Can a leopard change her spots?

In this episode, Minx reads a listener’s email that talks about a couple dealing with much the same situation as Holden and I. Here’s how she puts it (slightly paraphrased):

“…the transition to a poly relationship from a monogamous one is extremely treacherous. First of all in bringing it up, I know that he [Graydancer] was terrified of bringing up to his fiancé that he really believed that at his heart he was poly and that he needed to see other people. And he was terrified, he thought he was gonna lose her.”

I can definitely appreciate what Holden must have gone through in deciding to bring this to me and weighing what my response might be. It really helps me to remember that he’s not just being self indulgent in wanting to consider this, that it’s a major life decision and he must have wrestled with it long and hard.

She goes on: “…it is really really scary. And while I haven’t personally been on that end of it, I really feel for you because how terrifying is it to be the one that comes into a relationship and says, you know, I know we’ve been together for eight, nine years but here, let me just reach in and grab all of your insecurities and rip them out and shine a big bright light on them, won’t that be fun? Yeah, no, definitely it’s not fun.”

She also makes sure to remind us that there are many possible outcomes, that there’s nothing saying we HAVE to end up poly-whatever and that if we decide NOT to change our relationship, we can still come up with outlets for the polyamorous energies that are present, and it doesn’t have to be a case of one person forcing the other to conform to their way of feeling. That’s very valuable to me because while I am learning to appreciate being pushed out of my comfort zone, I also have to remember that I am not obligated to change anything I don’t want to change. I do need to listen to everything and give it proper consideration, but that doesn’t require any action on my part unless I say I’m ready. Cool.

Minx later brings up an example of a couple she knows in which it was the woman who approached the man and said she desired polyamory and I was surprised to hear that the man had many of the same initial fears that I had when I was first faced with the idea. “My God, I’ve married you, we’ve built this life together. How can I not be enough for you?” I’m so grateful that Holden didn’t take it too hard when I freaked out on him like that. I think if I had been in his position I might not have handled it as well.

Something else she pointed out that I hadn’t thought about before was the idea that it’s scary enough just bringing up the idea of including polyamory in your relationship, but it’s a whole additional layer on top of that when there’s actually a specific person in mind when you bring it up. Yes, dear, I’m interested in polyamory and that’s the person I want to be polyamorous with. Yikes. Double the questions, double the insecurity, especially if it’s someone you don’t know at all and have never met. It’s kind of that way with me and Holden, except the people he’s interested in are people we already know. That’s good, in that I feel like I can trust them to be cool as well. But also scary because I can compare myself to them and feed my insecurities. She’s got a better body than me. Her hair is prettier. She has a great laugh. She can do a backbend and grab her ankles behind her head. o.0 I know. Right? So adding these little extra things just makes it all a bit more complex. I think if I just remember to deal with people as individuals and not body parts and/or contortionist tendencies I’ll be alright. (But just in case… where’s that yoga video? Streeeeeeeetch!)

She moved on to another topic that I’ve had a lot of questions about (I know, this show is PACKED with good things!): Swinging vs. Polyamory.

Right now, I’m still searching for definitions in an effort to figure out how I feel about about the possibility of trying certain things.

First of all, Minx’s listener points out that the common distinction that polyamory is about love while swinging is about sex is not necessarily true. Obviously there’s sex involved with polyamory, and swinging often does involve an element of love, so it’s not really fair to split them so distinctly.

However, after listening to a little more of the podcast, I’m still really puzzled. Why would poly people want to distance themselves from being called swingers even though some poly people do participate in swinging? Why would swinging have a bad connotation while poly has a good connotation? Is it the inclusion of “long term, committed” in the definition of polyamory that makes it perceived better than swinging?

This will require further investigation on my part, and I will be seeking input from anybody who might have some to give. J

-Grace

Holden and I had a really good talk today. It was nice out so we went for a walk around the neighborhood and talked about my jealousy and insecurity issues. Since I’ve been doing a lot of solo thinking and writing about jealousy and insecurity, I felt a lot better equipped to talk with Holden about it without getting quite so overly emotional.

We started out talking about how I’m changing my approach to how I deal with my jealousy. I learned from one of Cunning Minx’s back episodes (don’t know which one, listened to about five of them today) that one way to think about jealousy is not as a flaw in itself, but as a spotlight on the flaws you perceive in yourself when you feel insecure. To put it another way, I shouldn’t be trying to eliminate my jealousy; I should be trying to alleviate my insecurities. I also learned from Minx that jealousy and insecurity will never go away altogether and it’s not realistic to expect that. Instead of trying to destroy it completely, I need to figure out specific methods to deal with it when it’s a problem. I explained all that to Holden and he got really excited about wanting to help.

We spent the rest of the walk coming up with specific ideas for dealing with bouts of jealousy. One thing I learned from him is that he’s not always very sure of what actions of his make me feel jealous. The particular solution I proposed for that was for me to send him a message at the moment I’m feeling jealous, rather than wait for the end of the night to unload all my pent up jealousies on him. For example, if we’re at a gathering of our friends and he does something that makes me jealous (like sits really close to a girl or says something in particular or whatever) I’ll somehow let him know discreetly that I’m feeling jealous. That way he knows what might trigger my jealousy. I told him it doesn’t necessarily mean “stop it right now.” But just so he’s aware of how I’m feeling, and maybe he can make an effort to include me in his affection at that moment too.

Another thing I heard about on Poly Weekly that hit home for me was the idea that my imagination is sometimes causing me more problems than anything Holden is actually doing or thinking. This is especially a problem where it comes to instant messaging with our friends. Holden’s job is such that he can have the instant messaging client open all day at work and he chats with our friends “back home” all day long. My job is not nearly so cool, so I’m largely cut off from all human contact until after 5pm (sucks to be a temp.) During that time he’s often talking about really important things with friends like sexuality, his coming to terms with his own desires, his hopes and dreams for our future together, and sometimes he flirts with the girls. Sometimes when I get home from work and I find he’s been carrying on a flirtatious conversation with a female friend of ours all day, I get jealous because I wasn’t included, and also because I don’t know how far their flirtation has gone. For all I know they’re getting all hot and bothered over each other and lusting after each other’s cyber bodies. While I have no problem with innocent flirtation, there’s definitely a line that can be crossed, and cyber lusting definitely crosses it. So far, Holden hasn’t really given me reason to believe he’s done anything over the line, but the fact that I don’t know anything at all just leaves me to imagine the worst.

Due to a beautiful development in messaging technology, the IM client we both use has the option to log every conversation and save it to a text file. Holden and I have agreed that I can read selections from the logs from his past conversations (only so long as they do not betray anything private that the other party would not want shared with me or anybody else.) We’ll read them together and chances are, everything will be cool. But if something does come up that makes me uncomfortable, we’ll have a chance to talk about it. Of course, the people he’s chatting with are all my friends too, so it’s not like I’m reading his chats with total strangers.

The next part we talked about was a little harder for me, but it’s something I’ve been working up to for a long time and I finally think I might be ready for it. We haven’t really talked about this possible action yet, so it was a surprise when I asked Holden about it. We have a very close-knit circle of friends, and there are certain girls in the group that Holden is attracted to. These are the girls he tends to flirt with and therefore, they are the girls that often make me feel jealous. In another effort to keep my imagination in check, I have proposed that when Holden and I are together at a gathering of our friends, and he is finding something about a particular girl attractive, he should discreetly whisper in my ear exactly what it is he likes about her. I want to get inside his head and understand how he thinks about women. I may not always like hearing what he has to say, and it may actually make me feel worse, but here’s how I choose to look at it (now that I feel equipped enough to handle this): Holden has always thought this way. He is always going to think this way. Nothing about how he thinks is going to change no matter how it makes me feel. I have tried for years to ignore it, which I now know was a mistake. So I am going to have to beat it into my head until it doesn’t bother me anymore. At least that’s the current plan. If this plan doesn’t work to help me deal with my insecurity over Holden’s appreciation of other women’s beauty, then I’ll have to come up with something else later. Short of learning how to do a Vulcan mind-meld on him, this is the best way I can think of to understand him.

Incidentally, when I explained this idea to him, his face lit up in a big grin! “You know what? That is such a turn on. I am really turned on that you want me to tell you what I find attractive in other women. And it’s not that it would heighten my attraction to the other women, it would heighten my attraction to you! The fact that I can be so honest to you means we have such a deep connection. It really turns me on that you are so open to me. ” Additionally, we talked about how it’s another way for him to become more self-aware, to figure out how to put to words exactly what he finds attractive about the women he thinks about, and also so he can apply that same technique to me, so he can tell me what he finds attractive about me. (Not that he doesn’t tell me all the time already! *blush*)

After dinner (while we were munching on some delectable Girl Scout cookies) we talked about some hypothetical situations in an effort to understand each other’s comfortable boundaries. We both reminded each other how this part of our conversation was about things way off in the future, but they were still very helpful and reassuring for me to hear from him.

One of the things we talked about was fluid bonding (something I only recently learned there was a word for.) I was happy to hear from him that firstly, fluid bonding would only be an option for him after a long time serious relationship had been established, and then only after talking with everybody involved (directly and indirectly) and having STD tests on a regular schedule. Even then, he would only want to fluid bond with somebody else via oral sex. Vaginal intercourse would still require full protection. Again, this is all speculation on what would probably be several years from now, but it reassured me to know that he had some boundaries where that’s concerned.

Part of why these talks are so important for me, and why I’m so glad they’re able to move forward without me completely melting down is that Holden talks a big talk when it comes to “loving without boundaries.” I’m all for opening up unnecessary barriers, but in my book boundaries equal safety, both emotional and biological. Sometimes I imagine and worry that Holden will want to challenge every limit, even the ones that are there to protect him and me from harm against our best interest. Of course when I stop panicking I know that he’s actually much more reasonable and responsible than that and that it’s not a genuine worry of mine. But it helps so much to hear him describe his boundaries in his own words.

So now we’re off to bed with full hearts and worry-free heads (for the moment.) We’re going to be ok because we’ve got a plan!

-Grace

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

I have been poking around lots of websites related to non-monogamy and learning a lot of definitions and terms and concepts. In my travels around the Intarwebs, a few specific sources have come to me highly recommended, so I think I’ll try documenting my experience with them here. Hopefully in responding to and reflecting on what I learn from these sources, I’ll be prompted to think about my own position and be more ready to come to conclusions or invite new experiences into my life.

The first resource I’ve really felt moved by is a podcast called Poly Weekly. The hostess is foxy and fun, but she’s not afraid to let herself be honest and vulnerable. I’ll be listening through ALL of her back episodes and I’ll do my best to comment along the way. Now, I’ve already started listening to some of the early episodes and I may go back to those and start making comments. But for now, expect these little reviews and reflections of mine to be completely out of order as far as her episode timeline goes.

Another resource I’m really excited to pick up is The Ethical Slut, a book by Donna Easton and Catherine A. Liszt. Once I get my hot little hands on a copy, I’ll probably intersperse my Poly Weekly reviews with information from The Ethical Slut, among other books and websites and things.

So strap on your face masks coz we’re about to dive into the nitty gritty!

-Grace