I’m in a primary poly relationship and a few secondary ones. On the whole things are great and the world is wonderful.

One of my newer partners has a primary and poly family of his own. They are a great bunch of people. We’ve been taking things slow and recently both cleared our STI screening tests, so technically we are ready to have sex when we want it.

But I’m holding back. Something doesn’t feel quite right to me. He’s not very affectionate towards me, so I asked him for more of that and the last time I saw him he was indeed more affectionate when we were alone. But when we are round my partners or his, he’s totally cold. He said he worries about annoying someone, but I hope this will get easier with time.

Then there is the issue of contact. I tend to message my partners a lot, just organising meetups and so on, because I love them. Until I notice that I am the only one initiating with him, and when I do hear from him first it is just to arrange playtime and tell me about what kinky sex he’d love to try, which makes my skin crawl.

So I’m holding strong and not messaging him, to see how long it takes him, and what he does say when he messages me. If he only ever messages me for sex, he’s not going to get it -ever. I want more than just sex with him and he damn well knows it. I need affection and vanilla things with him and we’ve agreed to do this.

I guess I have two questions here after all. One is how much contact do you like or think is reasonable to have with secondary partners? And would you have sex with someone if they only seemed to message you about sex or play?

It does look like you’ve already decided how to handle your potential, and that’s good. I mean, it’s good you’ve made a decision – not passing judgment on it. It does sound like your basic desires in a relationship don’t mesh, and you know it. Hey, it happens. Fortunately, there are 7 billion people in the world, so there’s no need for the two of your to make each other miserable when you can each have relationships that actually make you happy.

How often is reasonable to contact partners? I can’t give you a sensible answer to that. It really, really depends on the relationship. I have a partner I’ve been involved with for almost five years and we don’t contact each other every day. We’re fine with that. I’ve also had partners that I chatted with online most of the day off and on. What is reasonable is what works between partners. Honest to goodness, if I had a partner declare it was reasonable to get a text at least three times a week because some opinionated bigmouth with a blog said it was, not only would I be dubious, I’d be disinclined to agree just out of contrariness. If the person asked for at least three texts a week because they liked that level of contact and it made them happy, I’d probably make a note to make sure I tried to do that. If they asked for three or four a day, I’d have to explain it conflicted with other things I needed to do and go from there to see what accommodation we could reach. But that’s me, my schedule and what I’m up to. You are almost certainly different. As long as you and your partner reach an accommodation that make you both happy, certainly a stranger’s tastes don’t enter into it.

As far as having sex with someone who only contacted me about sex, if all I wanted with him was sex, that’d be fine. If it wasn’t, well, no. Since interesting conversation tends to be a bit of a kink of mine, no, just sex isn’t generally what I’m looking for. I think that’s a taste thing rather than anything else –certainly no moral judgment. I think a sex for sex’ sake relationship has its merits if that’s what makes the people involved happy.

I wish I could be more concrete with you, as I get the impression what you really want is a reality check about whether or not you want too much time from a partner. It’s not the wanting, though, that’s reasonable or unreasonable. It’s a lot more to do with how you ask for what you want, and how you behave when you get your answer – be it yes or no. That’s where reasonable (or at least mature) comes in or not. You’re allowed to want things. You’re allowed to ask for them. You’re allowed to ask for things that are a big deal and you’re allowed to ask for things that are not. Certainly you’re allowed to have things that are a relationship requirement for you. It’s just that, if you don’t get them, it’s pretty important to be able to walk away with a “no harm, no foul” attitude, or even consider how important that want really is to you. Sometimes it does boil down to whether or not you want X quality or is that you want to be close to Y person.

You Might Like:

• Feelings are Not Facts
• “Just Friends”
• Be a Credit to Your Kink
• Process Percentage
• Patient Griselda, or, Minding the Gap

I met my secondary partner earlier this year and we took our time getting to know each other before we played, and agreed to start a play-partnership.

Then a few months ago she met a new primary, and I only found this out when she added a new relationship status up online.

As a result I haven’t seen her since August. She’s in the throes of NRE and has bailed (last minute) on every one of our 5 arranged dates since meeting him.

Well, one of my own rules for myself that a string of bailing means I stop initiating. (If I ever did initiate.  I tend to be bad about that and am trying to work on it so my partners get the message that they are valued.)

I’ve communicated that I want to see her, it’s been too long since our last meeting and that I miss her, which she reciprocates in words but not actions.

Okay, while I’m all into believing one’s partner, when one’s words and actions do not agree, believe the actions.  What are her actions saying?

Part of the annoyance is that she lies about her reasons for bailing, citing illness or lack of funds to see me yet managing to see him and go clubbing etc.

 

I feel like I am the only one doing the chasing, messaging her, arranging meets. I feel like I have communicated the desire to see her.

From what you’re saying, it looks like you are the one to take the initiative and that it’s not being reciprocated.  I’d say this is a good time to stop initiating and be done with it.

As far as the lying thing?  You could ask her to explain discrepancies between her words and actions if you want to.  I do say “ask” rather than “accuse” on purpose.  It is just possible you don’t have all the information.  Then again, she could be a lying flake, but if you value the relationship, I’d go with the assumption you don’t have all the info, first!

I don’t want to end the relationship, I really like her and I am happy for things to be very laid back and to only see her every few months if needs be. But I don’t want to be bailed on, and treated badly as I see it. I realise she loves her new partner, but I also think she needs to make time for our relationship too. Ultimately if she takes months to make some time for me I can only interpret that as a lack of feeling for me, and end the relationship.

I don’t know that I automatically would assign seeing someone irregularly to the “lack of feeling” category, but bailing several times in a row does indicate that maybe she’s just not that into you.  I mean, it sucks and it hurts, but it doesn’t look good to me.

You don’t have to make it all official and “end the relationship.” You can just stop initiating.  Now, if what you’re saying is that there are things that are deal-breakers for you, you do need to express that.   Bailing five times in a row in general would be for me —barring professions or activities that duty requires one to be “on call” frequently.  You know, like being an on-call medical/rescue professional, on-call tech support, or new parent.

Words of wisdom and advice on how to deal with this would be great. I do worry that because things are new with us and we haven’t done much poly negotiating, she won’t be prepared to discuss boundaries and stuff. She added this primary without even telling me until after the fact, which I also felt was a bit bad of her. Im at a loss really – I do like her but I feel hurt by her. I don’t have a deep emotional attachment to her at this point (luckily perhaps) but the way she is behaving is making me unhappy.

I actually do have a relationship with someone who I see quite infrequently.  He added a primary and did tell me about it after the fact.  Did it bother me?  No, actually, I thought it was cool that he fell in love.  Why?  We only see each other every few months and we’ve never explicitly negotiated anything about each others’ other relationships.  Of course he’s free to add a primary if he wants to!  And… well, he’d established a pattern not only of keeping me in the loop, but being quite willing to listen if I asked for something and to give a clear yes or no.  What I didn’t have was the baggage of getting bailed on or felt like I was being lied to.  That does make an enormous amount of difference.  I knew damn well he was (and is) interested in me about as much as usual.

Do I challenge her on her behaviour and explain that bailing on me all the time makes me feel unwanted? Do I leave her to it and see if she comes to me? How long do I leave it before I finish the relationship?

Certainly it is okay to say, “I don’t like being bailed on.”  Is that going to change her behavior?  Dunno.  You’re going to have to try that and see.  I wince a bit at the use of the word challenge, though.  Approaching a partner in an adversarial frame of mind has its drawbacks.  (Enemies and Allies discusses this.  It was written by a wise and wonderful friend of mine.)

I will say that since you don’t have a deep emotional attachment to this person, that in terms of a relaxed life, you might just want to let this go.

One of the things that I’m seeing a bit more in poly discussions is the importance of good partner selection.  I don’t mean that any worthy human being would make a good partner.  In fact, they wouldn’t and that’s exactly the point.  You’re a unique human being with unique needs and desires.  What’s good partner selection for you?  It sounds to me like this person isn’t a good match for you.   You might benefit from thinking about what qualities make a good partner for you and decide if this person has them.

I hope things work out for you!

You Might Like:

• Feelings are Not Facts
• Polyamory and Schedule
• Handling Jealousy: How to Fuck Up
• One is Silver, and the Other Gold…
• Will a Baby Change my Poly Relationship?

This guest column was written by Peter J. Vinton, Jr., aka The Prince.

It’s Just A Trifle

Lily innocuously asks a favor of you one day.  Say, a quick phone call asking you to pick up her friend Orlando in front of the hardware store, and then to drop him off at the grocery store, where he works.  Both stops are on the way to your work, so it won’t be any extra time or mileage out of your way.  She gives you a pickup time of 6:30.  This is perhaps ten minutes earlier than you normally pass by the hardware store, but you figure it’s no real problem and you agree.

The next day you swing by the hardware store at 6:30.  Orlando is there, along with his friend Shnerf who also works at the grocery store, and he asks if this individual can also ride along.  You don’t want to leave this person stranded and make him late for work, so you agree.  The ride is uneventful; both of these strangers are polite and cordial.  You drop off both Orlando and Shnerf at the grocery store, they express their thanks, and you’re on your way.

That evening you get a text (not a call) from Lily, asking if you wouldn’t mind showing up at the hardware store at 6:15 tomorrow.  You’re a little puzzled; you didn’t explicitly agree to more than one day, but Lily insists that you did.  Since you don’t have anything in writing (a text or an email), you’re not able to effectively argue the point.  The next morning you swing by the hardware store at 6:15 and sure enough, Orlando is waiting, but Shnerf is running a few minutes late.  After some delay, the three of you are on your way by 6:30 and you drop them off at the grocery store at the same time as yesterday.  Again, since you yourself aren’t being made to arrive late to work, it’s not really an issue.  Your day passes normally.  Nobody calls or texts you that evening and you figure this 2-day run of weirdness is over.

The next morning, you proceed to work at your normal time.  As you pass the hardware store at 6:40, Orlando and Shnerf are standing out in front, wildly waving and trying to get your attention.  They’re both upset and flustered because “you’re more than 25 minutes late.”  On the way Shnerf apologizes for being a bother, but that he needs to swing past the pharmacy to pick up a prescription for his mother.  This takes you a few streets (and about 10 minutes) out of your way.  You don’t want to make your passengers later for work than they already are, and you also don’t want to penalize Shnerf’s poor uninvolved mother, so you agree.  You drop off Orlando and Shnerf at the grocery store 15 minutes late for their shift.  As Orlando steps out of the car he asks if you can swing by the hardware store 15 minutes earlier tomorrow “to make up for the shortfall.”  Adding to the confusion is the fact that you now don’t know if he means 15 minutes earlier than yesterday, or 15 minutes earlier than the first day, when all this began.

See what’s started happening here?  Graphing things out from this point, it’s easy to envision that over time you’re somehow leaving your house earlier and earlier every morning, and yet at the same time arriving to work later and later.  An element of chaos has been injected into your life, and you wonder how it got this way.  Even more disconcerting, when you try to do a mental recap, you discover to your great discomfort that you can’t even pinpoint exactly when it started becoming this big of a hassle.  Worst of all, in the absence of any hard facts or clearly-communicated agreements or intentions, you start questioning your own memory, a worry which piles itself on top of all the other difficulties.

Everyone must accept some share of the blame here: 1) Lily for not decisively explaining the exact need; 2) Orlando for failing to give you a heads-up about a second rider; 3) Shnerf for just assuming you’ll accommodate him; and of course 4) the person pictured on your driver’s license for not putting your foot down at… well, at some point.  You’re not sure when.

Some Working Definitions

Gaslighting is an expression that refers to a deliberate act of psychological manipulation; while it doesn’t necessarily imply malevolent intent, it certainly lends itself to malevolence.  The term comes from the Patrick Hamilton play Gas Light, in which the character Jack uses a variety of tricks, including incrementally turning the gas lamps lower and lower over time, to convince his wife Bella that she is consistently misremembering facts and is therefore crazy.[1]  One example of gaslighting in literature is in Roald Dahl’s humorous story The Twits, in which every night the husband surreptitiously glues a penny-sized sliver of wood to his wife’s walking stick, making it appear to grow ever longer over time, to the effect of ultimately convincing his wife that she is in fact shrinking.   Another telling example of gaslighting in literature appears in Frank Tashlin’s The Bear That Wasn’t, in which an unsuspecting bear is consistently told by ever higher and higher-ranking individuals that he is not really a bear but
“a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat;” to the point where the bear himself begins insisting –to other bears– that he is in fact just “a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat.”  The 2005 film Flightplan revolves around a systematic attempt to convince Jodie Foster’s character that that she is entirely mistaken about her daughter’s disappearance, and the conflict between what she remembers versus what she is being told, drives her very nearly insane.  It might even be argued that the 2010 science-fiction film Inception represents a complex, drawn-out act of deliberate gaslighting; a team of professional swindlers manipulates the “mark” below three layers of subconscious, making him believe that a deliberately planted falsehood is in fact an idea he came up with entirely on his own.

Convincing a person that their memory is not in accord with the facts ultimately leads to a distorted view of reality and an inability to trust one’s own judgment.  The desired end result is usually to foster a sense of extreme dependence (often on the part of a spouse or significant other); that the victim desperately needs the gaslighter to help him/her remember facts correctly.  The abuser may, for example, move objects from their original locations and then insist that the victim in fact misplaced them.  The abuser may consistently deny ever having said a thing (that was in fact said), or may repeatedly insist that their victim did in fact a say a thing (that was in fact never said).  The victim eventually comes to believe the gaslighter’s definitions of “what really happened” and accept this false projection as truth.

Creeping concessions is an expression coined by The Polyamorous Misanthrope[2] and it refers to any situation in which a friend, romantic partner, or an employer (or even a government), incrementally expects more and more out of a person –a little extra time, a little more money, a little extra help, a teensy indulgence, a few more “other duties as assigned.” Since the requests for “something extra” never amount to much on their own merits (after all, what’s one more dollar or just five more minutes?), it might seem selfish or unreasonable to refuse.  Next thing you know, you’ve lost large amounts of money and/or huge chunks of time to something you’re pretty sure you didn’t explicitly agree.

Again it would appear that childrens’ literature may provide one of the best illustrative examples: the entire plot of Laura Numeroff’s If You Give A Mouse A Cookie may be safely said to be an ever-escalating string of creeping concessions.

Taken together, creeping concessions and gaslighting can be a formidable obstacle.  Both are very slippery to pin down, very hard to detect.  At a surface level, the gaslighters almost always come across as affable (even charming) and entirely reasonable.  By the same token, the creeping concession almost always begins as an entirely reasonable request; a trifle, certainly nothing worth worrying about.

Even the example given at the beginning of this essay is hard to decisively attribute to a deliberate act of gaslighting or a deliberate act of creeping concessions; indeed there may be no malevolent intent at all (not on Orlando or Shnerf’s part, and perhaps not even consciously on Lily’s part), yet events have still snowballed into something unmanageable.

Okay, I Get It, It’s Hard to Define.  So: How Do I Guard Against It?

Gaslighting and creeping concessions, particularly when taken together, can be especially brutal on relationships.  These twin forms of psychological abuse can destroy self-esteem, alienate, and lead to depression (potentially even suicide).  Both acts ultimately lead to a loss of control over one’s own perceptions and priorities.  Psychologically defined as forms of ambient abuse, they can be employed to trick the victim into staying in an abusive relationship (or employment situation), induce an ever-present sense of disorientation, or to erode the victim’s own confidence in themselves, to the point of even seeing themselves as the antagonist and their abuser as the one who must endure the suffering.

Perceptions aren’t easy to refute –after all, the truism “You see the world from where you sit” applies to everyone regardless of their station in life.  This includes people who are being systematically and deliberately lied to.  Whether you are a bear or just a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat, it is perception that drives everything else about you.

So how do we reconcile actual truth with what we are being told?

First and perhaps foremost, gut instincts often go a long way toward unraveling the gaslighter’s plans.  If your boss or your friend or your significant other seems to repeat phrases like “no, we talked about this already, don’t you remember?” a little too often, this might well be a warning sign –particularly if the “don’t you remember?” applies to your own preferences (i.e., what you like versus what you dislike) more so than actual events –when your memory is openly challenged, doubted, or outright refuted, it is time to pay attention.

While nobody’s gut instinct is infallible, there’s a lot to be said for following a hunch.  Your intuition is there for a reason –make a habit of listening to it.[3]  Admittedly sometimes it may be in error, just as surely as your other five senses might occasionally misidentify a smell or a taste or a sound, but the simple fact is: they’re not usually wrong.  Neither is your intuition.

Second, write that stuff down.

No, seriously. Write that stuff down

Lily may or may not have been the instigator in the opening scenario, but she certainly didn’t help matters by asking the original favor over the phone and not via text or by e-mail.  Whether it’s just jotting a quick reminder in a calendar or archiving every email ever sent or received, a little documentation goes a long way towards establishing where perceptions diverged from reality.[4]  Pay particular attention if the individual is actively discouraging you from making any kind of written record (i.e., “Oh, you can remember that.  You don’t need to write that down.”)  Again, the direct challenge to your memory could be a sign of something deeper.  Ignore the slight and write it down anyway.

Finally, how’s your personal account balance?  Not just your bank account, but your own personal time bank?  Does it seem to be diminishing, and not just for the usual reasons (you’re a parent, you devote a lot of time to a particular hobby or enthusiasm, you work a lot of hours)?  Does it ever seem as though, far from being able to plan things out in any kind of long-term, that you’re instead hopping from one emergency to the next, and that there’s never quite enough time to satisfactorily resolve Problem No. 81 before Problem No. 82 crash-lands on you? Does it feel as though there’s a consistent pattern of never-quite-resolved turmoil, and that brief moments of relative calm are just that: brief?  A state of constant crisis is not healthy, be it a friendship, a romantic relationship, a term of employment, or a government in relation to its own citizens.  Conduct periodic audits of your time bank (and be just as ruthless about it as an IRS agent).  There could well be some creeping concessions lurking just out of view; somewhere back in the fogginess of your own memory, the mouse may have demanded more than just a cookie. Repeated patterns of sleep deprivation and never-ending financial shortfalls could conceivably also serve as a heads-up. [5]  Again, see what your gut instinct has to say about it.

Your memory is one of the very few possessions that you get to keep with you for your entire lifetime, and anything that threatens its integrity is by definition paralyzingly fearful.  People far wiser than I have generated a great deal of informative literature on the dual subjects of gaslighting and creeping concessions, and I would recommend them heartily, starting with the various footnotes in this essay.  They are excellent building blocks and I sincerely hope the knowledge contained in them might offer some hope to anyone who might find themselves at the wrong end of this kind of ambient abuse.

You Might Like:

• Choice
• Can a Polyamorous Marriage Last?
• They Don’t Deserve Your Trauma
• How About A Sense of Proportion
• Being Informed and Dirty Little Secrets in Polyamory

I had an interesting communication moment recently.

Polyfamilies was doing its usual thing of debating everything under the sun (nuclear power and alternative energy, I believe) when someone new to the group commented that she really couldn’t figure out what the group was about. Since it’s ostensibly about polyamory, but in general the members really do talk about everything…. Well, debate about everything, anyway. I explained Why We Are the Way We Are, and went on to comment that maybe we needed to get some Polyamory 101 discussion going, since we did have a lot of newer people on the list who hadn’t spoken up.

I used the term Newbie, which I probably shouldn’t have, even if I meant it benevolently. But what was worse, I assumed that the person who spoke up was new to polyamory. She did not ask for any Polyamory 101 discussions, though some good ones wound up happening. I made the assumption she was wanting them and not asking for them. Turns out the woman had been poly awhile and just wasn’t taking the time to follow the non-poly discussions.

Remember how I always reiterate how one should take people at their words? And how that includes not trying to interpret their words?

Yeah, that.

There are times when I feel like Alistor Moody (Constant vigilance!) when it comes to even my most casual relationships and communication habits. Like many of my examples here, it was a trivial instance. But’s it’s pretty illustrative of how ingrained trying to interpret or assuming can be.

While I’m all for creating an environment where people want to communicate and feel like it’ll be a good idea, there is a line and a stopping point.

What about you guys? I’m interested to hear your stories. When have you caught yourself interpreting and assuming?

You Might Like:

• Some Commonly-Used Acronyms
• Doing Well by Doing Good
• O.V.P and Passive-Aggressiveness
• Handling Jealousy: How to Fuck Up
• So, You Wanna Be Poly

The wife and i agreed to try an open relationship. We agreed on the rules of engagement: use a condom, be discreet, and don’t put one above the other. But when I set plans to go out with the my secondary she gets angry and tells me she wants to go there too, ie drive in or dinner theater, or whatever i pick and then sets other plans so that i cannot go. Then when she is invited to the local gay bar to go dancing or watch the shows, she is dressed and out the door. If i say I’m gonna go out with a gay friend of mine and it might get randy, she is all for it but if i want to go out with my secondary she acts weird.

You know, I rag so hard on the One-Penis Policy that it’s actually a delight to be able to have the opportunity to rag on its evil twin, the One Vagina Policy. In both cases, what’s going on emotionally is that one feels threatened by partners of the opposite sex, but partners of the same sex somehow don’t count and aren’t as real. I suppose it’s no real wonder that there are lots of people in the gay community who eyeroll bisexuality in the face of that. How could you not?

The problem in your case, like so many times with the OPP or the OVP, the explicitly-negotiated rules and what actually happen are at serious odds. I have some general recommendations, and I hope they’re useful.

Communicate what you’re thinking and feeling

You have to be specific. Generalizations won’t work here.

For instance, you could say, “Honey, in the last three times I went on a date with another partner of the opposite sex, two of those you were very insistent that you wanted to come along. The third time, there were in a bad emotional state and asked not to be left alone, so I cancelled my plans. When I go out with partners of the same sex, the last three times there have not been any changes in plans or requests to come along.”

I cannot re-iterate strongly enough the importance of being specific. This is not going to work unless you’ve got concrete instance to which you wish to refer.

Notice, there was no blaming going on. There were no accusations, no name-calling, no accusations of thwarting. You stated what actually happened and then said how you felt when it did.

It’s entirely possible your partner doesn’t feel like she gets enough alone time with you and it’s brought most sharply to mind when you’re going out with a partner of the opposite sex. That’s doesn’t excuse passive aggressiveness, mind you, but if you open the lines of communication, you might encourage her to communicate directly. That’d definitely be a win-win.

It’s also possible she just doesn’t want you to date women. If that’s so, she needs to ask for that directly. You’re under no obligation to agree, but being truthful about wants is really important in a good relationship, even if the answer is no.

Act on your partner’s words

One good way to cure passive aggressiveness is to act on your partner’s actual words. If she directly states that she’s all good with you going out with someone, make the dates and remind her that’s what she said. Keep in mind that people are allowed to change their minds, but if after reflection people do, then they are also responsible for communicating that and re-negotiating their wants – always keeping in mind there is a risk of being told no. True for any negotiation, of course.

I hope this has been helpful and that you can work things out for a happy poly experience.

You Might Like:

• Decluttering Your Emotional Space
• But What About the Children?
• Polyamory, STDs and Partner Communication
• Why OLQ Broke Up
• Ask the Misanthrope: How to Meet People

A few days ago, there was a Coffee Incident in my household that prompted a post. I got a lot of interesting responses, but I wanted to discuss the matter a little deeper and point out a core value that may have been overlooked.

For those of you who missed the last episode, The Prince made a pot of flavored coffee. I don’t like flavored coffee much, and made a very mildly snarky comment about it.

I had a response that someone who had lived with me for even a short time should know my coffee preferences. Probably so. But people are allowed their preferences, The Prince does like flavored coffee and he was the one who made the pot.

My snarky remark was, “That’s what cup-top brewers are for.”

Note: We have a method for making very nice drip coffee in individual cups easily available in our household.

Where I went wrong was not accepting responsibility for meeting my own desires, getting up and making myself a cup of the type of coffee I prefer.

I also went wrong by not saying, “In the future, if you’re making coffee that you intend for me to drink as well, could you please use the unflavored stuff.”

What I didn’t do was turn it into an Illustrative Example. You know:

You don’t love me. We’ve been together twenty years and you can’t even remember how I like my coffee? What if I had an allergy? Would you care enough to remember then, if my health were at stake? How can you be so self-centered? If I can’t trust you on the small stuff, how in the world can I trust you on the big stuff? What’s with you that you can’t remember this stuff?

That may sound extreme, but I see it frequently when people are discussing relationship problems. Yes, in the real world, coffee preferences are a very trivial example. But the principles of seeing yourself as responsible for your own needs and desires can definitely be applied to the serious stuff.

So, how does that go?

1. Ask for what you want.
   

   That’s the most important part. If you don’t clearly and directly state what you want, you’re not holding up your end of the communication bargain.

   In this example, “Honey, I don’t like flavored coffee. If you make me coffee, please use the unflavored stuff.”

2. If the person doesn’t give you what you want, consider yourself responsible for getting it yourself.
   

   If there’s a pot of flavored coffee on the counter, I get out the cup-top brewer and make myself a cup of the good stuff. Problem solved.

3. If what you want is a deal-breaker, let them know clearly and up front.

   Maybe I’m so allergic to the substance used to flavor the coffee, even a hint of it will make me go into anaphylactic shock. If so, “Honey, anything flavored with blueberries will cause a medical emergency in me. I can’t be in a relationship with someone who won’t remember this, so it’s really important.”

   (Even this doesn’t HAVE to be a deal breaker. You could choose never to eat or drink something prepared by someone else and stay in the relationship. But you might or might not want to, and you get to choose your own deal-breakers. ‘Course the world doesn’t owe you relationships in the face of ‘em, but that’s another column entirely!)

So, even though a Coffee Incident is trivial, I wanted to point it out. Practicing on the trivial stuff is actually a great idea. It helps develop the habit when (not if, when) you’re confronted with the big stuff.

You Might Like:

• Ask the Misanthrope: Coming Out as Poly
• Who’s Your Primary?
• Meaningless Sex
• It’s the Little Things
• Don’t Let the Dishes Get Crusty

I talk a great deal about setting boundaries and expressing preferences, and sometimes have struggled to differentiate this between being controlling and giving orders.

I was less than perfect about this this morning, and realized while the incident was trivial, the example was beautifully illustrative.  As my sobriquet might suggest, I am fond of coffee.  First thing I do every morning is downstairs and grab a cup of this sublime elixir.

The Prince tends to be the one to set up the coffee pot the night before.  We have a coffee maker with a timer, so most days the timer is set to go off when people expect to be getting up the next day.  Waking to coffee is a wonderful thing.

Usually.

This morning, being a Saturday, we got up later, and yes coffee happened.  The Prince was already improving his mind,[1] so being a Dutiful Wife, I brought him a cup when I got my own.

I settled down to Important Business[2] and enjoy my coffee when I took a sip and—

“Ewww.  Honey is this flavored coffee?” says I in horrified tones.

Not catching my abject horror at the sacrilege to the purity of the libation, he said proudly, “Yeah, I put just a pinch of the blueberry coffee in with the regular stuff.[3]”

“Flavored coffee is why we have cup-top brewers,” I sighed.

So, mah poly children, can you catch Mama Java’s boundary-setting and preference-establishing mistake?  ‘Cause I made one.[4]

[1] Actually, he was noodling on Reddit and reading Cracked pseudo-scientific articles, but let’s not be small-minded.

[2] Well, figuring out how to explain on a PolyFamilies thread why squirrels were really nasty, destructive tree-rats.

[3] Espresso roast brewed drip style.

[4] Though trivial and I caught myself.

You Might Like:

• Support System
• When to Say Yea!
• The Mistress Paradigm
• Should You Have a Group Marriage?
• Relationship Broken, Add More People

“I’m in a mid-life crisis, I guess.  The passion is out of my life and I’m looking for something more.   My wife doesn’t understand me.”

Any polyamorous person on a dating site is almost sure to get a message like this from time to time.  No, it’s not exclusive to men.  Women do a serious version of it, too.  So get off your high horse.

But male or female, if you’ve been in a long-term relationship that’s gotten blah, you might find  yourself saying, “Oh, it would be so much better if I had a partner that understood me.”

While I’m not saying that your relationship problem isn’t that you’re misunderstood, do you really think something so commonplace and cliché is really because partners of decades don’t understand each other?  Really?  After decades together.

You people aren’t paying attention, are you?

And you know what?  That’s rather the point.  Now, you know ole Mama Java.  She’ll never advise you to try to get someone else to behave the way you want to fix your problem.  But honestly, this kind of intimacy problem is a genuine big deal.  More than that, it’s often pretty tragic.

I want to offer a possible solution, and it’s a good one.  If you’re feeling like your partner doesn’t understand you, do something a little counterintuitive:

Put all your energy into understanding your partner.

Now, I’m not suggesting long, drawn-out conversations where you’re prying like a parent with a non-communitive teenager.  It doesn’t work then and it certainly isn’t going to work isn’t going to work in an adult relationship.  When I say put your energy into understanding your partner, it means understanding the lack of communication, too.  Sometimes, it can be as easy as, “Baby, we haven’t been talking much.  Is there a reason you’d like to tell me about?” and find a floodgate opens.  Sometimes, it’s a courting process.

Don’t confuse “understanding your partner” with “getting the information you need to have a good lever with your partner”.  Understanding means exactly that.  If you don’t love and care about and want to know your partner down into his bones, my dear, you have a far worse problem that your partner not understanding you.  Got that?

If you think this is sounding a bit like Stephen Covey’s Habit Five[1] of the Seven Habits o Highly Effective People, there’s a lot to that.  If you’re having trouble connecting, if you’re having a hard time communicating, seeking to understand and understand deeply does two things.  The first thing it does is give you a clearer grokking of the issues involved.  It is never a bad idea to seek to understand a partner deeply.  Prying and being invasive is something else entirely.  If you’re seeking to truly understand, you’ll avoid being invasive because you’re developing the empathy and compassion to understand how your partner is feeling.

The second thing that seeking to understand does is build trust.  ‘Member how you were all upset and had your kickers in a bunch because your partner didn’t understand you?  We all want to be loved and understood by our partners.  You partner(s) want you to understand them, too!  It’s much easier to make that connection with someone you have seen demonstrate on a consistent basis that s/he wants to understand you!

Remember to take it slow.  If you’ve gotten to the “My wife doesn’t understand me” phase, your relationship has been sliding for a long time.  This isn’t something you can gloss over for a couple of months and expect everything to be all lovey-dovey and dandy.  It’s going to take time and patience.  Me?  I think good intimate relationships are worth it.

This won’t solve every single relationship problem you have.  Sorry, there’s no shortcuts.  But this is a fantastic first step to repair and expand relationships.

You Might Like:

• Front of the hand, back of the hand …
• Ask the Misanthrope: Coming Out as Poly
• Cluebat!
• Effective Communication
• The Poly Negotiator

I’ve been seeing more than the usual amount of discussion about jealousy on various poly boards lately, so I figure this might be a little topical to people.   I have pulled out of the air the Definitive[1] Five-Point List of Ways to Fuck Up Handling Jealousy.  I am sharing this because I am wise and all knowing about polyamory and I will deign to share my knowledge with you, puny mortal.[2]

1. Blame your partner

“Hey, I wouldn’t be feeling jealous if my partner were doing things right, right?  If only she weren’t making me feel insecure, everything would be dandy!”

Making your partner responsible for your feelings is a sure way to mess up a relationship.  There is a significant difference in, “I don’t like X behavior” and “You’re making me feel jealous.”  If you don’t grok this difference down in your bones, learning about emotional boundaries is a really productive thing you can do for yourself and your relationships.   It is not unusual for jealousy to be about personal insecurity.

As Franklin Veaux once commented, “Just because I feel bad doesn’t mean you did something wrong.”  Don’t assume that your feelings prove anything but that you’re feeling something.

2. Blame the partner’s partner

“If only my partner’s partner would not make me feel insecure, I wouldn’t be so uncomfortable, right?”  (See a pattern?)

Again, feeling bad on your part doesn’t necessarily mean malfeasance on the other person’s part.  People aren’t saints, but assumptions don’t help.

3. Blame yourself

“If only I were more secure/better looking/better in bed/more evolved I wouldn’t feel so upset.”

Feelings might be uncomfortable sometimes, but they’re not necessarily because you did something bad, either.  Jealousy isn’t always about personal insecurity.  Sometimes there really is, no kidding, a problem among the partners.

I break with some of the more New Age polyamorous writers, in that I do not feel that jealousy is always some sort of weird emotional aberration of the spiritually unevolved.   It can and often is a personal security issue, but sometimes partners do take us for granted, or are not giving us what we all agreed upon.  It’s okay to talk about that.

4. Lie about it

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Don’t do this.  In a good relationship, it’s okay to say, “Actually, I’m feeling kinda jealous right now.  I want to: examine this by myself and get back to you/talk with you about how I’m feeling/have a backrub so I can relax.”

Notice this isn’t making your partner responsible for how you feel.  But it is communicating.  I mean, you want an accurate picture of what your partner is thinking and feeling, right?  What makes you think your partner is any different?  When people love each other, they do care how the other feels even if it’s hardly healthy to take responsibility for it.

5. Ignore it

Like physical pain, emotional pain is a sign that something needs attention.   There are dozens of reasons why you might be feeling jealous – some of them internal, some to do with externals.  Unless and until you sit down and examine them with an open mind and without preconceptions, you can’t know.  But if you don’t take a good look at what you’re feeling and why, it is going to fester and infect your relationships.

[2] <grinning at one of my Guest Columnists> I should be ashamed of myself.  But I’m not.

You Might Like:

• I’m on Vacation
• They Don’t Deserve Your Trauma
• Texting, Triggers and Jealousy
• Thou Art God
• Ask the Misanthrope: Secondary Rights

Mama Java is lounging on the beach right now.  Well, okay RIGHT NOW, I’m probably getting sunscreen on squirming little children, collecting beach chairs and making sure everyone has their towels, but I am at the beach this week.  Here’s a column from Rain Hannah.  Enjoy!

It can be easy, when you’ve been doing this poly thing for a while, to get complacent and fool yourself into thinking you’ve got it nailed. I guarandamntee you that you don’t have it nailed. Not a one of us does.

I’d like to get “Mind the Gap” tattooed on my forehead so that the next time I start feeling all like Saint Griselda, Patient Patroness Of Good Poly, I remember that I’m about to fall onto the third rail and get roasted with my own hubris.

You see… there will be times in any relationship, mono or poly, where the shit hits the fan. Where, because of work, conflicts, new relationships or ghost spiders from Mars, things may not be as harmonious as you would like. Perhaps, in that event, you assure yourself that things will get better when the ghost spiders from Mars have been removed from the equation. That if you are just patient and deal with it bravely, it will all be okay in the morning and everything will get back to “normal.”

Allow me to venture a few thoughts, to elaborate upon the theme of patience. It is fine to be patient. It is good to be patient. It is noble, wonderful, kind, gentle and all manner of good things. It is important, in life, to acknowledge that shit happens (constantly), and behave like an adult when it does. Sometimes it isn’t all about you and you just need to sit on your hands for a while until things get sorted, because other people really need your patience and good sense to win out or things won’t work.  Here is where it gets tricky: you have to be on your guard about letting patience turn into something less healthy. Ask yourself… “Why am I doing this?”

Seriously. Ask yourself. Take a little extra time to examine your motives. That, ultimately, is the point of this wee essay.

I fell into this pitfall recently. Shit happened, like it does, and my partners needed some space to work things out. I, wanting them to be okay, happily gave them the space and time that they needed.  I was patient. I behaved like an adult. I was being Generous to my partners and here is the rub. I realized later that I wasn’t really being generous. I was being selfish as all get out.   I, very temporarily, stuck my needs on the back burner, because other people’s needs were more pressing. Let me say up front, that was okay. What wasn’t okay was the extent to which I took it or why I was doing it. What wasn’t okay – and I didn’t figure this out until later – was that somehow, deep down, I thought that there would be some kind of a reward in it for me. Some emotional reward, a special cookie, something I hadn’t really asked for but felt I’d earned with my patience and self-sacrifice.

Hey does that last line sound familiar? Oh my GOD it totally does!  It was the whole Brave Little Toaster thing, only in the short term, looking very different, and there was no bad guy!  That attitude? That was not so grown up. It was not so generous or patient. It was… I don’t know what it was, but absolutely the opposite of what I was aiming for.  That attitude stinks.

“They got special cookies,” my subconscious said. “That means I get equal special cookies because I’ve been so patient and good. I’ve been Super Nice and a Good Poly Partner and now I am going to be rewarded with extra love and attention!”

Yeah, not so much with that.

I was rewarded with plenty of loving appreciation, but I did not get the special cookies I wanted. My cookie jar pretty much stayed about the same. There was no magical sparkle pony moment with ice cream and a parade, either. When these things failed to materialize, I might have behaved badly. I was resentful and angry because I didn’t get what I thought I deserved, in return for being so awesome.

The glitch in my mental scenario was easy to identify once I sat down and thought about it. My partners did not agree to give me special cookies in return for being so awesome. That was not part of the arrangement we made. That was something I filled in by myself, an expectation I penciled into the margins after they’d signed off.  I got actively pissed off at my partners because they’d taken me up on what I’d freely offered and then I didn’t even get a cookie.

It gets worse.  I used the situation to justify acting like some saintly, long suffering martyr. I got off on feeling really sorry for myself. I caught myself behaving in ways that were subtly guaranteed to make my partners feel guilty for taking me up on my offer in the first place.  That was when I realized that I had my head up my ass and needed to remove it, stat.

It would be easy for me to wallow in shame about all this, but I’m considering it to be another level of a lesson I will probably spend the rest of my life learning.  I’m grateful for the opportunity. Embarrassed, sure. Publicly so, if this gets published[1]. But I think it is important enough to risk that.

It isn’t always the big things. It isn’t always the long term things, the huge life issues. Sometimes it is the simple things, the small things, that trip us up and make us act in ways that are not so cool. Our partners take us at our word, and so it is important to make sure that our word and the agreements that we make are coming from an honest place, not from a place of unspoken expectation. Sometimes our motivations aren’t as altruistic as we think they are and sometimes everyone isn’t on board the cookie train because they didn’t know there was an agreement. Getting that stuff straight is important. Patience in the face of overwhelming trouble is good. Knowing why you are being patient and being upfront with yourself and your loves about what (if anything) you expect in return is better.  It’s okay to ask for something in return. But you gotta ask.

Mind the gap, kids. It’s there.

Patient Griselda, or, Minding the Gap

© 2010, Rain Hannah

Used by permission

Rainy Hannah is a polyamorous woman living in Southern California with way too much yarn, too many cats, a couple of kids, and a Very Good Dog. She has been there, done that.

You Might Like:

• Tips To Couples Looking to Add an Additional Person Into Their Relationship
• Designated Control Freak
• The Care and Feeding of Unicorns
• Ask the Misanthrope: Polyamorous Lie Detector?
• Ask the Misanthrope: Secondary Rights