Your Daily Polyamory Blog for Navigating Life, Relationships, and More
As I’ve written many times before, I had a difficult transition into polyamory. I didn’t find non-monogamy to be easy.
Maybe for some people it is, but that’s not been my experience. Nor was it the reason I got into it in the first place, that it seemed like it would be easier. » Read more
I remember the first time I slept with someone who actually cared about my pleasure. The way they moved their hands over my body, the way they monitored my face to see if I liked what they were doing. The way they actually even asked what I liked.
It felt good, » Read more
“You know, Page,” she says. “Polyamory sounds so great in theory. It’s just…I can’t get past one thing: Even considering polyamory makes me feel so selfish.”
She brings up her own partner and says she imagines they might be uncomfortable with her having other lovers. She hasn’t asked them or anything, she says. » Read more
I’m sitting with my girlfriend Ro at a jazz club. The band tonight is incredible. They tell us they drove directly to Cleveland from New Orleans, their home base. A 16-hour drive. But listening to them, you’d never know. If this is what rolling off the tour bus and phoning it in sounds like, I can’t imagine what their peak performance would be. » Read more
“I’m always doing everything for everyone else,” she says. “And where does it get me?”
I’m taken aback. I’m not sure where this is coming from. She’s got good qualities, but she’s far from anybody’s whipping boy. If anything, she’s more selfish than most.
“To hell with what they think,” she says, » Read more
A reader made an excellent observation about my earlier piece “How to Know if You’re Selfish.”
I’m looking at your criterion for selfishness at the end and, to be honest, it feels incomplete.
Specifically, it leaves a very important case unclear: What if someone offers you something (that you didn’t ask for), » Read more
I recently stumbled across a post over at Esther Perel’s blog called “Relationship accountability and the rise of ghosting.” Post author Lindsay addresses consequences of the trend towards ambiguous entanglement and indirect and prolonged breakups and argues for more direct breakups, which they dub “power parting.”
It’s a good article with valid points and includes this chart that helpfully organizes the concepts. » Read more
I am a long-term recovering people pleaser. Growing up in a house with difficult family members, I learned quite young to set aside my own wants and needs for others.
This pattern followed me into my adult relationships. I shoved aside what I wanted and focused on what my partner needed. » Read more
Born with a Target on My Back
I wasn’t allowed to be particular.
Growing up, only two people in my family were allowed to be particular. One was my sister Alice. Her default state was disgust. Dismay.
Alice was nasty. Particular. And catered to. She was consulted first on where she wanted to go whenever the family went out to eat. » Read more
Empathy and Self-Control Are Linked
The Atlantic recently did an exciting piece on a new study by Alexander Soutschek of the University of Zurich. The results demonstrate that empathy and self-control both originate from the same area of the brain, suggesting a link between them. As Ed Yong of The Atlantic writes:
Press your right index finger to the top of your right ear, » Read more
