Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Harris on April 1, 2011 at 9:30am

I'm probably not the best person to reply here, but, your photo looks like a Tuscaloosa "A", so I'm going for it:)  I've only been on the ethical non-monogamy trail for a couple of years, and it's been a slow and, I would say, spiritual process with many difficult realizations and conversations.  I'm having an easier time of it than my wife, however, and realizing that we all have our own ways of dealing with emotions as deeply-seeded within us as jealousy, and one way is often to simply not deal with it (which isn't always bad, though you do eventually have to deal with it at some level).  

 

What I've come to believe (or realize that I probably have always believed) is that love is not a two-way street, it's a complex of interconnecting highways.  The more we love, the more we can love, the struggle is always in the logistics.  Sometimes we love someone quickly and painlessly, one night, fun, dancing, drunk perhaps and that's it, a nice memory and sometimes we find that we can't live without another person in our lives for a long time.  A beautiful day for me was when I realized that I still loved all of my Xes, and that they are important to me, though, I told a few of them and that was a little awkward:)

 

Monogamy is a false promise at best if taken the way our society tells us to take it, that is, "we enter into a relationship with someone who completes us."  I think that we as individuals are the only ones who complete us, and that there are many people in our lives who reflect the beauty of our own completion from themselves back to us, and these are the people that we are drawn.  To tell ourselves that there is only one of those people is to deny that we are in love with ourselves first, and that fucks the whole system.  And, if you want to mine back into your Christian upbringing, this notion is biblical, as Jesus was the biggest egomaniac to ever live, and with positive result, look at all the people who surrounded him with love:) 

 

Jenny Block's book "Open" is a delightful and quick read, published two years ago.  I've read a couple of others and you can surf the web for some.  There are some great links to other websites on this website that are helpful too. 

 

Happy surfing!  And, as Woody Allen hears in "Manhattan," "relax, the worst that can happen is that you'll learn something about yourself."

 

David

Permalink Reply by Kylyssa Shay on April 2, 2011 at 1:19pm

I think that much jealousy is insecurity, fear of losing what you have or not getting what you feel is your due.  You fear your husband won't need you anymore.  But I think The Nerd hit the nail on the head with the replacement of "need" with "want" in the equation.

Permalink Reply by Ashleigh Carter on April 3, 2011 at 2:03pm

By all means, correct me if I'm wrong, but I am getting the impression from some of the other threads on this forum that monogomy is seen as possesive bond between two people for ultimately selfish purposes (having one's own needs met). Right now, I both need and want my husband. I feel this is the case not because he "completes" me, but because as a human I am a social animal who needs interaction with another human, and I happen to quite enjoy said interaction. I think I'm having difficulty seeing the difference between "needs" and "wants" in this area of life. I am afraid of losing what I have with my husband not because I'm afraid he'll run off, but because I will be too engaged with someone else to be there when he needs/wants me, or he will be too engaged with someone else when I need/want him. Perhaps at this point I feel secure in the stability of having him always available to me as I am always available to him and it is that I am afraid to lose. After all, I haven't had to feel lonely since I got married 5 years ago, neither have I had to experience a broken heart, and it sounds like this lifestyle would open me up to both those things. Is the vulnerability worth the return? I need to think more about this. We're not in a good city to try something like this out anyway. Hopefully I'll be in the military before the year is out. I think that will make this easier to try should I decide to go that route.

Permalink Reply by David Harris on April 3, 2011 at 3:34pm

I think you point with clarity to the major questions involved not only in ethical non-monogamy, but at some point, in life.

 

monogamy can be a possessive thing, as can almost anything.  I've been married 14 years and we are in the midst of trying to figure out how to be there for one another without either being possessive or, perhaps worse, being in one another's way when we need to grow.  It's all quite tricky though, b/c we are humans and social creatures and we have a risk/rewards way of approaching life.

 

And certainly there are times when we need/want one another and the other isn't there.  That happens without other partners involved (e.g. the other night, I was in one frame of mind and she the other and we couldn't be together, neither was there for the other.  To me, that's as strong a condition as had one of us been out with someone else).

 

To me, the vulnerability is always worth the return.  Putting myself into a situation where I don't know the outcome is something I try to do every day, as a philosophy.  Why, then, would I not risk the things most important to me for the potential gain that they may prove all the more rewarding for having been open to what else they can be?   Change occurs daily, and you and your husband are not the same people you were 5 years ago and won't be yet 5 days from now.  The question, I guess, that one must ask themselves is whether you are more interested in having certain lines of stability that, regardless of other desires, you uphold, or whether you are interested in exploring potential other desires with the understanding that you are committed primarily to someone who will be your confidant through that vulnerability. 

 

Ultimately, though, whatever you choose to engage in, you should feel good about it.  Life isn't easy no matter how you slice it, so you may as well feel like you know where a few of your footsteps are going to land. 

 

Good luck!