By Maria Padhila
If you’re polyamorous, would you ever get involved with someone who’s monogamous? If you’re monogamous, would you ever even consider a relationship with someone who is poly?
And when you encounter a relationship of such seeming opposites, do you think to yourself: How did that happen? How did it work out? And/or: How could they ‘put up with’ it?
Well, how does any relationship happen? And how do you ‘put up with’ anything the people you love do? You either love the things about them that make them different, or you shrug them off as annoying but ‘worth it’, or you can’t deal, and you leave.
But living in awareness requires self-monitoring of these kinds of emotions and thoughts, at every moment possible. What do you love, what can you live with, what is unacceptable, what is unacceptable today but might be rewarding tomorrow?
Models of romance and marriage don’t allow for this kind of ambiguity. It sounds cold, detached, unromantic. They say: Either you love him, every last thing about him, forever, or you don’t. Either you’re poly, or your mono. Either you truly care about me, or you still trade funny texts with your ex-girlfriend, you jerk. Eyes always on my face only, or you’re a low-down dirty cheating bastard sneaking glances at that woman’s chest. Yes, it tends to go in that direction, that kind of thinking.