Red Flags in Polyamory: Aggressive Fairness
Polyamory may be a wonderful thing, but no relationship model is perfect. There are plenty of ways people can hurt you, either on purpose or unintentionally.
That is why you need to be aware of Polyamory Red Flags.
Red Flags are the signs that serve as a warning of upcoming dangers. They are the universal indicators given off by people or situations that tell you to keep your distance. Some of us have learned them through experience, but this way involves having to endure and then process the pain and damage caused. And so, we gather and share our collected knowledge in the hope we can prevent anyone else from going through the same thing.
And so, if you're looking to explore any form of ethical non-monogamy, please take a moment to learn some of the more common Polyamory Red Flags.
Aggressive Fairness
Aggressive Fairness occurs when one or more partners in a polyamorous relationship insist that if one partner gets something, the other(s) must receive exactly the same.
For example, if you spend one night a week with one partner, you must spend one night a week with any others. If you take one partner to dinner, your other partners must also be taken to a meal of equal value. Did you decide to buy flowers for someone? Well, you better have brought enough for the rest of the class.
Aggressive Fairness also happens to a lot of couples newly opening themselves up to polyamory. If one of them finds someone to date but the other doesn't, the first partner can feel obliged to hold back until they find someone new. There's a logic behind this argument. How can ethical non-monogamy be fair if only one person in a couple is getting anything out of it? But while worrying about things being fair seems like a no-brainer in relationships, it's very easy for this line of thinking to become toxic.
Fair ≠ Equal
As an Englishman, the concept of "Fair Play" is closely ingrained in my soul. This is why one of the greatest social faux-pas you can commit in England is cutting in line. (Except, strangely, at a bar. This is, for some reason, the only place we don't form an orderly queue.)
But "fairness" doesn't necessarily mean "equal".
No relationship is perfectly balanced all of the time. No matter how much you and your partners may live in each other's pockets, you cannot expect the good and the bad to come to you both at exactly the same moment without physically becoming the same person.
There will be times when one of you is doing great, and the other isn't. That's just part of life. But resenting your partner because they are doing better than you and seeing that as not being "fair" is when things become toxic.
Turning romance into obligation
The problem with Aggressive Fairness is two-fold.
First, it creates a dynamic where neither partner is free to explore and live their own life. Everything you want to do must be judged against whether your partner(s) has the same thing.
Second, it turns every spontaneous or romantic gesture into a calculation and an obligation. You can't do anything for a partner without working out whether you can do the same for others. And then any follow-up gesture is only being made because you have to do it, not because you wanted to.
My personal experience
I picked Aggressive Fairness as a Polyamory Red Flag to write about as it's a situation I lived through when first exploring polyamory.
When my partner and I first opened our relationship, she found it easy to get dates, while I had great difficulty. Because I wasn't getting anything out of our situation, she ended up not being able to explore connections because I didn't have the same thing.
Much later, we faced the other issue this situation can cause. When I surprised my girlfriend with flowers one day because she was ill, my partner got upset because I hadn't done the same for her in a while. This made these kinds of gestures turn into obligations in my head, and so I ended up not being romantic to either partner.
Not that I realised that at the time. It was a good couple of months before it was pointed out I had stopped being romantic. Only then did I realise that we were living a form of Aggressive Fairness in which both my relationships had suffered.
What's the solution?
So how do you avoid this Polyamory Red Flag? You need to remember three things: communication, communication, and communication.
Communicate expectations
What do you expect from each of your relationships? Each one will be different in many ways, and these differences will impact how you treat them. Understanding this and what these differences are is vital to avoid the idea of Aggressive Fairness. Most importantly, your needs from one partner should be wholly independent from your other relationships.
Communicate problems
No matter your particular relationship model, passive aggression is never the answer. If you feel a lack of balance in your relationships, you need to talk about it. Don't assume your partners will see the same thing and fix it without being told. (Of course, this should be part of your regular relationship check-ins).
Communicate with yourself
Know what you want from polyamory and your separate relationships. If you are upset you are not getting something your partners are getting, take a moment to think about why you are upset. Are you feeling a little neglected? Or is it possible your monogamous conditioning has raised its head? Are you upset about the lack of something that you don't actually care about in your new, polyamorous relationships?
Aggressive Fairness is a Polyamory Red Flag that comes up when our monogamous conditioning leaks into our polyamorous life. Growing up in a monogamous world, we are given the expectation that our romantic/sexual partner will always put us first, no matter what. But in polyamory, that simply isn't possible.
Each relationship you might be in is a separate entity. Yes, all your partners deserve you doing nice things for them, but they should not be connected. You make romantic gestures because you want to, not because you're obliged to.
Within each relationship, you need to know what is expected between the two of you. This will include taking any other relationships you both might already have into consideration. But trying to enforce an unrealistic standard of "fairness" onto them will only result in difficulties.
