Tag: relationships

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The Relationship Escalator

In the reading I’ve done on non-monogamy, there’s a concept that I really like called the Relationship Escalator. I don’t have the link with me right at this moment (will add later – here is the original essay!), but the general gist is that in our society, we have this concept of RELATIONSHIP that goes from DATING to COHABITATION to ENGAGEMENT to MARRIAGE to BUY HOUSE to HAVE BABY, with only minor deviations or reordering permitted.

The idea of “stepping off the relationship escalator” means that you are allowed to opt out of any or all of these steps, without guilt or feeling like you are Doing The Relationship Incorrectly. For monogamous people, this can mean accepting that it’s fine to never get married, if that’s what you want! Or even never cohabitating – some people are just happier living alone. It can also even help with framing around asexual relationships: not every relationship needs to involve sex in order to be considered just as important and valid!

For non-monogamous people, more specifically polyamorous people (who are concerned with the construction of multiple loving relationships), stepping off the Relationship Escalator can mean establishing a different kind of relationship with different partners, according to the varied needs and desires of the people involved. Having the explicitly-outlined option of “we don’t HAVE to do all of those things in order to be in a loving relationship together” allows for a lot more flexibility in creating long term relationships.

I have a set of polyamorous friends where one married couple has been together for fewer years than the wife has been with her non-marital partner. Number of years together is not assumed to be an indication of the relationship’s Seriousness, or of any Expected Next Action To Be Taken. She has dated one person for longer, but she has married and had children with the other one, because those are the choices all of them made.

Carolyn Hax (one of my favorite advice columnists) calls it the Conveyor Belt: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/advice/carolyn-hax-they-are-ready-on-paper-for-a-baby-but-what-about-the-real-thing/2021/03/23/a0e198b4-836a-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html – different word, but same concept.

I think this is a good framework for anyone who’s in (or wants to be in) a relationship to reflect on: what do you want, out of your relationship(s)? How much do you want one thing versus other things? What are you willing to compromise on?

Other people have called this concept the Relationship Smorgasbord (to avoid defining various choices as Above other choices). I’ll find that link, too, and add it here. It’s a good thing to talk about with potential partners, to think about what you want with someone else in general or in specific.

Bonus links:

https://solopoly.net/2012/11/29/riding-the-relationship-escalator-or-not/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/09/27/relationship-escalator-marriage-polyamory/

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The Advice Column Paradox

I didn’t invent this term, but I think it’s a really excellent one, so I’m going to share it here. If you have an earlier citation for the use of this phrase, please leave it in the comments!

The Advice Column Paradox: nobody writes into an advice column when things are going well.

The Advice Column Paradox: nobody writes into an advice column when things are going well. When we vent to our friends about our marriages, but don’t share the positive things, they may think things are worse than they are; but sometimes, there just aren’t positive things. (It’s why I always took pains to say “There’s good stuff too, I just don’t need help processing THAT” whenever we had these discussions. I try to be self-aware at least a little bit.)

It is very common to see, on Internet advice boards like r/relationships or r/AmITheAsshole, people complaining in the commenters always jump straight to “omg, divorce!” But what those people miss, I think, is the core of this paradox. If you are writing in to an Internet advice column, it is because something has gone wrong. Something may have gone so very wrong that they are writing in to an anonymous forum to ask for help. There is a strong possibility that they feel ashamed or afraid to ask the other people in their lives for help. The people who say “Modern couples are too quick to divorce” are either not saying that in good faith, or are ignorant of the fact of the Paradox. I don’t have a snappy name for this one; maybe we can call it the “Why So Much Divorce Corollary” or something.

Ultimately, this paradox and the corollary of people being confused by it is an example of selection bias. “You Should Break Up” being given as relationship advice is not overly common, percentage-wise; if half the advice column responses are “Break up!” and 1 in 100 people are writing into an advice column in the first place, then only half a percent of relationships are getting the “you should break up” advice. If you scale that out into the real numbers, it’s even smaller.

So, no: Advice column readers are not “too hasty” to tell people to divorce. And our culture is not somehow “devaluing” marriage by telling someone who is locked out of a bathroom while pregnant, or worse, that they need to leave to protect themself.