Polyamorous

Polyamory is a general term to denote relationships involving more than one individual. There are many different interpretations of how a polyamorous relationship works (just as there is for a monogamous relationship), but one core precept that the polyamorous community follows is the explicit knowledge, understanding, and consent of all involved individuals. Cheating, lying, or disloyalty is extremely taboo in the polyamorous community as the entire concept of polyamory is based partly on the notion that you can or should trust the person you are with.

Concepts in Polyamory

One of the cornerstone ideas in a polyamorous relationship is that someone cannot reasonably expect one other person to satisfy all of their emotional, personal, sexual, or spiritual needs as a human being. Many polyamorous people feel that this expectation is a contributing factor to the spike in divorce and general dissatisfaction with marriage that is seen in modern society.

Those critical of polyamory often bring up the concern that if there are three people in a relationship, the love and affection will be spread too thin and someone will go without. The polyamorous community sees love as a boundless resource, not confined by numerical limits and as such there should never be a lack of it in any relationship, regardless of the number of participants.

Trust is also an extremely important facet of polyamory because a person has to trust their partners (and often themselves) to be willing to enter into a relationship where they may be sharing their partner with someone else.

Another core idea is the concept of taking joy from the happiness of the person you love. If they are happy when they are with you and with another person, you should be happy that they are finding fulfillment and not engage in what is called "loving selfishly"; considering your partner's love to be yours and yours alone, not to be shared with other people.

Forms of Polyamory

Polyamory can take one of several distinct forms.

• Polyfidelity, which is a relationship involving multiple partners which is closed off to new members and the people within the relationship are faithful to each other.
• Primary and Secondary relationships are most often found in polyamorous relationships involving three people where one person is the Primary participant and another is the Secondary. The different individuals usually fulfill different needs for each other and for the third person involved
• Various relationships between multiple people or sets of people, named by their configurations (A relationship of three people would be called a triad, a relationship between two different sets of couples a quad, and so on.)
• Polygamy (polygyny and polyandry), in which one person marries several spouses
• Group relationships and group marriage, in which all consider themselves associated to one another, popularized by Robert Heinlein in many of his works
• Networks of interconnecting relationships, where a particular person may have relationships of varying degrees of importance with various people.
• Mono/poly relationships, where one partner is monogamous but agrees to the other having outside relationships.
• Singular relationships are sometimes defined by the letter shape they form; one person romantically involved with two individuals who are not involved with each other would be a "V" relationship and so on.
• Open relationships are termed when one or more participants in any relationship are free to seek other partners outside the relationship while staying attached to their primary partner, long-term relationships of this type are often referred to as Primary and Secondary relationships.