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(EDIT: the only reason it was in my paper journal is b/c i wanted to sit outside & write, not use my computer. that was a stupid irrelevant comment i should have left out b/c it makes it seem like it's something real that's going on right now. which it's not.)
i left THIS POST not-filtered even tho it has poly content b/c i think it might be of interest to lots of folks.
the most important thing is to be 100% honest in your answers to yourself.
here's an example of how i process freaking out about poly stuff.
1. What is wrong?
i hate her
1a. Ok, so what is really wrong?
i can't believe he likes her.
1b. Better. What's wrong?
how can he like someone like her and someone like me?
1c. Ahh. Getting there! So what's wrong?
i'm afraid he'll like her better
2. What are you afraid of?
I told you - I'm afraid he'll like her better.
2a. Are you afraid of him liking her at all?
no.
2b. Are you afraid of liking her a lot?
yes.
2c.Are you afraid of him liking her period?
yes. fine.
3. Ok. Well, he likes her already. What you're afraid of exists. Now what?
Panic!
3a. No. Stop it. Have a cigarette. Why are you freaking out?
because he likes her
3b. So? Does he like you less?
uh, i don't know. he says he doesn't. he acts the same.
3c. So why are you freaking out?
uh. i'm not, really.
4. So what are you really afraid of?
that she'll be better in bed, that he'll like her more than me, that he'll want to spend less time w/ me, that our relationship will feel different, that he will want to leave me for her...
4a. Whoa! slow down! One at a time. Why does it matter if she's better in bed?
because sex is important to him - it's what makes a relationship a Relationship, not Friendship. if he likes sex w/ her better, he won't want sex w/ me. then we're just friends & might as well break up.
4a i. Have you ever known him to not want sex? Are all people the same? Has your wanting sex from 1 person ever changed how you feel about sex with someone else?
no. no. and no.
4a ii. Ok, so shut up. Still scared of that?
no.
4b. So what are the chances he'll like her more than you?
pretty slim.
4b i. What if he did, though. Would you want to force him to be in a relationship with you?
no
4b ii. So what would happen?
well, either she'd become his primary & i'd leave, or we'd be co-primaries b/c she'd probably be wicked fucking cool if he liked her enough to live with her.
4b iii. So is that a rational fear?
no. next?
5. Are any of those fears from #4 any different?
no. but what if she tries to break us up & steal him for herself?
5a. Does he want to be monogamous with anyone?
no. ok.
6. So what do you want to happen? What is your ideal situation? Can he give that to you & make sure that's what happens? Then will you be comfortable with him seeing her?
yeah, i think so.
sometimes this process takes place in my head, sometimes with josiah asking the questions... depends. sometimes we have had the same conversation over & over. sometimes i piss off josiah and myself having to repeat the process. some of it has become automatic. sometimes i get stuck at #1.
the process of questioningquestioningquestioning, always working deeper into the problem is how it works for depression, careerstuff, housemate stuff... of course the subsequent questions after #1 will always be a little different, but the probing nature of the questions, and my own persistence remains the same.
my goal is always to find out what i want, what i think i can have and what i need to do to make some of that happen without shutting down, without saying "no" or just closing someone/something off or running away.
just thought some of you might find this interesting, especially when i get so many "how can you do that?" questions about a lot of what i do. "how can you deal with jealousy?" "how can you live with your boyfriend's brother, the girl he was in love with for all of highschool and another random guy?" "how can you work all day with 14 year old bipolar/ADHD/asperger boys?"
answer: constant processing.
- i feel:
curious - i hear:39t - Western Mass Sacred Harp CD
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metaphorge : (no subject) [+1] - celtdreamsinger : The Poly thing [+7]
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Comments
there are a lot of great places online to learn more about polyamory. one is the polyamory community on LJ.
i'm not ready to commit to monogamy either, not till i see you two sexy babes one more time. or... maybe two more... well, how about 10...? ok, more like not till i'm like old, dying, on machines and crapping into a bag. then i'll think about it.
i think most people aren't ready to commit to polyamory. they prefer to cheat and lie and break up with people cuz it's easier than facing their own demons.
I suspect it may be a hardwired thing
(so to speak...*snickers*)... natural curiousity...
seriously though, you know my connection to
like
Hope it helps you as well...
*shrug*
i know some, but NOT ENOUGH!!! :)
heh heh. i find your wording interesting. i did not say he "isn't ready" - it's not a question of "readyness" it's actively choosing responsible, ethical, thoughtful non-monogamy. it is a lifestyle we both actively choose. neither of us wants to be monogamous, and in fact don't think that we ever could be. we want to be together for a long long time, but we both are well aware that we can and will be interested in, attracted to, and fall in love with others, but that this doesn't mean OUR relationship is over, damaged, broken or missing anything. polyamory (many loves) is, for us, the best & only way to deal with this. in the past i have broken up with partners (and been broken up with) when there was not really anything majorly wrong with the relationship to be with someone else. i have regretted one of those more than any other decision i've ever made in my life, and i won't let it happen again.
more information? there's a great website here: http://www.xeromag.com/fvpoly.html
there are other good ones here:
http://www.polyamory.org/ (the official site for the first poly community i ever found)
http://www.polyamory.com/
http://www.polyamorysociety.org/page6.h
http://www.sexuality.org/polyamor.html
please feel free to ask more questions! i can put you in my polyfilter if you'd like
you're quite welcome. :) maybe i should do this more often...
whoa, dude. there's nothing going on right now. it just occurred to me that it might be interesting to others to see how i do this.
just because it's hard to face one's fears doesn't mean that it's bad or to be avoided. fuck fear. i want to kick its ass. rah. sometimes it kicks back. oh well. i still win. "ask yourself if having polyamorous relationships is really worth all the drama and internal dialogues like the one you wrote above?" HELL yeah, it is. it's not very dramatic, really. if that is considered dramatic... hell, i won't even talk about what happens when i really actually get upset.
"you need to find a way to minimize the hurt you feel every time Josiah meets someone."
yup. i am, and i have been. i don't think i actaully do feel "hurt" - that's not it. it's fear and fear is to be battled. you can't battle something you're running away from. it gets easier every time, and a lot of this process now only takes 30 seconds or so. i just have to remind myself of it. we've only been actively poly for a year now (exactly a year and a day, in fact) and i imagine it will only get easier and easier.
"...you and Josiah may have different things you need from a relationship which opens a whole other can of worms."
yes, this is true. we do have different things we WANT out of our other sexual relationships - he has some extra "ideal goals" that i don't share, but everything i want he wants too. however, we do NOT want different things out of a Relationship and nor from each other. we are really happy and get along almost 100% of the time. we get along better than any other couples we know, which i attribute entirely to how well and how *thoroughly* we communicate with each other.
i'm not looking for advice. i'm just stating what is. :)
I guess when I write stuff out it's because I'm realyl upset and am trying to deal with my emotions in a logical manner as opposed to my natural explosion. My one question is how do you separate hurt and fear? It seems to me that fear is an expectation of hurt or damage sometime in the future....
separating hurt and fear... good question!!
hurt is a reaction to something that HAS happened. fear is reaction to something that may or may NOT happen. it's worth facing your fears to know what *would* hurt you if it happened so that you can take steps to either avoid it, or change your perceptions so that they don't hurt you.
i find that a lot of things i *think* hurt are really just very sharp fears that the actions *implied* something else, or are going to. so it's important to pick apart my hurts too.
the one thing that i almost always consider a "valid" hurt is something that shows lack of consideration or caring about *me* by the other person(s). i can usually get over it, if the person(s) convince me that they did think about me and thought that it would be ok, or that we'd come to some other agreement or whatever.
last year the "panic" phase came first, and the processing happened under the surface. then again the next day... and a couple days after that... and throughout their relationship.
finally, i said "you know what? FUCKTHIS!" :)
because sex is important to him - it's what makes a relationship a Relationship, not Friendship. if he likes sex w/ her better, he won't want sex w/ me. then we're just friends & might as well break up.
Sex isnt what makes a relationship a relationship and not a friendship. It's the love, the emotion that does that. Sex is an expression of that.
If you or him were physically unable to ever have sex again due to illness or injury would that make your relationship default to friendship? I dont think so.
For you.
now. i tend to agree with you. am i going to say that we are Right and everyone else is Wrong? no. do i have a hard time having sexual relationships with people whose views differ from mine? yes.
what do you call it if you have a friendship with someone, really like them & care about them, but are NOT in love with them, don't really have a lot of emotional or intellectual connection, just good sex? is that a Relationship? a Friendship? a Fuckbuddyship? :)
Not someone I want to spend a lot of time processing with just because we have great chemistry in bed.
;-)
thanks, sweetie.
Oh and BTW, the new icon of you sitting on the couch is totally Faboo!
it's
I finally logged into my livejournal today after about a century away from it, and was catching up on my friends page when something you said struck a chord. Something about sex being what makes a relationship a Relationship, and not a Friendship. I haven't read any of the comments on your post yet, so I don't know if anyone has already said anything about this, but:
I think I strongly disagree. Now, I'm not poly, myself, and I know for a fact that, although I am more than capable of comprehending it as a concept, my own insecurities would lead me far away from accepting a relationship with someone who is poly. But one of the strong bases of poly, at least as it was always explained to me, is that sex does NOT make the relationship more than a friendship. Sex is a physical act to be shared for mutual pleasure, often in concert with strong bonds of connectedness, caring, friendship, and so on. In this mindset, a sexual partner should be of no more threat to the primary relationship than a raquetball partner - even if the other raquetball player plays better than you do, and even if, god forbid, your primary partner enjoys playing raquetball with the other partner more. None of that should change the emotional bond and connectedness that you and the primary share, because what you and your primary should be sharing is a level of emotional connectedness that goes /beyond/ the sexual level. You should, by that theory, be able to stop having sex with your primary altogether (or raquetball - not that I am advocating that!!!) and find your relationship still stable and solid. (Okay okay, I admit - that's kind of "in a vaccuum" reasoning. Sex is often part of a relationship, and when any part of a relationship changes significantly, ripples can certainly be felt in the other areas of the relationship...not that those ripples necessarily have to be Bad Things...)
I dunno. Does that all make any sense? It's definitely just my opinion (sorry if it sounded preachy at all), but I really think that a major key to success with poly (or at least a semi-lowered stress level) is accepting sex as a recreational activity which you and your primary partner share. When you and your partner share it, you may choose to infuse it with the other parts of your relationship - such as love, caring, etc. - but that any sex you have with your primary, or that you two have with others, doesn't change, by definition, the nature of your primary relationship. Your relationship Is. The sex is what Happens.
Well, enough babbling - again, just my thoughts. :) I hope all is well!!!