(no subject)

[serene]

There's a thread somewhere else about how to go about saving a relationship in which one person is monogamous and unhappy about the other person's newly annouced polyamorous desires. The poster seems to be struggling to find the ethical and loving way to deal with this, but one way zie wants to do this is to find poly friends and relationship possibilities, and introduce them to zir partner to show that they're nice people (or some such). In responding to this person, I put into words something that I haven't really talked about much in public, and I thought I'd share.

Until you said you were looking for relationship possibilities, I had no problem with it, either. And if I were your partner, I'd be fine with it either way, because I'm fine with my partners seeking other partners. But she's clearly NOT fine with that, and I think you may be downplaying that aspect of it to justify going out to meet folks you might want to date in the near future.

And why I think this is that that's what I did. It blew up on me, and I hope it doesn't blow up on you.

I honestly didn't think I was seeking partners when I got together with stonebender/someotherguy/sogwife, but what was obvious to other people and not to me was that I was. I was stifled and unhappy in my de facto monogamous relationship, and I wanted romance and NRE in my life (I even wrote about wanting them in my LJ a few months before that), and I changed the way I interacted with people so that I was more open to romance than I usually am.

It was the beginning of the downfall of my relationship with cute-poet-chick (not that that relationship was all that easy to begin with, but it was beautiful and loving, on the whole, and I didn't want it to end).

That whole thing taught me never to agree to any form of monogamy, because it makes me unhappy enough that I'll do slimy things to wiggle out of my unhappiness. (I never cheated on cute-poet-chick -- I learned the hard way, by cheating on TOTGA, that that way lies misery -- but I did things I would've advised poly newbies not to, like pushing for faster change than she wanted, and accepting my new loves' housekeys without checking with my existing partner first. Stuff like that.) Nowadays, I set my own rules, but I've been burned by my own thoughtlessness before, and as much as I'm now in the best, happiest relationships of my life, I hope I can stop learning things the hard way.

Comments

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

That's exactly why deyo and I ended up poly. He loved me too much to want to hurt me by trying monogamy and failed, he knows he's not wired that way. I said, "Well hey, there's this other way." And here we are.

[mackenzie]

Thank you for sharing.

[sagefemme11.livejournal.com]

Beautifully written, this post. Winds and dances a bit to the understanding that it's all about supporting one another in our loves.

[jenhowell.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I'm just navigating a transition and sometimes I feel like I'm so unwise, undisciplined and selfish. Really, I'm probably doing a great job and my partner is amazingly cool about everything. But I'm allowing cultural guilt in, for sure.

[fifi-the-turtle.livejournal.com]

I just want to say that this exact situation was a major part of what split up my parents after 16 years of marriage - so it's nothing to sneeze at!

[wcg.livejournal.com]

seeble