Family members’ attitudes towards their kin’s polyamorous relationships

Contemporary mono-normative societies are increasingly confronted with questioning the status quo and the ideals that correspond to it. This can also be said about the binary systems in which we shape our relationships: monogamous and non-monogamous. This research questions the way family dynamics and support systems are shaped by the attitudes of family members who have relatives in a polyamorous relationship. Through qualitative research, this study examines the attitudes and perspectives of twelve family members from the researchers' social environment. This research gives a unique view of family dynamics, generational position and polyamorous notions through the researcher's lived experience. This contributes to a better understanding of family dynamics and support structures shaped by polyamorous relationships of relatives, in which there was the opportunity to study a largely invisible stigmatised minority group. While the results show that the variation in discourses among the respondents ranges from optimistic to pessimistic, the denotation of the deviating status of polyamory is expressed among most of the respondents. Irrespective of their feelings, my respondents expressed that the way these attitudes shaped the family dynamics and support structures was limited. Parents seem to be the family members most worried about the feasibility of the polyamorous relationship structure. This seems to be mainly because, as parents, they also want to protect their children from possible setbacks in the future in case of a failed relationship.