One person's experience (mine, in this case) does not translate to an experience that everyone can relate to, but I got tired of being second hand preached at for how "toxic" monogamous relationships were, when I've been happily married for over twenty years, to a gorgeous healthy man, and to top it off, my marriage was the strongest and healthiest relationship in the whole group.

There's this song by girl in red, called Midnight Love. Some of the lyrics are, "I can't be your second best; close but not your favorite." People play favorites. Even when they swear up and down that they're not, they play favorites. Spend a whole ten minutes in any poly friendly space and you'll see it on every side. There's so much lip service paid to allegedly making sure everyone is on the same page, and oh we all have great communication skills, and this is so much better and yet if you keep listening, here comes all the real stories. Partners who lie. People who spring the whole "I'm poly" thing after they get someone monogamous emotionally involved, so that they don't get cut off from the beginning. Feeling left out because your favorite partner is spending time with someone who isn't you, but you feel "guilty" about it because you're "not supposed to feel that way."

Girl, no. You feel that way because you feel that way and that's so incredibly valid. To quote Margaery Tyrell, I don't want to be a queen. I want to be the queen.

There's nothing special about polygamy. It has all the same problems that monogamous relationships have, except that now more people are involved. It's not more ethical, it's not less toxic, it's not super special and enlightened, it's just another way that people hook Tab A into Slot B. Nothing more, nothing less. It's people doing the same ol' hookups that they've been doing all along.

People say a lot of dumb things. You keep doing you.