My love is not a prison

It is here we will begin to navigate tricky waters, where some of you will cringe and say " that's not for me, I just couldn't share". 

Hear me out though, as there will be information in here that could benefit a monogamous  relationship too.

Our cultural expectations after we find "the one" go something like this:
▪ You're mine and I am yours
▪ You are the only person I should ever need
▪ I will never again be attracted to anyone else and you'd better not be either!
▪ I will not share you

All of these sentiments whilst at the start sound nice and romantic after awhile can settle out to what I call "ownership love".  And rather than two people earnestly making an effort for a lifetime to meet each other's needs,  the relationship is at risk of morphing into something more like a set of restrictions and unfulfilled needs.

This is not really love. It's ownership. Our traditional marriage customs and marriage vows unfortunately reinforce the concept of ownership. Of course love exists alongside this but we do tend to inaccurately equate the two. Levels of jealousy are also often falsely heralded as a measure of love but I will devote an entire post to this soon.

So, if the opposite of being owned is being free what does this mean for relationships?
A very wise man called Kenneth Kailey taught me from his Native American culture that everyone is free to walk their own path and are responsible for their own choices. As people come and go they may share our path for a time but ultimately the factors keeping them there should be entirely their own choices.

I learn from this to enjoy my time with the people who are alongside me and love them in a way that leaves them feeling free. Knowing that they choose to be with me leaves me feeling way more special than feeling like they are only there because they took vows and made promises that they have to steel themselves to keep.

This is what I mean when I say I love you :
☆ I want you to have whatever makes you happy, even if that is not me,
☆ I love it when other people also love you because it means that they are seeing you like I do
☆ I don't want to control you
☆ I'm not jealous when you spent time with others and I'm especially happy if you are getting a need  fulfilled that is important to you
☆ I will accept any decisions you make about your life and your path
☆ You are free.
☆ My love is not a prison

Naturally as we give this type of love we will want to be receiving it too, in our love relationships, our  friendships and our families.  This type of " non ownership" love can be applied across all relationships. I will be devoting an entire post to family relationships soon.

So, what happens when love becomes about freedom and not obligation? 
The answer is a very powerful, very committed and very secure love.
And love will be multiplied!
The more we love in a healthy way and the more people we love the greater our capacity to love becomes. 

In my last post I spoke about fear. Non ownership love can eliminate fear, because fear of loss is rooted in the concept of possession.

The practice of non ownership love is essential to successful polyamory but it is not exclusive to poly either. Monogamous relationships would be greatly enhanced if we lifted our cages and let go of fear.
In fact I'll leave you with a little advice - if you are thinking about opening up your current relationship  to polyamory, start practicing this type of love well in advance before involving other people. It does take a bit of practice as it is a vastly different way of thinking to the social conventions we have been taught.

Fear not

As much as polyamory is about a life filled with  lots of people I have discovered that the most important person in this life needs to be yourself. I don't mean this in a selfish or narcissistic way, rather the need for a deep self awareness of the person you are bringing to these relationships.
I used to be full of fear, literally terrified that every time my first husband left the house that he might die in a car accident or something and not come home. I honestly believed I couldn't live without him. I mistook this for a very deep love. I did love him but this level borders more on obsession and it was very unhealthy. Looking back on it I'm pretty sure this fear strangled the life out of our relationship. Nothing kills love like being "clung to" and eventually he left me.
What happened next was that I discovered that not only could I live without him but that I could be happy again.
This was a valuable lesson for me and I will never again believe that I can't live without someone,  no matter how amazing they are.
We get set up by the societal expectation that one person will be everything to us and if we find "the one" we will never want for anything again. It's quite natural, if this was indeed true, that once we found this person we would be afraid of losing them.
The Star Wars character Yoda has several quotes about fear, the most famous being "fear leads to anger..anger leads to hate..hate leads to suffering"
This is so true. When we operate from a place of fear we suffer,  and so do the people we love as we project all our insecurities and jealousies onto them and expect them to fix us. The responsibility of proving they love us enough is dumped on them and they lose their freedom to express love the way that they naturally want to.
Before entering into polyamorous relationships we need to ask ourselves if we can live without them. This might seem counterintuitive but there will most certainly  be times when we are not the centre of attention and we need to be prepared for that. Jealousy and insecurity are bi-products of fear and they make life very uncomfortable, putting pressure on our partners and their partners.
Funnily enough when your partners are just free to love (without them feeling like they have holes to patch ) that love can be so very powerful.
I haven't spoken much about my faith yet, but I believe that God is the perfect example of love.
1 John 4:18 says " There is no fear in love,  but perfect love casts out fear"
Imagine a world like this!  I do believe it's possible!!!

Where do I start?

I wish I had started blogging at the beginning of this journey because now I'm  faced with the question " do I tell the story in the order it unfolded or by the importance that the conclusions are to me now". I'm thinking the latter.

Our white Australian culture has some preset notions that set us all up to aspire to things that are rarely possible:

• Family is everything, blood is thicker than water, if your family can't love you who will? 
• You must find "the one" perfect mate to save you and you will live happily ever after, 
• Your friends must BFF ( best friends forever) or it just isn't real! 

Just the name a few...

All of these are contingent on a "set and forget" mentality. You are expected to make a choice ( or in the case of family you don't even get to make a choice) and then quite literally expect that whatever, or whom ever you have chosen will last for the rest of your life. You a actually hear people use the phrase "set for life". 

This does not allow us to change, to grow, or to reassess anywhere nearly as much as we should be doing to live a happy life. 

I have come to believe that my happiness is my responsibility. My choices directly impact upon this and it is not up to anyone else to "make me happy". Nor should I sit around wishing for something to  change. If i want something to change I need to make it change! 

You might be wondering what this all has to do with polyamory. Trust me, before you even consider multiple relationships you need to fully understand that you are the author of your own story, and that the path you are on in your own choice.  Issues like insecurity and jealousy will all need to be handled internally and you will no longer expect people to "make you feel better", 

Of course all these principals can and should be applied to other relationships (including monogamy) but to navigate the wonderful world of poly they are a must!