The following is a hypothesis that I’m happy to reconsider, so feel free to poke holes in it.

An open minded monogamous friend and I were talking. One of her big concerns about poly is the role of avoidance. She has seen several of couples do the stuff we see in this forum so often, with the most common boiling down to “broken marriage, add more people.” I when I was looking for partners, I saw countless people who are in open nested relationships with someone they don’t want to let go, but often seem to mostly just feel contempt for, and I occasionally see that out in the wild.

Often, these folks are in “breaking up is impossible” (scare quotes intended) type interdependent situations - like they’re unwilling to take the financial implications of moving or selling a home, they’re financially dependent on a partner, or are sure that they couldn’t effectively parent their children without the other living in the same house, or (and this one gives me the shits) one of them is unable to mange their feelings, or form friendships successfully without the other. And yes, those kinds of interdependencies can be really hard to navigate through in a breakup.

Before I go any farther, I’m also going to add: Avoidance and interdependency is not exclusive to poly relationships and there are ways that monogamy enables toxic shit to fester in monogamous relationships too. I can easily think of multiple monogamous nesting couples who are equally avoidant, often because they are interdependent on their partner for various stuff, and their partner is dependent on them so they “can’t” break up. And I know some really happy, healthy poly dyads. My monogamous friend agrees that this is an issue for monogamous couples and isn’t a constant for poly couples.

But the way avoidance and interdependency seems to have a different flavour?

For many, poly let’s people feel like they can avoid breakups (though the reality is that they remain common), avoid having to navigate conflict with a partner, avoid acknowledging and dealing with difficult issues in a relationship, or avoid having to acknowledge that one made serious mistakes in a relationship that have created entrenched problems that will either require a lot of work to fix, or are unfixable. Poly sometimes let’s people feel like they can avoid both the risk of being rejected and having to reject someone. It can sometimes let people avoid the consequences of their actions by allowing another partner to pick up the slack, or create a distraction. And, of course, it gives a false perception that one will not have to deal with the consequences of fundamental incompatibilities.

So I’m curious whether others here think the dynamics are the same thing, or different? And like general thoughts?

Edit to add some common examples from this forum:

• I love my partner so much, but over the last couple of years, I’m just not into them sexually anymore. No idea why. I’d like to open because I miss sex.
• I love my partner but they refuse to have sex with me anymore. No idea why. I’d like to open because I miss sex.
• Our relationship has just gone through these major changes, including having had a kid(s), and now I realise I want to start seeing other people because I’m missing stuff in our relationship.
• My partner told me they want to open our relationship because they fell in love with their virtual affair partner. Breaking up is not an option. How do I deal with this?