You Can't Be "Everything"...

One of the basic tenets of Polyamory that's discussed in order to explain (justify? defend?) it to monogamous people is that it's unreasonable to expect anyone to be your "everything." That even in monogamous relationships, one partner has the friends they go to Comic Cons with while the other goes on the Quilting Cruise - we all have different groups of people with whom we do different things.

I do tend to agree with this. We all have different interests, and sometimes our circles don't overlap with our partners' in the Venn Diagram of our relationships. Ignoring the common response of "but why do you have to have RELATIONSHIPS to do that when I do that stuff with my friends," (which is something that, as a person pretty firmly planted in the monogamous side of the mono/poly spectrum, I just don't personally Grok), there's another issue with this idea that doesn't usually get discussed.

When you limit interests to only your partners who share that common interest, then you're only painting a partial picture of yourself to other partner(s).

Regardless of whether or not we "click" on, say, comic books, I want to get to know my partner... and yes, that includes being introduced to that interest. I may go to one con, only to never go again, but at least I've been introduced to it. I can see your giddy interest in it - can see you act like a little kid when you meet your favorite artist - and I can appreciate that, even if I don't appreciate the interest itself, or ever choose to go to another con. You've shared that with me.

If you have a partner who also appreciates comics, and you only go to cons with them because that's the person you share that interest with? It prevents me from ever seeing that giddy, little kid side of you... and I think that's a shame.

I don't want to see only some facets of my partner; I want to get to know them. All of them. At least, as much as I can.

I understand things like Cons involve resources like vacation time, money, etc., and those by their very nature are limited. I understand that, because of this, the most "bang for your buck" will be to bring the partner who actually enjoys these activities. However, you run the risk of becoming compartmentalized to your different partners - becoming different people, depending on your audience. And I don't know... if you prefer your relationships to be a big network of people you can diversify around, then clearly that's okay, but if you're in an entwined partnership? Especially with a monogamous person who doesn't have it in their nature to want to diversify? It seems to miss the point. I suppose Polyamory gives you both options.

At any rate, I know people can't be everything to each other, but I personally like the chance to share something that I never would have tried if I hadn't been introduced to it.

Ready for the "but" now?
There's always a "but"...

The flipside to this is when people try too hard to BE ALL THE THINGS. Having something shared with you doesn't mean you're obligated to actually enjoy it, and it certainly shouldn't pressure you to either do so, or fake it when you don't; it just gives you greater insight into what makes your partner tick. This is the point behind "you can't be everything to your partner." Enjoy the sharing. Let your horizons get expanded a bit. And if you find that it's not your bag (baby), that's okay. Send your partner off with a smooch and a "have a great time" and know that they're going to be a giddy little kid on the other side.

And if you're feeling shut out? Ask. Just be ready to hear your partner gush about their favorite comic book artist for a while.

Disclaimer: The examples herein do not represent any person, living or dead. That is to say... I *like* comic cons.

A Followup on Saturation (Or, the Other 'S' Word: Selfishness)

Instead of digging up the notes I have on my "5 Love Languages" book review (which I'll get to, I promise), I wanted to follow up on something I pretty much pooh-poohed in my last post:

There's a term in Polyamory called "polysaturation," which is basically the same principle applied to having multiple partners. One hits his or her polysaturation point when they have too many partners to adequately maintain relationships with them or to maintain a life balance outside of them.

I realize that folks who are critical of poly will tend to roll their eyes at this and think, "Poor poly people and their first-world problems." Get it out of your systems, folks. I'm moving on.

I'm not trying to dismiss anyone's very real frustration at this; it just wasn't quite what I was getting at in my last post. Time for a follow-up.

It isn't really polysaturation here that's being called into question, but the act of having multiple partners in and of itself: if you have multiple partners, how on earth can you devote enough time, resources, and just plain intimacy to the partners you have without leaving them wanting? It's the root of the whole "Polyamory is selfish" belief that many people on the outside - sometimes on the inside - of such relationships can have.

Let's take a step back and bring in an old friend we see pop up on Facebook and Twitter now and again:

Veracity of the quote aside (everyone quotes it, yet nobody seems to have a source), let's forget about resources: for many people, it's the act of loving another that undermines the first relationship. We see things through our own filters; if we're monogamous pendulum-types, then yes, nurturing feelings for another does negatively impact our existing relationship. Any pendulum-type who would do so should expect this, and therefore is being selfish by neglecting their existing relationship in favor of someone new. Lack of available resources just adds to the mix, when someone is okay with the concept, just not so much with the execution.

There's a huge disconnect between monogamous pendulum-types and polyamorous fountain-types in their understanding of each other. Many poly folks get out of sorts (and rightly so) when they see things like the Depp quote above, or hear that Poly folks are selfish. In their defense, some trot out our other good friends we see time and again:

• My friends don't feel neglected when I make new friends, do they?
• I don't love my children any less when I have another child, do I? Maybe I should put my first child up for adoption because I can't love them as much as my youngest.

Or the jokes:

• That's right, I'm stealing ALL THE LADIES! Well, you can date them too! How is that selfish?

As I mentioned back in my first post here, these responses do nothing to bridge the gap - instead, they just cover it in day-glo yellow paint and highlight it even more. The sheer nature of a romantic relationship to a monogamous pendulum-type person is very, very different from either of these, and it's like equating apples to elephants. Of course it doesn't impact your relationship with your friends or your children. Of course it does impact your romantic relationships! And the poly, fountain-type person just sits there baffled by the distinction.

My point in all this isn't to scold anyone, or to fix anything single-handedly. It's just to present the understanding that there is a very real disconnect in the ways in which Poly and Mono folks see romantic relationships and love others. The perspective that polyamory is selfish is a byproduct of this.

It's a belief that such a relationship has to, by nature, be selfish, because we pendulum-types see things through our own filters (as does everyone else). It's not always an attack on Poly folks (although I'm sure some folks say it with enough distaste that it may as well be). It is a very real perspective that needs to be acknowledged and not mocked or dismissed out of hand (or wittily wordsmithed away into friend or child analogies) before we can ever work on understanding the "other side."

Poly folks - open your minds a bit and realize that Mono folks may really feel this way, for good reason. For a pendulum-type, nurturing romantic feelings for another would be selfish and unfair to their other partner, because their love would be divided.

Mono folks - open your minds a bit and understand that Poly folks don't love like we do. That the child and friend analogies actually make sense to them because they don't feel romantic love as exclusively as we do. Just try to accept that if they really are polyamorous, they aren't giving anyone the short end of the stick, love-wise. See what time and experience tells you as their relationships develop. Try asking your friends in polyamorous or mono/poly relationships what they really need in a relationship, what they really gain from this relationship (not in a snarky way, either!), and see how they respond.

And everyone? If you have multiple relationships, make sure everyone's getting what they need and that resource allocation isn't a problem. It's no success to have a partner who accepts or groks Poly while they starve for your time and intimacy. Loving More is great. Loving Well is a different skill entirely.

On Analogies and Love

If you've taken the SATs (at least, back in the dark ages when I took the SATs), I'm sure you remember that accursed analogy section:

Obsequious : Toast :: Ubiquitous : __________

If we weren't familiar with the words, and we were lucky, we could eliminate a couple choices and have maybe a 50/50 shot of coming up with a right answer. If we weren't lucky, we were sitting, scratching our heads, thinking, "This is a word?!"

Here's one for you:

monogamy : polyamory :: ? : ??

Yeah, I know it's unfair to have two unknowns in the analogy. It's also spot on.

How do you, as a Mono partner of a Poly person, translate your partner's entire way of loving into something you can relate to? If you're like me, it's not something you can emotionally Grok. Intellectually and logically? Sure... you get that monogamy : polyamory :: one : many. That's the easy part. If you're monogamous by nature, though, it's incredibly tough to understand - really understand - how someone can deeply, intimately love more than one person.

It was obvious that my friends didn't understand, either. I heard comments like, "Well, you're the one he really loves; she's just a fling," or, "Well, he'll pick one of you and settle down eventually." Things that were meant to be supportive (and, at one time, were probably exactly what I wanted to hear), but weren't reality.

To be fair, my partner didn't understand me, either. Why was I hurt when he told me, when we were starting our relationship, that he fully expected me to date? Why didn't more love from more people affect me in a positive way by spilling over into the rest of my life, rather than making me a miserable, conflicted mess? Explaining myself to him was like trying to explain what water tastes like. You can't find any words that work, even though you know the feeling quite well.

Some folks like to try to bridge the gap using the "child analogy":
If you have more than one child, you don't love either of them any less.

True. And I understand the point people are trying to make: having multiple romantic partners doesn't have to mean that you love any of them less, either. However, there are a couple reasons this falls flat for me, one of which is simply that the parent/child relationship is vastly different from a relationship between romantic partners. I'm raising my kids to be independent adults, self-sufficient, and able to leave the house and make their own way without me (although a call once in a while would be nice). I'm not grooming my partners to leave me; at least, I hope I'm not. There are enough differences between the two types of relationships that it seems to require a different sense of the word "love" altogether, meaning that we're not really comparing the same thing. Apples and Volkswagons.

I don't really like the "explain Poly by equating it to Mono relationships" type of analogies, because they seem to always fall flat with someone, regardless of how clear the analogy seems. I did prefer the, "Why did you choose to have two kids?" over the previous child analogy, since that seems to remove the whole "love" comparison and just boil it down to, "Because I wanted to." However, not everyone feels the same about it. The, "You don't stop making friends just because you already have friends, right?" analogy sounds great, up to the point where the Mono person responds back with, "But you don't have to sleep with friends." Again, two very different relationships are being compared.

Instead of relating Poly love directly to Mono love, I tried something else: relating them each to familiar, but individual ideas that people can understand. I switched around the analogy:

monogamy : ? :: polyamory : ??

I'm Monogamous. My love is a pendulum.
When I am fully invested in a romantic partnership, that pendulum has swung all the way in that direction.
When I am casually dating, that pendulum is somewhere in the middle, tending to everyone, but nowhere as intense.
I cannot be fully invested in more than one person. My (romantic) love is a zero-sum game. More there equals less here.

My partner is Polyamorous. His love is a fountain.
Everyone within the radius gets just as wet as everyone else.
Space (and time) is a zero-sum game, as there isn't room for everyone in the radius (and some people's radii are smaller than others). However, his love is not. Everyone has the potential to be just as important as anyone else, provided they're fully in the circle.
If one person tries to keep that love all to themselves by putting, say, a bucket over the fountain, it just ends up messy and people still get wet.
He cannot be anything but fully invested within that circle, regardless of how many people are there.

If you've experienced love as a fountain-type your entire life, you can't even comprehend why telling your partner to date would ever be a problem. If you're a pendulum-type, you've just heard, "I want you to love me less." It's no wonder we're completely baffled by each other when we talk about love.

monogamy : pendulum :: polyamory : fountain

Sounds like there should be a fish on a bicycle joke in there somewhere...

What analogies have resonated with you (positively or negatively)? Please share your experiences in the comments.

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Stumbling Along the Path, or... What Happened to My Feet?!

It’s a bit daunting starting a new blog. It feels a bit egocentric to think that, out of the sea of stuff out there on the Internet, anyone would be interested to read what I have to write.

Except, this is the kind of thing I wish I’d had available to me a few years ago.

I’m a monogamous woman, mid-40s, divorced, two kids, and I’m in a relationship with a polyamorous man. When we were first starting out, I looked up anything online that I could find (well, after I was out of denial, I suppose) - anything that could help me navigate this path I’d chosen for myself but had no idea how to walk along. It was like someone had replaced my feet with pegs, swatted me on the ass at the head of the (unmarked) path, and said “have fun storming the castle!”

I chose my path, which makes my experiences different from many people in a Mono/Poly relationship. I walked in with my eyes open, even though I had no idea what I was looking at. The navigating was tough (and still is sometimes), but time and experience have helped me figure out these sticks-for-legs somewhat and muddle my way down the path, although not as comfortably as my partner does.

Many folks find themselves in a marriage or relationship that opens up when their partner comes out as Poly. While that wasn’t my experience, I hope that maybe some of what you read here could be useful, and that maybe you’ll find a sympathetic voice and ear. It’s tough to find material out there for Mono/Poly relationships. While Polyamory seems to be the new buzzword in the media, many of the articles out there tout “Is Polyamory the next Monogamy?” or “Is Monogamy Dead?” and while it’s nice to have mainstream references, they may come off as one-sided or sensationalistic. In addition, if you decide to read the comments on such articles (protip: DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!), they tend to be a hotbed of judgment and name-calling. Not really supportive.

Many sites relating to Polyamory are great if you’re the polyamorous one. They tout the benefits of being open and loving more. They talk of college-aged folks in romantic networks, or poly families where everyone is living together and in love. Sometimes they talk of monogamous oppression, social conditioning, and brainwashing. “Rah-Rah Poly” with an “Anti-Monogamy” slant. Not really supportive.

There was one site I glommed onto in the beginning of my relationship: Franklin Veaux’s “More Than Two” (morethantwo.com). This was one of the first (and only) sites I found that paid more than lip service to mono/poly relationships. Other sites, I’d found, when they did acknowledge mono/poly relationships, either said, “Date within your own species; it’s doomed to failure,” or said things like, “Maybe the Mono person could date someone too” (because we’re all poly inside!). Possibly the best I’d heard was, “It takes a lot of work and communication; good luck.”

Veaux’s site had articles written from the Monogamous partner’s point of view (gasp!) that I actually used to show my partner and his OSO that hey - this is what I’m feeling, and am having trouble articulating - and look! I’m not crazy, dammit! It was refreshing to me to FINALLY be acknowledged as a viable partner with a different, but valid point of view (that wasn’t reduced to “monogamy’s fine for some people, BUT…”).

While I do recommend Franklin Veaux’s site, there are others who take exception to it, and I understand why. For many folks opening a marriage, it’s frightening as hell, and spouses may come to agreements regarding how much time they’re allowed to spend with others, veto privilege (where one spouse can tell the other to stop dating someone if they’re uncomfortable), among others. FV’s view on these types of rules is negative (although he does differentiate between rules and agreements), which leaves some Mono partners feeling, again, unsupported.

So why do we need the support anyway, some people ask. After all, Monogamy is the societal default. We don’t need support to be who we are. Our Poly partners do.

Yes, they do. I’m not going to deny that. It’d be nice to live in a world where people didn’t give a rat’s ass about who people loved (when everyone is a consenting adult).

But if you’re monogamous, and in a Mono/Poly relationship, you know darned well that we need the support from time to time. No, we don’t need support to be monogamous… but try talking to your monogamous friends about your relationship and see where that gets you. If they care about you, they may try to help or save you: “He’s disrespecting you.” “Can’t you see you deserve better?” And forget about ever talking about a problem in your relationship. It’s just proof that “that could never work.” Most of my friends who are accepting still preface their response with, “Well, I could never do that, but if it works for you…” I’ve had good friendships deteriorate because of my relationship, and all because I “deserve better than a part time relationship.”

Support from the poly side? Well, we’re not poly. And to some Poly folks, we’re “the oppressors” or worse, “brainwashed” or “socially conditioned”. To some, if we’d only “see the light” we’d realize that monogamy is a patriarchal construct, meant to control people… and marriage? It’s all about ownership. Some folks are perfectly accepting and helpful, however. It’s wading through the ones who aren’t that gets discouraging, and turns some folks off towards asking Poly folks anything at all.

So, we’re no longer in the Mono world, being in a Poly relationship. We’re not Poly. We’ve got one foot in each world by virtue of simply being in a relationship with this person we love, and we don’t fit into either side.

That’s why we need some support.

That’s why the majority of the pro-Poly pieces out there don’t speak to us

That’s why we feel isolated from our Mono friends and condescended to by some of the Poly folks out there.

That’s why it’s nice to hear a familiar voice.

That said, I’ve carved out some spots for myself that may be helpful:

Yahoo has a pair of sister groups: PolyMono, which is the group for the Mono partners in Mono/Poly relationships, and livingpolymono, which is the group for the Poly partner. Both groups welcome either Mono or Poly folks, but each group focuses toward providing support toward either the Mono or Poly side of the relationship.

The boards at Polyamory.com can be helpful - there are regulars there who have mono spouses, as well as those from all other walks of Poly life: Solo Poly, Poly Families, Relationship Anarchists, etc. The tone can be blunt at times, so if you’re looking for a support group atmosphere, you will need to realize that many posters here don’t mince words.

And now, here.

My intent here is to talk about my experiences - things that have been problematic, things to be aware of, things that we’ve worked through, things that have worked (or haven’t), things that are going well, and to offer an alternative to the “Mono/Poly relationships can never work out” voices that can be discouraging. I’m certainly no expert - we’ve been at this for less than a handful of years - but we’re not noobs (anymore), so maybe something can be useful, even if it’s just to know that there’s someone else with peglegs stumbling along the path ahead of you a bit.

What this blog isn’t: my partner’s voice (he’s got blogs and a voice of his own, and I won’t speak for him). It isn’t a list of “things to do to be happy in your relationship” - everyone’s relationship (and everyone in it) is different, and what works for me may not work for you. It is, however, a chronicle of my journey.

Keep stumbling. I’ll share my bruises and bumps, but I’ll leave some breadcrumbs along the path, and maybe we can find a bar somewhere, sit down, and have a margarita.

Mmm… margaritas.

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