Advice from a poly mentor: Open marriages are harder than monogamous ones. But I think it’s worth the effort, because open marriages can be better.
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I’m noticing that I’m surrounded by people whose primary motivation seems to be avoiding problems.
I prefer to live my life in a way that balances maximizing utility while minimizing the consequences of problems. As far as I’m concerned, problems can come and go as they please.
We’re all familiar with the economic concept of a good. For the polar opposite, there’s also the economic concept of a bad. In short, a bad (noun) is trash. Something that you want to get rid of, or something that’s not worth the resources (time, space, money) required to maintain it.
Jealousy is a bad.
At least it can be in excess, or in certain forms. Many people in any variety of relationship models actively work to avoid jealousy. Jealousy can be so unfortunate a feeling, that they’ll go to pretty big lengths, and possibly miss some good opportunities, to avoid it.
What if, instead, the goal were to minimize jealousy, or somehow deal with it?
What if someone got a large amount of utility out of a certain action (or interaction, person, or thing), and the consequences to their personal network might include jealousy, pain or discomfort? Does it matter that the negative emotions for one person might be less intense than the positive emotions for another?
For me, it does. I’d happily endure some temporary discomfort or uncertainty if I knew my partner was having a wonderful time. After all, my partners share their happiness with me, and in my ideal relationship, their happiness rubs off on me. So even on a selfish basis, it’s worth it to me to get a little discomfort for a lot of joy.
Plus, the absence of problems doesn’t mean things are going well. In a tight, well-run system, problems are discovered, dealt with, and overcome, ideally with a result that makes future iterations of that problem even easier to deal with. If I’m doing well, I can take emotional risks and quite possibly get very strong emotional rewards.
In a poorly run system, it may be more important to avoid problems, as even simple problems have the potential to completely derail it. That doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.
What does sound like fun is having new experiences, learning how I react to them (and giving myself permission for the answer to be: poorly), learning how to react to or deal with them better, and becoming a stronger person who knows more things, has had more experiences, and is more able to provide value to society than I was before.
*****
Epilogue: the poly mentor mentioned above is going through a spousal separation right now.
*****
Questions or comments? I’ve got answers! Try my at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
*****
I’m noticing that I’m surrounded by people whose primary motivation seems to be avoiding problems.
I prefer to live my life in a way that balances maximizing utility while minimizing the consequences of problems. As far as I’m concerned, problems can come and go as they please.
We’re all familiar with the economic concept of a good. For the polar opposite, there’s also the economic concept of a bad. In short, a bad (noun) is trash. Something that you want to get rid of, or something that’s not worth the resources (time, space, money) required to maintain it.
Jealousy is a bad.
At least it can be in excess, or in certain forms. Many people in any variety of relationship models actively work to avoid jealousy. Jealousy can be so unfortunate a feeling, that they’ll go to pretty big lengths, and possibly miss some good opportunities, to avoid it.
What if, instead, the goal were to minimize jealousy, or somehow deal with it?
What if someone got a large amount of utility out of a certain action (or interaction, person, or thing), and the consequences to their personal network might include jealousy, pain or discomfort? Does it matter that the negative emotions for one person might be less intense than the positive emotions for another?
For me, it does. I’d happily endure some temporary discomfort or uncertainty if I knew my partner was having a wonderful time. After all, my partners share their happiness with me, and in my ideal relationship, their happiness rubs off on me. So even on a selfish basis, it’s worth it to me to get a little discomfort for a lot of joy.
Plus, the absence of problems doesn’t mean things are going well. In a tight, well-run system, problems are discovered, dealt with, and overcome, ideally with a result that makes future iterations of that problem even easier to deal with. If I’m doing well, I can take emotional risks and quite possibly get very strong emotional rewards.
In a poorly run system, it may be more important to avoid problems, as even simple problems have the potential to completely derail it. That doesn’t sound like very much fun to me.
What does sound like fun is having new experiences, learning how I react to them (and giving myself permission for the answer to be: poorly), learning how to react to or deal with them better, and becoming a stronger person who knows more things, has had more experiences, and is more able to provide value to society than I was before.
*****
Epilogue: the poly mentor mentioned above is going through a spousal separation right now.
*****
Questions or comments? I’ve got answers! Try my at polysaturated@rocketmail.com.
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