Happy Fall! In this week’s advice column, we’ve got one person whose partner is keeping her a secret from a large portion of their life. What can they do about it?
Our second asker is pissed about her partner’s Tinder profile and how he handled it when she saw it.
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Sarah
They’re keeping me secret.
How would you suggest someone navigates the boundaries of their partner wanting their polyamorous relationships to be private or a secret?
I have been dating someone for six months, who has a primary partner, and has stated they want connections that are deep emotional, physical, and romantic. They have no problem with public affection and appearing romantic in public spaces, but have limits on sharing on social media, with colleagues or certain friends.
Their need to compartmentalize some of our relationship has been causing me to feel confused about how to include them in my life.
I’m not necessarily the partner they would mention to their colleagues nor would I be their plus one to events etc, but I feel comfortable with them being those things in my life.
How do I navigate feeling valid to them and their life, despite the fact that, they and I show up differently in each others “public life.”
I really felt for you while reading this.
But not just for you, for all of us who are in this boat. I’m sad that the world is not open to non-monogamy, so much so that your partner feels they need to keep you private to a significant portion of their world.
I’m disappointed that they need to hide anything about their romantic life, that they feel the need to hide you.
I wish polyamory were just commonplace. If that were the case, this wouldn’t even be something someone thinks twice about. Why hide something beautiful?
But alas, that’s not the world we live in.
In this world, you can be seriously judged for being openly non-monogamous. Family may isolate you, friends may leave you out, and in some cases, you can be fired because it is not a protected category when it comes to discrimination.
Therefore, it’s totally reasonable that your partner wants only one of their partners to be their public-facing one.
So how do you navigate this? What I suggest to you is to make sure you fully understand their reasonings for keeping you private. Take the time to put aside your very valid feelings, and empathize with their side.
Also, make sure they give you the space to do the same. You might want to express that you want to feel important to them. Maybe you also want the role of “primary” partner. It’s possible to have multiple “primary partners.”
You can say that you want to be more public about their role in your own life. I don’t think there’s anything fundamentally wrong with them being your plus one at a wedding but you not being theirs or you sharing photos together on your social media even though they don’t share photos on theirs. If that works for both of you then go that route.
You can collaborate on different ways they might help you feel you are loved and valued that don’t cross a boundary for either of you.
That allll said, I do want to make it clear that if this is important to you: being a public-facing partner in all aspects of their life, that is also totally fair.
You are choosing to be in this relationship and to be in this position, but you don’t have to be.
If this is a hard boundary for you, if you find this is a real chronic pain point in your life, tell them, and then the choice will be theirs. They can either start to be open about you (by for example giving you the chance to the be the plus one sometimes or even better, maybe they can start asking for plus twos!) OR they will say no to your request and then you can end or de-escalate the relationship.
You may feel powerless here, but remember in reality, the choice is yours.
The Tinder Swindler
The other day my partner shared with me that he had downloaded Tinder with the intention of finding matches this way.
I wasn’t upset with this endeavor and today even excitedly asked if he would share his profile with me, since he was already FaceTime screen sharing other stuff on his phone. He wasn’t excited to share the profile but finally did. I complimented how cute his main profile picture was, then I read his profile and was struck that there is NO MENTION of him being in a relationship.