Dan and i taught a Polyamory workshop on Saturday and was sharing the tools from our book The Polyamory Toolkit that was just released at the beginning of February.
Well, we were talking about communication tools and how Dan communicates with his non-nesting partners. It’s easier for him and i to communicate about issues that might be bothering us because we live together. He was explaining that time has to be made to have those conversations even though it can be frustrating for some of the partners because it cuts into date time.
After listening to Dan for a little bit, someone asked me how my boyfriend and i handle arguments or not getting expectations met by the other partner. i shrugged my shoulders and looked at Dan in case he remembered something i didn’t, but i don’t remember me and my boyfriend having those types of issues.
i can remember expressing jealousy once when he started dating someone new, but we don’t argue over expectations because we don’t have many expectations of each other. We know we love each other, we stay in communication, we see each other when we can, we don’t stress about what is ‘equal’ or ‘fair’. Our relationship just ‘is’.
i don’t have expectations of him being anything other than what he is, or that our relationship should be anything other than what it is. And he does the same.
He doesn’t have to ‘show’ me he loves me. i ‘know’ he does.
If i’m not getting needs or wants met, i express them…..but that expression doesn’t turn into expectations. I don’t expect him to change. ……it will be my choice at some point to either accept our relationship as is, or look elsewhere or add to my relationships. Currently we each accept ‘as is’ and are having a great time enjoying ourselves with it. i mean, it should be fun, right?
That’s one of the positives of Poly.
i’m not sure if this makes sense to others…..but….knock on wood….in 5 1/2 years….we haven’t had to have those arguments. We are both accepting of the other and don’t place expectations on the other that can’t be fulfilled. We are off the relationship escalator and live in the moment with what is.
Anything else (wishing things were different) causes us to create our own suffering.
And this concept took a LONG time to figure out.
(i think my Buddhist Master/husband is wearing off on me 🙂 )
dawn
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