Poly Weekly 6-21-05
March 21, 2007
In this episode, Minx is interviewing her lover, Graydancer and his wife, Genevieve about something called New Relationship Energy (NRE.) This is a term I only just learned about. I guess it means the excited, giddy feeling you have when you’ve just started a new relationship with someone. This can be hard for an existing partner to cope with when their partner takes a new lover. It can be a time of heightened jealousy and envy, as well as exposing previously unimportant insecurities, or unearthing old ones that may have been quelled in the past.
In a hypothetical imagining of mine, I can see how I would react if Holden had a new love interest that I wasn’t involved in. He would come home with that goofy grin on his face, eager to tell me everything, and I would listen. But all the while I would be mourning the NRE that we will never have again. “He used to grin about ME like that. I wonder if he talked this excitedly about me to his friends. I wonder what I can do to make him that excited to see me again. What would it take to get him to daydream about me like he does about her?”
I try to put myself in Genevieve’s shoes. She decided to try polyamory because her husband Graydancer wanted to be polyamorous. I suspect her insecurity and jealousy were strong like mine when the idea first came up but they were very devoted to each other and through lots of talking and I’m sure lots of negotiating and probably crying, they figured out what they could be comfortable with.
Genevieve talked about the time it took for her to become acclimatized to seeing Graydancer with his other lover, Minx. She said it was definitely a shock the first time she saw them kissing, and that it took several years for her to finally get to be so comfortable with seeing the two of them relating to each other lovingly that she could feel totally happy for Graydancer and not feel jealous first.
I worry deep down that I may never get to that point. I worry that it will always cause me pain to see or even think about Holden being so affectionate with another woman. Just like there’s still a little voice in the back of my head that scolds me for not living up to my grandparents’ standards (“What would Grandpa think of this?” “What would Grandma say if you told her you did this?”) I feel like there would always be a voice in the back of my head chastising me for betraying the “true” meaning of marriage, of practicing moral relativism, and of making up my own rules just to make myself feel good regardless of “what I know is right.” The cultural conditioning for monogamy is very strong and not only will I have to get my own personal problems under control, but I’ll also have to come to terms with how I feel about the cultural perspective. When I think of it that way, I can understand why I should expect it to take several years for me to feel comfortable.
One thing that Graydancer said was that “our society doesn’t leave any room for that idea. We’re not used to seeing the person we love kissing someone else… and expecting to be happy about it. That takes a lot of practice.”
He went on to say that there are two big things to remember to make a priority when you’re dealing with NRE: time and attention. It’s important for the partner who’s taking a new lover to spend time and more importantly attention on his/her established lover to make sure they know how much they’re still valued and adored. That’s something I can see Holden being fairly good at, though it may take a reminder from time to time.
-Grace
