The journey to myself

Week of no internet in Italy (winter school of physics). The weather and sea was really really nice, except that there wasn't much time to look around, because there were so many lectures.
Did you know the facebook data center requires power of ~1/3 of a nuclear power plant?

Anyway, I feel like I'm stopping to be polyamory compatable. Idealist has sweet words how he misses me (I trust him in that) and how we should spend more time together; he's been convincing me that there is no point in working between christmas and new year, and how I shold make free time - and then it turnes out he doesn't actually consider going anywhere with just me for more then a day or a half or so, and his suggestion (or Meta's) is to make trips all together.
I'm quite angry after all the words about how we should make up for the time we were appart. Maybe he doesn't see a difference, but I do. If I take time off of work, I wanna get out of the city, and I certainly don't wanna spend that time as three. One or two evenings around the christmas time is plenty, or rather I don't actually mind doing something all together, but I wanna get my time with him alone and play couple. It's just misunderstandings and different idea of quality time, but I am REALLY ANGRY.

But the thing why I think I am no longer polyamory compatible is the "play couple" part. Yes I think I always wanted that, but now... I really wish Meta wasn't in the picture. I'm jealous in the worst sense of that word.
Idealist has made me incredibly happy on many occasions throughout the last two years, showing me worlds of intimacy I had no idea about. But do I really need this?
I know I usually want to dump him anytime we don't see each other for a week, so maybe it's the same effect. But a few more droplets like this... I may go for monogamy and just hope I find a quality connection with someone again.
 
I really wish Meta wasn't in the picture. I'm jealous in the worst sense of that word.
I don't understand that feeling well however. I wonder if there is an analogue to this feeling in classical monogamous relationships. Maybe I could feel something like this if the spouse was too attached to work or some hobby (then I would feel neglected and angry), or if I hated the spouses family and didn't want to spend time with them. That would come close. But still, there is no competition in roles.
There is a trace of powerlessness.
How to deal?
 
P.S. This time Meta is being constructive (after the initial fallout yeasterday), she's trying to find social conventions I might actually enjoy for the days around new year. I can't say a single bad word against her.

Too bad it's beyond my capacity to think of her at her without gritted teeth just now.
 
But the thing why I think I am no longer polyamory compatible is the "play couple" part. Yes I think I always wanted that, but now... I really wish Meta wasn't in the picture. I'm jealous in the worst sense of that word.

The "play couple" thing messes with my head, too, so I completely understand. It's a big part of why I have to label every non-Andy relationship as friends with benefits, no matter how romantic or intimate it becomes. To avoid that rollercoaster of feeling couple-y and then feeling distant.

I don't understand that feeling well however. I wonder if there is an analogue to this feeling in classical monogamous relationships. Maybe I could feel something like this if the spouse was too attached to work or some hobby (then I would feel neglected and angry), or if I hated the spouses family and didn't want to spend time with them. That would come close. But still, there is no competition in roles.
There is a trace of powerlessness.
How to deal?

The only analogue I can see in monogamy is dealing with your partner's kids from a previous relationship.

Most of the other things that occupy us - work, hobbies, extended family - tend to be areas where a couple either has similar priorities or breaks up. Step-kids, like metamours, are tricky because you don't WANT to feel like you're in competition with them for your partner's time and resources, but sometimes you do. You think you're supposed to adore them and be thrilled that your partner prioritizes them, but sometimes you just don't feel that way. It can bring same guilt and confusion over your own feelings that comes with dealing with metas.

(Source- my dad got remarried when I was in my teens, even with YEARS of family therapy, it's a miracle my stepmom and I didn't kill each other ;))
 
Thanks, Claire. I'm much better today already. For good or bad, we reconnected. I don't care about those days around new year that much, I'd like to get out of the city though (even if that means cutting out some time with idealist in the city), and I am not sure if I can manage.
The only analogue I can see in monogamy is dealing with your partner's kids from a previous relationship. ... You think you're supposed to adore them and be thrilled that your partner prioritizes them, but sometimes you just don't feel that way. It can bring same guilt and confusion over your own feelings that comes with dealing with metas.
I'd never think of that, but I can see how that is a difficult situation. Well, I don't have much guilt for not adoring that she's in the picture, but I sure have some when I think about pushing her away.
 
<vent>
I'm ill. Again. Or still. I don't know.
Well, it's a risk I took on when I decided to go to Italy although I wasn't out of the last illness yet. I come back and bam, of course within a week I've got another antibiotics.

Idealist didn't come today. We were supposed to make a trip somewhere, but obviously I can't. I hoped he'd drop in for a couple of hours, and I'm pretty disappointed. To be fair, I said in the morning that I'm contagious and leaving it up to him... but I don't think it's the reason why he didn't come. He must be disappointed too that we aren't going anywhere, and fed up with me and Meta and his mom, but I'm pretty angry anyway. We were supposed to spend a day together, words how he's looking forward to it, and now nothing. Again. (Last time we had the fight about the week between holydays. Well, now I will probably have to cancel even that which he was willing to promis me anyway). To me it means he's only looking forward to the activity, not me. He's leaving for a few days on the 25th. I hope he comes around tomorrow, otherwise I'm very close to the point of telling him that he need not come at all after the holydays.
 
Well, at the very least, I need to make clear - somehow, I don't think it's gonna get through on the first attempt - that I do NOT appreciate a maybe. Tell me a no. Don't go around "I may come by" and then when I inquire at three pm "Maybe, I've still got work" when I know perfectly well (I was invited) that you're gonna spend the evening with Meta and other people. I'm angry and sad.

I still want to come to that evening. But it's a bad, bad idea, 'cause I really don't feel well :(

Someone give me a reality check on the last few posts please.
edit: Reality check - not everything always goes according to plan. Let's try and have nice Christmas. Fundamental poly-"mono" issue remains of course.
 
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Merry Christmass, everyone :)
 
So, the preparation stress ended, we had nice family dinner, my brother came by, I got a nice suitcase for my future travels (I feel spoilt ;)), altoghether quite a nice Christmas.

Idealist managed to come in the afternoon, we had some nice time, but then we got into discussing the future. I offered to just chill, but he isn't much about avioding what's on our minds in the moment. Is it weird to be blogging about relationship difficulties on a Christmas night? Anyway, the conversation went somewhat like this (simplyfied, my point of view...):
I: So you seemed to want to dump me again.
T: Yes. I missed you so much. This is getting harder and harder. I'm more and more inclined to monogamy.
I: I don't get what's so interesting with monogamy. What is it that you want?
T: I want someone to live with and plan my future with. I want family at some point.
I: I'm inviting you to live closer all the time. You can have some space at my place if you care to arrange it. We can have common goals. And I want family too.
T: You know I won't live with Meta...
I: I think you're looking for problems, not solutions. I think some of the limitations you see don't exist. And I'm still confused by all this.
(To this point, we've had this conversation a number of times already. But today it went on.)
T: And I don't get what confuses you. What is it.
I: I'm confused because we both seem to want to be closer, but we're not even as close as possible right now.
T: I can't go closer if the future is so little promissing. I need to know about family.
I: So what's the problem, you can have children if you want.
T: I need to know how it could look like.
I: The woman has family and her surroundings supports her.
T: And the father drops in twice a week?
I: Well, I guess that's not quite enough...
T: See? Imagine that from the girls point of view. And now tell me, why should I prefere this over being monogamous with someone.
(That was the end of the conversation, we were both out of time and words, so we just hugged.)

I think I actually blindsighted him :eek: Like he's never really considered the image to this practical level, or from another point of view then his. As if he really doesn't understand what could be missing in such a "polyamorous" arrangement. He's a great and kind man in many ways and I love him, but things like this... I simply don't get. But it sure felt like a little breakthrough today.

He wrote later, that I've messed him up quite a bit. And smiley. So I answered, that 'it's not for the first time, you've got practice already' ;) Which is true.
I feel actually better. I was messed up since last Sunday. Now after the conversation it's pressing on my mind, but not my emotions that much. I felt heared finally.

I wonder what will remain in his memory and awareness from this conversation. Did he get it, will we make any progress in the next conversation? I wonder when I'll be ripe enough to either walk away and don't look back, or accept that I've chosen a partner with a bunch of other commitments and have to stand much more on my own then I ever envisioned.
 
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There are lots of people out there that consider the monogamous commitment a tremendous gift that's exchanged and not just sexual fidelity. I mean in terms of time, energy, resources, commitment, etc. People have described when the poly bomb is dropped as having that gift spit in their face. And it was the opening salvo's demotion and devaluation. (2 headers from poly hell.)
Great insight over here.
I struggled somewhat to see why people (like my ex) see the mere suggestion of polyamory as offence, or as breaking something. Monogamy as a gift (which is then rejected) makes some sense to me. I am not sure if I really want to give that gift, but I kind of get the sentiment.

Also, I still hold the belief (and I'm not sure if I should re-evaluate it or not), that polyamorous commitment is somewhat less then monogamous. We see it denounced in beginner texts, it goes something like "Polyamory isn't a good fit for people who can't commit. We have serial monogamy for that. Commitment in polyamorous relationships is the same as in monogamous ones."
And I don't believe this.

First, I feel a fundamental ideological difference, which I struggle to name. There's certainly a shift from 'we' to 'I', which can be conveniently described by shiny words like "emphasis on personal freedom, independence and taking responsibility for one’s own life". Also expressed by sentences like 'stay true to oneself', 'all relationships come with a timer attached' or maybe 'no one person can fulfill all of my needs' (and therefore I have the right to fulfill them as I see fit ?). All of this (while certainly healthy to some extent), if adopted as a core attitude and not consciously balanced with other traits can lead to an extreme which I would call ... not necessarily selfishness, but ... inability to be part of a team. YOU are way greater then your community (in monogamy the couple or the family), personal happiness stands above the needs of the project you're taking part in.

I am not sure how good that is. Of course, we often and rightfully warn people that sacrificing themselves for sake of another person or relationship is detrimental (the other extreme maybe), however, long-term fulfillment hardly comes from following urges as opposed to working on something transcending oneself. I find more emphasis being put on those transcendent values in monogamy - it is forming a unit (or even unity) in order to achieve more than both people could on their own. This could be forming a stable family environment to raise children, it could be enabling one spouse to work on a purposeful carrier with full support of the other, or more lofty goals associated with lasting romantic love like embodying the perfect loving couple and growing old together. (I don't want to discard these. A part of my brain sais "fairytale bullshit", but no, something there feels really important.) The whole is bigger then the sum of it's parts. I feel like this surrender to a common goal (where a couple is more than an individual) is an important part of monogamous commitment*. I miss that in polyamory, although of course you could argue that a lot of polyamorous people choose different ideals.

Second, there is resources. But I think the real problem with them follows from the above. If one person spreads their resources, there is less left for forming the unity, and it somewhat devaluates the whole endeavor. There necessarily is a "my" and "his" divide, instead of "our"**, and the whole becomes less powerful. (Polyfidelous households excluded maybe.)

Third, as I say unity, one more thing comes to my mind. Monogamy gives boundaries, and boundaries give security. A lifelong commitment is only possible if those boundaries are very clear. Clear boundaries give you true freedom within the boundaries (as opposed to insecurity about consequences), and a lifelong wow gives you an additional (although many will argue that false) certainty. You play fair, and then you can be free of fear and doubt in your relationship - which gives you additional energy to pursue your various life goals.
I think well-negotiated polyamory can give you clear boundaries as well (the more work done, the better), but mostly it feels like there are much more potential dealbreakers along the way and built-in into your agreements.

All in all, I do not see the same quality of commitment. Did I miss something?

*I think this is close to the point where GFT said something to the effect of "there are not my priorities and his priorities, there are our shared priorities"
**My parents have totally merged finances and argue about them extremely rarely. How possible is that with multiple partners and the unpredictability of polyamorous lives?
 
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I find more emphasis being put on those transcendent values in monogamy - it is forming a unit (or even unity) in order to achieve more than both people could on their own. This could be forming a stable family environment to raise children, it could be enabling one spouse to work on a purposeful carrier with full support of the other, or more lofty goals associated with lasting romantic love like embodying the perfect loving couple and growing old together. (I don't want to discard these. A part of my brain sais "fairytale bullshit", but no, something there feels really important.) The whole is bigger then the sum of it's parts. I feel like this surrender to a common goal (where a couple is more than an individual) is an important part of monogamous commitment*. I miss that in polyamory, although of course you could argue that a lot of polyamorous people choose different ideals.

Second, there is resources. But I think the real problem with them follows from the above. If one person spreads their resources, there is less left for forming the unity, and it somewhat devaluates the whole endeavor. There necessarily is a "my" and "his" divide, instead of "our"**, and the whole becomes less powerful. (Polyfidelous households excluded maybe.)

I'd been writing my post for a couple of hours already so didn't see yours till after mine posted, but it's funny how the things I quoted above are the exact sorts of things I've been thinking about and questioning. It's helpful to know that I am not the only person considering these things at this time.
 
My husband and I have merged finances and, for the most part, polyamory hasn't caused any more fights around money than happened when we were monogamous, which we were for 17 years. Transitioning to being poly was difficult for me, but that difficulty never happened in the financial area of our lives. We had personal spending budgets built into our larger budget for years before becoming poly. We could spend that money on whatever we wanted and the other spouse had no say in how an individual spent their personal spending money (we also have family fun money budgeted so that it never felt like we had to spend our fun money on each other if we didn't want to). So, when we became poly, any expenses for other relationships came out of our personal spending money. The financial aspect of poly was actually the easiest aspect for me to handle because of the way our budget was already set up.
 
We had personal spending budgets built into our larger budget for years before becoming poly. We could spend that money on whatever we wanted and the other spouse had no say in how an individual spent their personal spending money (we also have family fun money budgeted so that it never felt like we had to spend our fun money on each other if we didn't want to). So, when we became poly, any expenses for other relationships came out of our personal spending money.

Andy and I do this too, with the spending money... But I still occasionally stress about the finances of poly. Not the kinda sorta poly we have now, but real poly, the kind of poly where other relationships can grow into entangled partnerships. What if Andy wanted to buy a home with another partner? Would he be expected to manage that with his spending money? It seems horribly unfair to say that 90-something percent of his income goes to our life, our relationship, our home, and only a couple hundred dollars a week to the other (supposedly equally important!) relationship.

Like a lot of things in poly, this is an area where I feel like I can either be selfish and unfair, or miserable. Because if my husband wanted to sell our house so he could afford two smaller ones, or give another partner half the time in our lake house, I would feel cheated and resentful and no longer see him as respecting our life partnership. But I'm not quite evil enough to overlook that the other partner would feel cheated and resentful for not getting full partnership herself.
 
What troubles my mind a bit is, that while everything you have said about monogamy and the team effort of living and stuff makes sense, to me, the idea of doing this communally with 3 or 4 adults feels really beautiful, too. But I'm such a people person, I would be really happiest with the kitchen table stuff. Everybody loves everybody, like a little enclave of nudist hippies. Sounds glorious to me! But the trick is finding a selection of humans who could all pull this off without problems.

I could give reasons why life entanglement was a really bad idea for me and any of my poly quad, even though I felt that what we had was lovely in its own way. Zen was the only one of my partners with whom it was going to be possible or even make sense to consider, for me. Point being that finding one person who is properly compatible and a good fit in the important ways (even on the level of "we both REALLY love each other") is incredibly rare and difficult in my own experience. So how much more difficult would it be to find good matches for the hearts and minds and bodies of more people, to make an entangled poly household work? I know some folks have done it, and I have a mix of envy and admiration for them. I'm not sure if I could.

Yet I still think it's a beautiful idea.

And I like the notion of 3 or 4 people bringing their resources to bear and combining all of the goals and family-building stuff. I think it's cool.
 
I really want a partner who, if they are willing to "build a life" with me, they are willing to make goals with me and work just as hard toward those goals as I am. I want to be able to sit down after the new year and make a budget and say, "OK, with our salaries, if we throw THIS percentage of our income at debt, and this percentage into savings, then we can afford a house in X years, and we can have THIS percentage left over for fun." And then know that a) they'll actually partner with me in this way, and b) that I'll still get some of the shared fun!
Indeed. I think that's what we mostly want from a relationship, only the type of goals and level of required commitment differ. If "build a life together" is taken in the traditional way, then we sure should hope that commitments runs at least as deep as the resulting entwinement of resources.

We had personal spending budgets built into our larger budget for years before becoming poly. We could spend that money on whatever we wanted and the other spouse had no say in how an individual spent their personal spending money (we also have family fun money budgeted so that it never felt like we had to spend our fun money on each other if we didn't want to).
This sounds pretty reasonable, thanks for sharing :) In case of my parents it works even without personal spending money, which is ... I don't know if it's admirable, but probably kind of rare.
It may of course be some bias of mine to expect finance-entwining to be difficult. But as GFT suggests, you seem to have a very primary-secondary structure with your husband?

What if Andy wanted to buy a home with another partner? Would he be expected to manage that with his spending money? It seems horribly unfair to say that 90-something percent of his income goes to our life, our relationship, our home, and only a couple hundred dollars a week to the other (supposedly equally important!) relationship.

Like a lot of things in poly, this is an area where I feel like I can either be selfish and unfair, or miserable. ...
Yeah... that kind of trouble is of course closer to my personal concerns :) I take a personal guess, that in your case, should Andy head towards wanting a second home with someone, either you'll give in with compersion after all, or he will respectufully let one of the relationships go.

In my case - well, maybe it would not be a great source of friction if Idealist wanted to share some of his money with me, he's not super-tight on just the household. But I'm not taking anything. "We" lack the goals to invest in.
I wonder, if I had been for these two and a half years with someone monogamous, if we would be looking to set up a home now, something I can't really afford with my own regular income. I think we would. So maybe it's greed talking, when I say that poly in not very suited to sharing finances.
Money is not a comfortable topic for me.
 
What troubles my mind a bit is, that while everything you have said about monogamy and the team effort of living and stuff makes sense, to me, the idea of doing this communally with 3 or 4 adults feels really beautiful, too. But I'm such a people person, I would be really happiest with the kitchen table stuff. Everybody loves everybody, like a little enclave of nudist hippies. Sounds glorious to me! But the trick is finding a selection of humans who could all pull this off without problems.
You neal it. Everyone loving each other and being super close, to me, seems next to impossible. Yes of course it's a wonderful ideal to live and cooperate in a multiple people household... not really for me though :) I know a few people I'd consider living with, if they were my meta. But in general, the more people in the household, the more cold shivers down my spine the image sends :eek:

But maybe I should become more embracing of this view if I want to continue here. I'm sure Idealist would welcome it. Meta is probably a little more accepting of it then me (she need for privacy doesn't seem so strong), but maybe not in this context.
 
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Yeah, but see even someone like me...I don't need that much privacy, I feel like this is a good idea and all... There are a lot of potential problems and I have not met very many adults I could make this work with for long. Not at all.

You know what my poly household dream was, back when I was with my quad in addition to my Zen... I thought it would be amazing if we somehow got a subdivided Victorian like they use for the college housing here, or a four-plex or basically a small building with a few apartment style units. But it was all people who were chosen family and partners in the building. So we could be close, but still have our own privacy and space. I thought that was a really lovely idea.
 
Its very interesting to have a look at relationships from the viewpoint of spiral dynamics. Spiral dynamics is a theory of psychological (and especially moral) development of both individual human beings and societies.
Have a look at this image http://image.slidesharecdn.com/cult...on-to-spiral-dynamics-5-728.jpg?cb=1260184555
and case someone is really interested, I add the video I learned from (I'm not an expert obviously). He gets right to the topic at 7.30.
https://actualized.org/articles/the-grand-model-of-psychological-evolution

According to this theory, individuals and societies pass through stages which itself are not good or bad, but they occure in some sucessive order and are necessary. You can't skip any of these. Different aspects of a psyche can be in different phases, and you but probably you will be "mostly" somewhere.
At our time, 3-4 stages are important:
  • Blue: Conformist. Tradition, law, family, obedience, a belief in good and evil and one right way to do things. Organized religion. Focused on others, sacrificing self. An extremelly succesful stage in societal context - civilisation started in this stage, and it's no more then a few hundred years since a part of western society has surpassed this.
  • Orange: Individualism, success, rationality. Leading to consumentarism, business, scientific progress. Sometimes at all costs. Focus on self, not that much other. This is where most of our culture is at.
  • Green: The hippie :) Relativism, care, community. Development of deep empathy. Return to spirituality. Focus on others, less self, less materialism. Tends to be overly idealistic, may fail to take real action.
  • Yellow: Systemic thinking. Is aware of and integrates all prior stages, also complexity and paradox. Relativistic, no absolute truths. More focused on self again, however responsible. Very rare in people today, you can probably count the very "yellow" people you've met in your life on the fingers of one hand.
Most people on this forum, I guess, are orange tapping into green. Including myself (hopefully). I know that at the time i moved into polyamory I rapidly abandoned my own stage blue, in the relationship context at least.

I found this model useful to understanding people, so I'll play a little with applying it to relationships. I'm thinking this:

Monogamous marriage, as an institution, is the ideological child of blue. I'm not saying the people in there can't be further in their development, however the structure they adopt is one that has served as the religious one-true-way and a social obligation.

Orange breads the romantic love ideal - only you choose the best partner for you. It also gives rise to serial monogamy.

Polyamory in my view is a funny blend of green and orange values. The ideology of abundant love must be an ideal of green, as are more communal forms of poly. Also the idea of not restricting your partners freedom, and the emphasis on processing feelings, everyone being heared and valued etc.
However for most people, I think the main motivations are more individualistic. Personal freedom to pursue your attractions. Sexual variety. Not being bound by any convention.
Solo polyamory, in my view, is the essence of living orange to it's full success and potential.
Polyamory doesn't mix well with blue (if it does, you get strict hierarchy or some other very dogmatic form), and that's a reason why such a big part of society still frowns upon it.
Living the "green" ideas seems difficult for most people. It could be we are simply not there yet, or it could be an example of an ideal which is not that easily brought into practice. I think these things tend to happen in green.

I wonder what the yellow take on relationships is :) Maybe the dilema proves itself false somehow...
 
Andy and I do this too, with the spending money... But I still occasionally stress about the finances of poly. Not the kinda sorta poly we have now, but real poly, the kind of poly where other relationships can grow into entangled partnerships. What if Andy wanted to buy a home with another partner? Would he be expected to manage that with his spending money? It seems horribly unfair to say that 90-something percent of his income goes to our life, our relationship, our home, and only a couple hundred dollars a week to the other (supposedly equally important!) relationship.

Like a lot of things in poly, this is an area where I feel like I can either be selfish and unfair, or miserable. Because if my husband wanted to sell our house so he could afford two smaller ones, or give another partner half the time in our lake house, I would feel cheated and resentful and no longer see him as respecting our life partnership. But I'm not quite evil enough to overlook that the other partner would feel cheated and resentful for not getting full partnership herself.

We recently changed our budgeting dynamic a bit to fit something like this into it. My husband's girlfriend and her husband bought a new house and my husband has a room there. He pays into the household budget. What I did was figure out how much of our money each of us brings in, figured out our budget, then anything left over is split in the percentage of who brings in what money. He either pays for his contributions to the other house from his spending money (which is still part of our budget) or his portion of the leftover money. It's not perfect but it feels better emotionally to me than him getting extra money and me getting nothing, just because I don't have the same type of relationship with my boyfriend as he does with his girlfriend.

Edited to address Tinwen's primary/secondary question: Finances and the fact we have children together are the only ways our marriage has been primary since my husband started dating his girlfriend. Emotionally, his girlfriend and I were co-primaries in his mind originally and I think he's thought of her as his primary partner for the last 3 or so years, though he only admitted it to me and himself last December. I'm not sure what it would look like if his girlfriend wasn't married to someone else who makes a good deal more money than my husband and I combined. It would probably put more stress on our budget if he needed to help support the house he shares with her and her family, instead of just contributing to food, utilities, etc.
 
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What I did was figure out how much of our money each of us brings in, figured out our budget, then anything left over is split in the percentage of who brings in what money.
That's sure an interesting formula :)
 
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