I am very fond of visualizing the interactions of any two people that have any level of trust in one another as a kind of contract. Sometimes the contract is explicit, like when you have a talk with your partner about what would upset you and what you're ok with. Sometimes the terms of the contract are assumed, so while you never explicitly stated that "hooking up with someone else would not be ok with me" it is assumed. Certainly in our society this is an assumption operating within most relationships. Even within friendships there is a contract, with explicit or implicit terms. I agree with all the comments stressing how important the maintenance of this contract is. Trust is important. When you know someone is capable of lying to you solely for their benefit, it becomes difficult to justify investing more emotion into your relationship with them.
Here is where a distinction needs to be made. Within the comments there is a confluence of "feelings of jealousy" and the "breach in the contract." These are two different things. Being upset because your partner got involved with someone else and being upset because your partner lied to you about doing so, are two instances of distress with different sources and processes. It may seem like they are the same because they so often arrive together, but they are distinct.
Imagine you are in an open relationship with one main partner, where hooking up with others is acceptable as long as there is honest communication about what's going on, and the safety of everyone involved is prioritized. Let's say this weekend your partner has scheduled a date with someone new. You ok it, and they go out and have a great time. There has been no breach of the contract here, but you may still feel jealousy for reasons discussed in the original post. Most relationships do not work like this; monogamy is assumed and when you find out your partner has gone out with someone new, you feel jealous and upset over the breach in the contract. But clearly these are distinct reactions to different stimuli.
I think that reacting in this way to a breach in the contract is healthy and necessary. It may be adaptive to do this, just as it is adaptive to feel jealousy. Our relationships with others (ranging from the romantic to the platonic) are one of our greatest sources of happiness. To ensure that a relationship is mutually beneficial (which is to say, a continued source of happiness for those involved), the integrity of the contract must be maintained.
The questions "What is adaptive?" and "What is ethical?" have very different answers. The first question helps us to explain why people behave the way they do, but the second question helps us form a program for living wisely and humanely. Jealousy tempts us to think that because it satisfies the first, it also satisfies the second. Maintaining trust between you and your partner sometimes satisfies the first, but always satisfies the second.
Nice post! I meant to comment on the previous post on jealousy, but you’ve been faster ;)
ReplyDeleteI completely agree on the premise: trust is the base for any healthy relationship -mono, poly or open. Once this is established however, I do not really understand why the fear of being abandoned would remind. Either it is because trust is not total, or because rationality is not fully used.
So while trust is the desired effect, there are different degrees of trust. The trust we want here is a trust capable of exceeding our instinct - the fear of being abandoned.
In my opinion, such a trust can only build on 2 important premises to flourish (and is reinforced by time): communication and honesty.
Some people may say “I trust my partner 100%”, but in reality have no idea what is going on in their partner’s mind. In this case what is trusted is not really that nothing is wrong, but more so that as far as what they know, nothing is wrong. It is very different! That’s why most of us have this radar going on in the back of our minds, constantly checking on the smallest clue for a potential betrayal. “I saw this picture where you were hugging this guy!” is nothing else but your radar being on.
Open daily communication ensures that you actually know what is going on in your partner’s brain, without taboo. While it is “communication” to talk about what you had for lunch, it is not the information that matters to the well being of your partnership. Say for instance, to go back on an example that was used previously, that you met this person from the other sex that really attracts you and that you would like to spend more time getting to know them. Now this is the kind of information that should be communicated to your partner, without fear of his/her reaction nor fear that it will hurts their feelings. [You are not saying that you love them any less; you are simply stating that you also like someone else. If you are a normally constituted human being, this attraction for other people will most likely happen frequently, it’s the nature of things. I could expend on this for a while, but I’m getting side-tracked]. Now this is the kind of information that a loving partner would want to know about. It simply is intimate information about your needs and desires. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is the kind of information that most people communicate to their partners.
The other important premise is honesty: communication without honesty is nothing. It seems pretty obvious, but it is worth stating because being always honest takes a lot of daily practice and some discomfort. But that’s what gives your communication -however open- all its credit.
When honest open communication is in place, then we can talk about the type of trust that will exceed irrational fears of being abandoned. I think getting to that level of trust within your partner should be a daily goal for every party involved.
In order to go after a poly or open relationship, I think you both need the level of trust described above and a habit of assessing the importance of your feelings in a rational fashion.
Then you have enough strength in your relationship to overcome most irrational fears, and the deal becomes worth it; no “feeling lied to” left, no sense of violation because you know the contract, and you actually know what is going on. I think this is the ultimate romantic state, as controversial as it may seem.