Relationships collide

[vaneramos]

I received a strange phone call from a close friend this morning. His relationship has had some problems, but I thought things had improved in the past couple of years. Apparently not.

He called because this morning his partner walked into his office and saw a photo of a strange man on his computer and asked who it was. My friend lied: "It's Van's new boyfriend."

Nobody will believe this. He plans to come clean today, but meanwhile he was afraid his partner would email me about it. In fact the partner has done so, even as I write this. I told my friend I wouldn't lie for him, but he didn't expect me to. It was a gushing, pathetic phone call. By turning to me as a confidant he tried to make me feel better about being drawn into his problem. Unfortunately, there seems to be more to the story, which I haven't heard yet.

What bothered me most was his disregard for my relationship with Danny. When I told him, "You have already met my boyfriend," he pointed out that Danny has a partner, and started questioning my motives.

In fact, I have never called Danny my boyfriend (I only said it to make a point). This is a new kind of relationship for both of us (my first important one since I started to identify as polyamorous), but it's only my third romantic relationship with a guy that has lasted more than three months. I'm usually plagued with confusion about my feelings, but not about this sweet man. I'm happy and comfortable around him. He is gentle and kind, and brings out qualities I like in myself. I miss him, without feeling lost while we're apart. I adore him. It's that simple.

What's more, the important people in Danny's life are more than supportive. We have nothing to hide.

I only wish my people showed as much understanding.

The friend I spoke with this morning has not been happy in his relationship for several years. He has been going to bathhouses and now, it seems, having an online romance, and lying about it to his partner. I don't blame him for that. He isn't getting the kind of attention he wants. They have big problems to work out, with hurt on both sides, and I will try to be there for them.

But while his love life is troubled and dishonest, he is in no position to discount my choice of relationship. It reminds me of the Ogden Nash poem:

Cuckoos lead Bohemian lives,
They fail as husbands and as wives,
Therefore they cynically disparage
Everybody else’s marriage.

But is this cynicism or jealousy?

Comments

mixed salad

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

It's just shit-hits-the-fan day chez your friend ... I feel for him, we all fuck up from time to time. I think I'd try to see it not as a real attack or challenge of any kind (he's prob not thinking clearly enough to do that) but a way for him to silence for a moment the screaming that must be going on in his head. One of the biggest problems with that kind of reified monogamy is that it's an all-or-nothing structure: forgiveness and the expectation of coping with change are not built into it, once you fuck around, BLAM you've broken it. Brittle. So he's probably expecting to lose everything in one fell swoop. And also it sounds like an "I'll give you this if you'll give up that" deal, if he needs sex and isn't getting it - not a particularly compassionate partnership - so he might not have a lot of practise in really putting himself in other people's shoes.

Anyway, we love you and approve of how you're behaving.

Re: mixed salad

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Fortunately their situation isn't quite that dire. The relationship hasn't been explicitly monogamous since the shit first hit the fan several years ago, and a breakup is not imminent. That's why I thought they had worked it out, but apparently they still suffer from a lack of respect, communication and happiness about their sex life, which I won't begin to analyze.

Ironically, they regard my romantic transience as mildly pathetic, and often joke about it.

Re: mixed salad

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd want to pal around with people who viewed me as pathetic, or as an okay butt-of-jokes. It's one thing to laugh with someone, something else entirely to laugh at them. *frown*

Re: mixed salad

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I may have painted the picture darker than it really is. These negatives must be taken in the context of a rich relationship, in which the positives are far more numerous. For several years these two men were my only close friends, and I still consider them the beginning of my chosen family. They were far more accepting of me than many important people in my life. It's a relative thing.

Re: mixed salad

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Some people can't or won't understand. Some people will feel threatened. And some people will try to bolster confidence in their own relationships, values, morals and skills by deriding, criticising and dismissing yours.

*hugs*

Re: mixed salad

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I realize that the teasing and ribbing reflects their own unresolved issues and insecurities.

Thanks. :-)

Re: mixed salad

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

When relationships started being about mutual respect and affection they became fragile. When you involve yourself with someone for sound financial or political or business reasons, those reasons don't go away if you stop loving them. When it's about love, you have to expect that sometimes things happen and you fall out of love. The main problem is that we have been standing at an in-between place for the last century: we believe in the idea of a relationship based on mutual love and regard, but we attach to that relationship all the socio-cultural, familial, religious, and financial baggage that rightly belongs with arranged marriages, which exist, last, and thrive for reasons that have little or nothing to do with affection of any kind. The reified monogamy you speak of, I believe, is a symptom of our culture's uneasy compromise between old and new--a friend of mine calls it the "Procrustean double bed".

Re: mixed salad

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's about as succint and clearly-thought a statement of the stuation as I've ever read :)

I should add that I see nothing wrong with monogamy (temp or long-term) per se, just when it damages people. Whatever you do involves costs and compromises.

Re: mixed salad

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you for putting this so well.

untitled

[dubious-one.livejournal.com]

I'm usually plagued with confusion about my feelings, but not about this sweet man. I'm happy and comfortable around him. He is gentle and kind, and brings out qualities I like in myself. I miss him, without feeling lost while we're apart. I adore him. It's that simple.

wow. you sound like me. it's too bad titles can get mixed up and/or in the way of just plain old feelings. life would be a lot simplier (for me) if labels didn't have to justify or be the product of relationships.

Re: untitled

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Titles embody expectations. In this case I started with none and still have very few. Expectations get in the way of feelings.

hugs to you Van and kind thoughts to your friends

[djjo.livejournal.com]

I am hoping that they can work through this. It sounds like it won't break them, but the strain isn't going to help much.

Big hugs and thinking of you, Danny

Re: hugs to you Van and kind thoughts to your friends

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm disappointed that things are not what they seem, but it sounds like they are talking things through.

Several big smooches, Van

[jaique.livejournal.com]

It's really quite amazing that it's been so many eons since we crawled out of the primeval slime and still haven't got the sexual thing knocked.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I also might find it amusing, if I were further removed from the situation.

[twillhead.livejournal.com]

Wow Van, this sounds like quite a situation. I have nothing to add nor advice to give that hasn't already been posted -- just wanted you to know I am empathic to your position. My relationship with David was declared "open" from the beginning, mainly because I thought it was my best hope of holding on to him, but also because we both recognized that gay relationships are inherently different from straight ones. That we remained monogamous until the day David died was, I believe, precisely because we did not place that constraint upon each other.

Anyway, tight hugs to you.