Theory, Practice

[hyperskeptic]

Well, I've been poly-in-theory for nearly a year. My wife first raised the possibility last March and, after a week of reading and further talking, it just seemed right and good to us to remain committed to one another and to not be exclusive in that commitment.

I've done a lot of thinking, and talking, and posting to online forums since then. I understand the idea of polyamory, and of ethical non-monogamy, pretty well. More than that, it makes so much sense to me, in the broader moral framework I bring to bear on the world, that I can no longer imagine how I could have been unreflectively monogamous for so long.

After all that thinking and talking and making sense of things, it comes down to this: I have a date tonight.

I really like her, and I look forward to seeing what kind of relationship we might have.

Heck, I just look forward to seeing her in a few hours.

I'm wonder-struck, like a child, and it's good.

[nycindie]

After all that thinking and talking and making sense of things, it comes down to this: I have a date tonight.

I really like her, and I look forward to seeing what kind of relationship we might have.

Heck, I just look forward to seeing her in a few hours.

I'm wonder-struck, like a child, and it's good.

You go, hon! That's great. How excited you must be. Best of luck and let us know how it turns out.

[hyperskeptic]

I'm still wonder-struck.

The story of how I met her - call her G - is not entirely free of irony. As I've posted elsewhere on the forum, I've had a love-hate, approach-avoidance relationship with OKCupid. I've gone through two different accounts on the site: started one, then deleted it; started another, then deleted it.

I decided a dating site is not really the best place to meet people; the set-up and the expectations of the whole thing seem off, somehow. I made a lot of noise about this on the forum a few weeks ago, and annoyed a few people with it.

Well, damn me for a fool, but I met G on OKCupid, and my exchange with her was the one thing I held on to when I deleted my second account.

Now, in my own defense, I was drawn to her, in part, because her profile was so direct and honest, and she began it with the disclaimer that her life is very full, and she's not really interested in a new romantic relationship. She was there out of curiosity, nothing more.

I wrote to her with no expectation of anything at all.

Really.

Well, we've been corresponding by email for a couple of months now, and I guess we both liked what we were reading. She comes across as intelligent and thoughtful . . . which is all but irresistible to me! She's also been poly (and openly bi/queer) for a while, and understands things about relationships that, for me, are still matters of conjecture.

We met for coffee a couple of weeks ago, and the spark was struck. We met for lunch last week . . . and talked for three hours. Fortunately, her work schedule that day was relaxed enough that there weren't repercussions back at the office. It was a non-teaching day for me, and I made up for lost time over the weekend.

We immediately set up our date for last night. She drove to my house, and we walked to a nearby sushi restaurant. We were seated in the back room, which we had pretty much to ourselves for the evening, ate sushi . . . and talked for three hours.

Then we walked around for a while in the unaccustomed cold (real winter weather, in Georgia!), then came back to my house for a cup of tea and more talk. My wife and daughters were caught up watching something in the other room, so we had some privacy.

I'm usually open about the fact that my besetting vice is cowardice, especially when it comes to making myself vulnerable, letting someone else see my deepest feelings and failings. I tend to use words as a defense, talking away from my discomfort, changing the subject . . . and I'm very, very good at generating words.

(Surprised?)

In the past, when I've found myself wanting to tell someone or show someone how I feel about them, it seemed to me I was standing on a precipice, or on the edge of a too-cold swimming pool. I would want to jump in, but I would be afraid of what might happen next, afraid of the irrevocability of it.

Once I jump, I can't unjump.

I would resolve to jump in, be ready to jump in, then hesitate, and think again, and wait, then resolve again . . . and end up standing there, contemplating the edge.

Back in college, I let potential relationships slip away, because I would not take that fearful leap. There are some I still regret, to this day.

I've taken the leap a few times, often with much talk. When I was dating the woman who is now my wife, it took me about an hour to explain what I meant when I said I was in love with her.

(I know, I know.)

Anyway, to make a long story short, sitting and talking with G last night, I jumped . . .

and it wasn't such a terrible precipice after all, because she was right there with me, meeting affection with affection.

And so we launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas.

We're both inclined to let our relationship develop slowly. The thing is to spend time together, so we can come to understand and trust one another.

Did we hold hands? Did we kiss? Was there a warm and prolonged good-night hug?

I'm not the kind that tells.

;)

[Fiona]

Glad to hear things are going well! I like the way you write and look forward to reading more.

[AnnabelMore]

Just wanted to say congrats on what sounds like a lovely first foray. :)

[hyperskeptic]

I was talking to my wife this weekend.

Wait, I suppose I should give her a nickname. How about Vix? (Short for DanceVixen, a user name she once had on another site.)

Anyway, I was talking to Vix this weekend, and she told me to stop being so anxious about the effect my new relationship is having on her. Really, my anxiety about it, my checking in with Vix all the time to make sure she's all right, was getting annoying, and even a little creepy.

That's the word Vix used: "creepy".

I realized I was experiencing a kind of reverse jealousy, as though, by developing a relationship in which Vix does not have any direct involvement, I was stealing something from Vix.

I mean, what an outrageous thing for me to do! How dare I?

Fortunately, the cure for reverse jealously was at hand.

First, Vix assured me she's really happy I've found G, and that she'll let me know if she has any doubt or anxiety or worry along the way.

Knowing Vix, I'm quite certain she'll let me know!

As I've continued developing my relationship with G, I've simply kept Vix up to date on the story of how it has been developing, without apology or defensiveness or anxiety.

Just the facts.

She's persists in being happy for me, and is looking forward to getting to know G, in good time.

The one thing Vix has said she isn't sure of is how she'll react if or when I actually have sex with someone else. I haven't, yet, and it's something Vix and I will have to keep talking about, along the way.

Another part of the cure is in the experience of this new relationship, in which I've surprised myself.

Far from being swept away by blind passion, my growing affection for G is making me more aware of everything: of G, her other relationships, her boundaries, the touch of her hand, the feel of . . .

Wait, where was I?

Oh, yes.

. . . and also more aware of Vix, our daughters, the solidity of the life we've been building together, my own boundaries.

I'm not stealing anything from anybody, though I need to be careful, on my own account, that I keep it that way.

I spent yesterday evening with G, at her apartment. I went over after work and made dinner for her. We talked . . . and didn't talk . . . and talked . . . and didn't talk.

Today, in an exchange of emails, we've carried on the work of clarifying our current boundaries and the pace at which we want to proceed . . . which will be fairly slowly, given the complexity of our lives and of our existing relationships.

I'm happy to find I'm able - as of right now, at least - to keep things in perspective. However urgently I find myself drawn to her, I don't (yet) seem to be losing my head.

(Famous last words?)

[nycindie]

Glad to hear you are taking things slowly and communicating well with everyone. I forget - does Vix have an OSO?

[idealist]

Did we hold hands? Did we kiss? Was there a warm and prolonged good-night hug?

I'm not the kind that tells.

;)

Awwww...come on- you're completely anonymous, do tell. :p

[hyperskeptic]

Glad to hear you are taking things slowly and communicating well with everyone. I forget - does Vix have an OSO?

No, she doesn't . . . though she is on very good terms with a few other men. I've described their status as "cuddle-buddies".

Vix is currently recovering from the implosion of a hoped-for relationship with a long-time friend, and so isn't currently interested in looking for anything more than that with anyone.

In the hoped-for relationship, Vix was very careful about communication and boundaries, and so was he . . . with her . . . to a point. They held the line at cuddle-buddy status, though they both wanted to go further, and sometimes toed the line. They were waiting for him to talk to his wife about the possibilities.

The kicker was that he wasn't really talking to his wife about any of it, not even the fact that they were spending time together as cuddle-buddies, not even the fact that Vix and I were over there several times for dinner with the guy and his sons while his wife was out of town. (She has a job that keeps her away 3-4 days every week.)

She found out.

She was displeased, to say the very least.

The fallout has been painful, not least because Vix wants to hold on to her former friendship with the guy in question, but is currently not allowed to have any really personal communication with him to which his wife is not privy; they are allowed to send private emails to one another so long as they are innocuous messages about an avocation the two of them share.

It's also painful because our various children like one another and want to spend time together.

(There's more, about the prior and ongoing state of our friends' marriage, but that's not really to the point here. For myself, I think Vix is well out of it, and have told her so.)

Anyway, observing her experience has added to my caution in developing my relationship with G. One of G's OSOs is, in her words, "not enthusiastic" about her seeing someone new.

As much fun as G and I are having getting to know one another, by talking and by not talking, we really do need to hold the line at least until she's worked things out with that particular OSO.

Neither of us wants to be a source of chaos in the other's life.

[hyperskeptic]

I'm astonished by the sudden intensity of what I'm experiencing with G. I begin to see how easy it would be to lose my balance, to let myself be swept away by her.

I begin to see how difficult being poly can be.

Okay, the story of recent developments:

Vix has been out of town since Wednesday, in pursuit of her avocation. She'll be back Monday.

(As an aside, Vix has a traveling companion on her trip, an older gent she's been drawn to for a while, in an intense kind of friendship. I wonder if Vix has any other kind of friendships? Apparently, something has been developing between them on this trip - she reports their relationship has gone "from sensual to sexual" - about which I'll learn more when she's back. For now, at least, I'm just not fussed about it; I'm happy for her, in part because it could be helping her heal from her recent heartbreak. She says it "feels like a cure.")

Anyway, Vix and I hadn't really finished working out boundaries on my inviting someone new to the house, for a visit, and introducing them into our girls' lives. Vix is right in thinking the girls - especially the younger one - form attachments easily, with adults and children alike, and it might be wrenching for them to introduce someone to them who might just disappear if the relationship didn't work out.

This caution was spurred by our recent experience with Vix's imploded relationship and its effect on two sets of children.

Well, on Thursday, I was feeling isolated. I don't at all mind being at home with the girls, and I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself and of them. I do much of the cooking around here, anyway, and can drive them to their various activities as well as Vix can.

Still, I was missing Vix, and wishing I could spend some time with G before our scheduled coffee date on Monday. I thought G might be available for a visit Thursday night, but hadn't asked.

So, I asked Vix, by text message, if I could ask G over for a little while, for a cup of tea and some quiet talk.

I'm glad I asked, because Vix said it would be okay. It seemed to her that what is developing between G and me is serious enough that she's likely to be around for a while.

As it turned out, G had plans to have dinner with a friend not far from my house, so it was easy for her to come by afterward.

My daughters - lovely, feral creatures that they are - insisted on having tea with us. That was fine with me, and G got the full measure of the crazy energy of the household.

I then shooed the girls off to bed - it took them fully an hour and a half to finally settle down - then G and I sat at the kitchen table and talked . . . and didn't talk . . .

We didn't have any guarantee of privacy, so we limited ourselves in the range of our non-verbal expression, but . . .

It seemed to me that something had shifted between us, that we'd made it past some threshold. We were at ease with one another, we were open to one another in a way I've seldom experienced.

I'm having trouble putting the rest into words. What I experience with G is intense, but with a warm, open, and balanced kind of intensity.

But it is intense, and it presents certain challenges to good judgment and the maintenance of boundaries.

We sat together on the couch for the last half hour or so of her visit. She was starting to feel sleepy, and needed to get home while she was still awake enough to drive.

She didn't want to go. I didn't want her to go. Technically, she could have stayed, but we would then have crossed several lines that ought not (yet) to be crossed, and that may have led us on to cross a few more, just for good measure.

(When I was at her apartment on Monday evening, her bedroom door was pointedly closed, a symbolic boundary. In fact, G and I use it as a euphemism for that very boundary: the door is still closed. Her arrangement with the "unenthusiastic" OSO - who is as close to a primary as G has - is that it's fine for her to get to know me better, but that she won't open that door with me until she's had further conversations with him. That seems perfectly reasonable to me.)

Well, "damnable good sense" (as I put it) won out, but it was a fight, and there were several reversals. In the end, it was sheer force of will, on both our parts, that got her out the door and on her way home.

Keep in mind, this was only the fifth time we'd been together, face-to-face.

I imagine it's going to get more difficult to maintain boundaries before it gets any easier.

As I say, I begin to see how difficult being poly can be.

[AnnabelMore]

Wow... communication BEFORE doing things that could potentially be hurtful, resisting temptation rather than breaking boundaries, fairness and lack of jealousy between you and your wife over your OSOs... it is SO refreshing to read about things working well. :) :)

You're right that poly is hard, but I've just gotta say it seems like you're off to a great start!

[hyperskeptic]

it is SO refreshing to read about things working well. :) :)

You're right that poly is hard, but I've just gotta say it seems like you're off to a great start!

Thanks, Annabel.

I guess I would just say things are working well . . . so far. It's early days yet. Things are just starting to get . . . interesting, and I don't want to be overconfident.

My wife has a forceful and direct personality, which will be a help. I'm also glad I've found G, who not only seems deeply compatible with me, but who also has experience with successful poly relationships . . . and at least one less-than-successful poly relationship.

The more the three of us can work together on setting and maintaining our boundaries, the more secure I'll feel about all this.

[hyperskeptic]

Much has happened since my last post. Most of it has been very, very good.

A few weeks after I posted, G . . . wait, I need a better nickname for her. For complicated reasons that must remain obscure, I'll call her Nyx.

Anyway, a few weeks after I posted, Nyx had a talk with her OSO, and made the momentous decision to open her bedroom door to me.

We had joked that, once the door was open, wild horses could not keep us from her bed.

And so it was: we have become enthusiastic lovers. We spend the night together, at her apartment, once a week.

The mode of our intimacy is gentleness and generosity and the intoxication of touch . . . which is something of a departure for both of us, though in different directions.

Nyx has generally been in relationships that involve some degree of kink; in particular, she enjoys receiving pain. In fact, much of her current social circle is centered on kink, a group that often attends Frolicon together. Her relationship with me has met with the bemusement, not to say the consternation, of some of her friends: "You mean he's vanilla?!"

For my part, I've long been extremely, painfully ticklish, which has led Vix and me to put less emphasis on touch in our relationship. This has been hard on Vix, who very much likes to touch and be touched. Somehow, through my relationship with Nyx, my ticklishness has all but vanished, replaced by a trembling pleasure when I'm touched.

And so Vix has benefited directly from my relationship with Nyx!

Nyx and I also spend a lot of time in quiet talk, learning one another's stories, finding our common interests and values, and finding also our interesting points of divergence. I've learned quite a lot about kink, for example . . . though I still have not one shred of inclination toward it!

The sum of all this is that Nyx and I love one another, and have said so.

All of these developments have been a delight to Vix, who has been having further adventures of her own . . . about which more in later posts.

[hyperskeptic]

I mentioned that my wife, Vix, has been having further adventures.

Where I last left off with her story, she was traveling with a companion in the Mid-Atlantic states, and their interaction had turned intensely intimate.

That didn't last beyond the trip. Her companion has an unusual communication style that led to misunderstanding and conflict and, in the end, he seemed overwhelmed by the experience and the idea of poly and all but shut down the relationship.

Vix and I have seen him since then, on our travels together, and they have cautiously begun to interact again as friends or acquaintances. He doesn't seem entirely comfortable around me, though.

A month or so later, Vix traveled out to the West Coast in pursuit of her avocation, and had an intense encounter with a much younger man. He and his partner are both profoundly, consciously poly, and he was also aware of his own boundaries and prior agreements. They spent the night together, but with a limit neither would cross without the consent of his partner.

Vix and I have an agreement about travel and opportunity: if she doesn't have a chance to seek my consent ahead of time to have sex with someone, she can tell me about it afterward. I trust her judgment, and her good sense about risk mitigation.

The young guy's partner met Vix, and likes her, so if Vix ever travels that way again, or if he travels this way, they have consent on all sides.

In the mean time, Vix had been developing a relationship by correspondence with an older gent - call him Doc - whom she has met here in the States but who is an ex-pat living and working in Europe for at least the next two years.

Doc traveled to Georgia back in January for an event of interest to Vix, and they attended together. He then invited her to visit him in Europe in late April, paying her air fare and other expenses.

They had a very fine long weekend together, traveling together as friends and lovers. She is planning to go back to Europe for two weeks in August, to spend more time with him.

Some trouble and strife followed her return from her April trip.

Vix does not much like living in the Atlanta area. In fact, as an asthmatic, the pollen, air pollution, and her own medications are quite possibly killing her.

She is highly motivated to spend as much time away from the area as she can, at least until I find a job elsewhere and we can move our household. This may be difficult, given my academic field and the current economy.

Doc made her an offer she had trouble refusing: spend a year with him in Europe, and take our daughters with her so they could attend school there. He would cover their expenses.

At first his offer was to have all this happen the year after next.

Now, before anyone jumps to conclusions, let me say I think the offer was well intentioned, not a play to steal my wife from me. The part of Europe in which he lives is much healthier than the Atlanta area, and Vix has long wanted to provide our daughters with an immersion experience in European languages and culture. For his part, Doc is divorced - he is staying in Europe to be close to his own children, who live with their mother, until they are out of high school - and he makes absurd amounts of money at his job and has a large house that is now mostly empty.

Even so, I balked. My understanding of our agreement regarding poly was that our household would remain intact, regardless of how either of us might venture from it. It seemed to me accepting Doc's offer would be a radical change to our understanding.

More than this, it struck me as foolhardy for Vix to commit to live for a year, on whatever terms, with a guy with whom she had spent exactly two nice weekends, and equally foolhardy to entrust the care and education of our children to someone they had met, slightly, once.

I'm not doing justice to the complexity of the discussion, nor to Vix's reaction to my reaction. Suffice it to say it was a tense and difficult time.

As tense and difficult as it was, I was blindsided by Doc's reaction to Vix's reports of my qualms: in effect, he doubled down, offering to host Vix and the girls this coming school year.

At that, I'm afraid to say, I flipped out.

Well, maybe that's too strong. I didn't rage or rail, but I was outraged and adamant.

I have never been one to put my foot down, to flatly say "no" to something. Vix has long been pushing me to be more assertive, but I think she was taken aback by the firmness of my refusal. Such an arrangement was simply unacceptable to me.

To his credit, Doc backed down when I flipped out. He had already expressed his intention not to disrupt my relationship with Vix or our relationship with our girls.

Even so, there followed long and difficult conversations between Vix and me, characterized more by missed communication than miscommunication, if that makes any sense: we were starting from different premises, and so talked past one another.

Days later, we came back to a kind of equilibrium. As difficult as it was, and as much as it planted a seed of doubt in my mind about Doc's judgment and his motives, it actually brought Vix and me to a clearer understanding of what we need, what we expect, and what we'll do from here.

The long and the short of it is that Vix won't be taking the girls to Europe. However, we have agreed to:

1. arrange things so Vix is more free to travel, to visit Doc, to pursue her avocation, and to protect her health from the worst the Atlanta area has to offer; this largely involves giving up home schooling the children and enrolling them in public school next year;

2. be more diligent in trying to find a job away from the Atlanta area - which doesn't make Nyx very happy, and will likely lead to some hard choices, down the road;

and, 3. prepare to divide our household, temporarily, in a few years, if Vix really needs to be away from the Atlanta area before I can find work elsewhere, even though the logistics of doing so might be nightmarish.

In the mean time, Vix is laying plans for her return visit to Europe, and also for a chance to meet up with Doc in the States sometime in the fall.

[hyperskeptic]

Through a recent exchange of private messages, it has become clear to me that I may be giving the impression that my entry into polyamory has been easy and trouble free.

Could it really be that neither of us has experienced jealousy, insecurity, or feelings of being neglected or abandoned? Really?

Well, not exactly.

The impression may just be due to the fact that I tend to post to this blog when things are going well, and perhaps also due to a residual desire not to air dirty laundry in public.

First, though, yes, I think it's true that neither of us has experienced much jealousy or insecurity. By the time we started discussing polyamory, Vix and I had been through a lot of rough times, and had come back around to being secure and close in our relationship.

Really, if she was going to leave me, she would have left years ago!

She nearly did leave me, on a number of occasions. There was one time, when we were alone together in Europe in the year after we were married, that we reached a fearful impasse in which I realized the next words out of my mouth would determine whether she stayed or left.

I chose my words very, very carefully.

Vix and I have much in common, from our basic outlook on the world to our core values to our taste in food and company and activities. Our instincts about raising our children usually line up, to the point one of us would say in exactly the same words what the other one was about to say.

Heck, even our strides are perfectly matched when we walk together.

So, that was our starting point, coming into polyamory.

As it turns out, we share a lot of the same instincts about polyamory, too, from big ideas of consent and honesty, right down to the kinds of relationships we're looking for - it just made sense to each of us to date separately, as individuals - and how we would mitigate the biological risks of having more than one sexual relationship.

That said, polyamory has been a kind of acid test for our relationship, and it has revealed and forced us to confront basic differences between us, even a few deep rifts. It has also forced us to confront again, and much more deeply than ever before, the differences in our communication styles.

This last is something of which we were aware before we were married, before we even lived together. We have struggled with communication styles all along, and thought we had overcome the worst of it.

We were mistaken, and the rigorous demands of polyamory showed us our error.

My tendency has been to keep things to myself, to bottle up disappointment and resentment and anger, to let it fester and stew.

However, I had learned the kind of damage that kind of simmering anger could do, so I was at pains to suppress it, to be silent, to refrain from lashing out with passive-aggressive sniping. I could be successful in that, for a while, but I would end up withdrawn, sulking, not interacting . . . avoiding conflict at all cost, even if the cost was setting up much worse conflicts down the road! Or I would end up being passive-aggressive, in spite of myself.

In the beginning, 20 years ago, I could sulk for days.

Vix's way of dealing with conflict and disappointment and resentment and anger is just to blow up, then let it pass, then get on with figuring out what happened.

That response would send me scrambling. My response would leave her baffled and hurt.

And so it went.

I gradually got better at expressing myself, and standing my ground in the face of her flashes of anger, and more quickly talking things through to get to the core of the problem.

But, oh, can we not afford for me to bottle up my feelings, now that we're poly, or to keep things to myself just for the sake of avoiding conflict and avoiding her flashes of anger!

It's still very difficult for me, but I'm highly motivated now to improve my ability and willingness to be honest about things.

For example, on our first night together, due to a failure of communication on my part, Nyx and I violated a boundary I'd established with Vix regarding oral sex. It wasn't a major infraction, I suppose, but it did introduce a risk Vix considered unacceptable for very sound medical reasons: Vix is allergic to many antibiotics!

I knew I had to tell Vix right away, and see what steps she would want me to take next. I dreaded telling her, fearing a flash of real anger at the betrayal of trust.

I steeled myself for it, and brought it up cautiously, obliquely, though not (I hope) quite cringingly.

To my surprise, she was not angry. She was glad I'd told her, and we talked about what we should do about it. Nyx has herself tested regularly for STIs, and I was due to be tested, myself. Vix and I were more than usually careful for a while after that.

And that was it. Suddenly, I gained some confidence in the power of immediate, direct honesty.

But then, in the conversation about Doc's offer to host Vix and the girls in Europe, my immediate, direct honesty - my flashes of anger, even! - seemed to catch Vix by surprise. I had to keep reminding her that I should be allowed to express my feelings when I feel them, to not bottle them up for later decanting, and that my first reaction should not be taken as firm policy.

She's not used to that from me, though, which made the conversation that much harder.

But through it, I began to see some real differences in how we think about the world, about our relationship, about the meaning of our household, differences we'll have to continue to work through.

Now that she's making plans to visit Doc in August, I find myself a little annoyed by the inconvenience of her plan. ("Why'd she have to go and get involved with a guy in Europe, for pity's sake?")

But I'm also happy she's going, since I want her to be able to spend time with her new guy, just as she wants and allows me to have time with Nyx every week. I mean, fair's fair, right?

Further down the road, as I've said, I see some difficult times coming. Vix does need to get out of the Atlanta area, for health reasons. She may need to go before I can find a job elsewhere, so we may have to divide our household. Leaving the area also means leaving Nyx behind, which could be very, very hard.

I foresee hard conversations, hard choices, maybe storms of silence and anger and bad feeling, doubt and guilt and anxiety.

Regarding that, though, I could quote something I wrote in a private message, earlier:

The anticipation of pain is hard . . . but, really, don't we all live with that, in one form or another? There will be pain, down the road, for all of us. But to the extent there are good things now, we should enjoy them for what they are.

Writing this brought to mind a quotation from Nietzsche, from one of his aphorisms in The Gay Science (that's "gay" as in "joyful" - froehliche - but make of it what you will!):

Now, little ship, look out! Beside you is the ocean: to be sure, it does not always roar, and at times it lies spread out like silk and gold and reveries of graciousness. But hours will come when you will realize it is infinite and that there is nothing more awesome than infinity.

Just at the moment, Vix (and Doc and Nyx) and I seem to be enjoying reveries of graciousness . . . as long as they last.

This reminds me that I should write something, sometime about the connection I make between existentialism (like that of Nietzsche) and polyamory.

The short version is this: If it is the human condition to be alone and adrift on an infinite sea on which there is no shore, it seems sensible to tie our boats together and keep one another company while we can. More boats tied together more securely seems about the wisest course we can manage.

[idealist]

This reminds me that I should write something, sometime about the connection I make between existentialism (like that of Nietzsche) and polyamory.

The short version is this: If it is the human condition to be alone and adrift on an infinite sea on which there is no shore, it seems sensible to tie our boats together and keep one another company while we can. More boats tied together more securely seems about the wisest course we can manage.

I'd like to hear the long version of this sometimes if you are so inclined. :-)

[hyperskeptic]

I'd like to hear the long version of this sometimes if you are so inclined. :-)

Okay, here goes.

I guess there are two main points that, for me, make existentialism and polyamory especially compatible.

First, the core idea of existentialism is that existence precedes essence: we are thrown into the world, we find ourselves here in the midst of things, but we don't know what we are or what our lives are for. We cannot look inside ourselves or out into the cosmos for some fixed point of meaning to which we can anchor ourselves.

That's actually pretty terrifying . . . like floating in space, without ship or tether, trying to decide which way is up. We are free to invent ourselves, to determine for ourselves what we are and what our lives will mean, but that turns out to be a heavy responsibility.

Arguments about what is or is not "natural" for human beings can't really get a lot of traction against this. If people take their own historically contingent and culturally conditioned views on certain institutions and practices - say, monogamous heterosexual marriage - to be universal moral requirements, then they are deeply mistaken.

So, existentialism opens up a moral space in which people can define themselves, find their own way and their own meaning . . . and pose a fundamental challenge to moral ideals and social institutions that others would impose on us on the pretense that they are "natural", that they have universal validity.

They aren't, and they don't.

At the same time, at least as I have incorporated elements of existentialism into my own thinking, the sense of human dignity (and the demands of human dignity) carry over from other humanist forms of ethics, like that of Kant. I am free . . . but so are you! This brings me to . . .

Second, we're thrown here into the world and we're always just muddling through, but we don't have to muddle through alone. Not all the big-name existentialists emphasize this, at least not in their most widely read works. Sometimes, they seem cranky or even downright anti-social ("Hell is other people," wrote Sartre.)

But there is at least the possibility of finding some meaning, some sense of security in the world, in relationships with others - and not just intimate personal relationships. I'm thinking of the sense of solidarity that developed among the main characters in Camus' The Plague, or the real-world solidarity between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty during the Resistance.

The old pop-existentialist saw is that we are all born alone and we all die alone - at least from the point of view of our own conscious experience: no one else can experience the opening and the closing of someone's personal window into the world. In between, there are limits to how close we can get to other people, how well we can understand them or see the world as they see it.

But we can keep trying. We can enrich our lives with friendship and affection, and with common causes. We can muddle through together, for a while, at least.

The standard model is that each of us has to find or choose one person to be the main co-muddler, and we should pledge ourselves to muddle through with just that one person until one or another window closes. There's nothing essentially wrong with it, but neither is it the only live option.

It does strike me as an especially risky strategy, though, and not really all that true to how things tend to work out. My wife and I are long-term co-muddlers and, as far as we can see, intend to stay together as long as we both live. But we are now both open to recognizing and joining with others we happen across who are muddling in more-or-less the same direction.

The nautical metaphor keeps coming back. We are, each of us, at sea in a little boat, with no land on the horizon and no anchor. Storms come and go; sometimes we are tossed around and swamped, sometimes all is calm. When someone else happens by, we may tie our boats together, even if just for a little while, and compare notes, and share stories and laughter.

The sea is still there, and storms will come. Bindings break, and boats will drift apart. Eventually, my boat, and perhaps my boat alone, will sink beneath the waves.

In the mean time, there is meaning and comfort to be found in the impromptu flotilla.

[hyperskeptic]

It's been a hard month. I was away for a week at the beginning of August, at music camp. Within hours of my return, I drove Vix to the airport for a two-and-a-half week visit to her bf, who currently lives in Europe.

So, I fell into the routine of home, getting up very early to get the girls off the school bus, first preparing and then starting to teach my own classes, practicing with my bands. I started going to bed earlier and earlier, just to be able to handle it all.

In the mean time, Nyx was swamped by her own work life and by her other relationships and commitments, including her not-quite-primary partner's ongoing struggle with jealousy, the upshot of which is that she and I were unable to find time to see one another.

Something crashed. I withdrew and grew . . . well, not cold, exactly. Numb.

That's it. Numb.

Vix is back, and things are okay but slightly brittle between us. I still haven't seen Nyx - our planned date the other night had to be cancelled because of her work schedule and subsequent headache. Now, she's off on a long hike in the mountains, and I probably won't see her for another two weeks, at least.

My own professional obligations are starting to ramp up for the year, engaging more and more of my attention. I have several gigs to prepare for.

In the mean time, a young woman on whom I had a doomed crush last year showed up at the dance last night. The crush is (mostly) gone, but I was annoyed with myself for still being so distracted by her.

With all this comes the growing realization that, really, I just don't have time for this, actually practicing polyamory, and I can't really spare the energy to deal with the emotional turmoil of it.

I mentioned all this to Vix and the first words out of her mouth were a most unhelpful question: "Will this be the cause of resentment, if I'm off visiting my boyfriend and you're stuck alone?"

I answered neutrally, "I don't know." (It was late, we were both exhausted, and I didn't see much point in getting into it just then.)

I woke up this morning, certain that the answer to her question is an emphatic yes. I suppose I'll just have to find a way to deal with that, though.

The resentment may have little to do with her having an outside relationship, though, and more to do with the fact that she'd be off doing only what she wants, while I'm here doing what I have to.

The most worrisome thing, for me, is that I can feel myself shutting down, emotionally. One of the most exciting things about deciding to be poly is that I began to feel open to other people and to their possibilities; I had the opportunity to focus on connecting with other people, something I've only sporadically taken the time to do.

Now I feel myself slipping back into my old habit of hunkering down and doing my job, keeping other people at a safe distance, if only because I don't have the time or the energy to spare for them.

[nycindie]

When you feel yourself isolating, distancing yourself, and feeding resentments until they grow huge, you can either give in to them and wind up feeling righteous but miserable OR you actively, vigilantly DO NOT GO THERE. Occupy yourself with other activities, thoughts, ways of treating yourself well. The degree to which we are happy and satisfied in life is directly proportionate to the amount of resentments we carry. Do you want to be alive, embracing what life brings you, or do you want to be right about not being able to cope with it? Will your live and loving be an exhilarating adventure or drudgery? You have a choice. Choose well.

[hyperskeptic]

While this mood is on me, it seems to me there is something frivolous, even puerile, about most accounts of polyamory.

While this mood is on me, it seems to me poly could only have arisen in the late twentieth century, in a culture so fragmented, so commercialized, so decadent that only disconnected, rootless, aimless consumers remain, consumers who think their only responsibility is to satisfy their dear selves, to follow their f#%&ing bliss.

While this mood is on me, I'm inclined to respond to the enticements of polyamory - the insistence that I should pursue the delusion of boundless love - that, really, it isn't all about me. My aim should be not - or not merely - to see what I can get out of life, how much happiness or pleasure I can derive, but to contribute what I can to whatever is left of human civilization, to take up and shoulder my responsibilities to others and to society itself.

While this mood is on me, I will declare that autonomy, true human freedom, does not consist in doing what you want. If you are doing what you want, the great theorists of autonomy might say, then you are a slave to what you want.

In this moment, I have responsibilities, and I need to focus on them, not because they bring me immediate pleasure, but because they are my responsibilities. They have their satisfactions, even their moments of joy, but they require discipline, focus, time, and energy - which are finite.

I have responsibilities to my wife and children, to our household. This includes the responsibility of creating conditions in which we can move our household, preferably intact, to a healthier setting. This redoubles my already-growing responsibilities a work, where I have a broader responsibility to foster excellence in teaching and research in my field. I have chosen to take on responsibilities in a particular community of those who love a particular form of dance and its music, activities I judge to be of value for broader cultural reasons.

That's quite a lot to be going on with.

While this mood is on me, I note that sometimes carrying my responsibilities is a stone drag, and that sometimes duty is all I have to keep me moving, and that's just the way it is, sometimes.

[hyperskeptic]

My foul mood is starting to lift, slowly, slowly.

Things with Vix are still raw, and we have a lot of work to do. The big thing now, aside from just recovering from recent trauma, is that she would like to put back on the table the possibility of her moving to Germany with one or both of the girls next year, mainly to see if she can wean herself from asthma medications that are themselves causing chronic health problems.

The prospect fills me with horror and dread and yet, every time I try to articualte my horror and dread, it's taken as a sign that I'm some sort of insensitive monster, that I don't trust Vix's judgment.

I'm at a loss for what to do about that.

In the near term, though, we're starting to settle back into our partnership at home, though it's very difficult to feel or express a lot of affection just now. Vix has pointed this out to me - flung it at me, really - which has just caused further dismay.

Facing our predicament is like getting kicked in the stomach, again and again. I'm doubled over, gasping for breath, and being berated for not being open and affectionate.

As I said, we have a lot of work to do.

In the mean time, I'll be meeting Nyx for lunch tomorrow.She's been reading this thread, and was concerned I was planning to break up with her.

The funny, stupid thing is that I was convinced she would want to break up with me! I mean, what the hell good am I to her?

She and I need to work through a growing distance between us. In an email exchange with her today, I wondered whether the issue is that each of us is trying too hard to stay out of the other's way, to not cause chaos or disruption or added stress in the other's life. So, we don't ask or expect enough of each other.

We're both trying so hard to be low-maintenance that we're not maintaining anything!

So, she and I have work to do, too.

One thing I don't want to lose sight of as this mood lifts is the sense of responsibity it brought to the fore, the sense of seriousness in doing what needs to be done. But this also applies to the work of tending to the relationships that matter most to me, with Vix and the girls, and with Nyx.

I'm still feeling disoriented; the fog hasn't entirely dispersed, and there may still be darkness ahead.

But I'm trying to right myself, nonetheless.

[hyperskeptic]

Further conversation with Vix.

Thaw in progress.

[hyperskeptic]

I had lunch with Nyx just now, and she clearly had more to say than could be said in a restaurant. Talking about her own life, the complication of her various commitments, the continuing struggles of her not-quite-primary partner, she was getting pretty upset.

We came back to my place, so we could talk in private. With some coaxing and reassurance, she told me she couldn't date me any more.

It will take a while for the full impact of that to sink in, but I can't really claim to be surprised. She has for some time been, in her own words, stretched too thin. If I'm being honest with myself, I'd have to say it's a good decision for her.

At that point in the conversation I had assured her that, whatever direction our relationship might take, I would be a friend to her. I care for her very much, and she cares for me . . . it's just that the form of that caring will be different, from now on.

Still, this makes me think further about being poly. I mean, one of the things that worried my most in my relationship with Nyx is that there is a limit to what I can offer her, given my other commitments, which meant there was a limit to what I could, in all fairness, expect of her.

How can any relationship thrive under such limitations? How can people avoid being discontented?

I'm not sure, but I may be just about done here.

[LovingRadiance]

Viability-

I think it really and truly depends upon what peoPle want. For example, i dont think i could do poly with a partner who lived further than across the street. But, living altogether I can manage two relationships. I personally want to see my partners daily.
But, other people dont mind if they are limited to seeing partners once a week. It is so very individual.

I will say, i do not think its viable if the parties aren't on the same page with their relationship needs.

[hyperskeptic]

That's all very nice, LR, but not really to the point.

The point is that, even if a live-in triad/quad/vee/n/w is what we were aiming for, there's no way to get there from here.

The point is that I have very little time or energy to offer anyone other than my wife and children because I am also deeply engaged in professional and community life.

I simply cannot ask or expect anyone to be in a relationship with me that will either have to subsist on the crumbs and leavings of my time and attention, or that will cause me to shirk my responsibilities to Vix, the girls, my students, my colleagues, my employer, and my community.

I have reached the conclusion that I should for the foreseeable future be de facto monogamous.

I am also beginning to see why, for most people most of the time, monogamy actually makes a lot of sense.

[hyperskeptic]

In the end, I was poly - or thought I was - for about 18 months. That's about the length of time it takes for a crush to run its course, which seems about right.

My "conversion" back to monogamy has been as swift and thorough as my "conversion" to poly back in March 2011. It's a little like waking up from a pleasant dream in which anything is possible to the dawning realization that I'm still earthbound, but that it's all right.

What turned me, in the end, is the inescapable conclusion that I cannot really do justice to an additional intimate relationship without doing an injustice to my wife, my daughters, and all the others to whom I have commitments. I really do mean "justice" and "injustice" in a full-blooded, ethical sense of those terms.

As I've written, I have responsibilities I ought not to shirk. If I take the additional responsibilities of an intimate relationship with someone else, I will fail in upholding one or another - or all - of those responsibilities. I will end up using someone, taking someone for granted, for the sake of mere desire.

I also understand, more deeply than before, that my own happiness, my own striving to live a rich and full life, is not best served by indulging my libido, chasing after the thrill of falling in love, or giving in to the delusion that I can have or do or be anything I want.

Still, eighteen months of thinking I could be polyamorous has had its effects, and they will be lasting. Before, I tended to take monogamy for granted: I was monogamous because that is what one does.

Now and into the future, I am and will be monogamous consciously, deliberately, ethically. It is the most responsible choice available to me.

That my wife thinks of herself as polyamorous, and will soon be leaving again to spend a few weeks with her boyfriend in Europe, is a serious complication, but her circumstances are different from mine, and I cannot choose for her. She will have to judge for herself whether she can uphold all her responsibilities, and she and I will have to keep working to find our way together.

Now, I think, I really am done here. I've learned a lot from this forum, really.

Thank you all.

[AnnabelMore]

"Now and into the future, I am and will be monogamous consciously, deliberately, ethically. It is the most responsible choice available to me."

This seems like a win to me. Best of luck, Hyper.

[hyperskeptic]

In theory, poly is very pretty, a vision of freely given consent and boundless love.

In practice, poly is a snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls.

I just thought you all should know this.

[nycindie]

In practice, poly is a snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls.

For some people. Not all. I see poly as something so much simpler than many others do. It seems many folks really complicate the shit out of having multiple love relationships, when it can be as easy, simple, and rewarding as having multiple friends.

Sorry it's gone badly for you.

[opalescent]

In practice, poly is a snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls.

I just thought you all should know this.

I am sorry the experience went so poorly for you. Wish you the best.

[InquiringOne]

Hyper,
I think others are able to practice the beautiful vision with consent and boundless love, even if it might be slightly more rare than not. And your single example, as unfortunate and sad as it is, does not define everyone's practice. You should know this too.

Best of luck to you.

[WhatHappened]

While this mood is on me, it seems to me poly could only have arisen in the late twentieth century, in a culture so fragmented, so commercialized, so decadent that only disconnected, rootless, aimless consumers remain, consumers who think their only responsibility is to satisfy their dear selves, to follow their...bliss.

Many wise thoughts and beautifully written, hyperskeptic, here and throughout your blog.

[JaneQSmythe]

I'm sorry you are hurting.

I'm sorry things have not worked out as you would have wanted.

I DO think that love is (or can be) boundless.

I DO think that, with the right people, at the right time, that boundless love can be realized.

Maybe not for you, now.

Maybe not for me, later.

Live your life, love it when you can, strive on.

JaneQ

[hyperskeptic]

For some people. Not all. I see poly as something so much simpler than many others do. It seems many folks really complicate the shit out of having multiple love relationships, when it can be as easy, simple, and rewarding as having multiple friends.

If you think this can be simple, I can only assume you're not really paying attention.

There is a fatal flaw in poly ideology, one that can never be spoken aloud in these forums without eliciting either protest or condescension.

Polyamory is premised on the very noble and right-seeming notion that relationships should be based on consent, freely given. As there is, in principle, no limit to the number of times one can say "yes", there should be no reason for love to be bounded in anyway.

As I say, a very pretty notion.

The fatal flaw is that we humans are never wholly, perfectly free. As much as I think we are obligated to recognize and respect the autonomy of others, I also think autonomy is a very difficult thing to manage in practice. The human will is always limited, constrained, entangled in existing commitments, existing relationships, existing practical arrangements, existing institutions.

We are obligated to respect autonomy, yes, but we are also obligated to act so as to foster others' autonomy as well as our own, acknowledging all the ways in which we are constrained and vulnerable. This may require us to refrain from doing things we might otherwise be perfectly entitled to do.

Two examples, from my own experience of polyamory.

In my relationship with Nyx, I'd like to think we regarded one another as equals; we respected one another and were careful of one another. The unhappy truth is that we were in very different situations, subject to very different pressures and entanglements, and vulnerable in different ways. To be honest, I think Nyx had the worst of it: she always had much more to lose than I did.

Thinking of this in narrative terms, our relationship had a lovely and passionate beginning, but very few good endings were possible. In hindsight, I honestly think her decision to break off with me may have been the best possible ending, the one that most allowed her to keep her dignity intact.

I consider it an act of moral courage.

The other example is the crux of the matter: the current state of my relationship with my wife.

As already noted in this blog, I have decided that it would be irresponsible for me to continue trying to be polyamorous. As much as it tickles my fancy to imagine the beginnings of many lovely stories with many intriguing women - one or two in particular come to mind - I really cannot imagine any good endings to those stories, endings in which no one ends up neglected, or wronged, or feeling taken for granted.

In choosing monogamy, I am bowing to a necessity imposed by circumstance. I am a married father of two children, and I have responsibilities to my children, my wife, my profession, and my community that all serve to hold me in place. To do justice to a relationship with someone new would necessarily involve failing in one or more of those existing responsibilities, simply because of the limits of time, energy, and attention.

I need to sleep, from time to time, after all.

My wife's situation is different. She has fewer entanglements because of the past history of our relationship. She has had a hard road, following me around through the various stages of my career, and now putting up with the bad health that comes with breathing the air in the place in which we are currently stuck.

I owe it to her to let her be more free, to travel, to explore. So, she's leaving again for Europe very soon, to spend a few weeks with her boyfriend there. She spent some time on Monday with another guy who had "expressed interest", and went away on a weekend trip last week with yet another guy who had "expressed interest".

When she's away on her longer jaunts, I feel the full weight of being a part-time single dad, and the isolation and exhaustion that comes with it. As she is constantly distracted by various other relationships and possible relationships, our household slips ever further into chaos . . . abetted by my own infernal busy-ness, my own distraction and, increasingly, my growing despair.

Here's the crux of the matter. I have chosen to be monogamous. My wife has chosen otherwise and, where her other relationships and her adventures in Europe and at home are concerned, my consent is irrelevant.

Let me state this clearly: I do not freely consent to my wife pursuing intimate relationships with other people.

I am, however, constrained from enforcing my objections.

I see no happy ending to this part of our story.

Separating is not a live option: we do care for one another, and we have standing obligations to one another and to our children; we are tangled together in all sorts of ways, including in the practical arrangements of our household. Were we to break up our household would do untold harm and untold wrong to one another, to our children, and even to the communities of which we are a part.

That's not a way I am willing to go.

Demanding that my wife practice monogamy is also not a live option. I don't pretend to have that kind of authority over another person's conscience, and there are other, more particular reasons, rooted in our history together. It would both harm and wrong her to demand a narrow kind of fidelity from her.

So, all I can do is bow to the necessity bred by circumstance. I withhold my objections, and groan under the weight of them.

I am trying to learn to live without hope.

There are also some palliative measures to be taken. One is a strict DADT policy regarding her other relationships: I really just don't want to hear about them. Another is an agreement on her part to limit the number of strays she takes in.

(Sorry, but that's my own derogatory term for it. She does seem drawn to guys who are odd and who seem slightly lost. But then, I may just be the stray who stuck around the longest.)

But, really, palliative measures are all I have to go on.

The core of the problem remains, and it is a problem with no solution.

[InquiringOne]

Hyper,

You are a very smart individual.

I am not practicing poly (yet), have two children, and a wife, and understand what you are saying about struggling with how much time could be taken away from those obligations by the introduction of possible other love interests. I love to play basketball, but if i play basketball five nights a week it's going to have an effect on my family. It seems reasonable for my family to allow for me to play one or two nights a week, because after all I am not ONLY here to take care of their needs. I have needs of my own that must be taken care of in order to be strong enough to help them in their down times.

Every relationship already struggles with those issues of time and care whether in the form of work, other relatives, school, play activities etc. If a person can successfully manage those, then they are capable of time management with other types of relationships.

It is admirable that you do not force your monogamy on your wife. However, you are an important part of that relationship and you have the right to stand up for yourself when you are being taken advantage of. Going off to Europe or other trips and leaving you as a single parent (if it's fairly regular and constant) is shirking her duties as a mother and a spouse. you are allowed to address that without saying we have to blow the whole thing up. While you say divorce is not a live option (and I feel strongly in my life that it's not either), I think you have to recognize that your relationship with your wife will have to change somehow. It is utterly unfair for you to "have no hope" while she is off with multiple lovers. It's not a matter of her problem being that she is poly, her problem is that she is being neglectful and uncaring which would be unacceptable in any type of relationship. If you really need a scapegoat and you want to make "poly" that, you may never get to the core of the problem so that you can have hope.

I wish you the best man. I wouldn't want to be in your situation for anything. But if your telling is accurate, you need to stand up and set some limits so you are not being trampled on. That's not right no matter what the relationship configuration is. If she doesn't understand that there is no such thing as total freedom when obligations have already been made, then she is not acting like an adult.

Is it so outrageous to her for you to ask her to slow down a little bit, or to put a limit on how many days a month/year she can leave you alone with the kids? You can't keep yourself in a situation where you allow her to ruin your life. Eventually that will not be helpful to your kids to have seen her do that to you. Take care of yourself so you can take care of them.

Good luck.
IO

[nycindie]

If you think this can be simple, I can only assume you're not really paying attention.

Don't assume anything about me. It is simple: we have choices to make, and we choose. We can choose or not to accept others' terms, we can choose or not to look inward and question our reactions to things, we can choose or not to continue in relationships where we are unhappy.

No, poly is not always easy, but I see it as simple. All it is, is managing multiple relationships and treating others the way we want to be treated. That you do not see it as simple does not invalidate my viewpoint or prove that I am not "paying attention." I am introspective and analytical to a fault. I constantly look around me and assess what's going on all the time. I have worked hard on my changing my perspective, and my expectations, and to see others' perspectives as equally valid, and most especially, to love unconditionally and without attachment to an outcome. This is what I do to practice polyamory. Yes, I say the choices are simple, but the work is sometimes hard and challenging. If it does not satisfy me to practice poly, with my "simple" approach, I won't. I won't complicate my life and muck things up with other people to prove anything or just to "be poly." It isn't worth it if it brings only pain. Yes, that is simple, to me.

[hyperskeptic]

I am not practicing poly (yet)

I was in the same situation for about a year. How clear and simple everything seemed then!

I love to play basketball, but if i play basketball five nights a week it's going to have an effect on my family. It seems reasonable for my family to allow for me to play one or two nights a week, because after all I am not ONLY here to take care of their needs..

Oh, wow.

Do you really want to go there? There are, um, important disanalogies between having an intimate relationship with someone and playing basketball. You enjoy basketball, but that isn't the same thing as loving and being responsible toward another person.

You can always just walk away from basketball, and it will not be harmed in any way that really matters.

If I were to have a relationship with another person, it wouldn't just be "playing one or two nights a week." The other person would become a part of my life and, by extension, a part of my family's life; she would not be just a little something I enjoy on the side.

Your basketball analogy comes perilously close to the "slippery slope" argument offered by some conservative idiot a year or so ago, to the effect that legalizing gay marriage would lead eventually to people marrying inanimate objects. After all, people love milkshakes, so, if you can marry solely on the basis of love, why not let people marry milkshakes?

Going off to Europe or other trips and leaving you as a single parent (if it's fairly regular and constant) is shirking her duties as a mother and a spouse. you are allowed to address that without saying we have to blow the whole thing up. While you say divorce is not a live option (and I feel strongly in my life that it's not either), I think you have to recognize that your relationship with your wife will have to change somehow. It is utterly unfair for you to "have no hope" while she is off with multiple lovers. It's not a matter of her problem being that she is poly, her problem is that she is being neglectful and uncaring which would be unacceptable in any type of relationship. If you really need a scapegoat and you want to make "poly" that, you may never get to the core of the problem so that you can have hope.

I wish you the best man. I wouldn't want to be in your situation for anything. But if your telling is accurate, you need to stand up and set some limits so you are not being trampled on. That's not right no matter what the relationship configuration is. If she doesn't understand that there is no such thing as total freedom when obligations have already been made, then she is not acting like an adult.

How simple you make it seem! It's ALL HER FAULT,the naughty girl!

Of course, it's more complicated than this, and I won't play the usual poly game of dumping on the spouse. My wife does recognize the pain I'm experiencing. She is doing her best to be responsible toward me and the girls, trying to make life as easy as possible when she's away.

Also, there's history here. It's hard for me to say she's ruining my life when, from another point of view, I could just as easily be said to have ruined hers over the previous 16 years of our marriage. We both had a hand in creating our current situation, we have both done damage to one another along the way, as any two people inevitably will.

I have to acknowledge that giving her some freedom to travel, at least, serves both to improve her health and to give her a chance to live and explore a kind of life that had been denied her. I actually do want her to have some degree of freedom, even though it comes at a heavy cost to me.

That's all part of the bind I'm in, the constraints that drain away my autonomy.

Is it so outrageous to her for you to ask her to slow down a little bit, or to put a limit on how many days a month/year she can leave you alone with the kids? You can't keep yourself in a situation where you allow her to ruin your life. Eventually that will not be helpful to your kids to have seen her do that to you. Take care of yourself so you can take care of them.

This has already been covered under "palliative measures" in my long note from earlier today. She is willing to reign it in, at least in that she will stop taking in strays.

But she will remain poly, and she already has an ongoing relationship with her boyfriend in Europe. She can't just drop him like a basketball and walk off the court.

Some of the pain can be eased, perhaps, but the fundamental issue - the asymmetry in our relationship - remains and will remain for as far down the road as I can foresee.

[hyperskeptic]

No, poly is not always easy, but I see it as simple. All it is, is managing multiple relationships and treating others the way we want to be treated. That you do not see it as simple does not invalidate my viewpoint or prove that I am not "paying attention." I am introspective and analytical to a fault. I constantly look around me and assess what's going on all the time. I have worked hard on my changing my perspective, and my expectations, and to see others' perspectives as equally valid, and most especially, to love unconditionally and without attachment to an outcome. This is what I do to practice polyamory. Yes, I say the choices are simple, but the work is sometimes hard and challenging. If it does not satisfy me to practice poly, with my "simple" approach, I won't. I won't complicate my life and muck things up with other people to prove anything or just to "be poly." It isn't worth it if it brings only pain. Yes, that is simple, to me.

Well, as long as it's really just about "managing . . . relationships" in a way that will "satisfy" you and help you avoid causing pain [to yourself?], I suppose it really would be simple.

[BoringGuy]

Well, as long as it's really just about "managing . . . relationships" in a way that will "satisfy" you and help you avoid causing pain [to yourself?], I suppose it really would be simple.



In my best relationships, i am my own worst enemy. The other people, i am just lucky i found them and that they continue to put up with me.

[nycindie]

Well, as long as it's really just about "managing . . . relationships" in a way that will "satisfy" you and help you avoid causing pain [to yourself?], I suppose it really would be simple.

I never said that I manage my relationships in a way that will help me to avoid pain. I don't avoid pain. I know it helps us grow, but I don't seek it out if there are other ways to personal growth. If living my life polyamorously only brings pain and not much fulfillment, it isn't worth pursuing. Why be steeped in something that makes us miserable?

You can remain dissatisfied, seeing yourself as a martyr in your marriage, and viewing polyamory as a "snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls," if that is what you think is necessary to get through your misery. But many of us have found joy and challenges that have given us a way to fully express who we are through loving more than one.

Sheesh, couldn't you see I was only trying to offer a different perspective on things, as a way to be helpful? But since all your responses to me are nasty, smart-ass, nay-saying put-downs, I'm done. Go pick on someone else. Good luck.

[dingedheart]

You can remain dissatisfied, seeing yourself as a martyr in your marriage, and viewing polyamory as a "snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls," if that is what you think is necessary to get through your misery. But many of us have found joy and challenges that have given us a way to fully express who we are through loving more than one.

Sheesh, couldn't you see I was only trying to offer a different perspective on things, as a way to be helpful? But since all your responses to me are nasty, smart-ass, nay-saying put-downs, I'm done. Go pick on someone else. Good luck.


Wow ... this got my attention . Had to go back and read all previous stuff.

A little let down ...I dont see the nasty smart-ass stuff but then again I'm a smart ass so I might be afraid to look into the mirror:D but on the other hand it takes one to know one ...

I think in post #28 the comment " polyamory as a snare and a delusion, a reckless indulgence that upends households, drains resources and lays waste to souls" ... goes with out saying thats it's been his experience and is his opinion ....and I particularly liked the humor at the end of ...thought you should know. :D albeit dark

Also there more than a few horror stories to back up what he's saying. And there are the success stories that make those blanket statements equally problematic.

Marriages, children, careers all have responsibilities tied to them, all have differently weighted meaning and all complicate our lives in different ways ...so at some point simple is a dream.

It looks like he's doing worst damage assessment. shit or shittier...shittiest. Not good vs bad.

I don't want the cheese anymore I just want to get out of the trap.

I was going to post on Anotherconfusted thread about her mono husband feeling resentful or bad being stuck with the kids during her weekend get always. His position was he was facilitating her rendezvous with her lover.
I think my kids were a bit older so that wasn't as big an issue BUT...I did always feel that my life and choices made her life and choices possible.

If your not out to your friends and family I would make some sort of contingency for accidents or illnesses they do happen ....It happened to me.

Whats your utopian dream ? Is it at all possible .... is slugging out for a couple more yrs part of that? I agree with cindie on selecting martyrdom as a strategy for a happy marriage....I don't see that working ...the frost and ice should get much thicker. Trust me life's too short to do it to yourself.


Good luck D

[bella123456]

I hear what HS is saying.

With due respect NYCindie, poly in a world with a live in partner and children is so very different to practicing poly as a indie solo.

So different that I would suspect there's different ball parks involved.

[bella123456]

And in addition. Love does have limits.

When the cost of giving love comes at a cost that is too high to bear. Love can fail.
Love does have limits and every person should be mindful of their own limits.

The idea that love is limitless is ridiculous. No resource is. In my opinion.

[SchrodingersCat]

Don't assume anything about me. It is simple: we have choices to make, and we choose. We can choose or not to accept others' terms, we can choose or not to look inward and question our reactions to things, we can choose or not to continue in relationships where we are unhappy.

I was going to say something about choices, but that about sums it up.

I have chosen not to have children. The very reason being that I don't want to make that commitment, give up that time. Now you can sit there and call me selfish for that, and you know what? I would fully agree. I'm selfish. I'd prefer to be selfish and childless, than another one of those selfish, neglectful breeders.

I have chosen to limit the amount of time I spend at school, even though I'm a grad student and there's an unspoken expectation that I will spend every waking moment in the lab. I choose to balance my work-life scale on the side of "life" and if that means my degree takes a little longer, then so be it.

You, HS, have chosen to be married with children while having a career that is clearly very time consuming. It is those choices that limit your availability for polyamory. That is not a fault of polyamory itself, but a result of your own life choices.

I have a girlfriend who would love it if we spent more time together. But I have a personal need for "me time." I'm no martyr. I come first in my life. Does that make me a bad person? I don't think so, and the people who love me don't think so.

With due respect NYCindie, poly in a world with a live in partner and children is so very different to practicing poly as a indie solo.

Absolutely it is. We all live with the consequences of our choices.

It's not love that's limited, it's time.

We both had a hand in creating our current situation, we have both done damage to one another along the way, as any two people inevitably will.

That's probably the saddest thing I've heard in a long time. I don't see it at all inevitable that two people will damage one another over time. If that's the case, then you're doing it wrong. A partner should enhance your life, help you grow, help give you the strength to reverse the damage done from the rest of the world.

That's all part of the bind I'm in, the constraints that drain away my autonomy.

You're allowing yourself to play the victim and deny accountability in your situation. Your own choices are what drains your autonomy. You choose to keep a job in a place that is not healthy for your wife. Sure, you love your job, I get that. But acknowledge that it's your choice of having a job you love that limits your other options. My husband loves his job. When he's feeling sorry for himself, he likes to pretend that he's forced to work away from home to make enough money so that I can be in school. But the truth is that he prefers being able to dive into work and focus on it for 10 days at a time, and then come home and forget about it.

You can't stop your wife from going to Europe, but you choose to agree to care for the kids when she goes. You could just as easily tell her she needs to take them with her if she wants to go. Sounds like Doc would have no trouble sponsoring a private tutor to keep them up with their studies for a couple weeks, and the experience of another culture would be invaluable.

So don't pretend like you're forced into your situation. Accept responsibility for your choices, and quit trying to make us feel guilty for being successful with ours.

[hyperskeptic]

Sheesh, couldn't you see I was only trying to offer a different perspective on things, as a way to be helpful? But since all your responses to me are nasty, smart-ass, nay-saying put-downs, I'm done. Go pick on someone else. Good luck.

I'm sorry, Indie. Really.

I saw your contributions in a different light, not as helpful but as snarky and condescending, but I'm entirely willing to suppose that was just me, on the defensive.

I really should stop posting to forums. They are terrible ways to try to communicate with people!

ADDENDUM: I should also listen to that still, small voice that, from time to time, tells me not to click "submit".

[nycindie]

I'm sorry, Indie. Really.

Thanks. It's okay. We're cool. And I hope your situation improves and you start to feel better.

[hyperskeptic]

Against my better judgment, I'm still lurking on this forum, trying to sort things out.

After enduring one of the bleakest Christmas seasons I can remember, things have begun at least to stabilize between my wife and me. She's gone off on another jaunt to Europe, since then, and it was . . . less awful than the one before.

Things are still complicated, and I'm still baffled by many aspects of my situation, but I'm less despondent about the whole thing.

My resolve to be de facto monogamous has been wavering, in the last few weeks, which introduces agonies all its own. I don't think I was wrong in my assessment of my situation, the time and resources I have available to me, the risk of failing in my existing commitments if I start trying to make room for a new relationship.

But I long for a new relationship.

A hundred different perspectives on that longing are clamoring in my brain, pulling me this way and that: Give in! Resist! Grow up! Relax! It's okay! Who cares? Do your duty! Do what you want! Don't be pathetic! Don't be creepy! Go for it!

It doesn't help (But it does! No it doesn't!) that my affection for a particular person is growing more intense. This is an attraction with some history to it, someone on whom I had a professionally inappropriate crush a couple of years ago; the professional obstacle is no longer relevant, and I do see her, from time to time, in other contexts. Suffice it to say that the crush, which went dormant for a long time, especially during my relationship with Nyx, has rekindled.

I had a terrible flare-up this weekend, and it delights and worries and torments and frustrates and annoys me no end.

I've been trying to walk a tight-rope where she is concerned, opening up communication with her, trying to create opportunities for us to meet and interact - we had a very nice talk over lunch a few weeks ago - without giving in to my impulse to lay my heart at her feet.

What holds me back is that I keep thinking of it from her point of view. The question from the end of my relationship with Nyx still resonates: What do I really have to offer another person, I mean really?

Here I am, a busy professional with an often-absent wife, two children, and lots of other commitments to a community of which I am a part. There's not a lot left over.

Besides that, I'm about a dozen years older than her, and she was once my student. That puts a troubling edge of creepiness on the whole thing, seen from her point of view.

So, I tell myself not to be ridiculous . . . but I'm still drawn to her, more powerfully than I've been drawn to anyone in a really long time. I tell myself that what I'm really drawn to may just be my own fantasy; I tell myself not to be delusional.

And so it goes.

There's another voice clamoring for attention in my head, telling me that posting this is a waste of time, that I really shouldn't hit "submit reply".

Oh, well. Here goes . . .

[hyperskeptic]

Negative Man!

I've discovered that I have a super-power: I can talk myself out of anything, given enough time.

Since my last post, I've been mulling over my crush and its prospects, weighing what I want and what I imagine - or, perhaps, what I imagine I want and what I want to imagine - against what is possible and what is likely, and against what is responsible and what is good.

The more I think about it, the smaller and cooler the flame seems to become. This morning, it's all but extinguished.

What a relief!

I still have a lot of affection for the person in question, but I can hold it at arm's length, without any particular hope or expectation.

Of course, I'll have to pay attention to my response to her, the next time I see her. She may be the equivalent of kryptonite . . .

In the mean time, I'll enjoy the calm, the detachment, of a mossy stone.

[hyperskeptic]

I wrote this as part of a new thread, last night, about a boundary dispute I had with Vix:

She seems firmly committed to polyamory, and I am riding a pendulum that swings between a principled commitment of de facto monogamy and reluctant resignation to de facto monogamy.

The image of the pendulum really captures what I've been experiencing, lately.

Some days, it seems reasonable and responsible for me to remain de facto monogamous. I wouldn't insist on compulsory monogamy for anyone; I think polyamory may be a fine choice for those who have the capacity for it.

For reasons articulated in this blog thread, I don't think I currently have the capacity for it: I have too much to do, and too little to offer to a relationship with someone else.

On especially good days, I can be more or less contented with such a commitment.

On other days, though, I chafe against de facto monogamy, though I seem powerless to do anything to change my circumstances, or to make anything else possible. I may want to be close to other people, but that has always been difficult for me, even under the best of circumstances.

I just don't relate well to others. I am, as Vix pointed out today, too reluctant to put my trust in other people. I can be awkward, get my signals crossed, miss important cues, one way or the other. It's entirely possible I'm somewhere on the autism spectrum, though I've never been diagnosed as such.

On such days, I'm awash in longing and envy and frustration . . . and resignation.

I'm stuck being who I am, where I am, and I may as well get used to it.

[SchrodingersCat]

For reasons articulated in this blog thread, I don't think I currently have the capacity for it: I have too much to do, and too little to offer to a relationship with someone else.

Don't be so sure. For every set of things someone has to offer, no matter how big or small, there are people open to just such an arrangement.

For example, I have a husband, a girlfriend, and a busy academic life. Someone like you would fit right into my life. You wouldn't put unrealistic demands on my time, and I wouldn't feel guilty about leaving you with my kitchen scraps.

Sure, that obviously means we could never have a relationship as deep and intimate as our marriages, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be special in its own right.

The analogy that comes to mind is silly but apt. Suppose you have a peanut and you see a squirrel. Sure, one little peanut won't get that squirrel through the winter. But maybe he's already got lots of acorns to eat, and even though he really likes acorns and they satisfy his hunger, he would enjoy the peanut as a special treat.

[hyperskeptic]

For example, I have a husband, a girlfriend, and a busy academic life. Someone like you would fit right into my life. You wouldn't put unrealistic demands on my time, and I wouldn't feel guilty about leaving you with my kitchen scraps.

Kitchen scraps. Why, you make it sound so appealing!

Somewhere, earlier on this thread, I wrote of how troubled I was by the fact that all I had to offer Nyx were scraps of my time and attention; I might even have used "table scraps" as the metaphor. It just didn't sit well with me, as though I was just using her as a means to my own ends.

But, now that my marriage is changing so radically, now that my expectations are plummeting, I have to recognize that it may be my fate to subsist on what little affection and connection people can spare from their own private feasts.

To be quite honest, if I can no longer have a private feast of my own, I think I'd rather be alone.

The analogy that comes to mind is silly but apt. Suppose you have a peanut and you see a squirrel. Sure, one little peanut won't get that squirrel through the winter. But maybe he's already got lots of acorns to eat, and even though he really likes acorns and they satisfy his hunger, he would enjoy the peanut as a special treat.

Again, a troubling analogy. "Special treat"? Really? That makes it all seem so superficial, so . . . instrumental.

Even if I were to go with this analogy, there isn't exactly a surfeit of squirrels around, just now. Something about me might make them skittish - being a married man in his 40s with two children might tend to do that! - or maybe the peanut I have has gone rancid, or something.

Meanwhile, Vix has to beat the squirrels back with a stick . . . when she's inclined to.

Life is like that, sometimes.

[hyperskeptic]

Well, this does seem to be a week for trying to puzzle things out.

Because of an exchange on another thread ("Boundary Dispute"), I've started trying to figure out why it is I've had more and more doubts about my own capacity to be polyamorous, more and more of a sense that I should either settle for or embrace de facto monogamy, whatever Vix may choose to do.

Note that this is an exercise in explanation, not justification; what I offer below are possible causes of my doubts, not reasons why they are to be taken seriously.

In other words, this could just be a matter of diagnosing a pathology from which I suffer.

At the moment, I can identify several possible sources of doubt. They are not mutually exclusive.

1) I'm depressed.

The fact is that I have been struggling with depression and anxiety since August, at the latest. I have better weeks and worse weeks, but the general trend has been downward an inward. I've become withdrawn and detached.

I recently rediscovered the Pink Floyd song, "Comfortably Numb," and latched onto it as my current anthem.

(How sad is that? I mean, really!)

Seen from the bottom of a thirty-foot well, the world does not exactly abound in possibilities for warmth and human connection. From such a perspective, I do not seem to myself worthy of intimacy with anyone, maybe not even myself.

That may be part of it. But, also:

2) I'm busy.

I've said this before, but I have a lot on my plate. I have professional commitments from which I have been too easily distracted in the past; if anything, I should be spending more of my time focused on my work, at least in part so I can open up opportunities to get out of this city that is killing my wife.

(In fact, I should be working right now!)

I have commitments to my children. I have a number of active commitments to a community of which Vix and I are part.

There isn't much left, after all of that. If I give time and attention to a new relationship, one or another of those plates might drop.

3) I'm flawed.

I also suggested in a previous post that I may be constitutionally incapable of getting really close to another person. I may have managed an approximation of simulacrum of intimacy with Vix, but only after 20 years of struggle, and then not without inflicting some damage on her. I don't open up easily, I don't trust easily, I'm too easily distracted, and I tend to withdraw into myself too quickly. (See no. 1, above.)

The roots of my impairment may be psychological, or neurological, or both. Or maybe it's just a set of bad habits I've cultivated, if you want to get all Aristotelian about it.

(And who doesn't want to get all Aristotelian?)

4) I'm a victim of circumstance.

The unhappy truth is that the women I might want to get close to have no reason to want to be close to me. As a 40-something married guy with two kids and a lot of strange quirks, I'm not exactly a prize. In fact, my interest in them would probably come across as creepy.

To go with the squirrel-feeding metaphor, I've gotten to the park too late, and the squirrels are all too busy elsewhere to notice the stale cracker I have to offer them.

5) I hold myself to be bound by ethical principles.

This one is slightly more serious, for me, and I've been giving it more and more thought.

I am committed always to respecting other people, treating them as ends in themselves, never merely as means to my own ends, if you want to get all Kantian about it.

(And who doesn't want to get all Kantian?)

Given my circumstances and all my other commitments, it's hard to see how I could give another partner her due. It would be too easy to slip into taking her for granted, using her as a means toward some end of my own . . . and too easy to be used as a means to someone else's ends (a "special treat", for example).

I worry a lot about equity, about fairness, about respect, and it's hard to see how I could have another relationship in a way that would honor all those values, given all the other constraints under which I'm working.

6) I'm uptight.

I can already hear the protests from some on this forum, words I've read before in response to other things I've written: I should get over myself, relax, open up, not be such a prude or a prig or a prick or anything else starting with pr-.

I'm not sure I can get over myself, and I'm not altogether sure I should.

So, six possible causes. Any combination of them might explain my growing doubts, or there might be something else altogether at work here. Maybe I'm just being contrary?

And where does all this leave me?

Well, at the moment, it leaves me with a stack of essays that still need to be graded . . .

[WhatHappened]

2) I'm busy.

I've said this before, but I have a lot on my plate. I have professional commitments from which I have been too easily distracted in the past; if anything, I should be spending more of my time focused on my work, at least in part so I can open up opportunities to get out of this city that is killing my wife.

(In fact, I should be working right now!)



With all due respect, why is it entirely up to YOU to manage family and home and career in order to rescue your wife from this city...largely on your own from the sounds of it, while she's busy building a relationship with another man and traveling around Europe? If it's so vitally important to her to get out of a city that is killing her, maybe her priority right now should be on helping make that happen?

You know, this is the kind of thing people are objecting to in the other thread. Maybe you're depressed because you're carrying too much of the weight in what should be a partnership. Although I do not consider myself poly per se, one of the things I like and respect that I've seen at this board, is the repeated statement that poly does not mean just jumping from one partner to the next, but being able to maintain your commitments to your partners. I don't see her meeting her responsibilities and obligations to you or your children.

[hyperskeptic]

You know, this is the kind of thing people are objecting to in the other thread. Maybe you're depressed because you're carrying too much of the weight in what should be a partnership. Although I do not consider myself poly per se, one of the things I like and respect that I've seen at this board, is the repeated statement that poly does not mean just jumping from one partner to the next, but being able to maintain your commitments to your partners. I don't see her meeting her responsibilities and obligations to you or your children.

Perhaps that's because I've been the one telling the story, and I've been self-absorbed, sunk in my own misery.

The history of our relationship, and the history of my career, is more than I can really relate in these posts.

I do need to be better at managing my own time. That's on me. Since the post to which you were responding is about causal explanation, the focus should be on facts rather than on blame. Let me own this one fact: I actually suck at time management.

That one's on me.

No blame to anyone else.

It does suggest a basis for doubts about my own capacity to be poly, though.

[WhatHappened]

Yeah, I suck at time management, too. After all--here I am on the internet instead of doing MY work. ;)

But I can still tell the difference between my poor time management skills where, despite them, I am on the go 14 hours a day, at least TRYING to get it all done, and my XH who sat in front of the TV for 5 hours a day while I was doing dishes, dinner, cleaning, fixing, kids' homework, etc.

That your time management skills are not the best doesn't change the fact that a marriage should be a partnership, not one parent routinely playing single parent while the other skites around Europe footloose and fancy free.

Regardless...good luck with the path you're choosing.

[hyperskeptic]

I posted this on my other current thread ("Boundary Dispute"), but I think it also belongs here:

I'm sorry for posting so many things that have been whiny and annoying, and for occasionally responding with snark.

I am grateful for this forum, and for all the replies to my various posts - those replies that have been patient and understanding as well as those that have been, um, less than patient - for helping me, sometimes in spite of myself, to achieve a small measure of clarity.

I don't know, at this point, what my own choices will be regarding polyamory, but I think I do have some basis for a more constructive approach to my wife's current engagement with poly.

[SNeacail]

I just read through this entire thread

1) I'm depressed.

No shit, really? Never would have guessed. :p

What are you doing about it? Are you seeking professional help? If not, you need to right now!

FACTS OF LIFE:
Raising kids is one huge time sucker! As responsible parents, sometimes our wants and needs are put aside to do what is in the best interest of the kids. As they get older, you gain a bit more freedom. Suddenly, they don't mind having the house to themselves for an entire Saturday, they go away to summer camp for a week, etc. They won't be with us forever, sooner than you think, all of a sudden they are 18 and off to college, the military or elsewhere.

Marriage takes work and needs to be a partnership or it becomes just another source of stress. Okay, your wife may have sacrificed a lot earlier in your marriage and now you feel like you "owe" her. Sorry, it doesn't work that way. The back and forth of shifting responsibilities and overwhelming/overstressing one person as "payback" or whatever is not healthy and won't work (even if it's you that feels she deserves it).

I spent years being resentful of organizations and my husband's involvement because it left me to pick up the pieces of our family. While I would have loved to have a little "payback", I felt guilty every time he allowed me to extended time to do my own thing. Through some counceling, I was finally able to get it through his thick head, that we were NOT acting as partners and should be. When we started acting as partner with regard to everything, my stress levels diminished and all of a sudden I had time to spend time making new friends (all my friends at the time were actually his friends and shared no interests with me).

I don't care if you spent the first 16 years of your marriage being a selfish bastard, you are not that person now. However, you still need time for yourself on a regular basis. Hang with friends, play golf, go listen to a band at the local bar, etc. If you wife's travels and other activities are preventing that, maybe you guys need to sit down and find a better balance. A balance for RIGHT NOW, not who owes who what. If she needs to move for health reasons, actively pursue that and involve her. That doesn't mean the only place to look, is where her bf lives.

After watching my brother go through an amicable divorce only to have things turn ugly with custody after she got remarried, I would STRONGLY advice not allowing your kids to move away from you and especially out of the country much less the state.

[hyperskeptic]

I don't know. I'm starting to lean toward the "too uptight" hypothesis.

I need to loosen up, let some of this stuff roll off me.

For all I know, Vix and I will work everything out by the weekend and I'll have a girlfriend by the end of the month. Or not. Either way, I'll work out a way to be okay.

Can I hear an "Amen!"?

[nycindie]

. . . I'll work out a way to be okay.

Can I hear an "Amen!"?

Amen!!!

There is more I want to say, here and in your other thread, but until I can formulate my thoughts, the above will have to do. :D

[hyperskeptic]

Amen!!!

There is more I want to say, here and in your other thread, but until I can formulate my thoughts, the above will have to do. :D

Indie,

How did I know you'd be the first to say "Amen!"?

Let me just add, "Hallelujah!"

HS

[hyperskeptic]

I came across something in a very different context that struck me as a fitting end to this particular blog thread.

A sign posted in a laboratory reads as follows:

Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
In our lab, theory and practice are combined: nothing works and no one knows why.

http://medicalhumour.wordpress.com/category/laboratory/page/3/

Here endeth the thread.

P.S. I'm continuing to post, in a more hopeful vein, in the thread titled "A Skeptic's Delight".