‘Tolyamory’ Is a New Dating Trend and It’s Annoying the Polyamory Community

There are so many different relationship types out there, and when it comes down to it, there’s no right or wrong. As long as the individuals involved are happy and healthy, that’s truly all that matters.

However, some arrangements don’t seem as…balanced or fair

For example, there’s now a name for relationships where one or both individuals tolerate cheating.

The term “tolyamorous” was apparently coined by podcaster and relationship columnist Dan Savage. He first introduced the term in an episode of his podcast, “Savage Lovecast:”

“[It’s] someone willing to turn a blind eye to a lap dance or a brief affair after years of marriage,” he explained. “They’re able to focus on all the ways their spouse demonstrates their commitment and shows their love. And all of those other ways compensate or make the cheating that might be happening tolerable.”

“These people aren’t fools or dupes,” he continued. “They’re not to be pitied—they know what they signed up for and long ago made peace with what they got. They’re willing to put up with it—a certain amount of it—reconciled to it, willing to tolerate it. They are, in a word, tolyamorous.”

Couldn’t be me.

He further explains that “tolyamorous means you bear with—you tolerate—your spouse’s sexual indiscretions.”

What Is ‘Tolyamory’ Anyway?

Marie Thouin, a relationship researcher, coach and author of the forthcoming book “What Is Compersion?”, provided a prime example of this arrangement: “Think of famous couples like Hillary and Bill Clinton, where infidelity was exposed—yet they remained together as a ‘socially monogamous couple,’ rather than either breaking up or going ‘full poly’ and openly embracing other partners,” she told HuffPost. “I would hypothesize that these kinds of situations happen commonly.”

In other words, you basically let your significant other cheat on you. Instead of leaving, you stay in the relationship and act ignorant to or unbothered by the betrayal. Which, to be blunt, seems preposterous to me. It’s like an unspoken, unacknowledged form of polyamory, but the behavior is tolerated rather than encouraged. For this reason, most polyamorous individuals do not like the concept.

When people on Reddit heard about the concept of tolyamory, they weren’t too pleased.

“This is a stupid term. It’s just cheating that hasn’t blown up a relationship,” one person wrote. “We don’t need made-up words in order to remove judgment from the partner who chose to cheat.”

“This seems like a silly term,” another added. “If I’m being charitable, I think there’s a meaningful distinction to make between levels of enthusiasm regarding consenting to being in a polyamorous relationship. I would suppose there are plenty of people who might think ‘this is fine, not ideal, but fine’ for whom a term like that might theoretically apply, but the term as proposed carries such a negative connotation so as to be indistinguishable with Poly Under Duress.”

“Yet another attempt at blurring the distinction between cheating [and] ethical non-monogamy,” a third pointed out. “Oh joy.”

A fourth echoed similar feelings. “Ugh. Why is he using a portmanteau of tolerate and polyamory to refer to a partner turning a blind eye to their partner getting a lap dance? How is a DADT lap dance anything at all like polyamory?”

It’s not at all, actually.