Once upon a unicorn

In the world of poly, many people have two or more partners, and if they are socially active, they may end up interacting among themselves. Depending on how social and outgoing you and your partners are, they might be anywhere from complete strangers to full-time intense lovers. That sounds fun, right? Well…not always!

If you have a romantic relationship with two people, and then they start a relationship with each other, that essentially creates not one but TWO unicorns at the same time. A unicorn, if you’re not familiar with the term, is a 3^rd partner in a love triangle. For the most part, a unicorn is a person that joins an existing couple to form the new relationship (which is often referred-to as “Triad” or “Thrupple”). There are many variations of this, and there isn’t a universally-accepted definition of what a unicorn is or is not, but a very common notion is that unicorns are called that because like the legendary animal, romantic unicorns are a mythical creature that doesn’t really exist. The latter is usually said somewhat in jest, as obviously there are plenty of people who do meet some definition of a romantic unicorn, but the reason for this is that romantic Unicorn are exceedingly rare, and that type of relationship often doesn’t last more than a few weeks.

If you have two partners that develop a romantic relationship, that generally doesn’t meet the popular definition of a Unicorn, but the way I see it, it’s very similar. The main reason for many of the issues affecting any “group” of lovers is pillow-talk…our tendency to share deep secrets with our lovers. In other words, many people would share thoughts, issues and grievances they have with one partner, with another one, and this is a very explosive situation. At best, it would be difficult for the partner to keep what they hear to themselves. At worst, it could actually shift their point-of-view of their partner. Some people even explicitly play one of their partners against the other, either consciously or not.

Ultimately, all relationships are a fragile thing, and the vast majority of them don’t last very long. Most people know the statistics about how half of marriages end in divorce (this isn’t accurate, but the number is quite high indeed), but the percentage is much higher for non-legally-binding relationships. Even for people who are married, the relationship often has various issues and frustrations going on, sometimes deep under the surface, and sometimes right-in-your-face. When you add another person into that relationship, you are actually creating multiple relationships. Partner A and B, partner A and C, and partner B and C all have their distinct relationships. If one or more of the partners have kids, that is yet another whole set of relationships, and any of them going sour can jeopardize the entire family or poly-family. This means that any additions to an existing relationship is risky, and the less stable the relationship is, the more it risks blowing up badly, with a lot of collateral damage. An analogy I like to use is this: If you see a person standing on top of 2 skateboards….do you hand them another skateboard?

If this sounds like I’m discouraging triads….well, yes, that’s true. Not that I think these are all bad…on the contrary! A functional triad is an amazing experience. However, any relationship needs some level of maturity to be stable, and a triad needs exceptional maturity. If even one of the partners is immature, narcissistic or otherwise bad relationship material, the whole thing would implode, and usually quite quickly.

In the case of two partners of one person forming a relationship between themselves, that, in a way, makes partner A a unicorn to partners B and C, and partner B a unicorn to partners A and C. With Unicorns and relationships being difficult to begin-with, having two of them at the same time is exceptionally fragile and the chances of long-term stability are low. In my own opinion…they are close to zero.

Is there a way out? Not always, I’m afraid. While this CAN work in some situations, my general approach is to not encourage my own partners to get too close. I like them to be friends, but I prefer they remain no-more than simple “buddies”. It’s very important to me to NOT control or steer people (esp. people I care about), so I don’t actively discourage it or do anything to prevent it, but I don’t encourage it either, and I share the above thoughts with any new partner, so that they can be careful. If you yourself are part of a successful, stable and long-term triad (or more), I would love to hear of it, as I’m sure you have some lessons to share and help others build better relations. Please comment!