Kaleb Fair and Jess Zint are polyamorous, one of the many types of non-traditional relationships people might enter when monogamy isn’t right for them.
Kaleb Fair and Jess Zint say they don’t really have dates. They have adventures. As they sit together on the couch of the home they share in Evansville, they remember one of their expeditions.
“Most recently we—” Kaleb starts.
“We went across the Ohio River!” they say at the same time, then break down laughing as the memory hits them.
“We went across the Ohio in inner tubes while my best friend Austin pulled us across in a kayak,” Kaleb explains. Jess is still giggling in the background. They both say their dating life is impulsive: Every day is something new.
Kaleb and Jess have been together for about 10 months. There used to be three people in their relationship, but as of right now, there are two. That doesn’t mean they’re not still polyamorous, though.
“I think if someone were to happen along that fit with us, yeah, we would totally be open to that,” Kaleb says.
Polyamory is a form of “consensual non-monogamy.” This means all partners can engage in romantic and/ or sexual relationships with others, while all parties consent. Though not much research has been conducted on the subject, many scientists estimate approximately 5 percent of people in the U.S. are consensual non-monogamists. Other relationships that fall under the consensual non-monogamy umbrella are open relationships and swinging.
However, polyamory is slightly different from these types of relationships because more commitment is involved. Whereas many open relationships contain one couple who chooses to have either one night stands or purely sexual encounters with partners outside the relationship, many polyamorous couples focus on having both romantic and sexual connections with all their partners.
Polyamory can take on a variety of forms and dynamics. In some cases, an established couple can add another partner to their relationship. In others, each member of the couple has his or her own outside partner. There can be main relationships and secondary relationships, or every partner can be equal.
Jess and Kaleb’s story started when they began talking through Instagram. Jess, who prefers gender-neutral pronouns, and their then-boyfriend, Richard, had talked about being polyamorous. Richard expressed interest in dating Kaleb, whom he knew previously. Jess and Richard had promised each other they would both meet and get to know any partner the other was interested in, so Jess and Kaleb began to message online.
As they continued to talk, they realized they had a special connection.
Kaleb hadn’t been in too many relationships before, and had never been in a polyamorous relationship, but he was shocked at how easy it was to be with both Jess and Richard.
“I felt fully comfortable almost immediately,” he says.
Joanne Davila, a Stony Brook University professor who specializes in romantic relationships, says monogamy isn’t right for everybody. She advises people who are non-monogamous or are considering non-monogamy to find a partner willing to meet their needs. Davila’s thoughts about monogamy reflect a growing national trend when it comes to non-traditional relationships.
Now more than ever, more people are choosing to enter into non-traditional romantic relationships. For example, a study by Pew Research found more people are choosing to remarry. In 2013, 23 percent of people in marriages had been married before, up from 13 percent in 1960. Cohabitation, or living together without being married, has also grown. Eighteen million people are cohabiting as of 2016, which is an increase of 4 million since 2007. In 2015, gay marriage became legal in all 50 states, and the number of gay marriages has greatly increased. Before the ruling, about 38 percent of all LGBTQ couples who were cohabiting were married. After the ruling, the number climbed to 61 percent.
Through researching all types of relationships, Davila has developed a strategy for what she calls romantic competency. To achieve romantic competency, each partner in a relationship needs to have three skills: insight, mutuality, and emotion regulation.
Insight allows a person in a relationship to look within and better understand themselves. Once they are aware of how they function within relationships, they can also understand their partners. When couples understand both their own and their partner’s tendencies and behaviors, they can use mutuality to help negotiate issues. This involves examining both partners’ needs and compromising accordingly. If conflicts do arise, they can use emotion regulation: the ability to see the bigger picture and to manage their emotions in the moment.
Jamie Pereira, a counselor in Muncie who specializes in relationship issues, agrees making your partner aware of your thoughts and feelings is the most important thing in any relationship. Pereira says there are two types of people in relationships: pursuers and withdrawers. There can be two pursuers in a couple,two withdrawers, or one of each, she explains. When a conflict arises, withdrawers will shut off their emotions, appearing to not care about the other even if they really do. Pursuers, in contrast, will often put up a fight, frustrated that their needs aren’t being met. When Pereira counsels a couple, she helps them learn how they individually deal with conflict, then works with them to become more effective communicators.
Both Jess and Kaleb agree communication and being clear about your wants and needs is crucial in any relationship. For Jess, not communicating is something that affected them in past relationships. Jess was in a polyamorous relationship before, between them, their girlfriend, and their boyfriend. That all changed when their boyfriend didn’t communicate with Jess, cheating on them with their other partner. Cheating can happen in polyamorous relationships, Jess explains, when one partner crosses the boundaries laid down by all partners without being honest.
[epq-quote align=”align-left”]“Like that moment where you work really hard to make a perfect paper airplane, and then it flies perfectly.” – Jess Zint[/epq-quote]
Davila says betrayal is one of the worst things someone can do in a relationship. Cheating is a form of betrayal, Davila says, but it’s not the only way someone can betray their partner. Anything that compromises your significant other’s feeling of safety in the relationship is damaging, she says.
After experiencing betrayal, Jess didn’t try again for a while when it came to polyamory. But when they started dating Richard, the polyamory conversation came up again, and Kaleb entered the relationship.
Things were different with Kaleb. Even though Jess was going to school full-time and working two jobs, they spent every spare moment they could with Kaleb, just wanting to know him better. Richard had somewhat of a problem with this, Jess explains, because he thought everyone in the relationship should be spending an equal amount of time with one another.
They broke up—Jess and Richard—but not Jess and Kaleb. They’re in love. What does that feel like?
“Warm,” Kaleb says.
“So comforting,” Jess chimes in. “Smiley,” Kaleb again.
“Like that moment where you work really hard to make a perfect paper airplane, and then it flies perfectly,” Jess says, then adds, “Capture the beauty and slowness and just pride you have in that situation. Imagine that toward a person.”
Watching people fall back in love with each other is one of Pereira’s favorite parts about couples’ therapy. “It’s like watching a love story in real life,” she says. “One of those movies where they’re arguing and bickering and you’re like ‘just get together already!’ You know they both love each other, and to watch it happen in the room is amazing.”
Kaleb and Jess are in love, but that doesn’t mean everyone loves their relationship. They sometimes get weird looks in public, but the worst of the judgement comes from social media. Jess remembers a time when they posted a photo on Instagram of Richard, Kaleb, and them. After the photo went up, some of their followers made a group chat on Instagram specifically to talk about Kaleb, Jess, and Richard’s relationship. They both found out about it from some of their friends.
Kaleb and Jess don’t fit the mold of a “traditional couple,” a term that arose in Western society to mean the marriage of one man and one woman. One of the biggest arguments against marriage equality when it became legal in the U.S. in 2015 was that allowing gay people to get married would ruin the definition of marriage, and thus ruin the idea of the traditional relationship.
However, marriage hasn’t always had the same definition. According to a lecture from American Enterprise Institute, in the past, couples often married for status and power rather than love. Marrying someone for love only became common during the Enlightenment. With this movement, people were encouraged to be free thinkers, which led to more men choosing who they wanted to marry. Then, when the Industrial Revolution started, giving many middle-class men more money to pay for their own weddings, marrying for love became the accepted practice in Western society.
Jess thinks the idea of a traditional couple is misguided. In ancient times, Jess says, polygamy was accepted.
A paper by Walter Scheidel of Stanford University acknowledges many societies in which polygamy was accepted. Ancient Greece, for example, allowed men to have concubines, or women outside of their marriage. In Ancient Egypt, rulers and high-class male citizens could have “harems,” or a place in their houses for their concubines, wives, and female servants to live.
Polygamy, however, is different from polyamory, Jess is careful to note. Polygamy is often associated with religion, and often only allows men to have multiple partners. Polyamory is more secular. It doesn’t have any rules limiting the genders of partners involved.
Davila believes constraining couples to one ideal can lead to betrayal. She says some people who might not be suited for monogamous relationships enter them anyway, then might end up cheating on their partners. She advises individuals to be open-minded when it comes to what type of relationships are right for them. If someone doesn’t want to be monogamous, she says, they need to recognize this and search for a partner who has the same ideals.
Jess also interprets the traditional couple ideal through the eyes of capitalism. According to them, capitalism enforced the idea of the man as the money-maker and the woman as the caretaker of the home.
In the Middle Ages, the family unit had its own economy, in a way. According to an article from the Foundation for Economic Education, the division of labor between men, women, and children was equal, and everyone did their part to make money for the family. Western society was mostly based on agriculture, so all family members worked the fields to earn a living.
But when the economy shifted away from agriculture and toward factories, men began to make enough money outside the home to support the entire family. Women and children no longer needed to work to survive. This meant men could go to work, and women could care for the children, who could now more easily go to school. These types of gender roles are what many people refer to when speaking of the traditional couple.
The family unit became less about necessity and more about happiness, so it made sense that not everyone would need to have the “traditional family.” Even though capitalism was part of what first drove families into traditional roles, it was also part of what drove them away. As capitalism changed, so did the family.
Jess and Kaleb know things change all the time, and relationships are no exception. “Soon as you resist change, you resist the nature of your own being,” Jess says.
Kaleb agrees. “You have to change together.”
Kaleb and Jess have been through many changes. From dating two people, to dating each other, to falling in love, to going on daily adventures. They change together every day, and they want people to know that changing is okay when it comes to romantic relationships.
“Don’t limit yourself,” Kaleb says. They never have.
This column was originally published in the fall 2018 print edition.
