Polyamory = people with more integrity?

We do it here every day - in anonymity. But it COULD be the open default way to communicate.

Be interesting to see what that looks like - eh ?

GS

Goodness I was just telling someone ( I can't remember at the moment who it was) that I really am losing that anonymity faster than I could possibly rebuild it. :)
By my own choice mind you-but still.

I find that since I made the commitment to myself to make my decisions from the stance of love-it really makes it damn near impossible to keep anonymity.

For example:
someone created a login for the SOLE purpose of sending me a PM asking for my advice. I COULD have talked with him via PM endlessly and remained anonymous.
But the truth is that when I read his explanation, request for suggestions, what I heard was a heartbreaking. I FELT the heartbreaking. (writing this gave me goosebumps).
I responded and made the offer that he could give my email (less intimidating to a mono) to his wife if she wanted to ask questions of her own.

I've exchanged personal contact information with a number of the people on the board and am making arrangements to corelate my vacations to meeting them.

In doing so I've found that I feel so much better about myself.

I'm reading the book 'The Seven Levels of Intimacy'. It really gets in to the importance of being REAL to yourself before you can be real to anyone else. But something else it said that REALLY hit home with me is that (don't laugh);

While opportunities are unlimited, TIME is limited.
We can have LOTS of relationships in level 1-2 of intimacy, or we can have a smaller number of relationships that hit levels 5-7.
Not because any of those relationships aren't potential opportunities for deeper level relationships, but because building that depth of intimacy requires TIME and we have a limited amount of time.

I have started limiting my time with people who I can't be REAL with and increasing my time with people who I can. Because we can't have a REAL relationship if I can't be real ANYWAY-so why should I put a great amount of time into a relationship that is a facade? :rolleyes:
 
I'm kinky....but even I'm not going there ;)

giggle oh man Mono, so glad you didnt go there cause TMI! ;-)

seeee.... i dunno if we poly folk have more integrity or virtue... but we certainly do tend to have some very interesting forum discussions ;-) LOL
 
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Chiming in a bit late to the discussion, I know, but I have to say that I don't believe that poly people naturally have more integrity than monogamous folks.

I have seen some horribly abusive, manipulative and downright mean behaviours perpetrated by people who self-identify as poly. I have seen lying, emotional blackmail, and jealousy used by some.

So while this may open up one aspect of integrity, it most certainly doesn't seem to do much for the others...

I think that there is a part of the poly community (and I don't mean any folks on this forum) who "do poly" because they quite frankly weren't very good at monogamous relationships. Then there are others who, for whatever reason, couldn't find a decent monogamous partner, so "settled" for becoming someone's secondary, while resenting it all along.

There are many doing poly in an open, honest way, full of integrity. That applies also to monogamous folk. I really don't think poly folks can claim any "high ground", though, when it comes to personal integrity.
 
I'm still monogamous and no longer thinking of changing that, after researching and thinking a lot about polyamoury for a few months.

I try to be completely honest with my husband, all the time. I tell him everything in as loving a way as possible but it seems like honesty is not valued at all in our society. I totally understand why we need social dishonesty (white lies) to smooth along surface relationships but I don't think they help at all in marriage or intimate relationships. The amount of people I meet though who think that telling your partner about a crush is cruel and you should keep that info to yourself because what good can it do to share it other than hurt your partner... I really don't understand this viewpoint and I've really enjoyed reading these boards to get away from that type of thinking that somehow we should protect our partners from every possible negative emotion and present ourselves as loving them and only them unconditionally whether thats true or not. I married a man, not a child and I want to be his equal partner, not his parent and that means I want to be known for who I really am, and to know him in return.

So I consider myself someone with integrity in my marriage. One thing I struggle with is learning what of the tools I've found work in my marriage will work in friendships. They seem to go a bit astray when I try to be as honest as I'd like to be. Not all but it has happened..
 
Redpepper and mono pretty much have it down. Basically you have to combine their brains to make a buddha like statement(the ultimate compliment to you guyz hahaha)

Integrity is a virtue. People cheat as a response to fear of (the) reality > self denial of reality > Mental Safeguards > Ease of situation/Lies > cheating.

That's something that enlightened people like the buddha teach folks and the RP/Mono combo tackled it in like 5 posts lol.

peace & love
-gabe
 
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