Polyamory on Purpose Archive

Category: Abuse

  • Abuse and Mental Illness

    Abuse or Mental Illness? In discussing mental illness, and specifically PTSD and other trauma-related disorders, I mentioned that some symptoms of mental illness can mimic abuse. I say mimic because while these symptoms may look the same as abuse, they are not about trying to control. Here’s a classic example: My partner has several mental…

  • Living with an Abusive Metamour (Guest Post by Liz Gentry)

    This week Liz Gentry of Learning Many Loves has chosen to share her experiences of living with a mentally ill and abusive metamour. Many thanks to Liz for opening up about this difficult experience. Don’t forget to stop back next week, when we’ll be taking a close look at the intersection of abuse and mental…

  • Roots of Abuse: Intent, Insecurity, and Shitty Boundaries

    In popular imagination, abusers are fully aware of what they are doing. They are horrid people who act with full intent to control and destroy the people they claim to love. A modern monster for a modern society. The reality of abuse is much more complicated. While some abusers make a conscious decision to abuse,…

  • Abuse, Boundaries, and Incompatibilities in Mono/Poly Relationships

    A commenter on this blog recently mentioned their frustration with the way much of the writing about polyamory is by poly-folk, for poly-folk. This leaves monogamous people in mono/poly relationships in a difficult situation. I may at a later time attempt to go into a detailed discussion of mono/poly relationships. Today I want to at…

  • “There’s no right way to do polyamory!” (But there’re lots of wrong ways)

    I mentioned last week that often good ideas or positive statements can become tools for abusers. Within polyamory, “There’s no right way to do poly” has become one of these tools. In theory, the idea that there is no right way to do poly is meant to be an affirmation. You don’t need to fit…

  • Types of Abuse

    Abuse can take several forms, and being able to recognize abuse when it happens is the first step in addressing it. So today we are going to look at some types of abuse, and a couple examples of how they might occur in polyamorous relationships. Not everything here is always abusive. Yelling, for instance, is…

  • Is Polyamory Abusive?

    Occasionally in both mainstream discussions and polyamorous spaces, someone will claim polyamory is abusive. Before we get into the ways abuse can happen within polyamorous relationship, I want to tackle this idea that all poly relationship are inherently abusive. Abuse: Actions or behaviors intended to control or gain power over another, especially within a close…

  • What is Abuse?

    Before we can talk about abuse in polyamory, we need to talk about what abuse is. Before starting this post, I did some googling on what is abuse, and the definition of abuse. Many of the definitions didn’t really apply to abuse within relationships. For instance, the Oxford Dictionary online defines abuse as: 1 Use…

  • Abuse in Polyamory

    For a lot of people, polyamory is a pretty awesome relationship style. But there’s this thing about humans—not matter how awesome something is, we can always find a way to screw it up. Most of the time, we aren’t screwing things up on purpose. We’re just doing our best and making mistakes. Or, as one…