See, I don't want minimal entanglements. Again, I'm not criticizing those who do but that's not how I'm wired nor what I want out of life. As I've said earlier in this threaded discussion, I see these things on a spectrum with independence/autonomy on one extreme, co-dependence/enmeshment on the other extreme, and interpendence/self-differentiation in the middle. I'm aiming for the middle.
Lemme put it this way: I'm yet to come across an ethical and/or philosophical presentation of polyamory that wasn't built upon the presupposition of staunch autonomy. Not only that, but the belief that autonomy is one of the highest virtues to which we should all aspire. IF it were possible, or IF that's a thing, I'm more than willing to listen. That having been said, yes, right now my understanding is that interdependence with self-differentiation is totally incompatible with polyamory. Show me a model of polyamory where there's an irresolvable tension, or perhaps a Yin and Yang harmony, between the individual and the community as equally important... and I will give you my undivided attention. In other words, and I hope I'm not getting to political here, show me polyamory without libertarian freedom and I'm all ears to at least learn and consider.
Honestly I believe my polyamory makes me more interdependent rather than less, AND I still believe in autonomy. And no, this is not, IMO, a contradiction in terms.
Knight and I started this journey about as enmeshed as it is possible to be. We met when we were 16, moved in together at 19, married at 23, worked at the same place from 20-30, basically lived the same time intensive hobby for all that time too. We were enmeshed enough that our friends and acquaintances had nicknames for us as a couple.
(We even explored nonmonogamy, at first, as a “coupled” activity - dated several women and couples together as well as dabbling in swinging for a few years.)
Point here being, we were far too in each other’s pockets, and didn’t learn not to be until quite a bit into the part where we started exploring dating people separately (and by this I mean _actually_ separately, not just the weird quad relationships we had a few times, but I digress). And though there’s now a bit more air in our relationship, we’re still utterly committed to each other - growing old, raising our kid, the whole everything. If anything our relationship is in my opinion deeper, because we have to deliberately build it instead of it being the default.
And yet... we are _also_ committed to other people. Nick’s partner lives with us, and a lot of our future plans are intrinsically becoming plans for all three of us because of his commitment to her. I am equally, if not as logistically, committed to Artist - as a for instance, he and his spouse are planning on buying a new house and one of the reasons for this is to make it more comfortable for me to spend more time there and/or for ArtistSpouse’s partner to spend time there in the future. I am _deeply_ grounded in multiple communities - I mean, I once turned down a significant promotion with a 20% raise because it would have meant moving away from my chosen family, and that was pre-polyamory.
That said, I think the nature of what I believe commitment is may be a little different than yours. What I am committed to is that I will do everything in my abilities to make my partners’ lives better, even if that means wildly changing our relationship some day. I mean, you talk about “never say never” as a bad thing but I would have never dreamed, five years ago, that Joan would be living with us now. But it was the answer to a problem that made all parties happier. (Yes, even me, in the long run, though it did and does occasionally feel like I’ve lost something, it far more often feels like I’ve gained more.)
(Side note, yes many of us come up with aliases for our partners / significant people, for privacy while avoiding the possessiveness you mentioned.)
So anyway, my point here is that philosophically, I believe in relationship fluidity and autonomy but I put that fluidity in service of the people and communities I love.