Couple Privilege and Power
Libby answers a listener question about navigating sharing a home and sharing that home with other partners.
SHOW LINKS
Couple Privilege: having it doesn't necessarily make you an asshole (but it might) by Amy Gahran
5 Reasons Couple Privilege Doesn't Exist by Lola Phoenix
'why do couples stop having sex?' is the wrong question by Emily Nagoski
Transcript
So, have you ever been in the situation where you are living with one of your partners and they wanna bring one of their partners over to your shared house a lot, and you're finding that you need your space and maybe you're finding that to be a problem. So that's the question that I got from one of my listeners and it has taken me on quite a journey this week in that I had to record this podcast and then rerecord it because the editing software that I used totally messed up all my segments. So I apologize for that, but actually I managed to fix some problems that I had with the episode when I first recorded it. So if you already listen to the episode and you happen to, for whatever reason, be listening to it again you'll notice some changes. But I will say that this episode got me down a bit of a rabbit hole on couple's privilege and hierarchy metamour and power. And so it takes me a little while to answer my listener's question, but I hope you'll stay with it because I think it's a really juicy episode and a lot of really good stuff in there. So I'm really excited to be presenting this to you. So let's get started.
My listener writes, dear Libby, my partner and I are new to polyamory. We live together and we have three kids. My partner has been dating someone new and they've been getting fairly serious and I'm happy for them generally. And I like my partner's new partner. I've had a few flashes of jealousy and other difficult feelings, but we've worked on those fairly well, where I'm struggling is that my partner has begun inviting my metamour to our shared home often and often, without checking in with me, she wants an open door policy with him, such that he can come over whenever he wants, whether or not I'm up for company, I'm struggling with this one problem is that having guests makes me feel very on. And so when anyone who doesn't live with me comes over, it's just not very relaxing. When my metamour is coming over, I feel like I need to clean the house and be social with him.
Another issue is that I've now spent the last several weekends, which are usually connecting family time together with my partner and her metamour and our kids. I find that I am craving some family time with just my partner when I've raised my objections to having her partner over, just whenever my partner has pushed back stating concerns that maybe I'm being possessive of our time and exercising cup privilege to exclude her other partner. She also tells me that if I'm uncomfortable with my metamour being at our shared house all the time, then I need to deal with my feelings about that. And maybe examine whether or not I have some jealousy that I need to work on, but my feelings are that I want some say over when I'm sharing time with my partner, with someone else. And also when someone is in my home and when someone is sleeping over and all of that, I want to be flexible, but I also feel like I want some control and acknowledgment of my needs too.
Sometimes I'm just not up for company. Also, as I mentioned, I'm feeling a little crowded out sometimes, and I really just want some together time with my partner and our kids. Am I wrong for wanting this is my partner, right? And my not being okay with having my meta or over just whenever he wants to come is me being possessive and trolling. I don't think I'm feeling jealous here, but maybe I'm feeling it without realizing it. Or am I unknowingly exercising couple privilege. I'd really appreciate some help. Understanding as this is becoming a difficult conversation for me and my partner. And we really seem to be talking past each other, then hearing each other. I'm worried that if this continues, I'm going to become resentful of my metamour and I actually like him a lot. I just don't think I signed up to have him as a roommate just yet.
I hope you have some useful advice for me. I love your show and I really value your opinion. Thanks in advance for your help, by the way, my pronouns are he him? Thanks. Thank you so much listener for your question and for explaining your situation. So clearly to me, I think figuring out how to manage a shared living space with other partners is a situation that many cohabitating couples run into. There are a lot of questions within your question, and I want to break those down my response to you first. I do wanna briefly address your question about couple privilege. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about what that is and what to look out for as you proceed in dating others while remaining in an established nested partnership, because there are things to think about. Also, when I say nested, I mean, people who are living together just in case you've never heard the, that term before second, I do wanna look at some of the issues around sharing a home together and then sharing that home with other partners, because that can be complicated.
And I think it's helpful to look at it in a particular kind of way, which I'll get into later. And lastly, because this sounds like a gridlocked issue with, or you and your partner are at odds. I want to offer you some tools to talk about it in a way that's more constructive so that you aren't, as you say, talking past each other and not really feeling heard. So let's dig into all of that. Okay. So let's start by talking about couple privilege. So Amy Garrin of solo, poly.net author also of stepping off the relationship escalator defines couple privilege in a polyamorous context as the presumption that socially recognized or sanctioned pair bonds such as marriage or other forms of primary life partnership, take precedence over and are more important or valid other forms of intimate, romantic, or sexual relationships. This prioritization occurs by default and does not warrant negotiation or consent.
Now I wanted to share Amy's definition because I feel like she's sort of the pioneer of solo poly and thinking about couple privilege as a thing. But I think her definition here is sort of mixing hierarchy in with privilege. And so I wanna pull those two things apart because I think they're two different things. Privilege is something that's invisible and it's conveyed upon you by society and you don't get to choose it or get rid of it. And it manifests in social legal and financial advantages automatically. According to you, some other examples of privilege that you may have heard about are things like white privilege, street privilege, CIS privilege, et cetera. And in that context, I wanted to share that Lola Phoenix non-monogamous blogger and podcaster wrote a really great article about how they think couple privilege is potentially a misnomer. And that a lot of the privilege we perceive that is conveyed to couples is actually rooted in other systems that create privilege such as patriarchy, white supremacy, heteronormativity, mono, Tivity, et cetera.
So it's not so much about being a couple as it is about being straight or married or monogamous or having a certain socioeconomic status. And what we think of as couple privilege is not accessible to a lot of people who are in a couple, but aren't in those groups. So I'm going to link the article in the show notes because I really think that's worth a read and we're thinking about, okay, so now let's talk about hierarchy. Hierarchy can feel like privilege because society does program us to prioritize one single cohabitating, lifelong partnership, overall others. And it's not uncommon the a choosing not to be monogamous doesn't immediately cause us to challenge that script. A lot of folks who are in an established relationship opening up still have the presumption that that existing relationship will always be the one that is preserved, prioritized and invested in above all others hierarchies get a bad rap, but I think they are also somewhat inevitable because while love is infinite, time, money, energy, attention, and sleep are not.
So we are often put into a position where we have to choose our priorities and it'd be great if we could always just send our resources to the person or situation that most needs it. But it's also common to be in a situation where there are competing needs and we have to make a call according to our values. And what's most important to us. And many of us have default priorities. And I don't think that's a bad thing. Also priorities can be not about relationships at all. Your top priority might be your job or a hobby or your physical health or another family member or a cause you care about, I think what's harmful is unexamined and uncommunicated hierarchy. This is what page Turner of poly Dotlan calls sneaky Archy, which is saying you're non-hierarchical without being upfront about what your priorities are and what you're actually available for, with other people.
This can be a problem when established couples open up their relationship up to non-monogamy, then they, somewhere along the way, get the message that hierarchy is bad. And then they strive to not be hierarchical while also being in a situation where certain priorities just exist and need to be acknowledged. What's important is that whatever your priorities are and whatever your availability is that you are present to it, you communicate it directly so that the people who are connecting to you have the information they need to decide whether that relationship structure suits them. But what I really wanna bring into the conversation now is something that is connected to hierarchy and privilege, but can show up without them. And that is power. Power is something that a lot of us know exists, but aren't always present to, and don't always want to acknowledge openly. And that's because it's often unevenly distributed, not just between different relationships, but even within a relationship.
And when you have to acknowledge that you have power, then you have to acknowledge, you have the ability to impact other people and you have to be responsible. And that's why I think we need to talk about power because quite often harm is caused not by ill intent, but by a lack of awareness of power, people who have it are not conscious of what they have and the ways that they can use it and potentially it. And then there are people who get into a situation where they feel powerless, where they feel that they're a victim, and then they believe that they don't have any power. And so they can't cause harm. And that can cause them to act without accountability. And sometimes they might even feel entitled to harm people with power because they think they're punching up. And while on a politic level, like on a broad societal level, this doesn't bother me at all on a relational level, on a community level.
Even it can be really damaging. As I said, power, isn't evenly distributed, but everyone does have power. So this idea that we're all autonomous people and we don't owe anyone, anything really doesn't hold up. When you look at that, we all have the power to impact each other with our behavior and in multiple intimate, close relationships, your behavior impacts multiple people pretty deeply. So an established nested co-parenting couple has a lot of power within alar, larger relational ecosystem, and can exercise power over other relationships with people connected to that couple, there is that assumption of priority, which is that hierarchy, which can make non nested partners fearful of being dumped if they're too difficult, or if they have too many needs or if they create any difficulty in the nested relationship. So I mean, a way to balance that is to make extra space for non-nested partners to assert their boundaries and voice their needs because you, you can't just move along, assuming everybody's on an equal level, another big source of power and a nested relat, which also connects to privilege is legitimacy.
If you're nested, especially if you're also married and co-parenting society sees that relationship as legitimate and other relationships as less so or not at all that relationship is more acknowledged in a community and by family members and even friends. And with that legitimate Missy comes access to things like family holidays, being invited to weddings other special occasions that a non-nested non-married partner might be excluded from. So a way to balance that might be to give opportunities for your other relationships to be acknowledged within your communities, families, mutual friends, et cetera, find a way for them to be included on important holidays. If that feels important for legitimacy and do things like post pictures of the two of you on social media, if you're able to do that now, I realize that that might not be available to everybody because of outness. But the outness thing is another part of legitimacy, right?
You can be out out your established relationship, but you can't be out about your other relationships, which makes them feel hidden, erased small. Some other points of power in nested couples are things like potentially shared finances, shared responsibilities that are check on your available time. And to my listeners question a shared home, which I'll get to in a second, but it what's really important to understand here is that all of these shared things can create a certain amount of control on what another person can do in another relationship that's separate. And so it's really important to be conscious of those things. I do think that it's a also important, if you are a non nested partner to be conscious of the power and influence you have as well, but I don't wanna go too deeply into that right now, because I do think the balance of power is, is definitely quite a bit on the nested couple.
I think it's also important though, to acknowledge individual power because the, that shows up within a relationship, maybe one person in the relationship makes more or even most of the money, maybe one person just has more social connections. Maybe one person has fewer mental or physical health challenges. There are so many ways that power imbalances can exist within relationships between individuals and also every person in a relational ecosystem has the power of influence. And when there are multiple people, all trying to influence a situation and needs are in conflict, all of these powers need to be made a conscious and be accounted for which takes me back to my listener question listener. You sound frustrated with the power that your partner has to invite people into your home. And your metamour also has the power with his presence to impact your time with your partner and your space.
It's also your home though. So that should afford you some power over whether or not your partner and her partner get to use that resource for time together. I suspect that power that you have is something your partner and possibly your metamour are potentially upset about you exercising, but giving it up mean being stuck in a situation that isn't working for you since it is your house, it's reasonable for you to not always wanna have the doors open to visitors without any consultation. It's your house. You did not choose to date this new person that was your partner's choice. And it's valid that you wanna be able to opt into the parts of their relationship that work for you and opt out of the parts of their relationship. That don't and feeling forced to coerced into time with someone that you didn't sign onto a relationship with is in my view, a boundary violation.
I can see why jealousy might be a factor in this situation, but if you say you're not feeling it, I believe you. I mean, if jealousy is coming up, I can imagine that you might feel that your partner is prioritizing time with her partner in your shared home, over your right to set boundaries in your space. And you also might feel stuck choosing between spending time with someone you, you like fine, but may not be always up for being around and being labeled controlling, or an, and flexible or otherwise being blamed for why your partner can't have the time she wants with her other partner. I guess the other option there would maybe be leaving your home when they're together, but that also feels unfair because it's your private space. Another reason you could potentially be feeling jealous is because it might feel like your partner is not per prioritizing spending one on one time with you or family time together.
That doesn't include your metamour. But since you don't think you're feeling jealous and because this is a boundary issue, I imagine one feeling that you're probably having is resentment. Resentment is pretty toxic to a relationship it's like a Hermite infestation. It can eat away at the substructure of your relationship, destroying it from the inside out until it crumbles under the pressure. Resentment can also leak into other interactions that you're having through passive-aggressiveness, rigidity and score, keeping behaviors. So if that's sort of, some of the things you're feeling, it really makes sense. And resentment is usually a signal that your boundaries are either being violated or you're not holding your boundaries or asserting them. But, so, I mean, is it your job to just not feel resentment when your boundaries are getting violated? Because I don't think that makes sense. The way to stay out of resentment is to protect your boundaries.
So, you know, are you allowed to assert boundaries around when and how often and how long your metamour is in your home? Yeah, I think you are, you can go so far, honestly, as to take the position that you never wanna metamour in your home and that you never wanna share space with him. I think that's fine. Tons of people have that boundary. I do wanna say that there are costs to that boundary that you may not like, or that might create difficulties for your partner, but nobody should be obligated to spend time around people. They don't wanna be around. I do wanna make sure that you understand that this is complicated. And so I'm gonna use hopefully a helpful analogy when it comes to meta Mars, which is that think of them like in-laws, you know, these are people who are in your, as I said before your ecosystem.
So some people really, really love their in-laws and enjoy sharing lots of time with them. And they're truly welcome in their home. Every time they wanna come over and their in-laws have a key to the, their house, et cetera. And some folks want a little more distance from their in-laws and would absolutely not want them to come over anytime they want. And some folks have a difficult relationship with their in-laws and they choose to spend as little time with them as possible. And you know, when in-laws get a long swimmingly with everybody, that's really wonderful. It makes family time really smooth. It makes it easy to integrate and spend special occasions together. And when there's difficulty, then it can be, there's a cost. There's a cost to, you know, having to figure out how to share special occasions and family time and how to, you know, some people's needs not to be around people.
They don't like and also a need to have that cohesion and that connection and those important moments together. My mom lives in our home and that's only possible because my husband and her get along, but it's a huge advantage to our lives that she lives here with us. And it's a huge advantage to her that she lives with us, but you know, it wouldn't work if she didn't get along with, with my husband. So that's just important to understand, but that being said, I don't think you should feel obligated to make something work if it doesn't, I don't think you should be obligated to get along with people you don't get along with, or in this case, it sounds like you and your metamour are getting along fine, but you just would like a little space that you didn't sign on to have this person as your roommate, but because it's also valid for your partner to wanna be around them a lot.
I wanna talk about the other side of this issue, which is your partner wants and needs because while you have every right to set a boundaries around who you want to spend time with in your own home, it's also reasonable for your partner to wanna spend time with her partner, and also wanna share that time with you. Some reasons I, I can think of for why your partner might want this include that, you know, she might just be really wild about this new partner and wanna spend as much time with him as possible. She might have limited time and energy due to her other commitments like her job or your kids, or what have you. And so she's trying to be efficient by bringing her loves together in the same place at this same time. She also might want to strengthen the relationship between the two of you, because she believes that will facilitate a more interconnected relationship, which as I said before, has some benefits.
She may have a desire to include her other partner in her domestic and family life and give him the opportunity to be connected to her kids. And also while it is, is your house, it's her house too. It's a place that she has invested money and resources into having a safe and private and comfortable place to be intimate and host people she cares about. So it's reasonable for her to wanna use that resource in ways that benefit her. And I mean, heck she might even want to live with this guy. You know, she wanna have the, the poly dream of a big, you know, poly household where everybody's living together in, in harmony. I mean, it's not wrong for her to want that. It might not be possible, but it's not wrong to want that. So, so what do you do? You know, this is a hard thing, right? I've told you my dear listener that your position is valid, that you're boundaries are being violated. If you're being coerced into allowing people, you don't want to spend time within your home in your home, but I've also laid out some reasons why your partner's position is also valid.
So here's the bitter pill. There's really no useful place for right and wrong in this situation. You're both right to want what you want. Your positions are both completely valid and there's no way to determine whose needs should outweigh the others. Now I think some people are gonna disagree with me on this and say that boundaries will always take priority over desires and that maybe your partners being a little unreasonable wanting person to come over every weekend. Like, couldn't it just be some weekends. But I, and I generally agree with that. But at the end of the day, if you put your foot down based on what is right or what you're entitled to, I think you've already lost because you're not collaborating and you're not being relational. But I think that is in response to the fact that right now, your partner's not being relational either in trying to make her case for why you should be open to having her partner over whenever he wants to come over, whether you're up for it or not.
She is right now litigating her own case for why you should just accept what she wants and that if you don't like it, you're the problem. And this is likely making you feel both blamed and railroaded into a situation that isn't okay for you. That behavior is going to make you feel disregarded and resentful, trying to prove your right to get your way is always a losing strategy. You both have a case for your positions on this issue and your needs both matter. The problem with getting into who is right and who is wrong and digging in your heels is that it leads you to state that your position matters more to you than, and your partner and your relationship, which is why I say right and wrong. Just have no place in intimate relationships. You can be right, or you can be together. And for me, I'm always gonna choose together.
That doesn't mean either of you just should give up your position or your needs to the other one. It instead means you both have to make space for each other's positions. And with those positions fully heard, understood, and acknowledged you then negotiate a solution that works for both of you and holds that everyone's needs are important and valid. You may not get everything you want and your partner may not get everything she wants, but before either of you get anything, you have to take on the issue together and make a lot of space for each other so that no one is feeling pressured or coerced or cornered. And I, I don't think it's couple privileged that the two of you get to negotiate this without your partners metamour involved, he doesn't own your house. So he doesn't get to have a voice on whether or not he's invited there the same way.
You wouldn't get a voice in whether you are invited to his home or not. However, he is also a person and your choices impact him. So I'd encourage you to consider his feelings and needs and factor them into this discussion. Ultimately, you do have power over his real relationship with your partner here because of the power you have over your shared living space. So it's really important to be thinking of that listener. I, I have a lot of compassion for you because this is hard stuff. And I realize that it's really so appealing to figure out who's right and who's wrong. And what the correct policy must be so that you Don have to do the messy work of negotiating based on mutual respect for each other's wants and needs. But if you want to build an intimate, connected, secure relationship, this is the work some tools that can help you, that I've already spoken about on this podcast that are worth going back to include practicing active listening so that you can clearly understand and be understood by your partner using the feedback wheel, which is the episode called eight sentences for better understanding and working your emotional boundaries.
It will also help to practice making requests instead of demands and asking for what you need and want instead of making complaints or blaming. One thing you said is that you feel like you're losing time with just you and your partner, the two of you, as well as time together, just as a family. And I think it's important that you ask for that separately from focusing on your personal space needs because they aren't necessarily linked. And I, I think a lot of people get into the trap of believing that time with the metamour means that that's inherently taking time away from your time with your partner. And I mean, yes, time is finite, but I think it's a much better practice to ask for the time that you want, rather than get focused on the time that your partner spending with someone else and not spending with you.
I hope that makes sense. And the other thing to do, and as you're negotiating, all of this is to remember to practice gentleness. If things get heated, take a break and come back and open your hearts to each other. I'm also going to link in the show. No, it's an article I like on how to shift from a right versus wrong conversation to a collaborative conversation. The best thing you can do for your relationship is to approach this conflict, like a problem for the both of you that belongs to both of you and work together to find a solution with compassion and care for each of your needs and wants. I honestly can't give you any concrete advice about what a workable solution will be like. Like I can't come up with some ideas because I think it's a pretty gridlocked issue right now.
And there needs to be some movement. I think though, if you both really make space for each other's wants and needs and take those on as important to you, each of you, because they're important to your partner, you'll find a way through, but that only works. If you're both doing that, if you find yourself making a lot of space for what your partner wants, but she isn't acknowledging your needs, you will have to resort to standing up for yourself and just asserting your boundaries and holding your boundaries. My might feel mean, but again, if it's between boundaries and resentment, I'm always gonna root for boundaries because resentment is toxic. And so my best advice there is to hold your boundaries with loving firmness, because that can then empower your partner to potentially soften and come back to the table, listen to you with an open heart.
So to recap, couple privilege and hierarchy really worth looking out for, but the more nuanced thing to be aware of is the kinds of power that you hold and how you use that power. But the even more important issue in my mind is to avoid getting into a right versus wrong mindset when trying to tackle problems because that just doesn't do a very good job of making people feel cared for or loved. And we need to always, always remember love and love. Doesn't mean bending on your own boundaries to please your partner or allow your partner to railroad you. Part of love is standing up for yourself so you can keep out of resentment and love also means holding space for your partner, listening and acknowledging their wants and needs and working on problems together as a team.
