A Flair For The Dramatic
Jul. 31st, 2009 03:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstormHello again, 3am. Lately you and I have had just a passing acquiaintanceship; I open my eyes for a little while, we hang out sleepily without anyone moving, and I fall back asleep. It's been some time since you enticed me to write. It probably helps that this has been an emotionally tumultuous blood time in general.
This is the best time of night for drama, and for feeling tortured and angsty. I suppose that's why I'm dropping in on you right now. I'm definitely feeling a little shredded internally at the moment and it seems I've lost my coping mechanisms around that. It's not a feeling I've been used to as of late.
Angus and I have been moving in the direction of a more open relationship for awhile now (I was going to say 'progressing' but I am deliberately avoiding that value-laden word because perhaps it's the opposite of progress) and we've never been really technically closed. The whole thing is new to him in the context of a long-term relationship. He's still getting used to it. As a couple and as a partnership we are still finding out what we're comfortable with and how (and I do believe this may be an unending process as needs shift over time and things get adjusted). We've been doing really well with it on the whole.
My take on any sort of poly or openness is that it's got a much higher likelihood of inciting drama than monogamy. I've never -been- monogamous for an extended period of time for comparison, but I know that negotiating all the boundaries where social expectation, personal sexual energy, love, jealousy, scheduling and NRE meet takes work and no one is perfect at doing it all the time. Generally one has to choose between surprises on the one hand and constraining one's wants at least sometimes on the other. Currently I try to grab the best working model and then assume that use and feedback will allow for adjustments. With adjustments, the model will get more perfectly suited towards our needs. Our needs will change, and the process will be ongoing.
This process assumes honesty on the part of both people in the relationship. It requires several kinds of courage: it requires the courage to look at your needs, and at your limits or boundaries. It requires the courage to bring them to the table assuming that a workable compromise will be reached. It requires the courage to separate needs from wants, to sometimes say I will forsake this in favour of this and then to really live that compromise. I'm a very communication-centered person, I'm super analytical, and I require people to fully inhabit their verbal promises.
Maybe you can see where this is going?
There have been a couple of roadblocks this week and we haven't had any real seriopus roadblocks before. There have been uncomfortable things, but nothing beyond little wobbles. These might be little wobbles on their own, but they came with perfect one-two timing, and they are about honesty which makes the whole thing very hard for me. Being honest and being upright and trustworthy and straight in my actions does not come naturally to me. Growing up with dad you never expressed how you were feeling or what you needed. You were not allowed to have boundaries. Peace was dependent on saying the right thing. I have been very straight with Angus through this whole relationship; it makes me feel like a better person, I think it is the only functional way to have a happy open relationship (which is so often a contradiction in terms, isn't it?), and Angus is an idealist and so demands it of me.
So of these things that happened, one was a little thing, one was an old thing that just came to light just a couple of days after. They are both the same sort of thing - they dance around the edge of lying. I'm really not pleased. I know poly is playing with fire: sexual attraction, crushes, and NRE are described by fire metaphors in an extraordinary amount of art. The goal, as with any fire, is to feed it moderately and in accordance with environmental conditions and to then to stay in control of it; if you lose control of it to try to regain control.
The goal is to not let it control you. The goal is not to get the biggest or the most fires possible. And with fires the way to control them is to watch the size, and to take into account your limiting factors: you can deprive it of oxygen, of fuel, etc. In my experience attraction works similarly to this. If you're way into someone to the point where it's having a bad effect on your judgement, you can step back: see less of the person, keep busy with other things, moderate the pace. If you actually go so far as to do these things, you can back off while enjoying the glow.
For this you really need a huge amount of honesty with yourself, and you need a huge amount of willpower. It's not always easy. But before you need willpower you need honesty, where you admit to yourself that the thing is getting out of control so that you can then act to control it.
I find that's the hardest step. People don't want to give up shiny new things and/or they don't trust their relationship to give them room to do what they need so they just avoid admitting to themselves when things are getting out of hand. If they don't know they've gone too far they don't need to begin that hard and uncomfortable process of controlling that fire. When you get this dynamic happening it sucks, because then the partner ends up putting the restrictions and the icky self-control part is sort of offloaded onto them; often, resentment comes with this transfer of responsibility. This is a great situation: you don't need to have self-control, AND you can resent your partner for trying to keep things in hand. Angus and I are not in this place, by the way.
In my ideal situation, as I said, each person monitors the size and intensity of their feelings (or fires) and when they start behaving weirdly they take steps to back off. Here's where my problem comes in: these two roadbumps between Angus and I lately, the one-two punch, they have both had to do with his honesty about the intensity of something and the amount which it's been on his thoughts. This leaves me a little shaky. What do I do? I have no desire whatsoever to act as his governor or to replace his willpower with my rules. I want to just trust him to do the right thing, to not be a jerk to me or anyone else, and to continue to invest energy in upkeeping our relationship and his boundaries.
So of course we talk about it. Of course he says he's sorry and won't do it again. You know, this is the way relationships work.
But now life goes on.
I could talk here about social pressure, how it's hard to believe you'll get what you want, past relationships having an effect on your thought habits, learning to admit these things to yourself is a process, etc. It is only marginally relevent. I have really trusted Angus a lot, most of his actions have been entirely trustworthy, a couple have been less so over our relationship, and I am willing to let the majority have a lot of weight in this case.
I feel watchful, though, and I don't like it. I don't like the (tiny, niggling) worry that something could happen and I wouldn't know until things are completely out of hand.
Having taken an hour to write all this out, I feel better, and I'll go back to sleep. Things will resume their usual routines. Missing the boy for a week (I go out of town for work Tuesday; he gets back from Shambhala the following Monday) will suck. My rats will be cute. Work will be sweaty. And in all likelihood this subject will only come up in this current tiny form once in awhile, every year or two when there's a misstep (as there must be in such a complicated process) and not as the start of an avalanche (or do I mean a firestorm? ;P).
Sort of on a funny note, do you know how when someone starts up a casual relationship the OSO (or whatever, I have no terminology for this) always says: I don't want to do anything to hurt your primary relationship? It's a statement as inevitable as rain in spring, generally always very heartfelt, and I think that's a beautiful thing. It just seems kind of beside the point. If my partner makes a misstep, it's ultimately his decision, though I suppose he might make it with encouragement or without it. The best reassurance I ever received along that vein was when Angus came home with instructions to pass on a big thank-you to me for his use. The (I hate this word) primacy or foremost importance of my bond with him felt so validated. I am now just rambling, and need a little more sleep before another day in the oven and a pool party to follow.
Be well, and peace to you.
This is the best time of night for drama, and for feeling tortured and angsty. I suppose that's why I'm dropping in on you right now. I'm definitely feeling a little shredded internally at the moment and it seems I've lost my coping mechanisms around that. It's not a feeling I've been used to as of late.
Angus and I have been moving in the direction of a more open relationship for awhile now (I was going to say 'progressing' but I am deliberately avoiding that value-laden word because perhaps it's the opposite of progress) and we've never been really technically closed. The whole thing is new to him in the context of a long-term relationship. He's still getting used to it. As a couple and as a partnership we are still finding out what we're comfortable with and how (and I do believe this may be an unending process as needs shift over time and things get adjusted). We've been doing really well with it on the whole.
My take on any sort of poly or openness is that it's got a much higher likelihood of inciting drama than monogamy. I've never -been- monogamous for an extended period of time for comparison, but I know that negotiating all the boundaries where social expectation, personal sexual energy, love, jealousy, scheduling and NRE meet takes work and no one is perfect at doing it all the time. Generally one has to choose between surprises on the one hand and constraining one's wants at least sometimes on the other. Currently I try to grab the best working model and then assume that use and feedback will allow for adjustments. With adjustments, the model will get more perfectly suited towards our needs. Our needs will change, and the process will be ongoing.
This process assumes honesty on the part of both people in the relationship. It requires several kinds of courage: it requires the courage to look at your needs, and at your limits or boundaries. It requires the courage to bring them to the table assuming that a workable compromise will be reached. It requires the courage to separate needs from wants, to sometimes say I will forsake this in favour of this and then to really live that compromise. I'm a very communication-centered person, I'm super analytical, and I require people to fully inhabit their verbal promises.
Maybe you can see where this is going?
There have been a couple of roadblocks this week and we haven't had any real seriopus roadblocks before. There have been uncomfortable things, but nothing beyond little wobbles. These might be little wobbles on their own, but they came with perfect one-two timing, and they are about honesty which makes the whole thing very hard for me. Being honest and being upright and trustworthy and straight in my actions does not come naturally to me. Growing up with dad you never expressed how you were feeling or what you needed. You were not allowed to have boundaries. Peace was dependent on saying the right thing. I have been very straight with Angus through this whole relationship; it makes me feel like a better person, I think it is the only functional way to have a happy open relationship (which is so often a contradiction in terms, isn't it?), and Angus is an idealist and so demands it of me.
So of these things that happened, one was a little thing, one was an old thing that just came to light just a couple of days after. They are both the same sort of thing - they dance around the edge of lying. I'm really not pleased. I know poly is playing with fire: sexual attraction, crushes, and NRE are described by fire metaphors in an extraordinary amount of art. The goal, as with any fire, is to feed it moderately and in accordance with environmental conditions and to then to stay in control of it; if you lose control of it to try to regain control.
The goal is to not let it control you. The goal is not to get the biggest or the most fires possible. And with fires the way to control them is to watch the size, and to take into account your limiting factors: you can deprive it of oxygen, of fuel, etc. In my experience attraction works similarly to this. If you're way into someone to the point where it's having a bad effect on your judgement, you can step back: see less of the person, keep busy with other things, moderate the pace. If you actually go so far as to do these things, you can back off while enjoying the glow.
For this you really need a huge amount of honesty with yourself, and you need a huge amount of willpower. It's not always easy. But before you need willpower you need honesty, where you admit to yourself that the thing is getting out of control so that you can then act to control it.
I find that's the hardest step. People don't want to give up shiny new things and/or they don't trust their relationship to give them room to do what they need so they just avoid admitting to themselves when things are getting out of hand. If they don't know they've gone too far they don't need to begin that hard and uncomfortable process of controlling that fire. When you get this dynamic happening it sucks, because then the partner ends up putting the restrictions and the icky self-control part is sort of offloaded onto them; often, resentment comes with this transfer of responsibility. This is a great situation: you don't need to have self-control, AND you can resent your partner for trying to keep things in hand. Angus and I are not in this place, by the way.
In my ideal situation, as I said, each person monitors the size and intensity of their feelings (or fires) and when they start behaving weirdly they take steps to back off. Here's where my problem comes in: these two roadbumps between Angus and I lately, the one-two punch, they have both had to do with his honesty about the intensity of something and the amount which it's been on his thoughts. This leaves me a little shaky. What do I do? I have no desire whatsoever to act as his governor or to replace his willpower with my rules. I want to just trust him to do the right thing, to not be a jerk to me or anyone else, and to continue to invest energy in upkeeping our relationship and his boundaries.
So of course we talk about it. Of course he says he's sorry and won't do it again. You know, this is the way relationships work.
But now life goes on.
I could talk here about social pressure, how it's hard to believe you'll get what you want, past relationships having an effect on your thought habits, learning to admit these things to yourself is a process, etc. It is only marginally relevent. I have really trusted Angus a lot, most of his actions have been entirely trustworthy, a couple have been less so over our relationship, and I am willing to let the majority have a lot of weight in this case.
I feel watchful, though, and I don't like it. I don't like the (tiny, niggling) worry that something could happen and I wouldn't know until things are completely out of hand.
Having taken an hour to write all this out, I feel better, and I'll go back to sleep. Things will resume their usual routines. Missing the boy for a week (I go out of town for work Tuesday; he gets back from Shambhala the following Monday) will suck. My rats will be cute. Work will be sweaty. And in all likelihood this subject will only come up in this current tiny form once in awhile, every year or two when there's a misstep (as there must be in such a complicated process) and not as the start of an avalanche (or do I mean a firestorm? ;P).
Sort of on a funny note, do you know how when someone starts up a casual relationship the OSO (or whatever, I have no terminology for this) always says: I don't want to do anything to hurt your primary relationship? It's a statement as inevitable as rain in spring, generally always very heartfelt, and I think that's a beautiful thing. It just seems kind of beside the point. If my partner makes a misstep, it's ultimately his decision, though I suppose he might make it with encouragement or without it. The best reassurance I ever received along that vein was when Angus came home with instructions to pass on a big thank-you to me for his use. The (I hate this word) primacy or foremost importance of my bond with him felt so validated. I am now just rambling, and need a little more sleep before another day in the oven and a pool party to follow.
Be well, and peace to you.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 12:51 pm (UTC)As for the last section, you're right. How could the OSO hurt the relationship? They can convince you to hurt the relationship, but that's between you and the SO and you and the OSO. Unless everyone communicates at gunpoint....
CZ
The key is to identify where the kindling is coming from. Every day, piling up a bit more and more.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 04:23 pm (UTC)But yes, good point, and of course. Definitely something to think about. Although, do you know about the use of controlled burns in agroforestry?
no subject
Date: 2009-07-31 05:25 pm (UTC)I think being able to trust yourself and have faith in your partner's ability to control fire makes life a lot easier.
I dunno.
Right now my girlfriend IDs as being into 'open relationships' - not poly - and I find that I'm more interested in my other hobbies and maintaining my current bonds than recreational dating, so things are fairly boring over here. I like boring.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-03 07:38 am (UTC)So far, "open" for her means that we have no/few 'rules' other than basic safety and common sense and stuff.
I find I can work with this b/c I have a basic trust in myself and the person I choose to be with that I didn't really have in the past. It's nice.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-09 03:02 am (UTC)Isn't it amazing how many different meanings those few words cover? "poly" and "open"?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-09 08:35 pm (UTC)Totally.
We should have tea. I have a bazillion veggies in my fridge that need cooking. Free some evening this week?
Compleatly Random.
Date: 2009-07-31 06:19 pm (UTC)You have a very beautiful shiny brain.
snuggles passed your way,:)
Indi
Re: Compleatly Random.
Date: 2009-08-02 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 02:45 am (UTC)I'm going to Shambhala too, ah! I hate when you're doing something shiny, new and wonderful and somebody has to go and write about it the next day.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 04:19 pm (UTC)Green eyelashes
Date: 2009-08-03 12:10 am (UTC)I'm meeting my own who are camping out for the week, cellphones won't work becuause it's so far in the wild. Tech lockout- just the trees, the music throughout the night and the people intermixed between them.
You should go, but I know you won't;)
Re: Green eyelashes
Date: 2009-08-03 01:33 am (UTC)Goodchild
Date: 2009-08-03 02:49 am (UTC)I like to be practical and self-sufficient, so I'm planing on volunteering.
Still stiff from the weekend though, so I'll see what I feel like later on.
Re: Goodchild
Date: 2009-08-09 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-02 09:27 pm (UTC)So I make sure there's lots of push room whenever I can, and I don't accept letter-of as a small thing that requires no adjustment around it-- at least if it wasn't one of those utterly stupid miscommunication errors that sometimes occurs.
Rules lawyering
Date: 2009-08-04 06:36 pm (UTC)I now have this mental note of Angus arriving at your place with a thank-you note pinned to his shirt :)
Re: Rules lawyering
Date: 2009-08-09 03:04 am (UTC)A thank you note like that would be super sweet. Can you imagine?