Once I had changed my mind about relationship jealousy, I still had a lot of distance to cover before I changed my mind about monogamy entirely. Plenty of monogamous couples are far more mature than I was and live without jealousy, and yet remain monogamous. While working through my jealousy/insecurity was a step along the path, it was just one part of the process of coming to polyamory. Another idea entrenching monogamy as the only acceptable relationship style was what I am referring to as "partner ownership."
Jealousy isn't the only thing that was enforcing monogamy in my life. It is a cultural norm that a person should expect any person they are romantically involved with to forego such a relationship with any other person. Even as I over came my insecurity that my partner may find someone else they like more than me and leave me for them, I still felt like they owed me their entire being or like they somehow belonged to me. I may not have directly or openly claimed to be in charge of them in anyway, but I expected to have some direction over their choices. If they did something without consulting me then it could be considered somehow a betrayal or reason for losing trust.
And it wasn't just about expecting to direct (or help direct, I like to think I wasn't THAT overbearing, but maybe they would disagree) their life, but also about expecting to control their time on a more hour by hour scale. My expectations here went something like, "if you are dating me, I can expect that you spend however much time I feel is appropriate on me." This may not have been manifest in such clear terms in my mind, but expressed in expecting them to do things that they didn't enjoy with me for the sake of proving that they loved me. I'm not saying that it isn't a nice thing to do to give up some of your time to engage your partner in their hobbies, but coming from the other side, expecting or telling them they have to indicates that you require it of them. I have seen this in relationships where one person wants to do something and another wants to sit back and relax. I have seen the person who wants to relax try to guilt the person who wants to engage in some activity into just lounging around, despite the obvious antsiness of their partner. Relationship jealousy is one manifestation of insecurity, but another is trying to control everything around you for fear if you don't that everything you have will crumble.
This is a particularly bad reaction to insecurity in regards to the people around you. Tightening your grip simultaneously pushes people away and makes you mistrust any evidence of their love that may exist. I started to recognize this in myself when my response to being told by someone that they love was to question them. My mind instantly went to, "Do you though?" I would be really surprised if I was the only person to experience this, but for myself I recognized it came from a sense of entitlement to love from partners. My train of thought going something like, "Of course you are saying that, you owe it to me. Of course you are continuing this relationship, you married me and now have no choice in the matter."
That lack of choice in the matter is what made me realize I had done a terrible disservice to my partners under the guise of love. I held my partners' affections hostage under threat of destruction of whatever life we had built together. Even if it wasn't in open threat, spoken out loud as a warning, it is common knowledge that break-ups are horrible things. The more entangled your lives have grown, the more ability your partner has to take away the things you have spent your time building, including your reputation and other relationships. How many stories are told in gossip in the end of a relationship, spreading the things that one partner has done to hurt another? These things have a way of damaging the familial relationships that develop over time with each partners parents and friends, and often ending them entirely. Even if I never said them, I knew that being in a relationship, and especially a monogamous relationship meant that a partner had invested so many of their resources in me that their support system outside of myself (both financially and in drifting away from family and friends) meant that to leave me was a large hassle, and a large risk to a partners mental health and financial stability.
The difficulty of disentangling two lives is often seen as a comforting safety in a relationship, i.e. my partner wont leave me on a whim, but is a double edged sword that means that my partner may stay in a relationship with me long after they no longer want to, out of fear and shear difficulty. For myself, I came to realize that not only was this a contributor to my insecurity and a builder of belief that my partner is only with me because they have to be, but also a logical inconsistency between my professed love for them and my restricting them from pursuing whatever course may make them happy.
I think that without this element of logic, I wouldn't have fully realized how my relationship style contributed to my own personal unhappiness. I have written here first about effects my world view had on my life practically, but the decision to make a change didn't come from those negative effects. I am an incredibly stubborn person, and will live my life in the way I have decided despite whatever pain it my bring me. I will lose friends, I will repeatedly walk myself into a wall, if I belief that is the right thing to do based on my perception of the world. I spent most of my life as a strong deontologist, and though I recognize the practical benefits of consequentialism, and find it more and more relevant, the tendency to create rules and follow them to my self destruction has been well trained into my psyche. Sometimes the rule is more consciously defined than others, but this one didn't need to be. It was built off the culture that exists around monogamy in the world I grew up in, and was naturally adopted by myself.
Several things drew my attention to the my own logical inconsistencies around it. The first was a TED talk I came across. Titled, "Why Happy Couples Cheat," it described the way our culture has changed the way it views relationships and monogamy in modernity, and how the purpose of relationships have changed. It is a great talk, and worth listening to, but the parts that stuck out for me was a description of how cheating in relationships often has little to do with a intrinsic fault in the way that two people connect, and the motivations that people have for secret relationships can be entirely relatable. The common refrain of those wronged in the act of cheating cited in the talk "You think I didn't want more? But I am not the one who did it!" marked for me the fact that even in being wronged people are able understand why someone would want to pursue relationships outside of their exclusive relationship. If not universal, it seems that most people can think of at least one reason why they would want to. There are some good reasons listed in the TED talk and I recommend it if you have some time to give it a listen. There are legitimate reasons why people are drawn towards cheating, even though the act of betraying ones partner is entirely reprehensible.
As an example, I have had several close acquaintances who have, after marrying and having children, left a religion that abhors homosexuality. Having left that environment and feeling able to listen to their own feelings, they realized an attraction to members of their own gender. Having repressed such feelings so deeply that they are only able to discover it later in their life, already married and in committed relationships, they are in a position that a certain part of themselves has become off limits to explore. This without any knowledge that this would be the position they would be in upon entering the relationship. This would never excuse them cheating, but could make them somewhat resentful for the position they have found themselves. They may never act on that, but still feel like they have missed out on a part of life or themselves, having never had the chance to pursue relationships with a large portion of the population that they had previously forbidden for themselves.
For myself, realizing that there could be these sorts of things that my partner may be foregoing out of respect and love for me, or out of the difficulty it would cause them were they to pursue it, or however it may feel in their mind, made me feel sad. I wouldn't want the threat of emotion and financial ruin to be the only reason a person was with me, and more importantly I realized I could no longer feel comfortable feeling like I was owed that. I saw the inconsistency of telling someone I love them and then getting in the way of something that was a part of them, or something they thought might make them happy. If I love someone for who they are, not for the fact they are willing to give up a part of themselves for me to be able to accept them.
It took me a lot of time to work through my jealousy issues around letting go of owning my partner and their affections. However, noticing that I had been given power and ownership over her by our past view of how a relationship should be, I had no choice but to release that grip over my partner at the time of this realization. I did not want that grip to be the only reason she was with me, for my own security and for her happiness. I wanted my love for her to be a commitment to her happiness, and not do anything to get in the way of that.
What does that look like for me? I told her the realization I had come to. I told her that I did not want to block her happiness, I didn't want to repress her in any way. If she wants to pursue relationships with other people, including sexual ones, I am happy for her. If she doesn't want to be with me, I will do my best to facilitate that transition, rather than be a barrier to it. I do not want to own her, or for our relationship to be a shackle around her legs. And the results have been incredibly freeing for the both of us.
For her, she is able to know that I support her in meeting her needs and wants in life in the best way that seems suitable for her. For me I am able to be free from the questioning of whether or not she wants to spend time with me, because I know if she did not want to do so, she wouldn't. It is beautiful the way that letting go of the chains of ownership on my partner has done more to free me than any other pursuit of freedom I have tried. This change in my world view has also allowed me to feel closer in all of my relationships romantic and otherwise, in a way that I was previously preventing myself from doing. It feels good when updating your beliefs, which may seem theoretical or not immediately practically applicable lead to positive changes in your life. This one definitely has, but that isn't necessarily the point of getting rid of inconsistencies in your life. The point is striving towards self honesty and true integrity. Knowing what you believe and how you got there. For myself that is the goal, independent of whether or not that makes life easier or more pleasant.
Relevant References:
Philosophize This! episode about deontology vs consequentialist ethics
morethantwo.com
More Than Two: A Practical Guide to Ethical Polyamory
Note: You can listen to More Than Two with a free trial of Audible here! And it helps support the blog!
The Bayesian Conspiracy episode about polyamory. Basically, this is 3 people talking about the different ways they practice polyamory/non-monogamy.
Note: You can listen to More Than Two with a free trial of Audible here! And it helps support the blog!
The Bayesian Conspiracy episode about polyamory. Basically, this is 3 people talking about the different ways they practice polyamory/non-monogamy.
