Don’t Let Polyamory Make You Toxic

How different views on a pregnancy in my polycule showed me that my reactions are my choice

Artist Credit: Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

We’re expecting our second baby any time now. We’re also homebirthers. Our daughter was born at home last year with me, my father, the midwife and the dogs and cat around for the labor and birth.

This pregnancy has been different as pregnancies usually are. The earlier stages were easier, later on has been a bit rougher on my Love. She’s had some minor complications that sort of mirror and can stimulate early labor. The baby would have been slightly preterm at that point, and a hospital birth would likely be more advisable.

That’s not something we would want. It’s something we would do if it seemed much safer than home, but we want to have a safe, low risk birth at home. That’s our plan. So we were anxious at that point.

I have a metamour, I’ll call him Boyfriend. Boyfriend became a partner to my Love during this pregnancy. They’re incredibly close and he’s an asset to our polycule in so many ways. We’re alike in a core way, but it manifests so differently. What I can say is that we both cherish my Love (I guess our Love) and the daughter I share with her. He’s great with our daughter.

Boyfriend doesn’t have kids. Pregnancy is new to him. As well as that, the pregnancies he’s been around have been pregnant people who default to a medicalized model of birth and just do what their doctors tell them they should do. We are homebirthers, that’s not our style.

Recently with the possibility of preterm birth, and the growing attachment he has to my Love, our plans started to worry him. His love for our hinge partner and our babies, plus his naturally protective streak, means that it all felt really uncomfortable for him. He was scared. And I suppose we seem so laid back about it all that it doesn’t alleviate concerns very well. He started to become persistent about my Love going to hospital to get checked out (which we did) and maybe she should stay there to ensure her and baby are okay.

My Love hates hospitals to an almost phobic degree. She will use them, especially when pregnant. She’s had an appendectomy in this pregnancy. Her staying in just to be monitored would induce so much stress for her. And the chance of people wanting to intervene and do stuff to her or the baby would rise substantially. So his persistence started to annoy her somewhat.

It made me mad. I try to do everything to keep her in a peaceful disposition. I researched away any concerns I had about our pregnancy plans rather than foist my anxiety onto her while she’s making decisions about her body. So for him to be pressuring her to change her mind… I wasn’t impressed. I wanted to say something.

I’ve had to remind myself that I absolutely want her to have partners who worry about her the way that I do.

I didn’t though. She dealt with it. First, she laid down a firm boundary that she wasn’t about to change her mind on how she’s going to give birth, or what conditions she will access hospital care. Then she went through a ton of the research we had done on homebirth and pregnancy in general. So he could understand we really weren’t making decisions from a place of ignorance. Quite the opposite. And also, he came to embrace the fact that these decisions around pregnancy and birth are led by her.

If I had intervened, the chances of being where we are now with this, where he’s genuinely more relaxed about our plans, isn’t as worried about her and the baby, and knows that it’s a choice she’d be making regardless of her co-parent, are slim. I’ve had to remind myself that I absolutely want her to have partners who worry about her the way that I do. That means they’ll check me out as a potential source of trouble as I check them out.

They love each other as we love each other, so they worked it out. I can trust in their love. I can trust in his love for her.

This was the first time I really felt any sort of hostility towards Boyfriend. We’ve discussed this since, and Boyfriend really doesn’t care if I feel hostile towards him because like me, he finds it more important that My Love is happy and safe.

My hostility wasn’t toxic though. It wasn’t that sort of violent anger that prompts you to say the nastiest things you can about the subject. It was my anxiety that he would stress out my Love and she’d feel unsupported by him. I know his support is very important to her. She now needs it. I’d not want her to lose that for her sake. I cannot replace what he gives her.

If I had always considered him a looming threat to our longevity or contentment as a couple, then I suppose it would be easier to cast him as obstructive and domineering.

It’s easy not to slip down that tainted road of hate towards him, because I don’t feel threatened by him. It’s certainly been a period of adjustment because some aspects of their relationship, I never imagined would be right for her, but now I see why they are in fact, ideal.

If I had always considered him a looming threat to our longevity or contentment as a couple, then I suppose it would be easier to cast him as obstructive and domineering. Try and convince her that he’s a bad guy and doesn’t want the best for her. It would be easy for polyamory to make me toxic.

Don’t let polyamory do that to you. You don’t want to be that person caught calling your metamours/potential metamours mean names or shaming their desires and choices. When it feels easy to do that, it’s likely because you’re in a situation where you aren’t feeling cherished.

That’s when anyone who seems to exacerbate your discontentment in the relationship becomes an easy source of your frustration. It’s never pretty. Most importantly, it will never strengthen your relationship.

On some level, Boyfriend’s persistence did make me want to ensure that my Love knew she could do as much “hospital” as she wanted, even though we are vocal about homebirths. Who cares if she does a 180°? Some people who love us would be pleased to hear such news.

My Love reiterated that she would go against me to make these choices but thankfully, that’s never been necessary. So this whole event of Boyfriend being concerned about our choices did strengthen our relationship. It meant I can be more sure that she feels in control of her choices through this time.

Having situations where you disagree doesn’t mean that your relationships are racked with toxicity. Even break ups doesn’t mean the situation was toxic. It’s often the total opposite. Breaking up reduces or prevents toxicity.

Toxicity is when that feeling of frustration or competition prompts you to act violently towards others. Rejoicing in their pain and misery, and hating their happiness. You know when you feel that. Nobody needs to tell you.

Polyamory isn’t worth becoming that sort of person. Don't let it do that to you.