The COVID-19 Pandemic and its effects on poly relationships
Part two
Isolation, loneliness, and restrictions on seeing poly partners during the COVID pandemic
Many poly folks have seen their worlds shrink dramatically since the start of the epidemic, as so many are working from home, and they must forego most of their structured activities and social interactions. Many of the ways poly people spend their time and interact with other people were eliminated completely for over a year, and ways of meeting new partners have all been severely curtailed. Luckily, most poly pot-luck discussion groups, social events, and Meet-up groups have gone on-line, so that poly people have not been entirely cut off from sources of companionship, support, and advice on their poly lives and relationships. In fact, many poly folks have started attending and “sampling” lots of other cities’ poly discussion groups and events since they are all on-line now.
Liz says, “Our poly discussion group in LA only meets once a month, on the first Tuesday of the month. But I discovered that the Bay Area group meets the second Tuesday of the month, and the Sacramento group meets on the third Wed night, and the South Bay group meets on the second Saturday of every month. So now I get to attend a poly group every week of the month, on Zoom, and I really needed the extra support. I’m solo poly and my partners live far away, and I couldn’t see them for a year, and I was able to travel to see them this past year a few times, but now I’m scared to travel again due to omicron. I’ve been working from home, and feeling very isolated. So making lots of new ‘virtual’ poly friends in other cities has been great, I hope to see them in person when it’s safe to travel again. Over the holidays, I was having a rough time, and some of my new pals were calling me and getting on video chats with me to cheer me up. So it’s been a huge help to me during this bizarre two years.”
This isolation and loneliness has been especially acute for poly people who live alone, for those who do not have a primary relationship, and those who have partners who are married or in a cohabiting relationship with someone else. This has been especially difficult for poly elders who are more likely to live alone than younger poly folks and who may have been widowed by the death of one or more partner. Many poly people have at least one long-distance partner, as long-term, long-distance relationships are much more common among people in poly relationships than those in monogamous relationships. Restrictions on travel made it nearly impossible for them to see their out of town partners for at least a year. Most travel restrictions have been significantly eased since the beginning of 2021. However, the risk of COVID exposure in airports, on planes, trains, and busses remains so high that many poly people have been reluctant to travel to see partners, especially poly elders and those with underlying health problems who are more vulnerable to COVID. In additions, many countries have opened and then closed their borders again, as COVID spikes in different countries change the risk levels. And thousands of flights have been cancelled due to staff shortages as so many airline employees have been sick with COVID or quarantining due to exposures.
Myrna says, “My partner lives in Los Angeles, 300 miles away. Since I’m retired and he’s still working, I would usually fly to LA at least once a month to visit him for several days. Now I’m too afraid of COVID to get on a plane, since I’m a senior citizen and that virus is coming after us old folks. Since I’m a doctor, I know it would be just as dangerous to take a bus or train there. I have glaucoma, so I don’t really see well enough to drive there, and my partner is a respiratory doctor, so he’s working overtime and extra shifts due COVID, so he certainly doesn’t have any time to drive up here. And he’s exposed to COVID patients at work, and could catch it any time, so he doesn’t want to risk exposing me.”
“I have had another more casual local partner for years, but his wife is so afraid of COVID that she does not want him to see me. And I totally agree with her: it’s not worth him taking even a small risk with his health, to continue a fuck buddy relationship with me. So I’ve gone from having two lovers, as I have had for many years, to being single.”
Myrna’s words were echoed by many others, as each poly person has been forced to assess the risks of exposure to COVID created by having multiple partners. Many poly couples who are married or living together have made unilateral decisions not to see their other partners at all, and to be monogamous for the duration of the pandemic. Many have revisited these decisions as the pandemic has dragged on for years, and differing levels of risk tolerance have created many conflicting needs and desires.
Many married couples and nesting partners have chosen not to see other partners, and this has often created conflict with the outside partners, who feel they have been forced to accept an arbitrary decision made by other people without their consent. Many have been distraught about losing the opportunity to see their partners for an extended period of time, especially with no end date in sight. Some partners consider this an unacceptable betrayal, and see it as tantamount to their partner ending the relationship. In some cases, this has caused the relationship to end. Some relationships have broken up due to frequently changing agreements, and tense negotiations with partners about risk.
Other non-cohabiting partners have been more accepting, reasoning that it is appropriate to accommodate whoever is the most risk-averse person in their constellation of poly relationships. Non-nesting partners have generally been most willing to sacrifice seeing their outside partners if even one person in the polycule is elderly or has serious health issues that would put them at higher risk for COVID, and higher risk of dying from COVID if they contract it.
Kimberly, a self-employed bookkeeper, says she struggles daily with feeling sad, lonely, and frightened. When I first spoke with her in December of 2020, she said, “I’m having all my meetings with my bookkeeping clients on-line by Zoom, and doing everything remotely. I didn’t realize how important those in-person meetings with each client were. I would often take clients out to lunch, and I told myself that it was just ‘good business’ to be friendly with the clients, but I know now that it was an important part of my social life.
“My boyfriend Frank is married, and his wife Iris is immune-compromised due to having recently survived cancer and several rounds of chemotherapy. When COVID first started, Frank and Iris made a decision not to see their outside lovers, in order to protect her health. I felt crushed when he called me and told me he couldn’t see me, although at that time we were naïve enough to believe the pandemic would only last for a few months. Now that it’s been going on so long, I feel like he has essentially broken up with me. We have Skype visits a couple of times a week, and phone calls as well. He has been delivering groceries to me every week, and waves to me from the porch. I really miss seeing him, the emotional intimacy, and especially the cuddling and sex. I understand that he has to protect his wife’s health, but it makes me feel like I don’t matter. Clearly, I’m the one who’s expendable.”
Kimberly, Frank, and Iris were all vaccinated in March of 2021, but Iris still was not comfortable with Frank seeing Kimberly. The three of them had a few counseling sessions together by Zoom, and the therapist suggested that Iris consult with her doctor to assess the risk. This required “coming out’ as poly to their family doctor, which Iris acknowledged was not terribly risky, since he is a gay man and was not likely to be shocked. Her physician was able to calm Iris’ fears enough that she agreed that Frank and Kimberly could see each other again, including resuming their sexual relationship. Kimberly says, “I understand that Iris is very vulnerable due to the lung cancer and chemotherapy. I know I shouldn’t take this personally, but I can’t help thinking that she was willing to throw me overboard. I’m sure we will all get over these conflicts, but it really has driven a wedge between Iris and me. And it has taken Frank and I awhile to get back into being comfortable with each other. After being separated for over a year, it was awkward at first, but things are much better now.”
Mary Jo has worked in the biotech industry for 40 years. In 2019, she reduced her work hours to 30 hours a week with the intention of retiring in five years. She and her husband were poly for many years, but they divorced two years before the pandemic started, because of his drinking problem. She has had another partner, Emile, a retired paralegal, for 12 years. Emile lives with his long-term partner, Hallie. Hallie was a heavy smoker for nearly 40 years, but quit five years ago when she developed emphesema. She asked Emile to stop seeing Mary Jo as soon as the COVID “Shelter in place” directives came out in March of 2020. Mary Jo readily agreed, despite her sadness about losing her lover for some unknown period of time.
In November of 2020, after nine months apart, she was feeling depressed and isolated, but still accepted not seeing Emile. She said at the time, “No one can really know what level of COVID risk is present in any relationship, and we can’t really know whether we are infected and contagious. The partner or metamour who we think is being totally paranoid about this, may actually be right. I would much rather be lonely and missing Emile than to take the risk of unknowingly having COVID and passing it on to him and potentially to Hallie. These are tough choices, but why take the risk when I could potentially kill two people I love and care about? I had two lovers, my husband and Emile, but now I have no lovers. This is certainly not the poly lifestyle I envisioned!”
In January of 2021, Hallie and Emile were able to get the vaccine as they are both over 75. Emile felt it was safe to see Mary Jo again, bring her back into their “bubble,” and resume their sexual relationship. However, Hallie remained adamant that he should continue only socially distanced outdoor visits with masks, until Mary Jo could receive the vaccine. By April, their county had enough vaccine to offer it to anyone 65 years old and older, and once Mary Jo completed her second shot in early May, the lovers were happily reunited. “It was so great to be able to have a normal relationship again!” says Mary Jo. “I really missed ‘that human touch’ and I really need intimate emotional connection so badly. We have been joking that we are having NRE [New Relationship Energy] all over again!”
Joan is an office manager who coincidentally retired from her job at age 65 just a few months before the start of the COVID pandemic. She was widowed four years ago. She says she feels very anxious about the future and sometimes gets very depressed during the long days of being home alone. “I’m so used to being in a busy office all day, surrounded by people and activity, that being home alone is very unsettling. When I retired, I had two big trips planned for 2020 and had started doing some volunteer work, but all that got cancelled.”
Not being able to see her partner, Juan, for nearly a year exacerbated Joan’s loneliness. In December 2020 she told me, “Juan is 79, and he has a number of chronic health conditions. Of course that makes him more vulnerable to infections. His wife June feels he should not be exposed to anyone, even me. At first I wanted to accommodate June, but it’s gone on for so long, and it isn’t fair to me. June was never happy about being poly, so I suspect that she is using this situation to get what she has always wanted: a monogamous relationship. Unfortunately, my relationship with Juan is the collateral damage. She’s not even comfortable with me seeing him outdoors, wearing masks and being six feet apart. So I decided to end the relationship, because I no longer had a relationship anyway.”
Juan was heart-broken, and pleaded with Joan to reconsider. In late January 2021, Juan and his wife June were able to get the COVID vaccine, and Joan was able to receive the vaccine at Kaiser in March. June agreed that Emile could resume his relationship with Joan in April. Joan was still angry and hurt, and had been trying to move on after breaking up with him. But she decided to open her heart to Juan again, and they have been able to work through things. She says she still has some resentment and still feels very guarded, but that she loves Juan. She says, “I’m trying to trust him again, but I just felt so discarded, like my needs and feelings didn’t matter at all. He and June were making decision about me and about our relationship without even talking to me.”
Anita, a self-employed psychotherapist in California, has had a different set of poly problems due to COVID. Her long-term lover Ron teaches at a University in the Netherlands. They have been partners for ten years. Ron’s teaching job gives him two months off in the summers and six weeks off in December. So he flies to California at least twice a year to spend all his vacation time with Anita, and she flies to the Netherlands every Spring for two weeks. When COVID hit in March 2020, she had already bought her plane ticket to visit him in April, but all overseas flights were canceled. COVID also cancelled their summer together that year, as well as their December visit, as the borders were still closed. They tried to stay connected through GoogleMeet and phone calls, but found it very unsatisfying.
Both Ron and Anita were vaccinated in the spring of 2021, and by May the borders had opened, so Ron was able to fly to California for the summer. He immediately got a COVID test and quarantined at a nearby hotel for a few days until his test came back negative. They had a happy reunion and Anita reports, “It was like starting our love affair all over again! It was very intense, with lots of ups and downs! I was surprised that we had more fights this summer than we have had in our entire relationship. I put on my ‘therapist hat’ to try to figure out why. My best guess is that we both have a lot of accumulated anger and despair about how the pandemic kept us apart for a very long 16 months, and some of that pent-up emotion just had to come out. It’s natural that we save those intense feelings for the person we trust the most, and feel safe expressing them with.”
They had their worst fight when she was driving him to the airport at the end of August to return to the Netherlands. They had both hoped that he could stay with her through the fall semester and teach his classes remotely, but in July, his University made the decision to teach classes in person. Anita was furious and started screaming at him in the car, “How can you abandon me like this?!” She said later, “I knew I was being completely irrational, but I couldn’t help myself.” They made up by email while he was on the plane, and were already planning their December visit by the time his plane touched down in Amsterdam. However, because of the arrival of the omicron variant in late November, they had to cancel the trip as all flights from Amsterdam to San Francisco were cancelled. She is hoping to visit him in March 2022.
Anita also has another lover who is much closer to home, and who presented a much different problem. Lenny is 74 and is a self-employed accountant, working part-time. Lenny and Anita usually see each other two nights a week. However, Lenny was very concerned about COVID and insisted that they both wear masks and gloves during their visits, even during sex. And if she stayed overnight, he insisted that she sleep in a separate room.
In December, 2020 she told me, “I was pretty shocked when he asked me to wear a mask and sit six feet away from him on the couch. I was even more surprised that he wanted me to bring my own food, keep our dishes and utensils separate, and “social distance” across the room from him during meals. I tried to talk it through with him, reminding him that we each live alone and had very limited exposure to the world outside of our apartments. He works from home, and has been having groceries delivered on his porch, so he’s not even leaving the house. I’m seeing all my clients on video or by phone, and my only contact with anyone is going to the grocery store and the bank once every two weeks. And my other partner is 10,000 miles away.
“I love him and don’t want him to feel unsafe, so I have been going along with most of it, even though I disagree. I had to draw the line at having sex with gloves and a mask, and sleeping in separate rooms. I suggested that we just stop having sex for now, as I just can’t enjoy sex at all under those conditions. I also hate sleeping in separate rooms, and I decided that I would rather go home and sleep in my own bed. ”
Lenny was disappointed and angry, saying, “You’re asking me to choose between sex and my health and safety!” Anita replied, “But you’re unilaterally making decisions about our relationship. You’re taking away my agency by insisting on having all the power to make decisions about things that affect me, too.” They compromised, and decided to take a break from sex until Lenny felt safe going back to “normal” sex again without gloves and masks. And Anita agreed to continue spending the night with him and sleeping in a separate room, because he told her, “It’s very comforting to know that you’re in the house with me during the night, and it means a lot to me that we can wake up and have breakfast together in the morning.”
Even though Anita and Lenny were both fully vaccinated by April 2021, Lenny still insisted on not sleeping in the same room and not having sex without masks and gloves. Anita was exasperated, but tried reasoning with him again. “Lenny, you and I are the only people in our ‘bubble,’ and neither of us are seeing anyone or going anywhere. There really is no risk of you getting COVID from me. I have really missed sharing a bed with you and having sex. Can’t you meet me halfway?” Lenny acknowledged that risk had greatly reduced, but said he still felt very anxious about resuming any normal activities.
A week later he said he was ready to sleep in the same bed, but still worried about sex. They started sleeping in the same bed again, and as Anita says, “Of course, one thing led to another and before you know it were having sex again, and without masks or gloves.” Lenny told her, “This pandemic has made me very frightened of people and terrified of this virus. I know it’s ridiculous that it has even made me scared of being close to you, but I think it’s a side effect of all the grim statistics we see in the media about the daily death toll, and the TV news showing all these people in the ICU fighting for their lives. It’s just taken me awhile to stop operating out of fear and try to look at the actual facts.”
Some of these anecdotes illustrate that many poly people have decided to “err on the side of caution,” by accommodating the desires of the partner or metamour who is asking for the highest standards of precautions against COVID. While many people feel that these precautions go way beyond the actual risk, most have chosen to honor the needs of the person in their poly relationship grouping that is the most risk-averse, to make everyone feel safe and respected. A few have to “drawn the line” and refused to go along with a partner’s demand for additional precautions that are unlikely to be necessary, at least according to the current body of scientific evidence.
Some poly people have decided to take some amount of physical risk because the isolation and loneliness has become so dangerous to their mental health. Lila has two lovers, Raj and Stephan, and all three of them are in their 30’s. Both relationships started locally about six years ago, as all three were living in Washington, DC. A few years later, she temporarily moved to Texas to go back to graduate school to complete her PhD. Soon after that, Raj moved back to India to help care for his aging parents, and was able to work remotely as a cybersecurity specialist. Stephan remained in DC for his job as a social worker. Lila managed both long-distance relationships pretty well for two years, by spending summers in India with Raj and all her school vacations with Stephan in Washington.
However, when the pandemic started, her university shifted to all on-line classes, and she could not see either partner for a year due to travel restrictions. By March of 2021, she was struggling with the isolation of being trapped alone in a tiny studio apartment with no human contact, unable to focus on her studies and spiraling into depression. She became convinced that Stephan and Raj no longer loved her and that she might never see them again, even though she knew this was not really rational. She began to fantasize about committing suicide, and finally admitted to them both that she was in danger of harming herself. Stephan immediately jumped in his car and drove all night from DC to Texas. Raj called her from India and stayed on the phone with her the whole time until Stephan arrived in Houston. After staying with her for a few days, he convinced her to drive back to DC with him, and to stay for the remaining three months of the school year. She sublet her apartment in Houston, and since her classes were all on-line, she continued her studies from Stephan’s house in DC, and started weekly therapy sessions. By the end of the semester in May, she was feeling much better. She had a short set-back in June, as she had hoped to spend the summer in India with Raj, but the surge of the Delta variant in India made it impossible to travel there. Stephan convinced her to stay in Washington for the summer, and by August she was well enough to go back to Texas, where her classes were starting up in person again. She was able to go to India in December to spend 4 weeks with Raj during her winter school break, while working on her dissertation. She is back on track to complete her doctorate in the coming year, and is eager to move back to Washington to live with Stephan full-time after graduation.
Raj also experienced a serious mental health crisis during the pandemic. Living with and caring for his elderly parents was extremely stressful and exhausting, trying to keep them safe during the pandemic, taking care of their house, their finances, and advocating for them getting health care while India’s entire medical system was being overwhelmed with COVID cases. Being separated from Lila for over 2 years was very hard on him, especially as he mistakenly believed that he had “failed her” by being so far away when she was in a suicidal depression.
And Raj was surprised by how much he missed his metamour Stephan. He said, “Until I mover to the other side of the world, I had not realized how much Stephan and I depended on each other. We are both very committed to making our triad work, and very loyal to each other, especially in being a ‘united front’ against the polyphobia we face every day from friends, relatives, and co-workers who do not understand our poly relationship and they judge and criticize us. And in the spring and early summer of 2021 when COVID was spiraling out of control in India, my family very suddenly lost several relatives, including my favorite aunt and two cousins I had grown up with and was very close to. And we couldn’t visit them in the hospital while they were sick and dying, and could not even have funerals for them. I started having anxiety attacks and became convinced that my parents were going to get sick and die, and I felt so helpless and like I was losing control mentally and emotionally.”
He was able to start having video sessions with his previous therapist in Washington, a gay man who, like Raj was born and raised in India. His therapist suggested that he ask his doctor for a prescription for some anti-anxiety medication to tide him over during this very rough period, and that really helped. And Raj had a few close friends who knew he was struggling, and at Stephan’s urging, they checked in with him by text or email every day, which really helped stabilize his moods. Once Lila’s depression started to lift, she stated having Skype visits with him again frequently, which made him feel much less isolated.
Raj started working with his sister in Mumbai to set up a better living situation for his parents, since a large apartment was opening up in a few months in the apartment building where his sister and her husband live. She had been working 12-hour shifts as a hospital physician throughout the entire COVID pandemic, and as a result, she had not been able to help Raj care for their parents. Since her COVID caseload continued to drop in the last several months of 2021, she was able to cut back to about 30 hours a week by December and was scheduled to go to 20 hours a week sometime in 2022. Now she can spend more time caring for their parents and coordinating their care, and by the summer of 2022, Raj will be able to move back to the US to be near Lila and Stephan.
Once they had been vaccinated, many poly folks felt safe enough to travel to spend time with long-distance lovers. However, the advent of the highly contagious and even more deadly Delta and Delta Plus variants in the summer of 2021 caused some poly people to stop seeing long-distance partners. Since the risks of travel increased again, many agonized over “risk/benefit ratios:” was the increased risk of getting on a plane, train, or bus (or even driving there), to visit an out of state partner too high, or was the benefit of seeing their lover and sustaining the relationship worth the risk? This often created conflicts when someone wanted to visit a faraway lover, but their spouse tried to veto the trip due to the increased COVID risk. In some cases, this caused the long-distance partner to end the relationship.
Eliza is a 53-year-old British journalist working for a newspaper in Rome. Her partner Jim lives in Ireland. Jim is 71 and retired from his job managing a pub in Dublin in 2019. At the time he retired, they had been in a relationship for 10 years. Jim has another partner. Claudia, in Dublin but she is married and is only available for a secondary relationship. Jim considers Eliza his primary partner, but Eliza describes herself as “married to my job,” and does not have any other partners besides Jim. They had always had very limited time together because Jim only got a few short vacations from his job each year, and Eliza’s job made it very difficult for her to get time off to visit him. So they were both looking forward to him having the freedom and flexibility to visit her much more often once he retired. They had a long, wonderful visit immediately after he retired, but three months later COVID hit the UK and the European Union nations, and was especially devastating in Italy. They could not see each other for over a year, with all borders closed, but had a very happy reunion in June 2021 after all the EU nations began to allow travel across their borders.
However, things became very complicated in July. While they already had made plans for a visit in August, Jim no longer felt safe traveling to Rome due to the increased COVID cases. Two of his fully vaccinated friends in Dublin, both in their 70’s, got very sick with COVID around the beginning of August, and one died. Jim has emphysema, “thanks to my filthy habit of chain-smoking for 40 years, not to mention working in a pub every night and breathing in all that second-hand smoke.” His doctor advised him against traveling because the emphysema had weakened his lungs and put him at increased risk of dying if he contracted COVID.
Jim’s other partner Claudia also opposed the trip, concerned about her own health as well as her husband. “My husband David is even older than the rest of us in the polycule, and even more vulnerable to this Delta variant.” Eliza was irate, saying, “She’s the secondary, but now she’s dictating what you can and can’t do?” Jim assured her that if anyone was dictating anything, it was his doctor, who he trusted completely and was going to take his advice. Eliza sent him an angry text. “This is the last straw! Because of COVID, I couldn’t see you for a whole year, I was all alone here and so lonely and isolated. We can finally see each other again, and now you’re cancelling on me. I’m ending things with you, because it’s obvious you don’t want to fight for our relationship.” He tried to convince her that this had nothing to do with how much he loved her, but wanting to protect everyone’s health, including hers. However, she would not consider reconciling.
With travel advisories changing almost weekly in many places, and new information coming out all the time, many people have made travel plans to see faraway partners, and then had to cancel. Or they put off planning visits because they feared that by the time they are about to get on a plane, things will have changed again and traveling won’t be safe or won’t even be allowed. Many distant lovers have felt mistreated and disregarded throughout the pandemic, and this latest “wrinkle” has pushed some to their limits. As a result, some relationships have crumbled under the strain of being separated for so long, and the anxiety and uncertainty of not knowing when their relationship can get back to normal, if ever.