Relationship Goals for Poly Partners

Wondering what relationship goals polyamorous newbies should aspire to?

Coach Polyamory here! No time for a warm-up—it’s time to scrimmage! Here’s ten relationship goals for you and your partner to practice. Game on. Whistle!

10 Relationship Goals for Poly Partners

1. Neutralize Arguments and Minimize Mistrust

Whether you’re polyamorous or monogamous, the central killer of any relationship is fighting. The reasons people fight are endless, but if you nip the fighting spirit in the bud before it sprouts out of the ground of confusion and the soil of resentment, you have a fighting chance to see your relationship survive.

Besides that, eliminating the ideas that lead to fighting will also do you well in advancing your love life to the pinnacle of pleasure. Remove unnecessary mistrust and doubt, and you will feel like fighting even less.

Read: How to Handle Conflicts in Your Polycule

2. Eliminate Criticism of Metamours

Whether you’re fighting fully or not, I personally believe criticism of a partner’s metamour is very destructive. It can be anything from nitpicking to name calling wherein someone has the audacity to slut shame or slander their partner’s lover while in conflict with them.

Even when you can’t always understand your partner’s choices, you must be respectful—at least that’s the goal.

Read: How to Handle a Challenging Metamour

3. Communicate Jealous Feelings

Jealousy is the hovering specter of doom over everyone. Communicate your insecure feelings as much as you can, put in the elbow grease and spit shine needed to take out the dirty distresses and problematic poisons that chip away at most relationships, poly or not.

Read: 4 Jealousy Triggers & How to Deal

4. Maintain or Increase Intimacy

This is crucial even though few people will openly articulate such an important idea. It seems unromantic to say “We are going to fuck every Friday night that this relationship exists,” but it’s better than a few hot months of passion that eventually devolves into roommates who only have sex on birthdays, Valentine’s Day, and while on vacation.

Read: 3 Ways to Build Intimacy in Poly Relationships

5. Share Personal Victories and Relationship Connections

Someone wins an award? Invite all the metamours to attend. Someone running a marathon? Have all their lovers and friends cheering at the finish line? Someone having a baby? Hopefully it’s a healthy situation where poly folks can welcome the new family member collectively, even at the hospital.

Celebrate each other in every way you can imagine and express.

Read: 4 Ways to Deepen Your Poly Connections

6. Share Social Media Preferences

Be who you want to be, and make sure you let your partner know what you are comfortable with expressing on the internet about your relationships.

Polyamory tends to be kept somewhat private because the majority of monogamous judgmental minds really can’t wrap their minds around the depth of posts like “Yeah, I have four sex partners who also have three partners, and we all hang out and fuck sometimes.”

Be private or be open—just be honest with your partners about what pictures and words you’d like to post online about your poly world. May the poly force be with you!

Read: Coming Out as Poly: Is It the Right Time?

7. Take a Trip Together

I deeply believe that going on a vacation with a lover will do one of two things: Make you much closer or separate you further. It’s a risk worth taking when you’re not quite sure where a newish relationship is going.

I’m thankful that most of my trips with lovers have made us stronger, but I have been on a trip that cemented the end of a relationship as well.

Read: Travel Tips for Poly Couples

8. Share Art and Interests

Few things will bond lovers like having intimate knowledge of the other’s favorite piece of art. It’s a timeless place to talk about values, decisions, memories, hopes and dreams when you share your favorite painting, sculpture, album, film, book, or designed outdoor space.

Relationship goals also include knowing your lover’s favorite sex techniques and positions, and food to eat after fucking!

Read: 5 Tips for Becoming a Better Lover

9. Confess Your Deepest Fantasies

Seems obvious, but there are a surprising number of couples who don’t have the courage and capacity to express their darkest needs and deepest desires to the lover they are sleeping beside.

Sometimes the most acceptable or obvious fantasies are the only ones that get confessed, but it’s a great goal to strive for and reach to say “I’m going to reveal ALL my warts and scars to you, and stand naked in the light of absolute truth, ready for whatever thoughts, opinions, and judgements may come.”

Once you survive that trial by fire, you’re on your way to making more delicious moments of joy together!

Read: Talking about Kink with Your Poly Partners

10. Discuss Your Non-Negotiables

A major relationship goal for poly partners is to let each other know what behavior you will NOT tolerate. For me, one deal breaker is name calling. You can get mad at me and I at you, but we will NOT be slandering each other personally or dehumanizing each other’s imperfections in any way.

Poly people have countless non-negotiables: sex without protection, not showing for planned dates, disrespecting metamours, hiding poly status, lying, abuse of any kind… nope, nein and nyet to it all.

Read: Non-Negotiables in Poly Relationships

Good game, poly sports fans! I hope everyone reaches these goals and enjoys all the benefits of honesty, trust, pleasure and the passion of playing together. Practice is never done.

Coach Polyamory says you can hit the showers—together, preferably!

Please share your poly relationship goals in the comments!

Sincerely,
Addi “Malcolm Lovejoy” Stewart