Re: [UUPoly-L] old vs. new relationships?
Hi list:
This would be a good time to introduce myself to the list; I've been
lurking here for a couple of months.
My name's Lisa, and I'm a member of UU San Mateo. I've been in a LTR
of 15 years that has had its ups and downs, but overall is a great
relationship and my partner, S., is a fantastic woman. She's
bisexual, and wouldn't mind a male second, but just hasn't happened
for her yet. I'm currently involved in a long-distance relationship
with another woman, K. This really has sparked some conflict for a
variety of reasons, not the least of which being poly is new to both
of us, plus she was "rejected" (for lack of a better word, they're
still friends) by a guy she was pursuing at the same time I was
starting my new relationship. Not exactly a promising way to start a
new way of relating and living, but that's all too frequently true of
a lot of us. :-)
The questions below about old relationships vs. new relationships are
ones I'm definitely wrestling with. Not struggling with, mind you; I
feel I've done some solid groundwork on this before I got involved
with K.
I researched what it meant to be polyamorous when I was going through
a horrible time in my life. I had an requited but unwanted and
painful crush on a woman half my age, and it brought to the surface a
LOT of issues S. and I had been avoiding in our LTR. This wasn't the
first time I'd fallen for someone while I'd been with S., and I felt
that I had no choice- either admit I was poly and see if we could work
with that as a couple, or go through unwanted crush after unwanted
crush time and time again. Coming out as poly was even more traumatic
than coming out as homosexual; I'd always harbored the notion of one
love per person. It was only after I married S. that I realized that
there was a poly community out there, and I belonged more than I ever
realized.
S. isn't exactly 100% thrilled with the whole idea. She said point
blank that we probably would not be together if she knew that I was
poly; OTOH she did say that she would rather us be together. I'm glad
for that. I love her very much. However, we still go through bumps
in the road over this, and yes, it's frustrating at times. Plus, it
makes the new relationship vs. old relationship question even more
complex since K. knows and understands my history, the importance of
my relationship with S., and has been nothing but supportive.
However, i do want to answer the whole question below in my own
context. For starters, 15 years of loving a person is nothing to toss
aside, lightly, heavily or anything in between. Polyamory is a tool
for me. It is a way of defining, clarifying and explaining how my
heart works. Like any other tool it can be used wisely or abused
horribly. In order to use this tool wisely I have to be incredibly
honest with myself and my partners, hard as that is sometimes. I've
spent long nights wondering if breaking up with S. is really what I
wanted, was I just using the concept of polyamory as a kind of
weaseling? Was I doing S. any favors by staying with her under very
changed circumstances? For that matter, am I doing K. any favors by
having her come into a poly situation that isn't exactly ideal?
A lot of these questions still plague me, but there are two things
that resonate so deeply they can't be ignored. The first is that I do
love S. very much, and I want to grow old with her. The second is
that I cannot ignore how I feel about other people any more. The
alternatives? I could repress those feelings (which got me into some
serious trouble with the first crush); I could never have female
friends again, which just seems like an overwhelming sacrifice; we
break up or we, as a couple, could embrace polyamory. Not a hard
choice to make!
New relationship energy (NRE) is distracting, but not always in a bad
way. I do ache for K. physically in a way that I don't for S. OTOH,
I know that this is limerence, and while a very nice way to fall in
love with somebody, it too is a temporary state. To throw away an old
relationship in favor of a new one strikes me as being a mistake in
perception. Limerence is a chemical reaction, not a mystical
experience. In reality, it is just a different way of loving
someone-- NRE with K., my wonderfully connected LTR with S.-- and for
that matter everyone else who I am in love with without a physical
relationship (my best friends H. and BT). I stay as mindful of how
love like this works as much as possible. Sexual connection is
fantastic, limerence is one helluva nice feeling, but it is one state
with one person. My other loves are just as important in so many
ways.
Certainly S. has abandonment issues; her last partner left her by
forming a triad with another woman with S. and then both subsequently
left her. I deal with this by reassuring her in action as well as
words, by respecting her boundaries around how much she wants to hear
about K. and I, by being 100% with her when we are together. I'm not
always completely effective at this, but I do my best. She does know
I love her.
For K. the bottom line is how precious or friendship is, even beyond
us as lovers. K. and I were close cyberbuddies for years, and for
various reasons we lost contact with each other. She only recently
came back into my life, and having my old, beloved friend back hit me
in the heart quite hard. In some ways it helps that she is 2000+
miles away; in some ways it makes it harder. However, we communicate
so damned well, and she considers me her secondary even though she
doesn't have (or wants) a primary relationship. In many ways this
one's almost too easy, in a very, very good way.
This is a long response I do know, and not a very general one, but I
just want to point out that honesty with one's partners but especially
with one's self is an incredibly important aspect of truly
polyamorous relationships. It's a pity that there are people willing
to use polyamory as a tool for self-deception, and I pray to
Waheguruji that I never, ever fall into that trap.
On 1/28/07, Nature's Son <natureson7@comcast.net> wrote:
I've often heard that, for most people, a fatal flaw of polyamory is that an
"old but comfortable relationship" with one's primary partner will almost
never have the natural energy and attraction (infatuation even) of a
rapidly-building new relationship, and that few uninvolved partners in such
situations are able to allow their compersion feelings towards their
involved partner overcome the fear of abandonment. Even when the existing
long-term relationship is solid and dynamic, the fear of abandonment is real
because of the power of most new intimate relationships. With such
relationships, every bit of shared personal information seems special to the
giver and receiver, and it all seems so intimate. Excitement also is
brought on by the ambiguity of what path the new relationship may take, and
the whole discovery process. Beneath all of this, physiological changes
(triggering of hormones, adrenaline, etc.) are unavoidably happening, and
seem more pleasantly intense than in a long-term relationship, partly
because they're concentrated over a shorter time period.
How do polyamorists handle this, successfully maintaining the original
primary relationship while not allowing periodic new ones to threaten that?
The first step seems to involve just acknowledging that new relationships
will almost inevitably have this power. Then, it becomes a matter of not
letting oneself be overwhelmed by the fears of abandonment, and to have
faith that one's partner is also level-headed and mature enough to keep
things in perspective throughout the experience. Easier said than done.
Obviously, it is essential during such times that the long-term partners
heighten their communication about feelings, redouble their efforts at
mutual reassurance of their continued importance to each other, and
encourage the "compersion" feelings. Nonetheless, even when balanced
against the greater sense of predictability, security, and "deeper knowing"
inherent in most long term relationships, the emotional and physiological
power of a new relationship, and its potential ultimate consequence
(abandonment of the original partner), would seem impossible to counter in
the majority of cases, even for those who might beforehand have intended
otherwise. Of course it depends on the specifics of each situation, and
there are no statistics, but as whole do the views of the poly-skeptics on
this seem generally true?
N.S.
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Lisa K. Clayton
lisakc@mindspring.com
claytonl@peds.ucsf.edu
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