Or why poly marriage is so tough.
![[Image]](http://www.dickharper.com/images/blog/polyamory.png)
Monogamists and polyamorists agree that home cooking is marvelous but polyamorists also like to dine out with close friends.
“At least 95 percent of married and cohabitating Americans expect sexual exclusivity,” said Judy Treas, professor of sociology at UC-Irvine, told ABC News .
“If only we could all free ourselves from the cultural brainwashing — almost put cultural brainwishing, and now I think, yeah that too!” correspondent Becky Sue wrote.
Last week, I changed our correspondents’ names to protect their Internet anonymity. Many polyamorists do not publicize their relationship status and many monogamous folks do not want to publicize their comments online.
Also last week, Anne told us she has not accepted my relationship with Nancy although she, Anne, originally gave it her blessing. We all hoped that she, Anne, would see this as an opportunity for growth, a way deepen our marriage and our friendship and not simply a way to “go screw [somebody] and get her out of your system.”
1. But what if you’re not married? How can you have any stake in the outcome?
Anne certainly has a stake in the outcome.
“When we became friends,” correspondent Jamie wrote, “we were both at points in our lives where we were on the precipice of major decisions.” Those choices included “whether to do marriage, kids, conventional careers.
“I think we both were doing something at the time that was completely counter to any of that,” she continued. “The research project was something just for us, something that fed us. The draw for both of us was that neither one of us would be directly affected no matter what we decided to do with our lives, so it was safe to dither about them to each other. It allowed us to relax, I think. It allowed us to let that part of our brains develop in a safe place.”
But there was no stake.
“For me, later, it also gave me a place internally to go when I feel like all that creativity and spark is gone and remind myself that it’s always there. That’s a powerful thing. And the fact that there’s a person out there who kind of has a stake in that, or had a part in helping me develop that, is helpful.”
That’s a stake in the creation but no ownership in the outcome.
That isn’t enough.
A stakeholder /n/ is a person who affects or can be affected by changes in a relationship.
2. Why should poly people marry?
I can answer that question only for a civil marriage, not the religious ceremony. If God expects you to marry to sanctify your relationship, do so. It will make you, your spouse, and God, happier. The fact is that marriage in and of itself has little or nothing to do with love.
Perhaps you want personal or spiritual growth, to stabilize a relationship, to conform to your religious or political beliefs, a sexual guarantee, or you simply fall in love. Those are pretty much the same reasons people offer to explain any marriage.
Readers might expect age-related answers. People of child-bearing/child-rearing years have certain needs. People our post-child age have some different needs but I was surprised by the similarity of their lists:
Commitment: This state of being obligated or emotionally impelled or pledged to a partner raises the stakes that each spouse will celebrate the bad times as well as the good with you and whatever family you create.
Continuity: Discontinuity is the Victorian standard (grow up, break away from your family, marry, have kids, divorce, marry again, perhaps divorce again, die alone). Most people crave continuity (stay connected to family, school friends, political systems, jobs, and lovers). A marriage contract offers the appearance of continuity. And the expectation of growing old together.
Financial Security: Two cannot live a cheaply as one but they can come close. My parents grew up “making do” in the Great Depression; I moved to a state, Vermont, where making do is the warp of the fabric of life. Sharing expenses is as natural as fixing a tractor here. The economy of scale, even a scale of two, ranges in everything from a single roof over two heads to buying better cuts of meat to sharing health insurance.
HIPAA: The Privacy Rule under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulates the disclosure of medical info held by health care clearinghouses and providers, health insurers, and the like. Protected Health Information (PHI) is interpreted very broadly and generally excludes non-family members from receiving any information about a critically ill loved one. Not to mention the fact that (“unrelated”) loved ones generally never get to see or help an ill partner.
Mandated sex: In marital law in some states, constructive desertion defines spousal misconduct so extensive that it makes marital relations impossible. The essential definition is one spouse leaving the marital relationship without leaving the marital home. The willful refusal of sex is often cited. Nagging is usually not legitimate misconduct.
If withholding of sex is grounds for divorce, the opposite argument must be true: the state mandates that sex must be part of a legal marriage.
Sharing: The marriage(s) in this example need not be group marriages where three or more adult partners live together in one household with more than one or two incomes going into keeping the home (the typical American struggle is a husband and wife fighting to pay the mortgage with one or two incomes, or with zero or one in this recession). The partnership adds playmates or supervisors for the kids and someone else to hold the ladder during home maintenance projects.
“In marriage you just have to learn the rules,” Jeff Foxworthy says. “Rule number one is, If she ain’t happy, you ain’t happy!”
Get married to be happy, not to be in love.
3. Why should poly people NOT marry?
“The other question I have [is] if you desire this lifestyle, why be married?” correspondent Charlie asked some time ago.
“You shouldn’t unless you want to,” Nancy said.
Some, like me, probably do want to. That and my innate desire to share the things that bring us great joy, to shout from the rooftops, “I love this person!”
Some, like Nancy, may not want to. That doesn’t negate her innate desire to share the things that bring us great joy, to shout from the rooftops, “I love this person!”
Economics may put the kibosh on marriage today.
The economics of retirement can force our elders away from marriage and the marital advantages. Matrimony can screw up retirement benefits, inheritances or wealth preservation, and interactions with adult children. And, while I approve of pre-nups and particularly Nancy’s proposal of a specific contract of financial and end-of-contract obligations, I suspect a marriage that needs the responsibilities for who pops the popcorn spelled out in triplicate is doomed.
The economics of state and Federal taxes means some couples actually send more money to their various governments when “married filing jointly” than as “single” filers.
Government policy drives living in sin. Imagine that.
4. Commitment issues: Should poly people have ‘civil unions’ or ‘domestic partnerships’ instead?
A civil partnership, civil union, or domestic partnership is a legal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are joined by neither marriage nor a civil union. In California a Domestic Partnership possesses all of the rights and privileges of a Marriage.
Neither chicken dance nor birdseed required.
The advantage to a legal partnership is that it offers the commitment, continuity, financial security and medical benefits, and sharing of a legal marriage without some of the baggage. The disadvantage to a legal partnership is that not many states have it for heterosexual couples and no state allows “group partnerships.”
There is another, personal, reason for making a marriage or other partnership. While I don’t feel a sense of ownership in marriage, I do like the sense of belonging.
[Editors Note: gekko and I shared a four-part polylocution plus these Afterglow posts. Please visit her companion piece, In Jealousy There Is Self-Love, and use The Poly Posts index for the entire series and for other resources.]
I sympathize with Anne; I also don’t think love should be denied. It’s a dilemma. I would understand if Anne concluded she had to leave the marriage because sharing was too painful. It’s so difficult when “the rules” change midway through, which is I guess is a good enough way to summarize why my marriage ended.
Thank you, Paula.
In real life I spend my time herding cats. I was thinking about that while pounding nails this afternoon and wondering why we havent brought management experience to bear on this question.
In the business world, we change the rules all the time. We buy new businesses, expand the product line, hire and fire employees, and generally do what it takes to grow the company. In our personal lives, we codify the rules. We maintain the status quo, keep the same product line, keep the same employees, and generally do what it takes not to rock the boat. Seems at odds with the old saying that a man marries a woman hoping she will never change and a woman marries a man planning to change him.
Except the old saying proves the no change explicitly. Man wants no change. Woman wants man only to change to match her need.
And nobody in that equation wants growth.
“Man wants no change”
I call “bullshit”. And you SO do not herd cats.
@gekko: you haven’t met my former employees. Or some of my clients.
The saying is designed to point out that the average young bloke thinks he’s marrying a young, perky lingerie model and doesn’t understand why she grows up to be an actual woman.
Nope. Not getting it. Trying, but not making any headway.
Take hypothetical humans A, B, and C. Gender isn’t important (I almost said “sex isn’t important” but of course it is. Saying it’s not is just silly.)
A and B have been in a long-term relationship. B meets C. B decides that a poly lifestyle is the way to go. A cannot understand that, whether as a result of genetics, cultural upbringing, religious belief, old-school values, or some internal dialogue. Short version is that “A,” like me, just doesn’t get it.
B wants to assure A of B’s undying devotion, but does so by informing A essentially that A’s deep pain is less important than B’s desire to have a relationship with C, and hypothetically with D, E, F, G, and H.
(I is kind of a twat, of course, so no one’s having a relationship with I, poly or otherwise.)
Anyway, how is A to classify this in terms of A’s place in this multi-relationship?
Or is that just A’s problem, and B and C can trip the light fantastic, secure in the knowledge that A’s sadness and pain are merely side issues, self-inflicted by her lack of enlightenment, and of no moment in B and C’s exploration of this Brave New World?
Having considered all this, how is A’s now-inferior position (e.g., everyone in the poly-relationship tolerates A’s pain as just the price which must be paid to make everyone else happy, whether A willingly does or not – which is an inferior position, no matter how flowery the wording) an acceptable outcome for the (theoretically) most important person in B’s life?
Or is A no longer the most important person in B’s life, that position having been (at best) sublet or jointly shared out or (at worst) co-opted to/by C, which pretty much describes A’s worst nightmare in terms of A’s view of the up-till-now exclusive relationship?
In which event, why is making A fight for A’s position in a (probably) losing and bruising battle an acceptable outcome, and what difference is there between that and the regular old “having an affair and my wife won’t put up with it and is making my life a misery” routine?
(And, yes, “making A fight” is exactly what I mean – saying that’s not what’s happening is like B shutting off A’s air, and then saying it’s A’s choice whether to fight to breathe and has nothing to do with B’s choices – or at least me in A’s position would feel like that.)
Not trying to to fight here. I really am just trying to figure out the mindset – fascinating, actually.
Attempts to simplify a complex situation never really work well.
Ill tell you a story. A true story. It involves a 17 year old girl and it serves to underscore a well call it a life philosophy that has probably also informed her political viewpoint as well that being more of a libertarian viewpoint than adhering to any particular party line.
I will use the name Jim for the male in this story simply because it happens to actually be the (former) young mans real first name. I will use the name Nancy for the 17 year old girl in this story. That is a pseudonym to protect her lizardly identity. Some of the readers may know this story.
Nancy was not a virgin when she started dating Jim, but she wasnt widely experienced. Jim, at the tender age of 18, was reasonably experienced. He liked girls. He had known many. He was, in fact, known as a bit of a Lothario. He also knew what he liked in a girl, and Nancy was one of the girls who had it. So he flirted with her. She, being painfully shy and possessing horribly low self-esteem, was flattered. She accepted Jims flirtation, and they started dating. One of her friends, who had dated Jim previously, warned her not to get too serious with Jim.
A few months into their relationship, Nancy made a decision: she would take it from the heavy petting level and get down to business. She let Jim know this and he was, of course, thrilled at the offer. He was kind, he was gentle, and he taught her a great deal. For Nancy, it was overwhelming a boy who knew what he was doing, who treated her with such reverence and yet who knew how to hit all the right spots! And he was fun to be with! She was afraid to let herself feel this depth of emotion, but, dammit, she fell in love with him in spite of her fear.
Sure enough, about the time she was deciding she really did love him, he had independently decided _he_ was getting too serious (or so he said) and needed to move along. Shortly after New Years, then, he broke up with her.
Her heart wasnt just broken. Were talking about a teenaged girl, after all. Her heart was rent from her chest and fed, still beating, to ravening wolves in front of her tear-filled eyes and she felt the gash of every tooth as the beasts shredded her heart.
She mourned for months. Laid awake night after night amid much drama, crying. Wrote wretched, torrid poems (some of which she still has in a scrap book) detailing her anguish. Poured out her grief to her friends who listened and patted her arm but who also thought Yeah, well, we told her!
Came a clarifying moment, deep one night as she resumed her customary sleeplessness. She was tired, and tired of hurting. She heard herself saying No one can hurt me, but me, myself. She said this aloud. She said it several times as a wave of amazement swept over her. No one can hurt me, but me, myself.
It took, this mantra. She realized that _she_ owned her feelings, her hurt. _She_ did. The things others do may impact her feelings, but she alone has the power to deal with them. In other words, Jims decision triggered a real, and understandable wound in her soul, but it was Nancy who kept it alive, nourished it, treasured it up, and brought it out day after day, night after night. Nancy owned the hurt, and Nancy owned the solution to stopping it.
We are responsible for what we do and think and feel and say. Others intersect with us, and things they do impact us, but ultimately it is up to each and every one of us to determine what is best for us.
TUFKAS could not fix the hurts he had caused me through the years, and, really, I could not fix the hurt I caused him. I could be held hostage to it, should he choose to use his emotions to leverage my desire to not see him hurt, but I could never really fix it. The best I could and can do is attempt to make amends for that hurt. The lengths to which I would go for those amends are really up to me due to those complexities I mentioned at the start. The balance I would strike has to come from what I value most.
Everyone follows a different path, and everyone holds different value sets. Sometimes the inner hurt weighs far more than the hurt your actions may (or may not) cause another. Sometimes the biggest hurt is at the point of simply exploring the possibility and once that gate has been opened, the damage has been done. There is no turning back. The fear/jealousy/hurt continues from that point with every comment, every side remark, every visit to the computer or the text messaging device. A, in your scenario, might have B as his or her one and only, but is now forever wondering what B might really be thinking and doing and the golden road ahead is poisoned.
Sometimes.
We each make our own decisions, and we each pay our own consequences, and we are each always the ultimate owners of our own pain. And, ultimately, only we can fix ourselves.
Had another thought: in AD’s interestingly worded scenario, it is clear that he feels B’s responsibility is to ensure the happiness of A for all time. No change can ever happen from that. Anything B would want or need, any hurt he might feel is subordinate to A’s needs.
That is the Hero’s role, you realize. A is the Damsel.
I want to find a way to word this so as to not seem to adopt a superior attitude or suggest ‘enlightenment’, or whatever but, essentially, I find this fascinating.
I am not certain a Hero personality could ever really grasp a personality that runs counter to that.
So. I believe firmly we all are self-serving, ultimately. How we derive our levels of self-satisfaction, serve our own needs varies from person to person. The Hero gets a lot of his or her needs satisfied from protecting and saving others. This role is seemingly altruistic, and we celebrate the existence of Heros among us. The Hero can surrender other needs, maybe not easily but very doable, so long as this greatest need is served. It has the benefit of also, presumably, serving the needs of the damsel.
In AD’s scenario, A has a series of choices and A must determine what best suits A’s needs, then act on them. A does not need to live in perpetual hurt.
B may be a tragic figure with a host of other complex issues, or B may simply be the superficial jerk AD’s wording paints. Either way, B has a series of choices as well, and B must determine what best suits B’s needs, then act on them. C through H have little to do with this, and it is presumed they are also following their best courses of action.
We have a few topics remaining for the coming weeks. Changing rules. Secrets. Anger. And more. A.D. asked one of the biggies. Pain.
gekko got there first with really good answers.
I do have a bottom line. If B is causing A pain, there are only three options: change A’s mind, change B’s behavior, or split.
To use AD’s scenario in my own semi-fictional thought-experiment:
B loved being A’s Hero in part because his childhood relationship with his mother taught him that being loyal and self-denying was the path to feminine approval. This distracted him from ever really knowing how important A’s happiness, all by itself, was to him. He just assumed it was so and that his relentless and never-acted-upon seeking for something more was normal.
Then over time he noticed C and D and E, and F and G, and suddenly H appeared and he got to know her and seriously considered throwing everything away for her. She wouldn’t have it, though, and B decided that retreating into his customary virtue was the best way to be Hero to both A and to H. But now he knew he was unhappy. So did A, as she learned all about H, and so the marital dynamics changed.
Never mind I. K came along and pried open the lid a little more, almost entirely through words, and though A never found out, B learned more about how out of place he was. L was a brief fascination and known to A and had her own issues and told A lies about B. Life got complicated and A realized she could no longer trust in B’s undying devotion, while B basically wondered WTF he was supposed to do with all these crazy women.
Bottom line, A’s happiness as created by B acting as a thoroughly devoted husband became less important to B than simply finding out who he was and where he belonged. An internet elocutionist (let’s call him Dr O) said this was narcissistic, but B wasn’t convinced that was true or if it was that it was a bad thing.
B’s eyes continued to open, and A acted out in painful episodes of jealousy, and B finally decided to set her free to discover for herself whether or not hearts can stay open or should remain closed, or at the very least to free her of the pain of being reminded daily that B’s heart is in fact open and open wider every day.
Or maybe B just never found the right A. The great thing with life is there is so much to learn.
Granted the above has little to do with the poly discussion, really just a sketch of a particular experience. But it’s always useful to write out sketches.
@Don: Life innit.
No no no, Don. K retired and had his mind zapped by the blinky thing. And why is everyone neglecting J? Is it because he’s in black?
Which is very unfortunate because K had a thing for perky, sultry redheads, see
.
.
.
Hmmm. Do you suppose H stands for House and the C is followed by uddy?
While I can understand that I choose my responses to life, and that jealousy doesn’t serve me (or those I say I love), I cannot simply turn it off because I think that’s true or because I want it to be true. I recently thought that I was done with jealousy only to have a situation come up that was totally unexpected and showed me differently. I can tell myself all day every day that I’m being ridiculous, but as with everything in life, you can’t do anything until you’ve had a true aha! moment and are able to move on to the next thing you need/want to work on in your life. We’re all at different places in our lives, and unfortunately, we suffer for it. I totally understand AD’s viewpoint, and yet I’d rather have Nancy’s. I think that because of that, one day I’ll get there, but for now I have to deal with where I am.
IMO the hero scenario works out well only if you have a true counterpart who will readily sacrifice something comparable for the beloved’s happiness. If both people are at the top of each other’s priority lists, then great. But if not, then we haz a problem.
I think it takes a weird kind of magic — not rational thought — to create someone who generally does not feel jealousy.
That said, I believe the work should not be on trying to avoid or suppress the emotion, but rather to not make it into a weapon with which to control others, or something you permit to eat away at your soul, or to tear down a life that could be filled with happiness.
I’d love to say I had the magic bean for *that*, but I do not. It’s something we each could be cognizant of and try to find the tools that work for us to help us work past things like anger, jealousy, and fear of fuzzy kittens.
@Paula: If both people are at the top of each others priority lists, then great…
For the sake of argument, I’ll disagree. I think it is more important that people be at about the same level on each other’s priority lists rather than exclusively at the top.
well, in AD’s scenario, B was to put A at the top of his or her priority list, but there was no word about whether or not A had B at the top of her or his list. I tend to agree with Paula, that if there is an expectation of having someone at the top, then it needs to be mutual or it ain’t gonna work too well.
I’m sure we all have stories of people where it was lopsided, with one spouse giving and giving, and the other just kind of doing whatever the fuck he or she wanted without doing the squid pro quo thingummy.
Gotta have squid! But yah, if you have a relationship where one person says, hey, you’re somewhere in the middle of my list of Important Fings, that OK? And the other person goes, yep, you’re right smack in the middle of mine, this’ll work, oops gotta go, game’s on, see ya.
Squid chewy.
Apologies in advance if this REALLY LONG reply loses formatting and is therefore difficult to read. Most of you know I’ve been trying to not comment but the late hour or whatever has sucked me in. I blame you.
Here’s my reply:
> Paula says: September 19, 2010 at 14:42 I sympathize with Anne; I also dont think love should be denied. Its a dilemma. I would understand if Anne concluded she had to leave the marriage because sharing was too painful. Its so difficult when the rules change midway through, which is I guess is a good enough way to summarize why my marriage ended.
H: I’m coming to the conclusion that marriages end because people think the rules won’t ever change. I also think in general we’ve set up a system where the rules are impossible to stick to for a lot of us if we want to allow ourselves to grow in any kind of authentic and natural way. LONG SENTENCE. I think we’d all benefit from a lot more flexibility in what is acceptable.
> Asbestos Dust says: why is making A fight for As position an acceptable outcome, and what difference is there between that and the regular old having an affair and my wife wont put up with it and is making my life a misery routine?
H: It doesn’t seem very different to me. However, my biggest problem would be lying about it. (See below in my reply to Don for more on that)
> AD continues: (And, yes, making A fight is exactly what I mean – saying thats not whats happening is like B shutting off As air, and then saying its As choice whether to fight to breathe and has nothing to do with Bs choices – or at least me in As position would feel like that.)
H: This is the part that Paula addressed and I think lots of us are tentative about discussing because our friends (Dick and gekko) have laid all this out there and it’s touchy to say, um, hey, Dick, aren’t you essentially saying to your wife accept this is how I am (that I will be with gekko) or our marriage our life’s commitment and promises are over? Your feelings be damned? I’m totally sure that’s not how Dick feels (I’d pull a quote but already feel conflicted about how much time I’m spending here!). But the actions could be described in that way from our outsider’s perspective.
I’m curious to read what D and g have to say about this particular comparison. I find it totally right on. Claiming that Dick’s wife has free choices here when this new information was thrust onto her doesn’t seem right. Then again, as I’m writing, isn’t that how all of life is? Things happen and we address them and adjust to them?
D and g, how do you see the comparison of suffocating someone (the partner who needs/requires/expects monogamy must fight to keep their desired form of relationship alive, to make it and their entire identity survive, simple acceptance isn’t a real option for them) in terms of adding polyamory to a previously monogamous relationship? Or is it simply a fish or cut bait scenario, she adjusts and accepts it or it’s over?
> gekko wrote: We each make our own decisions, and we each pay our own consequences, and we are each always the ultimate owners of our own pain. And, ultimately, only we can fix ourselves.
H: This is something I believe so strongly that words sometimes fail. Seriously. There are times when I have no words. Can you believe it? It’s a complicated issue for sure, since being in a relationship means considering other people’s roles in our lives and our affect on them. Effect on them? In my particular case I had to be willing to be so convinced that I can’t fix someone else that I took actions that caused someone I love to be suicidal. I had to know, though, that no matter what I did to him his response was his, not mine. It sounds so cold-hearted, I know. But if I were to pretend I felt differently than I did (see below) because I didn’t want to hurt him, I would make myself physically ill I am sure.
> gekko also wrote: I believe firmly we all are self-serving, ultimately. How we derive our levels of self-satisfaction, serve our own needs varies from person to person.
H: My head just exploded because I disagree with you so much about our being ultimately self-serving. For a great discussion of this I highly recommend The Age of Empathy http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6525532-the-age-of-empathy and there’s simply no way I can address this particular issue without going on way too long. I’m already going on way too long. Way, way, way too long.
> Don says: Bottom line, As happiness as created by B acting as a thoroughly devoted husband became less important to B than simply finding out who he was and where he belonged. An internet elocutionist (lets call him Dr O) said this was narcissistic, but B wasnt convinced that was true or if it was that it was a bad thing.
H: Okay. Here I’m just going to paste what I emailed to Don in my desperate attempts to not fall off the no-commenting wagon. Witness my fall here, people. CRASH. I’ll climb back up there after I finish this one. Like a good poop, I expect, I’ll feel better after I get this out and I’ll be able to get back to what I was doing before. Quoting the email:
As you pointed out, once B realized s/he wanted more than A (not necessarily *no* A, but addition(s) to A) s/he started *acting.* Acting as if s/he was still that same purely monogamous wo/man. In my mind, that’s dishonest. Of course, in a lot of people’s cases it’s a dishonesty worth living to avoid the world of hurt honesty likely would cause. I think most people would choose dishonesty if they thought it might help avoid causing pain to the ones they love. Anyway, that’s absolutely admirable and good choice for those people.
I can’t do it, though. I have to be me, authentically, honestly me. I can’t live any other way, even if it hurts, devastates, destroys the lives of those around me. Living a lie with someone, to me, is worse than causing them horrific emotional pain (even if they don’t know about the lying). It gnaws away at me, lying does. I become impossibly unhappy and miserable because of the guilt of lying and the nasty awful horrible feelings I get from not being Truly Me. That, in the end, hurts people around me, too. When I started to be interested in men other than my husband it wasn’t that fact that hurt me as much as it was my lying to him about it. But, in my case, instead of destroying his life (he was suicidal for a while) my honesty has led to my ex-partner starting to find himself in ways that are causing him some real joy. It’s turning out to be a gift for everyone involved. Maybe that’ll happen for you, Don. But, that’s just me and my life and my choices.
> Arleen says: I totally understand ADs viewpoint, and yet Id rather have Nancys. I think that because of that, one day Ill get there, but for now I have to deal with where I am.
H: My most uncomfortable times are when I wish I was different than I was. My best times are when I’m at peace with who I am. I need to know who that is, though, to find the peace.
> Paula says: IMO the hero scenario works out well only if you have a true counterpart who will readily sacrifice something comparable for the beloveds happiness. If both people are at the top of each others priority lists, then great. But if not, then we haz a problem.
> gekko wrote: I tend to agree with Paula, that if there is an expectation of having someone at the top, then it needs to be mutual or it aint gonna work too well. Im sure we all have stories of people where it was lopsided, with one spouse giving and giving, and the other just kind of doing whatever the fuck he or she wanted without doing the squid pro quo thingummy.
H: Okay, and here is where I start to get really annoyed. A little bit started with AD’s comment, but it’s fleshed out here and gekko does it, too (pulled the quote from below). Relationships, feelings, emotions… they aren’t quantifiable. Where someone is on a list of priorities, in my ohhhh so humble opinion, isn’t possible. Life isn’t linear and logical like that. Love, for example, as gekko and Dick will testify, isn’t a limited resource. Claiming that it’s possible to take an accounting and make sure things are fair in a relationship, that both people are putting the other first on their list would be impossible. Okay, for me it would be. I guess there are people different than me. Maybe. I guess.
> gekko says: I believe the work should not be on trying to avoid or suppress the emotion, but rather to not make it into a weapon with which to control others, or something you permit to eat away at your soul, or to tear down a life that could be filled with happiness.
H: I love this and think it fits with all emotions/feelings that have negative impacts on our lives. Feel the feelings but if they’re causing dissonance in your life, do something to change something.
> Dick says: If both people are at the top of each others priority lists, then great For the sake of argument, Ill disagree. I think it is more important that people be at about the same level on each others priority lists rather than exclusively at the top.
H: Is it possible? Dick, are we agreeing on something? In a way I think we might be. I see those lists as flowing and fluid. There simply can’t be an always number one priority in the world for relationships, I mean, I suppose it’s possible, and certainly it’s what traditional marriage people want to be true, but, it strikes me as seriously flawed. I don’t mean to sound judgmental because I sincerely believe that relationships need to be defined by those people involved in them. But as the discussion was going on over at gekko’s some time ago, there will be times when someone else needs more attention more priority whatever than another person. Inside or outside of even strictly monogamous relationships, I mean. So, yeah, Dick, about the same level and not exclusively in one particular position makes sense to me.
—
And, finally, the grand finale of this major slip backwards in my progress I’ll put out my opinion position on the whole thing. Dick, I’m glad you got honest with your wife. I’m impressed that she okayed this whole public discussion. The world around her will be judging her harshly and she’s a brave and strong woman to be willing to face what *is* rather than what she wishes would be. gekko, as always, I love how we have so much in common and also at times it seems we’re about as opposite as can be. I’m also impressed with you (and Dick) for being open and honest about this. Being perceived as the other woman or potentially the home wrecker could be brutal, but you know that among those of us here (or, at least from my point of view) you’re an amazing, strong, thoughtful woman.
When STBX and I started facing the truth of our relationship (that our marriage was going to have to change or die) we looked into all sorts of options. Polyamory was one of them. I really had no problem at all with the idea of him sleeping with, being emotionally involved with, being in love with another woman. But, in that case, that’s because I didn’t want those things with him myself anymore. I also knew I couldn’t comfortably have that kind of intimacy with more than one man at a time (relationships happening at the same time). You all know that with that guy I experienced something strange, that I would be totally happy sharing him with his wife. As I said in another one of my flurry of emails, what they have is what they have and feels entirely unrelated to what I had with him. I don’t feel like his love for her, his commitment to her, his life with her takes away from his feelings for me. Except for the, y’know, him telling me we couldn’t be together little detail. I joke, but I’m serious, too. It’s very strange for me because I don’t know if this is a feeling that will go with me into my next relationship or not. With my next partner (one who is actually available) will I feel the same way? It would have to be a stars aligning kind of thing, I think. I’ve got such an extreme level of need to feel the most important that I’m skeptical. I may be a serial monogamist more than a poly person. Somehow, though, that guy made me feel I was The Most Important even though he was always totally sincere and clear about his life partner. She and he are nearly physically connected, or spiritually so, I guess. And, again, for some reason this doesn’t make me feel like anything is taken away from me.
I think that’s why I can really understand and support the polyamorous life. Love, like all feelings, and the acts of love, are so endless and boundless it seems unrealistic to me that we’d try to make it be one way or another to suit some external expectations.
And now, my dear Internet Crack Family, I shall retreat back into my quietness. SMOOCH. I miss you all. :-)
PS after that EPIC dive down off the no-‘net communications wagon and with all this stuff to think about I’ve got a song stuck in my head: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJQQYUjPUNQ
Now, I’m quiet again. See y’later. :-)
Your fucking spam filter flushed my entire comment when I forgot to add 7 and 8 before I punched the “GO” button.
“Add The Numbers!” it said, but when I went back to do so, it was all gone, unrecoverable.
So, rather than reconstruct the 3/4 hour of thought and typing and the 10 minutes of trying to get it back, I’m going to just assume everyone knows what I’d say here.
I’m going to bed.
Oh good god, this is getting complicated.
So I’m thinking now that numbers have to preserve their order or the situation needs to be renegotiated. or dissolved. I have a number one, and I think that number one would have to remain my number one just because she is that to me and I am that to her. And if I could have a number two and three and four, I would totally do it cause I’m a pig and I like that sort of thing, but I’m also practical in that I’d like to know the people I boff, and I’d like to be able to trust them to… well… hold their numeric positions for one thing. Cause I’m sure there are people that don’t want a number one kind of relationship. A number two is all they have time for, and that’s fine, better they should find an equitable number two than be out fucking around with the people that are looking for number ones.
Of course things change, people change, feelings change, but you got to preserve the order, otherwise those feelings of jealousy are justified.
And I’ve subtly moved back to making the poly thing all about sex. Less random sex, but it’s still sex.
Hope I can get some actual work done today. :-)
I’ll be trying to parse all that down, but, dammit, can’t we just grab Usenet back? It was MUCH easier to carry on conversations when you didn’t have to do stupid math things that erased your responses if you FAILed the test. No normal people compose their responses in a text editor and then c/p here. And it’s stupid to expect people to remember to select-all and copy into their buffer before submitting the comment, just in case.
Dick Harper, I’d be writing to 1and1 and bitching mercilessly until they fucking FIXED this crap installation of WP and gave you better options. That freakin’ idiotic “Hash-cash” piece of shit also annoys me and makes me reload the page, sometimes, just to get an ordinary comment put on.
@gekko: “Id be writing to 1and1 and bitching mercilessly…”
I have. I do. And while I like all the other 1and1 options, their responses to customer requests suck. In fact, the button you push (the one that should be marked “send”?) says “black hole.”
I have disabled Do You Know Math for now. When the comments taper off and the spam increases, I’ll put it back on.
Remember the usual rule: Compose in a Notepad (or similar) window, then paste here!
@Paula: “I sympathize with Anne… Its so difficult when ‘the rules’ change midway through…”
@Heather: “Im coming to the conclusion that marriages end because people think the rules wont ever change…
Some back story.
I bought a house in South Jersey a year or two before I met Anne. She and I lived together there for 3 years before we married; she surprised me by insisting we marry (rule change) before we moved to Vermont.
We moved because my job did (rule change). Anne took a job because she wanted to. A few years later, I started a business to build boats (rule change). Built one boat (BIG rule change).
Anne kept her job because she had to. She subsequently lost that job which put us in real jeopardy (two rule changes).
Somewhere in there our daughter rebelled as daughters do which caused conflict and consternation. That may not have been a (rule change) but it was a change in something.
Our parents died which doesn’t sound like a (rule change) but is.
Our story isn’t all that different in anything but the details from most couples. We changed the rules as we went along because we needed to match what we did to how we lived. Trouble looms when the changes come too fast or become too extreme.
@Heather: “My biggest problem would be lying about it.
“I think lots of us are tentative about discussing because our friends (Dick and gekko) have laid all this out there and its touchy to say, um, hey, Dick, arent you essentially saying to your wife ‘accept this is how I am or our marriage our lifes commitment and promises are over? Your feelings be damned?’
Heather is right that that’s not how Dick feels but my actions do put that spin on it.
Here’s the other perspective. Recall that Anne did have free choice at the beginning when I said, essentially, “Here’s what I want us to do; you may climb aboard or veto it.” She gave us our blessing. Being smarter than the average bear, I let absolutely no grass grow under my feet. (Our difficulties, reported here, have come because she discovered the difficulty of living with that choice.)
The suffocation analogy (the partner who needs/requires/expects monogamy must fight to keep their desired form of relationship alive, to make it and their entire identity survive, simple acceptance isnt a real option for them) works both ways. Imagine, f’rex, your partner suddenly told you that you must give up your life’s work as a dreamy poet or she will leave you.
Please note that Anne has never made that demand. Also note that I said earlier, “If B is causing A pain, there are only three options: change As mind, change Bs behavior, or split.”
@Heather: “Dick, Im glad you got honest with your wife. Im impressed that she okayed this whole public discussion. The world around her will be judging her harshly and shes a brave and strong woman to be willing to face what *is* rather than what she wishes would be.”
She is.
About “got honest,” we who know each other personally have speculated how things might have been different had I not asked Anne’s blessing at the beginning (we never, ever hid anything from her) or if gekko had not told later TUFKAS she, too, wanted this out in the open. I suspect if I had treated my relationship with gekko as a secret affair the outcome would have been far worse — Anne would have divorced me when she discovered the dishonesty. Instead she has tried to accept the fact that my evolution is not quite what she expected.
@Heather, about gekko “Being perceived as ‘the other woman’ or potentially ‘the home wrecker’ could be brutal, but you know that among those of us here (or, at least from my point of view) youre an amazing, strong, thoughtful woman.”
She is.
Perception. It’s what we make of our lives.
The perception of me in the gekko household is brutally as “the other man” or “the home wrecker”; there is anger toward me there. OTOH, the perception of me in North Puffin is as the innocent victim of a seductress.
The perception of gekko in the North Puffin is brutally as “the other woman” or “the home wrecker”; there is anger toward her there. OTOH, the perception of gekko in her own family is as the innocent victim of a seducer.
Back to the beginning. Relationships seem to fail when the peeps stop growing or go in completely unexpected directions. Relationships seem to work when everyone in them grows at the same rate (notice I didn’t say “direction”).
I gotta get back on my roof.
Dick said it succinctly, namely “stuff changes, rules change all the time”. But I’ll put my spin on it.
> H: Im coming to the conclusion that marriages end because people think the rules wont ever change. I also think in general weve set up a system where the rules are impossible to stick to (…)
It’s that, and more than that. We all grow up learning and understanding that rules change. Dick mentioned quite a number of rules that we know will change over time, and while we may stress over them, we absorb them and move on. Most of us. That said, the “system where the rules are impossible to stick to” is the one where we are *taught* that the rules must never change. “Until Death Do Us Part” and “Happily Ever After” are the mantras. We grow up thinking we’ll meet Mr/Ms Right and we’ll marry and THAT is supposed to be forever.
We change the rules as we grow older, though, and as we change ’em, we accept them. Our loved ones have little choice but to accept those changes. We meet, we marry, we have fights, we cheat, we divorce, we remarry.
>> AD’s words: (And, yes, making A fight is exactly what I mean – saying thats not whats happening is like B shutting off As air, and then saying its As choice whether to fight to breathe and has nothing to do with Bs choices – or at least me in As position would feel like that.)
>H: (…) Dick, arent you essentially saying to your wife accept this is how I am (that I will be with gekko) or our marriage our lifes commitment and promises are over? Your feelings be damned? (…) Claiming that Dicks wife has free choices here when this new information was thrust onto her doesnt seem right. Then again, as Im writing, isnt that how all of life is? Things happen and we address them and adjust to them?
Your last sentence provides my answer.
>H: D and g, how do you see the comparison of suffocating someone (the partner who needs/requires/expects monogamy must fight to keep their desired form of relationship alive, to make it and their entire identity survive, simple acceptance isnt a real option for them) in terms of adding polyamory to a previously monogamous relationship? Or is it simply a fish or cut bait scenario, she adjusts and accepts it or its over?
I reject the notion that someone having to fight to keep things the way s/he wants them to be is the same as someone having to fight to stay alive. Not even in the same universe. It _is_ in the same universe as, say, quitting a job to strike out on your own and expecting the wife (or husband) to carry the load until you get on your feet. And if the wife (or husband) don’t like it, well, she or he can always choose to leave. It’s different, yet they are closely related.
And yes. Anne was presented with a choice. Dick has listed those choices. Dick changed. Anne could accept his change. She could try to change him back. She could leave. She really does have those choices.
I had similar choices to face through my married life. TUFKAS changed (employment type, personality, ambition, whatever) and I could accept it, push back, or leave. I always was aware that I had those choices, and I always made conscious choices. What I did _not_ do was imagine that it was all on TUFKAS’ shoulders to avoid changing, or, if he did change, to suppress it and suck it up and live the way _I_ chose. If his change caused me emotional pain, well, we certainly discussed it but in the end, I was faced with three choices: accept (and work on fixing the hurt inside me), fight, or leave.
Tell me where I’m suffocating in _any_ of that.
> H: our affect on them. Effect on them?
We can affect the effect. We have an effect on our ability to affect the situation.
> H, in response to Don and addressing the concept of acting out a role: I cant do it, though. I have to be me, authentically, honestly me. I cant live any other way, even if it hurts, devastates, destroys the lives of those around me. Living a lie with someone, to me, is worse than causing them horrific emotional pain (even if they dont know about the lying).
Exactly right. Others may find it more acceptable to act, or more acceptable to squash/suppress their needs in order to avoid hurting their loved ones. They can, somehow, succeed in that. Just as I had some magic ju-ju or other that keeps me from feeling jealousy, they have some magic ju-ju that enables them to trivialize some of their needs in light of the greater need of avoiding hurting those loved ones _in this way_.
I suppose I also had some of that magic ju-ju over the years. It was, for example, supremely important to me to keep a loving relationship going with TUFKAS while we were raising our children. I suppressed a HELL of a lot of stuff in order to realize that larger goal. Protecting the weaker among us, right? I never viewed TUFKAS as being weaker than me, and always felt we were equals. So while my needs could take a serious back seat to the needs of the children, and in order to keep the children’s needs met, I found it necessary to cater to TUFKAS needs even when they ran counter to my own, it worked.
> Different topic, H responding to Arleen: My most uncomfortable times are when I wish I was different than I was. My best times are when Im at peace with who I am. I need to know who that is, though, to find the peace.
I find myself to be a continual work in progress. One day, maybe I’ll figure out for sure who I am and if I’ve managed to become that person, then I suppose I can lay me doon and dee.
Glad you finally broke down, Heather, and put all your thoughts down here. Good conversation *is* like crack, innit.
Dick admonished: Remember the usual rule: Compose in a Notepad (or similar) window, then paste here!
See, that’s the problem. It is not the usual rule. It’s an abnormality. People just don’t do that. This thing wasn’t set up to make people, other than Luddites, think that.
When you put your math whoozit back on, maybe if you put “the usual rule” at the top of the “Leave a Reply” section, or always leave a first comment with that admonishment in it since I think your crippled version of WP doesn’t let you muck with the forms all that much, well, maybe you’d hear less whining from us poor shmoes.
gekko: “When you put your math whoozit back on, maybe if you put ‘the usual rule’ at the top of the ‘Leave a Reply’ section … maybe youd hear less whining from us poor shmoes.”
OK, the usual rule is actually my usual rule. I do it that way in FB, too, because FB inevitably eats my longest replies.
I’ll try adding it as comment #1.
@gekko: “Dick changed. Anne could accept his change. She could try to change him back. She could leave. She really does have those choices.”
This is admittedly a minor quibble but “Dick changed period” looks like a fundamental shift in personality or philosophy. I think it fair to say my philosophy has evolved over the 40-ish years I’ve actually been thinking philosophically but nowhere can I see a single point of inflection.
It is fair to say “Dick changed the rules” or better, “Dick asked Anne to change.”
Just FTR, I often compose in an outside tool and paste the results. Not short things like this. But if it gets lengthy I might copy and paste outside the browser, finish the write-up there, and bring it back. That’s MY rule only, and of course I change it at will. Which is not the same as firing at will, which always made me hopeful when Will Riker was on the command deck, but alas.
Or Captain Charles Gridley.
My penis is made of cheese.
No really. It’s a rule.
Blue?
While Blue-dick and …. uh …. regular Dick …. continue their conversation, I just wanted to take a moment to let y’all know that my comment, the one that got bent over and torn to pieces by the spam filter last night, would have been great. Was great, actually.
In fact, if they ever manage to invent a time machine, I suspect that the first things they do with it will be to go back and make stops along the time line of the universe to investigate the Big Bang, to see how Jesus did the tomb/rock thing, and recover that posting before I flushed it.
Yeah, I know, but it ain’t braggin’ if you actually did it, and for all any of you know, I did.
Also, I’ve been thinking all day and cannot for the life of me remember what it was.
Ah, well. Something else later, no doubt.
Shirley you meant “bleu”.
AD, it’s okay. I dreamt your comment. But, please, next time clean out the fridge, ‘k?
Crumbly and stinky?
The penis or the fridge?
Why, the cheese, of course.