Note: This column by Maria originally published on Feb. 23, 2013, but the “secondary/second class” question in polyamory is not going away anytime soon. And if you’re not poly, it’s a good reminder to step back and see if you’re taking anyone in your life for granted and acting out of habit. — Amanda
By Maria Padhila
About a year back I wrote about a friend who had broken up with her boyfriend and had someone wonder if she was going to make her ‘secondary’ boyfriend into her ‘primary’. At the time, we laughed at how it sounded like bringing a pitcher up from the minor leagues.
Well, the boys are back in spring training, and it’s looking like the concept of ‘secondary’ itself has been cut from the team — and a good thing, too.
The Solopoly blog (“Life, relationships, and dating as a free agent”) — a really well-designed and very clearly written blog — is the perspective from a solo polyamorist woman who may or may not develop any number of different kinds of relationships at any time. But they won’t be ‘secondary’ ones. She recently created a post that went viral: Tips for Treating Non-Primary Partners Well.
Intended as a ‘living document’, it has already gotten updates and feedback from people all over. It has plenty of ideas as well as ways to become aware of your own bad habits as a ‘primary’. And it doesn’t use the s-word at all. (See? Everything about it says ‘number 2’. That’s not how you treat someone you love.) Does changing the term to ‘non-primary’ really make a difference? To me, it does.
Solopoly’s author, Aggie, defines ‘primary partner’ as a partner whom you live with, share finances with, and raise (or intend to raise) children with. As with every definition, someone’s gonna hate it, but there’s enough to it to make it a practical working one.