Book Review:
Monogamy? In this Economy? Finances, Childrearing, and Other Practical Concerns of Polyamory” by Laura Boyle
2024, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, UK
Review by Kathy Labriola, Counselor/Nurse
Anyone considering moving in with their polyamorous partners should read this book FIRST! In addition, those already living together in a polyamorous triad, throuple, quad or other polyamorous family unit could benefit from Laura Boyle’s no-nonsense approach. Her very practical book provides guidance on navigating the choppy waters of space, money, privacy, noise, landlords and rental agreements, shared mortgages, housework, parenting and custody arrangements, break-ups, and ex-spouses.
These are key issues which have proven to be deal-breakers for countless polycules! So the sooner the better for each person to think these important core issues through, get clarity on what their needs are and what they can and can’t live with, and decide whether this particular group of people are compatible to live together as a family. Unfortunately, many poly configurations do not realize their areas of incompatibility until after they move in together and things quickly blow up. Boyle’s book presents each arena of family life and the most common problems they are likely to experience, and provides numerous possible solutions. For instance, one or more partners having very different values and practices around making money and spending money have doomed many poly families. Boyle presents numerous “work arounds,” such as each partner keeping their finances separate, or a hybrid model of sharing some joint expenses and keeping some money separate.
The section on how to share space in houses, duplexes, and apartments is fantastic, and should be required reading for all poly folks! Whether you live with all your partners and metamours or not, different approaches on how to share your living space with nesting and non- nesting partners has caused many, many relationships to founder or break up. She explains what many poly people have only belatedly discovered, that houses and apartments are designed and built for traditional couples and nuclear families, and are not easy to adapt to the needs of three or more adults, especially if those adults also have kids. And with the obscenely high cost of rents in most urban areas and the near impossibility for many families to afford to buy a home, many poly families have no choice but to live in spaces that are too small for them.
Boyle explains that this scarcity of space creates lots of challenges and conflicts for people
sharing bathrooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and common space. She provides a lot of solutions for navigating the use of space to minimize friction and frustration due to crowding, and ways to negotiate the use of a bedroom or even a fold-out couch in the living room when someone wants to bring another partner home.
This brings me to another closely related, very hot-button issue: metamours! Boyle lays out all the messy potential problems between metamours, and provides some very creative solutions.
A suggestion that is so incredibly sensible but which, surprisingly, I have never heard before is, “Treat all your partners and metamours like roommates first.” When contemplating any poly problem or question, she advises you to ask yourself how you would treat a roommate in this situation, if that roommate was NOT your lover or metamour. This is a simple but brilliant “poly life hack” which takes some of the distress and anxiety out of any conflict with partners but especially with metamours. It helps minimize that extra layer of anger, jealousy, envy, distrust, and hurt feelings that we so often have built up with our metamours. Thanks, Laura, for breaking this down for us and giving us a great tool for de-escalating our inevitable “metamour dramas” and helping to minimize the “baggage” we usually bring to any issues with our metamours.
While I have focused on all the great problem-solving guidance that Boyle provides, this book also highlights the great benefits and advantages of living in a polycule. Living with multiple adults means that the family has more people contributing income, and can potentially provide a more comfortable standard of living. In addition, there are more people to provide child care, and do cooking and housework. An added plus is that a poly household has a lively, built-in social life for both adults and kids.
This little book should be on every coffee table in every CNM household, for quick reference when problems comes up. It should especially be utilized by people who are in the process of creating or expanding a polyamorous family, to solve the most common poly dilemmas before they create a crisis.