Olga Khazan's Multiple Lovers, Without Jealousy

In a 2014 article from The Atlantic, titled Multiple Lovers, Without Jealousy, journalist Olga Khazan reports her experiences meeting and interviewing multiple people in polyamorous relationships. The many couples that Khazan interviews try to help explain the process of polyamory to those who have not been in an open relationship before. Based on her observations of these couples and their experiences, Khazan argues that those in polyamorous relationships are better at handling conflict than those in monogamous relationships. Khazan also explores the strengths and weaknesses of being in a polyamorous relationship versus a monogamous relationship. The main differences that Khazan seems to find between polyamorous relationships and monogamous

She describes the example of one triad that was out to eat at a diner, and while wife Cassie was in the bathroom, her husband Josh gave the tomatoes from his burger to their date, Anne. This made Cassie upset because she always eats the tomatoes that Josh discards from his burger. Although she wanted to be angry and cause a scene, she realized that "they 're just tomatoes," (Khazan, 2014). Cassie 's ability to self-regulate her emotions without adding conflict to the relationship occurs in many of the other polyamorous relationships surveyed. Most of us would define this emotion as jealousy, but an interesting point brought up in the article suggests that we only express jealousy when we are feeling a loss (Khazan, 2014). I believe this is the strongest argument for why polyamory works just as well as, or better than, monogamy. However, I still question if these individuals are setting their feelings aside in order to save the relationship, or if they actually are better at regulating these

Khazan does a great job of providing arguments for polyamorous relationships while also mentioning the counterarguments of skeptics. She also incorporates numerous studies done by others that support her claims about whether or not polyamorous couples handle relationship conflict better than monogamous couples. Khazan 's use of specific stories and examples from the individuals that she interviews are very beneficial to her argument as well. However, I do wish that Khazan incorporated more examples from the people she interviewed first-hand, to give a better understanding from a personal experience in addition to all of the studies. I also wish she would have included more information about the different types of polyamorous relationships and their ability to handle conflict. For example, maybe relationships with two women and one man are better at handling conflict than relationships with two men and one woman, or vice versa. It also would have been interesting if Khazan had included an example of a polyamorous relationship that did not work as well as the others, to show differences in success