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Last week I picked Tucker up at the airport. The week before that I had counseling, and my counselor asked me: "why don't you like the idea of veto?" A lot came up, and over the two weeks a lot has been flowering from that.
My first thought was, I don't want veto power because I don't want to do the work of screening my partners' people; I don't want to be the one entrusted with the work of saying no all the time while they get to frolic around starting pretty things and not thinking hard about consequences and using me as (I'm unsure of this metaphor, but still) a backstop. I don't want the responsibility of making sure my partners' relationships don't do terrible things to my own relationships, and I don't want the responsibility of hurting two people who care about each other by coming down hard on them.
So I guess I see veto as what's necessary when my partner doesn't take my concerns seriously, or doesn't believe me when I say "hey, this is a problem". I see veto as a way for my partners to avoid doing their own work around whether a relationship is a good idea or not. I see it putting me, again, in the role of gatekeeper or hard-ass or logistics coordinator.
I think those are valid concerns.
But, having been setting boundaries and seeing how that feels lately, avoiding veto is also a way of avoiding my own work, of asking someone else to set boundaries so I don't have to. And, um... seems I'm dating someone who is just barely learning (actively, actually learning, but still) to set boundaries. So maybe one of the things I need to accept about the relationship is that I'll need to be extra good at my own boundaries. And that means maybe doing extra boundary work.
And if I am going to do that work, if I choose to do it, if that extra work is honoured within the relationship: then I shouldn't resent it. If I don't choose to do it, then I should actually not do the work rather than doing the work and harbouring resentment about it.
Which means... I need to be clear on my boundaries around how much work I'm going to do. I also need to be clear on what work my partners are currently doing, otherwise I feel left out to dry.
Recent talks have been going in this direction, and that's good.
Underlying all this is the question of what this work is shaping towards; what's the ultimate goal? That's a question I'm still working with. It's a lot bigger.
My first thought was, I don't want veto power because I don't want to do the work of screening my partners' people; I don't want to be the one entrusted with the work of saying no all the time while they get to frolic around starting pretty things and not thinking hard about consequences and using me as (I'm unsure of this metaphor, but still) a backstop. I don't want the responsibility of making sure my partners' relationships don't do terrible things to my own relationships, and I don't want the responsibility of hurting two people who care about each other by coming down hard on them.
So I guess I see veto as what's necessary when my partner doesn't take my concerns seriously, or doesn't believe me when I say "hey, this is a problem". I see veto as a way for my partners to avoid doing their own work around whether a relationship is a good idea or not. I see it putting me, again, in the role of gatekeeper or hard-ass or logistics coordinator.
I think those are valid concerns.
But, having been setting boundaries and seeing how that feels lately, avoiding veto is also a way of avoiding my own work, of asking someone else to set boundaries so I don't have to. And, um... seems I'm dating someone who is just barely learning (actively, actually learning, but still) to set boundaries. So maybe one of the things I need to accept about the relationship is that I'll need to be extra good at my own boundaries. And that means maybe doing extra boundary work.
And if I am going to do that work, if I choose to do it, if that extra work is honoured within the relationship: then I shouldn't resent it. If I don't choose to do it, then I should actually not do the work rather than doing the work and harbouring resentment about it.
Which means... I need to be clear on my boundaries around how much work I'm going to do. I also need to be clear on what work my partners are currently doing, otherwise I feel left out to dry.
Recent talks have been going in this direction, and that's good.
Underlying all this is the question of what this work is shaping towards; what's the ultimate goal? That's a question I'm still working with. It's a lot bigger.
