The Polyamorous Misanthrope

In reading on polyamory boards and in discussions about relationships, it seems that a lot of issues come up that could be more effectively solved with assertive communication skills.

Take this example.  While this might look familiar, I didn’t copy it directly from any polyamory discussion board.  It’s just that you see it so very often.

Hi, guys.  I’m worried about my marriage.  My wife has a new love and while I’m really happy for her, I’m feeling like maybe she doesn’t care about me any more.  She’ll be on a date, and then come home tired.  I want to talk to her and reconnect, but all she wants to do is sleep.  I think that after she’s been out, she owes me some time if she really cares about me and I’ve told her that.

What should I do?

Assertive communication is about telling people what you think/feel/want/need without making the other person responsible for your thoughts/feelings/wants/needs.   So there’s a bit of a formula to the phrasing.

The formula for assertive communication runs like this:

When X happens, I feel Y.  I would like you to Z.

First you’ll describe the situation in which you’re thinking or feeling something.  Ferinstance in this case, the husband could begin with,“When I don’t have a lot of time to talk to someone I care about”

Notice how this avoids finger pointing.  It’s less likely to put someone on the defensive.   When a person is on the defensive, the open flow of good communication pretty much stops.  While you cannot control how someone reacts, you can try to set up the situation to offer the person an easy chance not to be defensive.

Then you can go on to how you feel about it, “I feel distant and unloved.”

It’s very important to note that you’re not saying anything that even smells like, “You make me feel” anything.  Owning your own feelings is very important for this to work.  Yes, yes, yes, you can have negative feelings in certain situations.  But ultimately, it’s your responsibility to decide how you want to cope.

After you’ve explained how you feel, ask for what you want.  “When you come home from a date, I’d like it if we could have ten minutes to talk.  It doesn’t have to be about your date, but I’d like just to reconnect a little with you because I love you and want to feel close to you.”

In this case, you’re not accusing your wife of being a jerk.  You’re not throwing a lot of baggage into the conversation, but dealing with this one direct issue.  Assertive communication works best when you do your best to chuck the baggage and deal with each individual issue on its own.

Of course, the person is not obligated to say “yes”.  This isn’t some kind of advanced spell they teach at Hogwarts or something.  But if the person you’re talking to isn’t willing to give you what you want, you have an opportunity to find out why.   Be willing to listen.  You might agree with the why if you listen long enough.

Sure, you might not, too.  Then you have some future decisions to make, but don’t jump the gun on that one!  Give it a chance and give it some time.

One of the issues that often arise in poly situations — especially in group living is who decides what gets done.

Sure, sure, a consensus model works. But have you ever gotten more than two people to happily agree on more than 50% of decisions? (The “happily” part is important in the long run. Just going along without being happy means that you’re gonna have some resentment along the line).

When the consensus model won’t work, there’s another option: The Designated Control Freak.

I found out about the whole concept of the DCF from a good friend of mine, and thought it was funny and cute and a nifty way to solve decision issues. I told my roommate about it, who also thought it was cute, so we jokingly implemented it.

It was at least six months before we internalized the awesome power of the system.

Here’s the way it works. When the person becomes the Designated Control Freak (DCF) the dialog will be in italics.

Albert: Let’s go out to eat.

Betty: Great! Where shall we go?

Carl: I don’t want to go to a vegetarian restaurant.

Albert: Okay, where are we going then?

Carl: Let’s go to the Outback Steak House.

Betty: No, I hate chain restaurants.

Carl: Okay, Betty, where are we going?

Betty: There’s the new Thai place.

<silent pause>

Betty: Okay, I’ll call them and see if they take reservations.

The way the one becomes the DCF is to express a dissenting opinion when trying to come to a decision. If you have a dissenting opinion, you become responsible for the outcome and have to solve the problem. (i.e. what restaurant to go to for an outing). If you have a strong opinion about where to go and speak up, it’s up to you to organize it. Notice that in the course of a few sentances, the DCF changed several times. It wasn’t an argument (and usually when you agree to the DCF system there won’t be).

If you speak up, if you express an opinion, you’re the DCF until someone else speaks up with a different solution.

You’d think it would be a way for people to railroad through their decisions. But it isn’t. Sometimes you recognize that what you really want is not to be the leader, and shut up. Sometimes you want something badly enough to take the reigns.

Part of the beauty of this system is that it is impossible to be a Puppeteer and try to be the Hindmost¹. If you have an opinion, you’re in charge.

This model reduces fights in a lot of areas. You have a specific way you want the bathroom cleaned? Then you’re the Bathroom DCF. Go for it. It gets cleaned your way. You think the trash has to be emptied before you have to tamp trash down in the kitchen garbage bin, huzzah! You’re the DCF and get to do it.

Does this mean a lazy person could slack in the house and never have to do anything because he never speaks up? In theory, I suppose it could. In practice, I’ve noticed that even the most housework-phobic and disorganized have their own tweaks and twitches for which they will become the DCF and not so lazy as all that.

The thing is, this model really also works well because no-one is willing to work that hard to get his way about everything when he’s responsible for the outcome. You’ll usually find that if someone is trying to bully to get their way on everything, they’re seeing the other person as their “hands” to accomplish what they want. Puppeteering, if you will. This removes the strings nicely.

¹For those of you who are not science fiction geeks, in the Ringworld series, there is a culture of creatures who lead from behind — their morality is more-or-less based on cowardice: the ruling class is known as they-who-lead-from-behind, and the supreme leader is called the Hindmost. Their leader is called the Hindmost.

We talk about communication being important between polyamorous people all the time, and with good reason. It is important.

I got to thinking about ways to ensure good communication and came up with the following:

• Tell the truth

This seems really basic and you know, it isn’t. I’m not talking “Brutal Honesty” here. That’s usually more often an excuse for bullying than it is being genuinely honest. What I mean is that it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re first being honest with yourself, and knowing your motives, then being honest with the person you’re talking to. You can do this kindly.

When you’re communicating with a partner, make sure you’re letting him in on what you’re really thinking and feeling. Your partner has to have accurate information to work with. If you’re not comfortable telling your partner what you’re thinking or feeling, either you’ve got a problem being honest, or you’ve got a problem with your partner that goes a lot deeper than “communication”. A good way to know which it is is to check out how close you tend to play your cards to your chest with intimate friends. If you have a problem telling them the truth about what you’re thinking and feeling, too, take a look at your driver’s license. There will be a pic of the person at fault right there.

• If you have a choice, presume benevolent motives.

You and your partner(s) love each other, right? Of all the people in the world that want your good, surely this person or these people will be them. Sure, people can be thoughtless and hurt feelings, but you can say your feelings are hurt and give a person a chance to explain. “I statements” ¹ are great for this. If you say “I feel X”, you’re owning your own feelings without making the other person responsible for them. It’ll also give the person a chance to elaborate on what’s going on in his or her head, and you’ll have more information to work with. Sometimes you’ll get an “Oops, my bad” or “I didn’t mean X quite that way. Lemme ‘esplain”.

If your partner is actually out to get you (or at least if you have such a deep belief), chances are good you’ve got something more than communication going wrong. For the record, punishment doesn’t belong in any adult relationship outside of the fantasy of a BSDM scene, ‘kay?

• Avoid sarcasm.

I was discussing this article with a friend of mine and she wisely pointed out that the allure of sarcasm is rather like the allure of almost all humor. It’s about pain and the reaction to it. The thing is, while sarcasm may be a reaction to pain, far too often it is often an attempt to cause it as a punishment to someone for being wrong somehow². I don’t need to point out that good communication comes from benevolent motives. If you’re using sarcasm, maybe your motives aren’t as benevolent as all that and your partner(s) are right to feel as if they need to back off and defend themselves.

• Ask questions to try to understand. Then listen carefully to the answer!
  

When you don’t understand something, ask a question. Listen to the answer. It’s a simple, yet powerful technique. Far too often when people are talking, they’re just flapping their tongues. Don’t blow your partner off by asking a question and then wait to find something you can jump on to prove your point. Listen to what they’re saying.

These habits are relatively simple, yet very powerful in relationships. Though, like many good habits, do you practice them? Have you made it a priority to learn good communication skills?

If you haven’t, that’s okay. You really can change how you behave. Don’t expect people in your life to fall all over you accepting the change all at once, though. If you’ve made it a habit not to listen, to use a lot of sarcasm or presume malevolent motives, you may have to go through a trust building period — and I don’t mean just a couple of weeks here. People who’ve needed to protect themselves might be slow to open up. But just be patient and practice your good habits.

The results are really fun!
¹When used properly. I’ve seen some sneaky and passive aggressive uses of “i statements” that would curdle the blood of any person whose goal was actual communication.
²We who have the character flaw of being judgmental can be just awfully sarcastic!

I’ve been watching on several polyamory boards to see people trying to make themselves okay with being in polyamorous relationships. I’ve seen descriptions of people feeling like their hearts are being ripped out. I’ve seen descriptions of people wanting to curl into a ball and cry while their partners are with other people. I’ve even had communication with people who wanted me to help them be okay with having sex with people they didn’t want to sleep with, but partners wanted them to because they thought that was “how you did poly”¹.

I find these posts heartbreaking.

Poly is not martyrdom, and taking pride in being a martyr isn’t going to help you live to the fullest. If you hate it, if it feels wrong, if you feel dirty or betrayed or like you have to force yourself into something:

Maybe poly isn’t for you.

It’s not an enlightened way to be. It’s just a choice that works for some people. It’s a preference that has no more to do with goodness, enlightenment or value than preferring linguine to rice.

There are dozens of reasons why people make themselves try to be okay with poly. Maybe she don’t want to lose a beloved partner. Maybe her partner tried monogamy for her and was unhappy. Maybe they saw it as a way to try to stay together. These things all look so loving and noble. I’m all for love, I really am. I just don’t think that going through pain and suffering is somehow the hallmark of a “worthy relationship”. I don’t find choosing suffering necessarily noble. It’s too close to the mindset of the woman who is proud of herself for her endurance when it comes to accepting an abusive mate.

I’m not saying polyamorous/monogamous pairing are bad². Not at all! But in the good ones, the monogamous member isn’t curling up in a ball when his polyamorous partner is out with another love, either. In a healthy poly/mono pairing, the monogamous partner has his own full life, ya know. She’s not curled into a ball weeping when her partner isn’t with her. He’s got friends and projects and family and is living a busy, happy life — when his partner is around and when he’s alone.

I’m also not saying that twinges of discomfort are reasons to drop a relationship. There’s an enormous difference between, “Dammit, I feel lonely and at a loose end and wish I were out having fun, too” and curling up in a little ball and crying your eyes out because you feel so abandoned, alone and unloved. The healthiest of people have down times and the best relationships do, too.

So what do you do when you’re really not okay with poly and your partner is unhappy monogamous?

That’s a rough one. I’ve been accused, since reviving the Polyamorous Misanthrope column, of seeing relationships as disposable. Nothing could be further from the truth. Commodities are disposable. People and relationships are not commodities. Relationships are forever and always about individuals humans and the different ways we merge and change and bump against each other.

I do not believe that there is any great value in white-knuckling it through a romantic relationship. Suck it up and deal to make sure the kids are properly taken care of and nurtured? Sure. I will point out that doesn’t require a romantic relationship³.

I’m increasingly of the opinion that the only good ways to conduct a relationship are going for the “win-win” or the “no deal”.   If you can find a way to be happy and fulfilled with one partner poly and the other not, that’s wonderful! Go for it and enjoy.  It can and does happen.   It doesn’t happen by making yourself do or be what you are not.  At that point, I strongly encourage the “no deal”.  When I say “no deal” I don’t mean anger, bitterness or hostility.   Just, with a blessing let ‘em go.   It’s probably gonna hurt.   But it is a good way to happiness  in the long run,  no kidding. Some people, no matter how much they love each other, aren’t compatible in the long run.   Believe it or not, you can and do get over it and into creating a life for yourself where you’re not curled into a ball weeping several nights a month.

¹ That’s not “how you do poly”. It comes very, very close to (and sometimes is) “how you do abuse”.

² It’s rarely the relationship form, but how you conduct the relationship that’s the issue.

³ Of all the bills of goods we get sold, the one about parents having to stay in love until the kids are grown to rear children properly is one of the more obnoxious and destructive ones.

That pantheistic, mystical “Thou art God!” chorus that runs through the book is not offered as a creed, but as an existentialist assumption of personal responsibility, devoid of all godding. It says, “Don’t appeal for mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he’s not at home and never was at home, and couldn’t care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy–live or die–is strictly your business and the universe doesn’t care. In fact, you may be be the universe and the only cause for your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it — “Thou art God!”

– October 21, 1960 Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Grumbles from the Grave, Virginia G. Heinlein, ed.

It’s all your creation.

No, really, it is. Your entire life is what you made it.

No, don’t tell me how rotten your parents were to you, or tell me horror stories about bad partners. Not saying that what got done to you might not have sucked. It probably did. I’ve heard some horror stories in my time and I am genuinely sorry for anyone who has had a rough time. I ain’t trying to blow off the fact that things happen that really are terrible.

Thing is, no matter what got done to you, what you did with it is actually what makes your life.

And what makes your life is utterly, totally and completely up to you.

You’re free. Right now. In this very second, you are completely free to choose what you want to do with your life.  You might feel like this is not so, but I promise you that who you are, where you are and what you are is due to the choices you made.   If you do not like any of these things, you are free to make different choices to change them.

“Free to choose” does not mean that your choice will be easy, or the execution of a particular desire will be automatic. That’s where a lot of people trip up. They think if it ain’t easy, or if it’s got a heavy price, then they aren’t really free.  Many times, choices can have a heavy price, indeed.  But don’t think you can escape the price of your choices.

Friends, life doesn’t work that way.

“‘Thou art God.’ It’s not a message of cheer and hope, Jubal. It’s a defiance–and an unafraid unabashed assumption of personal responsibility… But I rarely put it over… The notion that the effort has to be their own… and that all the trouble they are in is of their own doing.. is one they can’t or won’t entertain.”

Thing is, even if you do accept this personal responsibility, there’s one more great nasty pitfall waiting for you.

Guilt.

God, what a horrid, poisonous little barb that can be. You can choose to be paralyzed by it. You have one more escape clause if you want to avoid taking responsibility for yourself. You can choose to hate yourself, and not act because you’re so rotten — because you made such bad and foolish and unloving and unworkable choices.  You can hate yourself down into your bones for how terrible you are, and then you can be paralyzed from acting and wave your bleeding wounds like a flag.

If you think I’m saying that self hatred is a form of procrastination and laziness, you’re very right. It is. Hating yourself is a block to change, or trying to weasel out of accepting what is. Think about it, if I want to be able to bench press 40 lbs, and I can only bench 12, hating myself is not going to help. Lifting that 12 lbs until it’s easy and then lifting something that’s heavier is what’s going to do the real good. The only thing self-hatred and guilt is going to do is give you a socially acceptable excuse not to try.  People pity those in pain, as they should, but sometimes it’s weaseling. It also lets you avoid confronting the idea that maybe you don’t particularly want to work on whatever it is you feel guilty about. Me? I say step up to the plate and admit you don’t want to work on whatever it is and let it go. You’re already dealing with the consequences of your choices, so what the hell?

It’s a very freeing feeling to realize that everything you do, you choose to do. It’s also a great way to get rid of the guilt monster.

Not too long ago, one of my kids was ill and up a lot in the night. I got very little sleep attending to the child. Now, I normally get up around 0500 so that I can be at the gym to work out when it opens¹. I chose not to go and swim that morning. Not “I was up with a sick child and could not go”. I chose not to go. Conscious. Decided. Understanding the consequences. <grin> I also chose to lose sleep to attend to the child². Because I knew these were conscious choices, I did spend my time frustrated at what was going on, but simply dealt with what was in front of me free from any anger or resentment at loss of sleep.

Tonight, I am choosing to have my favorite Appletini.  As a beginning bodybuilder, I know that alcohol adds excess calories that do nothing to help build muscles — indeed is catabolic to them, and suppresses the testosterone I need to build muscle, while preventing fat metabolism.  I accept this choice.  I will never look like a fitness model choosing this.  And I am choosing to enjoy my drink.  Because I am choosing it with open eyes, I have the opportunity to look at it free of guilt and self hatred and any of that foolishness.

Facing up to the fact that everything you do is something you’re choosing can be difficult. Sometimes you learn some not so flattering things about yourself³. Sometimes you take a good, hard look and realize you’ve been making some choices that are very pleasing to you, indeed.

But in all ways it is freeing. It frees you from resentment, because you accept that everything you do is a choice. How can you resent someone else if you’re the one choosing? It frees you to act with wisdom because you’re conscious that every minute you’re choosing your behavior, and constructing your future.

¹I’m not really all that fond of working out, but I want to get stronger. So I choose to go early and get it out of the way so I don’t wind up wasting time making excuses.

²Of course it was a choice. People do choose not to look after their children, after all. It’s not a choice I admire, but it’s a choice.

³And learning to face up to that without using the escape of self-hatred is quite the challenge!

We talk about the polyamory mantra being communicate, communicate, communicate. Do I agree with it? Good Lord, yes! Communication is the cornerstone of a good relationship. When you stop communicating, things fall apart.

Most people who’ve been on this spinning globe more than twelve years or so have had the dubious pleasure of entering into a situation where people are flapping their tongues at each other with about as much noise, but less information delivered than if they’d been Howler Monkeys. At least with Howler Monkeys you know what they really want is for you to go away.

I want to outline a few things that communication is not.

Communication is not agreement.

“My partner won’t stop seeing his SO with the drug problem who keeps stealing from my purse. I feel like we’re not communicating here.”

We’ve all heard stuff like this. If you’ve stated, “I don’t like it when you’re involved with people who steal from me” and stated it that baldly, the problem isn’t communication. It’s that you’ve got a partner that isn’t agreeing with you. Different other problem. The statement was also a little badly-framed, as you’re still directing the other person’s behavior. A better way to put it would be, “I don’t like it when there are people in my life that steal from me.” and outline what steps you’ll take to keep from being stolen from, up to and including leaving the relationship).

Sometimes when you’re communicating effectively, you’ll find out that you might not be in agreement about something. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re communicating badly. It might mean… well, you don’t agree! My son and I have hung up on this one a few times. He’s still at the stage where he thinks if he explains Transformers well enough to me, I’ll get the point and become a fan. That’s not gonna happen any more than if I tried explain how cool it is to get up at five in the morning and go out in the cold to hit the pool and swim laps until I’m out of breath. I can talk until I’m blue in the face about the sleek feel of the water over my body, the sense of accomplishment when I come home to the hedonistic pleasure of a bowl of plain oatmeal. He’s still gonna look at me like I’m Calvin’s dad or something. We don’t agree. We’ve communicated our viewpoints well, thoroughly and clearly. We’re just never gonna agree on it.

I make part of my living teaching various MS Office programs. As a teacher, I often lecture. You teachers out there are probably already grinning and nodding, knowing where I’m going with this.

When you lecture, you’re looking for feedback, scanning your audience for clues that they understand, that they’re absorbing the information. You stop at frequent intervals to ask if there are any questions or comments. You do everything you can to make sure that you’re getting feedback. If you stop getting feedback, it’s become a one-way deal. It’s okay to stop trying at that point. In fact, it’s a good idea. You can go back to it, later, when people are ready to communication. (If they stop wanting to communicate, again, you’ve got a different problem. You cannot make someone want to communicate).

Effective communication is about giving the accurate information, not telling the other person what to do with it.

The point of communication is to help everyone make as accurate choices as possible (though we know nothing is perfect). If you, say, hate country music, saying you hate it might not be enough information. You might never want to hear it ever. Then a partner knows not to invite you to the Willie Nelson concert. If you dislike it, but are willing to put up with it to hang out with someone, you can say that, and the person knows that hang out time is valuable enough to you that you’d like to go with him to see Willie. But, even if you can deal with country, but your partner has another partner who adores it and would be eager to see that concert. Just because you communicated that hang out time is important, your partner doesn’t owe you that concert. He might decide any of a number of things based on a dozen factors (as do you). The best choices are usually made with the most accurate information. So your job is to give such (and ask for it!)

So yes, communication is the cornerstone of a decent relationship, do doubt about it.  But don’t expect “good communication” to mean, “this is the way to get other people to do what I want most of the time”.  That’s not what good communication is about.

This isn’t by the Goddess of Java, but is by The Ferret and originally posted here.  Reposted by permission.  This is excellent stuff!

In my last discussion of infidelity, I outlined the four basic types of cheaters. Of that, there were only two who you could really hope to have a relationship with:

• The Wild Oat-Sower, who cheats to see whether something’s as good as they thought it was (and then, their curiosity satisfied, doesn’t do it again), and:
• The Desperate Housewife, who’s cheating because you’re doing something that’s making them miserable. Hence, they’re going elsewhere to fulfill the needs that you’re not satisfying.

I also said that when caught, the Desperate Housewife – who, despite the name, can also be a guy – will almost invariably claim that they were just working something out of their system.

But why is that? Why will these unhappy partners lie and tell you that it’s not you, it’s something they’re going through and they need to work it out? Wouldn’t it be better just to talk to you about the shit they’re going through and maybe clear it up?

The reason’s simple: Desperate Housewife cheating happens in an environment where your lover feels they’ll be punished for being honest.

If a Desperate Housewife could tell you about what was really bothering them in a way where they felt like you could listen, then they wouldn’t cheat. (They might have sex with someone else with your permission, but contrary to some popular beliefs, that’s not cheating.) But now, if they tell the truth, they’re going to get into a big long argument where they won’t be heard at all. It’s quicker to cheat.

Yes, the Desperate Housewife is a sign that your relationship has degenerated to the point where your partner now views you as an obstacle to be worked around. Your partner still loves you – otherwise they’d be out the door* -

This may not be your fault.

You could, for example, be committing the crime of “Not being the ex-girlfriend he’s hung up on,” and talking to you about how you’re really not her will just make you feel bad and cause a lot of crying. So since that’ll never change and he’s not quite ready to leave you, he’s just not going to mention how he’ll jump her if he gets the chance. Really, there’s nothing you can do.

Or perhaps you are guilty of “Unable to tell her exactly what she should do with her life right now, and she doesn’t know.” Your wife’s suddenly decided that everything in her life is wrong; she’s not satisfied with her husband or her career or her family or her hobbies. She’s drifted passively through life until now, agreeing quietly with everything people said, but a few months ago she realized that this wasn’t working.

Now she doesn’t know what will make her happy, and she’s quietly angry all the time because somebody should hand her a paper slip containing the magic words that will give her a life of fulfillment, and nobody has. Everything you suggest is complete crap that she knows won’t work – she knows it so thoroughly that she won’t even try it.

As her husband, you should be the one who knows what the hell she wants – or are you part of the problem? Hmm? Maybe?

That’s a no-win situation.

Or you might be condemned to, “Not wanting to watch your husband screw every woman in town until he’s had all of the fun he wants.” Or “Unable to agree with everything your girlfriend says.”

Some Desperate Housewives desire things that are completely unreasonable. In many cases, what they want is something that you shouldn’t provide – they probably should be punished for being honest, since what they’re asking you to do isn’t something that should be granted. And as is often the case with dysfunctional relationships, there’s really not that much common ground to work with once you clear away that dry brush. What would make your partner happy would make you miserable, so there’s no real room for negotiation.

But remember when I said that when caught, almost every Desperate Housewife will claim to be a Wild Oat-Sower? Here’s the corollary:

When a Desperate Housewife is caught, almost every partner claims that they’re doing everything that their partner can reasonably expect, whether they actually are or not.

The partner of a Desperate Housewife will almost always admit that yes, there are problems, but on the whole he’s been doing everything he should be doing. He’s been kind, communicative, understanding – it’s her that’s the problem. This is understandable. The “solvable” Desperate Housewives (the ones where they have problems that can be addressed) are generally caused by communication locks, where the cheatee feels like she’s listening properly and the cheater knows he isn’t.

What happens is often subtle; the cheatee is suppressing vital communication in some quiet way that he or she may not be aware of. Lemme give you a real-life example here to clarify things.

In a long-term relationship with an old girlfriend, I was kind, sensitive, and loving. I took care of her emotionally, I brought her flowers, I picked her up from her job, and I was an awesome boyfriend.

She cheated on me.

This was sadly common in my LTRs. Most of my girlfriends cheated on me.* And it was a surprisingly long time before I discovered the common denominator in my crappy relationships was me.

What was I doing? It was surprisingly subtle. I kept asking, “Do you love me?” (or that eternal variant, “Are we okay?”). And I didn’t just ask it once a day – oh, no, sometimes I’d ask it a couple of times an hour.

I was a good boyfriend, on many levels. If you were to ask me, I was doing what I was supposed to do, and if I was a little needy at times, well, my other fine qualities made up for it. But realistically, I was suppressing communication constantly.

How? Well, every time I asked “Are we okay?”, I was accomplishing two things. Quite obviously, being asked all the time is fucking annoying, so I was endlessly nagging. But on the other hand, every partner has their quirks, and I might have found someone who was willing to reassure me a lot.

The larger problem was that we had to be okay. If my partner was upset or just irritated, telling me that they weren’t okay would lead to an instant Serious Discussion of What Was Wrong, which would not end until we were okay once again. Basically, any conflict, no matter how slight, had to be ironed out immediately for my convenience – I couldn’t live with my girlfriends being mad at me at all.

Sometimes, people just need time to cool off. (Or you don’t want to get into an argument now, because this movie’s really good.) By continually demanding that everything was okay at the very moment I asked it, I was lowering the bar on “okay.” In order to live with me, any girlfriend had to quietly redefine “trivial, but not worth discussing now” as “Okay.”

In this fashion, I taught them to lie to me. I was practically asking for it.

But wait! There’s more! If they didn’t want to discuss it right then, they couldn’t argue about it later – because then I’d realize that they had lied to me when they’d told me we were fine half an hour ago, and how could I know whether they had really meant that okay? The argument now would be that much bigger. So if they didn’t bring up the trivial stuff instantly, on my terms, they couldn’t bring it up at all without a huge fight that questioned their honesty.

They stopped talking to me about the trivial stuff. And the funny thing about trivial stuff is that it almost invariably chains into major stuff… But how could they discuss the major stuff that had sprung from the trivial stuff without having to justify all the quiet lies they’d told to me along the way?

In fact, they couldn’t talk to me at all. I was still a great guy, but there was this no-fly zone of non-communication. And hence, they would eventually find a guy who didn’t ask them stupid shit all the time, and by God was he attractive.

They didn’t leave me. They still liked me. But the other guy was like a vacation, or perhaps a pressure valve. He provided something I couldn’t – you know, confidence.

And so my communication patterns broke down. But if you were to ask me, I was doing everything that I was supposed to in order to keep things moving – in fact, my negative was a positive. I was always asking for feedback! I wanted open communication! Why did all of my girlfriends lie to me? By God, they were all Kobayashi Marus. You couldn’t win with them. Sure, I was flawed, but those were minor; on the whole, I was doing everything I should.

Thus, the big question in any future relationship with a cheater is, “What are you doing wrong?” It sounds ludicrous to ask this after a partner’s wounded you so thoroughly, but chances are better than even that they didn’t just do this out of evil intentions.

You might be partially at fault for this. To find out, in the next segment of this ongoing series, I’ll outline the various types of Desperate Housewives that I’ve seen, both male and female.

Stay tuned.

Mama Java’s been ranting about asking for what you want and explaining why it’s important to do so lately.

Yeah, yeah, that’s all cool and groovy and evolved and shit.

What if you don’t know what you want?

Valid concern. People don’t know what they want sometimes. Or sometimes they realize what they thought they wanted was the trappings when the substance turned out to be quite different. You want sand in the gears of a relationship? This is it.

Sometimes when you are not clear on what you want, it is because you have a core value that is so deep that being conscious of it would be tantamount to a fish being conscious of water, or a toddler concentrating on the fact that he walks through air.

I got bit by this one, and it caused a lot of pain to myself and the people around me. I formed relationships that could not possibly be in harmony with this value, and worse, when I started to be conscious of it, rather like that fish having the water removed, I tried to breathe air because I “should”.

Anyone surprised to learn that it didn’t work for me? <wrygrin>

Learn from my dumb mistake and be clear and conscious of these values.

“Great!” I hear you say. “Sure, that’s wonderful! Since it took you thirty-odd years to figure it out, you’re just gonna smugly say I oughta find out without telling me how?”

I wish I could say that there is some technique or method to his. Well, there isn’t.

You see, you already know it. Right now, deep in your soul, you do know it. The problem is that you don’t want to admit it.

It’s not “cool”. What you want isn’t “evolved”. What you want isn’t part of your present life situation.

You may want monogamy, deep in your soul. Ask for it.
It may be that you’re in a polyfi situation where your heart and guts and mind scream for no rules other than the self-imposed ones. Say what is it is that causes your soul to resonate.

It’s hard to admit it, and it’s even harder to ask for it, because that sort of thing isn’t popular.

Ask for it, anyway.

I’m not blowing smoke here, or blowing sunshine up your ass. I’m here to tell you that it is a risk, and a big one. You will be rejected for it from time time, you really will. It hurts and it sucks, but do it anyway. You’ll cry and hate the rejection. It hurts. No-one likes it.

Do it, anyway. I promise you that there are people in the world in harmony with you — you personally.

And that harmony is worth it.

Quick quiz:

When I ask for something I ask for

1. What I think I should want.
2. What I think I can get that is closest to what I want.
3. What I want.

I chose what I should want.

Okay, sure, lots of people have done this. It’s not an unusual option when you feel guilty about what you want, or if you haven’t taken the time to explore what you do want. If you’re at this stage, it’s better not to come to the negotiating table until you do know. “I am not entirely sure what I want and need to think” is perfectly acceptable.

If you’re feeling guilty about what you do want, it might be productive to explore why this is so! But choosing to ask for what you think you should want is not being truthful. This is not conducive to a good relationship. Get centered in what you want first. Also, asking for what you should want, especially when you get a “yes” means you’re gonna get what you don’t want. Even though it’s not the other person’s fault, you might find yourself resentful at some subconscious level for not getting what you want. Do you really want to put someone you love through that? ‘Course not!

I chose to ask for what I think will get a “yes”

The flaw in this is that you’re not clearly communicating. It’s also rather subtle form of lying, because you’re not actually saying what it is you do want and are manipulating a bit.

This can come from several emotional places, but one of the more common ones is a fear of rejection. Are you afraid of rejection? If so, welcome to the club. Hell of a thing in a writer, innit? Remember that in a good relationship not all “no”s are dealbreakers. As Wayne Dyer once commented, “If you can say no in a relationship, you do not have to say no to the relationship. ”

I ask for what I want

If you do this, you’re giving the other person you’re dealing with the appropriate information. If you’re dealing with a romantic partner, you’re on the same side, right? You want your partner to have her needs fulfilled. Your partner feels the same way. If this is not the case, then you’ve got issues outside the scope of this particular article, but I assure you that asking for what you want is still the best way to go. It’s unlikely you really want relationships where none of your needs are being met, after all!

Now, have I ever been guilty of options A or B in my relationships? Oh, sweet baby Jesus, yes! To say that it did not work for me is a dramatic understatement. Part of it was an uberwant that was unvoiced, and therefore unfulfilled. I wanted some peace and quiet with a strong adjective in front of it! If you’re wanting something with a heavy emotive force, it’s something worthwhile to pay attention to, and <gasp> maybe even ask for.

Most of this advice is working from the presumption that yes, you’ve a loving relationship here. When there isn’t an emotional investment in everyone having their needs and a lot of wants met, you’re going to find that this method is going to mercilessly expose some unpleasant stuff.

Me? I think that’s good in the long run. Inauthentic relationships aren’t worth having, they’re really not. “Alone” is an order of magnitude better than “bad relationship”! Keep that in mind when you’re asking for what you want, because the only way to get good relationships is to be real about what you do want.

Greetings Misanthrope,

I have a difficult problem and I am not sure how to go about dealing with it. I live in a quad arrangement with my husband and another couple but I do not have a sexual relationship with the other husband. We are basically roommates. I do have a sexual relationship with the other wife. I thought that a little background was needed but the problem is I hate the other husbands behavior with “our” wife. He does things that I find demeaning and disrespectful, such as groping her relentlessly if he decides he’s horny, even if I am in the room and the wife and I are having a discussion. This is after she has asked him to repeatedly stop. His other offensive behaviors are of the same type. If she doesn’t stop and pay attention to him when he wants it he pouts, gropes her or finds some other way of trying to get her attention.

This behavior is driving me crazy. My question is what do I do, if a person treated my daughter or husband this way I would not hesitate to tell them to “get the hell off of them”. In this situation I am not sure how to handle it. The Wife does not stick up for herself in any way she is so passive with men it hurts me. I would love any insight you have to offer.

I suppose the quick and easy thing to say is that you’re not responsible for protecting someone else’s boundaries. *grin* Feel free to click on “boundaries” in this site and point your wife in the direction of those posts. Good boundaries are really important to being happy in your life in general — poly or not.

It is natural to feel protective of the ones we love, certainly. The thing is, your wife is not a child under your protection, but a grown woman. If someone were treating your daughter this way, it would be one thing. It is your responsibility to protect your daughter from unwanted touching and to teach her how to do that for herself. Your husband is also an adult, and therefore responsible for his own boundaries.

This is not to say you cannot give backup to the people you love. My question would be, has your wife asked for it, or are you defending her without being asked? Learn from my bitter mistakes and don’t do that. Being protective without being asked might seem noble to you. It’s actually not very respectful because what you’re really saying is that the person isn’t a full, self-responsible adult. Grownups ask for the help they need.

This letter also brings up another point. How are boundaries respected in general in your household? Have the four of you discussed this and agreed upon what you consider acceptable behavior? Have you discussed what will happen if there is unacceptable behavior?

Assertive communication is a big help here. I strongly encourage you to check out the Boundaries article on this site, as well as checking out the links on assertive communication at the end of this article. Do remember that you cannot control the behavior of another person. You can ask for what you want. You can choose not to be around someone whose behavior is unacceptable to you, but you cannot make someone change behavior.

Assertive Communication Links:

• Assertive Communication at Mentalhelp.net – The thrust of this is more for anger management, but the ideas are still very sound.
• Assertive Communication Builds Relationships — I like this one, because it explains how to avoid weaseling and using “I statements” to beat someone over the head, which is passive-aggressive at its best/worst.
• Important issues with assertiveness and listening use in the real world — This site is a bit workplace oriented, but poly families, being larger, often play out similarly.

I’m also taking a serious leap, and offering a new service on the Polyamorous Misanthrope. I have an advice line through Keen.com for Polyamorous advice voice to voice (I may add a cam service later, as body language tends to be important with this kind of thing). Nothing else on this site will change. The column is and always will be free, and I’m certainly going to answer emails as before. But if you want a voice to voice advice session, it will be available for .99/minute.