Toxic positivity. Freaking everywhere. I don’t even know where to begin to handle the problem. I hear a lot of people say, “If I did let my relationship become non monogamous, my partner would leave me.” A lot of people will tell them,
“No, no that’s not what ENM is about! That’s not what will happen.”
Except it probably will. At some point. With one of your partners.
I don’t want to pretend like making it easier for your partner to leave you won’t enable your partner to leave you. It makes it so much easier. I know people who have stayed in relationships, just because being single seemed too intimidating. Scary. Whatever. I’ve had times where I am sure people stayed with me, because they were more afraid of being alone. If they’d been able to start nurturing a second relationship, they might well have taken off the instant the first relationship got hard.
And I wish they had.
I had a time where “my” guy went to a party when I was sick. Came back with a new girl and no room for me. I expect casual partners to come and go, but the truth is I’m glad he left me. I prefer to find out sooner than later. I’m not interested in wasting time.
So, no, I’m not here to convince anyone that being left isn’t a likelihood. What I am here to say is:
It’s okay if they leave you.
Say that to yourself, over and over again.
The truth is you are better off “alone,” (by which I mean probably surrounded by a ton of love from your friends and family, but even without that, you’ve got SOMETHING in your life that connects you to something else) than you are with someone who doesn’t love you all that much. Who doesn’t actually want to be with you. Who just wants to be with someone. Is that really what you want for yourself? Someone seeking to fill a label?
It hurts to know the truth. You let em fly away, sure they will come back. Then they don’t. You’re told they should, you’re conditioned to believe they will. You feel like crap when you’re the (presumably) only one left in the dust. But when they stay? When they come back? God, there is no feeling in the entire multiverse that compares to how it feels to know that someone chooses to love you.
I don’t want someone staying with me for any reason than because they love me and they want to be with me.
My master could be with anyone he wants. He could have left me to preserve his old life (turns out that wasn’t worth much). He could have left me for a woman with five million dollars (it’s rather empowering to know I’m worth that much). He chose to be loyal. Chose. My munchkins chose to stay with me. One chose to abandon me. I won’t force anyone to stay. The munchkins’ biological mother did, and look where that got her. No, thank you.
I don’t want forced attachment love. The sort of love you feel with someone you’re desperately trying to trick into staying. It’s like living off 3D printed chocolate bars when you’re used to Belgium truffles. It tastes like sawdust. I don’t want any of that.
I listen to others’ stories.
My friend admitted her truth to her husband of ten years, knowing it might “ruin” the marriage (depending on your definition of ruined). It could have, too. But she had to know that her husband would love her, no matter what she said.
I think- if he hadn’t accepted her- she would have sacrificed her own basic needs and wants rather than split up her family (she is not the sort to steal her children from their father, which meant she’d have to give them up). Fortunately, he embraced her for everything she really was.
That was lucky.
You may not be so lucky. Honestly you probably won’t. Not because you are less lovable than my friend. Because that’s life. It probably won’t be easy, even if it “works.” It’ll probably be the most difficult challenge of your entire life.
…but it may just be worth it.