My hands are shaking when I'm touching ya. They keep shaking when I ain't.

[reddragdiva]

I saw this BBC picture of the Hemel explosion and said "Ka-BOOM!" in a Marvin the Martian voice. arkady's old flat, where she brought up her daughters, was a few hundred metres away, facing the bit that exploded. *shudder* redcountess and I saw the sky this morning and thought the weird colour meant snow was coming.

It's Hell for Suburban Husbands day. I made it out of B&Q alive with a 25kg bag of gravel, a plant pot, two plant pot trays, two powerboards and a 25-pack of blank DVD-Rs — I really need to back up my media disk and put FreeBSD 6 on the household server. The much-delayed date with Arkady depends how Liz is after a bath, though her breathing is much better even with the smell of the smoke.

cavalorn has posted a thread about polyamory (public when I posted this, now locked), as one who has given it up. So I shall now ramble.

There is no agreed-upon definition except "not straight-up monogamy." Demanding an explanation (implicitly or explicitly) from someone who subscribes to one thing that might be labeled "polyamory" for any other random thing that might be labeled "polyamory" doesn't feel particularly fair, any more than it would to require someone who said they thought they might be homosexual to defend anything whatsoever the person thought of that might be labeled "homosexuality."

I've conspicuously had the same wife and girlfriend for a couple of years, which apparently makes me some sort of expert. This is a frightening concept. OTOH, I've had few mono relationships that lasted as long as either, so it's a reasonable marker for success. And it feels at times like a bubbling explosive cauldron we have to keep from going off, but then a lot of relationships including my mono ones feel like that. So again, for my life it's going well. Which is good. By far the biggest source of problems in this poly V is that Liz is chronically ill and there's no easy way around that.

The sex, and potential for such, is a big part of it for me, because I am a tart. Liz would like the opportunity to tart even if she didn't take it (though she says there's definitely no such thing as sex without emotion for her), and Arkady has no tartlike urges at all. There's certainly no such thing as an emotional condom — I have an unduly high regard for anyone I've had sex with, even if they really don't deserve it, so I'm quite susceptible.

There's one person in Australia I can say for sure I'd be in a relationship with if it weren't for the tyranny of distance. We really like each other and click really well. Darn this being on opposite sides of the world! And a friend in the US I'd certainly be sleeping with on a regular basis if not for the distance. And there will be any number of people in London I could click just as well with I haven't met — there's a few I can think of off the top of my head that I am really keen on who are unfortunately monogamous. Falling in love with someone new will perturb existing things — falling for Arkady, which was completely unexpected (to us, if not to every single other person around us), did shake things with Liz a bit.

I am very much in love with my darlings and they make me enormously happy. I am in fact the luckiest man in the world; you just think you are.

Polyamory is a lot more work than monogamy. But then, most worthwhile things are more work than not bothering.

Comments

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

But then, most worthwhile things are more work than not bothering.

i disagree with this. most of the good things that have happenned to me have been really easy. getting this house was dead easy - it just sort of fell in our lap. the good jobs i've had were easy to get, and the things i've been best at i also found the easiest. the best relationships i've had have never really needed much work - they just fell into place,and we got on well. same with friendships. the ones i had to work hard at were crap in the end.

*shrugs*
i'm not arguing against polyamory here, not at all, but i am arguing against the received wisdom that relationships are a lot of hard work. they aren't, not if they're good ones. they just come naturally.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

My current relationships are easy, but I think that has a lot to do with how hard I had to work in the past. It gave me a much clearer idea of what's important to me, what I'm willing to work on and what I can just let slide, and when I'd rather just throw in the towel.

Things wouldn't be nearly so smooth now if I hadn't had the experience of having to make all that effort in the past.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i can agree with all of that, 100%.

i'm a bit tetchy about the "you have to work at relationships" line because i wasted a lot of years working at making a relationship work, when if i'd had an ounce of sense i'd have realised that the reason it took so much work was because we were really badly matched.

[reddragdiva]

Well, yes, there is that one ;-)

My relationship with Liz is pretty dynamic and full of communication to overcome mismatched bits, but feels very worth it - the mismatches generally aren't as bad as they first look. My relationship with Arkady is remarkably frictionless.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

My relationship with Liz is pretty dynamic and full of communication to overcome mismatched bits, but feels very worth it

but communication isn't really work, is it? it comes naturally, and is fairly enjoyable most of the time. :) EdwardS and i *enjoy* talking to each other, and we do a lot of it, being crazy hermits in our wee castle. that's sort of what i mean - if you have to *work* at communicating, there is something going wrong.

this is basically why i've always avoided saying that poly relationships are more *work*, though. they're more complicated, which can be a lot more interesting, and fill more time. but being more complex doesn't mean that they need be more *work*.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Relationships do require work and effort, but they shouldn't be nothing but work and effort.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been the one who did all the "work" - at both the relationship and the subsequent attempt at friendship. Took me a while to realize that it was work because he didn't actually give a shit.

[reddragdiva]

It does help IME to know what work is in case you need to. My relationship with arkady is remarkably low-friction, but knowing what relationship work is (on both sides) helps keep it that way.

[godgirl.livejournal.com]

what is it???

i mean, relationship work.

what does it involve???

i think was off school that day with mumps or something...

[reddragdiva]

I think it involves thinking hard about how to be excellent to one another.

[godgirl.livejournal.com]

but im thoughtless.

and self centred.

and selfish.

.. ah.. im beginning to see i missed a whole WEEK of school here!

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I used to think that way, but i think that doing so sold me and my wife (and, by extension, you) short. My marriage feels like the easiest thing in the world to maintain, but that doesn't mean that i'm not working hard at keeping it so. It's just that i don't mind the work one bit.

It's like sysadminning; good planning and proactive work doesn't feel as much as an effort as putting out fires, but that doesn't mean you're not working hard in the former case.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i'm just going to have to respectfully disagree with that. :) i wrote a long thing talking about why, but i was only repeating what i said above, really.