First of all, your tone is just fine. Neither you nor anyone else here has ever given me any reason to doubt your good intentions and now is no execption. I apologize for my vagueness. I have a habit of over-explaining and, in order to be respectful, sometimes I underexplain.
PLEASE feel free to tell me it's none of my business. I'm not trying to be nosy-I'm sincerely interested because I by nature look for what things can be fixed but only with a major, imaginative and unusual solution.
Physical flaws? Mental flaws? Emotional Flaws?
Mental and emotional. Before I was poly I had a great deal of confidence in my virtue and in my ability to stay calm and, in a nutshell, be "good" in my own heavily Judeo-Christian influenced way of seeing things(even though I am not Christian anymore I was raised one and still have that way of seeing things in a lot of ways).
Hate was a word I used to describe what other people did. Anger was something other people felt. Not anymore. Since I became poly I've learned hate and anger and all sorts of other things.
? As in leave you, or as in grow distant emotionally? (I'm sorry-you likely also already wrote this stuff out somewhere on here, but I've been out of the loop with the board for the last 3 months due to having limited internet access).
It's ok. In a nutshell, my SO introduced a new guy into our household. We all gave him the OK with some reluctancy. He ended up connecting with her better than I did. When she wanted to get her own place, she decided she wanted to live with him over me. They have grown closer, have their own jokes, see each other most nights, and basically are like a close couple while I sit in a small apartment and wish that I was more bold in my veto rights.
This one I'm very interested in. There's so many questions I've had for my lifetime that I've found answers to in Poly. But there are so many more that I wonder about in regards to non-romantic relationships that are bothering me right now... I'd love to talk more on this topic.....
Well, the question is more of a scenario and variations of it have been pondered since Augustine and Paul of Tarsus. The question is this, "How can you reduce or eliminate the points where desire causes one to act irrationally or hurtfully?" In the Middle Ages this was one of the Big Questions as it was seen as the big stumbling block towards becoming without sin(anyone who was rational in the Middle Ages wouldn't do anything that was sinful, and yet people still sinned). In my particular case this manifests as my sex drive. If I had very little desire for sex, my challenges with poly would be insignificant at best. Such is not the case.
I'm unsure what you mean by this. Is it someone else's sex negativity, your own or just in general? I'm not (I don't think) sex negative. However, I'm also not...... hmmm what's the word... I'm a little like Mono describes on here. I feel like there is a special "energy" (for lack of a better term) that I share with people I have sex with, and I'm NOT willing or interested in sharing that with "just anyone" who I find sexually attractive........
scratching my head as I ponder myself....
This sex negativity is all my own. If I was able to wipe the desire for sex out of my mind I would do so without hesitation or regret. To borrow an idea from the Greeks, if I had just agape(unconditional divine love) and no eros(erotic, sexual love), that would be wonderful.
Hmmmm, how do you define more selfish, mean, sadistic and "most people"?
More selfish in the fact that my SO being quite happy with someone does not make me any happier. The rest, I am sorry, but I can't go into too much detail about. It has to do with my SO's ex-husband. He did more to make me question my judgement about people, my faith in the idea of "basic goodness" and a lot of other things than most.
And I'm really confused as to how you thought you could get a happy feeling when you do stuff for other people but now you see that you don't... ?
I misstated there. It is more accurate to say that I found out that the happy feeling comes when I do inexpensive things(such as volunteer or give some money to charity) but when I give when it really, really hurts, all I feel is hollow and a little stupid.
Do you mean you stay calm while other people are screaming in arguments?
That's exactly it. When I first became poly and my SO and her OSO fought, they fought very, very loudly. Screaming, ranting, whole 9 yards. It put me in a dark, dark place and I would get flashbacks of when my parents would argue when I was a young man. Now if two people I love scream and throw things, as long as they don't physically hurt each other, it barely bothers me at all(or at least no more than a particularly gory crime drama like CSI).
I don't know who Goebbels is.
Joseph Goebbels Reich Minister of Propaganda for Germany, 1933-1945. About two weeks ago I saw a movie called "The Goebbels Experiment" which was basically readings from his diary. I found myself really relating to him as he talked about his life, days, and feelings(some things reminded me of things that I thought and felt, days that I lived). I also realized that when I think of the people I really admire such as Gandhi, MLK, or the Dalai Lama, that I just didn't get them. If I had remained monogamous, he would be just as much a mystery now as he was 5 years ago and I am pretty sure that I would be much happier in my ignorance.
I'm sorry-now I read what I wrote and it sounds like I'm just tearing apart all that you've said; but that's not my intention at all. I'm just very interested in what you have to say.
It's ok. One love, sister. One love.
I think it's important ESPECIALLY since I've had the experience of it being worth it for me, to take the time to understand why and how it's NOT been that for other people. Since I started this thread-and thus far you are the only one whose commented that it HAS NOT been worth it for you-I'm highly interested in your experience with it.
I hope that explains my "tone" in my questions.
It's ok. One thing that I want to make abundantly clear. I do not believe that my experience with poly is definitive or indicative. If anything, I consider it illustrative of the potential pitfalls of self knowledge.