I have been thinking alot
lately since having become seriously interested in a strictly
monogamous person, about how we could possibly make this work between
us. It definitely would require both sides to be on board with the
Polyamorous aspect of our life together, which Im not seeing right now.
My friend and I discuss in deep detail my feelings regarding my life
choices and I have been looking for a more clear and concise way to
communicate things to him that might help explain things better.
So tonight I came across this blog
on the internet @ http://www.xeromag.com/fvpolydialog.html that I
wanted to post some information from. I am not attempting to plagiarize
in any way here. I merely want to bring the information here for easier
reference for myself and even comment on the information accordingly.
***************************
Question:
I would like more explanation of what the poly mindset is like, because
to mono people it is so hard to understand.
For example, as a mono person,
when I say "I love you", it means in addition to tenderness and
chemistry, I think we're a team, and I'll always be there for you when
you really need me, and in a crisis, if I have to make a choice, you
will always be my first priority. It means I will try to make you happy
and to avoid hurting you, even at considerable inconvenience or
discomfort to myself (just don't abuse that willingness); and it means
I expect you'll do the same for me. It means we'll have separate
interests, and spend a lot of time apart doing our own stuff, but we
are making a commitment to build significant portions of our lives
around us, as a couple, and that can include big-ticket things like
kids or financial decisions.
It means you're my best friend,
the person I turn to to discuss the hard questions, the person I'm not
afraid to talk about anything with, because I know you won't talk about
it with anyone else. You're the person I let deepest into my private
sphere, into areas that normally other people have no business being
in, and I 'm the one you let deepest into your private sphere, and by
overlapping something that is intensely private and intrinsic to the
self, we gain an intensely warm and supportive partnership in life; but
I can only let you in that far if I can be sure that you won't take
anything that belongs in that intensely private sphere and share it
with strangers.
Answer:
I wonder, sometimes, if it's
possible for a person hard-wired for monogamy to understand what it's
like to be wired for polyamory, and vice versa.
For many, though not all,
polyamorous people, love means very much these same things.
There are actually at least two
radically different approaches to polyamory I've seen. One approach,
which is the one I take, is that polyamory is about forging close,
intimate, long-term relationships--about building family. A person with
an inclusive model of polyamory would agree with everything you've
written, with the addition that a partnership can include more than two
people.
The other common model is the
"free agent" model. A free agent tends to see polyamory as an antidote
to being controlled; such a person often behaves as if he or she is
single, and does not often stop to consider the impact of his or her
choices on his or her partners. To such a person, the idea of a
partnership like you've described may be seen as stifling or
controlling.
***********************
Question:
I don't want any other romantic
partners - not only because everyone else seems somehow uninteresting
compared with my partner, but because no matter how attractive I find
multiple people and no matter how much I feel affection for other
people, it isn't possible for me to be that close and committed to two
different people at the same time - not emotionally and not
practically, in terms of time and attention.
Answer:
That, right there, is probably the key difference between someone
monogamous and someone polyamorous--a polyamorous person does feel that
he is able to let more than one person that close, and to become that
emotionally intimate with more than one person. (And to be fair, most
monogamous people do not really believe they can only be this intimate
with one person, but rather that they can be this intimate with only
one person at a time--there's a difference...)
Of course, most of the "free agent' polyamorists I've met don't want or
value this level of emotional intimacy.
************************
Question:
If I were to have secondary
lovers with shallower relationships, there would always be a major risk
that I'd let something slip that was private to my primary partner and
me and that that third person had no business knowing or being involved
in.
Answer:
Personally, I don't make distinctions between "primary" and "secondary"
relationships, at least in the sense that I would never tell someone
"You are a secondary partner." I offer emotional intimacy to all my
partners, if they want it.
I wonder, though, what kinds of things you see as being this private. I
tend to share myself with my partners entirely, and not hold things as
private from them; that doesn't mean I gossip about each of my partners
with each other partner, but it does mean that they can all see the
private sides of me if they choose to. Can you elaborate a little more
about the privacy issues you see?
**************************
Question:
Life is sooooo much simpler as a
mono..sigh.
Simplicity is in the eye of the beholder. For me, monogamy seems
terribly complicated, and fraught with secrets and unexpected land
mines. :)
Would it matter if you feel that you did have a choice in your
partner's other partner?
*************************
Question:
I really don't understand how anyone could NOT want to be #1 with their
cherished partner, and I'll tell you why (maybe you can explain the
poly perspective a little more?):
The reason that I as a mono
couldn't deal with not being top dog is partly emotional - I am making
this other person my top dog, in fact my only dog, and while I might
understand that he has some strange (to me) hard-wired inability to
restrain himself from acting on his crushes for my sake, I at least
would expect him to compromise with my mono outlook to the extent of
putting me first.
I also need to be top dog because
I need to know that if push comes to shove, and there's a serious
conflict of interest between me and another partner, he's going to do
what's best for me, not her. Otherwise, where is the Commitment,
capital C? Commitment, to me as a mono, doesn't just mean that you're
going to share some unspecified part of your life with me, maybe larger
or maybe smaller, and maybe fluctuating over time. It means that you're
going to stand by me, period, and no one else's interests will come
before mine, except possibly our children's.
Mmm. Already I see some conceptual difficulties developing here.
I do not believe a polyamorous person is a person who has an inability
to restrain himself from acting on his crushes. Not at all. In fact,
responsible polyamorous people consider very carefully the consequences
and implications of acting on their feelings before they do so; in that
way, I don't think there's any difference between a responsible
polyamorous person and a responsible monogamous person. Certainly I
have never felt that I have an inability to act on my crushes; indeed,
I can and often do choose not to act on my crushes.
It's interesting that you mention children, because it demonstrates
that there is a situation where you can see that putting someone else's
needs first--namely, putting your children's needs first--does not
automatically imply that there can be no commitment between you and
your partner.
And in fact it seems to me that often, monogamous couples do consider
the needs of their children first, and that this in no way means the
couple is not committed to each other.
I believe that multiple commitments, and multiple commitments with a
capital C, are possible. For example, a couple can be committed to
their children, even if they have two, and committed to meeting the
needs of those children even if it should come to pass that both
children need something at the same time.
*****************************
Question:
I have trouble understanding the
idea of "commitment" in a poly relationship. If you're not going to
promise to stand by me and put my interests first in a crunch, there
isn't any Commitment, capital C, and therefore there isn't any
relationship, by definition, in my view as a mono. All we are is
lovers, or friends with benefits, not spouses or even
boyfriend/girlfriend. (This only works, obviously, if you don't abuse
my commitment by demanding more than I can give or demanding things
that harm me; and as you say, although one can promise, life is life
and there are never any ultimate guarantees. But there are promises
made and honored to the best of one's abilities.)
To me, the commitment is in promising to stand by my partner and make
her interests a priority, not necessarily to stand by her and put her
commitments "first." And as you've already said, this is true even in a
traditional monogamous relationship, where sometimes people must put
their children's interests first.
****************************
Question:
I need to be top dog because my
partner's time and attention are limited and I know he has no limit to
the number of crushes he can develop, and I know that he'll want to
pursue them all, and I know that if he actually does pursue any small
number of them (as seems likely), then at some point he'll run out of
time and energy and someone will get displaced, or at least come out on
the short end of the stick in terms of time and attention.
All very true. Love may not be limited, but time and attention surely
are.
It's not necessarily true, though, that this means you must suffer
because of it. Presumably, you do not get 100% of your partner's time
and attention right now; so having less than the full amount of your
partner's time and attention is obviously acceptable to you. (In fact,
I think it's healthy; it's hard to imagine a relationship in which each
partner spends 100% of his time and attention on the other partner that
isn't dysfunctional.)
It's important to realize, too, that being monogamous does not mean you
aren't sharing his time and attention. I have a friend who is currently
caring for her ailing mother, something that she invests time and
attention in. Quite likely, more time and attention than she might
invest in another partner. If your partner has to care for a sick or
injured relative, or has to take care of his parents, are you not then
sharing his time and attention with them? Is that different to you than
sharing his time and attention with another partner? If so, why?
***************************
Question:
This is the real rub and the real
mono objection to poly relationships, aside from basic sexual jealousy.
At some point, unless you work on it, an old relationship becomes
routine and becomes less important than your hobbies, your interests,
and especially your new infatuations. Mono people make the decision
that they'll protect themselves from the temptation to casually
jettison an old relationship by simply avoiding new relationships. If
you're poly, doesn't the risk rise that an old relationship seems like
the most boring, most expendable thing on the menu when you're faced
with a choice of how to allocate scarce time and attention?
Particularly when the other relationship(s) in your life are in the
rush/infatuation stage?
Answer:
For me, no.
Question:
I gather that for many poly
people that's exactly what happens, although you personally make
choices that ensure it doesn't. Seems like this may or may not be a
justified fear depending on what kind of person my man turns out to be.
Answer:
Yes.
In the poly community, we spend a lot of time talking about "new
relationship energy," that giddy, exciting rush that accompanies a new
relationship. Sometimes, NRE can take focus away from everything--not
just from existing relationships, but from work, from hobbies, from
eating and sleeping...
I'm not going to try to pretend this isn't a problem. I've known people
who seem to identify as polyamorous at least in part because they love
that new relationship rush, and who are constantly starting new
relationships.
I don't especially like new relationship energy. I think of it as an
unpleasant distraction, and I want to get through it as quickly as
possible. The problem with new relationship energy isn't that it takes
my attention from existing relationships--it doesn't--but rather that
it prevents me from really seeing my new partner exactly as she is. The
intensity of NRE means that it's hard for me to really get to know my
partner, to really understand her and build intimacy with her; when
you're feeling that giddy rush, it's a very natural human tendency to
project your own desires and your own ideas onto that person. For me,
getting past that and really getting to know my partner lets me get to
the good stuff.
But then, many of the things people find uninteresting about a
long-term relationship--the familiarity, the casual intertwinement,
stuff like that--are what I want the most. I love that kind of
relationship; it's where the good stuff is!
****************************
Question:
I know this sounds like a very
unpleasant and unhealthy sort of attitude to take, but then I think
that asking a mono to actually take pleasure in a poly relationship may
be asking too much.
Answer:
There's the rub; ultimately, a mono/poly relationship is a polyamorous
relationship. No matter what structures you impose on it, it's still,
by its nature, a polyamorous relationship. A monogamous person who
can't be happy in such a relationship is perfectly reasonable, and is
probably wise, to say "I do not want this."
Asking a monogamous person to be happy in a polyamorous relationship is
asking a lot, there's no doubt about it. But asking a monogamous person
to participate in a relationship that does not make him happy, and
cannot make him happy, is asking even more. If two people love each
other, but one cannot be happy in a polyamorous relationship and the
other cannot be happy in a monogamous relationship, then it's
reasonable to consider that perhaps that relationship can not serve
either person's needs, and that maybe it's not the right relationship
for either of them. (this is really
important comment to highlight because I dont think people ever stop
and think that just because you love someone doesnt mean you can be
together. sometimes its just not meant to be because the situation isnt
beneficial for both parties involved and Sacrifice isnt the entire name
of the game specially when sacrificing happiness, which our
relationships should be giving us, is the expectation.)
******************************
Question:
If the monogamous person can't be
happy in a poly relationship, then all you can really expect is that
the mono person will still love you and will do her best to adapt to
the situation, with humor, goodwill and as much tolerance as she can
muster. Still, I think that for me as a mono, a lot of the bad feelings
would go away if I could be sure that my poly partner is going to make
me, so to speak, Wife #1. It's not as good as being the Only Wife, but
it could be liveable if I can work through my jealousy; and I don't
want him to suffer in our relationship, either, ergo compromise on both
our parts. If he doesn't want to have a hierarchy among his poly
partners, fine, but I'm not a poly partner, I'm his mono partner, and I
need it.
Answer:
I think you would likely find that being granted the position of Wife
#1 might not give you the sense of security or commitment you're
looking for. It's definitely been my experience that structural terms
or rules in a relationship do not actually address emotional responses.
What sometimes happens, for example, is that if your sense of security
and safety in the relationship rests on your partner making you #1,
then you can't really relax or feel completely secure, because just as
easily as he agrees to make you #1, he can change that agreement.
Security that rests on factors outside yourself and outside your
control isn't really security.
Worse, there is often a long-term, indirect, and subtle consequence to
this kind of structure that isn't intuitively obvious at all.
If your partner invests in another relationship, he is presumably
building emotional intimacy and creating emotional vulnerability with
another person. If he then loses that relationship, for any reason,
it's reasonable to expect that it will hurt.
And that's the thing. It will hurt even if he agrees that it is
necessary to end the relationship to honor his promise to make you #1.
It will hurt even if he has explicitly agreed to the rules which give
you the power to end his other relationships or to tell him to choose
you over his other relationships.
When you do things that hurt your partner, even if you and he both
agree to these things, you may damage your relationship. If this
continues over time--if you hurt your partner over and over, even
unintentionally, even if the hurt is a consequence of the things he has
freely chosen to agree to--it will begin to damage your relationship
with him. Ultimately, given enough time and enough hurt, you may find
that it destroys your relationship...that your relationship is damaged
beyond repair by the very things that were intended to protect it.
Question:
I take your point, but I think
that we here in this country are into rules and "doing what we
promised" enough that I would be quite capable of laying out ground
rules and then ensuring that things stuck to those rules. If a
secondary partner has it explained that that is what her relationship
is, and all it ever will be, then she doesn't complain if she finds
later she wants the relationship to be more than that. She might
mention that the situation has changed and see if the consensus is for
changing the rules, but if anyone doesn't agree, well, then the
original agreement stands, and no one is outraged, because consensus
and following through on promises comes before individual desires. In
that case, she either lives with the pain of not getting primary
status, or she ends the relationship.
My man might wish that I would
feel comfortable altering the original agreement, but he would feel it
absolutely within my rights, not to say expected, to insist that it
remain unaltered. I guess I mean it wouldn't really occur to us to say,
well, I feel differently now, so you have to modify the rules to take
account of that. (Incidentally, this kind of attitude is what would
make being the official Wife #1 a much more secure position than it
would with an American.) I think we in this country also have a greater
capacity than Americans for accepting that some things in life are
going to be painful, for absorbing that pain and moving on, without
blaming anyone. Essentially, a "shit happens, deal with it", model of
the world. I'm more or less in that camp, too. But I take your point
that multiple hurts over time add up. If my man introduced ten new
partners, it would be ten times more of a strain than one.
In other words, I envision a
mono/poly relationship mostly working in the sense of the poly hinge
maintaining two entirely different sets of family, sort of like someone
who is married but has kids with an ex. One is his mono family, and one
is his poly family, and different rules apply to the two, and the mono
family gets priority in case of conflict, because that's the sine qua
non for the mono family to exist at all. What do you think? Is this
asking too much of the poly partner, or does that depend on the person?
Answer:
It definitely depends on the person, and on the people that person
chooses to pursue relationships with. Can it work? Absolutely, provided
the people who he chooses relationships with are okay with that, and
are okay being in a secondary position indefinitely.
Will it work? That's a whole 'nother matter. It's not always possible
to tell in advance whether or not some person will find this
acceptable; indeed, because relationships are complicated and
unpredictable, he may approach a new partner who sincerely believes it
will work, only to find as the relationship develops that, no, actually
it doesn't work at all. And then you end up in the position of using
your position as #1 to make him end that relationship--which will
probably hurt his other partner and will almost certainly hurt him as
well.
And the more separate he keeps his relationships, the greater the
difficulty in giving everyone his time and attention. When you and his
other partner are both part of the same family, then on a strictly
practical level it's much easier for him to give you both time and
attention; the more isolated and separated the relationships become,
the harder it becomes to give both relationships time and attention
without creating a situation where you and his other partner are
competing for his resources.
Question:
I don't understand why poly
people want these relationships to begin with. From my perspective, I
will be faithful to you, not only because I simply want to, but because
my monogamy is a gift to you, a sign of my commitment to making our
relationship work.
In contrast, I get the impression
that when poly people say "I love you", it means, I'll sleep with you
and I'll feel tenderness towards you, but don't ask me to control my
impulses to any great extent, and don't expect the amount of sharing,
partnership and overlap of private spheres that you would get in a mono
relationship.
Answer:
That may be true true of some "free agents," but definitely not true of
polyamorous people in general. And to be fair, there are monogamous
people who are the same way...
Question:
I get the feeling that polys
aren't looking for partners in life, or don't see life as something
that is nicer if lived on the buddy system. They seem to be emotionally
more or less self-sufficient, so that their love for a partner more
closely resembles the kind of love a mother gives a child or a person
gives their dog; it's just the tenderness and wish for the other person
to thrive, but it isn't the wish for the two selves to overlap to some
extent, and it isn't the wish for someone to definitely be there for
them through thick and thin. Is that true?
Answer:
For some people, yes; for others, no.
I've known (and dated) poly folk who have this kind of approach to
relationship, and I've learned that it isn't what I want. I do want
partners who are close, emotionally and practically; who share my life
with me; and who are intertwined with me on a very deep level. I want
life partners, not just people I sleep with.
And, frankly, it seems like that's something of a minority view in the
poly community. Not much of a minority, but a minority nonetheless; my
own experiences have convinced me that the people who have a sort of
casual approach to love, like you describe, do outnumber the people who
want a deeper, more intimate and entwined sort of relationship. It's
frustrating sometimes, because I have many opportunities to have
partners who feel the way you describe here, but who aren't open to
more meaningful and more intimate life sharing.
So, yes, I think you have a valid criticism of the way many people
approach polyamory, and it's one I share. On this, I think I can
understand your frustration.
Question:
And, is it really true as my
partner claims that a poly person can't make a long-term commitment,
and that the proper open relationship (or any relationship) is always
here-and-now, with no guarantees, because after all, many relationships
aren't forever anyway?
Answer:
Well...yes and no.
I think I see what he's trying to say, and I also see how you're
interpreting it. If I'm right, what he's trying to say is that there is
never any guarantee of "forever." And he's right. The world is filled
with monogamous people who sincerely believed they would have a
relationship that lasted 'until death do us part,' and then didn't.
Life happens; people grow and change over time; there are no
guarantees. I mean, hell, there's no guarantee you won't get hit by a
bus while you're crossing the street tomorrow!
At the same time, though, I see what you're saying as well. "No
guarantees" is not the same as "no commitment." The fact that no
relationship comes with a guarantee does not mean that you can not
commit to doing everything in your power to including your partner in
your life in the long term, and to grow and change (which you will) in
ways that include your partner. If someone sees the fact that life has
no guarantees as a reason not to make commitments, I have to say I
think that's kind of a cop-out.
Question:
Is it true that poly people can't
make a Commitment, capital C, to a partner?
Answer:
No, it's not.
Question:
Is it true that who is primary
and who is secondary is always subject to change without notice,
because hey, who can control their feelings?
Ah...now that brings up a whole different set of issues.
There are a couple of different ways to think about what "Primary" and
"Secondary" mean. Most of the time, people who use those terms do so
prescriptively; that is, they believe that you can only have one
primary partner, and that everyone else must be kept secondary.
The problem is, you can't always decide in advance what your
relationships will look like. You can't always force a relationship to
fit in a box that is not natural for it. Yeah, when you try to
determine in advance what form your relationships are allowed to take,
then you can and sometimes do find that you can't control your
feelings, and that your relationships will take on some other form. If
you have an idea that there must be one "#1," one top dog primary, then
this can be very threatening.
The other way to look at primary and secondary is descriptively, not
prescriptively. You look at each relationship, without trying to decide
in advance what it "should" be, and you use whichever term describes it
best. So if you have a relationship with Alex, and the two of you live
together and share a mortgage and a kid, then it's reasonable to say
"Okay, this is primary." And if you're dating Bob, and the two of you
see each other once or twice a month, and don't have any particular
pressing need for more entwinement, then it's reasonable to say "okay,
this is secondary." And if you're also dating Charles, and you and
Charles have a deeply intimate, loving relationship, and you want to
share your lives with each other and be there for each other for the
long haul, you say "okay, this one is primary too."
That is, having one primary relationship does not necessarily mean
taking that primary slot away from someone else; the word "primary"
means "deeply committed," not "#1."
*************************************
Question:
I guess the thing I'd like to
understand is, what's manipulation, and what's real? What's a poly
person, and what's a person who wants lots of shallow relationships and
no deep ones - or a person who isn't ready for any kind of relationship
at all? What can I expect from a poly partner in terms of commitment,
and what on earth does commitment mean when it isn't exclusive?
Good questions.
I don't think there are any hard and fast rules that let you spot for
sure a person who is poly because he's afraid of commitment.
Ultimately, a person's behavior is key. Behavior is an emergent
phenomenon; a person behaves the way he does because of the things he
believes. If a person values commitment, he doesn't have to tell you he
values commitment; his actions will show it. He'll do things to honor
and cherish your relationship, without being told to, and will seek as
far as he is able without compromise to himself to give you the things
you need.
I do not believe commitment means exclusivity; rather, I believe
commitment is about creating a set of intentions to share your life
with someone, regardless of whether it is convenient or not, and then
honoring those intentions. I think it's certainly possible to do that
with more than one person; hell, people do that all the time, with
partners, family members, children, and so on.
********************************
I am going to stop here with this. I
will add more as I sift through the rest of the information. Im working
really hard Monkey to attempt to relate this to you and get us some
common ground. I hope that means something at least.
*kttn*
