Badass McProblemSolver makes me think a lot sometimes.

FauxPoly

New member
http://tacit.livejournal.com/594837.html?view=7124117#t7124117

I posted the two comments as Luminescnece. Edit: I don't know if this should be in discussions or media, but since it is a response to media I am placing it here.

I've got an impressive/unimpressive history with post secondary education. But whatever my eight years cracking at a four year degree has cost me it has given me sociology classes on social movements, why they fail and why they succeed. Many things have bothered me about popular poly rhetoric as I have seen it evolving over the past four years. I have only been able to put them into words lately after dealing with an unresolved family history of emotional abuse.

It sickens me when I think of the joy my father would feel if he had the intelligence to utilize a lot of our poly rhetoric to his advantage.

I shall post my entirely too wordy comment here as well.

"Foreword: It is not my intention to attack. I use some strong language in here that could easily make someone feel attacked, defensive and otherwise create feelings that do not contribute to coming to a mutual understanding. My opinion in this ultimately means nothing, but if a complaint voiced is worth ten complaints unvoiced…. I cannot be the only person seeing this and deeply troubled by it.

This is a long post, not completely concerned with the words of Mr. Problem-Solver but also concerned with a larger piece of poly rhetoric I have been noticing. So please keep that in mind.

There is a theme I see rising really strongly in poly rhetoric is a theme of victim blaming. Clearly, the person with the problem IS the problem and must be addressed/changed/dealt with. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes this allows people who have little respect of other’s boundaries and a good understanding of communication and verbal intelligence to behave quite abusively in the goal of never having to change their actions. Because obviously, they are not the person with the problem. So how could they be the problem? We are responsible for our own feelings and reactions right?

Yes. We are. But we are also responsible to act ethically. The key to acting ethically is understanding and to me, it does not prime a hoarde of people who consider themselves Advanced Emotional Theorists to address understanding if you gloss over the idea of a misunderstanding in lieu of what Mr. ProblemSolver focused on.

“You misunderstood what was a reasonable request." ... wait what? Why this first?

How does Badass McProblem-Solver know that a person feeling upset about a broken agreement misunderstood anything for certain or was the only misunderstander? Regardless of how much they know the person did not intend to hurt them if that is the case. Intention does not excuse people from outcomes. Why did the misunderstanding happen? Where was the breakdown in communication or respect that had need confused with want? What language was used that meant one thing to one party and entirely another to the other party?

If Badass McProblemSolver is pursuing PhD level emotional rhetoric, is addressing how a misunderstanding is created Emotional Atmospheric Climatology?

"Only make arrangements that are realistic."

Unrealistic agreements are not the only reason that agreements are broken. And to suggest so is so terribly wrong I feel it borders on unethical to perpetuate this simplistic idea.

No matter how realistic YOU believe your agreement to be, your partner might not actually understand where your realism ends if you cannot communicate it (and here is the important part) in a way they understand.

Human comprehension is shaped by our perception. Our perception is shaped by our experience. Our experiences are unique to us.

When we communicate, we first have to get what we are trying to say out to the other person, through our own communication skills and frame of reality. It is then understood by the person we are trying to communicate with. Our issue may not be understood as we communicate it because it is understood through their frame of reality that was created by their unique experience.

Then they have to give you a response; which is predicated upon their understanding of the issue as you have communicated it, expressed with their own communicative skills through their frame of reality so that you can witness the response to the thing you have tried to communicate.

And understand THAT through your frame of perception.

Is it any wonder we aren’t flinging our poo at each other more often?

Misunderstandings happen because REALITY IS NOT THE SAME FOR EVERYONE. And what is a reasonable request for one person might not be reasonable for another. So what to do about this?

Popular poly rhetoric seems to tell me that I must be a master of how I want to be treated, I must be in charge of my expectations and able to meet my own needs. If I’m not happy, change my expectations. Or be prepared to change my situation. It seems very simple.

But my problem with popular poly rhetoric is that it addresses a deeply complex issue in a way that reifies and obscures how complex it is, and appears to use victim blaming and silencing to keep things seeming simple and digestible. “Have a problem? Clearly you aren’t good enough at poly.” That’s a shaming sentiment and I see it behind a lot of ‘advice’ given to new poly people. This is the worst kind of outreach and I believe it damages us.

I want to be understood. If I have problems, I’d like to be acknowledged and respected. Regardless of the basic truth of what is going on even if I’m being crazy. I strive to do the same to the people I care for even if they are being crazy. Summarizing a complex issue like broken agreements to a basic truth that a broken agreement reflects on a person’s value of you and all you can do is chose to be with them and change your expectations or leave and find your expectations elsewhere… it doesn’t matter if that is true. And that is. I will never disagree with that. But if we are talking about relationships and communication, this approach seems awfully ‘cut and run’ or ‘put up and shut up’. What happened to working through issues and understanding where and why an agreement was broken and not understood? This doesn’t seem like an emotional PhD to me. This sounds like “The Game” of relationships.

We let our simplified concepts rule our discourse at our own peril.

Stagnant social movements silence each other. And silencing is what I see in a lot of poly rhetoric.

As I said to my abusive father when he told me I had to be able to deal with all different kinds of people, and I had to toughen up. Because he wasn’t doing anything wrong when he was behaving aggressively (technically emotional abuse isn’t wrong but it isn’t right either, that’s actually how emotional abuse works): I can deal with all sorts of people kindly and rationally; with distance. But I did not want to have to have distance between me and him. And though I know the intense pain and confusion that caused him to treat us the way he did. It does not excuse his behaviour. Nor does his love for us. Nor does our love for him. It’s a complex situation.

I can work on myself and my expectations until the cows come home. I cannot make someone else understand when they’re wholly committed to the idea that they are perfect and cannot make me feel anything because I’m the one with the problem.

Having been the subject of deep and persistent trauma. Let me tell you: you can be the cause of someone elses’ pain. And your intentions to not cause harm mean nothing. The minute I bring a concern to someone and they get angry with me or defensive about how they didn’t intend hurt and how obviously I am the problem because I’m the one with the problem… that seals their intention. They did intend to hurt. And they are mad that they got caught and are attempting to avoid apologizing and acknowledging my feelings.

It works amazingly well for getting people to not talk to you about their problems with you, and thus never have to change your actions.

I see an intelligent, abusive person’s wildest dreams come true in the flavour of our discourse about how to deal with problems. And that makes me sick. Because the vast majority of us are not reading these words, living these words or attempting to live these words with malice in our hearts.

But someone who does have malice in their heart would have an easy time utilizing our rhetoric abusively. That scares me.

Is it our responsibility to think on whatever makes us excited? Such as the idea that we need to change our expectations to be happy, and ignore the things that take more work… such as the idea that humans can be intensely difficult to communicate with even when we think everything is going perfectly…

This isn’t PhD level rhetoric. It’s the Manhattan Project.

If one’s rhetoric can empower abusers… it just tells me something is wrong. Not complete. We aren’t thinking it through, showing enough complexity or something.

Get better. Improve. Don’t just sit on your laurels and talk about how smart you are because you’re delving into srs shit. It might appeal to the public but you know what else appeals to the public. Fox news. Don’t be the Fox news of Poly."
 
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Hi FauxPoly,

So, do you mean to argue that we aren't necessarily the cause of all of our own feelings all of the time? and, do you mean to argue that not every poly problem we have is necessarily caused by a "poly inadequacy" within ourself? Are these the core points of your argument?

I guess it sounds reasonable to suppose that emotions spring from thoughts and hormones, hence are internal. But environment can stimulate certain hormones and inspire certain thoughts; hence our emotions may have external help.

Don't know how much you've read of the many threads on Polyamory.com, but my experience so far has been that when someone comes to the site seeking help for a (poly) problem, sometimes that someone ends up being cited as the problem's "ground zero." But not always. We do sometimes put the blame on environmental conditions (most often toxic people surrounding the person "with" the problem), though we may still reprove the person for allowing themself to remain in the midst of the toxic environment (e.g. we may cry, DTMFA).

I guess the bottom line is that I see a problem in the areas I thought might have been your core points, but not to the point where I think it'll destroy poly people's attempt to be seen as legitimate in modern society. Just to the point where I agree it needs to be discussed.
 
Hello as well, and thank you for asking for clarifications.

No. I do not mean to argue that we aren't the cause of all our emotions. And that this is a very good emotional goal to strive toward.

I mean to argue that poly activists, poly educators, and people who have been aware of poly and interested in it as a theory/lifestyle/etc. we are highly educated. We have highly educated ourselves in emotional matters.

I am saying. We have seem to have reached a point in our theory where the words we use for ourselves, the concepts we are trying to live by. BY CHOICE. Because we are aware enough to choose this and know the mental pitfalls. They are also used by a wider, much more ignorant (or possibly more intuitively and insidiously aware) of emotional matters crowd of people I am going to loosely categorize as abusers, emotional, physical, etc. To justify, legitmize and continue their actions.

I am NOT calling anyone who espouses these beliefs of personal accountability for our emotional reactions an abuser. I have been aware of poly and investigating on and off for five years, but much more the past three years. This has been cursory. The thing I am alluding to here is a scent on the wind. When I talk with my friends about this we all have only ever had vague words to describe our problem with what we see in the rhetoric. I'm sorry I can't be more clear. This is an abstract subject from an abstract brain.

I believe these things too. But to explain further I really have to use a personal example. I apologize.

The underpinning of me and all that I am; that I feel necessary to explain that you may skip (this paragraph) entirely if you so choose: is that I was bullied so horrifically at school it is a miracle I survived. I did not address the fact that my father might have been abusive until I realized that I had a series of nightmares about my father five years ago when I was diagnosed with PTSD for my childhood bullying. I did not realize that my younger brother was worse affected because he had a better experience of school and a worse one of my father until I was twenty five. I did not realize that my mother received the worst of all. This was not physical. This was largely emotional and we all thought we were alone.

I have the recent pleasure of having moved in with my parents (generation boomerang represent) last May just after my mother had received counseling on her own, thinking she was insane only to realize that she had been in a thirty year abusive relationship. Apparently this is a common cause of divorce in people married 30+ years. She has not yet told my father she will be divorcing him.

It is August and I moved out a week ago on social assistance because I couldn't work in the environment I was forced to live in to save the money to save myself. Mom has been waiting for me to move out and to gather her nerve.

It was wrong of me to say that I have had much experience of seeing poly advice. I have mostly seen what appears to be our party line, our manifestos. The things that the public sees of us. The public who is full of people uneducated about emotional awareness and people intuitively using their skills to harm... for whatever reasons they do so.

I have had a stunning and disgustingly detailed view over much time and many experiences inside of how abusive situations are created, coalesce and
form... between people that want power. Between people that are actually intent to cause harm, to make themselves feel better or otherwise... and also between people that LOVE each other dearly and are so horrified at the allegation that harm has been caused through their (to them) justified actions that they heap more harm upon their partner/friend/victim.

I have an experience of these messages as systemic violence. Which is why I can't really be too clear. And I am becoming extremely emotional. I might need to come back later. But I am also working through a number of things while writing this because I have never been able to give words to these feelings. So please bear with me and understand that if you are bothered. My opinion truly does mean little in the grand scheme of the universe and you should sleep easy.

You may not have a personal experience of abuse. But if you do, you may remember a number of justifications, reproofs and victim blaming. I apologize for bringing those up. But they ought to be in the forefront of your brain. Others who have no experience of this should follow along.

Because my understanding from the contention to my points is that my experience is not understood.

One of the first memories I have of my father is him telling me that everything that ever happened to me was my own fault. Because I have a hand in everything I do and I have personal agency. I'm pretty sure he didn't use the term personal agency but I was five and I don't remember the conversation spectacularly well.

I'm fairly certain he was justifying an abuse my older brother had committed upon me (as older brothers are wont to do). My father tried to raise me to be an independent, strong, beautiful (emphasis on beautiful) woman. He also reacted aggressively and defensively at what feels like an endless list of examples when I behaved in any way that could be construed as selfish, demanding, bitchy or 'princesslike' As young as five. As bad as him screaming at me about what (he knew) I thought and why it was wrong when I was fifteen.

My father used a lot of subtle emotional, passive aggressive and physically aggressive emotional abusive tactics to get what he wanted, not be bothered by the people who were coming to him with problems (who became the problem then he was experiencing) or just otherwise face no resistance in his personal life.

The facing no resistance in his personal life is a key point and driving factor. My father's abuse seems to have been directed all towards easing his life at any cost to those around him. He didn't stray into physical abuse often, but with physical abuse... less is more.

He used everything he did to ensure other people had no boundaries with him other than the ones he set. And he has done this all unknowingly and refuses to believe any of it. He thinks we're being too sensitive.

He thinks that we're causing our own problems because my mother and I both have traumas that are separate from him. And that we are experiencing problems because of ourselves and not the things that he did to us. THAT HE LEGITIMATELY FEELS BAD ABOUT. When you catch him. On an off moment. Sometimes. Or others explodes angrily and rages.

I love my father. I get along well with him. Until he reacts in a way that implies he thinks I am a selfish, bitch ready to sponge my way through the world because I am an attractive woman. Or until he mentions that I'm very attractive aside from the extra weight I have. Or until I find myself sitting with him as he tells me.

In response to me telling him I have been harmed by his actions.

That I have to be stronger to deal with all types of people and I can't let the world hurt me the way I do. And I'm so weak and sensitive to be so troubled by everything I see.

When I have just told him that though I have other issues and am prepared to acknowledge those... I am uncovering ever more issues that stem directly from his actions against me.

I must be able to deal with all types of people (unspoken: even the abusive ones). I told him I can deal with all types of people. With distance. But I shouldn't feel like I need distance between him and me. And I might add that no one since I moved out has treated me like my father and if they've come close I have ostracized them from my life entirely. I shouldn't need to do that with my father who I love.

My father can spot abusive behaviour in other people a mile away. But he will never see how his actions have DESTROYED HIS FAMILY UNIT as I knew it when I was a child. We are damaged. But we will be stronger without him and if he ever acknowledges any of this he will be welcome in my life. But I fear he will not.

And all of this is made possible by the belief held firmly in my father's head that he is not responsible for the result of any of his actions as long as HE believes his intention was pure.

Congratulations. You have witnessed a part of my personal healing process and I might be done with this conversation for today. Please excuse this because I don't usually reason this way.

I will return later to answer further questions. Hopefully more in control of my emotions and my reactions. I hope this adequately explains my issue with the popular poly rhetoric I have seen that appears to underpin much of the poly advice work that goes on the ground with the people.
 
I am sorry for the double post too.

I realized I had points in the beginning that I got entirely distracted by.

I am really too emotionally wrung to properly explain anything so enjoy notes for later.

Poly activists know about as much about emotions as anthropologists and first nations activists know about appropriation.

The devolution of appropriation arguments before we were able to educate more and more people about it.

Appropriation is a super simple concept compared to emotional agency and awareness.

The rest of the world might just not have your level of emotional intelligence.

Allowing that privilege to work to your advantage is SUPER EASY.

And also SUPER easy to harm others with even if you are not an abusive, angry person by DENYING THEIR EXPERIENCE.

Even if they created it and are caterwauling about how they didn't. Sometimes they have valid points in addition to the fact that their brain may have been trained by an angry, insecure man child that couldn't rise above the things that happened to him the way I will force myself to. I don't know what abuse my father suffered at the hands of the adults or other children around him. He's said enough to imply very negative things. He's also sworn up and down he had a golden childhood and has no problems and we're the ones with problems and we should be dealing with it.

I am trying to say poly rhetoric might not work perfectly in a world with the level of trauma ours contains.

Blithely assuming the rest of the world can just jump up and understand because you have explained it to them is CRUEL.

And not befitting people who claim to be super emotionally intelligent. Especially if they're aware of *any* kind of privilege.

I would like to own that I have an extreme amount of privilege in that I will never be abused again. And some people can say this. Because very few people have the unique experiences I have.

Many won't experience abuse at all. Because they inherently have, had instilled in them, or have acquired the skills necessary to deflect systemic abuse from another person before abuse occurred and skewed their reactions and reality.

Abuse skews your reality and there are billions of people on earth who have NO idea how badly they need counseling.

We cannot help them when in most cases. Abuse sums down to one person acting in a way they think is justified because they are not responsible for the reactions. Because they are justified. To them. And little will convince them otherwise.

And our rhetoric fits REALLY nicely into fueling that. And I think that's all I'm trying to point out.

... Well. I got carried away again.
 
Okay, so this isn't just theorizing; this is something personal that you're going through. You're going through a time of change as you attempt to heal from some of the damage from the (recent and distant) past.

I wouldn't presume to know what you suffered in an abusive home, but I identify with your description in that I can strongly argue that the home I grew up in was also abusive. My mom seems to have been a shadowy alternate version of your father. She was terribly verbally abusive, and she had a quick, strong, adult mind, so she could really go to town on her young children. She was physically abusive too, but the verbal abuse is what caused most of the damage. She really made us (me for sure at least) feel like we were the scum of the earth, lazy good-for-nothing leeches who couldn't be depended on to do anything right and who failed to appreciate her sacrifices. We (I for sure at least) carried that message with us for the rest of our lives (right up to this moment). As adults, sure we could reason that her message was a lie, but emotionally, its hooks are permanent.

The one advantage I have, that your father has withheld from you, is that my mom eventually realized she had treated us very badly and more importantly, she realized that *she had damaged us.* Her. She did the damaging. She realized that. It was not our fault that we were damaged, it was hers. She sees that now, and her apologies have been poignant and straight from the heart. Now, old habits die hard, and she's no perfect person even today. But she's much, much kinder than she was when we were kids. And she's still trying to become a better person. That also means a lot. It makes it possible for me to have a relationship with her.

The fact that your father is trying to avoid his own personal accountability for what he did not only wounds you all over again, it also robs you of the chance to have real (if belated) relationship with him. It forces you to distance yourself from his life.

So, he professes to be very big on personal responsibility: "If you have problems, you must realize that they're ultimately your fault." Yet, he avoids his own personal responsibility: "The abuse is my kids' fault, not mine. The abuse is my wife's fault, not mine." Very convenient for him, though he may someday find himself alone because of that attitude.

I love the X-Files and in one of my favorite scenes, the character Deepthroat tells Agent Mulder that he told him *some* of the truth "because I knew I would have to deceive you later on, and a lie, Mr. Mulder, is most convincingly presented between two truths." What I believe you're saying is that the poly "community" (if there is a community) has developed certain truths which, while harmless by themselves, can be used by people like your father to sandwich hidden lies. Such as the truth that it's important for us to take responsibility for our own problems and well-being. Your father took that truth and sandwiched a free pardon for his abusive behavior within that truth. Does that sound like I am getting a better idea of what you wanted to say originally?

Re:
"Abuse skews your reality and there are billions of people on earth who have *no* idea how badly they need counseling."

That sounds like a word of truth to me.

I see that you are processing some difficult emotions which can make an intellectual conversation such as this a difficult conversation, one that must be broken up into segments. I have no problem with that. Take the time that you need, and then come one back and let's talk some more. I doubt I'm understanding you 100% so I expect (heck request) correction, but hopefully I'm getting closer to the mark.

It's up to us to remove ourselves from the toxic people in our lives. But that doesn't make those toxic people any less culpable for the wrongness of their actions ... and yes ... even the damage that they cause to their victims.
 
I think FV comes from the perspective of, "your partner should value you and come from a position of wanting to treat you right." In that case, if the person is not coming from a position of malice (or control, or manipulation), then they'd be inclined to help you work through your problems in a constructive way, but they are, ultimately yours to work through.

It's basically the ideal situation.

However, reality doesn't always jive with the ideals.

My ex-husband used the, "Only you can make yourself feel that way" trope many, many times. It only served to justify his own asshat behavior and lay the blame on me for feeling hurt. THESE are the kinds of people who take the "you need to work through your own emotions" sentiment and twist it.

Espousing such a sentiment needs to also (IMO) balance it against reality: that the people we're dealing with DON'T always have our best interests in mind, and may be trying to manipulate us - whether they're a jerk in general, or if just they're having a craptacular moment. Sometimes "owning our shit" isn't enough, and the person needs to stop being an ass and triggering us.

But again, that goes back to the ideal partner, which is, I believe, FV's baseline.
 
I agree with Franklin's response to your message.

The point is not to see who's to blame for what. The point is that you, the person whose agreement was broken, are getting hurt. And you cannot control other people's actions, only yours. Knowing that, if you want to stop getting hurt, you need to either A) find a way for that thing your partner is doing to stop hurting you, or B) get away from a partner who hurts you.

B is a perfectly valid answer, and the one your mother and yourself chose towards your father. A is sometimes possible (Dan Savage calls it "the price of admission").

The bottom line is that people tend to want C: my partner starts doing the thing I want them to do. And you know what, if the advice was for the partner in question, that would be an option. But it isn't.

The reason people give advice A and B and not advice C is because the person asking advice is the person whose agreement was broken. We give advice to the people asking for advice. I personally don't give advice to the partners of people who ask for advice, regardless of whether they're in the wrong, because they're not going to read it, and they're not going to accept it coming from their partners. I give advice to the people who asked for it, and that means giving advice about things they can personally change. And "make your partner act like a decent person" is not one of those things.

If you're in a relationship with someone who constantly cheats on you, there is no magical formula to make them stop if they don't want to stop. So you can accept that they will do it, and stop placing expectations on them not to, or you can decide this is not something you're fine with, and take yourself out of the situation.

Now, were you the person who broke an agreement asking me for help, I would give a very different answer. I would tell you about what YOU can do. Figuring out how to keep the agreement. Maybe discussing with your partner to find a compromise. And maybe leave, as well, if you're not fine with the boundaries they have.

A lot of people seem to ask "how can I trust my partner again?" but the answer really is "you can't" in most cases. Because most people who ask that want a trustworthy partner, but don't have one. They just don't. And from their description of things, their partner isn't even pretending they want to change in a lot of the cases.
If someone asks "how can I get trusted again?" then there is some hope, because the person who broke agreements, feels bad and wants to fix things does have power over their own actions. Of course, they can't make their partner trust them again. But they can make themselves trustworthy and hope the rest follows. And if it doesn't, then they can accept they won't be trusted, or they can refuse to stay with a partner who doesn't trust them.


I think, FauxPoly, that your point of view stems from being the victim in such a context. Victims blame themselves, and that comes with thinking it's your fault the person is the way they are. Thinking you can change them comes from the same thing. Wanting to cling to the hope they will change, over and over again.
People aren't saying "it's your fault he isn't changing". They're saying "he's not going to change, and you need to accept that". And that's why you leave. Or in smaller, less important cases, you learn to deal with it.
You may not want to be away from someone who hurts you because you love them. I get that. But I still agree with the advice. Get away or you'll get hurt more. Don't let those people suck you into thinking you can "help" them and change them. Only they can change, and they'll change better and easier if there isn't someone there who lets them abuse them because they don't want to accept the people won't change.
It's not the victim's fault. It's all part of the abuser's tools to make the victim stay. But there has to be someone pointing it out to the victim to that they can escape. That person isn't blaming the victim, they're trying to help them. It's actually taking the blame away. It's telling you, it's not your fault that he's hurting you, that he's still hurting you. It's not your fault that he hasn't changed. There is nothing you can do to change him. Nothing at all. If change happens it will have nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

I hope I'm making sense. I understand your situation is hard, as is the situation of anyone in a relationship where an agreement was broken. And I agree it's good to check if there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but if it keeps happening, it's safe to assume there isn't one. Or if there is one, it doesn't matter. Do you want to stay with a partner who keeps hurting you, even if it's an accident?
 
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