Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships (22 page)

When Ignacio and Khane first became primaries, they decided to
create something called Alone Month, an entire month dedicated to
the relationship, during which they would not see any other partners.
Ignacio explains: "We picked August because our anniversary is in
August. We decided that we have to find a time in the year when we
come together and just concentrate on our foundation. If we don't do
that, it'll fall apart-that's the only way we'll maintain being together.
So we do a lot of spiritual work. We do a body cleansing, internal work,
baths, going to the ocean, feeding the gods, and working on our altar.
We develop our role-play characters and just concentrate on having
lots and lots of sex, lots and lots of conversations, and renegotiating."

PEOPLE HAVE LOTS of different theories about love and relationship
dynamics. I am not going to go into healing your inner child, reenacting parent/child dynamics, getting the love you want, or how to love
without losing yourself-all that terrain and more has been covered
elsewhere. I believe the bottom line is this: relationships raise issues.
Relationships give us the chance to experience deep connection and
intimacy, intense bonding, understanding, and unconditional love. They
can be supportive, exhilarating, healing, and magical. At the same time,
relationships are like cauldrons: ideal places to throw two (or more)
people's issues together, and see what mixes, bubbles up, or explodes.

In relationships, we get our buttons pushed, emotional baggage
revealed, inner demons confronted, and old wounds ripped open-we
experience every emotion in the book. Relationships can be difficult,
overwhelming, frustrating, and painful. Ultimately, they give us the
chance to change old patterns, to become stronger, to learn and grow
It's this opportunity for personal growth that makes relationships worth
the hard work we put into them. And make no mistake: relationships
take lots of work. When you have an open relationship-whether its
partnered nonmonogamy, polyamory, or some other style-the issues increase exponentially Add more people to the mix, and along with
them come their problems, fears, hot buttons, and baggage.

The first step to learning and growing is self-awareness and the
willingness to tackle your own issues and limitations. I will go so far as
to say that self-awareness is a prerequisite for positive relationshipsand most definitely for positive nonmonogamous relationships.
Relationships demand that you learn to become aware of your feelings
and communicate them, which means being vulnerable and sharing
your darkest fears and insecurities. The best way to conquer your fears
is to shine a light on them and talk about them. It's a challenge, but a
rewarding one. The more clear you become about who you are, what
you want, and what makes you tick emotionally, the better a relationship partner you will be. The work begins with yourself. I won't
prescribe how you work on yourself-you may choose counseling,
support groups, a self-help program, meditation, journaling, spiritual
work, a combination of these, or something else entirely-but I recommend that you do.

People who practice nonmonogamy face all kinds of issues in
their relationships. However, as a general rule, some common feelings
arise, including jealousy, fear of abandonment, and resentment. I'll
explore the origins and complexities of these feelings and suggest ways
to deal with them.

One of the questions people in open relationships are asked most often
is "Don't you get jealous?" We experience jealousy in all kinds of situations, and it is especially charged in love and sexual relationships.
Some people believe that jealousy is "natural," but I think of it more as
a learned, nearly universal behavior. It is a key emotion that almost
everyone has felt at some point. Jealousy drives the plots of ancient
myth, classical and modem literature, drama, and opera. It is also one of the integral assumptions of monogamy: society teaches us that we're
supposed to be jealous when a partner flirts with someone else, another
suitor pursues him, or he falls in love with another person. In their
book The Myth of Monogamy, David P Barash and Judith Eve Lipton
report that "the most common cause of one spouse killing another is
sexual jealousy, specifically a man's suspicion that his mate has been
unfaithful."'

Among the people I interviewed, there are two schools of thought
about feeling jealous. Some say that they
rarely, if ever, experience the emotion.
Take, for example, Morgan, a 48-year-old
professor who identifies as a bisexual
crossdresser, and his wife, Dahlia, a 40year-old bisexual professor. They have
been together for eight years and have an
open relationship style that resembles
partnered nonmonogamy "Once Dahlia
and I became secure about each other's
commitment to the relationship, any feelings of jealousy vanished. At least they
did for me," Morgan says. Dahlia concurs.
"[Jealous feelings] are wasted emotions
and a complete waste of my time. I trust
my spouse completely so I really don't
experience these feelings. My spouse has
never given me reason to feel these emotions, well, at least not in relation to our lifestyle... With others, if they show signs of jealousy or
possessiveness, the relationship gets severed immediately Usually
though, our fuck buddies know the rules and don't engage in such
emotions."

On the other side of the coin are interviewees who acknowledge
that jealousy is an issue they struggle with. Some believe it is a learned behavior that can be unlearned, and they work hard to rise above
jealousy and eradicate it from their lives. Others work to discover why
they get jealous and deal with the source of the jealousy For experienced nonmonogamists, jealousy usually rears its head at predictable
moments: when a new person enters the picture, when a casual partner becomes more serious, or when some significant change happens.

"Why should sex of all
things be the thing that
breaks up relationships
and causes such jealousy
when a good
conversation can go
deeper, TV can steal
more of your attention,
and chess (as I found
toward the end of one
relationship) can take
your lover away from
you for longer."

-ALISON ROWAN'

I don't tend to be jealous as long as I feel as though I am getting
"enough" attention, energy, time. If I feel jealous for more than a
little flash, that's a sign that I feel like I'm getting less than I want
or expect, which means it's time to have a chat. -Duke

Many people, even poly people, seem terrified of jealousy... I think
of jealousy as the warning light on your dashboard. It tells you
something is wrong, but doesn't tell you what to do about it.
When you feel jealousy, it means it's time to pull over and assess
what is going on, and only then do something about it. -Owen

Jealousy is really an umbrella term for a constellation of feelings
including envy, competitiveness, insecurity, inadequacy possessiveness, fear of abandonment, feeling unloved, and feeling left out. To say
simply "I am jealous" is far too vague, since it means different things
to different people and it manifests itself in so many diverse ways. Like
Owen's "warning light," it's more useful to think of jealousy as a sign
that something's not right. Try to figure out exactly what you're feeling,
the root(s) of the feeling, and what you need to feel better. Digging
around can open a Pandora's box, but until you realize why you're jealous you will not be able to resolve the issues causing the feeling. Once
you identify the source of the jealousy you will be better able to cope
with it, feel less controlled and motivated by it, and you may be able
to let go of it altogether. Below I discuss four specific emotions as the
components of jealousy: envy, insecurity, possessiveness, and feeling
excluded.

When you experience envy, you want something that someone else
has: it could be a physical object, but in relationships it's more likely
to be a personality trait, another relationship, or a certain dynamic
between two people. The grass is greener on the other side of the
fence: you feel that you are not as good as someone else, what you have
is not as good as what they have. In nonmonogamy, envy is the voice
inside your head that talks a lot of smack. You can envy the amount of
time people spend together: "She gets to see him twice a week and I
only get to see him once a month." You can envy a couple's connection: "They have a much stronger bond than she and I do." You can
envy their relationship dynamic: "I wish I were his primary partner."
You can envy a partner's partner: "She is so much more experienced
and poised than I am."

Competitiveness can be a part of envy; this comes up especially
in couples where one partner has numerous sex mates and the other
doesn't. In some instances, it's a matter of timing and logistics. In
others, it's a personality thing: one partner is a charismatic social butterfly who seems to attract lovers like nectar, while the other is shy,
reserved, takes longer to establish a connection with someone.
Envious thoughts can be fleeting, easily acknowledged and dismissed,
or they can be obsessive and overwhelming.

When you are content with who you are and feel secure and satisfied in your relationship, it greatly lessens your envy of others. Work
on yourself and your relationships rather than being preoccupied by
others around you. Value yourself and be grateful for what you have.
If you see something in someone else or in their relationship that you
really want, and it is attainable, take steps to get it by changing something about yourself or your relationship. Otherwise, it's best to work
on your own self-worth and insecurities to lessen or eliminate the
envy.

Insecurity or low self-esteem is intertwined with envy and is at the
heart of most jealous feelings. It may take the form of self-doubt, selfjudgment, constant comparisons to others (especially to a partner's
other partners), or feeling not good enough. If you don't feel good
about yourself or about your relationship, someone new entering the
picture raises all kinds of doubt and insecurity. Like envy, insecurity is
the voice inside your head that taunts you: "She's prettier than me. His
sexual appetite is bigger than mine. She's more my partner's type. He
has more in common with my husband."

Insecurity comes from many sources and manifests itself in many
ways; it's a complex problem to deal with. First, you must truly believe
in the possibility of an open relationship-that you can have sex with
more than one person or love multiple people at the same time. If you
don't, you will always see other people and other relationships as
infringing on and threatening to yours. Next, you need to separate
yourself from your partner's desires and relationships that don't
involve you, because they are truly not about you. The beauty of exploring relationship possibilities beyond monogamy is that we are free to
explore different desires, fantasies, and interpersonal dynamics with
other people. If your partner picks a lover who is into spanking and
very good at it, it doesn't mean he wishes you were a spanking aficionado and expert. That relationship does not represent a deficit in
your relationship, it is not a comment on your relationship, and it is
not about replacing you.

I find myself asking myself, when I'm feeling jealous, Do I have
such little faith in myself and my value as a person that I think
I could be so easily replaced? Again, it comes around to forcing
myself to take care of myself. When I solidly believe in my worth
as a person, there is room for others in my partners' lives.
-Elizabeth

If you don't feel secure in who you are and in the strength of your
relationship, examine why that is. For instance, you may be experiencing your own issues of inadequacy or fear of abandonment. If that's the
case, you need to do some work to tackle the root of those issues. Working on one's self-esteem is not an overnight project; it takes a tremendous
amount of time, dedication, and perseverance. That said, there is a difference between feeling unlovable (you're not good enough, you don't
deserve love) and feeling unloved. Your sense of insecurity could stem
from not getting something you need from your partner to feel secure.
Perhaps he hasn't been affectionate enough or hasn't made an effort to
set aside quality time for you. In that case, you need to sit down with
your partner and talk about it.

Sometimes our insecurity is fueled by our imagination: we imagine
a partner's new partner to be the most perfect human being in the world.
This kind of thinking-based not on facts, but on our worst fearscan often be corrected with a simple reality check: meet the partner.
When you meet her in the flesh, it's harder to irrationally suspect,
dislike, or demonize her or to put her on a pedestal.

If it's not you but your partner who feels insecure, your number
one job is to provide reassurance. We all need to be reassured that our
partners love us, are committed to us, and are not going to leave us.
Reassurance is especially important in nonmonogamous relationships,
because they can spark feelings of insecurity in us so easily. Clearly
articulate to your partner that you love and cherish her and aren't
trying to replace her.

Sometimes you can experience jealousy as a desire to possess or control your partner. If you're the type who considers your lovers yours
and you don't like to share them, you may find open relationships
especially challenging. At the core of possessiveness are two beliefs: that a person can be a possession, and that there is not enough of him
to be shared. In other words, how dare you take something that belongs
to me, or take his time away from me? Both beliefs are problematic:
people cannot be owned, and being someone's partner doesn't mean
you're entitled to all of their time, energy, and love.