Tag: introspection

Handling expectations from metamours

There is no normal for expectations.  There is a common ground among cultures, groups, communities, but there is no normal.  This morning I was reading about a clash between metamours in a polya dynamic related to expectations that weren’t met and it all boiled down to an assumed normal or standard for expectations.

In the situation, Person A was asking for advice because their Partner B had brought Metamour C to the home A and B shared.  During that time, A had been busy and had not run into C during the couple days C stayed there.  There were times they were both home, but A was in the bedroom they share with B, or in the shower, or generally not in the main living areas.  During the majority of the time A was actually not home or sleeping. C was in the guest bedroom during most of this time.  C did not take the time to seek out A and greet them while they stayed there, and A was very upset about this and felt it was an incredibly disrespectful action of C’s part.  In their perspective, C has come into their home, been eating their food, using their utilities, and had not even had the good grace to find them and greet them in exchange for this hospitality.

Many of the responses to the post took the opposite perspective, they did not feel A had any reason to be upset, but that it was C who had been wronged.  Responses found A to be inhospitable and a poor host to not have sought out C to make them feel welcome.  Rather then feel A was reasonable in their expectations of greater respect, as they saw it, from C, they felt that A was being a horrid host for not making the initial effort to verbally welcome C into their home and initiate conversation.

It all boils down to expectations, and what a person views as normal or standard.  When we acknowledge something as common, we realize it is frequent and maybe even well understood by most people.  But when we think something is normal, there is an added implication that not only is it common, but it is good, it is the right way, and a deviation from it is abnormal, often seen as incorrect.  Person A thought it was normal when coming into someones home and staying there, to make sure to greet the owner of the home, in this case that would be both A and B, so A was neglected in this.  They felt they were being gracious in letting C into their home, and in C not feeling a need to do this, C was only seeing it as B’s home, and it was an affront to A, whose home it was also.  They felt that this was a thing of such importance, that despite A having been absent or busy during much of the visit, C should have expended the extra effort to find one of the times A was around and sought them out for this customary greeting and brief moment of conversation.  Not doing so was ignoring them, which was a disrespectful slight against their hospitality.

Now it is hard to tell what Metamour C felt in this situation, since that wasn’t voiced.  Instead I can only make assumptions based on having seen this situation play out in my own life, and having been a metamour and guest in someones home, as well as having partners bring metas into the home we lived in.  Presumably C did not have the same normal.  Judging by the responses, they may have had the seemingly common expectation that since it was A and Bs home, it was on A to offer hospitality and initiate conversation and greetings if they chose.  They may also have just viewed things from a more independent perspective.  That the home is shared between A and B, that B had them over as a guest, so that was between them and B and A need not be involved if they were busy and didn’t want to interact.  In that scenario, less possessiveness or control is placed on the home and proper ways to behave when in it, because it does not matter so much that it is A’s home as well in that C is not required to interact with A while in that space.  What matters is only C being respectful of the space itself, not breaking anything for example, and spending their time with B, the one who invited them to share some of that space.  In this version of normal, A isn’t really relevant in respect of being a good host or being ignored in some gesture of impropriety, and interaction with A would only be relevant if it were agreed on by them both and then that agreement broken.

In looking further at the responses, A wasn’t willing to accept the idea that they in fact were the one who had a breach in etiquette by not initiating contact and “being a good host”.  In their normalized expectations, they had been a good host by allowing someone in their home, and for someone to put the expectation of initiating contact on them was abnormal and ridiculous.  For many responders the idea that you would not greet someone you had invited or agreed to have in your home was rude and ridiculous, and it was abnormal to put the onus of that on the other person.

So, let’s look at it with the view that no expectations are normal.  There is no right way to do things, there is sometimes a common understanding, but with that, there are also outliers.  If you have expectations and they are reinforced by your experience and upbringing and mirrored by the people around you, they are common, at least among your culture or specific community of people at the time.  If someone comes along and does not automatically do what you expect, since your expectations are no longer seen under the guise of normal and right, just common, the next default assumption is that maybe they are an outlier, they are someone who doesn’t know or share these common expectations.  Suddenly they are not doing anything wrong in this, they just either lack awareness of what you expect, or they have a different set of expectations that are common for them which can exist separately from yours.  Normal is loaded with okay vs not okay, common is something that simply varies from place to place.  Once you see it this way, it is easier to move on to how to address the situation.

Once you recognize your common expectations are not being met, and realize the person not meeting them may not be aware of them or may have a different set of common expectations, what do you do?  Well you communicate of course.  In this case, A could simply approach C and let them know that they have an expectation that anyone who is a guest in their home will take the time to seek them out and greet them.  A can explain that from their common experience, this is a way of showing respect for someones space, so not doing so makes them feel disrespected.  C may simply have had no idea, and may be surprised to find they had played a part in A feeling disrespected, and may be happy to try and meet those expectations in the future now that they know them.  C might instead have other expectations, they might explain that what is common to them is the host being the one to initiate contact and greeting, and to not do so feels inhospitable or unwelcoming to them.  If C is also able to look at things from the perspective we are using, C can realize this is also not one right or normal way, but simply what was common in their experience.  A can understand this and realize that they too may have caused C to feel unwelcoming, simply because of a mismatched set of expectations.

From that point you can move forward.  Most people can get to this point and reach a mutual understanding of where the other person is coming from and what they may feel in a situation, and how that is shaped but what is common for them.  The hardest part is what to do when your expectations still don’t match afterwards.  So, the next step, which is easier when you acknowledge that your expectations are not some one right true way, but just a variation you knew with more frequency, is to let go of those expectations.  This is a lot harder for some people then others, or for some expectations then others.  It also can really relieve a lot of hard feelings between people if you can achieve that.  So, you look at the core sources of desire behind the expectations.  A wanted to feel respected and acknowledged in their home.  When you take it down to that base emotion, you can work out a way to do that with the other person.  C might explain that they don’t feel comfortable seeking out A when A is not around for much of the time and is not in common areas of the house but still want A to feel respected and acknowledged.  Knowing that is the core motivation, they could come up with another way to do so, like bringing their own shampoo and food so they are not using the supplies A has, or leaving a card behind that thanks A for their hospitality in having them over in the home they share with B.  Or A could be like me and find it simpler to just let go of those expectations all together and decide it would feel better to handle those emotions myself and not need other’s validation to feel respected in my home.  After all, as long as the other person is not being destructive, and is aware that I live there and it is my home as well, I don’t really need them giving respect to a concept I already am secure in.

In the end, try and distance yourself from your expectations.  Try and see them as common or uncommon variations that may be shared by many others, but are not one right way.  Detach from the concept of normalicy or something being a correct way of doing things, especially if it is a social norm that varies widely.  Communicate about any expectations, if you don’t, there will be misunderstandings.  Find the root causes and see if there are compromises that can satisfy everyone’s core wants and needs.  And let go of ones that don’t serve you or learn to manage your emotions yourself without outside validation when you need to.

The time I tried hierarchical polyamory

My first adult experience with polyamory started when I met my ex-fiance when I was seventeen and had just started college.  Now a lot of folks venture in to the polya life as a couple with a hierarchical model of polya, and I wasn’t all too much different.  Ex-fiance was a monogamous fellow, and I freaked out a little when I started falling in love with him, cue a few instances of pushing him away because I thought I would end up hurting him.  It was all very melodramatic really, but I eventually had a conversation with him about making our relationship “official” and all.  My two questions for him, before I agree to it were A) Would he have any problem with the idea of me getting gender reassignment surgery later in life (and I didn’t realize I was trans until seven years later how???) and B) Was he completely and totally certain he was alright with a polyamorous relationship.  He said yes to both, and so we became a couple.

We didn’t negotiate a strict hierarchy that I remember, but we fell into one easily as though it was the “right thing to do”.  As I ventured into dating other people, I always reassured him that he came first, he was always my priority.  I would check in with him constantly, “are you sure you’re okay with this? But are you really sure? No, are you really really sure that you’re sure?”  I don’t recall him every really asking for hierarchy, though I believe there was some assumption of that, since he seemed to assume a relationship escalator style relationship that ended in marriage and potential podlings and all.  I thought hierarchy was the way to go though, even though I did feel some vague discomfort with it, because after all, I was making a huge ask of being polya at all from someone who self identified as mono, so I better toss in some concessions to make him feel okay about it.  That my friends, was a mistake.

There is no story here of how eventually hierarchy didn’t work for me and it resulted in things blowing up terrifically, because there was a web of complex issues that I can guess caused him to cheat six years later and then walk away.  I won’t even know all the reasons, because we didn’t communicate well.  I don’t think he ever fully explained them, and if he did, I wasn’t about to grasp it at the time between the betrayal, the drinking, and the bipolar swings I hadn’t yet gotten under any semblance of control.  I would say though, that while I do remember him giving a half reason here or there, it was something we never did fully unpack, because we both had different flaws in our abilities to communicate in healthy ways.

Here’s what happened with the hierarchy though.  I shut people out in a lot of ways.  In elevating ex-fiance above everyone else, I made an effort to keep other people at arms length.  There was other trauma mixed in there, I was sexually assaulted my first year of college as well, which led to some persistent trauma that evolved into me being pretty touch averse, something I’m only now just starting to heal.  The way I shut people out though was definitely a harmful factor in that. I denied myself resources that may have helped in healing from that, and created an island of myself and ex-fiance, which grew into an intense co-dependency. In fact, having a hierarchical dynamic at all was a huge player in me becoming so codependent.  Structures and titles matter, they can shape out expectations in ways we aren’t aware of, and the ones I put in place caused my to depend on him as my sole source of support.  That codependency was one of the most unhealthy addictions I’ve ever had, it rivaled my alcoholism in things that nearly destroyed my life.

Finally a few years down the line we had transitioned from strict hierarchy to more of a descriptive hierarchy.  “Well two primaries could totally be a thing” could have been my catch phrase.  I was at that time still reassuring ex-fiance that he would always be -one of- the most important people in my life, and I refused to call any relationship secondary, but I still used the word primary for the ones that tended to have the extreme life integration we did, I just also accepted that other folks might join him in having that place in my life.  It wasn’t until he was gone for a while, taking a semester off school, working down at his mother’s workplace, and never around, that it happened though.  I met Cat, and I don’t know if ex-fiance being gone allowed me to let Cat in to that extent, but once I did, he became one of the greatest loves of my life, and my intensity with him on a romantic level could not compare to any dynamic I had ever had before, or at that time.  That opened the floodgates, once it was real to me, that was when the hierarchy truly started to crumble.  After that I went on to meet Kelev, and not too many years after ex-fiance left (and Cat was gone as well by that time), and by that point I was firmly on egalitarian polya/solo polya ground and running full force towards relationship anarchy.

Looking back I wonder often why I ever tried hierarchical polyamory.  It really isn’t in my nature, and from day one the idea of some people being “secondary” galled me.  I am not even sure how I didn’t recognize a more relationship anarchist mindset early on, why I spent time idealizing romantic relationships above all others when I even at the same talked about how my best friend and sibling growing up, River, was as close to me as any partner ever was.  Hell, I had written long rambling tomes that read like a teenage description of a Utopian society combined with the relationship anarchist manifesto back when I was a young teen, so you know, it was all right there from the start.

What I did learn from hierarchy is that it just plain didn’t make sense.  It does not work to decide that life is going to be a certain way, it just doesn’t.  To say that your relationship with one person fits in this shiny special box, and all other relationships are in smaller different boxes, and that is just how things are and will always be.  Think of it in terms of jobs, or kids.  You can expect a certain thing, you can work towards a certain thing, but life is gunna throw you a curveball and fuck up all your neat little plans and you’ll end up with something entirely different, but also potentially even better.  There are very very rare people who truly choose to single-mindedly stick to one path in life and follow it, and manage to do so completely, still coming out in the same place on the other side after every bump in the road.  Hierarchy is like that, it works, until you realize how much it hurts a secondary you love deeply, or until you find that with the billions of people in the world there actually is one you may love and be more compatible with then your husband, or you get tired of fucking rules.  I don’t want to choose one single-minded path and come out in the same place after every bump in the road.  I want my life adventure to be a free roving journey where the bumps deposit me in new and unexpected places, and where I may have a few destinations in mind, but if I end up somewhere else entirely I’m going to dust off my trench coat and forge ahead with a grin, ready for something new.

Breaking cohabitation – transitioning from living together to living apart

Major changes can make or break a relationship, and often the choice to live together is one of the big changes that can really show you if you can make a dynamic work with a person. But what about deciding not to cohabitate after having lived together?  That is a decision you rarely hear talked about, because it does not follow the traditional relationship escalator.  Can a relationship survive that sort of decision?  Does it mean the relationship is failing in some way?  Or is it possible it can even be a good thing? This is my story with that transition and what I learned from it.

A stable partnership

I’ve talked before about Kelev, the partner I have been with for eight years now.  We’ve been a central focus in each others lives basically since the start of the relationship.  He moved in about a year after we met, although I really count it happening even before that, since he pretty much started living with me about four months in to the relationship, it just took a little longer before a room opened up in my house and he moved his stuff over.  He was there through the house hunting six years ago, and the purchase of our home, the repairs, the experiment with urban farming, and all the ups and downs.  He supported me through me ex-fiance’s departure, through two years of school to become a certified vet tech, though alcoholism and overcoming it, through a job that felt like hell for a year as I worked to support us with my new career.  We share a bank account, four cats and three dogs, and eight years of amazing memories.

The unexpected announcement

This August Kelev approached me and told me he would be moving back to his Dad’s place, a couple miles across town.  My first reaction, after a bit of shock, because we had frequently confirmed a desire for the cohabitation to be a life long thing, was to try and understand why.  His reasons made sense to me, a mixture of needing to help his family, and a need for some sort of radical change in his life.  Especially with the monotony of daily life now that he couldn’t work, and often couldn’t move around well, I understood why it was so overbearing to be stuck in the same place day in and day out with no change.  To me, that wouldn’t be living, I thrive on radical change for my own growth.  On top of that, he was someone who had spent his lifetime moving every few years, I couldn’t relate to that personally since my childhood was largely stable and my own period of moving a lot was the first time in college.  Still, even without a personal reference, I could empathize with how it wasn’t easy after a life fueled by transitions and new beginnings, to settle down and have that feeling stagnate until you craved it. I also completely understood wanting to help his family, and to be able to spend time renewing his closeness with them.  It wasn’t that we didn’t see them on occasion at our home, but it was short visits that lacked the real depth you have when you are around someone every day.  I confirmed that there wasn’t a dysfunction in our relationship, and he was able to reassure me of that, along with the reassurance that he had every intention to move back within a year or two, and certainly was still 100% on board with our dreams to build a community together in the coming years and move there.  Still, it was terrifying.  I imagine when relationship dysfunction is the cause, it is even more uncertain and nerve wracking, but as is, this was a huge unexpected shift in how our relationship had been shaped almost from the beginning.

Adapting to change

Kelev moved out in August.  Through a series of other events living up, my need for more space, other housemates needs for more independence, or housemates moving to live with other partners, I ended up with the house completely to myself when he left.  I had largely worked through my codependency issues after my ex-fiance left, but it was my first time living completely alone.  That was both exhilarating and terrifying. It was lovely not having to worry to close the bathroom door (although that did increase the rate of cats-on-lap while using the toilet), but it was a bit uncomfortable at night knowing that no one else was home if someone broke in, or I somehow injured myself in my profound clumsiness.  The first couple weeks I kept very busy, I filled the emptiness in my life with action, mostly around the house to keep it functional.  Another big part of this change was that since I had been the one who attended school or worked, Kelev was the one who took care of our home, so suddenly I was figuring out how obnoxious it was to take out the trash, or scrambling around to get home by five to feed the critters in the evening. It’s strange how loading the dishwasher and then unloading it in the morning, or cleaning the cat boxes daily, made me feel more like an adult then bringing home a paycheck ever had.  It was the consistency, if I did not do every task, it just did not get done, so I made checklists and reminders and tried my best to keep on top of it all. After the first few weeks, when the new routine became, well, routine, I began to do a lot of introspection.  I worked a lot on myself, fostering greater independence and self confidence, and trying to really see what areas of my brain meats could use some improving. I also after a time began to discover both a great love of quiet and aloneness, a relaxation into it that I hadn’t experienced since I really began having adult relationships and always having someone around.  I enjoyed sitting with those moments, and also with the loneliness that sometimes came with them.  It was a relief to not have an easy access point to fill my loneliness with, and to instead have to become comfortable with being silent with my own self by necessity.  I did then in October have more housemates move in, other founders of the community who had traveled back to this side of the country so we could begin further working on that dream.  But the short period I had of living on my own is something I think I will cherish for the rest of my life, even if I may not pursue doing so again.

The effect, what our relationship has become

If you’re facing a recent split in cohabitation with a partner, or it’s on the table, this might be the part you really have been wondering about, how did it effect our relationship?  It was such a huge change.  We have gone through many times where we tweaked our dynamic, added a title here, took off all titles there, removed a bdsm component, got involved with other partners, added a bdsm component, stopped sharing a bed every night, experimented with sharing a bedroom, and so on.  Most of those changes had some effect on our interactions, but none permeated our daily lives so completely as this change.

There was a lot that I really learned to love about this.  I found that the time we spent together was often more exciting, more filled with laughter and emotional intensity, because suddenly it was a commodity that wasn’t always readily available.  Visiting his place at Dad’s felt like an adventure, lounging on his bed with his stereo blasting Alice Cooper or Hailstorm while while he fiddled with his wrestling figures and I read a book, reminded me so much of my teenage years visiting a friend or boyfriend’s house, and I felt younger and more alive.  Talking on the phone was a fun new treat, now we had hilarious conversations, sometimes with his sister or niece joining in from his side of the phone, where before phone conversations were mostly limited to checking if I needed to pick up groceries on the way home from work.  The whole experience really had a very youthful feel.  I also found a lot of joy in the separation of  time-to-social and time-to-alone.  I savored the drives home from Dad’s, as I could lose myself in music and appreciate the transition from the warm loved feeling of their home and being near my partner, to the clear peaceful emptiness of being alone again.  And something kind of magical happened, we started really doing things that we hadn’t before.  Our relationship was always so saturated with the every day, we were comfortable in spending hours relaxing while he watched tv and I played on my phone or read a book, and going out seemed like a difficult task, a departure from the comfortable and usual.  Once he moved it, it suddenly opened up a door for all sorts of new experiences.  We went to a concert together for the first time, the aquarium, tried new restaurants, and began going out to community events that we usually would have just been too tired and too low on spoons for.  I also began going to things on my own, without the guilt that I was leaving him home alone (though he never minded and would encourage me to go), I was able to have my own adventures and feel like I could really decided to spend my time however I chose in any moment.  I still choose to spend a good bit of that time with him, our emotional intensity is on an upswing and I’m loving the increased connection that has come of this venture, but I also am nurturing myself as a separate person more, so I bring more stories and experience to the table of our dynamic each day.

There are downsides though.  Sometimes the cats do something hilarious, or I manage to make a spectacular mistake in my clumsiness or absent mindedness, and while I try and remember it to tell him when we talk later, I know many moments are lost in the day and never get shared.  It’s sad, those little things, relatively unimportant, but also the fabric that makes up the majority of the day, are not longer all a shared part of our tapestry.  I wish that every surprised laugh as the cat falls off the counter or I drop my phone in the litter box, could be followed by looking up and meeting his eyes and seeing the laugh lines crinkle as he laughs with me (or at me).  I miss his snores at night.  I never have trouble falling asleep, but I wake early and often with panic attacks, and that noise was my comfort for many years.  Though, the nights he is here each week I just savor it more, my gruff lullaby that says everything is okay.  I worry about his health, it has been getting worse over the years and often I’ve taken the role of remembering the doctor’s instructions and making sure they are applied.  I still go to every appointment and try to remind him of what he needs to do when we get back, but I have a nervous inkling always in the back of my mind that things are slipping through the cracks and one day it will be something important.  My health is also not as good as it was.  I love to cook, but I have much more trouble motivating myself to do so just for myself.  My new housemates are wonderful, but they can cook, so while I do make family meals at times, I’m not -needed- to.  Having Kelev to take care of and cook healthy food for, really helped me stick to eating better as well.  Mostly though, I just miss the endless opportunity.  When someone is there almost every moment, there are no barriers to making each day a love affair or an adventure with them.  I didn’t take advantage of that very often when we lived together and I’ve learned to cherish now what I once took for granted.  That lesson though is something I am every grateful for, because when he does move back in, I will strive not to take those opportunities for granted again and will make every day a wonder.