How Do You Define Your Relationship?

CarrieAnn wrote a piece recently that she called Risk. It is a thoughtful inside look at the balancing that happens within a long-term, committed relationship when it is based on power exchange. The white hot core of truth in what she wrote seems to me to be this:

The weight of giving yourself to someone is heavy.

The weight of owning someone can only be staggering.

Following up on thinking generated by that post, morningstar framed her recent relational transitions in the context of CarrieAnn's notion of the "one hurt too many" number that no one really knows is there until it is there.  She wrote:

...I have been analyzing what ... really happened ... It is never easy ... to have absolute power over another human being ... hurt me guide me love me care for me ... When I open myself up to the total vulnerability of turning over...... the wrong kind of hurt can ... shut me down ... make me doubt ...

Between the two of them, and a whole collection of other bits and pieces I've gleaned from reading here and there, I've felt a bit baffled about the whole business of how we describe our relationships with one another -- and why.  It seems a uniquely human sort of behavior.  Other critters do not seem to worry about this.  The robins outside my back door do not appear to have best friends.  The bullfrogs out on the pond seem happy to advertise for available ladies each night, but I can't ascertain that there is any sort of going steady or dating or boyfriend/girlfriend action happening on the shores of my little bit of water.  Even the ants, who during the summertime seem determined to mount daily sieges on my kitchen, manage to relate just fine without any wedding frippery or marriage licenses or legal documents to set them up as a limited liability corporation. 

WE do this.  We define every single distinct interaction, and we label them and name them, and we intend for others to understand precisely what it is that we mean when we call someone brother, aunt, mother-in-law, boss, cousin, child, wife, ex-husband, domestic partner, boyfriend, nephew, neighbor, friend, acquaintance, co-worker, pastor, therapist, personal trainer, stylist, doctor, etc.  I imagine that the fact of the matter is that we only exist, for all practical purposes, in relationship.  A single one of us without all of those connections is just about impossible to imagine, harder to describe, and likely to become, in very short order, totally crazy.  The very worst possible thing we can do to another is to "put them in solitary confinement," and we have the almost apochryphal shared knowledge that our infants will die if we feed them and care for their physical needs but do not provide them with simple human contact. 

Given our natural inclinations in this realm, it is not surprising that we get persnickety about our most intimate relationships.  The labeling that we do in that context carries a weight of meaning and implication that, oddly, almost never makes things more clear and frequently ruffles our respective feathers.  As talented as we are as makers of language, we burden our relational tags with so many demands that it is just about impossible to carry it all...  So it is that we insist on the differentiators -- always with layers of meaning and intent (notice that our words describe status but also duration and authenticity):  engaged, newlywed, married, widowed, divorced, single, co-habiting.  We have ways to designate who is "legitimately" in a relationship, and who might be illicit.  So we talk about wives, second wives, and trophy wives.  There are men who we designate as players and scoundrels and cads ... and it is all about how they conduct their intimate relating.  We retain the centuries old "mistress," even as we grow more and more accustomed to the fact that people do relate intimately outside of traditional marriages.  I found one question, posted to some online site, where a young woman wondered what to call the male friend who she hung out with socially, "hooked up" with occasionally, liked but wasn't thinking of in terms of any sort of long-term sense...  Was he, she wondered, a "friend with benefits, a fuck buddy, a boyfriend, a sex partner, ...?"  Goodness!

With all of that, it gets even more complicated when, as happens in the lifestyle, we begin to want to be able to describe our relationships in terms of the various connections, but also in terms of the gender orientations and power dynamics involved.  We have our own, esoteric lexicon to tell us who's who and what's what within our own ranks.  So if you hang around the lifestyle for just a little bit, you will likely encounter people who are "into" Daddy/boy, Daddy/little girl, Owner/property, Dominance/submission, Top/bottom, Master/slave, HOH/surrendered wife, and I don't even know what all else.  Some of us construct elaborate webs of interconnections within which we occupy a whole host of different roles in relationship to different partners.  It is fairly common for people to suppose that there is some sort of hierachical pecking order to the various configurations.  Hence we will talk as if there is something MORE valid about total power exchange relationships than those that are perhaps more negotiable.  We'll insist that the 24/7 dynamic is better and more "real" than the one that happens in discreet time intervals with periodic separations.  We'll compare, with great fervor, the relative merits of cyber and realtime relationships. 

We seem to be absolutely convinced that there is "one true way."  Most of us have some kind of idea in our minds about what constitutes a "good" or "correct" version of our kind of relating.  We collect, socially and culturally, a whole set of intellectual baggage that tells us what our relationships "should be like."  It makes me wonder how much better off we might all be if we could release our hold on the need to label, and simply find ourselves into the kind of relatedness that is "right" for us and our partners.  Too, we'd be better off if we simply acknowledged that what is right today might not have been right five years ago -- or might not be right in a year from now. 

We relate for all sorts of reasons, and we accomplish all kinds of things in the creation of our closest relationships.  Maybe there is a more informative way to think about describing our relationships -- maybe it is possible to think in terms of what we GET out of our relationships, or hope to get out of them.  Knowing that might tell us more than the labels we so commonly use.  Consider:

• Some relationships are about survival.  The partners may feel like they can't make it on their own, and almost anyone available will do. People who enter into these kinds of relationships are most often "broken wings" of one sort or another -- perhaps addicted, perhaps victims of abuse, perhaps mentally unstable... 
• Other relationships are primarily about validation.  In these kinds of relationships we are looking for affirmation of physical attractiveness, intellect, social status, sexuality, wealth, or some other attribute. A validation relationship might shore up our  self-esteem in areas where we feel inadequate or doubtful. 
• Sometimes, especially in the scene, relationships are set up in some sort of "scripted" fashion.  We pick out the roles that seem most attractive or most intriguing or most exciting, and then the relationship is configured around the partners living out their expectations for the roles they believe they are supposed to play. They have the right toys, go to the right events, and carry out all the right scenes and protocols.  These kinds of relationships are often plagued by power struggles.   Endless arguments develop as the partners struggle to maintain the illusion of perfect "whatever-ness." 
• Another kind of relational model is based on acceptance.  In these kinds of relationships, we trust, support and enjoy each other. Within certain boundaries, this kind of relationship allows us to be ourselves. Partners in acceptance relationships allow for the vagaries of their human-ness, and they simultaneously refrain from pushing those limits that erode the trust of their partners, strain their enjoyment, and weaken the bonds between them.
• Some relationships revolve around the assertion of each partner's wants and needs, as each person focuses on personal growth -- seeking their own and supporting their partner's.  These relationships require each person's acknowledgment and appreciation of their differences.   Roles tend to be flexible and boundaries tend to be somewhat permeable.  The ability to tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty is the hallmark.
• There are also models for relationships that are usually of short duration.  We don't always need to invest in an "until death do us part" lifetime contract.  Some of what we need, as organisms, can be handled just fine in relatively short interactions with the "right" partner for the moment.  These relatioships can help us heal, allow us to experiment, give us a path to making a transition, permit us to avoid unhealthy committments, or just let us pass the time in some sort of pleasant dalliance. 

 I don't know where all of that comes from or where it takes me or us.  Part of me would bristle at those who would look at my relationship and assert that it isn't what I say it is.  On the other hand, there are days when I look at my relationship and assert that it isn't what I say it is.  There are times when it feels like it does exactly what I need it to do in this place and this time, and when that happens, I am happy and fine and it really doesn't matter what anyone calls it or me or us.  Then there are days when I am feeling empty, lost, uncertain, frightened, sad -- and I can feel all the various barbs.  I can feel the lack of equality in the way our society defines marriage, I can feel the judgement in my own mind when I measure what I do and what I endure against what others report, I can transmute His occasional disappointment and discouragement into a death knell, and despair of ever getting it right.  What an exercise in chasing my own tail! 

Ours is a perfectly imperfect connection.  We are both entirely human, with entirely human attributes -- both positive and negative.  I can go down the list and take note of my broken places, feel acutely aware of my insecurities, acknowledge my attachment to the roles to which I've laid claim, rejoice in the acceptance I find in the life I've chosen, and treasure the growth and personal validation I've gained in the matrix of "us."  The relationship that He and I have created between us is not so easily labeled; is not simple to describe; does not fit neatly into one of the tidy little boxes.  I bet we are not unique in this. 

When we put our labels on our lives, our loves, our hearts -- call ourselves out (as He and I do) as Master and slave; set ourselves up immovably into a duality/dichotomy, we belie the truth of our own volatile, variable, and vital humanity.  Sometimes the slave finds the well runs dry, and sometimes the Master wearies of the need to manage the all and all.  We each give what we have when we can, and we each take what we need when it is offered.  Grown up relationships are like that.  They change.  They adapt.  They shift. 

I think I may have confused myself.  Maybe all of that stuff didn't really go together after all.

swan