Love is not a competition. Let me say that again. Love. Is. Not. A. Competition. Polyamory and kink aren’t competitions either. However, if you insist on turning any of them into a contest, you will lose. You will lose the thing you ostensibly fear most to lose, the “prize” you’re attempting to fight over. This doesn’t mean your “opponent” wins. It means everybody loses. It means there are no winners when something that is supposed to be the source of joy, love, and pleasure becomes instead a minefield fraught with potential IED’s- Impromptu Events of Drama.
So how does one deal with the normal, understandable, and inevitable negative feelings that are bound to arise when someone you love loves other people too? I’m talking about envy or jealousy (they’re different things to me, but that’s an entire blog post of its own), insecurity, resentment, fear of abandonment, etc. I can only speak for myself and from personal experience, so I’m going to give you a little run-down of my history.
In my heart, I think I’ve been polyamorous my entire life, though I took a long detour into a what was initially a monogamous marriage for most of my 20’s. I’ve been practicing non-monagamy since the tail-end of that ill-fated union, but arrived at a place of completely open, honest, transparent polyamory about seven years ago. I am still in the relationship I was in at the time, though he and I split for a couple years midway through. I’ve had two other male partners of 2.5 years each, one female partner of 4 years, and two male partners of six months each. All of those partners had other partners during the course of our relationship. Ergo, I’ve had a fair amount of paramours and metamours (the partner of one of your partners, or your paramour’s other) over the years.
Our society lacks positive modeling of successful polyamorous relationships. It’s fairly easy to define monogamy, but most of us who fall outside that box are forging our own path as we go. I’ll start with something I’ve found to be imperative in facilitating successful open relationships and effective communication with both my paramours and my metamours. Be aware that some of this is drawn from my own relationships, and some of this comes from personal observation. Please don’t make the mistake of assuming I’m talking about a specific person or situation- I find inspiration everyday, everywhere, and I use creative license at will. Also, please feel free to comment with your own suggestions or questions. I am drawn to fostering intelligent dialogue and discussion on all forms of non-monagamy.
Know yourself. Be yourself. Trust yourself. Respect yourself.
What do you want and need from your relationships? What are your boundaries and limits in regards to your partners and their others? What are you willing to compromise and what are your deal-breakers? Write these things down and stick to them. Do not enter a new relationship until you can articulate the answers to these questions to yourself and your partner, but also know that these answers will likely change as you grow and learn.
When you’re in the throes of New Relationship Energy (NRE), it can be very tempting to make yourself over in the image of what you perceive your new love’s ideal mate to be. I made this mistake over and over until I finally learned my lesson. Obviously, we all do this to a certain extent when we’re falling for someone new. You want them to see all the things you have in common and how magically perfect you are for each other. You make extra effort; you put your best foot forward. But too much of this can be unhealthy or dishonest. After all, don’t you want the person you love to be in love with the person you really are?
THE SHELLFISH METAPHOR
You don’t care whether it’s Mexican or Japanese tonight, but your new sweetie has a hankering for sushi. You don’t really like sushi and you’re deathly allergic to shellfish, but you could go for yakisoba or a bowl of ramen. Not a big deal. It’s a great meal, and at the end of it, she turns to you and says, “I’m so glad we both like Japanese food! I get a powerful craving for sushi every so often, and it’s nice to have someone to go with.” You were flexible. You don’t like sushi, but you were able to accommodate your partner’s wants without sacrificing your own needs or having to stomach something (literally and figuratively) that you didn’t want to. You found the commonality (Japanese food in general) as opposed to the discord (sushi and shellfish specifically), and both got what you needed- sustenance and good company.
But let’s say for whatever reason, you haven’t mentioned your allergy yet, or said something like, “I don’t like shellfish very much” instead of “I’m horribly allergic” in order to not make a big deal of it. Your honey orders the lobster special hand roll and starts making orgasmic noises as soon as she tastes it. “Lobster is my favorite food in the world! It’s SO GOOD,” she says, and orders another. “You have to taste it!”
She doesn’t know it might make you violently ill, she only knows she really, really likes it and wants to share it with you. “Uh oh,” you think, “I don’t want to tell her I’ll never like one of her favorite things or ever be able to share it with her.” So you take a tiny bite, and maybe it doesn’t quite kill you, but it does swell you up like a puffer fish and send you to the hospital. She’s upset you didn’t tell her you were allergic; she needed that information. You’re upset because you weren’t trying to ruin the night; you were trying to accommodate your partner’s desires.
But here’s the deal: within this given set of circumstances (your shellfish allergy), you can’t. Accommodating your partner’s desires is beyond your capacity. It’s self destructive to even try, and deep down, you know that.
Know and honor your own limits.
“I’m actually pretty allergic, so unless you have an emergency room fetish, you’re just going to have to have that delicious morsel all to yourself. But feel free to keep making those noises, because I can tell you’re really enjoying it and it’s fun to watch. Tell me what it tastes like!”
Or maybe you simply can’t do that. The proximity is enough that you might be feeling a little flush. Are you starting to swell up? You’re definitely starting to get itchy. You can’t sit here next to her while she eats lobster. It may actually harm you. So what do you do? Do you ask her to never eat lobster again, or do you sacrifice your own well-being?
Neither. You sit down and say, “these are the facts. I am allergic to shellfish. I cannot and will not eat it, and I don’t think I can even share a meal with you when you eat it. But I like/lust/love you, and I don’t want you to have to go without. What can we do about this?”
Now here’s the hard part. Be prepared for the answer to that question to be nothing, and accept it. If there isn’t a workable solution, you may not be compatible partners, no matter how sexy you find her, how much you do have in common, or how hard you work to please her. You deserve to get what you want and need, but not everyone will be able to give it to you. Be willing to walk away.
I know it feels like the end of the world. It isn’t. You have options. You’re polyamorous. Or maybe you aren’t. There are people out there whose interests and desires will intersect with yours, and some of them won’t be able to stand shellfish or will be allergic also. Find them. Let go of what you cannot control and be free.