March 19, 2012
On Being Insecure
It takes a while, and maybe a bit of pointing out before you realise it, but I think there’s a huge contradiction within the Poly community. When I was just starting out and going to a lot of events, I was told that “There’s no one right way to do Poly” and “There are no experts on Poly. People may have their own styles”. While I don’t think those people were necessarily lying to me, I’ve found that the reality is quite different. Despite telling ourselves that there is no one right way to be Poly, there are no experts, and we’re all capable of sorting out what combination of partners and situations work best for us, I feel like a lot of us are striving towards this one “best” setup of poly. That there are certain experts whose opinion we laude as fact; that in actuality there is an environment of shame around things like “veto power” and other rules that prove you’re incapable of “handling poly” or being good at this relationship style (that supposedly has no experts and no one right way). It’s all highly contradictory.
I’ve even seen it evidenced in Polytical’s recent “Ask Polly” section, concerning how to deal with jealousy. One of the things I think we strive for – one of the poly ideals, are relationships where jealousy doesn’t ever happen. And if it does, it’s handled easily and dismissed, never to return again. I don’t claim to be an expert on relationships at all, but what I’ve seen time and time again is the assumption that jealousy within poly is all about one person being insecure. The assumption seems to be that one has to be completely secure to be poly. And anyone who’s not completely secure needs to just somehow overcome years of emotional training.
That’s the other highly contradictory thing about what Poly people say and what Poly people do: We complain that society is built around monogamy, that it trains us for monogamy, and that we don’t receive much acceptance or understanding from monogamous people, and yet some of us are surprised and dismayed when we find our monogamous training causes jealousy and makes it difficult for us to adapt to a relationship style that the world is supposedly set against. Why do we shame ourselves so much for experiencing jealousy when we live in a society that encourages it? Why do we expect ourselves and others to adapt immediately to polyamory; should we be very secure people, without any hiccups or growth?
And on that note, I have a confession to make.
I’m not a secure person, and that’s okay. As simple as the logic of security is when I read it, it does not always translate emotionally. I struggle with mental illness, disability, and an upbringing that makes me doubt the validity of my own emotions and reactions. If I can’t trust myself to tell when I am having a panic attack or a legitimate medical emergency, it makes it very difficult for me to tell when my jealousy is just a wobble or a sign of a deeper problem within the context of my relationships. If I can’t assert my identity as genderqueer for fear people will question me, humiliate me, make fun of me, and walk over me, it makes it very difficult for me to assert my boundaries within a relationship where I feel safe and loved. If I don’t feel good enough, thin enough or feminine enough; and it takes a lot of energy for me to find self-esteem in a world where I do not see my experiences and my life reflected in most forms of popular culture or media, it becomes very difficult to see that I am worthy to be loved. If I grew up with abusive individuals who took advantage of any vulnerability I had, it makes it very difficult to be vulnerable with one partner, let alone several.
I envision the journey to personal security for individuals like following a bead maze. Some people get right to the end quickly and easily, whereas others have to do backwards twists and turns, go around in circles to make the same simple journey. If you are a person of colour, if you identify as female, if you are trans*, if you are disabled, if you are gay, if you’re fat, if you are anything that society vilifies, doesn’t understand, or doesn’t represent, becoming secure in a world that discourages you means navigating through the main narrative of society. It means having to find confidence in a world that is continuously disempowering, it means having to be able to trust yourself in ways that you’re not capable of mentally, emotionally, or physically. Even understanding one’s own mental illness enough to seek treatment for it is not just a personal journey that is a hallmark of a strong individual – in reality it takes time and often money for therapy that countless people cannot afford.
For myself, I may not ever reach the end of the bead maze, wherein I can be a totally secure person who never experiences any jealousy. My security isn’t a solid ship. I have good days and I have bad days and I’ve found through experience that – like my anxieties, jealousy and self-esteem come and go. But, I don’t see my inability to always be self-sustainable and secure as a measure of how capable I am of forming multiple romantic relationships, nor do I think that individuals who experience little to no twists and turns on their road to personal security are the sages we ought to compare ourselves against. Anxiety, disability, queerness, and all of the things that categorise me as “other” in this society are part of the package that is me. Any partner I have will have to accept that my struggle against my anxiety; whether it involves needing reassurance in our relationship, or just having someone sit with me while my brain is telling me that I’m having a heart attack when I’m not, is part of my personal narrative.
I do think we should strive to take responsibility for our insecurities, to be open about them, and to talk about them. I think we should strive to be vulnerable not just with our partners, but with each other as a community. We should stop pretending that the ideal polyamorous relationship involves no jealousy and total compersion. We should stop shaming individuals who choose to use rules and other things that supersonic secure superhero cool poly kids can do without. We should own up to what we say: that there IS no ideal poly set up and if it works for individuals, then it works for them. I’ve found myself on many occasions, despite my belief that a relationship ending does not mean failure, judging others in my community for their relationships not “working”. Then I’ve also found myself questioning whether I could “do poly” because I experienced any jealousy at all.
Do I have a simple solution for how to deal with jealousy? No. I believe that it’s far more complex than, “You’re too insecure”. Jealousy can be a sign of insecurity, sure; but just as security is not as simple as that, neither is jealousy. I’ve found myself going along with things in relationships for fear of being the green eyed monster. In my first experience with poly, I was cheated on and used. And it would have ended sooner rather than later if I had the strength to assert my boundaries. And sure, that may have been from being insecure, but it also came from pretending to be secure; to be the ideal; to be cool with everything.
In an environment where individuals are trying so hard to be secure, shaming jealousy or “relationship problems” makes it that much harder to assert boundaries. If rules are shunned, if jealousy is seen as a sign that we’re not up to the challenge of being poly, if we’re scolded when we slow down as we pass through the bead maze, we’re never going to reach the end. If we want people to reach the place where they DO become secure, the shame around jealousy, certain relationship styles, and this obsession with complete and total compersion has to stop.
Just as it is unrealistic to expect to find the bisexual female unicorn, I feel it is unrealistic to find a person without any insecurity. And unless you plan only dating white cis heterosexual men between the ages of 18 and 49, you’re likely going to be dating a lot of individuals who’ve had their experiences not represented, who have been invalidated, who’ve dealt with marginalisation, and who have more than enough reasons to feel insecure. Overcoming that isn’t going to be as easy as reading a few articles about it. It’s going to take time to work their way through the maze.
I don’t expect any of my partners to solve my anxiety, nor do I expect them to always have the patience to tell me that my throat isn’t actually swelling up. But I do expect to have partners who understand that the things that make me doubt myself, that make me not a completely secure person; those are things that are part of the package deal. I expect partners to be able to talk to me about my feelings and work through them with me, not just toss me aside to deal with my own insecurity when I experience an emotion that’s not complete and total happiness. Maybe not being a completely secure person means I won’t ever get to sit at the cool kids table and maybe my bike will need more training wheels than others will – but I think I can be okay with that. I wish more people would be.
- community | expectations | ideals | insecurity | jealousy | preconceptions | security
47 Responses to On Being Insecure
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The issue of insecurity, especially how it is related to jealousy, is something I spend a fair amount of time thinking about (and writing about). I have been fairly fortunate to not have run into much of the shaming that you are talking about here. I do think that dealing with jealousies and their underlying insecurities, fears, etc is essential for any healthy relationship (poly or not). I also recognize that it will not be an easy path for anyone who struggles with insecurities, and it’s even likely that for most people it will never go away.
I am also a rather insecure person. Of course, this is exacerbated by dealing with Borderline Personality Disorder (it’s mild in my case, fortunately). I have forced myself to deal with what I am afraid of, and it has helped me to become a stronger partner and more capable of growth and maturity. I still have those fears, and when they turn into jealousy I do my best to try and remain calm, rational, and remember that I am cared for and that I have already done a lot.
But there ill always be more work to do.
In any case, thanks for a thoughtful post. I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks about this issue.
Shaun
[...] On Being Insecure [...]
“And unless you plan only dating white cis heterosexual men between the ages of 18 and 49, you’re likely going to be dating a lot of individuals who’ve had their experiences not represented, who have been invalidated, who’ve dealt with marginalisation”
Um, white cis heterosexual men (which I am not) are also often invalidated – if they do not conform 100% to the roles and expectations that society has of them.
Otherwise, great piece.
They are not as invalidated as others, considering the run the vast majority of governments, dominate several positions of power within multiple societies, and hold most of the world’s wealth.
If white cis men feel invalidated, they have the power to fix it. Others do not.
I suppose that’s true, if you consider race, sex, and gender valid markers (and the only valid markers) of group identify. I imagine, however, that white cis men often feel invalidated or marginalized for other things, like religion, income level, location, education level, family background, or other things.
They are valid markers of marginalization. THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO DISCUSS WHITE MALE ISSUES.
Good bloody grief. They have enough space to voice the tragic plight of the white dude. Write your own Polytical article if you need to talk about it. But can we just have this one tiny corner on the bloody internet to just REFERENCE our issues (since this article is actually about insecurity) without having to cater to entitlement?
Jesus christ.
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#butbut
I can’t say how strongly I agree with what you say. I would add that becoming secure is a process and not an end-point. I have been secure in the past only to find a few months later that I wasn’t anymore. This is because our disempowerment in society is also a continuous process. And feeling secure (which I prefer to “being” a secure person) also greatly depends on our partners. An abusive partner, or a partner with abusive tendencies can feed on our insecurities and promote them immensely. Finding the right partners, who truly want to support my sense of security has been incredibly important for me.
I think there’s also a misunderstanding around compersion. It seems almost to be a blissful end state, whereas I see it as a moment of joy – it’s great when it happens but I don’t expect joy all the time. The same goes with jealousy – most often than not it’s a twinge for me. Making it into this horrible thing we shouldn’t “do” reinforces the idea of it being the big, scary “green-eyed monster”. Not that it can’t be, just that it really doesn’t have to be.
Thanks for the post!
And thus, I’m attempting to fix feeling invalidated right now… It’s really frustrating to find in activist circles that the experience of those who fit into the dominant paridigm (or can pass as such) can be dismissed as invalid.
I do not dispute that the group in question has had many more validating messages than people outside of that group, but to dismiss their experiences is to alienate potential allies, and further reenforce the “category” thinking I think we’re all working to break down.
Looking at white men’s gender roles, there are many restrictions. Are these to our benefit?
If you’re having trouble with validation, perhaps you ought to take this point up with the vast majority of cis straight white males who run major institutions of government, corporations, or consult the vast array of media that depicts a variety of male stories as universally applicable to all people.
This is not the space or the time to address white male issues. Other people do not have the space, the power, or the ability to address their issues. Do you mind if we have a little bit of time to address that without having to validate you? You are already validated by a society which your image dominates. Activist circles may be THE ONLY place in the world where your privilege isn’t catered to. I’m sorry if that’s what you’re used to and it invalidates you for that to not happen, but it’s certainly not going to continue to happen here.
This discussion is not about white men’s gender roles. Find some other place to discuss that or write your own article, since you have more than enough publications run by white males to have your voice heard. Please stop derailing these points. You will not be anything like a “potential ally” if you continue to recentre the debate around your feelings.
“Being a man in the West” is not a system of domination, however much it sucks sometimes. “Potential allies” must grasp this or you are useless. Take your feelings of invalidation elsewhere and stop taking up space, please.
You can grow up and realise that this article still plenty applies to you, and also understand what Lola meant here. This article is fighting for all people to be allowed to be insecure, even you.
I get the impression that the whole “Thou shalt not feel jealousy nor insecurity” thing, is something of a horrible mash-up of kyriarchal society’s need to put everything on a best>worst scale, loud selfish gits who don’t want to ‘deal’ with other people having feelings, and misunderstood parroting on how to approach feelings of insecurity.
The way I always saw it, the big difference in poly philosophy from hegemonic monogamous thinking is that we strive to be self-aware rather than expecting the other person (people) to fix our discomfort. “I feel insecure in This way, I think it comes from Here, it is definitely triggered by That so I would appreciate it if you refrain from That until I’ve worked through This”, rather than “Stop That right now, you are making me feel This”. I think the distaste for rules originally stemmed from the idea that forbidding or demanding things hampered the individual’s ability to be aware of what was going on beneath that insecurity. That’s what’s mutated into “insecurity is un-poly”.
So I totally agree with you, it has all become a “Thou shalt not” to shame people with, which is frustrating because it’s the same old normative bullshit all over again.
I think part of it to is just that poly is so new, we have a tendency to be really defensive about it. And since usually the first question out of a person’s mouth who is new to poly is “So what about jealousy?”, no one wants to go, “Actually we sometimes have a really freaking hard time with it,” because then the more closed minded of the population will start with all sorts of responses about how it’s not natural, how that’s proof that it’s not a valid relationship model, etc. ignoring all of the jealousy and bullshit that goes on in monogamy.
I get the reasoning behind wanting to make jealousy a “bad” thing within a community, especially when it’s a sign people use to invalidate it. I see it really paralleling with the BDSM community and how so many subs are taken advantage of, used, or agree to things they usually wouldn’t on the basis that they should be a “true sub” or to prove how much they’re really into kink. Now… I think that usually comes from a far more abusive place than this does, but I do think there are parallels there. I think a lot of people don’t communicate jealousy publicly or to their partners for fear of being that controlling, horrible green eyed monster which has become our community’s Scarlet Letter. I just want us to not see jealousy and insecurity as an inherent failure, because it isn’t something you can control. And if you are a marginalised person in society, it’s basically encouraged for you to feel invalided, unworthy, and insecure.
I agree with you entirely, and I apologise if I came across as trying to devalue your argument. I think you’re spot on comparing it to the “Twu Sub” meme, and I think there’s also parallels with the “there is no abuse in BDSM” meme, in that it came from a place of wanting to present as a model minority but has been propagated by abusers and predators and all the fuckery that has lead to.
“poly is so new”
New maybe to mainstream social discourse, but not really new.
Poly as a term and as an identity is new. The practice isn’t but, like being gay or queer has become an identity, poly is becoming one.
Well, it’s been around a good twenty years. I dunno that it’s so new as all that.
Twenty years is still pretty new for an identity, if you think about how constructions of other identities have been brought up. Foucault has a lot of interesting things to say about how the identity of “homosexual” became an identity, and that’s been going on for quite some time.
The idea is extremely new, nearly non-existent in mainstream culture, to the point where I think a lot of us are on the defensive. It makes a lot of sense because I also see it happening with BDSM, but I think we should be more aware about it.
Eh, anyone who has been poly over 10 years will assure you that they can and have felt jealousy.
“If it makes you feel any better at all, being blindsided by unexpected jealousy is a not to uncommon experience in polyamory. I’ve had it happen, and I’ve seen it reported from some remarkably sensible and together poly people, so I’m not sure that never feeling jealousy has a damned thing to do with being enlightened. In fact, it’s possible that until you’ve been tested, it’s impossible to call oneself enlightened – if one ever should.” — Blindsided by Jealousy
Thank you so much for adding this. I feel like part of the naarrative that creates shame in poly communities is this assumption or flat out assertion that jealousy only happens to people who are new to poly. It’s nice to see that we’re all capable of that regardless of experience.
These are all really interesting points – thank you loads for writing this and bringing them up!
Awesome that you’ve brought up experts. I think that’s a really important thing for all communities to stay aware of – virtually no-one doing stuff related to, or for, poly people is making money from it; everyone is a volunteer, which I think is useful for non-hierarchy. But some people put more energy and thought into (say) writing poly resources than others, so then their resources exist and are platformed, and yes, they can be seen as being more ‘twoo’ or advanced (like Franklin’s posts are the standard 101 for poly, for example.) That’s a thing to keep an eye on. Polytical’s Polly has said repeatedly that she’s not an expert and doesn’t have all the answers – but however much people say that, their energy does turn into authority. Maybe the answer there is encouraging more and more collaborative and diverse writing and idea-sharing, like Polytical is doing.
So, I’m one person who rails quite strongly against vetoes and strong rules – I think secondaries being screwed over by insecure primaries is a real thing in the world, and a big problem in poly communities, and I think it’s unacceptable. That’s not really from a position of ‘this is the twoo way to do poly’, but one of ‘this is what decent human beings do.’
I think it’s awesome and important that you’ve mentioned marginalisation. No, of course marginalised people aren’t realistically going to suddenly become super-secure and confident after they’ve been gaslit, put down told they’re not worth much their whole lives. I think that’s a vital thing to recognise when dealing with insecurity, too – a kind and compassionate partner (and I’d want no other kind) wouldn’t completely dismiss insecure feelings, and would acknowledge them as real and valid (be they related to marginalisation or not – all feelings are valid, but maybe marginalisation-related ones are even more important to acknowledge), but also not shoulder the responsibility for alleviating them by ending their other relationships.
Because that won’t help. Exerting veto power, or creating unreasonable rules, won’t help people be more secure. It’s a way of exerting power, and (in the standard case of primaries onto secondaries) it’s a way of throwing around primary privilege.
Primary privilege is really, really important to recognise here. *You have the power to end someone else’s relationship.* They don’t have that power over you. And whatever the other privilege gradients at work here, that’s the most relevant one. And I think primaries need to take responsibility for not throwing that privilege around – they are obliged to *not* make the secondary’s relationship more difficult and painful, and they mustn’t, mustn’t, end it. Because that is not what decent human beings do.
I kinda feel like talking about marginalisation leading to insecurity is shifting the focus from where it should be – I want to be talking about dealing with insecurity in a way that doesn’t involve destroying other peoples’ relationships, while you seem to be interested in using marginalisation to legitimise insecurity and so avoid challenging people who use veto power and rules.
As I’ve said, I don’t think vetoes will help with security. What’ll help is practical experience, trusting your partner, acting with kindness and compassion, watching your partner date other people and carry on loving you and coming back to you. And acknowledging marginalisation, and listening to and helping work through feelings of insecurity, is something that a kind partner should be doing anyway.
Ooh – addendum:
So, I’m not going to run around talking about the ‘twoo’ way to do poly – if a bunch of people find that using vetoes and rules works for them, and no-one is getting hurt… well, I’d be extremely surprised, but I’m also not going to go tell them that what they’re doing is wrong, and set myself up as some poly expert.
But. I am never, ever going to go anywhere near being involved with someone in such a relationship. If my partner answered to their primary, over me, about our relationship? If some other person, far away, was dictating what *I* could do in bed, or where I could go on dates? If they could snap their fingers and end my relationship in an instant? No. Not going there.
And I’m going to strongly advise other people not to go there, either. Wherever I can. Because on an interpersonal level, it’s a really crappy situation to be in, and it *will* lead to pain. And I’d like to do things as painlessly as possible.
It’s really, really tricky once you get past theory and into real life with messy humans, isn’t it?
I’m generally very happy with the way I and my partners do poly. We don’t seem to run into problems very often, and when we do we talk about them and I think we generally do OK. This is probably helped by the fact that my partners have been doing poly for a heck of long time and we’ve all made mistakes and learned from them. And we’re still not perfect.
My personal problem with the question of vetoes:
I don’t like the idea of vetoes; I think they can lead to manipulative situations like the one you describe, and I suspect that they basically don’t work (if two people strongly want to be together, they either will regardless of relationship rules, or they’ll resent the rules holding them back). I don’t have veto power agreed in any of my relationships.
On the other hand, there are a few people in the world with whom I will not share a partner. They’re perfectly nice people, and we’d be horribly incompatible as metamours. I don’t do vetoes: I take responsibility for my feelings and actions: if one of my partners starts dating one of the difficult-for-me people, I think I’d have trouble staying in a relationship with that partner. It’s not fair to have a hard-limit dealbreaker like this and not to tell my partners it exists – so my partners know it’s there. And this totally feels to me like a back-door veto (or like emotional blackmail).
So maybe I do do vetoes after all. I have enormous trouble getting my head around the rights and wrongs of this one.
What I definitely don’t have is the sort of veto arrangement where I get to check over my partners’ new potential partners and then give them the go-ahead or not, and I wouldn’t want that, because once a relationship’s started, I can’t imagine how one would stop it without resentment and insecurity flying in all directions.
The only time I would use “veto power” as it were were if my partner were dating someone I knew was harmful and abusive. And that would be less veto power and more, “I really am finding it difficult to maintain a relationship with you while you’re more than willing to date someone who I feel hurts you and behaves in an unfair way”. But honestly, I’d be more likely to just break up with them than to force them to break up with the abusive person.
I think it is unrealistic to ever expect to control the emotions and thoughts of your partners, whether you’re monogamous or not. Rules I think, in certain contexts, can work. But it depends HIGHLY on the intent of the persons involved and what the purpose of the rule is. Even my rule, wherein I want my central partners to prioritise our family, is not made because I think it will completely control my partners. I make it to communicate a value that I feel is INCREDIBLY important to me. I don’t think it will stop my central partners from leaving, hurting me, or hurting my children, but for me, for a central partner to agree to that rule would be to honour a commitment. It would be largely symbolic, but nevertheless important for me. And it would communicate a huge need that I have in relationships.
But again, I don’t think all people need that. The point here in what I wrote is to communicate that this environment of shame around people who feel jealous, around insecurity, around people who might need to use rules (e.g. Can I not be around you and this other person for awhile so I can deal with my feelings? for example) to overcome things… it does not solve anything. It does not solve the insecurity. It just makes people more insecure and shameful for feeling that way in the first place.
I understand that it’s tough to talk about how we struggle with jealousy and insecurity. Vulnerability is tough. And since polyamory is so new, we have a tendency to want to go on about all of the great things about it. We don’t really want to air our dirty laundry in public. But it’s incredibly crucial for people to know that it’s OKAY to feel jealous and insecure.
In my first poly relationship, I was cheated on because I didn’t assert my boundaries and because the guy was an ass. I did it because I wanted to be cool with everything because I thought that was what I should do if I was ~really poly~. In my current relationship, I had an emotional EXPLOSION of jealousy and anger that I didn’t anticipate, mostly because I was ignoring the signs and not communicating, because I didn’t want to be jealous because being jealous wasn’t cool. It was controlling, manipulative, insecure — I didn’t want to be any of those things.
NONE of the shame helped me. In fact, if I had felt safe to say I was jealous, if it weren’t for the stigma, I might not have had the reaction I did. I was told frequently by the community to be more secure without any indication that it would be OKAY for me to not be secure. And I’m partially at fault for shaming myself, it’s not like I blame everyone else for my emotional reaction. But I really, really don’t think the stigma surrounding jealousy helps.
I’m having trouble working working out how this (although it’s interesting) is a reply to my comment. You’re not saying anything I disagree with but I can’t work out how the answer engages with my comment, which makes it difficult to respond…
Heh, sorry. You were talking about veto power so I expanded a bit on that.
“So maybe I do do vetoes after all.”
It seems strange to me to pin one’s identity on “not doing vetoes” to the point where one would feel obliged to be “happy” with a new metamour who was, for instance, lying, cheating, abusive, or who was working to undermine the primary relationship. You don’t say what your objections to these other people are, but they may be perfectly reasonable.
Happiness in a long-term relationship, poly or mono, requires a high level of “know thyself”, and it can sometimes be the honest thing to say to a partner, “I am not enlightened enough to deal with you doing that with him, and you are going to make me very unhappy if you go ahead with it.” Do you have an obligation to try to work on yourself? Of course. But the really deep issues don’t go away easily, or soon.
Nods. I definitely see what you mean. I also think as well that assuming, when a partner is an abusive relationship, that a simple sit down discussion is going to solve the problem… It’s not that easy and sometimes you do either have to either use something like veto power or decide to walk away from the relationship.
In terms of experts, I do wish that poly events had more people speak from a position of expertise, but less in the “poly” field and more in the field of therapy, romantic relationships, practical exercises, and saying things other than “Just be more secure!” that would help people deal with some of the real life emotional stuff.
I’m not nor I will I ever advocate for veto power. The point in mentioning that was that I don’t think it’s fair equally for people to make judgements about what other people MUTUALLY decide on in their romantic relationships. If people want to have that and use it, then I don’t think judging is necessarily fair.
That said, I’ll repeat what I said to you previously on rules here.
The situations where secondaries get screwed over honestly I think have less to do with having rules, demands, and/or veto power and more to do about a lack of communication about expectations in relationships. Personally, if I entered into a relationship with someone who had a partner they had been with for years, I would expect their relationship to weigh a lot more than our new one. I think when you spend time investing in a relationship, especially where kids and finances are involved, then it’s not illogical for that to have more weight than new relationships. And I, as a person who wants a family with children, have the rule that my children must be first priority in my life and the lives of my partners. I will not accept a central relationship with someone who would leave my family for someone they’d just met. And if that’s child privilege, I really don’t care. Having been a child who’s been abandoned for the sake of an adult relationship on more than one occasion, I think I can sleep on that.
If that’s not the kind of relationship you want, that’s fine. But people need to be more clear about the expectations and weight they’re placing on relationships. Something tells me that if people were more clear, secondaries getting screwed over wouldn’t happen. I don’t think everyone needs/wants rules or anything. But there is a stigma in the Poly community about being jealous, about having rules, or about needing rules to help you cope with jealousy. And quite frankly, shame does not solve that. It makes it worse.
Again, love is infinite, time is not. If you’re privileged enough to live close to all of your partners and spend equal time with them all, brilliant and more power to you. But the vast majority of people are not. And at the end of the day, they will have to make a decision among their partners about who gets their time and energy. When I have a family, I expect my family to get the majority of the time and energy of my central partners. And if I invest years into a relationship with someone, I expect that to mean something. That doesn’t mean I don’t give a shit about anyone else’s feelings but my own and I never DEMAND that my partner do certain things. But from the perspective of a third… if I were to date someone who was more than willing to drop a relationship they invested years in or drop someone they had kids or built a life with all for my feelings and our relationship… I’d personally run like hell in the opposite direction. If that’s being decent, if that’s being compassionate, I want no part in it.
“primary privilege” — yes, I think that’s a great way to put it. I think you’ve characterized pretty well why I was always uncomfortable with a “veto.” Unfortunately, there’s really NOTHING that guarantees security in relationship — not veto power, not Agreements, not processing, not the mythical lack of jealousy. Ultimately, we are all in a dance with one another, and if one person decides that they are done with the dance, then they are DONE. They let go, and the other person is suddenly without their partner.
Ironically how this happened for me was that I was in a primary relationship, married, and secure and stable for many years, with a variety of partners of each of us, and some shared partners. I was almost never jealous (my primary partner was “the jealous one” of the pair; I considered myself blessed to be not jealous, rather than “enlightened.”)
And then my primary decided he wanted to have a new primary. I never asked her to end her relationship with him. I just wasn’t “in love” with her nor did I wish to be “married” to her. My options at that point were limited. I could choose to accept his decision that — without my permission, without discussion, and against my wishes — she was now “co-primary” in our then 17-year marriage, and I would “answer to her” as much as to him. Or I could let him leave (with her), or I could leave myself. Arguably, either she co-opted my “primary privilege,” or he gave it to her — or I never really had it at all. No amount of discussion, therapy, or negotiation changed his decision, or gave me back that power. Primary relationships (or any relationships) MUST be based on trust, and I clearly could not trust either one of them to support me in my own power to choose. Therefore, I could not choose to be “co-primary.” Life now was an experiment in learning to live without guarantees, and in finding my own power again. In effect, I was now the secondary, despite what the piece of paper said (and, actually, still says.)
I still believe that Agreements (as distinct from Rules) can be a useful tool for navigating mis-matches in poly (or other) relationships. Certainly the process of making them can help clarify thinking. I now understand however, in a way that I did not before, that they only have the power that each individual gives them, and that the moment one person no longer agrees, they cease to exist.
Ultimately, security is an illusion, and can come only from within. No one else can give it to you. Kinda sucks, but there we are.
I actually think “privilege”, in terms of how it’s used in social justice circles is not the right word to use at all. Privilege implies an unearned benefit in a system of power where something you don’t control gains you access to power that others can never have. Being in a couple is not “unearned”, nor, as your example proves, does it gain you access to something that a “secondary” cannot have.
I feel like renaming “rules” to “agreements” is sort of a bit us verbally going around our elbows to get to our asses. It’s all subject what we wish to officially classify as “rules”. But being afraid to use the term “rules” for fear others will judge us… I don’t think that solves anything.
I don’t think that being insecure necessitates use of “veto power”. I agree with Ludi in that I am not interested in a relationship structure which involves a person being able to veto a relationship between two other people.
I think that it is possible to have relationships in which insecurity and jealousy are not stigmatised, and in which they are also handled in a way which is sensitive to the needs of all involved. I (and my partners) have sometimes fallen into the trap of thinking “but I shouldn’t be feeling jealous” or similar, but on the whole my attitude is that if I’m feeling jealous about something, it is a sign that I need to figure out why and talk to my partner(s) about it, and possibly to my metamours as well.
Health problems of any kind can mean that one’s partner(s) have to learn what to do when you are unwell, and I don’t think that having mental health issues means that you can’t do poly. BUT I think that saying “Well it is ok for you to have a relationship with X as long as you don’t develop Y emotions about them” is unrealistic. YMMV
BUT I think that saying “Well it is ok for you to have a relationship with X as long as you don’t develop Y emotions about them” is unrealistic. YMMV
I agree.
I never said being insecure necessitates the use of veto power. And I never said that expecting you to be able to control your partners emotions or behaviour is realistic or even something you should try to do.
But consider the fact that if you have a mental illness or an upbringing that makes you doubt your ability to comprehend and process your own emotions, identifying jealousy for what it is can be quite difficult. In the situation I described above, where I was cheated on, I assumed that my instincts telling me there was something wrong in the relationship was jealousy and I ignored it. It turns out, that was a red flag. It wasn’t jealousy. I wasn’t jealous of my partner’s other partner. I was having a perfectly valid reaction to the situation. But I didn’t want to be jealous, so I shoved those feelings aside and ignored them.
It’s difficult to pinpoint what jealousy can be and the reasons you have it. Especially if you have a disorder where you’ve been questioning the validity of your own reactions your entire life.
My point is that insecurity and jealousy as emotions being stigmatised puts even MORE barriers up. It makes people ignore valid emotional reactions for the sake of being a “good partner” or being “poly”. In my experience, it favours people not communicating their feelings for fear they will be seen as controlling, jealous, and “not poly enough”. If the shame made jealousy go away, that’d be great. But it doesn’t. It just makes it twice as more difficult to deal with.
I’ve found myself surprised when I’ve heard that people I’ve known who’ve “done poly well” in my eyes have experienced jealousy and have struggled and STILL struggle with it. But why was I surprised? Why do we put forth this image that people who do poly well never experience any jealousy or that to experience jealousy is to fail. What I want is for us to stop seeing insecurity and jealousy as an inherent failure. Especially when we live in a society that encourages insecurity among marginalised people and encourages jealousy as a sign of love.
I am neither white nor male, and I agree with you.
Why do you allow so many tracking cookies on your web site? My computer detected close to 30!!!! Last time I ever visit here….
I agree with your points about the perils of acting as though one is in an ideal relationship when one is not. I do think, and I’m not sure if you disagree, that jealousy necessarily flows from insecurity. My issue is that I don’t consider insecurity to be an improper response to a relationship.
I think it’s important to recognize that insecurity comes from being not secure about something. Sometimes, that is irrational. A lot of the time it is a perfectly reasonable response to a situation, especially in a relationship context. Nobody in a new relationship should be secure in the relationship. As a relationship grows, hopefully so does security, but each partners needs to earn the trust to make security possible. Encouraging people to be more secure in their relationships, even if it worked (which is doubtful), would just lead people to be overconfident about their relationships and/or their partners.
Certainly, sometimes people are irrationally insecure, and that leads to jealousy. But it sounds like people have been assuming that ALL insecurity is irrational, which I think is a mistake.
I don’t think this necessarily leads to the conclusion that people ought to make rules in their relationships (mostly because I don’t see how they actually help), but that seems like a tangential point.
I thing the key point is this: “If we want people to reach the place where they DO become secure, the shame around jealousy, certain relationship styles, and this obsession with complete and total compersion has to stop.”
We can acknowledge that yes, the ideal relationship is free from jealousy and insecurity, but also acknowledge the reality that no relationship is ideal, and that many relationships are going through a growing/changing process that will get them closer to the ideal. The important thing, to me, is that people are on the right path.
Is the ideal relationship free of jealousy and insecurity though?
One of the reasons I wrote this post was sparked from a question I asked about experts and about what works for people. One of the things I asked was that if something works within a relationship, who is to say it is wrong or not functional?
The example I give is my parents’ relationship. They have a very traditional masculine/feminine dichotomy going on. My stepfather pulls out doors and my mother is the princess. Now, they defy the dichotomy in a lot of ways. My mother earns more money and there are things that are stereotyped “feminine” jobs that my stepfather does. However, for them, they’ve completely internalised the cultural concept that jealousy means love. My mother told me that she was on old dating website that she used to frequent. My stepfather saw this and commented on it, and was clearly jealous. This delighted my mother and it made her happy.
Put me in the same scenario, I’m not only extremely bothered by such a masculine/feminine dichotomy, but really, really creeped out by one of my partners expressing jealousy over an old dating website — whether I’m poly or monogamous, that would creep me out. But for my mother, it makes her happy. And she says as well that when she exhibits a little jealousy, my stepfather likes that as well. Now, I definitely think there’s a line there and believe me, I’ve got a serious problem with the way Western culture shows jealousy as a sign of love (especially since 9 times out of 10 it’s a gendered expression that often leads to depicted violence against women, which they are usually blamed for “inciting” in males), but… their little jealousy works for them… so who am I necessarily to say the level they have it at is unhealthy or unproductive?
And onto the topic of insecurity. If the ideal relationship is where I’m secure… then I’m afraid I might not ever reach that. Personally, I don’t like having “ideal relationships”. Maybe because I spent most of my life thinking that the “ideal family” had to stick together and despite my family not being functional together and being better separate, I was more concerned with the ideal than I was with the reality. So… I tend to take issue with ideals. And when ideals are had, I find people tend to shame, judge, and censor themselves for not fitting into that ideal.
So… I want to say that jealousy is complex. And it’s not always from insecurity. And if it is, that doesn’t make it any easier. And we shouldn’t assume that there’s some sort of Poly DaVinci Code we’re going to crack on jealousy with the more experience we have. Jealousy will come or go depending on a variety of factors.
And JUST because you’re insecure, doesn’t make you a failure at anything. I think having the “ideals” and the “right path” really doesn’t do us any good. It feels sort of like when Dan Savage says that because of the discrimination, LGB people are “damaged goods” (and there’s A LOT Savage says I can contend with) but then ironically asks people not to define a successful relationship by whether it lasts until someone dies (which I definitely agree with). If we’re not to define a successful relationship by how it ends, then why should I define my security and my worth as a “good” by people who don’t have mental illness or people who don’t have as much trouble getting through the bead maze as I do? I’m definitely not one of those people that thinks my mental illness is a gift, but I’m also not in line with judging myself for not living up to standards that people who don’t have anxiety or any other issues live up to either.
I’m not saying don’t have goals. But I think they should be realistic. For me, the ideal relationship isn’t one where I never feel any insecurity or jealousy, but one where I grow. Where I can deal with any negative emotion or consequence I face and learn from my mistakes. To me, that is far more important than just being without insecurity or jealousy. Because, just from what I’ve witnessed and from people’s own testimonies, people without any insecurity or jealousy in their romantic relationships and who’ve had a lot of experience and relationships aren’t necessarily the type of people I always want to be.
Hi, Lola,
It sort of sounds like you’re conflating “ideal” with “successful” or “worthwhile”. Jealousy is no fun for anyone, and in a perfect relationship there wouldn’t be any. Also, we could probably read partners’ minds. Real, even very good relationships are not secure or happy all the time — they are not ideal — and that’s ok.
In other words, I totally agree that there’s nothing productive in letting people feel shamed for being human. There’s a funny line to walk in life between accepting yourself as good enough and also as a work in progress. “We are all just fine exactly the way we are, and we all also have a hell of a lot of work to do.”
How do you define “successful”? My first relationship ended badly, it lasted maybe 6 months, but I would not call it a failure. In the end, the experience I gained from that relationship and the friendship that I value because of it makes that relationship a success. Why do we define “success” in a relationship by whether or not people don’t make it out alive?
I do think admitting you’re a work in progress and that you’re hoping to meet some sort of goal is good. But I think making that goal into an ideal on a pedestal is different, which is what I think a lot of people do. There is no sense in striving towards ideals and things we can never achieve. My brain can’t help making a parallel between this situation and people who spend a lot of time looking at media images of women who are often photoshopped or not presented the way most women are. Striving towards goals of health and fitness when exercising are one thing, but striving toward an ideal image that you will never achieve will only lead to failure and shame.
Well, the threshold question in matters like this is “what’s my stake?” If I don’t have any connection or interaction with the people engaging in a relationship, there is no “ideal” for me. Relationships, like all matters of preference, are subjective. I think that was half of your point in the original post – if you’re not affected, butt out!
So when I talk about an “ideal relationship,” I mean the kind of relationship that I would want to have, and the kind of relationship that I would advise friends and loved ones to pursue. Any comments I have about other people’s relationships are (hopefully) coming from a constructive place, i.e. “I think you would be happier if you….”
I do think, though, that one can speak in general terms, so long as one leaves room for noncomformity. When I say “the ideal relationship is free from jealousy” I mean that the kind of relationship *I* like best is free from jealousy, but also that I think most people would be happier without jealousy in their relationships. It’s just important to recognize that all rules have exceptions. I.e. I think it’s pretty uncontroversial that in general, domestic abuse is unhealthy, but one ought to make an exception for consensual BDSM play. So while I think the ideal relationship is free from jealousy, that carries an implicit assumption that not every relationship fits that mold.
The other thing about ideals is that they are impossible to reach. Considering yourself a “failure” because you’re not living up to an ideal just means that everyone on Earth is a failure, and the term is meaningless. I differentiate ideals from goals, in that goals are something I expect to be able to meet. I hold up ideals as something to focus my goals. To vastly oversimplify, if the ideal is 100, and I’m at 60, maybe I’ll set a goal at 75, but setting a goal at 50 would be counterproductive. While I don’t expect to reach the ideal, ideals help me decide which direction I ought to be moving in.
I definitely agree with the comments on failure. My point is that if you don’t realise that your “failures” are commonplace and that they’re actually struggles everyone faces… then perhaps you don’t realise that everyone on Earth is a failure. What I wish more people would do is acknowledge jealousy when/if it is an active part of their lives and not see themselves as failures for that.
Thank you firstly to Lola for writing this post, which has initiated much honest and valuable discussion. As someone relatively new to Poly ( 3 years ) I seek out, devour, think about, analyze and re-think everything I can about this lifestyle and how I can best function within it. Again, much appreciated.
[...] over in Polytical introduced the idea of “primary privilege” in a comment there. I haven’t even managed to read all of the comments on the original post, but so far, [...]
How do you define “successful”? My first relationship ended badly, it lasted maybe 6 months, but I would not call it a failure. In the end, the experience I gained from that relationship and the friendship that I value because of it makes that relationship a success. Why do we define “success” in a relationship by whether or not people don’t make it out alive?
I do think admitting you’re a work in progress and that you’re hoping to meet some sort of goal is good. But I think making that goal into an ideal on a pedestal is different, which is what I think a lot of people do. There is no sense in striving towards ideals and things we can never achieve. My brain can’t help making a parallel between this situation and people who spend a lot of time looking at media images of women who are often photoshopped or not presented the way most women are. Striving towards goals of health and fitness when exercising are one thing, but striving toward an ideal image that you will never achieve will only lead to failure and shame.
Hey, I just caught your article by way of a friend. The universe was calling to me tonight, because I really needed to see this–thank you. I am fairly new to poly–I am married and have been dating for about a year. I am seriously struggling with my jealousy issues, as they are causing this crippling fear that my guy will leave me someone fresher/newer/hotter/more fun/etc. etc. I am so incredibly ashamed of this and have started therapy. This was a great article and made me feel like I am not alone and a selfish not-so-poly, poly a-hole. Thank you!
THANK YOU! This puts so many things in perspective! I’ve been having jealousy problems with my long-term primary partner (straight cis male), and your article helped me realized that part of this stems from the fact that I’m trans (ftm). I worry that he’s going to prefer somebody who doesn’t look like a gender he’s not attracted to, who doesn’t have depression and anxiety problems, who doesn’t self-harm, who doesn’t sometimes have debilitating dysphoria that will prevent us from having sex for weeks.
Thank you so much!