Musings

Your thoughts on this are well spoken.

Do you have a link to the discussion on ethics?

I'm in agreement that I see exceptions, but what eventually stood out to me is that they are exactly that...exceptions. I asked BF about the poly couples/families/groups he knows in real life...who aren't posting on forums looking for help. He first told me they're all happy. As we dug into details, I found that in truth, he only knows two others in poly marriages, and, on more thought, added, and actually, one of them is having trouble.

My personal belief is that his own marriage is nowhere near so happy, perfect, and rock solid as he tells me it is. The fact he seems to have entered a long depression and be quite unhappy with his life only adds to that impression.
 
life what we make it

I'm not on here to doom polyamory. It does work, and wonderfully. Most of my problems with Cinder stem from personality traits that exist all the time in any relationship. I look forward to being in relationships with others that have the same good intentions as I. We don't have to fuck people over to survive. I hope you find that beautiful place. I have not lost hope, far from it. I look forward to the present and the future. We create what we want in this life, I really do believe that. I'm looking forward to meeting the people to do it with, and in some ways I already have:rolleyes:
 
I'm not on here to doom polyamory. It does work, and wonderfully. Most of my problems with Cinder stem from personality traits that exist all the time in any relationship.

It's good to hear that you are feeling positive about life.

I very much agree with you that difficult personality traits can exist in any relationship but I think you see them most often in romantic partnerships (or in families).

I have several friends who were once poly. None of them are any more - mostly due to the struggles of trying to balance having a life with having multiple relationships. They probably make up roughly 10% of my friends. I have lots of friends who are in mono relationships - some of those are happy, others not so much so. These are probably 80% of my friends. Then I have another 10% or so of friends who are single and have been for years. All bar 1 of these people are happy with their life.

The single people by far in my life are the happiest group. I was very happy when I was part of that group too.

I say often to my partner that being his partner is a tiny bit better than being single. He tells me that he's glad that he knows about my feelings on romantic partnerships or he might feel a little insulted.

I wish you lots of luck in building a life that is perfect for you.

I'm already living a life that is perfect for me and hope to hold onto it for as long as possible. :) I take time out very frequently to think about and appreciate how very lucky I am to be able to experience this.

IP
 
I know I sound like I'm very down on poly relationships but I don't think it's that. I'm suspicious of romantic relationships in general. Any where people might refer to each other as romantic partners in some way I think are things to be cautious of.

I started feeling this way about mono relationships - because that was all that I knew at the time. I notice that they are hard work for the people involved. I feel the effort myself now that I am having a mono relationship. I consider the work to be worthwhile but still - my romantic relationship takes up more time, thought and emotional energy than any of the others in my life. I know that I'm not alone in this. The notion that these relationships take work and effort is pretty much universally accepted.

I have a close relationship with a being who isn't even human. C and I can't speak the same language. He enjoys doing things that I don't have the sensory apparatus to even perceive. And yet I find my relationship with him to be less work than any romantic relationship I've ever been in.

The stats around how badly romantic relationships go wrong are shocking. One in four women experience domestic violence at some point in their lives. (http://www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk/support-a-friend-or-family-member-experiencing-domestic-violence.aspx) Men experience it too and they aren't even included in that statistic. When women are murdered the most likely person to kill them is either their current partner or an ex partner (from The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

This stuff is so common place that it barely gets talked about. What tends to happen, in my experience, is that abused people are seen as being individually responsible due to bad decision making and the abusers are similarly seen as individual bad apples who may be able to be helped through drug therapy or counselling.

I could believe that if it was just an occasional thing but it isn't. Serious violence in romantic relationships is common and so also are lesser struggles to communicate and feelings of resentment etc. This is a weird thing to happen in a species who live closely together and need social contact with each other.

I think that romantic relationships are an odd way of relating to each other. I think they tend to breed this sort of thing. If they didn't, people would find them easier and they just don't.

I had thought, on hearing about poly that it might make the difference. Maybe the problem is just having one romantic relationship? Maybe being free to have more than one would solve this issue.

It seems that it doesn't. There are so many stories on here of people struggling regularly, being lied to, cheated on and controlled. Plus some really frightening tales of abuse crop up every so often.

If poly worked better, I'd expect to see way less of these and way more success stories - especially given that the people writing here are mostly committed to poly and want to be successful.

So this makes me think that my initial assumption about romantic relationships is more likely to be correct - they are just a weird and difficult way to go about things.

I know that I am in one - and I'm happy to be so (I can't take my socialisation out of myself and there is a big part of me that sees this sort of relationship as a good, normal thing). Still - given my deep suspicion about the wisdom of being in romantic relationships at all, it seems to me a better idea to stick to one of them. One is enough risk, work and effort. And joy and love and all the happy stuff too.

Multiplying it into more than one seems to me to be a bad idea given the issues with romantic relationships.


I think I'm neither mono or poly really.

IP
 
Challenging Times

I find myself right now in an unwanted place and at a time where I feel ill equipped to deal with it. So – one of the things I have always admired about my partner, Art, is his care for others and his ability to step away from engaging in behaviour that he knows may be harmful to his friends. This trait is important to me – I place great importance on care for others and feel that avoiding harming those I care about is important. I have also greatly always admired my partner's honesty.

A few weeks ago, he told me that he had been out with an old friend of his, Sue, and that they had found themselves alone and had enjoyed a bit of a make out session together. Just kissing and nothing else – not a big deal. Or at least, I think wouldn't have been a massive deal. It might have resulted in he and I having a chat about our respective definitions of monogamy and possibly some shifting in agreements between us. It might have resulted in some short-term anger on my part and a reminder that he needs to talk to me if he wants to change the way our relationship works. I don't know what would have happened.

Because – in the next sentence, he told me that his friend had asked that neither he nor I mention what had happened to her partner, Bob. Sue and Bob both are good friends of my partner. He talks about them warmly often and while I consider them both to be acquaintances rather than friends, I've always felt warmly toward them and have been happy to be in their company.

This I'm not okay with at all. I don't like being asked to keep other people's secrets, particularly secrets that would cause harm if they came to light. I especially don't like it when I haven't been given the choice about whether or not to be informed. It is a bit of a grey area, I realise. Art told me about him kissing Sue because we have agreed to be honest with each other. Which meant that I had to know something about Sue's behaviour that I would rather not know.

I also find Art's behaviour odd. Enabling even minor cheating like this is something that he normally is very strongly opposed to. His normal behaviour would have been to insist that Sue speak to Bob before anything physical happened at all.

Art disagrees utterly with the way I see things. He believes that this is a one-off situation which was just about two friends having fun together. He isn't terribly happy about lying to Bob but he feels that I am making much too big a deal of it. He thinks that we should just keep Sue's secret, carry on as normal in terms of spending time with Sue and Bob and that he will make sure that he doesn't do anything similar again. He maintains that he didn't think I would be all that bothered or he wouldn't have gone ahead with it.

The thing is that my experience with behaviour changes that mark a distinct change in willingness to harm others like that tend not to be one-offs. My experiences have been that minor instances like this tend to be the start of a larger change – whether through illness, stress, aging, shifting in world view, wanting out of a relationship etc.

I am experiencing lots of unpleasant emotions. Most prevelant is a feeling of being trapped. I feel as if my autonomy is compromised in a way that I haven't and wouldn't have consented to. I'm anxious that my partner would choose to put me in this position – knowing my feelings on keeping other people's secrets. I find myself wanting to run away, to leave my partner and free myself from the feeling of being like a butterfly in a jar.

I'm worried about what the next thing will be and have a sense of creeping dread about it.

I feel doubt about my Art and lack of trust in his ability to make good decisions.

I worry too about the possibility that I may decide to make this easier on myself by choosing to take Art's viewpoint and see it as not that big of a deal. That worries me because I would see that as compromising my own ethics, as changing some of my core beliefs for a relationship. The thought that I might do that scares me because I think it is easy for individuals to get lost in relationships, to crush who they are for the good of the relationship and to suffer for it. I'm keen not to do that which means acknowledging that for me, this is a big deal and that it is a big deal because it's stuff that I've thought through, experienced and worked through for years. Still, this leaves me feeling down lots of the time.

Because of the differences between my view and Art's view, I am unclear about a course of action. I know I'm being heavily influenced by my experiences with changes in behaviour. I know also that I feel very emotional about this situation. I'm not in a good position to make decisions or to judge really if Art is being truthful or if he is (as I suspect) desperately trying to deny changes in himself that he isn't yet able to come to terms with.

So I've decided that the only thing I can do is wait, to treat this like any other grieving process and to make no major changes for at least 6 months. As the time passes, my ability to make judgements will be better and it will also be clearer to me if Art is correct about this being a one off. If it becomes clear to me that this is part of a longer term change for Art, we can transition to being friends. The level of constraint that this sort of behaviour from a partner would place on me isn't acceptable to me in a romantic relationship and in that case, I'd much rather be single than deal with it.

Discussing it is hard for us just now – our views are so opposed and we are irritated with each other. We have talked a few times – hard conversations – and have exchanged a few e-mails. We'll probably leave talking about it with each other alone for a couple of months at least.

Still – as is usual for me when I feel trapped, I am planning trips away, new interests and visits to friends so the situation is far from all bad. I am generally sleeping okay, enjoying work and able to get on with things I want to do. It is, I think, a matter of waiting.

I very much hope that Art turns out to be correct in all of this. He is a good guy, one of the few I could be in a relationship with and I hope that isn't going to change. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he is correct about this being a one-off while fully expecting it not to be.

IP
 
I'm really sorry you are dealing with this. I know I'd probably go through just about all the same thought processes if I were in your shoes and it's not an easy situation at all. I'm hoping things work out well and that perhaps in the meantime Art realizes that honesty is more important.
 
Thanks MusicalRose.

I had a long chat yesterday with a good friend of mine about the situation. It was a helpful chat to have. Just good to talk about it with somebody else.

Things between Art and I have been good recently. Things between us are generally good. I'll probably schedule in another chat with him about what is going on in another month or two and we can talk about it again then.
 
I felt like updating. Secrets and the keeping of them have been on my mind a bit recently. Things between Art and I continue to go well - he is being very sweet, loving and kind both to me and to his friends. We haven't discussed further the situation with him, Sue and Bob. I find no change in my view of it. This isn't a secret I want to be part of and while it is one that must be kept, I would prefer to avoid situations where I might have to spend time with Sue and Bob.

A big part of what pisses me off about it is the clear assumption from Sue that extracting a promise for secrecy from Art is the same thing as extracting a promise from me and Art. I am not his other half, I don't share the same views as him on everything and I dislike intensely being treated like less than an autonomous adult. Still, it is a common belief and Sue doesn't know me at all so she has no idea about my views on relationships. It isn't her fault that she doesn't know those things and so I will keep her secret - the price for me is that I don't spend time with them. I don't want to punish people for not knowing me but I also don't want to be in situations where I feel uncomfortable with the lies.

There was a recent situation in another part of my life where requests were being made for secrecy, for hiding knowledge from others. That secret is not a secret any longer - there were a number of us not comfortable with keeping it and so we didn't.

I have been spending time talking to friends and family about how I dislike being asked to hide things from people. I have been telling people that they must ask me before telling me things that are secret otherwise I make no promises about keeping secrets.

The type of secret matters. When a friend confided in me about difficulties in her marriage, I was fine with keeping her secret - she was feeling down, wondering if she and her husband could work through their issues. Her secret was a secret because she didn't want people gossiping about them. It wasn't a secret that was being kept because it was about her harmful behaviour.

The secret that Art, Sue and I know about is about harmful behaviour. I am not cool with it. The other recent request I received to be quiet about was harmful to keep too.

I think it is those secrets that I struggle with. The harmful ones. The ones that the keeping of encourages and enables behaviour that is likely to cause harm to others.

Anyway - I hope that Art and I have a greater understanding between us. He does not share my views on this at all and does keep secrets I wouldn't be happy about. That is his choice - what I ask is to not be dragged into it. Hopefully we understand each other better now.

IP
 
So - it has been about 4 years since Art and I started seeing each other once more. It has coincided with 4 very difficult years for me. A significant death in each of 3 of them and then a protracted, painful complaint about medical staff and bills in the last one (this year).

I was single and happy to be so for about 7 years before that.

The adjustment to being a partner during all that has been going on and following a long period of being very happy with my life as it was has been difficult at times - is still difficult at times.

For all that, having Art there makes me life better. He is probably the only person I've met in many years that I would consider having a relationship with. I'm aware that the way I lead my life and many of my beliefs would make me a challenging partner for most people - men in particular. It is something I came to terms with a long time ago and am at ease with. I feel very glad for having reconnected with Art and having found so much in common with him.

His gentle outlook and lack of need to feel in charge really help. I remember talking to him about dogs when we first met and about how it is common for people to feel like they have to be the pack leader in their house. Art thought that I was exaggerating for effect - until I sent him loads of articles on the subject. He has always been gentle and kind with my dogs - something that I find men struggle with. Especially with the larger ones - my experience is that men find it necessary to take control of larger dogs and I could not have somebody in my life who behaved that way.

Recently I cared for a dog belonging to a friend of mine for a few days. This dog has been rescued from a difficult situation. He carries some baggage from those days and in particular gets stressed out about people and dogs moving around. He is anxious in homes and so wants to take control to make things safer for him. This comes out sometimes as refusing to allow people or dogs to move in or out of rooms - he'll bark, growl, show his teeth. It can appear very threatening and means that he can be difficult for some people to deal with.

My friend reports that men in particular find it hard to deal with this dog, they tend to see his upset as a direct challenge - it has caused her to end a romantic relationship in the past.

My friend and I discussed how Art might cope and I thought he would be fine. He was. When the dog became upset, his instinct was to help, to calm the upset, not to take control of the dog. Art knows nothing about dogs and while he likes them, he isn't particularly into learning about them. His reaction to an irritated dog refusing him access to a room was to attempt to reassure the dog, to convince him that everything was okay. For most men, the instant reaction is to want to show the dog who's boss.

It is that reaction, that lack of wanting to take control that is a big part of why Art and I get on so well together and why he is so good in my life. He's somebody to learn from - he knows so much and also so many people - but he doesn't push or try to take charge. Nor does he want me to take charge. He doesn't feel that anybody should be in charge - an attitude that is rare to find.

I could not tolerate anybody trying to take charge of any part of my life. Nor could I tolerate anybody who needed me to be in charge of any part of their life - I am not a good home maker and have no desire to be so.

I think that's why I am destined to spend much of my life single. People like Art are not, in my experience, very common and if our romantic relationship were to end, I suspect I would be single again for a long time.

IP
 
I have been travelling recently. Went to visit a friend of mine who is working overseas. A couple of conversations while there made me think a little about relationships.

First I met an old, ex-friend, Jude, at the airport. Jude and I were once very close. She and I used to talk daily on the phone and see each other regularly. Very sadly, Jude finds it hard to maintain relationships in the long term. Jude tends to form close, very tight knit bonds with her friends and she tends to have one main friend who she spends the vast majority of her time with. She also tends not to be able to keep those friendships going.

As is her habit, she eventually stopped talking to me and replaced the friendship she had with me with Rhona. A few years later she did the same thing to Rhona. Rhona contacted me when it happened so that we could talk about it and we have gone on to become friends.

I didn't know at the time what Jude's friendship habits were and it was a little odd to be dumped in that way. I have had no contact with Jude for well over 5 years so it was odd to be talking to her again.

With some people those sorts of chance encounters would lead to a rekindling of a friendship that had slipped but not with Jude. I feel very sad for her that she grew up unable to form long lasting friendships but I can't help with that and to try to be her friend would, I think, be painful and so I will leave things as they are between us. We had a friendly chat and it was good to catch up but we won't be friends again.

Then also I chatted with somebody I met while there about growing up. The person I met had parents who divorced when she was very young. She spent most of her time with her mum and her mum's husband and her half brother. Visited her dad, his wife and her half sister at the weekends. She said that she didn't suffer at all and that as a child she accepted her upbringing as normal for them. Now, though, as an adult, she said that she feels some pain from it - she finds it hard to feel as if her dad's family are her family even though they love her and she loves them. The not growing up with them seems to have affected her and it bothers her a little. The discussion was an interesting exploration into how feelings change and evolve over time.

IP
 
I made a decision recently. Since Art and his friend, Sue, had their secret kissing session during the summer I've found myself to be feeling increasing levels of sadness about being dragged into something that they are keeping secret from Sue's partner, Bob.

I've felt coerced by my relationship with Art into being part of somebody else's underhand behaviour. I've been avoiding situations where we might run into Sue and Bob and that has had an impact on things I might want to do as well as on things that Art wants to do. I was feeling trapped and remembering why it is that I dislike committed romantic relationships. I had been considering talking to Art about shifting our relationship to one of friendship to free myself from the situation.

I was undecided, though. Art and I have a good relationship on the whole. I don't really want to change things so drastically.

I thought again about what I can do and I realised that I don't have to be part of it. I didn't agree to keep the secret at any point. Sue hasn't ever asked me if I'd be willing to and so I've decided to free myself from the burden of it. I have no plans to race out and tell people but if it were to seem appropriate to mention it to anybody, I will do. If that causes Sue and Bob a problem so be it. I wasn't the one kissing other men while Bob wasn't there and then lying about it. If it comes back to bite Sue, that's not my problem.

I also have no intention any longer of altering my life so that I don't run into Sue, Bob and people who know them. I'm perfectly capable of maintaining professional behaviour with people who I have no intention of calling my friend. Sue falls into that category. I'll be in her company if I have to be but I have no intention of being more than professionally polite.

Since making this decision, I feel much lighter and more free. I have discussed it with Art by e-mail and we plan to chat about it this weekend.
 
I was reflecting over the last week or so about the need for new and old connections in life. I spent Saturday night and Sunday with a newish young friend of mine - she had come with me to spend time with some of my oldest friends and my family. We spent the most amazing time - my friend got to have some new experiences and I was able to reconnect with activities that I used to very much enjoy and haven't had time, money or energy to do for years. :D

I came home to meet Art feeling light and happy.

Yesterday Art and I were chatting and he told me that he was meeting a friend of his after work. His friend had told him that he would bring a young woman along to their night out because he felt that she was somebody Art would get along well with. I smiled later when I spoke to Art because he sounded so happy to have made a new connection.

I absolutely love it when I introduce my friends to each other and they get along. There has been much of that in my life over the last few days which is making me feel very happy.

IP
 
I read an interesting article recently about people who are particularly empathetic. The article suggested that empathetic people often find close romantic relationships difficult because they feel drained by being constantly aware of a partner's moods.

It resonated very strongly with me. I have always had a high level of empathy for others. I think being that way is, at least for me, a side effect of my tendency toward anxiety. Worrying makes me pay more attention. I've always looked carefully to other people and been bothered about their moods - this started at a young age when I went to school. The mood of teachers matters to small children who worry about doing things wrong and getting into trouble.

I like being empathetic. I think it's a good way to be - using that skill and allowing it to grow as I've grown has been incredibly useful in my life. It has also allowed me to work in some fascinating areas and with people who are outwith my usual social group. All good stuff.

Still, I do find that I can be overwhelmed. In the past, I had a very serious partner who didn't have many friends. He got most of his social interaction from me. He is a lovely man, very sweet and caring but I was burnt out by his need. I stopped socialising too and I found people generally annoying. I became intolerant of anybody who couldn't just sort their own problems out. I became not like myself and it took a long time to recover afterwards.

Things are different with Art. He has plenty of friends and finds new social contacts regularly. Plus - he doesn't live with me so I get time to myself. Still, it is sometimes a bit stressful for me. There are times when having another person's emotions in my life so intensely and so frequently is draining.

Reading that article made me think about poly and how ill suited I would be to it. I can be in a relationship with one person and so long as they are sociable and have other close friends to talk to, then the benefits to me outweigh the stress that comes along with the relationship.

I would not, however, wish to be in more than one relationship. Nor - I suspect - would I be okay with having metamours. Those emotions would be too close for me to handle on a regular basis without it having a negative effect on me.

While I think that poly is a wonderful idea for many people, I've felt for some time that it is not for me. Or at least not at this time in my life.

The empathy article helped me to understand a bit more about why that might be. :D
 
Trust

I've been thinking a little bit about trust recently. Partly because it is a subject that comes up so often here. Partly because trust, loss of trust and regaining it is something I've been writing about elsewhere about an old relationship of mine - one that ended through death rather than a parting of the ways.

It seems to me that lots of the time when I hear somebody say that they want to trust somebody else in their life they already can do that. People mostly repeat things they've done before. Especially once they are adults. Habits are hard to change and subject usually to slipping.

There are areas of my life that I work on changing. I know that if I'm under stress, I will tend to revert back to the old, comforting habits - even though I know that those habits are not all that good for me in the long term.

I can often now keep hold of the habits I prefer in addition to them but only the habits I want that I have been practising for years. Now if I'm under stress and grief I am likely to go out and run (newish habit that I've been doing for 6 or 7 years). I will also overeat (old habit that I find comforting even if it isn't all that good for me).

Now if I were in a relationship with somebody who had a problem with overeating, that person may say that they can't trust me. They may point to instances of me overeating even when I'd said I wouldn't. They may want me to agree to rules and agreements about my eating habits. That's often how I see people behave toward their loved ones. I want you to do x or I want you to stop doing y. Agreements are sought and broken. One person loses trust. The other feels bad about it.

I don't see it as a trust problem. Anybody in my life can absolutely trust me to overeat - especially if I'm stressed about something.

The problem would only be if I promised to be different. It's not a promise I can keep so it isn't one I should be making.

I understand the issue a little. People who have a tendency to cheat on their partners or replace them with a new partner when things get tough are unlikely to find anybody willing to hang around with them if they are honest about their habit. So they lie to themselves and to their loved ones and they hope to get better somehow.

My opinion on it is that we all have things we'd rather not do. If I find myself sharing my life with somebody who repeatedly does something I find hard to deal with, rather than seek agreements from them so that I can find a way to trust them not to do that thing, I'd rather alter the relationship I have with that person so that the thing they do is no longer an issue for me.

I'd trust absolutely that they will do things that are habit (even infrequent habit) again. If those are habits I like then fantastic. If they are habits I absolutely can't live with, then I need to remove myself from the person.


IP
 
I've been thinking a little bit about trust recently. Partly because it is a subject that comes up so often here. Partly because trust, loss of trust and regaining it is something I've been writing about elsewhere about an old relationship of mine - one that ended through death rather than a parting of the ways.

My opinion on it is that we all have things we'd rather not do. If I find myself sharing my life with somebody who repeatedly does something I find hard to deal with, rather than seek agreements from them so that I can find a way to trust them not to do that thing, I'd rather alter the relationship I have with that person so that the thing they do is no longer an issue for me.

I'd trust absolutely that they will do things that are habit (even infrequent habit) again. If those are habits I like then fantastic. If they are habits I absolutely can't live with, then I need to remove myself from the person.

I've been thinking a lot about trust and boundaries (started a boundaries thread), too. I really like what you've said here...it follows along the lines of what I was thinking boundaries wise. Especially the bolded part. If I have an awesome friend that I love & can trust in other areas, but that friend acts like a fool at every sporting event... rather than expect him not to act like a fool or spend the entire sporting event being irritated by his behavior, I just don't attend with him. Instead, maybe we visit museums and theaters. It really should be no different in romantic relationships. We just make it more complicated. We should treat our relationships with others and ourselves, the way we would a baby... if the baby only sleeps well at home and usually takes a nap at noon, we don't drag the baby out shopping at noon... we do it before or after the nap.

And, yes to the last part, too. It baffles me that when two people are incompatible in major ways, they'll keep trying to change each other and themselves in the name of love. How is that loving behavior?
 
Turning people into things

I was watching TV last night and caught part of a program featuring a woman in an open relationship. As I listened to her talk about the agreements she and her husband had, I had a moment of clarity about the reasons I find romantic relationships such a strange way to go about relating to another human being.

I see all over the place people talk about romantic partners as if they are objects - they are described as good at making money or cooking or keeping a house etc. Like I might talk about my washing machine doing a great job of getting the stains out of my sheets.

People often search for a new romantic partner to fill some hole in their life - lack of sex, lack of companionship, wanting to have more income, wanting to have children, wanting to be married. Once they get the right partner, their life with be better. Like I might talk about finding a new van because I need more space to drive stuff around in and might talk about how when I have the new van, my life will be better.

This just all seems strange to me but it is a very strong narrative through much of life as I experience it. Sometimes I find myself caught up in thinking about people in those ways and have to remind myself that it's a weird way to think about other human beings.

As I thought about the TV I watched last night, I realised that my feeling is that so often romantic relationships are dehumanising. People start off as whole, independent people and years later, if they are not careful, they become somebody's other half and are reduced to the things that they do for the relationship. Women in particular are at risk. They are still very often given by one male relative to their husband. They still change their surname to match their husband's in a further loss of their identity.

In some models of poly, that dynamic is even worse. The secondary partners are never even thought of as wholly human in the first place. They are there to fill a role - bolster a failing marriage or allow a bored married couple to explore sex more.

I think that's why people so often use the analogy of doing hobby activities when they are trying to convince partners to agree to being poly. People will say - "Ah but you go and play golf with lots of different people. Why is that different from having sex or having relationships with different people?"

In that short paragraph any of the new people that this couple may become involved in have their humanity reduced. They become an object akin to a new set of golf clubs or membership of a particular club.

It is my very firm belief that one of the ways in this world to experience happiness is to relate well to others. To treat them kindly. To let them speak and share their experiences of the world.

I think that the way romantic relationships are approached by western societies is a barrier to the way I view the seeking of a happy life - because that model encourages the treatment of romantic partners as objects. I think that this partly is why I shy away from much romantic involvement.

IP
 
... this started at a young age when I went to school. The mood of teachers matters to small children who worry about doing things wrong and getting into trouble...

lightbulb moment, thank you. Perfectionism as a product of empathy.


(from another empath)
 
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