Secondary partner

What is a secondary partner?

A secondary partner is, in a polyamorous or other non-monogamous relationship, the partner with less priority than the primary. Research finds that secondary partners usually live apart and share no finances, and get less time, energy, and priority than a primary partner. The word says something about the structure, not about the feelings.

What a secondary partner looks like in practice

In practice, a secondary relationship is one that, by choice or by circumstance, is less entangled with your daily life. Take someone with a primary partner she lives with, shares a household with, and maybe raises children with, and alongside that a secondary partner she sees once or twice a week, who has no say over the mortgage and doesn’t have a key. Researchers Balzarini and colleagues describe a primary relationship as partners who usually share a household and finances and are married or raising children, and a secondary relationship as partners who live apart and share no finances. So the secondary partner is not a lesser partner, but a less entangled one.

Where the term comes from

Secondary and primary belong to hierarchical polyamory, in which some relationships get more priority than others. That hierarchy can be agreed on, for instance a couple who decide their relationship stays the primary one, or it can arise on its own because one bond simply happens to be older or more entangled. Criticism of that ordering is exactly why relationship anarchy exists, which rejects any ranking between relationships. Anyone who doesn’t want a ranking prefers anchor partner, a word that describes entanglement without turning it into an order.

Why people choose a secondary relationship

The appeal of the secondary side is often freedom with connection: intimacy and romance, without the full entanglement of living together, money, and calendars. Research by Balzarini and colleagues in PLoS One from 2017 found that people reported more investment, satisfaction, commitment, and less stigma with their primary relationship, while a larger share of the time with the secondary partner went to sex. For some people that is precisely the appeal: the energy of something new, less routine. What the structure doesn’t take away is the painful side. The same study found more secrecy around secondary relationships, and that fits a broader stigma: according to a summary from the American Psychological Association, more than half of people who identify as non-monogamous have experienced discrimination. Being the secondary partner can leave you feeling undervalued or hidden. A good hierarchy is one where that has been talked about out loud.

How to keep it on track

A secondary relationship works best when the expectations are explicit rather than assumed. A few things that help:

• Make the agreements out loud. How much time, which place, what is and isn’t okay: say it, because an unspoken hierarchy is exactly where people end up feeling hurt.
• Arrange safer sex per relationship. Research in The Journal of Sexual Medicine from 2015 found that people in consensually non-monogamous relationships actually take more precautions, more condom use and more frequent STI testing, than people in monogamous relationships. Agree on what applies with which partner.
• Ask how it feels for the secondary partner. “Less priority” mustn’t become a cover for “not taken seriously.”
• Involve the other partners where it fits. A secondary relationship also touches the metamour, your partner’s partner.

What a secondary partner is not

“Secondary means less important.” No. The term is about structure, time, and entanglement, not about how much someone cares about the other. Someone can love a secondary partner deeply.

“A secondary partner is the same as an affair.” The difference is consent. In ethical non-monogamy everyone involved knows about it and the agreements are shared. An affair runs on secrecy.

“Hierarchy is part of every poly relationship.” Not true. Relationship anarchy and non-hierarchical polyamory deliberately work without primary and secondary.

More reading on the secondary partner

• Ethical non-monogamy sets the secondary partner in the whole landscape of non-monogamous relationship forms.
• Anchor partner is the word for entanglement without ranking, the alternative to “primary.”
• Perceptions of primary and secondary relationships in polyamory (PLoS One, 2017) gives the figures behind the differences between the two.

Where this fits on this site

Being a secondary partner is a relationship form, not a service I provide. What I do offer is company and intimacy without the entanglement of a full relationship, on your terms and discreetly. If you’re curious how such a meeting goes, take a look at my services. A first conversation costs nothing and ties you to nothing.

Sources

• Perceptions of primary and secondary relationships in polyamory. Rhonda N. Balzarini et al., PLoS One, 2017. Gives the definition of a primary relationship as partners who share a household and finances and are married or raising children, and of a secondary relationship as partners who live apart and share no finances, plus the finding that the primary relationship got more investment, satisfaction, commitment, and less stigma and the secondary one more secrecy.
• A Comparison of Sexual Health History and Practices among Monogamous and Consensually Nonmonogamous Sexual Partners. Justin J. Lehmiller, The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2015. Gives that people in consensually non-monogamous relationships took more precautions than people in monogamous relationships, with more condom use with all partners and a greater likelihood of an STI test.
• Consensual non-monogamy: A brief summary of key findings and recent advancements. Richard A. Sprott & Heath Schechinger, The Family Psychologist (APA Division 43), 2019. Gives the broad definition of consensual non-monogamy as an agreed, sexually non-exclusive relationship, and that more than half of people who identify as non-monogamous have experienced discrimination.

Related terms

• Ethical non-monogamy. The broader framework in which the secondary-partner role exists.
• Polyamory. The relationship form where primary and secondary come up most often.
• Anchor partner. The word for entanglement without ranking, as an alternative to the primary-secondary ordering.
• Relationship anarchy. The form that deliberately rejects hierarchy between relationships.
• Metamour. Your partner’s partner, who a secondary relationship also touches.