There are some tricky issues in communication. Many of us have our sensitivities and our embarrassments. Not many things under the sun are new. I think a lot of Americans have a fairly fairytale sense of how romance should be, a sense that doesn’t mesh with reality. This is one example where communication gets chopped up because there is a poorly defined unattainable perfect standard to which we all fall short.
If you want just marriage, just one partner, for the whole life, by all means say that. But you can’t assume that. You can’t assume that anymore than you can assume that white culture is the right culture or that men understand female concerns. It’s beyond stupid to actually give that idea credibility because we’re dealing with highly subjective things. But we think that way often accidentally even though we don’t mean to approve of stupid ideas.
I think that if you love someone you help understand them and help support them even to the extent that they end up doing things that you don’t need or want but it’s not all about you if you are loving someone and you have any notions of practicality and efficiency so that you want your love to make a difference. Take a scenario I’ve been playing with where you’ve got a woman who wants a man and only one man and a man who had genuinely loved more than one woman. And to complicate this woman actually loves this one man because they click in so many ways. The difference of love pluralism might be one of the very few issues. What happens?
I know the text book American answer is that the man obviously needs to pick one woman he wants. But I’m saying there are other options AND that other similarly obvious beliefs are just as myopic. I’ll explain.
For starters each person is in charge of themselves and to think otherwise is counterproductive. Regarding two people: you and me, whatever quest you are on we meet when my quest intersects your quest in some sort of tangent. Your quest through life is important to you and mine is to me. If you are important to me then your quest is important to me at least meaning I would like to see you continue to follow it as you see fit. Your quest can’t be to remote control my behavior because that will create obviously conflicting objectives. You won’t succeed. I can’t support you down that road even if I love you and the whole relationship fizzles.
What remains unfair is methods of deceit. It’s wrong to be tricked into something where the deceiver absolutely knew the trick was being performed. There are bad people out there. Being open to individual quests does not imply that all quests are worthy just that each person has their own and it is the path that brings people together initially so it fed the interest and you should perpetuate that which makes your connection greater, meaning you should respect the quest of your loved ones.
Sure, I’m not really solving problems I’m adding complexity. But you do get several things from this. It seems to me that some of our less virtuous feelings such as jealousy, loneliness, enviousness, and rage are based on the fact that everybody is experiencing a similar quest and understands all the same values and priorities and somehow you’ve been victimized, left out or tricked in a way that it’s obvious to everybody what they did. These feelings suggest that a crime was in fact committed. For jealousy, the crime was one of disproportionate benefits going to the undeserving. for Loneliness the benefits are attention of people you value. Rage makes you feel slighted and immune from condemnation in trade and then you can go on the tirade.
We can sidestep all that. A person cannot be anything but what he is. He is more than one action but how much more? We’ll have to find a way to determine that on a case by case situation. Remember you don’t necessarily understand their quest, only that they are on one. Until you actually look and figure their quest out, you can’t compare yourself to them without overlooking a seriously important aspect of their individuality. Individuality is so important that looking at people as individuals instead of as women, as men, as Christians, as Arabs and treating them with women, men, Christian, or Arab gloves is considered bigoted. Treat me with your individual gloves, you asshole.
So the woman could love the man who loves more than one woman because the woman loves the man for something she sees and she gets something from the interaction. She might take advantage of his actions with the other lover to understand him better through observation. She might have her own things that she would pursue and now she has time. She might withdraw her love and move on. That’s her choice to make her choices. And when you love someone as she does him, she should leave his choices to him.
So when I was dating several people at the same time (great people all of them), they might have been low self-esteem people. They might have had all sorts of negative reasons why they would let me have their trust and intimacy. But I think the only real surprise was when I ended up very much favoring one of them because I had thought I wouldn’t be loving one person so much so soon after a previous relationship had gone all to hell. But if I ask you for something and you say yes to me, I cannot be held to a higher standard where secretly I totally know what you really meant. I will want to have considered what you really mean. But ultimately, I need to depend on you to be true to your quest. If “yes” is not on that quest, say “no”.
Isn’t that the way partners get true respect and true autonomy? When we stop trying to reign them in and think for them and instead try to work with them?
P.S. I have an awesome partner with no complaints. This post should not be seen as a complaint with her because I have none.
First, enviousness isn’t a word. It’s envy. Much more concise
Also, your scenario works well for you and your partner because of the dynamics of your relationship. Which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it and you shouldn’t feel like you have a responsibility to defend it or anything. It’s maybe not a social norm, and there are probably people who think it’s kind of crude, but they’re entitled to their opinions, and you’re entitled to do whatever the fuck you want.
HOWEVER, to assert that there’s something inherently dishonest or cruel about a monogamous relationship is pure bullshit (and I know you never said that explicitly, but I see it implied). If both parties are ACTUALLY willing to explore a polygamous relationship, more power to them. What makes me uncomfortable is that often, it’s one partner who wants to go spelunking, and the other only agrees to it because they’ve been bullied into doing so with implicit accusations of closed-mindedness, or the ever shitty, “if you really loved me, you’d let me go boff whoever I want because I’m a free bird, man.” It has the potential to turn into a manipulative, disrespectful, and perhaps even abusive relationship.
Wish I could write something a little more inspiring right now, but I just feel off today. I’ll try to revisit this a bit later when I’m not all Mopey McMoperson.
I appreciate the comment.
For your first paragraph after the grammar catch, I think the social norm is slipping and not just for me. Also, I think people should get their consciousnesses raised on the issue. There are alternatives. The world isn’t working in a white picket fence way. I’m going to be watching our generation’s marriages for how long they last because I know lot’s of long standing marriages from 2 generations ago. What’s happening? Maybe what people want is changing and the social norm hasn’t caught up. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and no problem there. But only your opinion made it to my blog alongside mine. One goal of blogging my opinion is starting a conversation.
Next, there is something inherently dishonest and cruel about a monogamous relationship and any other default. The cruelty is that people don’t put the same thought into their world when they are doing normal things. How many people (include me) do you know that have overlooked some serious calculations because we figured despite the complications this is what people do, we can work it out? Folks have a right to make the choice to be monogamous even when they aren’t considering what they actually want, but they might statistically end up even worse than I did. There is a concern when you take your real life for granted. You can find monogamy, but you cannot find it by taking it for granted in my opinion.
Lastly, I think it is more common for people to have separate sets of interests, values, boundaries somehow rather than expecting them to be on the same page. That’s the scenario that will replay the most often. And the question their is: what is more important to partner-1? Is it partner-2 for being partner-2 or is it simply a feature set that partner-1 is looking for? Really, there is a level where a person is looking for any other person that fits minimum criteria to avoid feeling lonely. I like being around people. I think that’s mostly natural and should be expected. And I also think that some people self-inflict the differences between themselves and their partner upon themselves. They feel lower for the differences and less lovable. In the cases I have seen closely, those people are definitely lovable. Question the common relationship standard, and unlock your ability to choose what you feel and how you feel it in a relationship. That’s what I’m stabbing blindly around the post at.
I do value your comment and your opinion. There is likely more than one way to skin this cat and maybe we can discuss those.
You know… I just realized that I’m probably not really equipped to handle this discussion, as I have cheated and been dishonest about it. And you know I have a lot of questions about my own relationship. So… I guess I don’t really have much of an opinion on the matter. I really want monogamy to work. I look at my mom’s relationship, and I know they’re really happy and content the way that they are. Maybe it’s because they’re both in their 50s and have only been together for about three years, and they’re probably two of the most content people I know. I just want a relationship like that… where there’s no drama, no uncertainty, no fear, but plenty of intellectual engagement and common interest.
I think that’s a very properly set goal. I want that too. I don’t want contentment to actually turn out to be me finally having run out of the energy to question my givens. I hope it’s more like better technique.
Amazing as always
[...] wrote about this a little in my post “Say What You Mean.” If I ask a person what they want to do, I want their individual preference. Don’t [...]