From: webber@world.std.com (Robert D Webber)
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory
Subject: Re: Questions...
Date: 20 Dec 92 20:14:51 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA

In article <1992Dec19.204200.10706@penet.fi> an3116@anon.penet.fi (Guile) writes:
...
>Well, let's see... how do I start.  My wife and I believe in
>polyamory.  We think it is a goodness.  Any limits are just that:
>"limiting".  Okay.  The other week, she ran into a guy she knew in high
>school and college.  She's had a brief unresolved romantic thing with
>him in college.  She's always found him attractive.

>Fine, I can handle that.  I encourage her to see him again.  She's
>worried he'll flip out when he finds out she's poly.  She wants to see
>him alone.  This confuses me a little.

>My feelings are different.  I can't imagine meeting anyone that I
>wouldn't want to meet my wife and share time together with all three.

I think sometimes I'm frightened by things coming back from my past
because they tend to put me in a past "headspace" and I fear that I
won't be able to find my way back to the one I'm in now, which
I like much better.  Was this woman always polyamorous, or is it
something she had to feel her way into?

I guess if I were you I'd be a little worried about her desire to
keep you in the background.  After all, it might mean that she
wanted to start keeping secrets from me (you), or that something was
going on that she didn't want me (you) to know about.  I guess I
don't see where not meeting you would help if this guy actually
knows about you and is okay about you.  Since you're new to the
practice, maybe it's important to remind you that honest information
is the key to making this all work, both giving it ungrudgingly
and accepting it happily even if you find it disturbing in some way.

So, see him alone how many times and at what point do you get to
meet this old flame?  Maybe she just wants this to be a private
thing, a separate part of her life: can you live with that?

Seems to me that all you can really do is ask her more questions,
try to get talking, and live through the results.

It would have been better to have mentioned the level of experience
you guys are at earlier, by the way.  It makes a difference: if she's
had lots of other men in her life a sudden change in her attitudes
for this one guy is perhaps more significant than her having trouble
opening her side of your joint r'ship.  Same answer either way, talk
a lot, but I think it does make a difference whether he's the first
or even the second.

>She's also frightened about what it means for her to feel like she's
>falling in love with this guy.  She's worried that it means something
>is lacking in our relationship, though she cannot think of anything
>that is.  She said she's also afraid of finding out that even though I
>say it's okay, that I really don't mean it.  We discussed that.  I said
>that even if at some point I did decide I couldn't handle it, what
>would that mean?  She said that it would mean I didn't accept her the
>way she was and that something would be wrong with her.  I said that I
>thought it had nothing to do with her, but that it would be MY
>problem.

Maybe sometimes people take one's openness to their openness as a sign
of lack of affection.  "If you really loved me, you'd be jealous!"

Probably you could honestly tell her that what's missing from your
relationship is her having had that particular thing for you when
she was in college.

>She's been seeing a counselor, trying to resolve some irrational
>fears.  They discussed the situation.  He wondered if this wasn't a
>very dangerous situation for our relationship.  We don't FEEL in
>danger.  I don't FEEL threatened or insecure, though hearing what he'd
>said to her certainly made me reexamine my feelings.

Okay, she's seeing a counselor with a strong monoamorous slant to
his advice.  If you're unlucky, he may talk her into feeling that
she _has_ to make a choice between the two of you.  There's something
that bothers me about the way you put "...trying to resolve some
irrational fears..." that bothers me, though.  I guess it seems
a bit dismissive for some reason, "I'm all right Jack, pull up
the ladder!"

>Until our long heart-to-heart last night, she'd been feeling obsessive
>about seeing this guy, though she's really scared that he'll freak out
>and disappear.  He did mention that he thought he was falling in love
>with someone else he'd met.

There's also something that seems inconsistent, a sort of "What is
wrong with this picture?" effect in some of the dynamics you're
describing.  I predict unforeseen circumstances and potholes in
the road of life ahead.

>My feelings differ from hers in two significant ways:

>1) I don't expect to "fall" in love again.  It seems immature compared
>to the kind of love I experience now.  I've come a LONG way to get
>here.  I'm not sure of how to explain this, but I am sure that many of
>you will understand.  I skip the "falling" part now.  I just love
>someone for who they are.  Someone opens up to me, and I can love them
>for the person I see/know.  The romantic stuff seems like "puppy-love"
>to me now.

Geeze!  It may be immature, but it sure is one fuck of a lot of fun!
You ought to try it again sometime, you might discover that you like it!

>2) As I said before, the idea of exclusivity doesn't appeal to me.  I
>want to love and be loved and share love with everyone I love.  (Geez,
>do I sound like a flower-child, or what?)

>What do all you folks have to say/think about this.  Admitedly, we've
>mostly talked the talk, not walked the walk.  We did have one casual
>sort of thing a year or two ago involving another woman.  It was hard
>at first, but ended up being a strengthening experience.

I think you should have put this part closer to the top, it's very
relevant.  I think you probably have indeed come that "LONG way,"
but that you still have some distance to cover to make it all work.
That's really not intended as a criticism, just an observation; I'm
sure that you will all find the strength, love, and honesty to make your
ideals work, but it will take strength.  I think that if you are
honest and loving the strength will follow.

>Oh, and let me explain as best I can why I'm not threatened.  I trust
>my wife's judgement.  Neither of us can imagine finding anything
>outside our relationship that would cause us to not return.  I'm a very
>special man, and she'll never find anyone like me.  And I feel the same
>way about her.

Well yes, but all people are unique, just some are more uniformly unique
than others.

>Her counselor said that we are all insecure to some degree and we need
>to feel secure in our relationships.  I don't see how anyone can feel
>secure in a relationship that is bound by limiting rules.  I can only
>feel secure in a relationship that is natural, that is, two healthy
>individuals who decide to be together because it brings them joy and
>happiness and sex and love and bliss.  How could you feel secure
>knowing that someone was following rules and not their heart?

I don't know the answer to your last question beyond, "Some people just
work that way," but you should keep in mind that some do.  Your love's
counselor may well be one of them, and I think you and she ought
to sit down and carefully discuss what she finds right in what her
counselor says and how that fits into your mutual ideals.  You have
to watch these counselling guys, sometimes they try to "save" people
from a "sick" r'ship.

Bob

-- 
Bob Webber, webber@world.std.com ===========================================
==========================================================  Laurie Anderson:
I dreamed I had to take a test in a Dairy Queen on another planet...
Newsgroups: alt.polyamory