Tag: relationship dynamics

Redefining boundaries and raising expectations

Sometimes people surprise you.  I’ve been polyamorous for just about my entire life, and a relationship anarchist as well for the last few years.  I don’t think I’ve ever been without a few partners or loves, though I only recently connected with my local polya community.  As such, I’ve been involved with a lot of people who had been monogamous before and tried polyamory for the first time when getting involved with me.  I’ve also been with a lot of people who had few relationships before me at all, but since we are raised in a society that normalizes monogamy, that is how they imagined their first relationships would be structured.  There are a lot of pitfalls when getting involved with someone who has absorbed institutionalized monogamous ideals and has not done the work to unpack those.  I was one of those people once, despite being polya from pretty much my first dynamics, and only experimenting with a couple mono relationships for a short time in my teenage years.  There was a shit ton of work to do and societal brainwashing to unpack, work that took me many years and a lot of heartbreaks to get through.  I hit a point where after I had done a lot of that work, I was understanding of what it took and tried to help a number of partners through that as well. I was new once after all, now I could work with others going through similar things and take on a sort of mentor role.

Several shit shows later, maybe a bit more then several, I was ready to wash my hands of all that.  I found a boundary, I did not want to get involved with people who had not already gotten to at least somewhere near the point I was at.  I would not get involved with monogamous people, or people who had no prior experience with polyamory or relationship anarchy. If someone was monogamous but willing to try polyamory or relationship anarchy, I fully supported that, but I wasn’t the test subject for that experiment because I did not have the energy for another dynamic in which they would find they couldn’t manage it after we’d done a year or more worth of emotional labor trying to make it work.  It probably didn’t help the divide that most of the polya people I knew had also studied non-violent communication and developed good emotional intelligence and self-awareness as a necessary part of making polyamory work for them, and most of the monogamous-want-to-try-polya folks I knew were learning those skills along-side with also exploring a whole new way to relationship.

So I made that boundary for myself, and my next couple dynamics were really very smooth in comparison to the ones before.  Instead of fighting and yelling and pushing away attempts at control, or getting drawn in and engaging in screaming matches I was later ashamed of, there were a couple years of calm conversations when problems arose, and good beginning talks about what agreements we would have that encouraged a respect for autonomy of all of those involved.  It was fucking lovely! In a previous dynamic with a my ex fiancé (a mono oriented person who was willing to “allow” me to be polya but didn’t have interest in being so himself, and never learned to communicate well or unpack a lot of societal mono baggage), when he cheated I found out after months of dishonesty, and couldn’t grok why he had not just told me that he had wanted to see someone else as well.  I mean to be honest, I had not created the best environment for honesty, we had a whole bucket full of other problems in our dynamic, but the cheating was a bad situation that exploded and he never communicated well through that, or through the eventual dissolution of our relationship that followed.  In contrast, I got involved with Witty, a person who had been looking at and trying polyamory for a while before we got involved, and had spent years figuring it out, along with learning effective communication and interpersonal skills to make it work.  He cheated as well, but it was a case of miscommunication, there was no attempt at deception at all following the fact.  We discussed it quite calmly, redefined our relationship agreements to prevent future mishaps, and the word was fairly hunky dory after that.  I could see pretty clearly the benefits of dating people who understood relationshipping in ways that suited what I was looking for, and had put in time an energy to be effective at it, same as I had after years of mistakes.

I was a happy little polya panda a couple years in to my new easy life, assured that this boundary had significantly lowered the drama level in my relationships and that it was the –right choice-.  Then I met Hoffy, who from almost the first conversation, showed me a level of openness and vulnerability I rarely see even from my dearest friends. He was inquisitive, forthright, and asked me a lot about the way I relationship in a frank and non-judgmental way that made it easy to open up.  I decided fairly quickly that every rule has an exception.  I often feel an extreme amount of hesitancy getting in any new relationship, which I’ve talked about here, but I was more certain I wanted to explore things with him than I had been about any life decision in over a decade.  I suppose sometimes you just know, because I am continually amazed at how that dynamic has progressed.  The level of openness and honesty has only deepened over time, and thus far there hasn’t been a single roadblock we couldn’t overcome, relating to polyamory or otherwise.  Since I’ve begun writing here we’ve often discussed our thoughts on the topics I’ve covered, and I again find myself even more amazed that someone raised in the same culture as me with mononormative structures, who hadn’t had any experience of polya relationships beforehand, could be so functionally excellent at making it work.  Thinking about it in more depth, I realize that the things that were lacking in my previous relationships with new-to-polya folks were often not their relationship experience in particular, but the communication skills, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness that often developed after more experience.  I fought tooth and nail against myself, against other partners, against societal ideas I had absorbed, to develop those.  I told myself that it was okay that I was a work in progress and that it took many years of brutal fuck ups to reach where I was now, and it was also okay to expect a certain standard from others because I no longer had the spoons to teach someone who was starting at the beginning when I was miles along the journey.  So what did it mean to find someone who was jogging along right beside me but hadn’t gotten there with a trail of messy broken relationships behind?  It raised my standards.  I suddenly realized that you know what, it actually is possible for someone to be compassionate, understanding, a gentle communicator, devoted to honesty and openness, from the very beginning.  There are people like that, or at least I had found one, and maybe that meant I hadn’t deserved all the shit and abuse heaped on from previous people who didn’t measure up to that.  Conversely that meant that I had no excuses for my previous behavior.  Being inexperienced wasn’t an excuse, and while I am admittedly very frank about how shitty I used to be, I needed to take even more responsibility for that.  I could have gone about everything very differently from the start, and I didn’t, but I knew now that it was possible.

So sometimes people surprise you.  I still have that boundary for myself, although I have tweaked it some. I am only willing to get involved with people who show they can express themselves with honesty and in a non-violent way, who are aware of their wants and needs and aren’t smuggling in secret expectations under them, and who are self-aware and emotionally intelligent in ways that fit with the complex nature of the way I relationship.  People who also question society and its more harmful messages, who are willing to think outside of the box, those are people who I feel may be able to relationship well with my unconventional way of doing things.  I hold myself to higher and higher standards, and I recognize that I deserve to be treated just as well.  I can be compassionate to what I went through and why I was a grade A shitbird, and have that compassion for my previous partners, while still living up to higher ideals today and seeing that mirrored in the people in my life now.  I’m glad I took the chance that I did, sometimes it is good for even the most important stands you take to have the possibility for exceptions, a little fluidity and wiggle room can lead to the greatest growth.

 

Prescriptive versus Descriptive relationship titles

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about labels and titles in a relationship.  I know I’ve talked before about titles in this post but that led to me thinking about my particular relationship with titles, how I feel about them and why.

I’ve discovered, or already knew but confirmed, that I do not like prescriptive titles.  I do not enjoy getting close with someone and deciding -we are going to be this word to each other specifically, that is just what it is-.  I don’t like being someone’s boyfriend, I’m not keen on the idea of being someone’s spouse, except in the case that it’s necessary for the legal benefits it confers (and that would have to greatly outweigh my hesitation there). I don’t like the decision that myself and another person have confirmed that because we right now have a certain dynamic shape, that we now are -that- and intend to continue being that for the long term with all it implies. Prescriptive titles often come with specific expectations.  In monogamy for example, the boyfriend title would come with the expectation of sexual fidelity.  In polyamory, I’ve had folks who expected that because I was their boyfriend, I would drop everything to be with them when they needed someone at 3AM.  I mean sure, I usually will do that, but sometimes I will not, sometimes I need my fucking sleep as much as you need me to listen about your latest problem with your other partner.  And the fact that I’ve been told “that’s what a good boyfriend does” as though having this word means that I can either be succeeding or failing to live up to the title, but they do not feel their friends are equally failures for not being there at that time, that makes me shy away from those.

I may often take the boyfriend shape, but I do not want to make it official in a way that heaps the constant expectations on me, especially the subversive hidden ones that don’t get discussed, that most people never even realize they have. The other thing with prescriptive titles is the idea of a break up.  When you’ve made a big decision that you and someone else -are- this thing, this word, then deciding it no longer applies is a whole ordeal.  People tie up a lot of their identity in being someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend/lovefriend or wife/husband/spouse.  To suddenly change that is often traumatic for most people, they feel they are losing a part of themselves.

I do like descriptive labels.  I like discussing with someone the words that seem to describe our dynamic.  Not one word, words plural.  There is no one I would consider a partner who is not also a friend.  As a relationship anarchist, I don’t consider friend to be a lesser descriptive word, simply a different one. Partner to me implies a connection that shares a possibility of romance feels, and a greater likelihood of physical intimacy.  Friendship is platonic for me for the most part, though there have been some exceptions.  Partner also for me is something that I use sparingly, for people that have a level of longevity and intertwinement in my life or an intent for such that is more constant and steady then most of my platonic friendships.  That is not to say friendships don’t have that, but for example there may be a financial intertwinement in my friendship as I give a friend money to fix their car one time, but one of my partners and I share finances monthly in taking care of the needs of our cats.  The thing with descriptive titles is we use the ones that are suited to the time and situation.  I’ve spoken of Kelev before, a person who holds a very central roll in my life.  We often cohabitate, we have pets, we share sexual intimacy, we got to each others doctors appointments, we share a bank account, there is a lot of levels of intertwinement there.  Sometimes when we’re joking around at the grocery store and elbowing each other while exchanging sarcastic remarks, and we run into a person I knew from one of my times in college, I might introduce him as my best friend.  It conveys the dynamic we are sharing at that time, it gives the information necessary for that interaction and is most accurate to what we are sharing in that moment.  If I go with him to the doctor and the nurse gives me a questioning look when I follow him back for a procedure to hold his hand, that “who the fuck are you look?” because people don’t expect two masculine presenting people, especially of such varying ages, to be together, I say “I’m his partner”.  It conveys what I need to at the time, that by their normal ideas of societal privilege being centered on one main romantic relationship, that I deserve to be there, I have that right.  If I say I’m his friend, I’m usually asked to wait behind, despite him wanting me there to offer comfort, and my comfort is just as effective regardless of what word we gave them.  It doesn’t matter that the intimacies we share that are tied to partnership for how I define it aren’t relevant in that moment, it’s the word that makes the most sense to convey who we are to each other in the way they need to understand.

With descriptive labels, when the dynamic transitions in a way that one of the words no longer applies, it often just falls from usage more naturally.  Since we’ve discussed that we are using words as they are relevant, though ones that we have consented to and feel apply, if the dynamic shifts and a word drops from relevance, it also just drops from usage.  Often there is a discussion, I love communication and being open and checking in about ALL the things ALL the time, but I’ve found it is less of a traumatic change.  Also in regards to expectations, I’ve found this leads to less unrealistic ones.  With descriptive labels, what we are doing is allowing for actions to occur and the words to follow, rather then deciding on the words and changing our actions to fit them.  That usually negates the problem of “your actions aren’t measuring up to this word we’ve decided we are”.

Another thought I had that crystallized this for me was related to my focus on honesty and authenticity.  I had a titled partnership with someone in my life that I recently untitled.  I realized that the title, regardless of whether pressure was put on me or not from the other person, did come with some unspoken expectations of behavior.  I was not measuring up to those, there were things I simply did not feel a want to do regularly or consistently enough that the word partner made sense to me.  Like I’ve said, some of the associations I have with the word partner, even as a descriptive word but especially as a prescriptive one, is a certain constancy or consistency. When I was not acting in the way that partner implies to me, in a dynamic where partner or boyfriend was a prescriptive title we had decided upon, I felt inauthentic.  It felt like I was lying to refer to that person with those words at a time where I wasn’t fulfilling the expectations of that dynamic.  I was not meeting many of the needs and wants that person looked for in a relationship of that sort, so with the title, I either was a shitty partner, or I was using a word that was quite dishonest to what we were.  My response was to recognize that and un-title things.  Thankfully I tend to relationship in all forms (platonic, romantic, sexual, partnership, friendship, lovefriend, queerplatonic, etc) with people who are accepting of fluidity and change, so this was received in a compassionate and understanding way.  We spoke of how we would use descriptive labels with others to describe things accurate to how they were with us in that moment or in such a way as was relevant at the time.

Now I understand that this may seem like splitting hairs.  Does is really make a difference if you are using a prescriptive or descriptive title?  Ask most people (especially a monogamous or hierarchical polya person) how they would feel if their partner were to remove that official label and the expectations that came with it, and no longer be obligated or beholden to that role.  The same people who say that it doesn’t make much difference, are in my experience often quite upset at that suggestion.  Words have power, and so do the contexts we use them in.  My goals are to have flexibility in my relationships, to allow for fluidity and for each dynamic to stretch out into whatever role is most comfortable and makes the most sense at the time, and to live an authentic and honest life. So, I take how I give those words power and what power I allow them to have over me, very seriously.