Surprise!

All of my former lovers were surprised when I informed them they have turned from lovers to former lovers, and I’m likewise always surprised at that reaction.  How can it be that only one person detects when a relationship model is failing to work?

I suppose that depends on what in a relationship is in fact failing.  One way for a relationship to end is for it to simply fizzle out.  It’s possible that passion fades for one person much faster than it does for the other, and in that case, the end of a relationship may come as a surprise for the person for whom the passion is still intact.  Even then, I might assume there is more acute sting than surprise.  Is it hard to realize when a lover is distracted or losing interest?

Another way for a relationship to end is for it to crash and burn.  Some people like a healthy dose of energy-laden argumentation, and if it happens enough, then the time/frequency/duration/topic that became a deal breaker for one partner may come as a surprise to the other.  On the other hand, is anyone particularly surprised when an argument goes completely awry?

I now warn my long-term lovers of my tendency to pop surprise breakups on people, and my secondary requested a great low-level commitment that I think can apply to any number of relationships: if you’re going to break up with me, first tell me why and give me the option of attempting to change my behavior to avoid losing you.  Or of deciding it’s not worth the hassle and allowing you to let me go with my full permission.

It’s a bit like an ultimatum, with perhaps a kinder underlying assumption.  I admit I’ve used that policy to great effect.  As may not be surprising, I did not in fact get a behavior change out of the ultimatum.  What I did get was at least as good--a well-thought-out, carefully-worded explanation of the reasoning and assumptions behind the behavior I wasn’t happy with.  The result was a change in me such that the issue was no longer confusing, and no longer a deal-breaker.

I’m thinking through some of the deal-breakers I’d had and the resulting relationship endings.  Would an ultimatum have worked out well?  Possibly, or it might have at least given the other party some autonomy in the matter of a breakup.  “I’m uncomfortable with the amount of influence your mother has over your life; I’d prefer you use your own brain,” may be tough to hear, but it might also have been good insight for a teenager trying to navigate his way around the world.

I’m also remembering an ultimatum I gave that didn’t exactly come with the option of a simple behavior change.  “Your arguing style doesn’t work for me,” along with a copy of Difficult Conversations (which outlines an arguing style that does work for me) came with the best intentions, but several more days of hearing about the profound insights to be found in a book touting arguing about issues rather than simply at people made me conclude that anyone who ever thought post-puberty that personal mud-slinging was an acceptable mode of self-expression simply wouldn’t be able to earn and keep my respect.

The ultimatum is not a great deal of commitment, nor does is always work, but it can and has saved relationships.  Or it can at least illustrate to all parties why the end of a particular relationship could be an overall good idea.  I might recommend trying it out--sparingly.

*****

Questions or comments?  I've got opinions.  Try me: polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

Security

It takes a lot of security in a relationship to open it up.

New relationship energy (NRE, in poly-speak; puppy love in common parlance) from an established partner towards a different (presumably newer) partner can be incredibly scary.  People experiencing NRE only see the new partner’s best qualities, and they tend to obsessively think and talk about the new partner, even around established ones or perfect strangers whose polite smiles and nods are taken as interest in the subject (confidential to all of my former monogamous lovers: I knew when you were in crush with someone else.  You did not hide it well.  Funny that I did not mind very much).  It can be a hard thing for even a secure established partner to take, let alone someone who’s at all nervous about their status in a relationship.  NRE never lasts forever, though there are some tricks to augment or bring it back (sounds like a blog post, but in short: have adventures with your established lovers, and the newness of the situation will make the relationship seem new), which may be good news for the established lover.  But new relationships, even non-romantic ones, pop up all the time, and it might help to have reasonable expectations or techniques to mitigate damage in the context of an open relationship.

To quote someone else who would prefer not to be named: people sometimes mistake monogamy for intimacy.  Monogamy is (among other things, some very positive) a method of dealing with insecurity, potentially by ignoring, suppressing, or downright disallowing it.  Sometimes the result is hiding situations that can inspire insecurity.  Monogamous relationship models certainly can include intimacy.  Something to keep in mind, though, is that intimacy is hard.  Truly understanding and appreciating the unflattering either in or from a partner is not easy.  Many things that are not easy are well worth the hard work.  Others require hard work and ultimately result in failure; working towards true intimacy can be a high-risk, high-reward scenario.  Ideally, intimacy begets inclusion; two (or more) people who truly understand, appreciate, and know each other.  One way to highlight inclusion is by the exclusion of others.  Indeed, any two people who truly connect have some sort of unique attachment that is not shared with any outside partner, no matter how intimate.  However, the converse is not necessarily true; not every exclusion comes with inclusion of something else, hence the “mistake” of equating monogamy for intimacy.

What is it that we’re afraid of from non-monogamy?  Ultimately, the fear is of loss of some kind.  Time can be lost to someone else, and a great excuse for continuing monogamy (in fact, an excuse that I’ve used myself) is that people in love may feel like they don’t get enough time with each other.  Why contribute to the problem by spending even less time with a monogamous partner in order to open up the relationship to others?

I’ve mentioned this before, but the answer for me has to do with quality of time spent.  Just like anything in life, a little outside perspective and exploration can add a lot of value to a long-term operation (it’s no coincidence that intellectual thrillers show the great insight coming during the shower scene), and I’m happy to relinquish a quantity of time for improved quality, even if any process of changing takes a bit of getting used to. 

And time does not necessarily equal security.  I’m certainly willing to admit that I was incredibly lucky to have had a fantastic decade-plus closed relationship to overflow my psyche with security in that relationship and to warm me up to the idea of opening up.  But timing is different for everyone, and a decade is a long time to wait for most goals (if opening up a monogamous relationship is indeed anyone’s goal).

I suppose we can be afraid of being devalued or no longer valued, and that is indeed a risk.  In an ideal world, more people in a lover’s life simply add to one’s own life (by contributing energy, or ideas, or resources), and don’t take anything away.  The truth is, I can think off the top of my head of two people whose spaces in my heart have been replaced by new lovers who have simply fit my needs better.  Switching lovers out, even only emotional lovers, was indeed selfish of me, though one might argue that finding someone open and honest to “replace” someone who would be cheating if involved with me is generally good for society (even with that caveat, I switched lovers for my own benefit, and with no logical thought on my own part).

All of my lovers are my favorites, for one reason or another.  In some cases, I can articulate the reason, and sometimes it’s just a nebulous feeling I get about the entire package.  In practicality, though, I find myself uninspired by a fantastic all-around person who doesn’t somehow also shine as a uniquely bright spot in my life (some people call that "chemistry").  One of the tricks to obtaining and maintaining security in a relationship may be to find, acknowledge, and cultivate that bright spot in your lovers and other people.  Frequent mention or appreciation of those bright spots seems to help.  As does constant effort for improvement to keep those spots shining brightly on the other side.


*******



Questions or comments?  I've got opinions.  Try my at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

How to tell if they want you without asking

Let me tell you one of my least favorite messages to give:

I’m willing to sleep with a lot of people.  And you are not among them.

I am compelled to give that message a lot (statistically speaking, it’s unlikely that you are in that category if you’re reading this.  Hi, Jody).  And I try to soften the blow as much as I reasonably can, especially if I have no evidence that the recipient is a moron.  After all, I’ve been told many times that the male ego is precious and delicate and all-important to making the world go round.  But here’s the problem: a softly-conveyed message doesn’t always seem to come across.

I grew up in the South, where politeness is highly valued.  Just kidding--I grew up in a European household, where politeness is highly valued.  Either way, I’ve heard a lot of complaints in the past decades that politeness has been defenestrated.  And I think there’s a good reason.  I can give a message gently, if the social contract is that you will think hard enough to correctly interpret the message when it comes gently.  If the message fails to come through, I may have to yell to get my point across.  Especially a point as important as I-am-not-sleeping-with-you.

So here’s a cheat sheet of how to get that the answer is no, without anyone having to spell it out in gory detail and damage that all-important gender-nonspecific ego (you can pretend that giving up was your idea if you get the clues first):

Consider the option that the reason I’m so happy is that my bed is already full.  I’ll grant that I’m flirtier than most.  I smile more.  More things are funny to me than the average person.  I’ve got a lot of energy.  I know it may look like this behavior is a response to a great deal of chemistry between me and you, personally.  But really, it’s that I’m happy.  And there are a lot of people making me happy, thanks.  If you’re new to the game of my life, you’re probably still a minor character, and I’m booked tonight, thanks.

I smile with my eyes, not my boobs.  If you’re asking me out or flirting or carrying on in public, keep your eyes up.  I’m going to smile, either because I like you or because I don’t like you and want to make sure I don’t inadvertently convince someone else who might like you that you’re a dud.  If you asked me out and my eyes light up, I like you.  If you asked me out and my eyes looked tired, then I’m empathizing with you being at the end of a long line of people who are trying and failing to get on my evening schedule.

No means no.  And a lot of other things mean no, too.  For example, “yeah, maybe, let me check my schedule” is not an invitation for you to check my schedule.  Vague interest probably means I think you’re a reasonable person, but not reasonable enough for me to spend time getting to know you.  An actual time stated, especially if it comes with a location, is a date.

Am I actually talking to you?  If you find yourself expressing >75% of the words in our “conversation,” especially if you’re following me around because I’m moving in a direction that’s not towards you, I probably don’t find you as interesting as you find yourself.  Bonus points on this one if most of your words are about how awesome you think you are.

I don’t kiss you back.  Maybe it’s me.  Maybe it’s you.  But it only takes one to detect lack of chemistry.  Extra special bonus points here if I was moving away when you tried to kiss me.

I’m looking for an escape route.  You’re looking at my face, and I’m looking over you, to the side of you, around you, or through you.  Or, my torso may be pointing toward you, but my feet are pointing away, as if that’s where they want me to go.  The bottom line is, if it looks like I’m looking for something that’s more important than you so I can escape without hurting your feelings, I probably am.  Feel free to cut me some slack and pretend to see something more important than me as well.

There are a bunch more messages that can give a clue when the answer is no, and feel free to stick some of them on comments.  This is by no means an exhaustive list, only a few tactics that I’ve used with various degrees of success.

And I know I’m going to get some flak for not being honest here.  Polyamorous people value open and honest communication above all else, and it’s true.  Honesty is going to trump other values at any time.  What I’m aiming for here is an advanced skill--open, honest, and kind communication.  And as with any type of communication, the kind aspect is a two-way street.  So I’m going to go for kind and honest first, hope my recipient will understand and react appropriately, and bring up the big guns of brutal honestly only later.  I’m just hoping to walk softly so I can avoid using that big stick.

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Questions or comments?  I've got opinions.  Try my at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.

Vignettes

It seems my life revolves around having a setting with three people, who may be differentially involved, at a time.  So I’m going to show some vignettes about concurrent interactions with multiple lovers.

Bear in mind that in my model, metamours generally know each other but don’t necessarily hang out with each other of their own volition.  An exception is my secondary’s primary--she’s awesome, and I’ll hang out with her whenever she’s willing to have me around.

*******

My spouse was out, and I was going to go on a date with my non-spousal primary.  He told me to be ready at 4.  It was 4:05 when I got a Skype call from my secondary (at the time, the non-spousal primary hadn’t been elevated yet, so the two people in question were of equal status, which is how I like it anyway.  Secondary also sounds like a bad word, but I promise it’s of his own volition).  I told the secondary I was happy to talk, but only until the doorbell rang.

4:15 came and went, and I came to the realization that, since I was going to be dominated on this date, part of the game was that I got to wait once I was all dolled up.  But I was at my own house and had gotten no further instructions, so I might as well catch up with the secondary while I wait.

5:05 came and went.  I was still chatting with my secondary.  We had a good thing going.  I was just more dressed up than usual for a phone call.

5:20 the doorbell rang.  And *then* I found all the texts explaining the car troubles.

*******

Remind me: are you the lover who likes her eggs runny or the one who likes them firm?

*******

My spouse doesn’t like coffee.  My ritual for when he’s out and I’m in (which is pretty rare; I’m busy) is that I make myself some coffee and enjoy it immensely in his absence.

Sometimes, my spouse comes back for something he’s forgotten after I’ve already started drinking the coffee.  In that case, I get a kiss on the cheek instead of the lips when he leaves again.

A completely different lover made me some delicious coffee one morning.  I was drinking it when he leaned over to kiss me.  Out of habit, I ducked so he’d get my cheek.  Then I remembered I was *not* with the lover who doesn’t like coffee and had to laugh and explain myself.

From this lover’s primary, who was also at the table: I wondered about that gesture.

*******

My spouse had a date over at the house, and it was a first date, so I didn’t want to risk messing things up by being there.  I booked myself a good, long massage.

My spouse drove the date home, and I headed back to the house by foot.  In the meantime, my non-spousal primary called.  We had a chat.  I got home, and I still wanted to chat.  Assuming my spouse was already back inside, I sat on the doorstep to finish my call.

After a while, my spouse drove up in the car.  Turns out the date lived far away.

“Gotta go,” I said.  “I want to ask my spouse how the date went.”

*******

Secondary: I won’t come visit you because you don’t have an air conditioner, and it’s July.

Three days later, me: My extremely burly spouse hauled up and installed that 10,000 BTU dinosaur burner for you.

Secondary: Please thank him for me.  I’ll see you soon.

*******

Me: While you were busy, I called another lover.  I said I was calling because I didn’t have anything to say.  He pointed out that was odd.

Lover: *laugh* I want to take this guy out for beers and talk about you.


*******


Got a question or comment?  I’m here for you: polysaturated@rocketmail.com.