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I have learned a lot over the years through various boyfriends and lovers, and I realized recently that I've been way too flexible in giving people what they want, without having any fixed ideas of what I should get. After a lot of time, I seem to have four stages of 'being' in a relationship with someone, too. Two types of "casual" and two types of "serious." The serious I would term primary and secondary. The not-serious, I would term Friends with Privileges, and fuck-buddies.
I'm looking over that paragraph, which has taken me three days to write, and going, "Blargh. Who are you calling a writer?" Anyway, I'm going to go on bulling my way through this. Here are some things that have occurred to me, lately.
Access: My primary lover, a mate, a husband, a father to my kids. There should not be a time, in this modern age, when I cannot reach him, or at least expect contact within a few hours, depending on the circumstances. Most of my thought here is that when girlfriends, wives, or ex-es have kept me from doing this, I've felt ashamed and bitter. This is never a good relationship when that happens.
Secondary relationships or FWPs would be able to expect me to contact them, whether electronically or RL, several times a week. While fuckbuddies are more the kind of people I'd float an e-mail to every once in a while to see how they're doing. Every couple of months, say. But I expect them to answer. Which brings me to...
Contact: I'm the sort of person who was brought up with people saying "I love you" several times a day. It is a fact that I feel alienated even from some people who say they love me, but it's much worse if they DON'T say it. Primary relationship is definitely the person I want to be sleeping with, having sex with regularly, talking to every day. Sleeping is important, like eating, as much of a bond as sex, in some ways, more in others. To trust someone enough to sleep around them, to watch over them while they sleep, this is a big deal. Which is why it's one of the privileges I think of when I am outlining poly relationships with people I'm in them with. The primary relationship gets first dibs on sleeping together. It's pretty much a priority/rank thing right down the line.
I guess, since I'm not doing this really cohesively to begin with, I could just jump in and say that I mostly feel that a relationship's status is ruled by how much time you spend with someone. Because it's the bottleneck, I guess. I never have much money, and when I do, I don't rank what I spend on my friends. But we only have a certain amount of time. Everyone does this, I'm convinced, anyway. When they fall in love, they spend all their spare time together. When you're committed, you get married or move in together, and then it's assumed you're not only spending 'spare' time but non-spare time (grooming, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, raising kids) together.
A sense of control: I never want to be embarrassed or humiliated. Being pushed around by my SO's other girlfriend is humiliating. Not knowing that people are going to be having sex when I get somewhere, and my SO is involved is embarrassing. I don't mind being polyamorous, as long as I'm in the loop. And the deeper the relationship, the more in the loop I have to be, to the point of possible veto power over a new partner.
I tried putting this all in a graph, and it sounded very clinical.
Bah. Humbug.
I'm looking over that paragraph, which has taken me three days to write, and going, "Blargh. Who are you calling a writer?" Anyway, I'm going to go on bulling my way through this. Here are some things that have occurred to me, lately.
Access: My primary lover, a mate, a husband, a father to my kids. There should not be a time, in this modern age, when I cannot reach him, or at least expect contact within a few hours, depending on the circumstances. Most of my thought here is that when girlfriends, wives, or ex-es have kept me from doing this, I've felt ashamed and bitter. This is never a good relationship when that happens.
Secondary relationships or FWPs would be able to expect me to contact them, whether electronically or RL, several times a week. While fuckbuddies are more the kind of people I'd float an e-mail to every once in a while to see how they're doing. Every couple of months, say. But I expect them to answer. Which brings me to...
Contact: I'm the sort of person who was brought up with people saying "I love you" several times a day. It is a fact that I feel alienated even from some people who say they love me, but it's much worse if they DON'T say it. Primary relationship is definitely the person I want to be sleeping with, having sex with regularly, talking to every day. Sleeping is important, like eating, as much of a bond as sex, in some ways, more in others. To trust someone enough to sleep around them, to watch over them while they sleep, this is a big deal. Which is why it's one of the privileges I think of when I am outlining poly relationships with people I'm in them with. The primary relationship gets first dibs on sleeping together. It's pretty much a priority/rank thing right down the line.
I guess, since I'm not doing this really cohesively to begin with, I could just jump in and say that I mostly feel that a relationship's status is ruled by how much time you spend with someone. Because it's the bottleneck, I guess. I never have much money, and when I do, I don't rank what I spend on my friends. But we only have a certain amount of time. Everyone does this, I'm convinced, anyway. When they fall in love, they spend all their spare time together. When you're committed, you get married or move in together, and then it's assumed you're not only spending 'spare' time but non-spare time (grooming, cooking, cleaning, paying bills, raising kids) together.
A sense of control: I never want to be embarrassed or humiliated. Being pushed around by my SO's other girlfriend is humiliating. Not knowing that people are going to be having sex when I get somewhere, and my SO is involved is embarrassing. I don't mind being polyamorous, as long as I'm in the loop. And the deeper the relationship, the more in the loop I have to be, to the point of possible veto power over a new partner.
I tried putting this all in a graph, and it sounded very clinical.
Bah. Humbug.
