My sweetie Shelly has written another blog post over at More Than Two. I hope one day to be as wise, compassionate, and insightful as she is.
This post is called “Winter Is Coming,” and it’s about how entering relationships that disempower us can destroy us, even if we knew the conditions when we signed on. There’s a good deal of stuff about the relationship history between her and I in there, and some of that was painful to me to read.
I think there are warnings in here for anyone contemplating a prescriptive polyamorous relationship. We often say that any relationship structure is A-OK as long as the people involved consent to be there. I am not entirely sure that’s true. There are some arrangements which, by their very nature, are not only thickly sown with the seeds of coercion, but almost guaranteed to allow those seeds to germinate…and the cost is very high.
You can read the essay here. Here’s the teaser:
But primary/secondary structures tend to leave a special kind of emotional wreckage. While I freely admit that it is often a mutually beneficial model for all involved, there is a hidden trap. Because sometimes we walk into this structure, with heart in hand, and sometimes our partner meets us there. And then the structure becomes a maze of slamming doors and booby traps. When your partner meets you with real intimacy and love within an externally enforced and non-negotiable framework of limitations, the emotional experience of the relationship is of being simultaneously pulled in and violently shoved out. The cognitive dissonance is even worse. Self-advocacy is often interpreted as homewrecking, and disruptions to the status quo are seen as a hostile act. Remember, you signed up for this, you’re breaking the contract, you’re the bad guy. But don’t be cruel and break his heart, don’t be disruptive and speak for your own. just… just want something else, feel something else, BE SOMEONE ELSE.
So, there is a special place, at the bottom of all of that, where you realize that the only truly “right” thing you can do is just… find a way to disappear. But not with an explosion (you drama queen). Just find a way to disappear quietly so that no one notices. Do the right thing and just…go away.
I need to digest this a bit and then go back and read it again tomorrow. I don’t know that I agree with everything she’s written, but I can’t quite articulate what’s bugging me yet.
Thanks for the link though.
I need to digest this a bit and then go back and read it again tomorrow. I don’t know that I agree with everything she’s written, but I can’t quite articulate what’s bugging me yet.
Thanks for the link though.
you two are so spot-on, on so many things. i can’t wait to read the book.
you two are so spot-on, on so many things. i can’t wait to read the book.
She articulates pretty much everything that I felt and every screw-up I made or felt the results of. It’s like reading inside my own head.
And I have come to a similar conclusion as she has: everything might end, but if you walk out with yourself intact (however fractured), then that’s a win. If, even if it takes time, you can acknowledge the human frailness of the others involved, and they can acknowledge yours, that is indeed a bit step forward into the winning area.
She articulates pretty much everything that I felt and every screw-up I made or felt the results of. It’s like reading inside my own head.
And I have come to a similar conclusion as she has: everything might end, but if you walk out with yourself intact (however fractured), then that’s a win. If, even if it takes time, you can acknowledge the human frailness of the others involved, and they can acknowledge yours, that is indeed a bit step forward into the winning area.
It’s funny to read this, after all the ‘protocol is okay and if you don’t think so you’re a rapist’ posts on FL right now. Because there’s no dark side of protocol. It’s never used by abusive doms to separate people from external input, fact-checking, or historical information.
K.
It’s funny to read this, after all the ‘protocol is okay and if you don’t think so you’re a rapist’ posts on FL right now. Because there’s no dark side of protocol. It’s never used by abusive doms to separate people from external input, fact-checking, or historical information.
K.