Polyamory
So I'd like to start an open discussion about polyamory, or open relationships in general. For anyone who reads this and is somehow not aware, my girlfriend Mia and I are in a polyamorous relationship. To clarify, polyamory is to 'open relationship' as square is to rectangle. It doesn't mean we just go fuck other people, we're not 'swingers'. Our polyamorous relationship began with the caveat that we wouldn't sleep with others. That's changed since then, but suffice to say - sex is not the issue, or the core of the thing.
My thoughts about polyamory have been slowly growing more detailed as I live in this situation, face the difficulties and the advantages. I have a LOT of thoughts about it, and I can't even begin to hope to organize them into some cohesive essay on the subject - hence wanting to talk about it. I also don't feel like I've come to the end of the road in thinking about it, and good discussion often leads to better ideas.
I have come to understand that Mia and my's general thoughts about what exactly polyamory means are very similar but also wildly different. Her ideas about it focus on the idea of being able to love freely, without restraint. My thoughts on it (as is often the case in our differences) are much more logical and analytical. What polyamory means to me is a seperation between my relationships, and a much more dynamic, organic form of relationship with everyone I know. What I mean is, when in a monogamous relationship, that single relationship inherently becomes intertwined with all your other relationships. There's the obvious - you can't go get involved with anyone else. In that way, your relationship with one person becomes a hinderance to all others. More than that, though, the fact that you have to have a strictly defined line of 'I am with THIS person" means that all of your other relationships become as black-and-white. You are with them, or you're not. Obviously this isn't a huge issue with a lot of the people you know - you will have friends who there isn't some potential for a budding romantic relationship with. Particularly when gender gets involved - if I'm a straight male, I'm not going to have conflict not being able to date my guy friends. No issue. But it still, in some ways, creates a binary definition to how we see relationships that I don't think bears much resemblance to how real relationships work.
More than that, even in a relationship where there is an obvious 'yes' to the 'are we involved', that yes seems to imply an all or nothing. Either you're together in blissful happiness, or there's something horribly wrong and you need to consider breaking up/going to counseling. This is an unfortunate necessity when you are faced with picking only a single person to be 'perfect' for you for the rest of your life. Polyamory, however, changes the question when picking your 'mate' or 'mates'. No longer is it, "Is this person perfect to spend my life with?" It becomes, "Do I enjoy my time with this person?" Any relationship is going to wax and wane depending on changes in lives, personalities, hobbies, interests, etc. This isn't an evil, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with either person involved. If a relationship cools, it doesn't mean it's ending, or even that there's anything wrong - just that circumstances have lead to a cooling period. It may just as easily pick up again soon, or continue to cool until the two go seperate ways and rarely see each other anymore. But does that mean you need to have this awkward, arbitrary "break up" where you, for some reason, agree to not spend any time together regardless of what parts of your relationship may have worked well, and what parts of each other you like?
Polyamory allows the pursuing of any relationship that one has, seperate and without answering to other relationships one has. Let's face it - there may be people who find one person, fall in love, and never look at another person again. Maybe those people are out there. But the reality is, divorce rates are high, people 'cheat' on their significant others, and even if you're loyal - sometimes someone just catches your eye. Sometimes you find yourself flirting with that cute girl at work. Sometimes you find yourself wondering what it would be like with someone else. Is that wrong? Do we have to feel bad? My answers would be - it's not inherently wrong, but if you're in a monogamous relationship.... well, yeah, you do sorta have to feel bad. Monogamy comes with this spoken and partially unspoken agreement that you will keep this sort of unrealistic promise to keep your even most basic human responses under control. I'm not talking about not succumbing to mindless lust and sleeping around. I'm talking about finding someone else attractive. Occasionally wondering, "What if?" Okay... so what does that get you that polyamory might not offer?
Whenever discussing polyamory with people, there is an almost universal response I get from people who are in monogamous relationships: "Well, I just couldn't do it." I've thought a lot about that - firstly, I felt the same way until I was put into something of an uncomfortable position of choosing to open my relationship with Mia into polyamory or let it fade away. While that isn't ideal, looking back now, I see it was a necessity - when an idea like monogamy is based on nothing necessarily 'logical', but just social 'knowledge' (this is right, because it's right), you can't reason with it to lead the person to something more natural and happy. Moreover, facing it that way made me think a lot about monogamy and planted the seeds that have grown into the ideas I have now.
The other thing that often occurs to me thinking about the "Well I couldn't do it" is "Well... why not?" What is it about monogamy that keeps people tied down? I once was talking about polyamory with someone, and they asked me "So would you get married? What'd be the point of marriage?" And that made me think... what IS the point of marriage? Is the love between two people not sacred unless it also requires them to not pursue additional love - is love a scarse commodity? And is our love not valid unless legalized and put before ceremony? What IS the point of marriage?
More and more, the idea that occurs to me (and please, please feel free to contradict this if you disagree) is that the real weight behind people staying in monogamous relationships is fear. Change is scary, for sure, but more than that we're afraid of being alone. We're afraid of not being enough. We're afraid of our own flaws. So what is marriage? What is the draw of monogamy? What keeps people loyal to the idea of monogamy in the face of polyamory, where one can feel what they feel without having to feel guilty about it? I have a hard time thinking it's anything but the fear I hear expressed when I talk to people about this: "Well, what if they found someone better than me and left me for that person?"
There are a couple things I HAVE to say there. Firstly, polyamory doesn't really have that concept of 'left you for them'. It's not exclusive - finding someone who they click with better in some ways than with you doesn't mean they are required to drop you. If I find a friend who makes better jokes than my other buddy who I play video games with a lot, I'm not going to drop my other friend. I'm going to know them both, and my life will be further enriched by my friendship with both. The same applies for multiple relationships - each person is made happier by the involvement.
Point number two on "What if they found someone better and left me for that person": If that's the core thing keeping us involved in monogamy, than the logical conclusion is that the purpose of monogamous relationships, and by extension marriage, is just to make it more difficult for someone to leave us. It's setting up road blocks so that if a relationship is flagging, the person won't give up too easily. Or, at least, will have a hard time leaving if they decide that's what they want to do. Marriage is the ultimate road block there - it becomes fiscally, legally, socially difficult to end the thing. But is that what we want our relationships to be - chains that bind us together? I like to think of my relationships as things that lift me up, make life more beautiful, more worth living. Not something that will tie me down if it becomes sour. Nobody likes when a relationship ends - but again, that relies on the binary on/off. If we don't think of relationships as something that ENDS, but rather just will naturally taper off if it's not really working.... well, if something is just fading because neither person is all that involved/interested, it's not that painful, is it?
Final word on this general area of the topic: Possession. Monogamy, and marriage, by creating those chains, and setting those limitations, take a big step toward turning your object of affection into just that - an object to be possessed. This was something I came face-to-face with, and still do to some degree, in polyamory. Shrugging off the idea of possession. Mia has had a few other relationships while I've been here, and not feeling like those people are trying to take something that belongs to me was the first biggest hurdle I had to face. I was raised in a society that tought the idea, and thinking I could just give it up in a day was absurd. Now, whenever embarking on new ideas like these, it's important to take note of areas that cause this kind of hardship. It's important to try to weigh if it's causing issue b/c if something in you that you want to keep, or something you want to get rid of. I've NEVER liked the idea of feeling possessive over a girlfriend, and it's always been something I've strived to overcome, so I don't feel much hesitation at trying to overcome it. I think that's an idea most people would embrace - nobody wants to think they are possessive of their significant other. But while on the surface it can be easy to say it's something you don't want, you also have to consider what it means to give that up - not trying to keep them all to yourself. More than that, it's putting trust in the idea that you are worth coming back to if you "let" them wander. If you don't, somehow, try to chain them to you.
So downfalls of polyamory. The obvious one is this: While love is certainly not a limited commodity, time is. Do I have time to keep 10 relationships going? Well, depending on the level of those relationships... possibly? But is it worth keeping 10 surface-level relationships going? Probably not. Polyamory doesn't mean everyone is going to love everyone, we're all going to be in relationships with each other. It might mean you're involved with 2-3 people, instead of just 1. Maybe you're just involved with 1. I have no other relationships than Mia right now, Mia doesn't either at the moment. But we still consider ourselves to be polyamorous, and I still find that idea uplifting. If I find someone else, I can get involved. If she finds someone else, she can get involved. If I find some girl cute, and want to ask her out to a movie or drinks, I don't have to feel bad about it. More than that, I can talk to Mia about it, get her feedback - she can lift me up in my relationship with the new person. We have spent several nights talking back and forth to each other about prospective other relationships (that have not, as of yet, ended up going anywhere), but it's fun to do. It's uplifting. And in a way, I love her all the more for it.
Is polyamory a lifelong commitment? Do polyamorous couples get married? I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I only have the answers that seem natural to me. Is it for everyone? I dunno. Are there merits to monogamy over polyamory? Sure. But the opposite is also true. What is worrisome isn't that everyone doesn't embrace polyamory - but that everyone (by that I mean the general social idea) accepts monogamy as the one true road without any real clear consideration of alternatives.
It all boils down to what's important in life. Is it important to find one person to make you happy, or is it just important to be happy, no matter if that comes from one person, twenty people, or no people? Is there value in binding a person to you, or in trusting in your own general worth to keep that relationship strong without having to insulate it from the real world? Is there value in spending all your time on one person, or dividing your time up amongst multiple people?
Please, give me some feedback here. I'd love to have a good open debate on the topic.
My thoughts about polyamory have been slowly growing more detailed as I live in this situation, face the difficulties and the advantages. I have a LOT of thoughts about it, and I can't even begin to hope to organize them into some cohesive essay on the subject - hence wanting to talk about it. I also don't feel like I've come to the end of the road in thinking about it, and good discussion often leads to better ideas.
I have come to understand that Mia and my's general thoughts about what exactly polyamory means are very similar but also wildly different. Her ideas about it focus on the idea of being able to love freely, without restraint. My thoughts on it (as is often the case in our differences) are much more logical and analytical. What polyamory means to me is a seperation between my relationships, and a much more dynamic, organic form of relationship with everyone I know. What I mean is, when in a monogamous relationship, that single relationship inherently becomes intertwined with all your other relationships. There's the obvious - you can't go get involved with anyone else. In that way, your relationship with one person becomes a hinderance to all others. More than that, though, the fact that you have to have a strictly defined line of 'I am with THIS person" means that all of your other relationships become as black-and-white. You are with them, or you're not. Obviously this isn't a huge issue with a lot of the people you know - you will have friends who there isn't some potential for a budding romantic relationship with. Particularly when gender gets involved - if I'm a straight male, I'm not going to have conflict not being able to date my guy friends. No issue. But it still, in some ways, creates a binary definition to how we see relationships that I don't think bears much resemblance to how real relationships work.
More than that, even in a relationship where there is an obvious 'yes' to the 'are we involved', that yes seems to imply an all or nothing. Either you're together in blissful happiness, or there's something horribly wrong and you need to consider breaking up/going to counseling. This is an unfortunate necessity when you are faced with picking only a single person to be 'perfect' for you for the rest of your life. Polyamory, however, changes the question when picking your 'mate' or 'mates'. No longer is it, "Is this person perfect to spend my life with?" It becomes, "Do I enjoy my time with this person?" Any relationship is going to wax and wane depending on changes in lives, personalities, hobbies, interests, etc. This isn't an evil, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with either person involved. If a relationship cools, it doesn't mean it's ending, or even that there's anything wrong - just that circumstances have lead to a cooling period. It may just as easily pick up again soon, or continue to cool until the two go seperate ways and rarely see each other anymore. But does that mean you need to have this awkward, arbitrary "break up" where you, for some reason, agree to not spend any time together regardless of what parts of your relationship may have worked well, and what parts of each other you like?
Polyamory allows the pursuing of any relationship that one has, seperate and without answering to other relationships one has. Let's face it - there may be people who find one person, fall in love, and never look at another person again. Maybe those people are out there. But the reality is, divorce rates are high, people 'cheat' on their significant others, and even if you're loyal - sometimes someone just catches your eye. Sometimes you find yourself flirting with that cute girl at work. Sometimes you find yourself wondering what it would be like with someone else. Is that wrong? Do we have to feel bad? My answers would be - it's not inherently wrong, but if you're in a monogamous relationship.... well, yeah, you do sorta have to feel bad. Monogamy comes with this spoken and partially unspoken agreement that you will keep this sort of unrealistic promise to keep your even most basic human responses under control. I'm not talking about not succumbing to mindless lust and sleeping around. I'm talking about finding someone else attractive. Occasionally wondering, "What if?" Okay... so what does that get you that polyamory might not offer?
Whenever discussing polyamory with people, there is an almost universal response I get from people who are in monogamous relationships: "Well, I just couldn't do it." I've thought a lot about that - firstly, I felt the same way until I was put into something of an uncomfortable position of choosing to open my relationship with Mia into polyamory or let it fade away. While that isn't ideal, looking back now, I see it was a necessity - when an idea like monogamy is based on nothing necessarily 'logical', but just social 'knowledge' (this is right, because it's right), you can't reason with it to lead the person to something more natural and happy. Moreover, facing it that way made me think a lot about monogamy and planted the seeds that have grown into the ideas I have now.
The other thing that often occurs to me thinking about the "Well I couldn't do it" is "Well... why not?" What is it about monogamy that keeps people tied down? I once was talking about polyamory with someone, and they asked me "So would you get married? What'd be the point of marriage?" And that made me think... what IS the point of marriage? Is the love between two people not sacred unless it also requires them to not pursue additional love - is love a scarse commodity? And is our love not valid unless legalized and put before ceremony? What IS the point of marriage?
More and more, the idea that occurs to me (and please, please feel free to contradict this if you disagree) is that the real weight behind people staying in monogamous relationships is fear. Change is scary, for sure, but more than that we're afraid of being alone. We're afraid of not being enough. We're afraid of our own flaws. So what is marriage? What is the draw of monogamy? What keeps people loyal to the idea of monogamy in the face of polyamory, where one can feel what they feel without having to feel guilty about it? I have a hard time thinking it's anything but the fear I hear expressed when I talk to people about this: "Well, what if they found someone better than me and left me for that person?"
There are a couple things I HAVE to say there. Firstly, polyamory doesn't really have that concept of 'left you for them'. It's not exclusive - finding someone who they click with better in some ways than with you doesn't mean they are required to drop you. If I find a friend who makes better jokes than my other buddy who I play video games with a lot, I'm not going to drop my other friend. I'm going to know them both, and my life will be further enriched by my friendship with both. The same applies for multiple relationships - each person is made happier by the involvement.
Point number two on "What if they found someone better and left me for that person": If that's the core thing keeping us involved in monogamy, than the logical conclusion is that the purpose of monogamous relationships, and by extension marriage, is just to make it more difficult for someone to leave us. It's setting up road blocks so that if a relationship is flagging, the person won't give up too easily. Or, at least, will have a hard time leaving if they decide that's what they want to do. Marriage is the ultimate road block there - it becomes fiscally, legally, socially difficult to end the thing. But is that what we want our relationships to be - chains that bind us together? I like to think of my relationships as things that lift me up, make life more beautiful, more worth living. Not something that will tie me down if it becomes sour. Nobody likes when a relationship ends - but again, that relies on the binary on/off. If we don't think of relationships as something that ENDS, but rather just will naturally taper off if it's not really working.... well, if something is just fading because neither person is all that involved/interested, it's not that painful, is it?
Final word on this general area of the topic: Possession. Monogamy, and marriage, by creating those chains, and setting those limitations, take a big step toward turning your object of affection into just that - an object to be possessed. This was something I came face-to-face with, and still do to some degree, in polyamory. Shrugging off the idea of possession. Mia has had a few other relationships while I've been here, and not feeling like those people are trying to take something that belongs to me was the first biggest hurdle I had to face. I was raised in a society that tought the idea, and thinking I could just give it up in a day was absurd. Now, whenever embarking on new ideas like these, it's important to take note of areas that cause this kind of hardship. It's important to try to weigh if it's causing issue b/c if something in you that you want to keep, or something you want to get rid of. I've NEVER liked the idea of feeling possessive over a girlfriend, and it's always been something I've strived to overcome, so I don't feel much hesitation at trying to overcome it. I think that's an idea most people would embrace - nobody wants to think they are possessive of their significant other. But while on the surface it can be easy to say it's something you don't want, you also have to consider what it means to give that up - not trying to keep them all to yourself. More than that, it's putting trust in the idea that you are worth coming back to if you "let" them wander. If you don't, somehow, try to chain them to you.
So downfalls of polyamory. The obvious one is this: While love is certainly not a limited commodity, time is. Do I have time to keep 10 relationships going? Well, depending on the level of those relationships... possibly? But is it worth keeping 10 surface-level relationships going? Probably not. Polyamory doesn't mean everyone is going to love everyone, we're all going to be in relationships with each other. It might mean you're involved with 2-3 people, instead of just 1. Maybe you're just involved with 1. I have no other relationships than Mia right now, Mia doesn't either at the moment. But we still consider ourselves to be polyamorous, and I still find that idea uplifting. If I find someone else, I can get involved. If she finds someone else, she can get involved. If I find some girl cute, and want to ask her out to a movie or drinks, I don't have to feel bad about it. More than that, I can talk to Mia about it, get her feedback - she can lift me up in my relationship with the new person. We have spent several nights talking back and forth to each other about prospective other relationships (that have not, as of yet, ended up going anywhere), but it's fun to do. It's uplifting. And in a way, I love her all the more for it.
Is polyamory a lifelong commitment? Do polyamorous couples get married? I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I only have the answers that seem natural to me. Is it for everyone? I dunno. Are there merits to monogamy over polyamory? Sure. But the opposite is also true. What is worrisome isn't that everyone doesn't embrace polyamory - but that everyone (by that I mean the general social idea) accepts monogamy as the one true road without any real clear consideration of alternatives.
It all boils down to what's important in life. Is it important to find one person to make you happy, or is it just important to be happy, no matter if that comes from one person, twenty people, or no people? Is there value in binding a person to you, or in trusting in your own general worth to keep that relationship strong without having to insulate it from the real world? Is there value in spending all your time on one person, or dividing your time up amongst multiple people?
Please, give me some feedback here. I'd love to have a good open debate on the topic.