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Do pay attention to the way you relate to your partner's partners
Love is a funny thing. Sometimes, your partner may love someone you yourself would not really choose to associate with. In times like that, it's helpful to recognize that you are in a relationship with that person, even though your relationship may be indirect. That person is part of your lover's life, and therefore, by extension, part of yours.
Be conscious of that fact. Even if your relationship with your partner's partner is ambivalent, it's still a relationship. Like all relationships, it will do better if you pay attention to it, acknowledge it, and are conscious of it.
That doesn't mean you have to be best friends, or lovers, or anything else, with your partner's partner. It does mean that your partner's partner is not a nonentity; this is a person who is significant to someone you love, and your life will be easier if that relationship is on as good a footing as may be possible.
In general, this is not so much of an issue for me with partners that I know. But my hugest issue is with friendships. More specifically, relationships that are defined as friendships that don't really work with dynamic. I tend to do better with relationships that are honest about the status they are in...a large part of this often happens the most when people are lying to themselves about the real dynamic of their relationship but I have rarely found it to be with malicious intent. To me, there's a huge world of difference between a friend, a friend you are in love/have love-like feelings for within the realm of romance (meaning friends you harbor secret crushes on or friends you still have feelings for despite long-gone relationships), and someone you have a friends with benefits relationship with. Honestly, it's hardest for me to deal with the relationships where the feelings are secret and no one is being upfront about anything as far as their emotions go. I'm not threatened by you sleeping with your friends. I'm not threatened by you loving your friends. I am however threatened by you being emotionally attached to your friend and/or your friend being emotionally attached to you in a manner that is not frank and open. Love who you want to...but don't hide it from me. I'm sure that plenty of people would say that this behavior is not really good poly....but to be honest, I think everyone does this to some extent. Everyone has that crush that they don't want to say out loud or that moment of attraction to someone they feel like they aren't supposed to like. And all of us still have feelings for some ex or another. I think I need to learn to accept some of those emotions more readily...of course it would be soooo much easier if the people feeling them would accept them first.
Love is a funny thing. Sometimes, your partner may love someone you yourself would not really choose to associate with. In times like that, it's helpful to recognize that you are in a relationship with that person, even though your relationship may be indirect. That person is part of your lover's life, and therefore, by extension, part of yours.
Be conscious of that fact. Even if your relationship with your partner's partner is ambivalent, it's still a relationship. Like all relationships, it will do better if you pay attention to it, acknowledge it, and are conscious of it.
That doesn't mean you have to be best friends, or lovers, or anything else, with your partner's partner. It does mean that your partner's partner is not a nonentity; this is a person who is significant to someone you love, and your life will be easier if that relationship is on as good a footing as may be possible.
In general, this is not so much of an issue for me with partners that I know. But my hugest issue is with friendships. More specifically, relationships that are defined as friendships that don't really work with dynamic. I tend to do better with relationships that are honest about the status they are in...a large part of this often happens the most when people are lying to themselves about the real dynamic of their relationship but I have rarely found it to be with malicious intent. To me, there's a huge world of difference between a friend, a friend you are in love/have love-like feelings for within the realm of romance (meaning friends you harbor secret crushes on or friends you still have feelings for despite long-gone relationships), and someone you have a friends with benefits relationship with. Honestly, it's hardest for me to deal with the relationships where the feelings are secret and no one is being upfront about anything as far as their emotions go. I'm not threatened by you sleeping with your friends. I'm not threatened by you loving your friends. I am however threatened by you being emotionally attached to your friend and/or your friend being emotionally attached to you in a manner that is not frank and open. Love who you want to...but don't hide it from me. I'm sure that plenty of people would say that this behavior is not really good poly....but to be honest, I think everyone does this to some extent. Everyone has that crush that they don't want to say out loud or that moment of attraction to someone they feel like they aren't supposed to like. And all of us still have feelings for some ex or another. I think I need to learn to accept some of those emotions more readily...of course it would be soooo much easier if the people feeling them would accept them first.
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Date: 2004-09-09 11:58 pm (UTC)From: