We’ve watched it happen more times than we can count. A polyamorous relationship — one of ours or someone else’s — hits a rough patch or ends, and suddenly the people who once seemed so open-minded have a lot to say.
People are quick to dissect the arrangement itself. Of course there was jealousy. Of course there was drama — what did you expect? Or so the assumptions go. The breakup is treated not as a relationship between imperfect humans that ran its course, but as a verdict on polyamory itself.
It’s time to admit that polyamory’s biggest obstacle has never been jealousy, logistics or commitment, as popular culture might have one believe. It’s instead the societal presumption that nonmonogamy is inherently suspect.
We call this “the poly presumption”: the belief that the nonmonogamous structure is to blame in any breakup or conflict and the burden is on the people in the relationships to prove otherwise. As queer polyamorous people, we’ve spent years tracing the roots of this presumption, and what we’ve discovered is that it operates at a systems level.
Polyamory has more visibility today, more legal recognition and more cultural legitimacy than at any point in modern Western life. More people are open about practicing it. Popular television shows and podcasts are slowly moving on from treating polyamory as a punchline. Some even embrace it. Cities are extending legal protections to multi-partner relationships. And, increasingly, people will tell you they don’t care what relationship structure or style you choose.
Yet beneath this well-meaning desire to be accepting, a double standard persists.
This double standard exists because Western society has created, enforced and normalized monogamy as the only acceptable relationship structure — much as marriage between two straight people once was. Monogamy is treated as the default setting for intimacy, and the preference for monogamy lives in everything from health insurance policies and tax law to apartment leases and invitations that simply offer a plus-one. Social and professional life is all quietly organized around the belief that legitimate intimacy comes only in pairs.
When something is as deeply ingrained in society as monogamy, the failures that people experience when attempting it are interpreted as individual failures, not structural ones. Polyamory, and nonmonogamy more broadly, does not receive that grace. When a polyamorous dynamic experiences conflict, the burden is always on the polyamorous people to prove that the entire nonmonogamous structure isn’t to blame.
Take jealousy. In monogamy, it’s treated as a normal human emotion. But in polyamorous relationships, jealousy is immediately read as proof that nonmonogamy isn’t viable. The same logic applies to the perception that polyamorous relationships are inherently unstable.
Pop culture often portrays polyamory as chaotic, messy and too emotionally demanding to last. The 2025 film “Splitsville,” for example, treats instability as nonmonogamy’s natural state: A monogamous couple on the verge of divorce turns to nonmonogamy as a last resort, and, predictably, everything falls apart. These portrayals have real consequences. When a polyamorous relationship ends, that stereotype is confirmed. When a monogamous one does, it’s just a breakup.
The irony is seen in how often research cuts against the poly presumption. A 2025 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Sex Research, the largest assessment of its kind, considered data from 35 studies that included nearly 25,000 people and found no significant differences in relationship satisfaction or sexual satisfaction between purportedly monogamous people and those who consider themselves nonmonogamous. Additionally, a 2024 scoping review published in the Journal of Family Theory & Review found that people in polyamorous relationships report less jealousy than those in monogamous couplings.
Research also suggests that infidelity affects one in four married couples in the United States. So, the assumption that monogamy is simply the more stable, more fulfilling way to pursue intimate relationships turns out to be a myth.
This myth forms the narrative foundation of modern legislation and continues to guide polyphobic and homophobic legislative decisions, such as Indiana’s and Tennessee’s recent declarations that now mark June as Nuclear Family Month. It also fuels inequities, with people in polyamorous relationships more likely than those in monogamous ones to earn under $40,000 a year.
None of this suggests that polyamory is beyond criticism. Like monogamous relationships, polyamorous relationships can be unhealthy, manipulative and even emotionally destructive. The goal is to ensure that people are not judged, marginalized or denied their rights simply because they choose a different path.
That starts with recognizing the poly presumption in the stories we tell, the jokes we laugh at and the media narratives that portray polyamorous people as dysfunctional, selfish or doomed. It means questioning our own biases about nonmonogamy and about what ultimately makes a relationship legitimate.
Until we challenge the poly presumption, the cultural jury will continue to mistake difference for dysfunction — and return a guilty verdict before anything goes wrong.
Christina Fialho is an attorney and the founder/president of Rewrite the BiLine. Megan Burke is a philosopher and the author of three books, including “Becoming a Woman: Simone de Beauvoir and the Politics of Trans Existence.”
The post The unfair double standard polyamorous relationships face appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
