554 - Persuasion or Coercion? Navigating Polyamory Under Duress
What is polyamory under duress?
Polyamory under duress (PUD) has a variety of different definitions among the community. Some of the definitions crowdsourced from the r/nonmonogamy subreddit, along with some points from Dan Savage and Lola Phoenix are:
Agreeing to do poly out of codependency rather than genuine personal curiosity. Both may involve negative feelings about/towards poly, but in the latter case, there is an internal drive to experience and learn from those negative feelings and eventually grow past them; whereas in the former, the negative feelings are merely to be endured, mostly driven by a fear of (external) abandonment.
Reluctantly agreeing to Polyamory in order to continue a relationship. In the absence of duress - pressure - they would not have agreed to the change.
Dan Savage has coined the term Tolyamory: a relationship dynamic in which one or both partners in a "socially monogamous" couple (a couple that presents as monogamous but is not fully exclusive) turn a blind eye to their partner’s extramarital sexual activity. Instead of actively endorsing non-monogamy, they tolerate it, raising ethical questions about consent and relational dynamics.
From Nonmonogamy Help by Lola Phoenix: Polyamory is often thought of as a conscious, thoughtful choice that aligns with personal values and needs. However, for some, polyamory is entered under duress—whether due to external pressure, a desire to save a relationship, or the influence of a partner's needs over their own. Polyamory under duress can lead to emotional confusion, dissatisfaction, and burnout, especially when the motivations behind the choice are not deeply personal.
There are a multitude of reasons why someone might find themselves in a PUD situation. A few examples:
A couple is opening up for the first time and one partner isn’t as excited about it as the other.
Someone starts dating another person, learns that they are non-monogamous, and chooses to stay in the relationship even though they have no interest in non-monogamy.
Two people are already non-monogamous and one person isn’t as enthusiastic about non-monogamy, but is fearful of losing the relationship and chooses to stay in a polyamorous configuration.
A member of a couple may theoretically or conceptually align with polyamory, but for whatever reason, their nervous system can’t handle it in practice.
How do I know if I’m in a PUD situation?
Ultimately you are the only one who can figure this out, but here are a few clues that might help you suss out your own situation:
Internal Conflict: You often find yourself questioning if polyamory truly aligns with your personal values or desires.
Emotional Turbulence: You experience heightened emotions like anxiety or stress when discussing or thinking about a polyamorous arrangement.
Communication Challenges: Discussions about your relationship dynamics feel more difficult or less productive than usual.
Prioritization of Others: Your personal needs and preferences are frequently set aside, either by you or your partner, leading to feelings of imbalance.
Desire for More Support: You find yourself wishing for an excess of emotional support or reassurance, or at the very least, more than you are currently receiving.
Uncertainty About Choices: Decisions regarding the relationship feel unclear, creating a sense of unease.
Feeling Overwhelmed: You often feel overwhelmed by the complexity of managing multiple relationships, (or even the thought of doing so) even if the relationships themselves are generally positive.
Physical Manifestations of Extreme Discomfort: You might have a loss of appetite for a number of days, adrenaline rushes, an overwhelming sense of anxiety, physical tremors, and more.
Feeling Resentment: You may feel as though you are giving or sacrificing much more than your partner is. These feelings can build resentment towards your partner over time that is difficult to overcome.
Lack of Autonomy: Doing something because your partner wants it and not because you are excited about it can create a sense of losing control of your own wants and needs and personal autonomy. If you feel like you can’t connect to any personal reason for being polyamorous, you might be in a situation of polyamory under duress.
When taking these situations into account we come to the question: Is polyamory under duress abusive coercion? Excellent persuasion on part of one partner? Or is it just a mismatch between what two people want in a relationship? How do you know the difference between being coerced and reluctantly choosing to stay in the relationship?
Before you label your situation as abusive or coercive, take a look at your situation and consider these points:
Feelings are not facts. Are you actually being forced to do something you don’t want to do, or do you just feel as though you are being forced to do something you don’t want to do? It can be very difficult to determine the difference between the two.
What is persuasion and what is coercion? Persuasion involves voluntary influence through reasoning and appeal, while coercion relies on threats, force, or pressure to compel action, removing genuine choice. Persuasion respects autonomy and seeks internal acceptance, whereas coercion undermines it, leading to compliance out of fear rather than genuine agreement. In other words, persuasion recognizes autonomy and allows for the possibility of one party saying no to the request. Coercion takes away autonomy.
Examples from listeners
Here are some examples from our listeners who felt like they had no choice but to stay in a relationship even though they felt uncomfortable with non-monogamy:
There is a threat of your partner leaving the relationship if you don’t comply with allowing them to be non-monogamous.
You are generally conflict avoidant, and don’t want to rock the boat by saying no to your partner.
You have a tendency to engage in people-pleasing behaviors and choosing to say yes to polyamory is an extension of that.
You have conflicting emotions about polyamory: for example, you’ve done it before without issue, but something about a new relationship your partner has begun causes you to go into a tailspin and have difficulty emotionally regulating.
You meet a new person and discover they are non-monogamous after you’ve been dating them for a while. You really like them and feel like you have no choice but to go along with non-monogamy even though you really don’t agree with it.
Some, but not all, mono/poly relationships include an element of polyamory under duress.
It’s important to point out that people engage in monogamy under duress as well. If one partner says they can’t be non-monogamous so the other partner decides to be monogamous for them, for example. Or they may feel as though they need to stay monogamous for kids, or have family pressure to maintain a monogamous relationship, and have tremendous guilt for wanting to engage in an alternative lifestyle.
The bottom line: either situation can result in someone not getting the type of relationship configuration they want. While it’s important and acceptable to compromise, you must ask yourself this question: “If this dynamic never changed, could I live like this (potentially) forever?” If the answer is no, it might be time for you to take steps to exit the relationship. If the answer is yes, there might be a way for you to navigate through the duress.
Navigating through duress
Here are some tactics for those who want to stay in the relationship and attempt to move through the feelings of duress:
Get clear on your desires and motivations. Encourage honest self-reflection about why you and your partner might want to do polyamory in the first place. Are these choices driven by genuine desire, or external pressures? Can both of you find an anchor, or a personal reason why you want to be polyamorous?
Set boundaries, preferences, and agreements. Encourage each other to identify and communicate personal boundaries and state your relationship preferences. Work together to create agreements with partners involved in the dynamic. This fosters the spirit of collaboration and experimentation.
Do regular check-ins. We recommend scheduling regular check-ins (like our RADAR framework) to discuss feelings, successes, and challenges. This also ensures all parties remain comfortable, consensual participants.
Seek consent. Reinforce the necessity of obtaining and giving genuine consent for the relationship structures you are participating in. Continue to check in and reevaluate if necessary. If the duress continues, and you simply feel like this structure is incompatible for how you view the trajectory of your life, it’s ok to break up.
Educate and research. If you are listening to this episode, you are already working towards educating yourself. Encourage anyone who you are in a relationship with to read books, attend workshops, or join support groups to better understand polyamory and navigate its challenges.
Encourage equality in decisions. Stress the importance of inclusive decision-making, ensuring that all partners have equal say in relationship dynamics.
Know when to seek professional help. Discuss challenges with a therapist familiar with non-monogamous relationships if things become too overwhelming.
Transcript
If you find any transcription errors, please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Dedeker: The image that keeps coming up for me listening to these different definitions is white knuckling, right? Where if you're in a relationship situation where you feel like your only recourse is just to find better ways to white knuckle through a situation that you just absolutely hate. To me, especially when I'm working with people, that's a big red flag of, you're in a situation where you feel like there's no choices available to you other than white knuckling. You don't feel empowered to speak up, or you don't feel empowered to leave, or you don't feel empowered to ask for what you need. When I'm working with people, that's usually the thing that I'm looking out for to try to determine, is this on the duress spectrum?
Jase: Welcome to the Multiamory Podcast. I'm Jase.
Emily: I'm Emily.
Dedeker: And I'm Dedeker.
Emily: We believe in looking to the future of relationships, not maintaining the status quo of the past.
Dedeker: Whether you're monogamous, polyamorous, swinging, casually dating, or if you just do relationships differently, we see you and we're here for you.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we're talking about polyamory under duress. Navigating the world of polyamorous relationships can be challenging under the best of circumstances, but what happens when external pressures or internal conflicts put strain on those relationships? Whether that's societal expectations, pressures from your partners, or personal insecurities, dealing with polyamory under duress can feel devastating to your emotional wellbeing. Today, we'll dive into the signs that might indicate you're facing duress, share stories from those who have navigated similar challenges, and provide strategies to help navigate you through or out of those relationships. If you're interested in learning more about our fundamental communication tools that we reference on this show all the time, you can check out our book, Multiamory: Essential Tools for Modern Relationships, which covers our most used communication tools for all types of relationships. You can find links to buy it at multiamory.com/book or wherever you buy books.
Emily: I don't know about the two of you, but I do feel like recently I have encountered a few people that were going through moments of polyamory under duress. I realize this also happened with me, with a partner that I had last year. And all of these things kind of culminated in me wanting to do an episode on this, because while we have often talked about polyamory and all of the wonderful things that happen within it and how great it can be and how joyful and fulfilling, we don't often spend an enormous amount of time talking about how challenging it can be and how it can really make us feel very emotionally unstable at times. And I did want to dive into that today. So to start out with, have the two of you ever been under duress while non-monogamous? Or do you know people, or have you had partners who felt that way?
Dedeker: Well, I think it's important for us to lay out what we mean when we're talking about polyamory under duress. Now, this is for people who aren't aware, this is a set term that bounces around the subculture.
Jase: Sometimes called PUD or P-U-D.
Emily: Yeah, PUD. That is something that we're going to talk about throughout this episode because even though it is a term that is bouncing around the nonmonogamy subreddit and r/polyamory, and there's a ton of forums on the subject as well, we don't necessarily have a very defined definition of what it is. People will say things like it is always abusive coercion, or it may be this unsettled feeling that makes you feel as though you're in a really unstable place in your relationship, and that's causing a lot of turmoil for a moment in time perhaps, or maybe it happens for a prolonged period of time and you don't know how to get out of it. It begs the question, is this abuse or not? We are going to get there. We're going to get a little bit more into semantics and what polyamory under duress is, that it includes a spectrum of people feeling very unsettled about it. Sometimes feeling like they were potentially a little coerced into it or simply that their partner enjoys polyamory and wants to do it more than they do and they're going along for the ride. To start out, let's talk about why a person might find themselves in a situation of polyamory under duress. This isn't a complete picture, but you might recognize your own situation in some of these examples. For instance, when a couple is opening up for the first time and one partner just isn't as excited about nonmonogamy as the other partner.
Jase: That's an interesting example to bring up because if we're talking about a couple who started out monogamous together and are opening up, that almost always is going to come from one partner more than the other.
Dedeker: Right?
Jase: Someone's going to be the one who came in with this idea of what if we tried this? What if we looked into this? I'm honestly having a really hard time thinking of any examples of a couple who both simultaneously had that idea, even if both ended up being into it and doing it for a long time. Usually there is one who brings that into the relationship and starts that discussion. So I could see that being a tricky one of, does that feel like I'm getting dragged along? Or is it, I'm trying this, but it was my partner's idea at first, and I'm still figuring it out. So yeah, that's a good example to start with where it shows a lot of that nuance.
Emily: A recent one that I encountered, my partner had somebody that they started dating that didn't know initially that they were nonmonogamous and then learned that, decided, well, I still am interested in dating this person, and so I'm going to continue to go along for the ride. But after some time realized, oh, I don't really want to do this nonmonogamous thing. And that created definitely quite a lot of strain in the relationship.
Jase: And eventually seemed to end it, right?
Emily: Yeah, correct. Absolutely. I think even regardless of how long a person decides to be nonmonogamous with their partner, they may eventually realize, I'm not that enthusiastic about nonmonogamy, but I'm really scared of losing the relationship. And so I'm just gonna stay in this configuration regardless of whether or not it seems to work for me because I simply don't wanna lose this relationship that I've had for a number of years or months or however long it is. And there's also the potential that in theory, both people could really align with polyamory. They might conceptually align with it. They might understand that it's something that can work for people. They may even read a bunch of books and do a bunch of research, but for whatever reason, their nervous system just can't handle it in practice. I think that that happened with me last year with a partner where I was essentially in a sort of monogamous relationship with him, realized I'm really interested in this other person. And so I do want to open up the relationship and start dating this other person, even though he was reading a bunch of books and doing a lot of research, from a nervous system perspective it was really, really challenging for him to handle. And I think ultimately led to us parting ways just because it didn't really work out for him from that standpoint.
Jase: And I think that's where the fuzzy line really shows up with all of this, right? Is that polyamory under duress, sometimes people can talk about it in a fairly matter of fact way, like Emily was just there, where it's saying, yeah, I was in this situation and for them it felt more like they were doing it just because they felt like they had to to keep the relationship and they weren't very happy. And so then that ends up ending, whether it's the person who feels like they're under duress eventually being like, that's too much, I can't handle it, or the other person being like, Hey, look, I see you being miserable being in this relationship with me. Let's not keep doing that.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: But we also see people online, the internet being what it is, of going much more into this. Oh, if you're ever doing it under duress, that's abuse. It's terrible. You should never let that happen, which, yeah, maybe sometimes it is coming from that kind of place, but I would say often it's somewhere in this middle ground. Does that track with both of your experiences and what you've seen?
Dedeker: Yeah, it seems like there's a spectrum from on one end is poly under stress, maybe, where someone's trying it out and they're like, this is actually really hard or a lot harder than I thought or wasn't quite what I bargained for, all the way to poly under duress, which as we go further along the spectrum to more the extremes, we get more and more of the person's autonomy isn't there. There's less and less that this person has any interest in this type of relationship or any motivation to explore this type of relationship. They just are not interested in this, and yet they're still in this configuration for a variety of reasons and motives.
Jase: I would say probably the archetypical polyamory under duress is that couple that's been together a very long time and their lives are very intertwined with each other. One person decides, I want to be non-monogamous. There's no negotiating this. And the other person feels like, well, shit, I don't really have a choice but to go along with this.
Dedeker: Or if I don't want to explode my life.
Emily: Blow up the relationship.
Jase: Yeah, exactly. And so that, I think, is the archetypical version of it. And that does happen sometimes. But this term now, just being practical about it, is used for a much wider range of different situations. Like Emily, you were talking about using polyamory under duress to describe this person who had literally just started dating your partner, and then found out he was non-monogamous and was like, I don't like that. I guess I'll try dating you.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And then just having a bad time of it, that's a very different end of the spectrum from we've been married for 20 years and we have kids.
Emily: And now we're opening up our relationship.
Jase: My spouse has said we're open and I'm trying to figure out how to go along with that.
Emily: Absolutely. I did want to get into a couple definitions that I found on the r/nonmonogamy subreddit because I think that it goes through that spectrum. And it is a little confusing because it gets into this question of, is this abusive? Is this not? Is it just feeling unrest over the situation? So I'm going to go through some of what people had to say on the subreddit. One person said, Polyamory Under Duress is agreeing to do poly out of codependency rather than genuine personal curiosity. Both may involve negative feelings about or towards poly, but in the latter case, there is an internal drive to experience and learn from those negative feelings and eventually grow past them. Whereas in the former, the negative feelings are merely to be endured, mostly driven out of a fear of external abandonment.
Jase: Right, so that goes back to the idea of having an anchor, of why are you doing this? Because it's gonna be hard to change how you think about relationships, but if it's because of your own curiosity or your own values, that is generally gonna be easier than I'm just doing it so I can stay with this person.
Emily: Yeah, shout out to our friend Lola Phoenix for coining that term anchor, which is basically deciding, okay, I want to do polyamory because of this reason, and that is a very personal reason as opposed to it being about staying with your partner or I need to do it to make them happy or something along those lines.
Jase: Right.
Emily: It might also include reluctantly agreeing to do polyamory in order to continue a relationship in the absence of duress pressure, they would not have agreed to the change.
Dedeker: Right. Yeah.
Jase: Kind of another way of saying the same thing.
Emily: I did want to quickly point out the Dan Savage-coined term Tolyamory that's been floating around recently. And that's maybe a mild version of this, but it's essentially tolerating polyamory. So a relationship dynamic in which one or both partners might be more socially monogamous, essentially, they present as monogamous, but they're not fully exclusive. So one partner or both just sort of turns a blind eye to their partner's extramarital sexual activity. So instead of actively endorsing nonmonogamy, they just tolerate it. And that might raise some questions about consent, about relational dynamics. It almost feels a bit more like a don't ask, don't tell situation.
Jase: Yeah, it definitely seems like it intersects with that idea of, yeah, you can date other people, but I don't want to know about it. Keep it secret from me.
Emily: Absolutely. And Lola Phoenix on the nonmonogamy help website, Lola said that polyamory under duress can lead to emotional confusion, dissatisfaction, and burnout, especially when the motivations behind the choice are not deeply personal. Yeah, I do think that that's something to be aware of and think about whenever you are in a situation where you feel, is this me? Am I just doing this because my partner's doing it? If you can't find any personal motivation to be non-monogamous, I think that that is a very telling thing to think about.
Dedeker: Yeah, the image that keeps coming up for me listening to these different definitions is white knuckling, right? Where if you're in a relationship situation where you feel like your only recourse is just to find better ways to white knuckle through a situation that you just absolutely hate. To me, especially when I'm working with people, that's a big red flag of, okay, you're in a situation where you feel like there's no choices available to you other than white knuckling. You don't feel empowered to speak up, or you don't feel empowered to leave, or you don't feel empowered to ask for what you need. When I'm working with people, that's usually the thing that I'm looking out for to try to determine, is this on the duress spectrum?
Emily: Yeah, definitely. This is one last example that I'll give because it came up recently with a friend that I was counseling a little bit about non-monogamy and how his relationship has changed over time. He was non-monogamous with his partner. Then they decided to close their relationship up and move in together. They were looking at potentially starting a family together, doing things that were more relationship escalatory. But then she decided, actually, I do want to open the relationship back up and see what else is out there. She was feeling a little bit like her autonomy was going away from, I get to do all the things that I want to do into, instead, I'm becoming more enmeshed as a couple. And that that's a little bit scary. And I would like to go back to the nonmonogamous aspect of our relationship. And she found somebody that she was really excited about and started dating him. And that caused my friend to feel extreme unrest and extremely worried and sad about the state of their relationship. He saw her having a lot of new relationship energy for this new person in her life. And I think that that's also an interesting distinction that if the relationship changes over time and if non-monogamy comes into the relationship for the first time, or maybe just for the first time somebody is really excited about a new person and they're experiencing new relationship energy, that even if you have been non-monogamous before and understand all of the things that come along with that, just because the relationship dynamic is changing so drastically, that might cause feelings of duress as well.
Dedeker: Yeah, but I mean, again, and I don't mean to quibble here. Maybe I do mean to quibble. I don't know.
Jase: I think we're here to quibble a little bit.
Dedeker: We're here. Trying to get to the bottom of things. We're going to quibble.
Emily: Great.
Dedeker: I like to think that at this point in my life, having a lot of nonmonogamy experience under my belt, that I can tell the difference in myself anyway between, ooh, I have a partner who is dating someone new and going through NRE and that's challenging and maybe a little bit scary and anxiety producing versus, Ooh, I have a partner who's dating someone new, going through NRE, that's challenging, and also that partner is not treating me very well in the midst of this.
Emily: Sure.
Dedeker: Sometimes I think a lot of nonmonogamy skill building for that particular chapter of a nonmonogamous relationship, that does take time, I think, to differentiate between what part of this is just challenging just because it's scary and risky, but my partner's still showing up for me, right? And they're still listening to me and meeting me in our partnership versus this is scary and I am actually feeling quite abandoned. My partner is really dropping the ball and minimizing my fears or whatever. So again, I think it's so hard also to point just to, oh, if you're just having a hard time in non-monogamy, that doesn't necessarily always point to, oh, this is polyamory under duress.
Emily: Sure. Yeah. No, that's a good point.
Jase: We're going to get into some ways to examine yourself and what you're feeling and what you're going through to help determine are you in a polyamory under duress, Situation regardless of where on the spectrum, but is this something to be considering? And we're going to do that in just a second, but first we're going to take a break to talk about some sponsors for this show. We do really appreciate our sponsors for helping us bring this show to all of you and put this out into the world for free every week. And also, if you would like to support us more directly and not have to listen to ads, you can do that by becoming one of our members at multiamory.com/join. You get ad free episodes released a day early, as well as access to our amazing private communities discord and Facebook, and things like our monthly video chat groups. Go check out all the information about that at multiamory.com/join.
Emily: So now I want to get into if you are listening to this episode and think, Hmm, maybe I am in a situation of polyamory under duress, but how do I actually know? What are maybe some of the signs that I should be looking for? Something that I think comes up a lot in these situations is just a lot of internal conflict and turmoil. You might find yourself questioning if polyamory really truly aligns with your personal values or your desires. If you think maybe that's not the case, then you might be in a situation of polyamory under duress. You might also have a lot of emotional turbulence. So you might experience really heightened emotions like anxiety or stress when discussing or thinking about polyamory in general. With your partner, you might be having a lot of communication challenges. Any discussions around your relationship dynamics might feel more difficult or less productive than usual. This is something that many of us fall into this trap of prioritizing other people, feeling like, my personal needs and my preferences, they're just not as important right now. I'm going to set them aside, or maybe I find that my partner is setting them aside, and that can lead to feelings of imbalance in general. This is one that I've seen come up a lot where you desire a real excess of emotional support or reassurance over and over again. Maybe you just want more than you're currently receiving, or maybe it feels like you need an absolute abundance of it. And if you don't get that, then you really feel very, very stressed out about the situation. Something that I've seen a lot as well, is having a physical manifestation of extreme discomfort. So you might have a loss of appetite, for instance. You might get really extreme adrenaline rushes or an overwhelming sense of anxiety. You might even have physical tremors, things along those lines that really hit on bodily sensations that you are in an extreme state of being unwell over what this is putting you through.
Dedeker: I think that's really common if there's also some shock trauma attached to this. So, as in, if your partner has dropped a bomb on you that this has come out of nowhere, they didn't bring it up gently. Because I've seen people do that kind of stuff, where they're just like, hey, guess what? I want to open the relationship. I already have three dates lined up. Too bad. You need to deal with it. And sometimes people can feel bad, can feel like I'm overreacting or oh my god, I can't eat. People can feel bad about the intensity of their reaction, but when it's a shock like this, it's totally normal.
Jase: And I think that can even happen in a newer relationship, but I think that is a good sign if you're experiencing those kind of symptoms of this is a situation where just white knuckling it, like Dedeker said, and trying to do this nonmonogamy for this relationship is not sustainable and not good for either of you. Because for you, it could just be this huge fear response that gets triggered by it. We don't have to know why. I mean, sure, that's interesting for you to explore, but finding out why doesn't change the fact that you're having this really strong reaction, and that's not something that a caring partner wants you to go through and not something that you should want yourself to go through.
Emily: It might also bring up a lot of feelings of resentment, especially over time, if you have been doing this for a number of weeks or months and you just continue feeling really bad about it. I think that you might feel as though you're giving or sacrificing a lot more than your partner is. And that's a difficult thing to overcome. That can lead to anger. That can lead to you just feeling a huge amount of hopelessness and despair. And I think that often when you get into that sort of state of being, it's difficult to get past that. It's difficult to move on from that. And then of course, it might create a lack of autonomy just because you feel, my partner wants to do this, and I'm not as excited about it, and that is creating the sense of losing control of your own wants and needs. And if you really feel like you can't connect to any personal reason for being polyamorous, then that is a really good indicator of being in a situation of polyamory under duress. Okay, so with all of that, I think we have to look at this big elephant in the room of, is this abuse? Is it coercion or is it just somebody persuading their partner, hey, I really want to try doing this. This is something that's really exciting for me. Come along for the ride here. Is it a mismatch between what two people want? Are people staying in this configuration because they're really scared of losing their partner? What ultimately is going on here? I did want to get into this debate.
Dedeker: Well, I'll go ahead and get meta with it. First of all, I think that it's hard for us to make a call just across the board because it's gonna be different depending on people's individual circumstances, of course. But to zoom out, I think the reason why people are even interested in figuring out if polyamory under duress always counts as abuse or not, is sometimes people are just searching for permission to leave this relationship. And if I can label it as abuse, then I feel like I have permission to leave. And maybe it's abusive, maybe it's not, but I know we say this all the time on the show that it doesn't have to be abuse for you to want to leave, for it to be bad for you.
Jase: It's probably bad for them too.
Emily: It's true, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is interesting when, on the other side of it, if you are the partner where you feel like you're putting someone into a polyamory under duress situation and watching your partner, regardless of how reassuring you might be, how understanding, how gentle with the situation, regardless of all of that, they're still constantly not eating enough or feeling their body is in this constant state of turmoil, crying a lot, not feeling good about this situation in any way, having anxiety attacks. That's also to me a situation where I might feel like, hey, I want to end the relationship because I'm putting you in such a really challenging state. And I think that those are moments also where you have to reevaluate what is it that we should be doing here. And that might be more challenging to do, of course, if you have been with this person for a number of years, if you have assets with them, if you have children with them, if you share a home with them. That just makes those things that much more challenging, I think.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: I think the concept of autonomy is interesting to look at here because the story that you told about the couple who were nonmonogamous, and then they became more monogamous, and then one of the partners was like, actually, I still need to be nonmonogamous, that I would imagine from the perspective of that person, for her, she felt like, I don't have my autonomy anymore doing this monogamous thing.
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: And then the irony being that, in her saying, okay, I don't want to lose that part of myself, that then her husband felt more in that state of, well, I want to stay in this relationship, but now I don't have a choice about how that gets to go because I would have made this other choice. And so there is a little bit of a push pull there, too. And we've had some people talk about this before of, what about monogamy under duress? What about the thing where no, actually, you don't want to be monogamous, but you want to be with this person, and that feeling of codependency or fear of losing them or whatever keeps you in there. And I think it's an interesting lens to look at it from both sides of if you're in that situation where you feel like the person I'm dating, they're not happy with this arrangement, they're really struggling with this, is the right thing to do to end the relationship, or is the right thing to do to say, okay, let's not be non-monogamous, let's become monogamous again, or maybe let's find a different kind of non-monogamy. Those are options, but that won't necessarily be the right option for everyone. And that also could change over time. I'm thinking about the early days of Emily and my relationship.
Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I very much felt like it wasn't really something that I wanted to do. You brought it to my attention. You said, let's try opening up after we had been broken up for a very short period of time. And again, it was that thing where I was conceptually kind of excited about it. I could understand the benefits of it, but in practice it was a lot more challenging than I thought that it would be. And it wasn't until we closed the relationship back up, I had the opportunity to see somebody that I had been attracted to in my college days. And got the opportunity to hang out with him and sleep with him, that I was finally like, oh, I get it. I understand what's so great about this. And then the rest is history, meeting Dedeker, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, indeed.
Jase: It's an example, though, of where you were struggling with it. We tried it for a while. But then I think for me, it was also this, I think this thing makes sense. It sounds interesting to me. What if we try this and we were trying it, that it wasn't so much like, no, I know this is my identity.
Emily: Sure.
Jase: And so I was able to say, Hey, okay, let's not then. You weren't the one who even asked me for that. I offered it, just saying, Hey, okay, what if we don't do this? Because this is clearly causing a lot of stress and upset. That's not what this is supposed to be about. Let's not. And then it was a few months later when you came to me being like, Hey, actually, so that whole open thing we did, can we do that again? And that changed it versus now. Now, if I were in a relationship and someone wanted to close that, I would feel much more of a sense of, no, sorry, that's not a kind of relationship that I can do. That's not who I am. That's not who I've worked the last whatever, 12 years on being better at and having these kinds of relationships. So that wouldn't be right for me to give that up for someone else's sake. That would very much be monogamy under duress in my situation. Versus at that point where I was also thinking, yeah, I think this makes sense. I don't really know, though. I haven't really tried it besides these few months here, and it's been a little mixed, I think, like it often is at the beginning.
Emily: And I want to point out in that situation also, I eventually found my own anchor, and I found my own reason for wanting to do it, and that is when everything else went well.
Jase: Besides just sleeping with that one guy.
Emily: Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, sure, that was fun, but it was also, I had my own personal experience of it working really well for me. And I knew that once I had that, I could have it again. And my whole perspective on it changed, and I began to embrace it fully.
Dedeker: But there's also a version of that story where, yeah, you could have gone and had a fun time and could have been like, okay, now I can understand a little bit more why this makes sense to my partner. And you could still be like, and this still isn't for me, right? And I'm still unhappy with this continuing. I just want to say that because I do think some people again, in the classic situation where if they feel like they are dragging their partner into nonmonogamy, they can have this fantasy of, if I can just get my partner to have a good time, then it'll all be fine. I really just need to lay heavy on the persuasion, on the experiential persuasion.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: and really heavily encourage my partner to date and get on the apps and go have a good time. And that's going to be the solution. It could be, right? Like, it seems like in your situation, Emily, having your own felt experience of, oh yeah, this is fun, and I could see how this could work out for me in the future and be mutually beneficial to everybody. That could be the thing that changes your mind or helps you feel a little bit more secure in it, or it could also not.
Emily: Of course, absolutely. We should get into that difference between persuasion and coercion, just because I think that that is the question here. So persuasion is more of this voluntary influence through reasoning, through appeal, through discussion back and forth of let's try to look at all of the reasons why this might be something that could be beneficial to everyone involved. Whereas coercion relies on maybe threats or pressure or removal of genuine choice. Persuasion respects that autonomy, respects the possibility that somebody may say no. And coercion just undermines that and it leads to this compliance out of fear rather than genuine agreement. I went and asked some of our listeners in our Discord and then also in our Facebook group when they had moments of being in a polyamorous under duress situation, or if they knew people who did, or if their partners had been in these situations. And I found some common themes from a lot of the stories that I was reading. And so I wanted to go into some of those and talk about the fact that a lot of these people just felt like they really had no choice but to stay in the relationship, even though they felt uncomfortable engaging in nonmonogamy, or their partner did, or there was some element of it that felt really challenging. And so these are some of the common themes that I found when I read those stories. So I think threatening a partner to leave the relationship if they don't comply with allowing you to be nonmonogamous. That, to me, feels more like you're backed into a corner. This is an ultimatum. You have to do this thing or else. I mean, of course, you can say no, but that does feel a little bit more coercive, in my opinion. Maybe you're somebody who's super conflict-avoidant, and you don't want to rock the boat by saying no to your partner. That might just be personal, this is who I am, and I don't want to harm the relationship by saying no to my partner, because I tend to be a people-pleaser.
Jase: Yeah, I think that a way I've seen that show up in a more negative coercive kind of way is asking the question over and over again or making more and more different cases of why you should not say no to this, why you should go along with this to eventually the other person just giving up and being like, okay, fine, whatever. And that that's the bad version of that versus there's the version where, like you said, it's someone wants to do this and you're like, oh, I don't want to rock the boat, so I'm just not going to say anything. Well, I wouldn't say you were coerced into that, even though it still is not going to feel great. And ultimately, the result might be the same, but those are two very different ways that not wanting to rock the boat and say no can feel very different in those two situations.
Emily: Definitely. I think, of course, people can weaponize the fact that you're a people pleaser, for instance. And if you feel like, well, I'm going to say yes to this because, I don't want to harm my partner. I want to do right by them. I want them to feel good about our relationship. So I'm going to say yes to polyamory as an extension of that. I mean, again, yeah, somebody may take that and run with it and weaponize it, and that perhaps falls under the label of coercion a little bit more. Also, in some of the examples that we've talked about, maybe you've done polyamory before. Maybe you're getting in a situation with a partner where I'm in this new relationship. I'm seeing the dynamic of our relationship change, and this causes you to go into a tailspin. And then you have a really hard time emotionally regulating. If you meet a new person, you've been monogamous your whole life, but then you discover this person is non-monogamous after you've been dating them for a while. I know that, Dedeker, you and I have been in relationships with people who choose not to disclose that they are non-monogamous for a little while.
Jase: Yeah.
Dedeker: We gotta stop dating those types of people.
Emily: No, that's true. But yeah, that can definitely create some challenges, I think, for a new person, especially if they have only ever known the paradigm of being monogamous. And then all of a sudden, this new thing comes into their life. They feel like, well, I really like this person, so maybe I'm going to try to make it work. But ultimately, non-monogamy is not something that they really are excited about or that they really align with in any way.
Dedeker: Right.
Jase: That's such an interesting one too, because that, I mean, yes, I think it's much harder to get on board when you've been dating them a while and then you find this out. Then it does feel a little bit more like, oh, well, what now? I've invested time in this. And you're asking me to rethink how I do relationships for this. On the other hand, there is, I just meet someone and maybe right after the first date we meet, I find this out that they're non-monogamous. Maybe I could still decide to go with that, but then that's much less feeling coerced or polyamory under duress, I would say, because you are knowing this from the beginning and still deciding anyway. Maybe it doesn't work out. Maybe it does. I'm just thinking of examples of there was someone who I dated that she knew that I was non-monogamous going into it. We didn't date for very long. It didn't really work out, but she ended up staying non-monogamous for years, probably still to today after that.
Emily: Oh, really?
Jase: Yeah, but it was, you know, that was her first encounter with it, but for her it was that this makes sense. This fits with my values and how I want to do relationships, even if her dating me didn't last longer than a couple months or something like that.
Dedeker: Oh, interesting.
Emily: Yeah, wow. Something that somebody brought up was that they see a lot of polyamory under duress situations in mono poly relationships. And I did want to touch on that because I think that we've heard a lot of instances of it working out and being okay. But I do think that sometimes that very much might be the case where someone is like, I have no intention of dating anyone else. I want to be monogamous with you, but clearly you are non monogamous. And so I'm going to say okay to that, even though it might be painful for me at times.
Jase: I think that it so depends, right?
Emily: Yeah.
Jase: Because I could see a situation where, you know, a partner wants to do something that I don't, like in that case. And I say, yeah, fine. It's not what I would choose, but I don't mind it. I'm okay to go along with that and could lead a very happy relationship that way versus the version of that that is the Tolyamory, like Dan Savage was talking about. It's like, I'm just going to tolerate this so I don't have to break up, even though I hate this. I don't like it. You know, maybe that could be anywhere on that spectrum of extremes from miserable all the time, but I'm just dealing with it because that's how I can stay with my husband or wife or parent of my kids or whatever. Versus on the other hand, there are people and that's where the, the Mono/Poly Facebook group, you know, a lot of the people in there are that like, no, I'm actually cool with this. This is fine for me. But that really varies by person. And so I wouldn't, I wouldn't want to put that into one broad category.
Dedeker: Yeah. And also to speak from a very jaded podcaster perspective in the past, when we have done episodes where we've suggested that it is possible to have a healthy functioning mono/poly dynamic, we've had people get angry at us for even suggesting that. And then vice versa, if we've ever suggested like here, sometimes in mono/poly dynamics, there is maybe a duress component that then we kind of get yelled at by the other people, who are like, no, I'm consenting to this. This is great.
Emily: So, yeah, of course. It's very individual. When I was in my long-term relationship, I was non-monogamous for about half of it, and I was dating a woman, and I eventually was told by my partner, It's me or her. And I was pretty much given an ultimatum. I was living with him at the time. I really felt like I needed to double down on that relationship and stay in it. And I think, there were a lot of additional elements at play there, but I did end up breaking up with my other partner in order to stay in that relationship. And I don't know if I would call what I went through monogamy under duress, but I definitely was monogamous and didn't really want to be. I really enjoyed non-monogamy, and I thought it was a great relationship dynamic for me. But ultimately, I didn't do it because my partner didn't want it. And so I do think that, as we said before, monogamy under duress can happen, especially if there is an ultimatum given, or if there is a threat of breaking up given. And so in either of those scenarios, sometimes the best thing to do is just not be in that relationship anymore.
Jase: Yeah. And that's where the nuance of it comes up, right? Where if two people just have different values about something, There's one outcome where they can hopefully compassionately realize that isn't going to work. Or there's the other outcome where one or the other, or maybe they go back and forth between one or the other being really unhappy and unsatisfied.
Dedeker: Right?
Jase: Like there's that situation may happen and there isn't a magic wand cure for it, but that is a very real situation. Like you just described there. I would describe that as monogamy under duress. But likewise, if you'd been the one to convince him, no, we've got to be non-monogamous, then he would have been polyamorous under duress. There wasn't a way out of it. It's not like one or the other of those is the right one. It's like, well, and clearly it ended up not working out.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: For many reasons, of course. But, you know, that was one of them was my understanding, of course, that we don't align on that and our values and how we want to do relationships.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Emily: And I do think it's okay and acceptable to compromise in relationships. That is something that all of us are going to have to do. But Dedeker, you asked this question, and I think it's a really important one, that if this dynamic never changed, Could I live like this potentially forever? If you decide to stay with this person and this dynamic never changes, you are always either polyamorous or always monogamous, then can you be happy? Could you live like that? And if the answer is no, then maybe it's time to get out of that relationship and figure out how to enact your own boundaries and say, I am going to exit this situation. But if the answer is yes, then maybe there are tactics and ways for you to navigate through that duress. And that is what we're gonna talk about in the last part of this episode.
Jase: Before we do that, we're gonna take another quick ad break to talk about some sponsors of this show. Again, please do check them out. And if you would rather support us directly and help us keep doing this work that we're doing, making this available to everyone for free, you can go to multiamory.com/join, and there you can join our community, get ad-free episodes released a day early, join our video discussion groups, things like that. We would love to have you there.
Emily: Okay, so what do we do about this duress that we are feeling and that we are under? Because it's very challenging. And if you have found that you want to stay in the relationship, you want to figure out how to move through this and move past it, what do we do?
Dedeker: Yeah, I think step number one is just to get clear and honest about your desires and motivations. So engaging in some honest self-reflection about why you are in this relationship or want to continue this relationship in the first place. Are these choices driven by a genuine desire? Are there external pressures? I know sometimes this is complicated, it's not always very black and white. And trying to determine is it possible to find an anchor or a personal reason why you can commit to at least trying this out for a certain period of time? And along those lines, of course, it's important to collaborate together and to experiment together to figure out what can be the boundaries here, the preferences, the agreements. Is your partner willing to work together with you to try some experiments? Are you willing to take little baby steps towards each other and see how that feels and then check in and give feedback? If your partner is not at all willing to collaborate or to experiment with you, then that should be a red flag.
Emily: We definitely encourage regular check-ins, so you should recommend scheduling something like our RADAR framework to discuss feelings and successes and challenges and try to hopefully bring a spirit of collaboration.
Jase: A key piece to add to that with the check-ins is that even if one person in the relationship is the one who brought the idea of non-monogamy to it, or this originated from one person, It shouldn't be in any case that they just make all the decisions about what that looks like and how that goes. That this should be an ongoing discussion, especially if this is new to both of you.
Dedeker: Right?
Jase: It's a little different if they've been doing it a long time and maybe they've already got existing relationships. But if this is new to both of you, this is an ongoing exploration and discussion. So be sure that's how it's happening, that it is a collaboration and that you're experimenting and learning together, even if one person comes in with more motivation than the other.
Emily: We didn't talk about consent a lot throughout this episode, but I did want to highlight it here. That's an extremely important thing is giving consent. It might not always be absolutely overwhelmingly enthusiastic, but you should be saying yes to the prospect of being non-monogamous and going on dates with other people. Being in this configuration at all, any type of relationship structure that you're participating in, you should be giving genuine consent and then just continue to check in with this as well. If this duress continues though, if you feel, this structure is just incompatible for how you view the trajectory of your life, then that's a good indicator that it might be time to break up.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: And thinking about the consent piece, right, that we can change our mind on our consent. But that means the consent to what we do, not necessarily what someone else is allowed to do. And so that's where you might just need to break up in that situation, because you're the only person who can give the consent to keep being in that relationship the way that it is. Another piece is to educate yourself and do research. If you're listening to this episode, you're already working on educating yourself. Also encouraging the other people in the relationship to be reading the books or attending workshops or finding community, and I don't mean just communities of people to date, but people who are nonmonogamous just to have humans to attach this to and be able to have real conversations, because that will also give you more information about is what I'm going through and what we're doing normal and people's definitions of normal might change. That's why community is important. So you get a variety of viewpoints. But are we just doing this in a bad, weird way? And my partner's being yucky and it's okay that I feel yucky about this? Or is this normally how it is and maybe this just isn't for me? Those are two pretty different outcomes to that situation. And having a community and doing workshops and reading can help you get some clarity on that. Another one related to the consent thing is just being sure that there's equality in your decision making, that the two of you in this relationship are involved in that together and discussing things together. It's not just one person who's stating what's going to happen next and that's just what you do tough. And then of course knowing when it's worth seeking professional help. This is a situation where there are a couple big caveats or pieces of advice, and I'm curious to hear if Dedeker and Emily agree with this, but I think the two I would give here is if you're struggling with this question of am I doing this because I actually want to or just because I'm being pressured into it, don't do couples therapy for this. Have your own therapist where you can talk through this. And then I would also add if you're on the monogamous side, because that's always what you've done before and you're feeling like, I don't know if this polyamory nonmonogamy thing is right for me. I would ironically really encourage you to go out of your way to find a very poly friendly therapist because your average therapist who just doesn't know might write it off offhand.
Dedeker: Yeah.
Jase: From my experience, I would say most therapists who are non-monogamous, because they live in this monogamous world, they understand that it's not for everyone, and they might be able to give you some better clues of, one, how to think about it, but then also, two, if this really just isn't right for you and this isn't what you want, you'll get that clarity better than if you go to someone who doesn't really know it. What do you think, Emily and Dedeker, about those two recommendations?
Emily: Yeah, I think that's great advice. I think it's interesting with the couple's therapy aspect because I think a lot of people would wanna go directly to, I need to find a couple's therapist to speak about this. But I do sometimes feel as though you can speak more openly and honestly when you are alone and get some clarity that perhaps would be more challenging if you had your partner there as well.
Dedeker: Yeah, I would agree with that. Because if there is a coercive or abusive dynamic that's already present here, often a couple therapy can make that worse. And I do think at least a good place to start is with your own individual support first.
Emily: Definitely. Well, for all of you out there who may be struggling with this, and this happens a lot. This is not something that we've touched on that often, but feelings of just being really uncomfortable in a non monogamous situation can happen for a variety of reasons. But if you are in this state of polyamory under duress and that's been happening for a while, we hope that this episode offered you some clarity and can hopefully move you in the direction of either exiting the relationship or changing it fundamentally so that you can feel better about the dynamic that you're in. So we want to hear from all of you. We are going to be posting this week on our Instagram stories, and our question of the week is, how do you define polyamory under duress? I am just curious to hear how you all define it out there. And the best place to share your thoughts with other listeners is in the episode discussion channel in our Discord server, or you can post in our private Facebook group. You can get access to these groups and join our exclusive community by going to multiamory.com/join. In addition, you can share with us publicly on Instagram at @multiamory_podcast.
Emily: Multiamory is created and produced by Jase Lindgren, Dedeker Winston, and me, Emily Matlack. Our production assistants are Rachel Schenewerk and Carson Collins.