Polyamory Observation # 13 (on Friday the 13th)

There have been two recent comments here that have stirred my desire to write. One was from Impish 1 and the other from Sara. Thank you to each of you for your direct and honest perspectives and your inquisitiveness as to, "how is it that you do this emotionally?" (This is a paraphrase of their comments.) All of our previous Polyamory Observations have been written by swan. Were she to do this, she would no doubt do some of the bloggger cyber magic she does so well, to build in links to the two comments that are precipitating this post. I lack her skill, and so am about to simply cut and paste these comments so you can see what I am responding to. That will make this lengthy. If you don't want to read all this, just skip over them.

"Impish1 said...
I learn a great deal from your discussions here. I don't know if I'll ever find an answer to the question that this type of discussion bring to my mind and has me turning over again and again. I know inherently that my ability to love unconditionally could never stretch far enough to silence the jealousy I would feel sharing my husband this way. Having come to know the family you have now, I understand it as family and feel Swan's anger and pain at the thought of a new love coming into the home openly. Sorry for the long winded set up, but the question I keep asking myself is - does this ability to love this way come through iron will, or is it something that some are more suited for or adapted for because of something intrinsic. I recognize that even if it's something that one is inclined to it would take constant work to conquer the natural impulse for self interest. It's very generous of you all to help us understand the dynamic of this type of relationship - I have learned much. Thank you."

"Sara said...
Tom,"this comparison and contrast. Your openness and non-defensiveness are both rare and very much acts of friendship." I feel just the same, and thank you and swan very much! I just cannot pretend to understand polyamory, can't wrap my mind around living with that. What I do believe is that it is part of the relationship construct you and swan agreed do from the start. If my assumption is wrong that is a different matter. I can understand swan struggling with something she philosophically agrees with, but emotionally does not like. I think Grant and I have had reverse struggles. We consciously committed to our relationship requiring us each to put our union above any other relationship. There are times when that has been a struggle, and not easy to live with. I remember in graduate school having a really good friend, a male study partner, whom Grant was uncomfortable with. There was no specific reason, but he read the man's intentions very differently than I did, I felt this man was an important friend, Grant felt the relationship was an interference to our marriage. I struggled with that, and it hurt. However, at the end of the day, what I had with Grant, right or wrong was more important than anything else, so I accepted what I had to live with, and said goodbye to the friendship. My point being, all relationships can require a great deal of struggle at times. Honoring commitments is not easy. I am still stuck with the limits issue. All people, whatever they call themselves, have limits and boundaries. I am thinking that just as in all good relationships between people who DO cherish each other, regardless of the power dynamic, when they hit that wall they simply work hard together to get through it intact, and in a loving way. That part is consistent."

These two comments engender one of the most frequent reactions we encounter to polyamory. "How is it that you do this? I can't imagine how you wrap your head around this. How do you tolerate the emotions of it all?" These seem to be the thoughts that those who respond openly and non-judgementally to poly find themselves struggling with. Others who condemn polyamory outright, make the issue is simple. Polyamory is wrong. The people who do it are sinful, ungodly, degenerate, and possibly even criminal, so there is no reason to struggle with how they might do it. It is simply necessary to stamp the practice out.

Then there are our friends here who are not poly, who have come to care for and respect us as we do them, (and you cannot know how great a gift that friendship is to those of us who live beyond the boundaries of normal society), but who wonder how in the hell it is that we do this....or even why we'd want to.

This is such fertile ground. We can respond to this on so many levels.

Looking at this broadly, culturally, sociologically is one approach. I would refer you to the post I wrote, "The Origins Of Modern Monogamy" on our predecessor Blog, The Swan's Heart, July 4, 2005. Perhaps swan will put a link in here :-) to that for us when she gets to look at this (knowing her schedule right now, that likely won't be until tomorrow.) You can link to Swan's Heart here on our Blog, and you should be able to scroll through our archives to July 4, 2005 pretty readily. Points there that you might find interesting include that anthropologically there are far more polygamous (or polyamorous) cultures than there are monogamous. There is evidence that humans, left to their innate instincts would likely live in polyamorous families not monogamous ones. Additionally the history of our Judeo-Christian culture came from polygamous traditions: traditions that were co-opted and for political/economic reasons when the Roman Catholic Church made an edict mandating monogamy in the interest of creating intestacy to enrich its coffers. This discussion is much more thoroughly "fleshed out" in the July '05 Swan's Heart post. This Cliff's notes version is not that compelling.

This transition from Judeo-Christian polygamy to monogamy having been "legislated canonically," a huge and highly successful historical revision took place. Today, when Rick Warren says that, "Marriage is one man and one woman, and always has been throughout all time in all cultures," (paraphrase) no one blinks. No one questions it. We've been taught that is true. It is one of the foundational fairy tales upon which our culture is based. It is, of course, a complete lie, but we are all products of our culture.

We grow up watching/reading love stories, listening to love songs, celebrating Valentine's Day (a fabulous old Pagan holiday which involved the whipping of women to celebrate their fertility....how perverted our culture has become in turning it into a feast of chocolates, roses, and greeting cards), and knowing that somewhere there is for us our "one and only one," and that there must, and can only be, "our ONE." We know that it is simply not possible to love more than one at a time, and that if we did, we would certainly be deluding ourselves and damaging our relationship with "our ONE."

We have no problem imagining parents who have multiple children loving them all simultaneously without sacrificing their love for each one. We don't require them to choose which child is "their ONE" and then send the others away lest they somehow damage the relationship with "their ONE" child, yet we know that their parents must love only one adult or else....who knows what it is might happen....they might come to have "too much" love in their life, or worse yet too much sex.

OK, OK, I'll settle back down now and get my excessive rhetoric under control. And remember the cultural phenomenological frame within which I live and we all are having this conversation.

We marry "our ONE" and go about our lives. Inevitably there are continual sexual attractions we encounter daily (even at my age:) Then there are occasionally people whom we encounter who we truly feel drawn to. We are comforted that in our society to even act on these attractions is generally a huge taboo which could have dire professional/vocational, and even legal consequences, so we are bolstered in our resistance to having "too much love." But despite our knowing in the depths of our acculturated souls, and in law that it is absolutely wrong, and unhealthy, and immoral, and sinful for us to have love other than with "our ONE," our marriages crumble often because there is a deviation from the accepted societal more by one or both partners. And, of course, if there is a deviation, our marriage must end, and our self-worth must be questioned, and we must atone, most likely with a counselor, because we have exceeded our permissible "love quota."

It should be clear by now that I think monogamy is unhealthy, inhuman, illogical, stupid, immoral, and wrong (just in case you were wondering how I really feel.) I absolutely do not believe that those who practice are necessarily any of those judgemental adjectives. They are simply "Society's Child," (where is Janice Ian when I need her.)

Now to pan in the scope of our conversation to just us: swan, t, and me. How is it that we did this, do this? For all my high falutin rhetoric earlier on in this post, the reality is, I grew up in our general culture. As a boy, one of my earliest memories of romantic awakening was going through a few days of feeling "in love" while the song "Tammy's In Love" lilted through my head day and night. I had no target for my affections. This likely was some early on assault of hormones. I think it was 1959. I think I was even singing the song in my sleep. I was in love with who "my ONE" was going to be. I knew I would find that magic one who would make my life whole and fulfill my life as a good Christian man. I would likely be a Presbyterian minister, and my parents would be so proud and......well all this was true unless I was a military hero or possibly President of the U. S............or to be an attorney (my father had told me attorneys were men of huge character) was an aspiration. There was nothing my mind other than that I would come to love anyone "my ONE." Except of course my continual war with my deep dark WRONG secret self, that I wanted, no way more than wanted, NEEDED to spank every woman and girl who I met.......but that is another discourse entirely.

In college I met "my ONE." It was the great disaster of my life. It was the beginning of a horrible 29 year marriage with a woman who never knew me and who resisted me knowing her. She had no use for sex or intimacy, but she fulfilled my cultural myth and we did have two fabulous children, who I would not have, were it nor for our union. My adult life really began with my divorce, but I digress (again). When I was with "my One" in college, I had a roommate who was my close friend. The three of us were like the Three Musketeers. We used to joke we were like the Mod Squad (how 60's is that.) One night knowing how close the two of them were I encouraged the two of them to go home from the bar we were in together. I saw no reason why they should not express their love for each other. It came to me naturally. I was head over heels in infatuation with her, but we three were so close, I wanted them to enjoy each other and their feelings. I was pleased that they would be happy together. It was my first experience of compersion, although I had no idea what that construct was at that point. I guess I was somehow 'infected" with polyamory early on. I don't exactly know how or why.

Ratchet life up about 30 years. I was divorced. Essentially, I lost my children other than rare visits and sending off child support checks. I was devastated and questioning whether I wanted to live. I met t. She brought light and laughter and love and respect, and acceptance of my BDSM orientation, and sex like I'd never had into my life. And we became one and I loved her like never before and I still do. We married. And as I explored my lifestyle orientation, and community, and mentored others in this life, I/we met a couple, swan and her X. And after a time (years) they wanted to join us. swan and I recognized connection between us that was truly magic. We've always felt that we recognized each other somehow from the moment we first connected via the Internet. We became a family of 4. Then her former husband's and her marriage ended, and we became the three we are now, and will remain.

In polyamory we have our feelings like everyone else. When swan and I were first in love, I felt huge guilt, or more like fear that I/we would hurt teresa, fear that I might lose teresa, I felt selfish, I felt weak, and at the same time I felt hugely in love. I felt no desire to lose teresa....exactly the reverse. I loved her too. I loved her differently. I love teresa as I loved teresa. I loved sue as I love sue. I wanted both. First I admitted to sue I loved her. I was stunned when she loved me back. That thrilled me but accentuated the feelings of fear for t and guilt, etc.

When I think of the feelings poly folks have sometimes when they have new love, due to their acculturation's teaching them that what they are feeling and doing is wrong, I find myself flashing to Tom Sawyer floating down the Mississippi on a raft with his Aunt Polly's slave Jim. Slave Jim is escaping slavery and Tom is facilitating (aiding and abetting) it. Tom, in his internal monologue is suffering the tortures of the damned for his "sinfulness" in helping "steal" his Aunt's slave. He goes on, in his mind, at great length, about how he knows he has turned away from God, and will burn in hell, for the sin of helping "steal" his Aunt's nigger. Despite his knowing the great Christian "evil" he is doing in facilitating Jim's flight to freedom, knowing he is ending his relationship with God as he knows him, Tom cannot prevent himself, from helping to steal Jim. Polyamorists often understand just how Tom Sawyer felt.

Was t hurt? Yes. Did we all find a way through it? Yes. We gained each other. Not only do I have my two loves, but they too, have come to love each other (sororitally) deeply.

When new love happens in a poly relationships there is often a mixture of joy, sorrow, jealousy, fear, expectation, recrimination, etc. Poly's become good at communicating; at really listening to each other; at embracing their loves even when it hurts and when the feelings are not good; at knowing that there are no "bad" or "wrong" feelings; at knowing they are committing a sin just like stealing Aunt Poly's nigger and taking him to freedom. We don't do this because we are superior, or a race apart, or more strong willed than monogamists, but because we prefer to invest our relational angst in having more love, not in limiting it to less. We do it because those are the skills necessary to survive and have our love(s).

So I cannot resist asking very respectfully, (because believe me I do not have any judgement of anyone else's relationships..........I am frequently judged and I know how it feels so I don't judge others)when you, Sara, had to end your friendship in graduate school, did you not have feelings about that? Did you not have to communicate your way through those feelings with your husband? Did you not struggle? Did you never question if that was right? Why would you invest all that energy in resolving struggles in the interest of limiting love rather than in your having more of it? It is a question I ask all of you who have had loves and thus ended an earlier relationship, or divorced? Why couldn't you have continued your original love and had your new one too? What is it about having more than one love simultaneously that you (appear to me/us) to be so abjectly terrified of? How do you know that were you to love more than one, you would love your first one less? It could just be you'd find the magic synergy that more love makes more love. You might just find that miracle that you'd love more.

When t and swan and I confronted our love, we had a choice. I could have chosen one of them. I could have sacrificed the joy that is the three of us. I could have mourned the loss of one of them forever. I could have had "my ONE." I don't find what we do difficult. I cannot imagine what it is that you monogamists do. How do you do it? Why do you do it? Why when you can open your lives to the magic of more love do you limit your lives to dramatically?

Well now, how is this for a rambling, excessively rhetorical, extensive treatise? I could have just written a conceptual piece here. It would have been brief and direct. I know that, what with my dyslexia, I will never get all the typos out of this. I really felt that to answer this, you needed to know my beliefs, my values, some of my history, and then how this works and has worked in our lives.

We are poly. We are one poly family. I am not sure we are representative of much of anyone but us, but we are more similar to poly families than we are to most monogamous ones. While we poly folks are a small minority there are thousands of our families. We don't all live the same way at all. There is what we call the polyfuckery wing of the poly community that is way different (or maybe just younger) from us. Many of us have become what I call neo-pagan. I have no more desire to live my life based on pagan mumbo-jumbo than I do Christian, Jewish, Islamic, or any other ancient mythos super-imposed onto my life. So take this for what it's worth as an indication of how polyamory works in general. But you asked how we do it, and how we wrap our heads around it. This is a whack at communicating that.

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.