Polyamory: Poly Pockets

To describe Poly Pockets, this is a term i use to describe a group of Poly people existing as a cohesive unit like a household, but this is not mandatory, but unlike an open network the key difference is communication and disclosure. In my case ours was a marriage, same house, basically an open "V" where the keystone of that relationship was our wife. Later this became more of a "Y", the addition of participants did not alter the relationship between the spouses themselves. In our case the boys are straight, I am not but following communication protocol when seeking new additions ensured the health and security of the group, made doubly paramount by the presence of our children. In this case the term I've heard most often is "Paramore" a non-sexual partner who is a part of the pocket, often in a platonic way. Some Poly pockets are triangles, where the attraction and connection is mutual among three partners. And a friend of mine is making that work quite nicely. The thing to consider is the foundation of that network, the primary. Now the primary relationship is the one that survives if everything turns to shit and it's time to rage quit. The other partners might be required to part ways for various reasons, but the primary is intended to weather the collapse. Typically you see these being the legally married couple at the core of the pocket. That friend I talked about earlier, they had a fourth, but he wanted equal billing with his boyfriend's wife, it helps to mention that those two did not get along. While that leg of their relationship model fell off, or was amputated depending on how you look at it, both husband and wife do have the same girlfriend.

For poly pockets, my sense8 analogy would be the cluster itself, size of the group not being considered a prerequisite.

The Achilles heel of the poly pocket is the inter connectivity requires more mental and emotional energy to maintain healthy connections. If you're angry at one partner, does that carry over to your mood with the others. If you have a conversation with one partner and have the same conversation with the other, you may forget who you told what to and become frustrated that you've already told them what you are essentially telling them for the first time. Or a memory involving one partner is remembered to include or involve another who wasn't actually present. keeping these things straight is a full time job and requires a lot of focus and attention. They're harder to accomplish when tired.

There can also potentially be a lot of moving parts. In our case, with kids, who's getting picked up when, who gets off of work in time to get child x to their job/school function. Appointments and shift schedules are a waking nightmare.