Polygamy/Polyamory
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@Jim Eshelman said
"I think Takamba's post speaking about the nature of a truly OPEN relationship was wise, insightful, and overall excellent. I didn't take time in this thread to dig that deeply, and I'm really pleased that he did. I was negligent not saying so until now."
Awww shucks.
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@kasper81 said
"before I answer you I was once in an open relationship. It was hell on earth. Luckily I found a book about energy vampirism and chakra alignment and I unravelled what was going on."
If your relationship was dishonest (such as a manipulative, abusive power dynamic you allude to) then it wasn't an open relationship in the sense that Takamba described, or in the way the word "polyamory" implies.
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What I really like about your post, Takamba, was the implication that relationships and families can be about really supporting the members as they discover their own True Will side by side.
It would be interesting to compare the percentages of self described monogamous couples that (a) had non-monogamous thoughts or behaviors (having a crush on someone else, experiencing emotional intimacy with someone else, etc.) And (b) the percentage of couples who could communicate comfortably and openly about it.
I suspect that (a) is a lot bigger than (b); and I think that matters way more than the lifestyle choices the couples choose to make.
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@kasper81 said
"I was once in an open relationship. It was hell on earth. Luckily I found a book about energy vampirism and chakra alignment and I unravelled what was going on."
That may have applied to that particular situation. It would be a mistake to generalize that too much, though.
And most people have to LEARN to make an open relationship work. But that's not surprising, since most people have to learn to make any kind of relationship work.
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@kasper81 said
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@Takamba said
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@Faus said
"An important aspect of a relationship is the growth of intimacy in an almost “bhakti” way. The few cases of open relationships I saw where using the “opening” as a device to avoid deeper levels of intimacy, especially those that were somehow disturbing or unpleasant. I’ve also experienced the same tendency myself.Of course I do not believe that it is some sort of rule, but It would be interesting to hear how others have dealt with it."
My (ex)wife and I had an open relationship which was a thing I learned from a (Wiccan) couple I met in the 80s and both that couple's marriage and my marriage shared a great deal of intimacy if by intimacy you mean truthful, honest, heartfelt conversation and knowledge of each other's inner workings. I've gotten the impression that there's an old aeonic model that associates sex with debt, as in, since I have had sex with you, you owe me something in return. Sex is a mutual pleasure or it shouldn't be engaged in. Not only is that one of the debts incurred in old aeon models of love and relationship, but since I've given you privilege to my intimate nature, you cannot have that privilege anywhere but with me? Open relationships that are only focused on the sexual side of the openness and relationship concept have missed the point. Even non-sexually speaking, there are a great number of attractions and energies (not meaning new-agie "energies," but a transference of energies between people that generates excitement and motivation happens all the time) that an open marriage or open relationship is supposed to be designed to encourage.
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women and men in perfectly monogamous relationships flirt with their co-workers and have deep, intimate conversations with them, sharing their problems every day all over the world , by the millions. It is not sexual. is this what you mean by open relationships?
The amount of married women at work who have caressed me or hugged me and shared their personal problems you wouldn't believe"
No. That's not the definition of "open" unless they are just as willing to flirt with you in front of their spouses and their spouses recognize it for what it is, a very common behavior at work called "stress relief." An open relationship can be a monogamous or a polyamorous one. If, for instance, in your description of flirtatious women at work, they were to actually engage in a healthy lifestyle of being open in their relationship with their spouses, they could just as easily say, "Hey dear, let's role play... tonight I'm at work and you're Kasper" as well, perhaps, depending on their personal comfort level and their opinion of your maturity in this situation, take you to task.
The heart of the open relationship is in the word "open," as in "open and honest." Open means available to change, available to growth, available to options, available to truth, as well as all the usual expectations of trust and loyalty that come with being in a relationship. To be honest, Kasper, based on some of the things you've said about women and men and relationships from time to time, I'm not certain you have a lot of experience with trustworthiness in your life (not saying you lack it, I wouldn't know, but that you haven't come from a background that is open to it).
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@kasper81 said
"To tell you the truth I used to give a particular woman a regular massage in work and one day I was in her room where she was with other women. She was on the phone to her husband, telling him that I had given her a great massage. Another woman, who used to flirt with me said yeah that's her husband on the phone. It was difficicult trying to work out if they wanted him to come up, that they wanted to see me get beaten up by him or whether, as you say they had open attitudes"
That would be hard to determine with just some anecdotal report of that nature from you, congruency of a multiple number of indicators would be required but I'd begin with the friendly assumptions and see what comes from there. Another possibility you didn't mention is that some couples get off imagining other people being involved, or actually making other people be involved. A cuckolded situation is not necessarily an open situation, though relative to a strict and closed monogamy it is. There are all kinds out there.
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@kasper81 said
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and available to cuckolding?have i got this right? You're saying it's not just sexual , but you are not saying it isn't ever sexual?. No way round it when it becomes sexual and she has sex etc with another guy or he (me) with another woman ,it is "cuckolding"
"openess " "honesty" "growth" : yes dressed up and sophisticated ways of describing /hiding the term, "wife swapping" "husband swapping"?.
Let's take your "husband who is happy for wife to go alone to country dancing lessons" scenario. In fact no, let's reverse it. let's say the man wants to go country dancing, but she doesn't. He goes along he meets women and is "emotionally intimate" ie "open" and "giving" and "new aeon" with these women . (let's call a spade a spade, even though you are deadset against it, he is fuc.king them). Now, she, although vehemently open to it, never gets to be "emotionally intimate" with any man because they never find her attractive enough.
i'm now laughing as I type. Isn't that a bit of a disparity, to say the least? if our woman sticks around in that relationship,here she is either an idiot or insane
please enlighten me"
You can call it what you want. I was talking about your specific example of the woman on the phone with her husband. As far as you finding a woman who no man will ever find attractive enough, that sounds like your limitation. In your example, she obviously found at least one man already. Do you see how your lack of openness to the possibilities has formed your mind into a cage of its own? You can simultaneously invent a relationship between a man and a woman and the man is obviously "attractive" enough to develop more than one relationship and the woman is obviously "attractive" enough to have attracted him, yet you won't allow her to be attractive enough to imagine being with someone else? It really requires a great deal of mental health and emotional balance to maintain a healthy relationship, monogamous or plural. You seem a little short funded on the balance and self-worth portions if your default assumption puts others in that position also. As far as cuckolding, my definition of that is when the partners "get off" on the idea, not when they simply accept the idea, of another party being around and involved.
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Let me put it to you another way, Kasper - I find many of your definitions of things (in this thread and elsewhere) disempowering, demeaning, and deflating rather than empowering, encouraging, and inflating. You seem to come from a position that is inherently "better than" versus "lesser than" and I don't often linger there myself.
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@kasper81 said
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your boredom with monogamy? You won't discuss it. That makes me think you are avoiding something
"I never said I found boredom with anything, that's your assumption, I merely laid out an example and I answered you by explaining it as a common example given by pro-poly proponents. Thanks for the Manson Family youtube link but I'm not personally interested in using unbalanced individuals as sample. I gave you a Wiki resource earlier mostly because it has an Amazon resource link in it for you, I suggest you explore that before you think you know what I am talking about (I think I know what you are talking about and you are mistaken if that is what you think I am talking about).
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@kasper81 said
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you're confusing me now because this is my source
@Takamba said
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Let's look at the "logical" argument that is made for fostering an open relationship: There's no possible way I could satisfy every single need, desire, or interest of anyone that I myself would find interesting. That is, if I were the only interest you ever had and needed, I"d quickly bore of you. So let me encourage you, if you need the encouragement, to explore the world outside our bedroom.."
"This is your failure to understand what I wrote. The subject of that paragraph was (drum roll) "the 'logical' argument that is made..." I didn't say "this is my experience," I said "this is the logical argument that is made" and then gave it. The Manson family was not in an "open" relationship, they were dominated by Charles Manson in their cultish love for him. You seem to confuse truth with appearance of truth. I cannot help you with that.
[Edit] I will not respond further to your debate methods here on this subject until you acknowledge and correct this error.
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@kasper81 said
"you were talking objectively about the boredom BS?
if you're going to get silly then forget the debate
that's what you want anyway"
"Despise also all cowards; professional soldiers who dare not fight, but play; all fools despise!"
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Kasper, you aren't still using this thread to answer Mercurius' original inquiry, correct?
You've been doing nothing the last few posts but squabbling. Please:
(1) Find something new to contribute to the original question that started this thread.
(2) Find something new to learn on this topic.
or
(3) Move on to another topic.Brawling stops here.
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Yes, you contributed previously. I meant recently.
To give you a break, I'll go back to your last post and delete the barb you couldn't resist including.
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@kasper81 said
"what the {****} are you on about with that quote?
I find it hard to believe that you were talkng objectively with your initial "boredom" scenario example. Don't take that the wrong way. To help me understand openness could you tell me whether you think monongamy is boring or not?"
I'm not here to decide for another what is boring or not, but let me tell you what I have decided. I'm a hard relativist (philosophically speaking). That means I believe in a hard truth, one source of ethical reality. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I also believe in a relativistic interpretation or point of view of that hard truth, "Lover, if thou wilt, depart." In other words, do what thou hast determined is the right thing to do, and do not demand it of others. This makes me available to what I have here in this thread labelled an "open relationship." Monogamy for some may be exceptional, for others it may not be. I may choose to devote myself to one woman and she is still free to not devote herself to only me, and vice versa. There is not one rule that fits all situations. I think that's my main point I'm trying to get you to understand, every event is situational. We can only judge an event or a decision when we know all the factors involved in the situation. Since I am aware that in my own life I don't always know all the factors involved in a situation, I accept the freedom (to myself and to the other) that anything might happen.
My main point is that you seem rather rigid in your definitions/expectations/demands. I don't live that way (any more... meaning, yes, I once did, when I was young).
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I just want to chime in here with a point that occurred to me as I was reading. It seems that somewhere in this thread a negative moral judgement was being made about 'possessiveness', without people really realizing that it was a moral judgement. On the face of it then 'possessiveness' would seem to be the antithesis to freedom, liberty and the law of Thelema, but I think that ignores the true self of some individuals who Will it may be to be extremely possessive. Astrologically, I would cite Moon in Scorpio people (like my grandmother) as being constitutionally incapable of NOT being possessive with their partners, and while that may not work with some people who may find it restrictive and can resent it, the right partner for them can often find satisfaction, safety, security, and even tolerant amusement of their partners jealous and fiercely possessive streak.
My 85 year old grandparents have regular day carers these days. Special arrangements had to be made so that my grandfather only has male carers as there was hell on from my grandmother at the idea of another women attending to showers or taking him to the toilet, etc. And his reaction? A glint in his old blue eyes and a smile. He takes it as a confirmation that she loves him and it has always amused him. As far as I can see, their relationship - seeing that it is fulfilling their true natures for both of them (including her innate Scorpio moon possessiveness), is as Thelemic as any open relationship of whatever shape or form.
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@kasper81 said
"good point Alrah. I understand that your grandparents have found happiness there. Crowley said in the new aeon," women must teach men to give up this brainless desire to possess" (from The Confessions)which seems to be in line with what Takamba is espousing (hahah no pun intended) and that Crowley quote implies that possessiveness is a male trait, but yeah he got that wrong as women can kick off as well"
Indeed they can Kasp!
If it's a matter of simple cultural conditioning opposing the true will (of either gender), then that's a matter for the Work. But if it's a case where the individual is like that due to their natural inclinations of the Self - then to work against it is inappropriate and unhelpful.
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Is a good distinction to make. Learning to distinguish between behaviors that we do because they are in harmony with our core vs. ones we engage in because of social conditioning is important.
The presence of inconsistent actions, self sabotage, and inner turmoil can alert us to whether we're doing what works best for us, vs. what we think we should be doing because that's "what's done".
Generally, though, the vast majority of people fall into one relationship model, and fail miserably at it (see high rates of divorce and infidelity).
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@kasper81 said
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@Avshalom Binyamin said
"Generally, though, the vast majority of people fall into one relationship model, and fail miserably at it (see high rates of divorce and infidelity)."
whoa whoa *most * people don't get divorced do they? You think all open relationships are success stories?"
What you just said doesn't make sense to me. Avshalom seemed to suggest that most people fail to succeed, that's how I read his message. You seem confused. The actual statistics support that a marriage is a 50/50 proposition.
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@kasper81 said
"whoa whoa *most * people don't get divorced do they? You think all open relationships are success stories?"
About 50% of marriages end in formal divorce. (It's stayed around that number decades. In some areas, it is higher, in some lower.)
If those that do not end in divorce, well over half - some surveys indicate as high as 90%, some lower - have one or more occasions of infidelity by one or both people. (By definition of the word "infidelity," this means it is an act outside the agreed boundaries of that particular relationship.)
Of the 50% that stay married, I know of no statistics on how many consider themselves happy. Anecdotal evidence suggests that, after the early years, it is a small number, but not an insignificant number.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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At that point, I stop agreeing with you. At that point (if communication has been kept clean and open, and a pile of manure hasn't been allowed to accumulate unaddressed), the biochemistry responds much as in the beginning in the anticipation and actuality of seeing each other, but the cloud has lifted from the sanctuary, and love has deepened. Passionate, engaged, hot, connected, exploring love has widened and deepened.
."This. It took me seven years to see that I have this with someone and 7 years later, we find ourselves more hot for each other than ever. Though this time, both of us have taken breaks and even had full on relationships with other people. And equally disappointed - I thought we were spending saturday night together and I find myself crushed as if were our second date
I think if anyone is fortunate to have this level of intimacy - the kind that only occurs through ordeals with the other - then defining things as 'open' or non monogamous has a different meaning. Although my lady and I have not (yet) shared a bed with a third - we often fantasize about it and if something like that develops, it's more something her and I are participating in as a couple rather than having a third person share equal intimacy with us.
Someone said something regarding that intimacy develops a sort of 'bhakti' - devotional energy. That makes sense to me - her and I have discovered a new sense of being devoted to each other through many of our ordeals over the years.
Thanks for highlighting this Jim!