As a follow-up to my recent post about some things ethical non-monogamy is not, I thought it might be fun to consider some things ENM can be, in the best of circumstances.
Having the audio is GREAT! I’ve had barely any time to read the posts and it felt difficult to justify the subscription. Now I am happy that I have it, since I can listen to the written things while building my camper van after work. I love it!
Thanks Chris, me and my girlfriend are listening together everytime in our own preperation for opening things up when we feel it is right. We enjoy your ramblings as well😊
One thing that came to mind when listening to. You spoke of people struggling and working through jealousy of seeing their partner with someone else. Jealousy wasn’t my issue, but I did get upset when my wife would find someone that I didn’t feel was good enough for her.
Not quite sure where this fits into the discussion, but I've been perplexed in relationships where my partner has actually wanted me to be jealous, regarding jealousy as a near-perfect correlate of love and desire (as in, if you're not jealous, you really don't care about me). You would think this is the exclusive province of the young and ignorant, but no! Sometimes it is even worse with women who have aged past the height of their self-perceived attractiveness. I've worked throughout my life to overcome my early jealousy, which I regard pretty much as exclusively a Bad Thing; and it baffles me that this pathological ugliness can be persuasive to anyone as a desirable feature.
So, I am not saying that I have the definitive solution. I am judt saying that I think non-monogamy increases the chances of problems in monogamous couples who are happy as they are, assuming, or course, that they are going to be attracted to other people. Sorry for my long talk. Greetings from Galicia (Spain).
My interpretation is that everyone experiences attraction to others irregardless of whether we're in a relationship or not. It's in our DNA. Not only that, but certain people can help us grow as individuals. They have personality traits, knowledge or expeirence that we can learn and grow from. Having them in our lives enhances our life experience and helps us attain a higher level of being. Another factor is that sex is an important part of human relationships and social interaction. We form deep connections with people that we have sex with. At least I do. I've never had sex with a person that I didn't want to keep in my life in some capacity. In monogomous relationships there are strict rules regarding who we can interact with and how we can interact with. In my view this cuts off our natural desire to form deeper relationships with people in the ways that I've mentioned. In non-monogamous relationships couples begin to develop rules to help themselves and their partner pursue their needs and their own personal growth while not sabotaging the relationship that they already have with someone they love deeply or hurting them.
Of course monogamous couplew can break up sooner or later when something is no longer going well, but I think that non-monogamous couples are more likely to break up even uf things are going well for them. Simply because one of the two falls in love or just is too infatiated with another person. And, whe teo people fall in love or are infatuated, they want to be togerher as much as possible, which leaves the otger person isolated and probably very screeed. And, again, sorry for my way of express in English language.
What you describe is very poor management of one's emotions. New relationship energy is a thing but people can be aware of it and balance it out with their other partnerships. I have seen it, I have done it. It just requires discipline and self regulation.
Hi every body and, first of all, excuse my poor English. I do not try to deny that we humans, we all feel atracttion almost every day to other humans appart to our own partner. Of course we feel it. My pointI think, honestly, that all we should be sincere with our partners. Sinceres to the death! But, also I think that we can have an agreement with our partner: As long as our relationship is happy and we are both satisfied being together, we should avoid having sex with other people. I have had 6 long-term relationships in my life and I know or many otger cases in my environment and, when a relationship ends, the most common thing is that one of the two people suffers a lot.
I think an interesting topic would be how time consuming non-mongamy can be, to an extend that time could become a major, if not the biggest issue.
I remember some folks living in polyamory constellation with 4-5 participants and it felt like they barely had any life besides spinning around themselves.
For me (or us 3), it was an issue, too, because
a) the center (not me) was in a full-time job and on one day of the weekend she met me, the other day him, but where was the time for herself?
b) a similar effect like described with the folks above: spinning a lot around our issues, that it sometimes felt like someone spinning around just himself, just multiplied. In a way a multi-egocentric game. This is a possible trap of ENM, imo.
That also would be what ENM _can_ be, even if it is not of the joyous parts.
Yes!! I often feel like I have another full time job trying to juggle my different connections and connections take a lot of energy. They are extremely fulfilling, but at what cost? I often wonder, for ENM couples, do they work full time? How, logistically speaking, can you meet needs of so many while working full time, being a parent, wanting to see friends/family, and having time to yourself? I love not being constrained, but I feel like modern society forces it in a way because life is so different than our hunter gatherer ancestors. How can our biology be woven into the fabric of modern society? It's really hard. I almost think ENM forces LESS commitment and commitment is a beautiful thing that helps us so much in this thing we call life.
That's always a big misconception, that ENM forces less commitment. It forces a lot more commitment while leaving more autonomy and freedom. Those things are very different.
And regarding time, that's absolutely true, time is our most valuable commodity. And we have to use it wisely. There are certainly some poly people who over saturate themselves and that can be a symptom of many things. But being poly never means that you have to have many relationships at once all the time. It just means you have autonomy to decide how and with whom you spend your time credit. Whether you do that wisely or not, that's a therapy question.
Time credit - I like that. I would hypothesize that when boiled down, autonomy is the draw for most of us who feel naturally inclined towards ENM, is because we tend to move that way through the world. Most of us are independent, thinkers, dreamers, and do-ers, in the sense that we build things and are creatives. From personal networks to business to relationships, we value the autonomy to figure out what we want, what happens as we age/change, and what brings us joy. ENM is not my only source of identity, but being tapped into my sexual identity I think deepens my authenticity with life.
What is making this special compared to monogamic relationships? I think this all is true for them, too, unless it is a rather paranoid monogamy where even looks are forbidden, which admittedly might occur often.
Is it that for non-monogamy this all is valid but even more so because it's more than just looks?
How's the fact that with familiarity comes a blindness, which then is lifted when seeing from a different perspective related to the fact that there are some aspects of the other are in principle not recognizable? What do I miss? Can you / somebody explain?
Maybe I wasn't very clear, but what I was trying to convey is the experience of how seeing someone familiar to you through the eyes of others can bring insight. Like if someone new is in your house, and they say, "Wow, I love the color of that wood," and you think, "I've never noticed that, but she's right, it's a nice color!"
This video has another great technique for these situations:
https://youtu.be/bH1JThlQKe4?si=-7aMzeOps-7mrvP1
Having the audio is GREAT! I’ve had barely any time to read the posts and it felt difficult to justify the subscription. Now I am happy that I have it, since I can listen to the written things while building my camper van after work. I love it!
Thanks Chris, me and my girlfriend are listening together everytime in our own preperation for opening things up when we feel it is right. We enjoy your ramblings as well😊
I like this. Keep these type of things coming. I don’t give a shit how many emails I get from you or any of the other spammers out there.
One thing that came to mind when listening to. You spoke of people struggling and working through jealousy of seeing their partner with someone else. Jealousy wasn’t my issue, but I did get upset when my wife would find someone that I didn’t feel was good enough for her.
Not quite sure where this fits into the discussion, but I've been perplexed in relationships where my partner has actually wanted me to be jealous, regarding jealousy as a near-perfect correlate of love and desire (as in, if you're not jealous, you really don't care about me). You would think this is the exclusive province of the young and ignorant, but no! Sometimes it is even worse with women who have aged past the height of their self-perceived attractiveness. I've worked throughout my life to overcome my early jealousy, which I regard pretty much as exclusively a Bad Thing; and it baffles me that this pathological ugliness can be persuasive to anyone as a desirable feature.
So, I am not saying that I have the definitive solution. I am judt saying that I think non-monogamy increases the chances of problems in monogamous couples who are happy as they are, assuming, or course, that they are going to be attracted to other people. Sorry for my long talk. Greetings from Galicia (Spain).
My interpretation is that everyone experiences attraction to others irregardless of whether we're in a relationship or not. It's in our DNA. Not only that, but certain people can help us grow as individuals. They have personality traits, knowledge or expeirence that we can learn and grow from. Having them in our lives enhances our life experience and helps us attain a higher level of being. Another factor is that sex is an important part of human relationships and social interaction. We form deep connections with people that we have sex with. At least I do. I've never had sex with a person that I didn't want to keep in my life in some capacity. In monogomous relationships there are strict rules regarding who we can interact with and how we can interact with. In my view this cuts off our natural desire to form deeper relationships with people in the ways that I've mentioned. In non-monogamous relationships couples begin to develop rules to help themselves and their partner pursue their needs and their own personal growth while not sabotaging the relationship that they already have with someone they love deeply or hurting them.
Of course monogamous couplew can break up sooner or later when something is no longer going well, but I think that non-monogamous couples are more likely to break up even uf things are going well for them. Simply because one of the two falls in love or just is too infatiated with another person. And, whe teo people fall in love or are infatuated, they want to be togerher as much as possible, which leaves the otger person isolated and probably very screeed. And, again, sorry for my way of express in English language.
What you describe is very poor management of one's emotions. New relationship energy is a thing but people can be aware of it and balance it out with their other partnerships. I have seen it, I have done it. It just requires discipline and self regulation.
Hi every body and, first of all, excuse my poor English. I do not try to deny that we humans, we all feel atracttion almost every day to other humans appart to our own partner. Of course we feel it. My pointI think, honestly, that all we should be sincere with our partners. Sinceres to the death! But, also I think that we can have an agreement with our partner: As long as our relationship is happy and we are both satisfied being together, we should avoid having sex with other people. I have had 6 long-term relationships in my life and I know or many otger cases in my environment and, when a relationship ends, the most common thing is that one of the two people suffers a lot.
I think an interesting topic would be how time consuming non-mongamy can be, to an extend that time could become a major, if not the biggest issue.
I remember some folks living in polyamory constellation with 4-5 participants and it felt like they barely had any life besides spinning around themselves.
For me (or us 3), it was an issue, too, because
a) the center (not me) was in a full-time job and on one day of the weekend she met me, the other day him, but where was the time for herself?
b) a similar effect like described with the folks above: spinning a lot around our issues, that it sometimes felt like someone spinning around just himself, just multiplied. In a way a multi-egocentric game. This is a possible trap of ENM, imo.
That also would be what ENM _can_ be, even if it is not of the joyous parts.
Yes!! I often feel like I have another full time job trying to juggle my different connections and connections take a lot of energy. They are extremely fulfilling, but at what cost? I often wonder, for ENM couples, do they work full time? How, logistically speaking, can you meet needs of so many while working full time, being a parent, wanting to see friends/family, and having time to yourself? I love not being constrained, but I feel like modern society forces it in a way because life is so different than our hunter gatherer ancestors. How can our biology be woven into the fabric of modern society? It's really hard. I almost think ENM forces LESS commitment and commitment is a beautiful thing that helps us so much in this thing we call life.
That's always a big misconception, that ENM forces less commitment. It forces a lot more commitment while leaving more autonomy and freedom. Those things are very different.
And regarding time, that's absolutely true, time is our most valuable commodity. And we have to use it wisely. There are certainly some poly people who over saturate themselves and that can be a symptom of many things. But being poly never means that you have to have many relationships at once all the time. It just means you have autonomy to decide how and with whom you spend your time credit. Whether you do that wisely or not, that's a therapy question.
Time credit - I like that. I would hypothesize that when boiled down, autonomy is the draw for most of us who feel naturally inclined towards ENM, is because we tend to move that way through the world. Most of us are independent, thinkers, dreamers, and do-ers, in the sense that we build things and are creatives. From personal networks to business to relationships, we value the autonomy to figure out what we want, what happens as we age/change, and what brings us joy. ENM is not my only source of identity, but being tapped into my sexual identity I think deepens my authenticity with life.
That's so well said
What is making this special compared to monogamic relationships? I think this all is true for them, too, unless it is a rather paranoid monogamy where even looks are forbidden, which admittedly might occur often.
Is it that for non-monogamy this all is valid but even more so because it's more than just looks?
I did not quite get #3.
How's the fact that with familiarity comes a blindness, which then is lifted when seeing from a different perspective related to the fact that there are some aspects of the other are in principle not recognizable? What do I miss? Can you / somebody explain?
Maybe I wasn't very clear, but what I was trying to convey is the experience of how seeing someone familiar to you through the eyes of others can bring insight. Like if someone new is in your house, and they say, "Wow, I love the color of that wood," and you think, "I've never noticed that, but she's right, it's a nice color!"
Thanks. Got it now.