Feeling badly represented in literature

A couple weeks ago I picked up The Literary Companion to Sex. I felt it would be a fun cross between my erotica browsing efforts and my college degree.  I finally flipped it open the other day. The book is arranged as short snippets of sections from important works of literature that deal with sex. It starts in the ancient world with the Bible and important Greek and Roman writers and progresses forward through history.

I started to get really depressed when I realized that most of the stories that weren’t sophomoric bawdy jokes were about someone finding intense pleasure from having sex with someone he/she was not supposed to be having sex with. Now, don’t get me wrong, I get that that’s a pretty potent fantasy and a real kicker in reality. But it was discouraging that THIS was the way “exciting” sex has been portrayed through literary history.

What bothered me about it was not the fact that the already espoused person was seeking sex outside his/her marriage, but that the stories made the cuckolded spouse out to be, well, a cuckold! He/she was either dull or sexually deficient, which caused the cheating spouse to seek more diverting company, or terribly oppressive, which drove the philanderer into more loving and accepting arms. That is, if he/she is even mentioned at all!

Thing is, if I were to try and relate any of these stories to my situation, I’m presumably in the role of the dull/oppressive/deficient spouse sitting at home while my dallying husband goes off to seek greener pastures.

What depressed me about it even more was that because this is the standard for literature through the ages, readers respond to this either pitiable or hated character and then apply the same response to monogamous partners of polyamorous spouses. If people aren’t pitying us for being the victims of an inconsiderate spouse, they’re blaming us and saying we must not have sweet enough honey to keep the bee at home.

Where’s the literature that shows a strong, honest couple whose relationship allows for exciting variety in the marriage?  Where’s the story about a person being empowered and defeating insecurity in the process of sharing his/her spouse with another? Where’s the story of the mono-partnered spouse getting turned on by his/her partner’s extra-marital adventures?

I refuse to be associated with the soggy Charles Bovary or the bitter soul-killing spouse in Written on the Body.

I am a passionate, vibrant, sensual person who is adored by my spouse, dammit! Oh I have room to grow and challenges to overcome, but our story is not one of escape and deceit and resignation. It is full of passion in all directions. It is built on a strong foundation, nearly 10 years’ worth of sexual energy between us that is still expanding to include more diverse interests. Holden did not go seeking a mistress because his passion for me had fizzled out. He did it in part to flare up the passion he already felt for me.

Right now I feel kind of alone in this. I feel like my story is lonely among the conventional love stories of our culture. One of my greatest fears is that while I didn’t start out like those characters I pity and despise and yet sympathize with, that I will become one of them, that I’m on my way there already and just don’t know it yet.

I guess that’s all the more reason to make sure I stay strong and vibrant and passionate. Being able to see what I don’t want for myself is an excellent motivator toward becoming what I do want.

And in the meantime, if you know of any stories, movies, or plays that present a spouse who shares his/her partner with other lovers and maintains the strength and love of the original relationship, please PLEASE share it with me here, either in a comment below or via email at monopolyblog@gmail.com.

-Grace

I’ve found my feet on solid ground.

I’ve been getting so much great encouragement from you wonderful readers. If I haven’t responded to your comment personally, please know that I have read it and it has given me great comfort.

These past weeks have been a sort of reset period for me. Things have gotten to a point of stability and relative comfort and that’s given me a chance to step back from everything and reassess what I’m feeling, what I want, and how I want all of this to work for me as well as for Holden.

Some things I’ve reaffirmed for myself:

1. My commitment to sharing a polyamorous lifestyle with Holden.
2. Life is fluid and I can flow with it without being drowned by it.

Next, some areas I’ve grown and can continue to grow:

1. My ability to define what’s right and feels good for me and stand up for my right to have/seek those things.
2. A better understanding of my chronic depression (and the ability to even say “chronic depression” out loud to someone other than Holden)

In general terms, here is the current status of where everything stands, as I see it:

Holden and I are strong in our bond and our commitment to each other. Our connection has been severely tested recently.   But even at the worst, most desperate times in all this we’ve maintained a deep rooted desire for each other, be it in the role of lover, comforter, caretaker, listener, cheerleader, or distraction. No matter what was going on or how angry we were at each other, that core element never wavered.

I have come to a stable position of being happy in my monogamous commitment to Holden. While I genuinely wanted to be poly and have relationships with other people (two in particular) beyond my marriage, I have to admit that there was a part of me that was doing it for Holden’s sake. Now that I’ve stepped back and examined everything more carefully I can see that any desire to enter into a polyamorous relationship needs to come entirely from me. Feeling like I should do something because someone else wants it for me, or doing it because I want to prove something to someone are now major red flags for me.  For right now I am happy being monogamous with Holden. That doesn’t mean I won’t want a polyamorous relationship someday, but I’ve got so much to work on to make myself strong that it’ll be a while before I feel ready for another relationship. And that’s okay. I don’t have to feel guilty because I’ve chosen NOT to be poly. I haven’t let Holden down by not trying hard enough or not being brave enough. This is my choice and it feels good and right and solid. And that’s enough.

As for Holden’s relationship with his girlfriend, I am accepting of it. Because of the tension and emotional baggage now attached to her, however, my acceptance only extends to a certain point. It is a passive acceptance, not an embrace. I have gotten to a point that it doesn’t make me hurt, angry, or upset that Holden is dating her, is in love with her, and wants to spend time with her. It does sometimes make me sad when he spends an evening with her.  But that’s not a severe or unexpected reaction and I’m actually kind of proud that I’ve learned to handle it so well.  There is a line, however, that I’m not yet ready to blur. Right now, Holden’s romantic relationship with his girlfriend is completely separate from me and my life. I prefer it that way for a lot of reasons. However, that need of mine does create some inconveniences for the logistics of their relationship and some emotional strife for Holden. I’m taking steps to get more comfortable in areas surrounding that so hopefully with a little more time and patience, I can be more flexible.

So yeah, in general things on my end of the situation seem to be leveling out. I still have a lot of work to do, but at least I feel like I’m standing on firmer ground to do it.

As always thanks for all the support and input. I love hearing from you whether it’s through a comment on this blog or an email at monopolyblog@gmail.com.

-Grace

How to heal?

Sorry I’ve been away so long!  To tell the honest truth I’ve been going through some hard times that have been too hard to blog about directly.  I am still trying to heal.  Right now I’m kind of failing at healing.

I don’t have what it takes to write everything that’s happened out right now so I’ll cut to the chase.

I’m looking for responses from my readers (if I have any left) about how you heal.  What have you done in the past that has helped you heal?  Let’s start a discussion here about strategies, advice, tips, and tricks that help you get over it and move on after you’ve been hurt really badly.

Eventually I’ll work myself up to filling you in about what happened. Here’s the micro version:  Holden and I are still together and still surprisingly strong.  His relationship of about a year is also still intact. The woman he’s dating thought she wanted to start something with me too.  She changed her mind. I got hurt. I’m trying to heal.

There’s so much more to it than that, but in the meantime, I’m looking forward to some more interaction here.  It’s been too long.

Peace,

Grace

Hunting and gathering

The holidays are always a time for reflection for me.  Starting around Thanksgiving, I get the instinctive urge to slow down from being so active and pushing forward all the time. It’s time to start gathering in all the bits of knowledge, newfound strength, and lessons in humility I’ve sown through the past year.

Some major projects in the practical, logistical side of my life have finally wrapped up, I’m feeling mostly steady and stable with all the relationship stuff going on around me.  And yet inside I’m restless and anxious and I’m not sure why.  Fortunately, I’ve got some time off around the holidays and some travel time.  I plan to spend it quietly thinking, reading back through things I’ve written this year, and building the foundation from which I’ll launch myself into the new year.  I’ll share pieces that are relevant to my polyamory experience here and maybe fill in some of the gaps I left in my story when things got too crazy for me to slow down and write.

And so, I enter my winter hibernation. I see myself less like changing from a caterpiller to a butterfly, but maybe like a bear going to sleep for a while and coming out remembering why it’s great to be a bear.

-Grace

A picture’s worth a thousand words, especially on the Internet.

Holden and I have been looking for ways to meet more poly people where we live. Actually, we’re hoping to meet ANY poly people here. This is a really big point of concern, though, because we’ve been completely closeted about this so far, except to a few close friends. My big fear is that someone out there will recognize the picture and discover our secret! I have a very large, very Catholic extended family and if one of them found out that my husband and I are polyamorous, word would spread along the networks of my family like a hot fuse to a bomb and things would get ugly real fast.

Holden, of course, sees a much less scary world out there as far as what could happen if someone does recognize a picture of one of us. I argued that even though my family is now his family, he still doesn’t have as much to lose in this situation if this gets found out. After all, they’ve accepted that he’s not Catholic and isn’t particularly religious, but in their minds I’m still the good Catholic girl I was brought up to be.

On the other hand, Cunning Minx said in one of her podcasts a couple weeks ago that you’re never going to meet anybody if you keep hiding behind the Internet.

So Holden and I have decided that he may use one photo of himself, his real self, on one online account. If someone out there does recognize him and ask, we’ll probably be able to explain it away as “someone stole that photo of him.” Or something.

I decided I’m not ready to put a photo of me up online because for one thing, I don’t use it that often. I feel like I’ll have better luck meeting poly friendly people if I make an effort to go to events, meet new people, and expand my circle of friends. It comes more naturally to me than it does to Holden, so we’ll each pursue our own avenues of meeting people and hopefully cover more ground that way.

-Grace

Mayflies and compliments

I wrote this post back in May of last year and somehow forgot to post it!  How strange.  Anyway, now that it’s May again and this seems relevant, I’ll post it.

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The mayflies are back. If you don’t know what mayflies are, they’re these bugs that look kind of like big mosquitos, but they don’t bite. The live something like three days total. They all hatch at once, boogie around for a couple of days mating and laying eggs, and if they don’t get eaten by a bird or a fish, they die anyway by the third or fourth day. Mayflies always remind me that life is short and we have to really live while we’re living. It also makes me think about ways I could be a better person and make others’ lives happier while they’re here too.

People tend to take those closest to them for granted the most. It’s true of our parents when we’re kids and it’s true of our spouses after we’ve been married a couple of years. I realize how much I take Holden for granted. I also take it for granted that he doesn’t need to be complimented to feel good about himself. See, Holden has always appeared very confident, with very healthy self esteem; sometimes overly healthy in fact. So I often forget that he has insecurities too, that he gets down about his appearance just like anyone else, and that he doesn’t always feel appreciated just because I smile at him. Deep down he knows I find him extremely attractive, but he does need to hear it sometimes. Unfortunately, I am terrible at remembering to speak my compliments out loud. I think nice things about him all the time, but stupidly, I keep them to myself.

So, in the spirit of the mayflies who have a lot of living to do in a very short time, I will try to remember that compliments and praise have a short shelf life, and must be renewed every day.

“Chapter 1 and a Half,” Part 3: Complications vs. contentment

Do you think that the people who meet and marry one person and spend their lives together are really content?

I think some people have the capacity for that. However, I think they’re much more rare than people who would be more content having multiple partners at some time in their lives.  As I talked about in part 2, there are complications to any relationship, and if a monogamous couple decides that they want to remain monogamous while dealing with all of these complications, that can leave them both feeling happy and fulfilled if it’s what they both truly want.  Now, I don’t think that’s as common or as easy as we’ve been led to believe.  It’s certainly not the norm. 

By “complications” I mean anything that challenges the monogamous feelings of either person in the relationship.  Developing feelings for someone other than one’s partner, lusting after a movie star, finding emotional fulfillment in an Internet relationship that isn’t being found in the real life monogamous relationship are all examples of possible complications.  People in our mainstream society are more likely to deny the complications, sweep them under the rug, or act on their impulses and desires in secret, none of which are healthy.  Open communication is the first requirement in dealing with any complication.  I could go on for pages about what constitutes open communication and strategies to start doing it, but that would be a pretty far digression. 

In short, I think that if a monogamous couple face challenges together openly and honestly and still find they are happiest being monogamous, then they can be content in that.  What most people see as contentment, however, is more often actually resignation. 

Don’t forget to check out the next installment of “Chapter 1 and a Half,” part 4!

-Grace

“Chapter 1 and a Half,” part 2: advanced students only, prerequisites required

Do you think that ultimately everyone would be happier if they could take on the polyamorous way of life?

I don’t think polyamory is for everyone. I think there are people out there who are just going to be happier in a monogamous relationship. The problem I see is that monogamy is usually the only choice presented. I think monogamy is fine as long as you’re actively choosing to be monogamous, having considered that there are other possibilities out there. Most people don’t ever consider anything but monogamy and I don’t think that’s healthy. I think a lot more people would choose to be polyamorous if they knew it existed and weren’t told by the powers that be that it’s a bad lifestyle choice.

Polyamory is complicated.  It’s a constant challenge.  I think of it this way: monogamy is Relationship 101-201, sort of the basic course, that is still pretty challenging, but ultimately only pushes you so far.  Polyamory is more like a 300-400 level class that adds such advanced concepts into the lesson as fluid swapping, compersion (a.k.a. frubble), and primary/secondary partners.  You have to learn a whole new vocabulary and a whole new set of strategies. Plus, the level of self examination that is required for someone to even have the remotest chance of making polyamory work can be daunting.  Because of the level of effort involved in just having a moderately successful polyamorous relationship, it’s not necessarily the best option for the lowest common denominator of our population. 

That said, I do think that people who currently have monogamous relationships can benefit greatly from having the honest discussions that can come up with considering the possiblity of poly.  Even if they decide that monogamy is best for them, the fact that they’ve talked these things over can greatly strengthen their monogamous relationship. 

Additionally, anyone who is currently in a monogamous relationship and is considering making it poly had better make sure their monogamous relationship is already good and strong because poly is going to challenge it in surprising ways.  I really believe that if you’re starting out from a monogamous place, you have to sort of “master” monogamy before you can add any additional partners.  Additional partners only multiply complications, they never reduce them.  If you already have a strong base in a committed relationship, you’ll be prepared to handle those additional complications.  If not, then the complications will not only burn your new relationship, but also damage your existing one. 

Whatever your relationship status, it must be a mutually agreed upon arrangement for it to be fulfilling to everyone involved. 

Stay tuned for the next installment, “Chapter 1 and a Half,” part 3!

-Grace

Guest Blogger: Holden – “Rules of Attraction”

Holden speaks… again:

So first off I want to apologize for not having contributed much here thus far. I hope to remedy that in the coming weeks and months.

Also, apologies for the long silence here. Grace and I have been rather busy lately with several other aspects of life and have not had the time more recently to discuss as much as we’d like nor the time to post about what we have discussed.

So tonight, a positive update. Better understanding each other:

A few weeks back we were discussing attraction. I wanted to know what Grace might be looking for in potential partners, what she would be looking for in partners for me, and Grace wanted to know what specifically I found attractive about people I had expressed interest in. I started to relate how I was attracted to the drive of one, and the similarities in my childhood and how we both feel about society with another, and various other character traits that I found attractive in them. Grace asked again what I found attractive about them, and I looked at her questioningly. I responded saying that the things I had already mentioned attracted me to them. Grace asked more directly then: “But what do you find physically or sexually attractive about them?”

Understanding better now, though still somewhat confused I mentioned a few of the physical aspects that I liked about them but concluded with: “…though, I find most people sexually attractive in one way or another. Granted some more than others, but for me nearly everyone is physically desirable in some way. So it really does come down to the other aspects on if I find myself attracted to them.”

Now it was Grace’s turn to look bewildered.

Through our discussion we found ourselves to be nearly complete opposites in the way of sexual attraction and through that how we could find ourselves in potential relationships. I would say that I personally find about 80% or more of the people I meet sexually attractive, while grace only finds herself attracted to 20% or less of those we meet.

For Grace, sexual attraction is immediate. Meaning that if she doesn’t find herself physically attracted to someone at the moment she meets them, it’s never going to happen. It doesn’t matter how cool the person is, or how close of a friendship she might develop with that person, it will never be able to be any more than that for her. With me the opposite is the case. I can swing in and out of interest with someone based on how I relate to that person. Additionally as I find myself physically attracted to the vast majority of people, you had better have some other trait that causes you to stand out, for me to feel any genuine interest. Physical beauty has very little to do with it for me because of that.

And this had been an unknown hangup of ours for some time. Grace later told me that she always thought I was keeping the details of what I found physically attractive in others from her in order to spare her feelings, but she genuinely wanted to know. And she felt like I was keeping something from her by not telling her (and feeling like your partner is keeping something from you is a guarantee that things won’t be progressing happily). Where as in truth, I wasn’t mentioning those aspects because to my mind they were nearly entirely unimportant. I honestly didn’t realize that she was asking me for those specific details when she would ask me what I found attractive in someone.

With our new understanding we’ve been discussing more and giving each other more details than we have in the past. Specifically I’ve begun to mention what I find physically attractive in others to Grace as it helps her to understand where I am. Alternatively as there is such a lower percentage of possible partners out there for Grace, I have asked her to tell me whenever we pass or see someone that she finds sexually attractive so I have the best idea of that she desires in a potential partner.

Coming soon: recent trips, past errors, and new interests (for Grace this time).

Sorry it’s been so long.

It’s been a terribly long time since I wrote a post here.  It’s not because things haven’t been happening to write about, it’s because my life has entered a time of transition and finding time and energy for blogging has become, well, tough.  I have moved to a new city, leaving Holden behind in our house.  I have started a job and have been house hunting for when Holden can find a job here in this new city too.  He’s been searching diligently and has been asked in for interviews on average once a week, so we’re hopeful a job will come through for him fairly quickly.  In the meantime, we’re living apart during the week and spending weekends together, either here or there.  Thanks to the marvels of technology, however, progress is still being made in many aspects of our relationship development.  I hope to be able to get back to writing once we’re a bit more settled in.  I’m looking forward to spending a weekend just catching up on reading all the crazy things that I’m sure have happened in the various poly forums and blogs that I’ve missed out on the past few weeks.  I dread the number of unread posts my GoogleReader has collected for me while I’ve been away.

Peace and love,

Grace