an existential keekah

A few weeks back, The Beautiful Kind asked me a question in response to my post about my break-up with N. I started to respond immediately, but then realized I was lacking the appropriate time and distance from my situation in order to respond as A Mon-Mon would respond.

TBK said:

I’m cleaning house this week on my blog and just went through and purged the Triad stories from my site. Made me think of you. Do you think the best model for poly is to have a primary partner, and date secondaries as they come, enjoying the time you have with them, but not expecting to form long term romantic relationships with them? That seems to be the style that works best for me. To me, poly is having the ability to to add romance or sex to the list of things you can do with your friends.

My gut reaction was to agree with TBK because J and I have found a way to be comfortable and secure in ourselves and each other, a way to work through the discomforts that sometimes come from an open relationship without letting it almost destroy what we have like we did when we dated K. But we can’t seem to make it work with outside people. The very thing that we took so long to build, this solid relationship, seems to be the one thing that feels threatening to those we are interested in. Still fresh from the breakup with N, which started out well but turned bitter and ugly quickly, well yeah I wanted to say, “Yes! I prefer the primary model and want only to date secondaries, knowing that those people will not be permanent fixtures in my life.”

But then I remembered that I don’t care for the terms primary and secondary when they are applied to real life people. It makes those people seem less important, almost throwaways without any rights. I just can’t sign off on that… especially when we both have other people in our lives who are really good friends and some of those are even lovers. People who might be viewed as secondary because they aren’t part of my primary relationship with J, who occupy the background for a variety of reasons but are hardly secondary to either of us. If they feel secondary, well that would suck as both J and I try so very hard not to put anyone in that spot. Yet neither of us has control of how people perceive what we offer, what we give and how we choose to look at love.

It is true that J and I are in fact primaries because we chose to share our lives together, our domicile is together and our money is pooled. We get along enough to occupy the same space and still strive to give each other the respect and autonomy each needs without losing the jointness of our lives. He’s a little bit better at that than me, but every year I grow a little more and appreciate the lessons this relationship teaches me.

It makes me sad to think that my relationship with J could be threatening to potential love interests – threatening for the very reason that J and I love each other so much. Apparently it is evident how much I adore the man and how much he returns that love by the look in his eyes. I feign annoyance but I guess people see right through me to the fact that I love Jeffery Zander very much.

What people fail to see is how much I would love to share my love for J with a special someone who can look past their own personal insecurities and focus instead on the faith I’ve found in our love. Maybe someday… but if not, well I will treasure what I have.

I got off track a little. But maybe not. Because for me polyamory is about sharing love. It’s about the ability to get past those insecurities that demand we be primary to our lovers, forsaking all others even when love might join more than two hearts. I don’t know if I will ever have a true polyamorous relationship and I don’t really care anymore. I just want to live life and enjoy what it sends my way. And if that means its just J and me, well then so be it. But I couldn’t ever subscribe personally to the primary/secondary model, though I respect that it works for some… like TBK a beautifully wild and sexy woman who’s found a Beast to honor her Goddess as she deserves.

I hope that answers your question, TBK, and I thank you for asking…