BROKEN LEASE, BROKEN HEART

"Just because you and your girlfriend make great partners, doesn’t mean that you would have been good at cohabitation."

Dear Poly Hannah,

My partner is married and I’d like to live with her and her husband as I find it would provide me a lot of security I’m looking for, but neither of them want to do it. She recently told me that the answer to the request to live together is “no” for the sake of everyone being on the same page (as opposed to “maybe someday”). This is after they brought up that they might be moving at the same time I am and getting a bigger place and inviting a fourth roommate into the dynamic. The whole thing just really hurt my feelings. My question is: how do you manage expectations as a person dating someone who is married when your relationship with them is pretty serious but there’s a practical cap on growth in the dynamic?

Congratulations! By telling you that she doesn’t want to live together, your girlfriend is freeing you from emotionally masturbating about the possibility of cohabitation. But also. Oof. It must be so hard to see your girlfriend and her husband hunt for another roommate, while you are moving at the same time, and would gladly fill that space, in New York City.  

As someone who is a chronic emotional masturbator, I am giving you advice that I often fail to give myself: take her at her word. By being direct, your girlfriend is being kind and I urge you to wholeheartedly accept that living together isn’t a possibility.

However, just because you and your girlfriend make great partners, doesn’t mean that you would have been good at cohabitation. And that doesn’t necessarily reflect anything positive or negative about the relationship itself. There are plenty of people, monogamous and polyamorous, who choose not to live with their partner. My grandparents stayed together monogamously—to my innocently limited knowledge—for decades because they both loved art and not spending money. But they did not live together because, under the circumstances of cohabitation, my grandfather was a huge curmudgeon to be around. I’m not saying that you are impossible to live with, but I am saying that your girlfriend’s decision doesn’t necessarily need to impact your relationship. 

In polyamorous circles, there’s a lot of talk about getting off the relationship escalator—the ascending steps of dating, moving in, and getting married—that are often legally reserved for two people.

The escalator works for some people. It can fill others with anxiety.  And certainly non-primary relationships often don’t follow this trajectory.

There’s freedom in getting off the relationship escalator, but there can also be grief. I’m not going to lie, living with a partner can be a wonderful thing. It is an odd privilege to experience the irritating mundanity of someone’s bathroom habits and to bask in the tenderness of feeding them berries nightly on the couch. Nothing prompts you to work through challenges in a relationship like being legally bound to live in the same place together. Obligation creates security.

So. Security. How do you find it in your current relationship structure?

By being married and living together, your girlfriend and her husband have a security that you won’t have with her, and right now, you’re running up against these boundaries hard. So, what do you do when your emotions outsize the logistical constraints of your relationship? How else can you find that same security? And how can you manage these emotions?

First. Acknowledge the power imbalance. Your girlfriend and her husband have the built-in advantages both being married, and knowing who eats all the hummus. You’re currently grieving an imagined future that might not ever exist. It’s certainly worth having a conversation with your girlfriend about these feelings and how she can support you.

You may not live together, but cohabitation isn’t the only way that you can create security in your relationship. Are there other ways in which you can merge your lives, logistically, professionally, or creatively, that might give you a similar feeling of security that living together provides? Relationship coach, Laura Boyle created an infographic that breaks down all of the different ways that we can be connected to someone in a relationship. I’d highly recommend taking a gander at this and taking stock of what kinds of connection you want from your girlfriend, and what you might want from someone else.

And finally, I urge you to think in the big picture. What do you want your sexual/romantic life to look like in the next year? In the next five years? What I’m hearing from your question is that you do want to live with a partner. The good news is that lots of people want to sign leases and engage in the wonderful and irritating bullshit that comes with living with someone. Hunt these creatures down!