Polyamory and Autonomy: Nobody Gets to Make Your Choices for You

Autonomy Doesn't Mean Nobody Gets a Say

One of the foundational ideas behind polyamory is that our partners don't own us.

That matters.

It matters especially because so many traditional relationship expectations are treated as automatic. Marriage supposedly gives one person certain rights over another. Romantic relationships automatically outrank friendships. Sexual exclusivity is presumed unless explicitly negotiated away.

Polyamory asks us to question those assumptions.

Relationship anarchy takes that questioning even further. Andie Nordgren's Relationship Anarchy Manifesto argues that relationships should be built between autonomous individuals rather than from entitlement and inherited social scripts. But there's another part of the manifesto that sometimes gets lost when autonomy gets pulled out on its own: Nordgren explicitly says relationship anarchy isn't about refusing commitment. It's about designing our commitments ourselves and being explicit about what we've chosen to promise one another.

Kale Gossen makes a similar argument in writing about commitment within relationship anarchy. Commitments can be voluntary, evolving, renegotiable, and something anyone can ultimately opt out of.

But they're still commitments.

That's important.

Because autonomy means I get to decide what commitments I make.

It also means I am the person who made them.

"My Wife Won't Let Me"

This is one of my personal pet peeves in polyamory.

"My wife won't let me have overnights."

"My husband won't let me date someone he knows."

"My partner says I'm not allowed to do that."

Sometimes those statements describe genuinely controlling situations. I'm not talking about those.

I'm talking about situations where two people negotiated an agreement, one person voluntarily accepted it, and then that person describes the agreement to someone else as something their partner is imposing upon them.

If I agree with my partner that I won't have overnights with other people, then the honest thing to tell someone I'm dating is:

"I don't do overnights because I've agreed not to."

Not:

"I'd love to, but my wife won't let me."

The practical outcome is exactly the same.

The ownership is completely different.

In the first version, I've told you something important about what I can offer you. You now have information you can use to decide whether the relationship I'm offering works for you.

In the second version, I've made myself powerless and turned my wife into the obstacle standing between you and what you want.

And I've potentially created conflict between two people who might otherwise have absolutely no reason to resent each other.

That's not autonomy.

That's offloading responsibility for an autonomous decision onto somebody else.

Being Autonomous Doesn't Mean Being an Island

There's a strain of hyper-individualism that sometimes creeps into polyamorous discourse.

You'll hear some variation of:

"My relationship with this person is between the two of us. My other partners don't get a say."

There's truth in that.

But there's also a point where it stops reflecting how human relationships actually work.

People have overlapping lives.

We date each other's partners. We become friends with metamours. We share homes. We share social circles. We raise children. We attend the same events. We build chosen families. Sometimes three people in a polycule are dating three other people in the same polycule and everybody is two degrees away from everybody else.

Things get complicated quickly.

Your relationships might be individual relationships, but they don't necessarily exist in hermetically sealed containers.

Your choices can have network effects.

I learned that lesson fairly early in my own polyamorous life.

Years ago, I had a partner whose relationships with two of my metamours imploded in quick succession. Their response to those breakups became increasingly unhealthy, including self-harming behavior in front of me. I cared about this person and was genuinely concerned for them, so I asked them to get some professional help before pursuing additional relationships.

Then they decided they wanted to pursue another one of my metamours.

By that point, the fallout from the previous relationships was already affecting several of my other relationships and my broader social network. I told my partner that I couldn't continue participating in our relationship if they brought another person from my immediate relationship network into what was already happening without first getting some help.

They told people I was controlling.

They pursued the relationship anyway.

So I broke up with them.

More than ten years later, I still think that was the correct decision.

And here's the thing:

They were autonomous the entire time.

They didn't have to agree with my assessment.

They didn't have to go to therapy.

They didn't have to stop pursuing this person.

They got to choose.

And so did I.

Your Autonomy Doesn't Cancel Mine

This is where conversations about boundaries sometimes become bizarre.

If I say:

"You cannot date that person."

I'm attempting to make your decision.

But if I say:

"If you choose to do this, I cannot continue participating in this relationship,"

I'm telling you something about my decision.

That doesn't necessarily make every boundary reasonable. It doesn't make every consequence fair. It certainly doesn't mean people can't use threatened consequences manipulatively.

But another person's autonomy does not require me to continue providing them with the relationship they want regardless of what they choose to do.

You can make a choice I hate.

I can decide that choice makes us incompatible.

You can end an agreement.

I can decide the relationship no longer works for me without it.

You can pursue someone.

I can decide I don't want to be your partner while you do.

Autonomy works in every direction.

Sometimes nobody did anything wrong. Two autonomous people can simply make choices that mean they no longer fit together.

And sometimes someone absolutely did something shitty.

Autonomy doesn't erase that distinction either.

"But I'm Allowed To" Is a Terrible Ethical Standard

Imagine your partner wants to date someone who has treated you horribly.

Not someone you vaguely dislike.

Not someone you're jealous of.

Someone who has genuinely harmed you.

You explain what happened. Your partner understands.

And they want to pursue that person anyway.

Eventually you say:

"If you choose to date this person, I don't think I can remain in this relationship."

We could spend the next three hours debating whether that's a boundary, a veto, an ultimatum, couple privilege, hierarchy, or an infringement on somebody's autonomy.

Meanwhile, I have a much more basic question:

Why did it have to get that far?

If you understand that someone treated a person you supposedly love horribly and your response is still, Yeah, but I really want to fuck them, what exactly are we defending when we defend your autonomy?

Of course you're allowed to.

Having the right to do something is an incredibly low ethical bar.

People are autonomous enough to make selfish decisions.

We're autonomous enough to make shortsighted decisions.

We're autonomous enough to blow up relationships.

We're autonomous enough to chase new relationship energy while neglecting relationships we've spent years building.

We're even autonomous enough to knowingly choose someone who has harmed someone we love.

But other people are allowed to learn something about us from those choices.

Sometimes the question isn't whether your partner has the right to stop you.

It's:

If nobody stopped you, what would you choose?

When the "Ultimatum" Is Already Too Late

I have complicated feelings about ultimatums.

Mostly, I think that by the time you're issuing one, your relationship is probably already in serious trouble.

An ultimatum is often a boundary being restated after something has deteriorated far enough that the earlier communication window has already been missed.

"If this happens again, I'm leaving."

Okay.

But how did we get here?

Were concerns communicated earlier?

Was someone listening?

Were promises repeatedly made and broken?

Did one person assume the other would eventually tolerate something they'd already said was unacceptable?

Did someone become so focused on what they were entitled to choose that they stopped caring what their choices were doing to the person beside them?

The ultimatum isn't necessarily what endangered the relationship.

Sometimes it's simply the moment when everyone is finally forced to acknowledge how endangered the relationship already is.

If your partner has to threaten to leave before their pain matters enough to influence your behavior, something has already gone terribly wrong.

New Relationship Energy Doesn't Suspend Your Values

This problem isn't unique to polyamory.

Monogamous people blow up marriages over exciting new people every day.

But polyamory introduces an interesting wrinkle because we theoretically don't have to choose.

Why abandon one relationship simply because you're attracted to somebody else when having multiple relationships is already permitted?

And yet people still blow up established relationships over new ones.

Sometimes spectacularly.

The new person is exciting. They're novel. They haven't accumulated years of disagreements, responsibilities, boring Tuesday nights, household logistics, hurt feelings, or complicated history.

The established partner has.

That doesn't make the new relationship more valuable.

It makes it newer.

And there's something especially troubling about watching someone invoke autonomy to defend choices driven by new relationship energy while treating the concerns of an established partner as attempts at control.

Sometimes respecting an existing relationship means allowing it to influence what you choose.

Not because your partner owns you.

Not because longevity gives them unlimited authority over your life.

Not because an existing partner automatically gets veto power over anyone new.

Because you care about them.

Love affecting your decisions isn't inherently evidence that your autonomy has been compromised.

Sometimes it's evidence that you're actually in a relationship.

Autonomy and Interdependence Can Coexist

This is where I've found the concept of responsible autonomy useful.

Writing about relationship anarchy, Juan-Carlos Pérez-Cortés pairs responsible autonomy with mutual care and freely chosen commitments. That's a substantially richer idea than simply maximizing individual freedom.

Because relationships are inherently interdependent.

Interdependence isn't ownership.

It isn't codependence.

It doesn't mean surrendering your agency to someone else.

It means recognizing that when we voluntarily connect our lives to other people's lives, our decisions affect them.

The more interconnected our lives become, the more significant those effects may be.

Living together creates interdependence.

Raising children creates interdependence.

Sharing finances creates interdependence.

Building a polycule can create interdependence.

Hell, simply loving someone creates some degree of interdependence because now there's another human being whose wellbeing matters to you.

That doesn't diminish autonomy.

It gives our autonomous decisions context.

Sometimes the Answer Is Just No

None of this means every partner request should be accommodated.

Sometimes someone asks us for something we don't want to give.

Sometimes a partner's expectation is unreasonable.

Sometimes an agreement no longer works.

Sometimes someone wants more time, commitment, communication, intimacy, or entanglement than we're willing to offer.

Sometimes someone draws a boundary that makes the relationship impossible for us.

That's okay.

Autonomy means we can say no.

It means we can renegotiate.

It means we can leave.

It also means the other person can decide our answer doesn't work for them.

Nobody necessarily has to be the bad guy.

That's part of why clear communication matters so much. If I tell you honestly what I can offer and you tell me honestly what you need, sometimes we'll discover those things aren't compatible.

That's sad.

It's not inherently unethical.

What becomes unethical is pretending we haven't made choices at all.

Nobody Else Is Left to Blame

Maybe this is what I've come to believe about autonomy after years of polyamory.

Autonomy isn't freedom from responsibility.

It's almost the opposite.

If nobody owns me, then my decisions belong to me.

If my partner didn't make me do it, then I did it.

If society didn't prescribe the agreement, then I chose the agreement.

If I'm free to renegotiate my commitments, then I'm responsible for actually having that conversation instead of quietly ignoring them when they become inconvenient.

If I'm free to pursue someone despite the consequences, then I'm responsible for acknowledging the consequences I knowingly accepted.

And if the people around me respond to my choices in ways I don't like, I don't get to demand that they surrender their autonomy so that I can experience mine without discomfort.

Andie Nordgren's original relationship anarchy manifesto doesn't describe relationships without commitment. It asks us to stop relying on automatic, culturally prescribed commitments and instead consciously build our own.

I think that's the harder version of autonomy.

Nobody else gets to decide what kind of partner I will be.

I do.

And then I have to live with what I chose.

The hard part of autonomy isn't getting to choose whatever the fuck you want. It's owning what you choose after nobody else is left to blame.

Perspectives Worth Reading

Andie Nordgren, The Relationship Anarchy Manifesto — particularly the sections on love and respect instead of entitlement, communication, and customizing commitments.

The Relationship Anarchy Manifesto

Kale Gossen, Do Relationship Anarchists Commit? — a useful discussion of commitments as voluntary, evolving, explicit, and renegotiable rather than compulsory.

Do Relationship Anarchists Commit?

Juan-Carlos Pérez-Cortés, Relationship Anarchy — especially the concept of responsible autonomy alongside mutual care and freely chosen commitments.

Relationship Anarchy