I think hierarchical labels like ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ can be a good way to make observational comments about the current roles of relationships in my life, but I don’t like using them as guidelines for what role I’m looking for any particular relationship to be.
I am the same way. Labels I tend to be OK with are friend, partner, water sibling, and comrade (why not?!) but anything else that denotes someone is more important than the other bothers me on a personal level.
I’m extremely excited.
Poly folks- It’s cool if you want all your sex to take place in serious, committed, loving relationships. It’s okay if that’s specifically what polyamory means to you. But you’ve got to understand that some of us also want some sex that’s more casual.
If we’re going to keep pointing out the high rates of cheating as a reason to pursue non-monogamy, we’re going to have to supply stronger data that the number of people breaking their commitments is actually lower in non-monogamous relationships than in monogamous ones. Or, instead of arguing against sexual exclusivity, we’re going to have to be refine our point to be against people making any agreements in relationships that they are likely to break.
Paramour: A lover
Metamour: A lover’s lover
Metamorphosis: A profound change
Metamourphosis: A profound change in which a metamour becomes a paramour
By Leanna Wolfe, PhD
Presented at Poly Pride NYC, October 4, 2008, at the Blue Stockings Book Store
“As for why polyamory is a very weird cultural construction, it’s because poly people seek to tell the truth—not just to their trusted friends but to their long time partners, their sizzling new lovers, subscribers to their internet blogs and live journals as well as pretty much everyone else who will listen. They seek to tell the truth even when it hurts. We humans, being members of the biggest-brained primate species, typically withhold information when it’s not to our advantage to share. And we’re supremely good liars. We consider plastic surgery and hair dye reasonable practices…and inflating the value of a house to secure a big mortgage loan that’s considered all-American!”
I was with this up until the end where we shame people for altering their appearances.
But the rest is true - once honesty becomes the absolute top priority in your relationships, it finds its way in everywhere else, in ways that a lot of people aren’t used to, or in ways that people forget they can be honest.
It’s just like why we have so much trouble simply saying “I want sushi for dinner” instead of “it’s okay, let’s go wherever you want to go.”
Taking a stand, demanding honesty and throwing it out there always, using your incredibly strong backbone, it doesn’t always come naturally to all of us.
And it’s not EASIER because I’m poly, but it’s more important and necessary, and that makes it more valuable to me in every circumstance.
Agreed on all accounts with Polycule.
When I discuss polyamory with people, polyvangelist that I am, they often ask me about jealousy; after the “permission to cheat” and the “you don’t really love hir,” jealousy is the next most asked about topic.
Jealousy happens; it’s a natural part of the human emotional spectrum, just like anger and happiness and fear and lust. The primary difference between people who are poly and people who are monogamous seems to be not that poly folk don’t get jealous, but rather that poly folks see jealousy as something to deal with and overcome, while monogamists seem to see it as an insurmountable barrier. I often talk to monogamous folks about my relationship and hear them say, “Oh, that sounds nice, but I could never do that, I’d get jealous.” Funny, you never hear them say things like “Wow being in a relationship sounds nice, but I could never do that, I’d get way too annoyed with their flaws.” Nothing is perfect, these things take work.
Our society constantly feeds us bullshit about how jealousy is a sign of love, and if we act possessive it’s because “we really love” someone. We are supposed to embrace that negative emotion, that rage, based in insecurity and possessiveness and objectification, that poison in loving relationships. It causes resentment and anger in all relationships, polyamorous and monogamous ones alike, and is a symptom of a problem, not of “love.”
To call this romanticization of jealousy bullshit is an insult to actual bovine feces. It perpetuates a culture of intimate partner violence, in the same way that the commodification of sex [it’s something that men try to “get,” it’s something that women “give up,” et cetera] perpetuates rape culture. When a third of all women murdered in the United States are murdered by their partners, when 4.8 million women experience physical intimate partner violence per year, perpetuating the message that jealousy is somehow good and healthy is tantamount to murder.
Jealousy happens, though, and we need to understand the reasons that cause it, rather than simply assuming that it’s because of the POWER OF WUV. We might be insecure, or have abandonment issues, or feel possessive. These are problems to be fixed, not traits to be accepted.
There’s many different ways to handle jealousy, but it all comes down to figuring out exactly why you feel jealous, and what sets you off. Don’t assume that you’re jealous because your partner is with someone else, duh. It’s never just that; there’s always fears or insecurities, and triggers. For example, I got jealous a while ago because I kept hearing about some girl [who I’d never met] and people talking about her and my girlfriend like they were together. It drove me up the fucking wall, and it wasn’t because I minded my girlfriend being with other people, but because she hadn’t told me anything about this gal. When I talked to her about it, everything was fine; they were just friends, anyway.
Communication and jealousy management are not only important in polyamorous relationships but monogamous ones as well. We are not naturally monogamous creatures, and never have been. The choice to be in a monogamous relationship is a perfectly valid one, but we must be realistic about what we are doing; we don’t suddenly stop wanting others, but rather make a promise to refrain from having others. This is an important distinction to make, and we must be accommodating of our partners, regardless of the relationship model we choose.
Even in a monogamous relationship, mistakes happen, and they must be considered. For example, my partner knows of a monogamous hetero couple. The man travels a lot, and whenever he goes out of town, the woman packs him condoms and lube into his suitcase, because she’d rather have to forgive him for cheating than for giving her an STI. Besides, having infidelity be the self-destruct button on a relationship constitutes a huge risk that one may lose a perfectly good thing because of one stupid mistake. Beware of relationships with self-destruct buttons that one can hit by accident; that is a sign of a poorly-designed relationship model.
My partner also recommends talking through a scenario to figure out exactly what makes you jealous. For example, a couple he knows of were trying to be poly but kept getting jealous, and finally, they sat down, and each thought about the other’s date, step by step. ‘Okay, ze is getting ready… ze is meeting hir date for dinner… they’re eating… having dessert… going home together… they’re kissing on the couch… taking off each other’s clothes… sex… more sex… THEY’RE FALLING ASLEEP IN EACH OTHER’S ARMS!’ and they figured out that they BOTH got jealous over the thought of the other spending the night with someone else. Easy to fix; they both went dates with other folk, practiced polyamory, et cetera, but the rule was that they had to come home to each other every night. With time, this rule changed. Remember that all relationships change with time, and don’t expect any rules you put in place now to remain there forever.
How much actual sharing of information occurs varies from person to person and from relationship to relationship, but the bottom line is that, in my experience, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” polyamory doesn’t work, ever, and is, unlike actual polyamory, just “permission to cheat.” If you’re not comfortable talking about it, you shouldn’t be doing it. Doesn’t mean you have to sit through a blow-by-blow [pardon the expression] of your partner’s date, but if you can’t even say “oh, I went out with so-and-so and we had sex” then you both need to figure out what’s going on in your heads.
Lastly, keep in mind, that a relationship of any kind is a team effort; I had a lover that I met with his primary. They’d made a deal that if she wasn’t comfortable, she’d give a signal and they’d leave, but it didn’t work; she wasn’t comfortable but she never gave a signal and they hung around and it was torture for the poor girl. Later, when he told me about the fight they got in over it, he blamed her for not speaking up. I felt, however, that it was as much his responsibility to check in on her as it was hers to communicate with him. When I go on dates, I am constantly checking in on my primary to make sure he is okay; I don’t want to risk him feeling uncomfortable but feeling unable to speak up about it.[There is an analogous situation in the kink community; while it is the submissive’s responsibility to safeword, it is accepted that a responsible Dominant will still check in.]
Polyamory is something that my partner and I have in common that we love sharing with each other and experiencing together; it doesn’t corrupt our bond, it strengthens it, and this brings me to my last point about jealousy in polyamory, or rather, the opposite of it: compersion. Compersion is a word invented by the non-monogamous community to describe the feeling of joy one experiences at the thought of one’s partner with other people. It’s a beautiful emotion, a giddy euphoria, and the special treat that non-monogamists can experience once they tackle jealousy issue.
An excellent resource for managing jealousy is this article that my partner pointed me to. Enjoy.
Hm. Perhaps.
Anyway, I thought you may be interested in this, so I cut it out of my paper and stuck it in here for you.
(Source: antithestasia)
Oh boy. Being stuck in the middle is no fun, I am so sorry.
You say that your boo is accepting of you being poly yet unwilling to share you. So what is it really that they are accepting? Your first step here is to try and have a very candid and honest conversation about what your partner is and is not comfortable with, and try to determine if there’s any way the two of you can work through being together while still honoring who each of you is. You deserve better than to be in a relationship where you’re being forced to mute a part of who you are.
Keep in mind that this is different than a polyamorous person willingly entering a monogamous relationship - for some, exclusivity is negotiable. It’s a dealbreaker for me personally, and it’s up to you to determine if you’re willing to be monogamous with your partner. If the ultimatum they are giving you is that in order to stay with them you can’t be with anyone else, only you can decide if you’re comfortable with that. I wish I had a magical formula for determining this, but you’re the only person who has the answer.
If you can have conversations with your partner about:
- what being polyamorous means to the two of you and what it would look like
- that they are looking at this all wrong to think of you as a thing to be shared
- how much you love them and how loving someone else doesn’t change that
and if the two of you can work through that, then there’s a chance you will be able to pursue both of these relationships. But you have to be compassionate and sympathetic to what this is doing to your partner. They entered this relationship with you under monogamous pretenses and you presenting this new information is probably shocking and unnerving to say the least. This is not just about you getting what you want - it’s about caring for yourself and for the people you love in the ways that are best for all of you. No matter what happens, remember that you love these people and that they, and you, deserve to be treated with dignity. Remember this other person you’ve fallen for too. Just because they are polyamorous doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for them to sit idly by and watch as you try and work all of this out. Be loving and understanding and open to their own needs and concerns. Ultimately, you have to decide what is best for you, not who. This isn’t about which person you like better, it’s about the lifestyle that works for you - don’t look at this as picking one person over the other, but rather questioning how you want to be in relationships and whether or not these people will fit into what your needs are.
A thing that’s hard about polyamory is that you can be really excited about how amazing one person makes you feel, and simultaneously be heartbroken over another. But yet you can still be okay.
It’s hard and it’s confusing and it feels itchy on your insides, but it’s liberating and empowering, too. I know now that heartbreak can’t paralyze me, that it can’t numb me. I can still feel beautiful feelings through the hurt. I can ache and I can love at the same time, because opening myself up to more than one person at a time means that I am open to multiple depths of emotions at the same time.
Sometimes I feel so many things, the good and the bad all swirling together, that I think my chest might explode. And it’s the most overwhelming and amazing feeling in the world.
I’m grateful for the aching. It reminds me that it doesn’t consume me, that it doesn’t swallow me whole and take my other loves down with me. It allows me to feel every inch of sadness, but it also allows me to be open to the beautiful things I’m feeling, too.
I was never good at being vulnerable before, but polyamory doesn’t have time for that. Vulnerable is all we have. It’s what everything else builds on.
This is about how I feel now, as well. I’ve had to battle my way out of being consumed by my own want and envy, and in the end it’s been worth it. I’m not saying I’ve perfected this, as emotions are like ocean waves crashing against the surf, but I am at a much better place now than I was before. Having experienced what was necessary, I believe I now know. All I have to do is remember that knowing.
Originally posted here.
Have you been considering polyamory? Wondering where you want to go with your relationships? Do you wonder if you’re really ready to take the leap?
If you’re wondering, that’s good. It means you’re thinking. Mama Java approves of thinking about things clearly. When…
Click through, I promise it’ll be good. :)
At the moment I am going through some heart-on/affection-erection feels for a near and dear friend. Another one, that is. Oh dear me, my heart, alas.. hah ha~ I think this makes 10 or something, ionno.
I think the troubling thing is is that when I confess such feelings towards a friend, I then go through a short period of self doubt, heartache, and envy. I haven’t the slightest idea why this would be the case, but it seems so. Suffering seems to be a prerequsite for the love to thrive, or that is, this is a test to see how I shall handle this love. Well, it only appears to be troubling, but it is most likely necessary, at least for me.
Some time ago I accepted the modus operandi that ‘love in all its forms shall light the way’ in all of my near and dear friendships. That is to say, it would be the motivation that carried the friendship through. That it wasn’t to be shameful or something to feel guilty over. It only mattered in how respectful and in how much care I placed in the other person. It seems to make this happen, I must first fight a battle each time, with each person.
My biggest battle in all of these friendships has been ENVY. A beast I have sworn to fight til the end. I don’t think I have found a good coping mechanism for this as of yet. At the end of some days this will have worn me down enough to make me feel crazy and unreliable. I let my mental faculties wear down, I become cranky and judging, — an asshole, I presume.
(yes, yes, my dear followers… I am not perfect. still, i thank you for all of those wonderful messages of you telling me i am, even if i havent acknowledged them or posted them to the tumblr.)
So if I should seem to you depressed or sad or angsty, it is only because I am fighting this battle, and I don’t know if I am winning or losing.
I love you. Good day to you.
