Cheers Sexy People!
It’s great to connect with you again here. I have had a busy, exciting and fun-filled few weeks! As usual, I have had my share of ups and downs recently. My boyfriend and I were gearing up for our annual Rocky Horror Picture Show inspired rock gig that we do every year with my sister. And that requires both a lot of time, commitment, energy, and it’s hard not to get your panties in a bunch birthing this quite spectacular event. Though it is exciting and rewarding, tensions can run high. Ramping up to this event can feel like a roller coaster going full speed ahead, and in some moments such as that, maybe our fuses can be a little shorter than normal, and it’s hard to be patient, loving and as kind as we should in those moments. And ya know what? That’s gonna happen sometimes. And we have to learn to roll with it.
I will admit here that I ended up getting into several tiffs with my beau in the last few weeks. And it was pretty easy to notice that after this event was over, those tiffs ceased to happen… partly because my patience was back to its longer, joyful self, and tensions had gone back down to a more normal, manageable level. Good to know!
It is also excellent that we once again got through it with flying colors, and relatively unscathed. The experience did force me to re-examine some important truths and wisdoms that come up in relationships, monogamous or not, but again, issues tend to just get multiplied by the simple math of multiple relationships.
Three questions that came up that I will address here were:
How do you decide when to bring up an issue with a love?
When do you bring up a potentially charged or sensitive topic?
How much time do you need / want / have to spend with a metamour?
Ok, let’s go! Let’s tackle these questions:
1) How do you decide when to bring up an issue with a love?
I try to err on the side of caution here. I am a big believer in honesty and airing concerns. But what I have learned over the years is that sometimes, it can be better to keep your mouth shut if you can in fact resolve something on your own. Sometimes bringing up a perceived issue when emotions are flying can result in more bad than good. So I find it prudent to PAUSE, take a deep breath, maybe even sleep on it, and give it some thought. Then ask yourself: is this perceived problem really a problem after all? Next, can I resolve it on my own? If it is indeed worthy of bringing up, how can I come at it in such a way as to NOT make my love feel like he or she is being attacked, hopefully by using the techniques of Nonviolent Communication. Learn these tactics if you have not already… better yet, read the entire book. It’s highly worth it.
2) When do you bring up a potentially charged or sensitive topic?
As I alluded to above, though flying off the handle in the moment can seem oh so attractive, alluring and offer perceived instant gratification, this is usually not the best course of action. Whether you take five minutes by leaving the room and splashing water on your face, waiting several hours until you can have a quiet moment with just the two of you, or you sleep on it and bring it up the next day or possibly even several days later (after you have maybe experimented with can you work on this concern on your own first), patience and timing can be crucial elements to the outcome of any discussion that you decide to take on. Be a mature adult, and weigh the pros and cons of WHEN just as much as the WHAT. You will thank me later.
3) How much time do you need / want / have to spend with a metamour (or your partner’s partner)?
Now that I have started running my own business, I have been paying particular attention to not only how I spend my time (time management), but also who I spend my time with (relationship management). There are only so many hours in the day, and only so many relationships that I can nurture at one time, or at least well. Which ones do I want to spend my valuable time on, and how much effort am I willing to put in? Again, great questions to ask yourself. Over the recent years, I find that I want to spend time not only with my lovers, but also with valued friends as often as I and they are able to muster. As we get older, this gets more and more challenging, coordinating play dates with lovers as well as friends. With a metamour though, out of respect and love for our partners, I think it is fairly essential to keep communication lines as open as possible, get to know them as much as we can, show that we care – not only about our partners, but about who THEY find attractive and interesting. But what is important here is that… we are all adults here. Once you make an informed decision about who feels like someone that could become a good friend, who might only be an acquaintance, who increases your energy levels and gets you charged up vs. who drains your energy and doesn’t add positive mojo perhaps to your life, I think eventually, it’s OK to say, “sweetie, you go have fun tonite with your friend, I’m going to [stay in, hang out with my other friend, have a business meeting]” or whatever other thing you feel needs your attention. This is a balancing act that you can experiment with. But I know that you can do it. Because all of my readers are AWESOME!
For continued reading, here is a great article that shares
Ten Tips to Great Poly Relationships:
http://www.polyamorousmisanthrope.com/2009/10/12/ten-tips-to-great-poly-relationships/
How about you? Any other pointers to add to my suggestions above? We’re all ears here! Sharing is caring! Bring it! And thanks in advance for offering your wise words.
Wishing you peace, love and happiness,
(and thrilling, fun sex too!)
Kitty
I never liked it when tensions got high in my poly quartet because even if it didn’t have anything to do with me, I’d wind up having to mediate things. It required patience and a bit of a firm hand at times to get them to settle their differences and amazing communication skills to point out to them how their fussing with each other was bringing much disharmony to the relationship and, of course, stressing me out to no end.
You have to be able to see the really big picture and understand how this poly thing is working; you have to be skilled in problem and conflict resolution, to be honest but fair and, yeah, sometimes, when to just keep your mouth shut and let something run its course. In my closed group setting, it was always important for me to remind them why the four of us were doing this and that while we’re not always gonna see eye-to-eye on things, we can’t hold them inside and being able to communicate like the adults we are is so very important.
And it’s always an ongoing process and I think one that calls for an ability to “see” when things are about to go sideways and, if possible, head it off at the pass while keeping in mind that any relationship is going to have really tense moments – and poly relationships can have more than one can imagine so one cannot behave as if tense moments aren’t going to show up nor can one act as if such moments are going to take care of themselves.
I’d have to say that staying calm when the shit hits the fan is important, to be able to appeal to their intelligence more than their emotions when trying to resolve things because when your emotions run high, logic and common sense take a seat on the bench and you always need to think your way through these things more than feeling your way through them.
Thanks as always for your valuable input, kdaddy23. You sound like you were an amazingly patient and perceptive poly partner. Go YOU! Yes it takes quite alot of skills to have any successful relationship, and multiple relationships simply means there’s the potential for multiple problems and communication breakdowns. Constant vigilance I find is partly the name of the game. Never give up. Keep plugging along. Keep believing in your partners and what you are creating. Keep remembering what is so important about staying together and making it all work.
This…
“And it’s always an ongoing process and I think one that calls for an ability to “see” when things are about to go sideways and, if possible, head it off at the pass while keeping in mind that any relationship is going to have really tense moments – and poly relationships can have more than one can imagine so one cannot behave as if tense moments aren’t going to show up nor can one act as if such moments are going to take care of themselves.
I’d have to say that staying calm when the shit hits the fan is important, to be able to appeal to their intelligence more than their emotions when trying to resolve things because when your emotions run high, logic and common sense take a seat on the bench and you always need to think your way through these things more than feeling your way through them.”
= AWESOME and so true! YOU SO rock! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you! And I learned all of this the hard way, too, but top me it was all quite logical and common sense even those when tensions ran high, those two things would often fail against the power of raw emotion.
Emotions can be hard to trump sometimes. It takes strength, determination and definitely patience. But it can be so worth it to help make relationships as smooth as possible to not knee-jerk. 🙂
True, true…
Reblogged this on MAXIMUM SEX-AND-ROCK-AND-ROLL.
Fantastic article! Well written, sensible and so very true!!
Thank you so much for your comment and compliment! And thanks for starting your blog and adding to our growing community. Happy thanksgiving weekend to you and yours!
Reblogged this on The Triad Next Door and commented:
This is a great article on an important topic. Couldn’t have said it better myself, so here is my first reblog!