some relationships is actually healthy. Drew explains, “Some poly relationships should end. That’s one of the great things about open relationships. You can get involved with people who are really great people and have fantastic love affairs with them. But they don’t have to be totally compatible with you, because you aren’t expecting them to meet all your needs, and you aren’t marrying them, so it’s not such a tragedy if you end up breaking up because those conflicts and incompatibilities eventually become too much. It’s never going to be painless losing someone you love, but if you know from the start that you are not destined to become life partners, you can have a great relationship and not feel suicidal when it’s over.”
Jane says, “No matter how painful the breakup is, if you’re poly, you are not as dependent on that one person for all the love in your life, so you may be able to more graciously let go of them as a lover. You have a better chance of keeping them as a friend, since you probably have another partner to provide love, affection, sex, and the other things you no longer have with them, and you are not feeling as hurt and resentful over that.”
Merry says, “People are always talking about ‘protecting’ their relationships, but that just means they are trying to control things because they are afraid of personal growth and taking risks. Risking losing the relationship is a good thing—it means you are alive and your relationship is growing. Holding onto a relationship that is painful and no longer working is not really protecting anyone.”
Research published by Dr. Elisabeth Sheff in 2016 indicates that polyamorous relationships may be more resilient than monogamous relationships, because they allow more options for sustaining an enduring connection and ongoing friendship even if the sex and romance is no longer part of that relationship. In her article, “Not Necessarily Broken: Redefining Success When Polyamorous Relationships End,” she writes, “My data indicates that poly relationships may not last in the traditional sense of permanently retaining the same form. Instead, some poly relationships appear to last more durably than many monogamous relationships because they can flex to meet different needs over time in a way that monogamous relationships—with their abundant norms and requirements of sexual fidelity—find more challenging. While the familiar and well-explored structure monogamy provides can foster a comforting predictability, it can also constrain the meanings available to people who engage in monogamous relationships … The scarcity of these role models frees people in polyamorous relationships to create new meanings and innovate alternative roles that better suit their unique lives. A polyamorous identity framework provides the flexible and abundant relationship choices that a conventional monogamous identity, with its firmly defined roles and well-explored models, cannot.”
While sex and romance have been seen as the defining characteristics of both monogamous and polyamorous relationships, Dr. Sheff describes “a quieter version of poly identity, polyaffectivity,” which she defines as “intimacy among non-sexual participants linked by poly relationships, which is more durable and flexible—able to supersede, coexist with, and outlast sexual interaction.” She says, “Relationships that have such a multitude of options for interaction and define emotional intimacy as more significant than sexual intimacy provide poly people with a wide selection of possible outcomes.” This outlook allows relationships to shift from lovers to friends without anyone being at fault, and relieves the pressure on couples to stay together in exactly the same way at all costs.
“Once it becomes clear that the relationship no longer meets participants’ needs or works for people who have grown apart, accepting the change and shifting to accommodate new realities can contribute to more graceful endings and transitions. When people are able to amicably end one phase of their relationship, it increases the changes they will be able to make the transition to a new phase characterized by continued connection, communication, and cooperation,” Dr. Sheff states. While that’s all very brilliant, if it sounds like a lot of academic mumbo jumbo to you, here is a simpler explanation from one of the participants in her study: “Don’t drag it out until the bitter end, disemboweling each other along the way. Split up while you can still be friends, before anybody does something they will regret later.
Dr. Sheff reminds us that our longer life spans have made lifelong monogamy with one mate unrealistic for many, because living until 85 or 90 creates a lot more time to for us to change and grow apart. A hundred years ago, when a lot of people dropped dead by age 40, it was a lot more plausible for couples to stay together “until death do us part.” For at least the past 50 years, serial monogamy has largely replaced “actual” monogamy, since very few people actually marry as virgins and remain sexually exclusive with one person for their entire lives.
Dr. Sheff says, “As a social pattern, serial monogamy inevitably creates some families with multiple parents related to children through various legal, biological, and emotional connections. Parents who used to be romantic partners often end up trying to figure out how to create a workable co-parental relationship when they were unable to create or sustain a spousal relationship. For the many people in this situation, remaining on positive terms with a former partner/current co-parent makes the transition less painful for children and more cooperative for adults.”
Her study reveals many examples of poly marriages and long-term love relationships that at some point evolved into platonic friendships that have endured the test of time. These transitions often allow poly families to continue raising children together, often under the same roof, without the usual joint child custody and financial consequences of separation or divorce.
In my private practice, I work primarily with LGBT clients. LGBT/queer relationships have always demonstrated more flexibility than heterosexual ones in providing models for romantic partners to transition to platonic friends and family members. This is seen by most LGBT folks as a better option than losing the relationship completely when the sex and romance ends. Any gay man “of a certain age” can share true tales of heroic ex-lovers who spent years taking care of former partners who were ill and disabled with HIV/AIDS, in many cases providing housing and financial support.
Gary and his partner, Marvin, didn’t hesitate to take Marvin’s former partner, Matt, and his husband, George, into their home when Matt was diagnosed with AIDS-related lymphoma and George quit his job to take care of him round the clock. Gary and Marvin both worked full-time and paid all the bills, and each took shifts taking care of Matt so George could get some rest. When Matt passed away, they invited George to continue living with them as a roommate, as they had become family to each other. Gary jokingly calls them “three dysfunctional old queens in a non-sexual triad” because many of their poly friends assumed they were in a triad together. They socialized together, had all their meals together, and even went on vacations together. Whenever they met new people who were confused by their relationship, Gary would explain, “Marvin is my husband and George is my husband’s ex-husband’s husband and widow.”
Many other gay men can recount times when they took in ex-partners who were down on their luck, out of work, or recovering from drug or alcohol addiction. James describes driving with his husband, Brendan, to corner his ex-lover, Karl, in the back room of a gay leather bar where he was snorting speed. James and Brendan forcibly wrestled him into the car and drove him to a drug rehab center. James and Brendan paid for a month-long stay, and then had Karl move into their apartment for six months to prevent him from moving back in with his abusive boyfriend (who happened to be a speed dealer), and to help him get back on his feet.
Tony Bravo writes a column for the San Francisco Chronicle every Sunday that is focused on fashion, cultural trends, and relationships. One of his columns in August of 2016 was called “When In Need, I Have An Ex For That!” which was about all of his ex-boyfriends, and how lucky he is to have been able to remain good friends with them. He says not only is it great to have such a wonderful circle of friends who know him very well, but many of his exes have come through for him in times of crisis. For instance, when he has a medical problem, Tony calls an ex-partner who is a doctor to get medical advice. On another occasion, he ran into some legal problems and called an ex who is an attorney. When his best gal pal had her heart set on buying a new dress that had sold out, he called his fashion designer ex-boyfriend, who was able to find one more of the dress for her. He wrote in the column that whenever he needs help for almost any problem, “I have an ex for that!” His advice on staying friends after the breakup is, “If you want better ex-boyfriend prospects, start by picking better boyfriend prospects.” He adds, “A relationship doesn’t have to be till death do us part to be successful. A relationship can be a success if you take something from it. The best thing I’ve taken from it is the men themselves.”
And many lesbians have at least one, sometimes two or three, ex-partners who remain lifelong friends and family members, often spending holidays together, becoming godmothers to each other’s children, and helping each other provide care for aging parents or ill spouses. Older LGBT people came of age during an era when most queer people were shunned and rejected by their biological families, so ex-spouses often became their “real” family members, and part of a tight-knit community.
Younger LGBT people are much more likely to be accepted by and welcomed to participate in their biological families, so many do not feel as strong a need to keep former partners in their support network. But many younger LGBT people, both monogamous and poly, have continued the tradition of transitioning from lovers to close friends.
Tanya says, “I knew Megan and I could not continue as lovers, but I knew she was part of my tribe, and that I would always want her in my life. We each fell in love with new women within a year after our separation. Having new partners helped us stay friends without making the mistake of trying to get back together, which we had already tried twice before! Luckily, she and her new girlfriend live a few miles from us, and she still has the dog we raised together as a puppy. So I always use the excuse that I need to go over to see the dog, and that way I still see Megan several times a week while I am ostensibly coming over to visit the dog. My wife and I take care of the dog when they go on vacation, and they watch our house and water the garden when we go away. We sometimes spend holidays together since our families live far away, and in a weird way, the four of us really are a family.”
When Isa’s wife, Eileen, became disabled with multiple sclerosis, their two kids were six and 10 years old. Eileen’s ex-wife, Geri, had already been “Aunt Geri” to the kids all their lives. She says, “Suddenly I was promoted to being an additional parent, since Eileen could no longer drive, cook, or keep up with the kids and their many activities.” Isa repeatedly checked in with Geri, asking her “Are you sure you want this responsibility? Are you sure you have time for all this?” Geri says, “It never crossed my mind to say no! Eileen and her family had been like a surrogate family to me, and I was in the delivery room when those kids were born. I was single for 10 years after we split up, and I would have been so lonely and isolated without them in my life. They always tell everyone how I’m such a saint to take care of their kids, but the truth is that my relationship with the kids and with Eileen and Isa has absolutely enriched my life. And I always knew that if I had been the one with an illness, they would have been there for me.”
Eve Rickert and Franklin Veaux, authors of More Than Two, are also strong proponents of building enough flexibility into poly relationships to allow them to change and grow as needed. They say, “Since people change all the time, we can debate whether it even makes sense to make lifelong commitments, at least the way society encourages us to. We’re taught that marriage should mean our relationship never changes, rather than meaning we can be family for life but the shape the family takes can change.” They suggest that couples stop and re-evaluate their relationships every couple of years, and “think of this as renewing the relationship.” That evaluation may mean considering changes, including changing the form of the relationship from lovers to something else. “It’s not the shape of the relationship that’s important; it’s whether it meets your needs,” they say. And, sometimes a relationship is not healthy anymore: “Good relationships promote the long-term happiness and well-being of the people involved; when that no longer becomes possible, and there’s no clear path to making it possible, then it might be time for the relationship to end.” Rickert and Veaux acknowledge that many of these transitions involve pain and grieving, because you are experiencing the loss of romantic love and the dreams and hopes you shared for that relationship.
Rickert and Veaux add another reason to keep a friendship with your ex-partners, or at least an amicable acquaintanceship. The poly community in any given city or geographical area is usually a pretty small place, so it is very likely that you and your former lover will be running into each other at poly events, support groups, and parties for many years to come. If you burn your bridges with an ex-partner, this is likely to lead to many very awkward and uncomfortable social situations where you have to share space with them. And many people start to avoid any poly-related event or group because they might run into their ex, so they become more isolated and are cut off from needed sources of support.
Rickert and Veaux add an additional word of caution, “In the era of social media, it’s incredibly tempting to seek validation online. We recommend keeping your breakups off social media, even if your partner doesn’t follow this advice. Taking a breakup onto the world stage, especially when you are dealing with the ‘anger’ part of grief, has a way of backfiring. Remember, the poly community is small, and the people you force to witness your breakups will probably be your pool of potential partners later.”
If you post something online at a moment of sadness, rage, or paranoia, large numbers of people are likely to see it immediately. You are likely to end up feeling embarrassed about it later, and even then, it is pretty hard to erase anything completely once it is anywhere on the internet. I have seen many clients going through bruising breakups and posting all kinds of extreme accusations and tirades.
Coraline says, “I was acting out of a desire to hurt my ex-husband as much as he hurt me. When you are in that state of feeling victimized, you think, I have to post something to tell everyone what an evil bastard he is and all the rotten things he did to me! A few days later, remorse and regret set in, and I was horrified by my own behavior. I had to do a lot of damage control to try to clean up the mess. Instead of hurting him, I came off as this psycho hose beast, and everyone was emailing John saying things like, ‘Now I understand why you are divorcing her.’ So while I was hoping to generate sympathy and show how awful and wrong he was, it totally backfired on me and made me look like a complete idiot.”
One way of easing this process is to consider a period of no-contact with your ex until you both can get through the process of grieving the loss of the romantic relationship. That reduces the likelihood of either of you saying (or posting) anything that will cause irreparable damage, and that you will almost certainly regret. And it is likely to make it easier to build a long-term friendship once the anger and sadness have subsided.
Dawn Davidson is a life coach, polyamory educator, and author of the book KISSable Agreements. On her website, loveoutsidethebox.com, she provides a very useful article called “Is It Over?” to help people decide whether it is time to end a relationship. She quotes Richard Bach’s description of his very loving and amicable divorce, and his lifelong friendship with his former wife. He believes he and his wife were, “…led to find each other, led through the years we lived together, and led to part. When a marriage comes to an end, we’re free to call it a failure. We’re also free to call it a graduation.”
Rashi and George were a heterosexual couple going through a divorce. When they read Bach’s quote, each had very different reactions. Rashi said, “Well, that gives me hope! It’s really encouraging to know that some couples can become friends after splitting up, and can see their divorce as a natural evolution to some other kind of relationship.” George responded bitterly, “What kind of drugs is that guy on? How can he possibly be calling something as ugly and painful as a divorce a ‘graduation?’” Clearly, it is quite difficult for most people to look at a divorce or separation through such a positive and philosophical lens until they have gone through the grieving process and reached some amount of acceptance of the new reality. The majority of romantic relationships, both monogamous and polyamorous, end with some suffering and sadness, but with a lot of effort and the passage of time, some people have found ways to make the process less painful.
One peculiarly poly method of breaking up is the slow, gradual drifting apart and disappearing from each other’s lives, or of shifting from romantic partners to platonic friends. During the late 1960s through the 1980s, there were several polyamorous communal families in San Francisco that were called Kerista communes. The Keristans practiced polyfidelity, a form of heterosexual group marriage. They called a gradual transition from lovers to friends “graceful distancing,” meaning spending less and less time together and being less sexual and affectionate until a couple are no longer lovers, and then can either decide to be friends or just stop seeing each other altogether. Because it is not abrupt and dramatic, it gives both people time to naturally start spending more time with other lovers or friends, gradually rebuilding their support system, and adding more affection and sex with other people so they do not experience a scarcity of love and attention.
In a monogamous relationship, this method is usually intolerably painful, as each partner is acutely aware of the lack of companionship, emotional intimacy, and sex. In a poly relationship, each person is free to pursue new partners or spend more time with other existing partners to ease the transition. Monogamous people do not have this option, so they usually find it very lonely and heartbreaking to slowly lose their beloved. Even for poly people, this only works if both people feel highly motivated to cooperate with the incremental plan. Some people find this torturous, and would rather just break up immediately and get it over with.
Sometimes, both people in the couple can see that they are incompatible and can both find more appropriate partners. For instance, Lelieni and Garth were both bisexual, and through opening up their marriage and having other lovers, they discovered that they were each more oriented towards same-sex relationships than they had previously believed. However, they really loved each other as companions and enjoyed owning a home together. Garth’s lover, Alfredo, lived a few blocks away, so Garth started spending a lot of time at Alfredo’s place. Leilieni’s partner, Krisha, moved in with her full-time. Leilieni and Garth split up as a romantic couple but continued living together. All four of them were much happier once Lelieni and Garth acknowledged that their relationship as lovers was transitioning to a friendship. Garth says, “It seemed to evolve organically. Polyamory allowed each relationship to become what it actually should be. Before that we were trying to force each of our relationships into a box where they just didn’t fit. We had thought we were primary partners and that the outside lovers were secondary, The truth of the matter was that we were destined to be best friends and family to each other, and those so-called outside lovers were in fact our life partners.”
Sharon and Bruce are a heterosexual married couple, who both became seriously involved with outside partners. They loved living together and their house was a social gathering place “for all of our misfit geek and Goth friends” for parties, movie nights, and gaming. Bruce says, “One day we looked up and realized that we were no longer romantic partners. We loved each other just as much as ever and were extremely close, but our bond had become platonic, and luckily we both were able to admit that. From the start of our relationship, we were very affectionate and had good sex, but the real bond between us was the emotional closeness and intellectual rapport. We decided to stay married because it helps our tax situation, and I can get health benefits through her job. We have continued to live together part-time but we each spend more nights than not with the other partners, and the shift has been relatively painless. It really helps that all our friends have supported both of us through this, and have not seen this as a ‘tragic end’ to a marriage. They can see that we are happy, and ironically, to them it looks like nothing has changed, since we still live together and spend a lot of time together and are still constantly hosting parties together at the house.”
Jane and her husband, Rodrigo, had a different experience, but a similarly painless transition. “We slowly became more distant as lovers because our life paths and goals had diverged,” Jane says. “You want to be able to grow, and you want your partner to be allowed that same evolution. But when you give each other that freedom, there’s no guarantee that you will stay on the same path. And really, what’s the alternative? Trying to force yourself and your spouse to stay the same forever? I’m not the same person I was 25 years ago, when we first met. We were both 22, going to school, and working as bartenders till 3 AM. I followed my dreams to become a working artist and political activist, and Rodrigo’s been on a much different path, founding a successful tech company. His priorities are making money and having a house and kids, and I admire and respect him, but that is definitely not for me.
“We’re both a lot happier now that we have divorced, and found partners who are right for us. If we had not opened up our marriage and started outside relationships, we would probably still be fighting a losing battle, each trying to guilt-trip the other person to do what we want, instead of what is right for them. And we’d both be absolutely miserable.”
Mina and Marco are a married couple who experienced some tensions in their relationship, primarily because both of their families disapproved of their relationship. When Mina called her family in Sri Lanka and told them she and Marco had gotten engaged, the entire family freaked out.
Her father cried, “I can’t believe you’re marrying a Mexican!” even though he knew that Marco was Puerto Rican-American and his family had lived in New York City for over a century. And when Marco called his family in New York to announce that he was marrying Mina, his mother shrieked, “He’s marrying some Hindu girl from India,” although she had been told repeatedly that Mina was Muslim and from Sri Lanka. Mina’s father even enlisted one of her brothers to fly from Sri Lanka to San Diego to try to prevent their wedding, and to try to get Mina to “come back home.” Mina’s grandfather scolded her mother, “I told you not to let her go to medical school in America! Look what happened!”
With all this going on, they chose not to tell their families that they had a polyamorous relationship. Mina and Marco had a mutual boyfriend who spent every weekend with them. Bruno is a chef at an upscale restaurant, and also Puerto Rican-American. Marco jokes that if only their families were not homophobic, they would consider them a perfect match, and that his mother would probably say, “At least he’s Catholic!” Marco and Bruno have a very strong romantic and emotional connection, partly growing out of their similar working-class upbringing in what Bruno called, “families that could be completely dysfunctional in both English and Spanish.”
While Mina shared a sexual and romantic relationship with Bruno, she felt shut out of the men’s intense friendship, saying, “I’m so jealous of your bro-mance!” Bruno gradually realized that he was more gay than bisexual and that he was “emotionally monogamous.” He enjoyed having casual male sex partners, but could not really sustain the relationship with Mina. Mina and Bruno gradually transitioned to a more platonic relationship by spending less and less time together, as Bruno became romantically exclusive with Marco. The breakup was pretty painless, but Mina disliked being excluded every weekend, when Bruno and Marco seemed focused only on each other. She asked Marco to spend one weekend a month alone with her, and spend one weekend night with her on the other weekends. They were able to negotiate a compromise: Bruno was able to change his schedule at the restaurant to have Sundays and Mondays off from work to spend with Marco, who is self-employed and could arrange his own work schedule. As a result, Mina could have every Friday night and all day Saturdays with Marco. She was able to navigate the breakup with Bruno, and accept his continued relationship with Marco, because her needs for time, love, and for feeling included were being met.
Being able to treat each other well and having mutual respect is a key factor in amicable poly breakups. Akiko and Mollie separated after living together for five years, and Akiko expressed surprise and relief that they were able to transition to a platonic friendship “without hating each other.” She had previously survived a brutal heterosexual divorce. Her husband lied about an affair with another woman, which only came out after he had given Akiko herpes. The deception and betrayal had caused her suicidal anguish and homicidal rage, causing her to check herself into a psychiatric hospital “to prevent me from killing myself or killing him.” The contrast in this separation was striking. Akiko says, “Because Mollie had always treated me like a queen and been honest and communicative about everything, we were able to end our relationship with dignity and without attacking each other. It was sad to give up on my dream of growing old with her, but I had to admit that she was right. We had tried everything and we weren’t really happy together. I feel certain that we will be lifelong friends, so in some sense we will grow old together, just not as lovers. And because she didn’t leave me for someone else, but because we really couldn’t work things out ourselves, I did not feel rejected and abandoned.
“We had been polyamorous the whole time we lived together, and ironically, that had nothing to do with our breakup. That part of our relationship was going great! In fact, it helped a lot that I had recently started a new love affair, which I knew would not be long-term, but some hot sex and romance really distracted me from the feelings of sadness and loss about Mollie splitting up with me.”
Martin and Kiara had lived together for four years in the south side of Chicago, in the neighborhood where they had both grown up. They lived just a few blocks from both sets of parents, and because Kiara’s father was a Baptist minister, they were under intense pressure to get married. Their families did not know that they had an open relationship, which included Martin having a girlfriend, Lila, and Kiara also having a girlfriend, Cecilia. They took great pains to be discreet about these outside relationships because their parents lived nearby, and because Kiara did not want to cause her father any problems with his church.
When Lila unexpectedly became pregnant, Martin and Kiara asked her to move in with them so they could raise the baby together. They moved to a larger apartment in the same building, so they could have two bedrooms, one for Kiara and one for Lila. Martin spent alternate nights with each partner. This “forced us out of the closet,” Martin explains, and required weathering some family drama. Martin’s parents were community organizers who had named him after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his father had several “man-to-man talks” with him about how he was embarrassing his family by “acting so ghetto,” and “shacking up with two women and having babies without getting married.” Kiara’s parents went ballistic, trying to force her to “leave that no-good cheater” and move back home with them. Before the baby was even born, Lila’s mother threatened to go to court to get custody, “Because ALL FOUR of you kids are crazy!” Kiara’s lover, Cecilia, knew a gay, male therapist with expertise in open relationships, and he provided couples’ counseling and family therapy to help all four of them through this crisis.
All of them loved their families very much, and felt a lot of guilt about disappointing them. But they were determined to be good parents and good partners. Cecilia also connected them with a family law attorney who drew up some legal documents to provide clarity about who had what legal rights related to custody of the baby.
They stood their ground, and when their beautiful baby girl was born, she stole everyone’s hearts, and all the parents and grandparents managed to reconcile. Lila’s mother remarked, “This girl is going to be the most spoiled child on the planet—she has three moms, a father, and two sets of grandparents all doting on her!”
Despite the seeming harmony, over the next year Martin and Kiara’s relationship started to unravel. He was sleeping in Lila’s room nearly every night in order to help with the frequent feeding and diaper changes. Kiara felt that Lila and Martin “behaved like a married couple,” and because of the baby, they got all the recognition as a couple from all the families. When the baby was about three months old, Cecilia’s mother suddenly needed surgery, and Cecilia stayed at her mother’s house on the other side of Chicago for a few months to take care of her. Kiara felt abandoned by both Martin and Cecilia. She felt completely displaced as Martin’s partner, even though he reassured her that once the baby started sleeping through the night, things would be back to normal.
However, when Martin tried to start sleeping in Kiara’s room again, Lila was distraught and accused him of “abandoning his child,” and leaving her with all the work of taking care of the baby. Frequent arguments ensued between Martin and both Kiara and Lila, and the two women started having disputes about everything from dirty dishes to who was paying more bills. Try as he might, Martin could not make either partner happy. Kiara’s mother could see how unhappy she was and started pressuring her to leave Martin, quoting Bible verses about adultery, and shaming her for “putting up with a man who has a baby with another woman.”
After the baby’s first birthday, Kiara decided to temporarily move in with Cecilia to think things over. After a few months, they decided to become a primary couple. Ironically, Kiara’s parents became even more distraught, as they had convinced themselves that Cecilia was “just a friend.” Kiara had come out to her parents about her bisexuality at least a few times, and had introduced Cecelia to them as her lover, but, “As long as I was living with Martin, they didn’t believe me.” At first Martin tried to win Kiara back, promising to be more attentive to her needs. However, he quickly realized that life was much less stressful without the constant conflicts between the three of them, and he reluctantly accepted her decision to end the relationship.
Kiara and Martin still loved and cared for each other, and were very motivated to continue with a platonic friendship. Because they each had another primary partner, the transition from lovers to friends went relatively smoothly. And since Kiara and Cecilia had both established a strong relationship with the baby, they continued to be what Lila called “the fairy godmothers,” frequently babysitting to give the parents a much-needed break. Lila and Kiara became friends again once the romantic rivalry was resolved, with Lila joking, “Martin was the problem child, not Kiara.” Five years later, Cecilia and Kiara had a baby, and Lila and Martin became the godparents. The various sets of grandparents are all still shaking their heads in confusion and disapproval, but have grudgingly accepted that this unconventional blended family is here to stay.
Jerome and Peggy divorced after 15 years of marriage and a 10-year struggle with infertility. They both finally accepted that they could not conceive a child together, but the disappointment, exhaustion, and tensions caused by the costs of infertility treatments finally destroyed their relationship. They each had another partner who had supported them through the long grieving process of not having a baby, and those partners now helped them through their divorce.
Jerome says, “I think Peggy and I both behaved honestly and honorably through it all. We had developed good communication skills and relationship skills from poly books and workshops, which served us well in trying to work through the struggle with infertility. Ironically, by the time we split up, we were pretty good at working together on problems.” Peggy says, “We couldn’t stand living together any more, as our home had become this place where we were miserable together. We had stopped having sex at least a year before we separated, because sex had become so fraught with anxiety about trying to get pregnant. It was his idea to divorce, but it really was the only option. Because we had both treated each other with kindness and respect throughout the marriage, we were able to continue that way through the divorce. I don’t know what kind of friendship we will be able to have from here, but we do love each other and want to have some connection.
“Thank goodness we each have another partner to help us. I was literally suicidal when I finally had to admit I would never be able to have a child, and our partners have been so compassionate and supportive.”
Jerome adds, “It’s actually humorous because I was the one who was initially reluctant to have an open marriage and Peggy was really pushing it. Now I have become such an advocate, and I call myself a ‘poly cheerleader’ because being poly has totally come through for me at the very worst time of my life.”
These are some of the possibilities for polyamorous relationships to end with less pain. The odds of a “successful” breakup are much higher if both people are happily engaged in other healthy relationships, as this is likely to ease the fear of scarcity and of being alone. And many people report that being able to hold onto a friendship with their partner made it much easier to let go of the romantic relationship without rancor. Several also pointed to the importance of having poly-friendly mutual friends, who were able to give both people support and assure them they would still be there despite the separation.
A graceful parting is much more possible for couples where both parties are past the intensity of the honeymoon stage of the relationship, as they are able to see the relationship and their incompatibility more clearly. Couples who have behaved lovingly, and been caring and competent partners throughout the relationship are more likely to be able to preserve that positive regard for each other and treat each other well during the breakup, significantly reducing the pain.