We’ve watched it occur extra occasions than we are able to rely. A polyamorous relationship — one among ours or another person’s — hits a tough patch or ends, and immediately the individuals who as soon as appeared so open-minded have quite a bit to say.
Individuals are fast to dissect the association itself. After all there was jealousy. After all there was drama — what did you count on? Or so the assumptions go. The breakup is handled not as a relationship between imperfect people that ran its course, however as a verdict on polyamory itself.
It’s time to confess that polyamory’s largest impediment has by no means been jealousy, logistics or dedication, as standard tradition may need one consider. It’s as an alternative the societal presumption that nonmonogamy is inherently suspect.
We name this “the poly presumption”: the assumption that the nonmonogamous construction is in charge in any breakup or battle and the burden is on the folks within the relationships to show in any other case. As queer polyamorous folks, we’ve spent years tracing the roots of this presumption, and what we’ve found is that it operates at a methods degree.
Polyamory has extra visibility immediately, extra authorized recognition and extra cultural legitimacy than at any level in fashionable Western life. Extra persons are open about working towards it. Widespread tv exhibits and podcasts are slowly transferring on from treating polyamory as a punchline. Some even embrace it. Cities are extending authorized protections to multi-partner relationships. And, more and more, folks will let you know they don’t care what relationship construction or fashion you select.
But beneath this well-meaning want to be accepting, a double customary persists.
This double customary exists as a result of Western society has created, enforced and normalized monogamy as the one acceptable relationship construction — a lot as marriage between two straight folks as soon as was. Monogamy is handled because the default setting for intimacy, and the desire for monogamy lives in every thing from medical insurance insurance policies and tax legislation to house leases and invites that merely supply a plus-one. Social {and professional} life is all quietly organized across the perception that reliable intimacy comes solely in pairs.
When one thing is as deeply ingrained in society as monogamy, the failures that individuals expertise when trying it are interpreted as particular person failures, not structural ones. Polyamory, and nonmonogamy extra broadly, doesn’t obtain that grace. When a polyamorous dynamic experiences battle, the burden is all the time on the polyamorous folks to show that the total nonmonogamous construction isn’t in charge.
Take jealousy. In monogamy, it’s handled as a traditional human emotion. However in polyamorous relationships, jealousy is instantly learn as proof that nonmonogamy isn’t viable. The identical logic applies to the notion that polyamorous relationships are inherently unstable.
Popular culture usually portrays polyamory as chaotic, messy and too emotionally demanding to final. The 2025 movie “Splitsville,” for instance, treats instability as nonmonogamy’s pure state: A monogamous couple on the verge of divorce turns to nonmonogamy as a final resort, and, predictably, every thing falls aside. These portrayals have actual penalties. When a polyamorous relationship ends, that stereotype is confirmed. When a monogamous one does, it’s only a breakup.
The irony is seen in how usually analysis cuts in opposition to the poly presumption. A 2025 meta-analysis revealed within the Journal of Intercourse Analysis, the biggest evaluation of its form, thought of knowledge from 35 research that included practically 25,000 folks and located no vital variations in relationship satisfaction or sexual satisfaction between purportedly monogamous folks and people who think about themselves nonmonogamous. Moreover, a 2024 scoping overview revealed within the Journal of Household Principle & Assessment discovered that individuals in polyamorous relationships report much less jealousy than these in monogamous couplings.
Analysis additionally suggests that infidelity impacts one in 4 married {couples} in the US. So, the idea that monogamy is solely the extra secure, extra fulfilling method to pursue intimate relationships seems to be a fantasy.
This fantasy kinds the narrative basis of contemporary laws and continues to information polyphobic and homophobic legislative choices, resembling Indiana’s and Tennessee’s latest declarations that now mark June as Nuclear Household Month. It additionally fuels inequities, with folks in polyamorous relationships extra doubtless than these in monogamous ones to earn below $40,000 a 12 months.
None of this means that polyamory is past criticism. Like monogamous relationships, polyamorous relationships might be unhealthy, manipulative and even emotionally harmful. The aim is to make sure that persons are not judged, marginalized or denied their rights just because they select a distinct path.
That begins with recognizing the poly presumption within the tales we inform, the jokes we snort at and the media narratives that painting polyamorous folks as dysfunctional, egocentric or doomed. It means questioning our personal biases about nonmonogamy and about what finally makes a relationship reliable.
Till we problem the poly presumption, the cultural jury will proceed to mistake distinction for dysfunction — and return a responsible verdict earlier than something goes fallacious.
Christina Fialho is an lawyer and the founder/president of Rewrite the BiLine. Megan Burke is a thinker and the creator of three books, together with “Changing into a Lady: Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Trans Existence.”
