NRE Isn't Why We Fall In Love, But It Might Be Why We Break Up

For years, my biggest issue with polyamory, or more specifically, poly advice, was that the incredibly destructive, relationship-ending chemical rodeo known as “New Relationship Energy” (also known as “infatuation” if you’re level-headed, “limerence” if you’re a psychologist, or “love” if you’re an idiot) was downplayed consistently.  Many poly problems seemed to stem from bad choices or inconsiderate behavior made by one partner in NRE, while the other partner has to deal with the insecurity and jealousy of seeing their SO acting like a crazy person and showing little interest in them.  Feeling like you’re losing your partner to another is the primal fear that prevents many people from exploring poly and haunts many who do.  When you have a partner in full-on NRE, many of those fears seem to be coming true - because, maybe, they are!

For years, most people have viewed NRE, or whatever you want to call it, as crazy chemical drug that induces people to begin relationships for the sake of makin’ babies.  However, an article on The Quartz brings up the idea that maybe the point of NRE isn’t so much to get into new relationships, but rather to get out of an existing one.

It sounds crazy, but it also makes sense.  You don’t need NRE to start a relationship - it helps, but many solid relationships exist without NRE having ever been in play.  And certainly many relationships end without NRE for another factoring in.  But when one person leaves someone for another?  NRE is always in the mix.

The age old question in sexuality and relationship research was whether humans are fundamentally monogamous or not.  There are extremists on both sides arguing their case furiously, but reality seems to be more complicated.  A lot of evidence is starting to point towards the fact that when the status of the sexes are relatively equal, serial monogamy will be the norm.  This article argues that may be the way nature intended it to be.

I’m wary of the naturalistic fallacy no matter who it’s coming from - Conservatives on one side, Christopher Ryan of “Sex at Dawn” on the other.  From a common sense perspective though, ending an otherwise happy, stable relationship does seem strange, until you consider the idea that NRE might exist to encourage us to do just that.  

If there’s some truth to this hypothesis, it might help explain why poly relationships do seem, on the whole, more unstable than monogamous ones.  I know this will get the poly readers I don’t have huffy, but as much as we all love to hate him (and we do kinda hate him on this blog), Dan Savage famously remarked that he’s been to plenty of poly commitment ceremonies, but not a whole lot of poly three-year anniversary parties.  He has a point, and the point isn’t that polyamory is bad or invalid, but it is an inherently destabilizing relationship model.  Shira B. Katz, formerly of Pedestrian Polyamory (which ended when her marriage ended due to...NRE) and currently of Life On The Swingset and an enthusiastic and proud poly person has advocated that line many times as a positive, as does Franklin Veaux.  Two people who are famous poly experts who don’t put a lot of value in established relationships.  It’s not hard to find monogamous or “ish” people who have been together for 10 years.  It is quite difficult to find poly people who have maintained more than one relationship for 10 years.  (And when you do, it’s often a closed triad or V, which for some reason seems to be a more stable structure than others.)

These musings only matter if relationship stability is your primary goal when navigating an open relationship.  It isn’t for everyone, and that’s fine.  Many polyamorous folk look down on those of us who value that stability as engaging in “couple supremacy” and I say, hey, we are all free to choose what’s most important to us in life.  My current relationship is the most important thing to me outside of my basic personhood.  I know I could survive and thrive without my husband, but I just don’t want to, not if it could be helped.  We know, being in an open relationship, that NRE is possible.  Hell, I found myself in crazy, one-sided NRE with a friend that I simply had a crush on.  Despite my deep commitment to my husband, and the fact that I did not find this guy a good match in any other sense, I found myself indulging in fantasies of running away with my crush object.  It’s crazy, it defies reason, or even what I really want in my life, but that’s NRE for you.  It’s not logical.  And like all NRE, it passed, I’m really, honestly glad that he never made a pass at me, and I kept my feelings hidden from him.   It would have been incredibly destructive to the thing I hold most dear, and for what?  Indulging in a temporary chemical high with someone that I’m fundamentally incompatible with in a way that could have very likely harmed the relationship I care the most about?

I’m not saying that being poly is inherently bad, but I am saying it’s inherently destabilizing.   If maintaining an existing relationship is a primary goal of yours, opening yourself up to the possibility with NRE is risky, no matter what poly advice gurus will tell you.  It’s up to you to negotiate responsibly the line between risk and reward.  Tread carefully.