By Melisa De Seguirant, LPC, LMFT ~ Nov 2024
Navigating Ethical Non-Monogamy & Polyamory During the Holidays
Holiday logistics polyamory style… LET’S GO!
‘Tis the season… pull out your polyamory calendars and get ready to navigate another holiday season!
What comes up for polyamorous people around the holidays? What is helpful in making the holiday season smoother, and more meaningful?
Check out the slideshow, then continue the post below!
Hierarchy and couples privilege rank high among the most important things to consider in order to navigate a polyamorous holiday season with intentionality.
To quickly refresh on definitions, relationship hierarchies are structures that create power dynamics whereby certain members of a relational unit wield power over others. Couples privilege refers to the advantages provided to couples by society, as well as the default recognition of a two-person romantic unit as the norm.
During a time of the year when social gatherings are at a high, polyamorous people have to choose how to divide their time and navigate various invitations and plus-one scenarios. In the case of a hierarchical relationship, couples privilege might look like the “primary” partner becoming the default plus-one, without thought or consideration about any other partners.
Couples privilege may also look like automatically planning to spend major holidays with one partner, again without consideration about the rest of the polycule. Sometimes extended family dynamics and levels of outness will further complicate this– many people are not out as non-monogamous to their families, and therefore feel cornered into inviting only one known partner to family events.
In some cases, advocacy for more inclusion is possible. Push back on that plus-one invite if you are able! There are inevitably going to be other situations, however, where it isn’t possible to include everyone or be with all of your partners simultaneously, even if due to simple schedule misalignment.
Talk about it.
Before the season gets going full-swing, have a conversation with your partners about their holiday expectations and preferences. Decide how to handle invitations and family gatherings, and make a plan to reconnect with anyone you might be losing time with due to any unavoidable exclusion.
Manage holiday-related expectations by being open & honest in your relationship check-ins leading up to the season
Thorough relationship check-ins around the holidays, whether in a monogamous or an open relationship, involve some component of managing expectations. This may be as simple as a quick brainstorming session about plans for specific holidays, or it may be as complex as pulling out all of the calendars and strategizing how to spend time with everyone in the polycule over the holiday season.
Managing expectations looks like:
- Discussing your own hopes & expectations related to each holiday
- Communicating about/ asking about any pre-existing plans
- Being straightforward about invitations, and clear if there are any limitations that will exclude people
- Discuss how partners want to be introduced to friends and family if included in holiday festivities
- Make a plan to reconnect once the season dies down
- Be mindful of your own limitations and capacity when making plans, and DON’T OVEREXTEND YOURSELF!
HOT TAKE ~
We are responsible for managing our OWN expectations just as much as we are responsible for helping to manage the expectations of our partners
Here are some things to consider:
- What do the holidays mean to you?
- What might you be expecting your partners to do for you during the holiday season?
- How are you wanting them to show up?
- Is there any specific way you’d like to celebrate with your partner, or recognize your relationship?
- What feelings are arising as you consider the possibility of not being included in all of your partners’ holiday festivities?
- Do you want to advocate for more inclusion?
- What kind of preparation or aftercare might you need from your partners this holiday season?
The more the merrier!
Polycules that are more integrated, meaning that they have fostered some level of connection & intermingling between different sets of partners & metamours (think kitchen table or garden party dynamics) have some clear advantages when it comes to scheduling time together during the holiday season. It’s easier to ensure time is spent with everyone when everyone can be included in group events. Some polycules choose to throw one big holiday gathering, both as a bonding experience and as a solution to holiday-related scheduling woes.
In addition to being logistically convenient, for many non-monogamous people, their polycule is their chosen family. Many people do not have a relationship with their biological family or family of origin, and the holidays can be a difficult time to reckon with related emotions, especially since family is so front-and-center in the marketing this time of year. Chosen family is a powerful healing-source year-round, and is often leaned upon heavily during the holiday season.
The members of more integrated polyamorous configurations may find themselves stressing less about power dynamics and scheduling logistics during the holiday season, and focusing more on the gratitude that they feel to be part of an extended community of love and support.
Shared Rituals & Traditions
Deviating from monogamous norms makes space to create new traditions.
Are your holiday rituals habitual, learned within a monogamous framework? Do they reflect and make room for the people and things that you truly value and wish to celebrate?
A successful polyamorous holiday season may look like being creative, thinking outside-of-the box and creating new traditions within your various relationships, or with the polycule as a whole.
The rituals that you create do not have to have anything to do with mainstream holidays. You can treat them as an intentional opt-out from normative traditions, a way to de-center monogamous units and reaffirm all of your relationships, or simply as a way to get together without all of the holiday expectations.
REFLECT ~ What new traditions or rituals might be fun for you, your partners & metamours over the holiday season?
#polyamory #ethicalnonmonogamy #consensualnonmonogamy #enmholidays
Melisa is a licensed psychotherapist practicing in the states of Oregon and California, and specializing in working with individuals within the queer, polyamorous/ ethically non-monogamous and neurodivergent communities.