notes on love | polyamory and possibility
Yesterday I briskly unfollowed someone on social media , who was writing some inspirational advice about the tarot and relationships, but also were hating on polyamory. The gist of her argument seemed to be that people used polyamory as shield to avoid taking relationships to a deeper level or some such nonsense that was highly inaccurate and a little bit offensive. Mostly I am used to the poly hating in contemporary culture (which I really don't get..if it's not for you, move along.) and shrug it off, but it irked me enough I was thinking about it when I woke this morning, thus this entry....
Mostly because poly is often misunderstood, though also people often wield that relationship style in the world for many, many different reasons and experiential backgrounds. People open up marriages that feel they are missing something or someone. People seek out partners that meet any number of needs. Most of the poly people I know are pretty happy in their relationships, but also some are not (similar to everyone I know who practice monogamy.) As a solo poly person, the "solo" part usually takes precedence over the "poly" part, considering I've mostly been in a single relationship for the past six years (and really currently only have the bandwidth for that one.). While I have been in more than one relationship at at a time (at most 3 during certain points in my 30's) , they varied in emotional intensity across the board. Some were more friends than lovers. Some more lovers than friends. Some hit both marks and those were the most rewarding, though some of them had their own issues that had nothing to do with polyamory and had to end. I do believe you can be in love with more than one person in different ways. Also that platonic relationships are just as love-bound as sexual ones. And in truth, because sexual relationships change over time, these are the strongest ones and the ones that should be nurtured most (though this probably makes me more a relationship anarchist than just poly).
The solo part, I was always aware of, even when I was in no relationship at all during swathes of my early 20's. I started "dating" late, not in high school, but in college, and if you could even call it that, found I was most comfortable as a single rather than a double. That when I pictured my life path, it was not coupled, but alone. Sure, I wanted love and romance. But these were just things that added relish to life..like art and work and beauty--not it's structure. I like to say the frosting, not the cake. I looked around at models--how others lived their lives--and was not attracted to what I saw. Even my parents', who were together until my mother died, was a good, sound marriage, was not something I could see myself emulating, being a different sort of person than my parents. Even under the best circumstances, marriage, as an institution, often fails women. Even cohabitation and definitely childrearing places the bulk of the work, actual and mental, on women. Relationships, even the best ones, are often wrought with compromise. Good compromise and bad compromise. People change over time. Life fucks shit up. Not to mention the societal expectations that are imposed, the social programming, the fairy tale fantasies we are fed as we grow up. If you choose poorly, it can be disastrous and sometimes deadly. I've also recently read that the nuclear family can be incredibly isolating, particularly for women, who are sometimes urged to put their husbands/children's needs above all else, which, in an abuse situation, isolates them from other social groups and family. The two-by-two model is kind of rife with holes.
As a single person, whats less an introverted and creative person who liked large amounts of time alone and always had, I (at the time, I thought selfishly) wanted most of my time to be my own. I wanted relationships, and I certainly wanted sex. To be desired and feel desire, which is it's own kind of drug, though not perhaps one you should give up your own stability for. Also, I needed, as an anxious person in general, to have control over certain things--many of which you surrender under the auspices of coupledom (or at least most couples I know.) Men have, in the past, leveled at me that I am a control freak..to which I responded "Have you met me?" I do not think this is a bad thing. It has served me well most of my life. For all of my anxieties about financial stability and living alone--of shouldering household expenses entirely myself, I doubt even a partner always solves that. I know plenty of domestic couples who not only struggle, but it causes constant friction in otherwise sound relationships. My parents fought their whole lives about the money they did not have, about the housework, which my mother shouldered unjustly and overwhelmingly. There was a lot of resentment that is good for no one. It was a good marriage in all other ways. But I watched and learned. The spirit of "we're in this together" is a great feeling, but sometimes it only goes so far. I also never imagined myself having children, which of course, is best served by more than one parent (though I would argue those parents do not always have to be the nuclear couple.) As for growing old alone--dying alone--I suppose we all do. My retirement dream is actually living in a community of women in my older years like Golden Girls..lol..
As for the poly part, one thing I have always loved is a lack of drama (well, monogamy drama) The typical path for monogamy is serial..ie you go from one relationship to another and maybe an end game of marriage--that infamous escalator. Love is levels--dating, cohabitation, engagement, marriage. If you fail on these levels, back to the bottom for you. But what if you love someone, but meet someone new who you could also love. Monogamy would say you have to end the current partnership to pursue the new one. That one is more real--more genuine--than the other. Back to the bottom of the escalator, the other person, no matter how much you enjoy them, be damned. NRE (new relationship energy) makes whatever is new seem like the best thing ever. This happens because of both biology and conditioning. While my concurrent relationships were not always on the same level of each other in emotional intensity, they were all important. In the right circumstances, I love hard and I love deep. Poly offers opportunities--if anything in feeling out what works for me and what doesn't. What I want and what I don't want. What I have bandwidth for, what is best left alone. I don't think I would have made such discoveries, plumbed such knowledge as a serial monogamist, where every relationship that ends is considered a failure, as set back An experience on the escalator that comes to an end to make room for others.
As for love, I sometimes have mistaken it for obsession. Or mistaken obsession for love. My own or theirs. But sometimes, when the wind is right, it's far more. Goes long and deep. And I would argue is stronger for not conforming to societal expectations about levels and escalation. All is possibility. Improvisation. Different types of love and passion and just as real as anything I see in monogamous couples, and in my case, free of the weight of cohabitations, of mingling finances, of that physical too-closeness that can be smothering if you're of a similar temperament. This not to say that needs and circumstances don't change--for better or worse--but that you should feel free to design your life in a way that works--not how the world and eons of monogamy culture have dictated.
Comments