“Polyamory isn’t something you can try on like a new set of clothes. If you expect to be able to dump everyone else and go back to monogamy, you’re saying you have the right to break someone else’s heart, or to demand that your partner break someone’s heart. You are treating people as things. 
You’ll often hear poly people talking about how scary it is to open an existing relationship. You don’t hear as much from people who are starting a relationship with a member of an established couple, even though it’s just as scary. Couples are able to make all kinds of rules and structures to transfer their risk onto new partners, without recognizing that a person starting a relationship with one or both of them is already assuming a lot of risk. When we fall in love, we are all vulnerable; we all put our hearts in other people’s hands, knowing they might be broken. Too often, the vulnerability and fear within an existing couple is given the highest priority, with little or no recognition of the vulnerability and fear of a new person starting a relationship with them. Everyone in the foxhole is at risk, but that doesn’t make it okay to use someone as your human shield.”

— More Than Two (via okpoly2)