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Originally Posted by anti fishstick
No boundaries are completely predetermined because of the experimentory nature of polyamorous relationships. I think the "disneyland ideal" is in the minds of people because the marriage paradigm has been in use for years.
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Yeah, i'm just a little burnt out on the marriage paradigm.
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My point with that was that you thought it gave polyamorous relationships an advantge over monogamous ones and since we agree that it doesn't really, then what *is* the advantage of polyamorous relationships? If you're trying to avoid monogamous relationships because you think they're mostly codependent, why do you think entering a polyamorous relationship will be different? You seem to be making the argument that you can get all qualities of monogamous relationships except for monogamy itself in polygamous relationships so what is the difference? I understand you can fuck more than one person, that's obvious but how does that fulfill a persons emotional needs other than making it more complicated (and thus harder to attain)? I guess what I don't understand is how polyamorous relationships can be more ideal because it would seem much harder to balance.
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That they are more ideal is a matter of perspective. Obviously, you will probably disagree with any advantages i bring up because you believe monogamy is sacred. That's fine, i respect that. I just feel like polyamory, since it is agreeably more difficult to achieve, is a higher standard of relationship. The stakes are higher and so is the payoff. I also believe that if i am going to be with someone who loves me, they should love me for who i am, regardless of who i fuck. The monogamous part of a monogamous commitment is above all about denying one's urges. Even in the most ideal monogamous relationship, there will always be attraction to other people. One can claim that true love wears blinders, but in the end, we are all animals, with animal urges. I don't think the denial of sexual urges is a necessity in proving your love to someone. I think all urges should be acted upon if they can be acted upon in a healthy, respectful, and noncoerced manner. This is why i currently favor the polyamory, it allows the individual participant more freedom.
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Your codependent views on monogamous relationships gives me a little perspective of where you are coming from and why you are trying to avoid it. Are you afraid of attachment? You mention that you and your primary partner understand that love does not require attachment, which is what I think your view of a codependent relationship may have. Perhaps you're cynical of what love is and finding the "right" one for you. Each persons individual experiences on relationships are different from the next person. A lot of people haven't experienced a monogamous relationship worth lasting for more than a couple years. I know what it feels like to be discouraged and cynical and closed to the idea that a meaningful relatonship exists. And I guess that's another question. Could a meaninful relationship exist in polyamorous love or is it just a way to escape from the confinements of "meaningful" monogamous relationships?
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It is part of my personal philosphy that attachment to anything is to be avoided when possible, and recognized and accounted for when avoidance isn't possible. I don't mean "avoidance" in the avoiding responsibility sense, more in the avoiding influenza sense.
I am not cynical about finding the "right" person for me, because i don't believe that there is a "right" person for me. An athiest isn't cynical about religion. You can't be cynical about something that doesn't exist. I think the idea that there is a "right" person for anybody, in the cosmic, soul mate sense is a convenient hallucination people have when they want to believe that there is justice in the universe. I believe that everybody has something to offer me in terms of emotional and spiritual growth. In light of the belief that all good things monogamous can be achieved through polygamy i feel that monogamy would be limit my opportunities for growth and experience.
I have found a meaningful relationship, with someone who is very special to me, we just choose to give eachother the option of having relations with other people. This doesn't devalue our relationship for me, because i derive the value of our relationship from who we are and how we interact, with who we are fucking being completely irrelevant.
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Currently, I come from the experience of basically finding who I want to be with for a very long time, if not my lifetime, so it's very different from yours. In my opinion, love requires at least some attachment because you give yourself a little vulnerability towards the other person. Like i've said before, when we care about someone, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable in any way to another person, we are giving them some power with our feelings. And that can be an attachment, connection, or bond with another person.
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I've met many women who i wanted to spend my life with. Now i'm at a point where that isn't a goal. Finding someone to spend my life with isn't even a sub-footnote on the list of things i want to do with my life. I've had the monogamous experience, and i know how quickly soul mates can become distant aquaintances, regardless of how much of the future was already planned. If you found someone who you want to be with for a long time, and actually stay with them for a long time, kudos to you. I'm certain that i can have a life that is just as fullfilling, if not more fulfilling, going an alternate route, and if i can, kudos to me. This isn't to say that i will never spend a long time with the same main partner, just that it isn't a goal.
I don't believe in giving someone else power over my feelings. I believe each and every emotion i experience is my responsibility. You control how you react emotionally, and how you react to your emotions. Certainly your emotional state is effected by the world around you, but in the end, no one has power over your emotions except for you. (not you antifishstick, but the generic you)
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Fair enough. How does being with one partner make it worthwhile? I think that by dedicating yourself to one partner, you are choosing to commit to them in a way that makes it special to both of you, and no one else. You give eachother the 'gift' of your bodies and love and it can be almost sacred. Having multiple partners would give you more risk of objectifying yourself and/or your primary partner or any of the other parties involved because it would be harder to maintain balance and love them equally. Open relationships seem to be more about the ability to fuck more than one person, like you've said, than it is to maintain love, committment, growth, trust, etc. Although that certainly happens too, the "trap" with open relationships is that it tends to focus much more on the sexual act.
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See, i think that to make a relationship special, all you have to do is realize that all relationships are fundamentally special. The the relationship that i have with my lady is fundamentally unrepeatable. Our relationship is fundamentally special, and to be shared only by us, because it is a relationship between two individuals. It is special, because it exists. I could not have the relationship that i have with her with anyone else because anyone else wouldn't be her, and the relationship would be necessarily different because the ingredients would be different. The same goes for any relationship between any number of people. Sex is something we do together, but it isn't the defining characteristic of the "specialness" of our relationship. I choose to have this relationship with her because it is wonderful. It makes me smile. I am with her because she is who she is, who she fucks is irrelevant because i didn't decide that she is a wonderful person based on whether she was fucking me and me alone.
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If my partner and I decided to bring in a third person, we would *obviously* love eachother more, and that other person would just be there to treat us. We would be objectifying the third person, or perhaps eachother, and I don't like reducing myself to others. You may feel empowered, and in control, but I think that all gets lost when you become a sexual object. I know I have the abilities to turn other people on or get into the possibilities of open relationships but for me, I wouldn't even consider that unless I was missing something, or was unsatisfied in any way. But instead, I am more self-confident than i've ever been about my body and have my own self-affirmation (instead of looking for affirmation from others). I feel empowered by being comfortable about myself, my body, and my looks and I get all that from being with my partner. I just can't imagine ever reaching a point where I would be unsatisfied and want to look outwards by opening up the relationship to other people. We are constantly changing, learning and growing with eachother and that's enough for us. We will never reach complacency. Like wilbjammin said, we value our intimacy and it is intimacy that gives our relationship value (among other things). Of course, I realize not everyone experiences that, so perhaps polyamorous relationships are justified in a fragmented society.
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If you think you would be objectifying a third person, then you would be. Objectification is a choice and not a fundamental ingredient in polyamory. Objectification happens all of the time in monogamous relationships. You said yourself that you feel "empowered by being comfortable about myself, my body, and my looks and I get all that from being with my partner". It seems to me that this is also a form of objectification, although instead of getting sex, you are getting empowerment. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with objectification as long as it is done with the understanding that all are willing participants.
As far as intimacy goes, monogamy is not a necessity for intimacy. Intimacy requires honesty, trust and respect. I understand that you find value in mongamy, but you must also understand that that value is assigned by you to monogamy and is completely arbitrary.