how did you know you wanted a hierarchical structure? questioning whether my views on hierarchy/structure are actually mine

[u/Classic_Being_4970]

I’ve been reflecting on how my views around hierarchy and structure in polyamory have shifted, and I’m struggling to tell what’s genuinely aligned for me vs what has been shaped by specific relationships (and by ideas I’ve internalized about what “good poly” is supposed to look like).

I think I carry some baggage around the idea that being “good” at poly means being as non-hierarchical and unstructured as possible, like wanting structure somehow means you’re less evolved, less secure, or doing poly “wrong.” I’m realizing that belief is in the background of a lot of this, and I’m trying to examine whether it’s actually mine.

I was dating someone who said they wanted “structure” and some level of hierarchy in their poly relationships. The thing is, we ended things before we ever got to fully unpack what that actually meant for them, and I’m realizing I never got clarity on whether we were talking about intentional agreements or something more fear driven.

From what little I knew, I sometimes got the sense that their need for structure might have been coming from insecurity/anxiety/avoidance rather than from grounded intentionality. But I also know I could be projecting or misreading that.

That relationship still hurts. It mattered deeply to me, and I think part of me is still trying to make sense of whether our incompatibility was real, or whether something could have been understood differently if we’d had those conversations.

At the same time, I’m currently seeing someone who doesn’t believe in hierarchy at all.

So now I’m sitting with this uncomfortable question: am I seriously reconsidering hierarchy/structure because part of me is still trying to make sense of (or maybe emotionally “save”) what I lost in my past relationship? Or am I resisting considering it because I don’t want to threaten the connection I have now or because I’ve absorbed the idea that “good poly” means not wanting it?

Basically, I’m trying to figure out:

How do you tell whether your relationship values are genuinely yours vs shaped by attachment to specific people or by community norms/ideals?
Have you ever realized you were rethinking your relational philosophy because of one specific person?
Have your views on hierarchy/structure changed depending on who you were with?
How do you sit with this kind of uncertainty honestly, without just choosing the belief system that protects the relationship you most want to keep?

I’m not looking for “hierarchy bad/non-hierarchy good” takes. I’m genuinely trying to understand myself better and separate my own values from relationship driven adaptation and internalized ideas about what poly is “supposed” to look like.

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[u/clairejv]

At no point in this post did you define "hierarchy." The term means different things to different people. Also, hierarchy isn't a binary; it's more of a spectrum, where relationships can have different elements of hierarchy at different degrees.

I'm married. That means one of my relationships has legal, social, and economic benefits that I cannot share with any other relationship. That's a societal hierarchy I decided to participate in, because it benefited me to do so. Marriage is a useful legal instrument, when you're raising a kid and owning property and stuff together for decades.

At the same time, my husband doesn't have veto power. He hasn't asked for it, nor tried to exercise it, even when I was involved in a high-risk, low-ethics relationship he thought I was stupid as fuck for being in. (He was not wrong, ftr.) I don't seek his approval for who I date. I don't cancel on people if he's jealous. I don't limit what sex acts I perform with other people for his benefit.

On the other hand, my husband and I have a child together. That means I am going to prioritize my relationship with him over my relationships with others to some extent, because it's very important to me that we stay together if at all possible. I would not stop being poly for him -- I'd rather divorce -- but I will ensure my other relationships don't encroach on the commitments I've made to him. I will not start spending five nights a week at some other person's home, for example. That is simply off the table for any new relationship I'm in. I prioritize that way because I strongly value two-parent homes.

So that's why I have some kinds of hierarchy: I wanted the benefits of marriage, and I want my marriage to last. I don't have other kinds of hierarchy, because those are so unpalatable to me that I would be willing to divorce over them. I figured out what was important to me, and made choices accordingly.

[u/dionebigode → u/clairejv]

Thanks for the experience, it made the choices much more understandable

[u/allthestuffis]

Can you say more about what you mean when you say “structure”? To me, structure just means some sort of predictability and expectations, but not necessarily hierarchy. But I’m curious what it means to you when you say it. 

[u/hellacure]

How do you tell whether your relationship values are genuinely yours vs shaped by attachment to specific people or by community norms/ideals? Have you ever realized you were rethinking your relational philosophy because of one specific person? Have your views on hierarchy/structure changed depending on who you were with? How do you sit with this kind of uncertainty honestly, without just choosing the belief system that protects the relationship you most want to keep?

I think the first question might already point toward the deeper issue:

Why do you want polyamory in the first place, and which parts of it actually feel genuinely aligned for you vs ideologically “correct”?

Reading your post it almost sounds like you’ve internalized the idea that wanting structure, prioritization, stability or a central partnership somehow makes you “less evolved” or “bad at poly.” But then the question becomes: according to whom?

A lot of poly discourse talks about deconstructing monogamy, the relationship escalator, etc.; yet in practice many people still end up wanting a primary partner, cohabitation, marriage, children, shared finances and long-term entanglement. In other words: a monogamous structure, even if multiple relationships exist.

So I think it’s worth asking yourself not only “am I adapting my values to a specific person?” but also: Are some of your current beliefs actually coming from community ideals about what poly is supposed to look like?

And if certain structures keep re-emerging even among people actively trying to deconstruct them, maybe that’s also worth sitting with instead of immediately pathologizing it as insecurity, avoidance, lack of evolution, etc.

[u/Specific_Pipe_9050]

Your questions are very valid, self-aware and my favourite kind of existential; but ultimately they're all introspective. 

I understand you want other people's points of view to better understand your own, but I don't think there's a shortcut to self discovery. I first wrote about my own (however limited) experience, but actually I don't think it will matter or help in this case 🤔 Nobody knows you better than you.

How do you tell whether your relationship values are genuinely yours vs shaped by attachment to specific people or by community norms/ideals?

Well what value do you usually put on other people's opinions about how you live your life in domains other than polyamory? 

Correlation is not causation - just because you happened to question your values while in a relationship or right after a relationship shift or ending, doesn't matter your questioning is not genuine or has wrong motivations.

I think you have to trust yourself to do what's right for you and that you're doing what you're doing for the right reasons. You learn to trust your intuition and your gut when it's not possible to dissect every move in the moment. The fact that you're questioning yourself shows you have some idea about your values and it's a good start to build upon. And if it's a question of self-reliance and learning healthy detachment from external validation, individual therapy is the way to go imo.

[u/Choice-Strawberry392]

I like thought experiments to see how my feelings react under hypothetical examples.

For example, I imagine a partner saying to me, "I'd like to move in with you! We'll get so much time together, and we can make plans or just laze around, and I'll be around and you'll be around and we will be right up in each other's business all the time!"

And I get the creeping heebie-jeebies and a suffocating sense, like I put on a suit coat two sizes too small. Turns out, I don't want to live with a partner.

But then I imagine an amazing date: going out, being shiny and fun, back somewhere for the evening, sparks and fireworks... And in the morning, she says, "Catch you around, maybe!" So I wait, send a text, wait ... and five weeks later she pings back, "What are you doing Friday?"

Nah ... turns out I want a little more than that. I feel used and optional. Okay, I might say yes. Maybe. Twice. But not three times.

Point being, these are scenarios I imagine separate from any particular person. They are about the structure and shape I want in my life, or don't want. I play around with these bite-sized fantasies to watch my gut reaction as they play out.

The shape of the structures you want is both personal and valid. You can want whatever you want. The "rules" -- as much as there are any -- include being kind, and ideally not being a hypocrite. But that's about it.

[u/LittleMissQueeny]

I mean the reality is that our feelings, opinions, wants etc are all influenced by what happens to us. People we meet, relationships we have, society, expectations etc.

I personally don't use the word hierarchy irl because it's a a word that imo means a whole lot of nothing in the grand scheme of things due to the wide variety of things it means.

But for the sake of this post:

I have a nesting partner who is helping me raise my kids. (He's their step parent essentially). So there is hierarchy there. What that hierarchy doesn't mean is that they have any say over my other relationships or that I can't escalate with other partners.

I'm open to nesting with other people, but they would also have to live with him. With the fact that I have 2 kids, until they are grown I'm not nesting in multiple homes.

I decided to have this hierarchy because I enjoy living with my romantic partners. Domestic life together is my favorite parts of relationships. That's one reason I'm open to nesting with multiple partners.

My np and I have discussed marriage which would create a much bigger, legally enforceable, hierarchy and would require them to divorce their spouse. If we did this it would be for them to adopt my children. Mostly because of my anxiety about what happens to them if I die while they are still minors. I technically have full custody but their bio dad who they haven't seen in 6+ years has legal rights so they would probably go to him, a stranger.

Even with the hierarchies I treat my relationships with equity. I wouldn't stay in a relationship with someone who tries to control any aspect of my other relationships. I won't make agreements that do so. I wouldn't want a relationship like that. It wouldn't feel like a relationship to me. More like a fling or casual.

[u/Infamous-Part966]

I don't think this is a question a bunch of strangers can answer for you. I think you need to take a lot of self reflection time to see what's important to you. What values and needs you have. And how you want to structure your relationships to give you those things. 

Do you often change core values depending on who you're dating? Maybe you have some people pleasing tendencies so you default to what someone else wants of you versus yourself.

[u/Puppies-n-Teacups]

I actually started out not wanting to have any labels or have any set expectations between me and the people I connected with on any romantic or sexual level, but that didn't work for me when, after 3 months seeing the man I'm now married to, I started to actually crave one person more than others while still not wanting to give up others and wanted him to be the go-to first call I made when setting up future plans and vice versa. So, I told him that's what I wanted and I wanted to try to let myself be an official girlfriend and he said he'd love to, he loved me, and absolutely yes! We still saw other people, both together and seperately, and over the years kept consistently finding ourselves happiest when those other people were already in primary relationships themselves and we just had mutual secondary status. I dated two different people who called themselves relationship anarchists, and in the early months they were fine with having a recurring time with me on preselected days, eventually they wanted things to escalate and I didn't and they both tried to convince me to change my approach to polyamory to theirs and "just be fair." In stark contrast, my 3 relationships that lasted happily for long stretches of time were all with people who also had primaries and liked hierarchy, too. We've talked about it a lot in my little circles that it seems messed up that it's considered the norm to have a best friend in a friend group and call each other best friends in front of the others, but with many polyamorous and general ENM circles, we hierarchal people are often treated like we don't belong because we want hierarchy that functions extremely comparably to having a best friend and also other friends, only it's romantic partners, not platonic friendships. It has been heavily pointed out to me that there are ways hierarchy can be used badly. I do know that these ways exist, but I have been lucky and not experienced them personally. I'm sure more than enough other people will happily share their bad experiences with hierarchy, though, if you ask!

[u/Infamous-Part966 → u/Puppies-n-Teacups]

Ooo this brings up such old memories of people telling me I could only have one best friend growing up. Maybe like a little precursor to polyamory but I absolutely refused. I had two best friends and neither one was better. They were both important (and I still remain friends to this day). I feel like best friend is title to me. Kinda like partner is. It indicates more closeness and commitment. But not reserved for one person. 

[u/FeeFiFooFunyon]

I want a partner to live with, raise children with, and share retirement plans and finances with. To be frank I prefer spending time with my spouse over anyone else so us sharing default time works for me.

I don’t want those things from other people and I don’t want to be with people who want those things from me.

If my marriage would end I would seek a monogamous relationship as it is very difficult to find a primary nesting relationship in the poly community and I am ambiamrous.

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Here's the original text of the post:

I’ve been reflecting on how my views around hierarchy and structure in polyamory have shifted, and I’m struggling to tell what’s genuinely aligned for me vs what has been shaped by specific relationships (and by ideas I’ve internalized about what “good poly” is supposed to look like).

I think I carry some baggage around the idea that being “good” at poly means being as non-hierarchical and unstructured as possible, like wanting structure somehow means you’re less evolved, less secure, or doing poly “wrong.” I’m realizing that belief is in the background of a lot of this, and I’m trying to examine whether it’s actually mine.

I was dating someone who said they wanted “structure” and some level of hierarchy in their poly relationships. The thing is, we ended things before we ever got to fully unpack what that actually meant for them, and I’m realizing I never got clarity on whether we were talking about intentional agreements or something more fear driven.

From what little I knew, I sometimes got the sense that their need for structure might have been coming from insecurity/anxiety/avoidance rather than from grounded intentionality. But I also know I could be projecting or misreading that.

That relationship still hurts. It mattered deeply to me, and I think part of me is still trying to make sense of whether our incompatibility was real, or whether something could have been understood differently if we’d had those conversations.

At the same time, I’m currently seeing someone who doesn’t believe in hierarchy at all.

So now I’m sitting with this uncomfortable question: am I seriously reconsidering hierarchy/structure because part of me is still trying to make sense of (or maybe emotionally “save”) what I lost in my past relationship? Or am I resisting considering it because I don’t want to threaten the connection I have now or because I’ve absorbed the idea that “good poly” means not wanting it?

Basically, I’m trying to figure out:

How do you tell whether your relationship values are genuinely yours vs shaped by attachment to specific people or by community norms/ideals?
Have you ever realized you were rethinking your relational philosophy because of one specific person?
Have your views on hierarchy/structure changed depending on who you were with?
How do you sit with this kind of uncertainty honestly, without just choosing the belief system that protects the relationship you most want to keep?

I’m not looking for “hierarchy bad/non-hierarchy good” takes. I’m genuinely trying to understand myself better and separate my own values from relationship driven adaptation and internalized ideas about what poly is “supposed” to look like.

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