Where Is This Going?
Libby speaks about the Relationship Escalator, and talks about some ways she has found to step off it.
SHOW LINKS
Transcript
About five years ago, well I guess almost five and a half years ago now, I met my partner Tom, and I remember that I felt so totally in love with him. And I also already had two other partners. I had my spouse who I was living with and raising children with and sharing finances with. And I also had my other partner who I wasn't living with at the time, but we were really close and sharing a lot of wonderful things with each other. And now they, they do live with me and they're part of my family and, but the relationship and connection that Tom and I had was so powerful and intense and beautiful and I didn't have some niche for him or some role that he could fill. And when I met him, I wasn't even interested in dating men at the time. But, you know, we met, we connected, and I just knew that my heart needed him in my life and that this relationship needed to exist and that it was extremely important.
And it was, it was life changing. I have grown so much because of having Tom in my life my whole life. My other relationships, my character as a person is better because I know him. But at the end of the day, we also don't have a specific trajectory for our relationship. We just didn't know like, where is this going? I mean, we weren't gonna get married because we were both already married. We weren't gonna have kids together. We had more than enough kids between us. We weren't going to live together because the house that was needed to accommodate all of the humans in our ecosystem probably doesn't even exist. We had no place to go that followed a cultural script that could appropriately honor the amazing love that we felt for each other. And that was really hard.
I want to speak to this because I think a lot of non-monogamous people may have this experience where they have a depth of feeling and connection and intensity and importance and anchoring even with someone that they love, but they either can't or don't want to create the societally scripted structure with that person. So what we have to do today is we have to talk about the relationship escalator. So the relationship escalator, if you haven't heard of it, this is a concept that was created by Amy Garen who is an author and she wrote a book about it. And she also has a wonderful blog called solopoly.net. And I just think she puts voice to a lot of ideas that other people had not before she came along. So in a nutshell, the relationship escalator is the social script that a lot of us have about how romantic relationships are supposed to progress.
So the way a lot of us probably know the escalator when I describe it, you'll know it's you know, first you meet someone and you find out if you have romantic intentions. Then you find out if it's reciprocated, then you're dating, then maybe you're exclusive, then maybe you move in together. Then maybe you form some deeper enmesh. Then you start getting to know each other's families. Then maybe you form a long term commitment, either marriage or just a life partnership or emerging finances. Maybe you have children together. And the whole goal of the relationship escalator is to keep climbing it until one or both of you dies. That's the end. So before I start saying the problems with the relationship escalator, cause I wanna be clear, I don't think there's actually anything inherently like wrong about the relationship escalator. It's just tricky when you're non-monogamous.
But I wanted to, but before I talk about like problems with the relationship escalator, I wanna talk about what it gives us, because I don't think so many people would be riding this escalator if it wasn't serving us in some kind of way. So what does the escalator give us? It gives us a sense of security. I think these milestones on the escalator give us a clear understanding of where we stand with the people in our lives and the importance of the relationship that we're in. The escalator also gives us social recognition because this is a script that everybody knows. People outside the relationship are able to recognize the relationship for what it is based on where you are on it, what what milestone you're at. You know, a lot of people will ask if you're in a relationship with someone, like where is this going?
Are you gonna do this next? You're gonna do this next, et cetera, et cetera, Right? And social recognition is really important in relationships, and I'll talk about that a little bit more later. Another thing that the relationship escalator gives us is a sense of meaning and purpose for our relationships. A lot of the milestones on the escalator are really meaningful to our whole lives. Making a family, merging your assets and resources, sharing a household, creating sort of a shared culture with each other, sharing life goals, dreams, sharing your purpose with another person and having them really wrapped up in your life and you being really wrapped up in theirs, that can make everything you do feel deeper, more connected and just part of something larger than you. But of course there are problems with the relationship escalator too. The biggest one is not everyone wants to do these milestones.
And, and not even because they've already done them with someone else, but maybe they just flat out don't want them, period. Like some people really never wanna live with someone or they never wanna have children, or they never wanna share finances, or they really wanna maintain a certain amount of autonomy around their life goals and decisions. Some people don't want to have longevity of a relationship be the goal of the relationship or the determining factor of whether the relationship was good or not. And if they don't want those milestones, then what they can find is a struggle with like that relationship having any validity in the broader culture. Another problem with the relationship escalator, you, you can't do it with everyone. So, as I said, I'm married with kids. I did climb that relationship escalator with a partner. And we are, we've done it all.
We're at the as I think as much as we can do, I think, well, I mean there's probably more, but like, we're pretty, we're pretty involved. But I have other partners and I, I could attempt to climb to the top of the relationship escalator with every single one of them. And, and you know, I guess with one of them, I'm, I'm living with them. You know, they are in my kids' lives. We share resources, we cook food together. So there are a lot of ways where I have climbed the relationship escalator with more than one person. But the more people you try to climb that with, the more complicated things get and all the pieces might not fit together with all these different people. Like I feel very fortunate that with my partner care, we are able to work things out between me and my spouse and them, and, and it does work.
But that's, it's not easy. And for some people, like it's complicated enough climbing with one person. And really there is a, I do think a max out at the number of people you could climb their relationship escalator with. Another problem with the relationship escalator is, you know, our social conditioning around escalators might lead us to escalate our relationships just because that's what you're supposed to do without really examining whether that is an actual good fit for the type of relationship you're in for the people that you're in relationship with. You know, we're, we're taught that like the feelings that you have should be driving these major life decisions and so you escalate with that person. But like, just cuz you can escalate with someone doesn't mean you should. And in fact, you know, a relationship may not really be able to become what it's meant to be if it's being jammed into an escalator that escalator could become, rather than this tool that can really grow and honor and recognize the relationship could end up really limiting it and, and, and tarnishing it instead.
I hope it's clear from my summary here that the relationship escalator just can't be the only way that relationships are made meaningful and recognized as important because that's just gonna leave out a lot of relationships that are meaningful and important. But deciding to step off the relationship escalator can feel pretty scary because it leaves a lot of questions, questions like, where is this relationship going? What are we doing together here? Is there some kind of commitment that I can have from you? Who am I to you? Who are you to me? Where do we stand with each other? And if you don't have an answer to those questions for yourself or from the person you're in a relationship with, it can feel pretty insecure. And that insecurity combined with having your heart like swollen to a thousand times its size with love for somebody can feel pretty vulnerable.
So it can really help to find some words to describe to yourself and to describe to your partner and to describe to the other people around you who this person is for you. So now what I wanna do is I wanna talk about the ways that you might look for and try to create the definition of the relationship that you're in and to create that feeling of security and importance with someone that you love but can't climb the escalator with. The first one I wanna talk about is actually one that might surprise you. It's exclusivity. Now hear me out. Okay. Cuz you know, obviously if you are polyamorous you're like, what? Exclusivity. That's like the whole point of being polyamorous is that you're not exclusive. But, but hear me out. So I mean, yes, if you're monogamous, obviously exclusivity is a big thing that signifies the importance of another person in your life.
You know, specifically sexual exclusivity. But you know, for polyamorous people, by the very nature of how we do relationships, we don't do sexual exclusivity. However, non-monogamous and polyamorous people still do sometimes look for security and meaning through exclusivity. And I'm gonna give you some examples. You may have other partners, but maybe I'm the only one that you bring home to your parents for the holidays. Maybe I'm the only one you have kids with, or maybe I'm the only one that you live with. Or maybe I'm the only one you do. But stuff with or maybe I'm the only one you're allowed to have a DS relationship with, or I'm the only one that you take to that restaurant that we love so much. A, a familiar one that I have done a whole episode about the problems with is. I am the only penis-having person that you have sex with, or I'm the only vagina-having person that you have sex with.
And if you want to hear more about that, that is known as either the one penis policy or the one policy. And it is problematic. And there's an episode that I did on that called the one Penis policy. So you could check that out, you know, and people are quick to condemn the one penis policy because it is rooted in control, specifically when it's a penis. It's the men controlling the women and the kind of relationships that they can have. But I really wanna make the case that any kind of exclusivity like this, I'm the only one who can do this with you, is a kind of control. Now, there may be practical reasons why a person may choose to, you know, like only co-parent with one other person, but to say certain things are just off the table to do with other people is a form of controlling your partner.
And I not only think that's like not super honoring of a person's autonomy and it's not super respectful, I also just don't think it's functional. I don't think it really works because the things that you have to do relationally to retain that control to enforce those exclusive boundaries typically cause damage to your relationship such that you may feel secure, but it damages the connection. And I mean, sometimes you can end up with exclusivity just sort of incidentally like, this person just happens to be the only person that I do this thing with. It's not like a boundary or a requirement or a rule that we have that I can't do board game night with anybody but you. But the thing is, if that's something that you're really resting your security and the definition of the relationship all around, then you're vulnerable if that person does wanna do board game night with someone else.
So it's worth like taking a look and seeing, you know, maybe I'm not on the relationship escalator with someone, but am I resting my feelings of security on some form of exclusivity? And then if your answer is yes, what can you do? One of my biggest pieces of advice when you are focusing your attention on what your partner does or doesn't do with other people as compared to what they do or do not do with you, is to instead shift your focus back onto yourself and your relationship, just the relationship you have with the other person. And then look at the fears that you may be holding around them doing this other thing with someone else. What are the stories that you are telling yourself about what this exclusivity really means? Because a lot of times it's about specialness. We're looking for specialness through exclusivity and through that feeling of specialness, we're gonna feel safe and you know it, then there's the idea.
Well then if, if something is shared with someone else with more than one person, then it's not special anymore. And then I'm not special anymore. But what if you were gonna just revel in the specialness of what you create with your partner when you two do that thing or go to that place like, because that is special what it is like for the two of you to do the thing that's irreplaceable and I, and it's incomparable. So that's something to really celebrate and possibly make that thing like extra special between the two of you instead of trying to case that special thing that you do together inside a bubble and put a or put a wall around it to protect it. Imagine instead that you two are unique and incomparable artists and nobody else can create what the two of you can create together, even if they were to have the same materials to work with.
Leaning into that can help you let go of any fears you may have about what you might lose if you no longer have that exclusivity. Okay, second thing that people might try to use to define a relationship that's not on the escalator status as a sexual partner. Now, status as a sexual partner is different than exclusivity. You're not finding meaning and security by defining what you do with someone in relation to what other people are not able to do. But instead, you're just having access to a level of intimacy that is itself special. Like you may not be the only person that your partner has sex with but you might find some sense of importance in being one of the few people that your partner has sex with or vice versa. I realize this isn't true for everyone. Some of y'all are just fabulous mega sexuals or just huge and I love you for it.
But for a lot of people, even some of us that are in our hearts very slutty, there is usually still a limited number of people that we want to have sex with and that want to have sex with us. So being one of the chosen few may confer some sense of meaning and security and importance. But you know where I'm going with this, right? What if you or your partner are asexual and they like to have lots of sexual partners? Or what if you're asexual or a romantic and that just isn't how you form bonds with people? Or what if you're in a loving and committed and deeply beautiful relationship, but you stop having sex with each other, or you have a dry spell or something else? I mean, maybe that does mean that the relationship is no longer serving its purpose if what you were looking for was an additional sex partner, or it could be a sign that things just aren't working between the two of you.
But there are also all kinds of other reasons that sex might go away, but the relationship is still important. Sex might go away because of an injury or an illness or a medication change, or a mental shift or something traumatic or a change in your gender identity or just, there's so many things that can cause sex to go away. And that doesn't mean that that that that love is gone and that that connection isn't important and that you might not still be really invested in the relationship, but if the only way that you felt important enough to be valid as a couple was that you were having sex with each other, then that can be a real shaking of your foundations of security. And the problem with that is that then there becomes this possibility of there being pressure to be sexual with each other when maybe you don't feel like it or it's just not working.
And in my experience, I'll tell you, nothing makes a libido run away faster than the stress and pressure or fear that someone's gonna leave you if you don't get the fucking going on. So if status is a sexual partner is a major way that you know you matter to your partner, it's worth recognizing that that might also be a tenuous place to find security together. Now again, there's other statuses here, but I'm, I'm focusing on the sex one because I think it's important. And honestly, I have been through this and the antidote for me here has been to unpack the idea that sexual relationships have inherently more value than non-sexual relationships. This is yet another social script like the escalator, except this one is called Amatonormativity. So Amatonormativity was coined by writer Elizabeth Brink. And it's basically the idea that romantic and sexual relationships are the absolute pinnacle of all relationships.
They are the most important, they are the best, they are the highest priority. And I encourage you to check out that assumption and see if you are operating under it and ask yourself if it's serving you. For me, I found that Amatonormativity leads people to devalue other important relationships, not just romantic ones that aren't sexual, but also friendships and family relationships. And that may keep us from forming strong communal and family bonds and friend bonds and platonic bonds, et cetera. And so I don't, I don't much like it about normativity. I I think it's part of what pushes people to break off into these smaller nuclear family units that leaving us all feeling isolated from each other. And another common side effect of Amatonormativity is that if you're monogamous and in a lifetime partnership or marriage and you stop having sex, that might lead you to feel like you failed.
Or like your partner is betraying you by not having sex with you or that they don't love you. Or like your relationship needs to end or be fixed when maybe there's more possibilities available to you. Now, I realize that everybody's gonna feel the same way that I do about Amatonormativity. I mean, I am on the asexual spectrum, so of course I'm gonna feel like my relationships don't need to have sex in order to be important. And sex may be very, very important to your life depending on who you are and what your relationship to sex is. But even if where you land is that your sexual relationships are actually the most important relationships to you, I'd still spend some time unpacking the idea that that is what's also gonna create security in your relationships and just, I mean, just see what you find there.
Another way that you might look for security outside of an escalator dynamic is defining the role that you fill in your partner's life or the role that they fill in your life. And I think this one is really, really common. The thing I see in a lot of monogamous relationships opening up is that there is some unmet need in their original partnership. And so they're trying to get that need met elsewhere. And I don't wanna totally knock this approach because it's really important to say that it isn't a reasonable expectation for someone to be everything to you and to meet all of your needs. The problem with looking for other people to meet a specific need though is that it has the danger of commodifying people and making those relationships transactional instead of rooted in valuing the connection and the person as an end in and of themselves and these different roles that someone may be playing in your life that may be, that you may be filling in someone else's life may need to change over time as the people in those relationships change.
And, you know, people may not feel great about feeling like that the reason why they're in your life or the reason why you're in their life is because of this role that you fill. And then if you stop filling it, then you're disposable or you're gonna be discarded just because you're not meeting that particular need anymore. Also, you know, sometimes people don't want to relate to each other in just one dimension. They really want a more multi-dimensional relationship. So an example of what I'm talking about is, let's say there's a, a, you know, a couple and they are in a long-term partnership, but one of them discovers that they're kinky and they really want to have the kinky experience, but their partner just isn't, they're just not kinky or they're, they play a different role like maybe on the side of the slash like, maybe one of the partners is a switch and they wanna be able to explore their submissive side, but their partner is also submissive.
And so they need to, you know, go outside the relationship to find a partner to be their dom. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. But then, you know, once you've formed this relationship and you have this DS relationship, and maybe it's super hot and super great, but then what if something changes then that relationship, you know, I mean it might be that that relationship runs its course right and it's not gonna be serving you anymore. But do you see how also it's a little bit like, well, you can be in my life as long as you're willing to dominate me, but then if you're not, then whatever we have together, it's, it doesn't matter anymore, the things we might have shared together, the commitments we might have had, it, it really does kind of be, it can be commodifying and objectifying of that person.
And, you know, people I believe are whole people and deserve to be ends and of themselves. And also it can, it, you know, to go tying in with the feeling like you have to have sex in order to have the person in your life. You might feel pressured to continue to fulfill a particular role with somebody just to be able to continue to have that connection when maybe that role isn't really aligned with who you are anymore. So instead of having a need to meet or a role to fill and expecting a particular person or relationship to fill that, what I like to do is to describe the relationship as it is without any attachment to what it may be in the future. So instead of saying something like, This is my rope top partner, you might say, This is Avery. And one of the things we like to do together is rope.
I also love their sense of humor and we like to go out and eat ramen together after we do our rope play, which is a really important ritual that we have. I recognize this is a really subtle shift, but while I think defining relationships by what they do for you and creating the sense of security around that is problematic, I think it can be really nice and beautiful to describe the relationship. A tool I like for this is something called the relationship smorgasbord Now. So there are a lot of different versions of the relationship smorgasbord out there. If you go Googling the idea was created by relationship anarchists, but basically it's a, it's a grid or a bunch of bubbles on a piece of paper that have these different dimensions that a relationship might have, like collaboration, co-parenting, finances, and you know, you can go through this thing together and just circle the things that you do together and, you know, x out the things you don't want to do together. Maybe underline the things you might wanna do together someday, et cetera. Another thing I like about the Smorgasboard is that it can be a source of ideas for what you might want to do together that you might not have thought of. So I really love the smorgasbord and that will be linked in the show notes.
So here's another one. Here's the fourth thing that you might be using to create a sense of security in your relationships, which is consistent time. So what do I mean by that? This is a classic one, you guys, it is how big a slice of the time pie do I get from my partner? As I've said before, time is a finite resource. It's one of the three big finite resources that we have in our in our lives. We only have so much time we don't get anymore. And so it makes sense that we might feel a sense of security and importance by knowing how much time from our partners we are getting. And of course there's a problem with that. I always have a problem. Here's the problem. It can devolve into score keeping where you are keeping square of how much time you get versus how much time someone else gets and how much time you're not getting this week versus last week.
And that can just tear relationships apart. Time needs are often fluid and changing and they might not be consistent week to week, month to month, year to year, and not just because of other partners, although that certainly can happen where one partner might have an illness or an injury or a crisis or just might need more love and care and connection to water it appropriately at any given moment. And that might have nothing to do with the importance of you or another partner in that ecosystem. But available time can also shift because of a career change or a health status or kids or aging parents or just a need to invest in yourself. Time needs are necessarily fluid and changing. If we're going to be like autonomous individuals who are gonna get to choose the lives that we wanna create, we have to be able to own our time and use it appropriately rather than be caught in these rigid structures.
We need to be able to adjust the time that we're investing based on so many factors, not just necessarily because a new partner comes into the picture, although that can happen. But also, like one partner might have an illness or an injury or a crisis that might require more time and care or a relationship just might need more care and feeding in a given moment or a relationship might just need more care and feeding in a given moment. And that's not having anything to do with how important you might be or other partners might be in that dynamic. Just that might just be what's needed in that moment. Also available time can shift for so many other reasons like career, health, status kids, aging parents or other family members who need care or some personal project that gets you excited or a personal crisis that comes up, or just a need to invest in a particular direction that's serving you in a given moment.
And if there's all this pressure to devote a, a rigid amount of time to a particular relationship where it's just that important is really a a can be a real damper and a real major stressor. And like I said, I've just seen it tear so many relationships apart. There are just so many reasons why time can be a very unreliable barometer for meaning. And also like not every person even expresses the importance of the people in their life through the time they allocate. Like for some people quality time is not, is is, it just isn't a love language for them. So what do you do instead? Well, so I've spoken about this some already in my episode about intentional versus incidental time. But since I think comparing time as a losing strategy, the antidote is, is again, to go back and ask yourself, do I feel like I have enough time with the people I love?
And am I happy with the kind of time I am getting? And then separate the satisfaction that I have with the time that I have from the meaning that that may have for my partner. Then, you know, if you can let go of this feeling of like, I have an entitlement to a certain amount of time based on my importance in this person's life, you can instead have a conversation with your beloved about what you would like. If you need something to be different, if you really want like the kind of time you're spending together to change, to really acknowledge the relationship that you have, that's great. And then find out if that's possible. And then if it's not possible, figure out what else you could do instead. And I have some, some thoughts on that, but it's really important not to rest yourself too heavily on time.
I, I can't say that enough. Okay, so that's time. The next one of the ways in which you might try to create some definition for your relationship is social recognition. So social recognition is so important. I I just wanna acknowledge that it is a huge way to find meaning and security in your relationship, having other people be able to see, ah, yes, those two people are together. Ah, yes, they are in love. We can really understand ourselves when we see ourselves through the eyes of other people that we care about. And one of the things that the relationship escalator actually gives us is that social recognition because we can say we're on this milestone, that means we're this to each other and everybody can see that. And social recognition is something you can still create in a unes escalator relationship. And I think it's important to do it if you can, like posting pictures of you and your love on social media or going to gatherings or events as a couple or spending time as a couple with family or friends, et cetera.
But sometimes that social recognition isn't available. And you know this if you can't be out as polyamorous because that that really does rob you of access to social recognition. And while I'm a big proponent of being out, if you can be for some people, for many people it just isn't safe or it's just not feasible. And another place where social recognition can backfire in a non escalator, non-monogamous relationship is just because even if you do try to be out and explain yourself, people might just not get it or they just can't recognize it. Like they might actually undermine your feelings of security through their own lack of ability to recognize how you feel. This can be especially true if like family members or friends are rejecting of non monogamy altogether and thus won't recognize other partners, which can really, really hurt. And also it's giving those people like power over how you and your partner feel about each other and about your relationship.
So that can be really damaging. Another downside of social recognition, if you're feeling insecure about your relationship and you're looking for other people outside of it to sort of validate it, you know, if they don't like your partner or they they have their own like triggers around your relationship and they have negative things to say about it, that can actually give those outside people an undo amount of influence on how you feel about your partner. And when you're speaking to those people, you might end up betraying your own feelings about your partner in search of social capital or in search of acceptance from that other person. So it is a little bit loaded, it's not perfect. So what's the antidote here? So again, I wanna say it is really important to have social recognition of your relationships. I think that's really good to have your relationship be seen and acknowledged.
It really does help it feel more real. So I would look for those opportunities. But here's the catch. Make sure you're very careful about who you are looking to, to give you that validation. And if the person or people that you're looking to to give that to you can't or won't, or you know, you can't be out without a huge cost, then what you may need to do is to not look to those people for that recognition. And what I would do instead is possibly look to make some new connections with other people, possibly even with your partner. Like find those spaces where you can be seen together. You know, if you know you can't be out to your friends or to your family, it might be useful to seek some polyamorous community or, you know, go to your local swingers club or what have you, where you can be together and be seen and acknowledged.
Now I'd like to highlight here that what all of the strategies I've brought up so far have in common is that they are relying on consistency, rigidity, external forces to hold the relationship in a secure place. And that doesn't leave a lot of room for relationships to survive. Changes in circumstances or natural evolving and growing that happens in relationships, in in human beings in general. And a lot of relationships don't survive change sometimes. And that's okay. Some relationships aren't meant to last forever, and that doesn't mean that they were not worth having. However, if you do want to build a relationship that has a chance of lasting, these strategies may fail you if you rely on them alone to define what your relationship is. Now, I wanna tell you about how I have worked this out for myself and my partners. It was something that I had to talk to Tom about and we had many conversations about it.
And what we came to was that we see our relationship as a collaborative work of art. And truly that's how I see all of my relationships. What I see is that what we do together is like this palette of colors that we can paint with. And the work is always evolving because the materials we are using to create together may change the amount of time we have, the things we do together, the ways in which we're seen that's gonna change over time. And because there are so many things we can use to put together our art, planning a trip together, doing a creative endeavor, mutual care support, like sharing a regular meal, medical care support, taking someone to a doctor appointment, kids spending time together, forging your own relationships as a couple with other people in your lives connecting with Meta Moores, sharing errands together, supporting each other in your individual life goals, including other relationships you might have feeling informed about each other's lives.
Being on a short list of who gets to know about the news of your life, having responsibilities like power of attorney or making medical decisions for your partner if they're incapacitated, sharing important experiences together, being there for the birth of a child or another major milestone in your family, knowing other family members, having mutual friends, sharing holidays. All of these things are colors you can paint with together or materials you can sculpt with together. And one of the most essential parts of this artistic endeavor is the other artist or artists that you are collaborating with. Just them, just you cherishing them for themselves and them cherishing you for you. I have to say the place where I feel the most secure in my relationships is when there's nothing in particular I have to do or be except for me being in this person's life and knowing that that is enriching and that they are enriching mine.
Knowing that someone is celebrating you and reveling in you without an agenda or a direction that you have to go or an escalator to climb because it's not about any external structure or any rigid requirements, but instead the internal ongoing creation and recreation of the relationship, the practices you create together, the energy you have when you're in the same space, the way you look at each other, the way you show up for each other, what you bring out in each other, and the acceptance of how any of this could change. And yes, in that fluidity, there is a tremendous amount of vulnerability, but I wanna invite you to think about the all of these things as the internal skeleton of the partnership you're creating. The way in which you stay in connection, the way you listen, the way you are in that cycle of harmony and disharmony and repair and supporting each other and allowing yourself to be truly seen and seeing the other, and just holding each other through this whackadoodle thing we call life.
Your relationship can be a truly creative expression of who you both are and the alchemy that happens when the two of you are together. And while one of the results may be that you create some structures that hold time and space and practices and social status, et cetera together, there also needs to be an acceptance that that can and probably will change. Not everything can be permanent and you know, some creations can't continue in the form that they once we're in, but it's like that song that Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong sang, The way you wear your hat, the way you sip your tea, the memory of all that, No, no, they can't take that away from me. No, they can't take that away from me.
So to recap, if you're polyamorous or some form of non-normative relationship style or, or even if you're not looking to structures that are mononormative or amatonormative culture asks us to use to create meaning in your relationships might not work and instead may set you up for greater insecurity. Stepping off the relationship escalator is great. The relationship smorgasbord is cool too, but it's also worth looking beyond just the way you meet each other's needs or milestones that you achieve together. But think about really what you create together, including just holding your relationship as its own unique piece of art. When you find yourself asking where is this going? Consider stepping back and asking these two questions instead, what are we when we are together and what do we wanna create with that?
