"Polywise emphasizes transitions--whether from monogamy to nonmonogamy, or from one form of nonmonogamy to another. It is these transitional periods that can easily reveal the grinding mechanisms behind the scenes, and the cracks in a relationship's infrastructure. This is where many of us need the most help, and so Polywise goes straight to the heart of the matter, offering balms for healing and genuinely feasible strategies for making these things...not painless, perhaps, but hopefully a little kinder to all involved, and certainly survivable.
As I read, I found myself particularly inspired by the collaborative spirit of Polywise, incorporating as it does several sections written by David Cooley, with whom Fern has been "classmates, friends, lovers, husband and wife, co-parents, ex-husband and ex-wife, family of choice, housemates, life partners and now, even co-authors." The book's very existence is tangible proof of the general fact that relationship transitions need not be losses. More generally, you can feel in these pages the accumulated practical wisdom that comes from seeking emergent patterns in the data, rather than simply imposing pre- conceived ideas. And Fern's data are, in a sense, us, the nonmonogamous: this is a book about our real lives and real loves, as represented in the kinds of challenges that came up repeatedly for her non-monogamous clients and interviewees. The practical and the theoretical are integrated seamlessly in this book, just like in real life. Many of us will be visiting the wisdom of Polywise over and over again as our relationships grow and change, like the living things they are."
--Carrie Jenkins
"author of What Love Is (and What it Could Be) and Sad Love: Romance and the Search for Meaning, and "
