THOUGHTS ON THAT TWITTER THREAD before I get any further (since you said things don't quite sit right)
5. Conflating "policing what someone is allowed to feel" with "monogamy" is some bullshit; people are (on this topic as so many others) allowed to feel whatever they feel; "monogamy" is an agreement to a particular set of behaviours, and does not inherently involve anything about What Feelings Are Permissible.
6. No, your partner doesn't owe you anything simply because they're your partner, but at the point at which fidelity has been agreed e.g. they... owe you EITHER honouring that agreement OR signalling, clearly and unambiguously, that they are no longer going to do so. (This is important because of e.g. knock-on effects on the ability to give informed consent.) My partner doesn't owe me shit, and also it's actually okay for me to want their actions to coincide with their stated intentions.
7ish. I think there's also some conflation of ideas around, mm, the ability to grant permission vs negotiation. I don't get to dictate to my partners where they spend their time and energy; however, a relationship in which I don't get to ask how much time and energy they're intending to spend on me, so I can budget reciprocally, is not a relationship that's going to work for me. "In order for outlay of effort/emotional energy/etc to be sustainable for me in ways XYZ, I would need ABC from you. Are those things you're willing to do/provide? If not, what do you want this to look like?" isn't inherently dictatorial or bad or wrong.
10. No, actually, my partner getting another partner doesn't necessarily "add to" my relationship with them. Unless we're treating "increased risk of being lied to" and "reduced emotional intimacy" as "additions", which I'm not inclined to. (Specifically: at the point at which A & I both started dating someone else, who'd been a longstanding if occasionally fraught friend of mine, A's willingness to act as a sounding board about my feelings about said third party abruptly evaporated. This is fair! It's reasonable! But he's somebody I trust to help me sort through things, who prior to that point had been willing to help me sort through this manner of thing, and I categorically do not view the abrupt absence as "an addition". Similarly, histories of trauma mean that A is... genuinely most likely to substantively fuck up communication with me, up to and including lying in response to a direct yes-or-no question though that's only happened once and we sorted it out, where said communications relate to his interactions with other partners. Again, I am... struggling to see how "actively fucks up communications" constitutes an implied-positive "addition" to my relationship.)
I think there are good points! And I think the follow-up thread gets a bit into some of the issues I'm raising above. I just also think some of them don't... quite land.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2019-02-25 12:22 pm (UTC)5. Conflating "policing what someone is allowed to feel" with "monogamy" is some bullshit; people are (on this topic as so many others) allowed to feel whatever they feel; "monogamy" is an agreement to a particular set of behaviours, and does not inherently involve anything about What Feelings Are Permissible.
6. No, your partner doesn't owe you anything simply because they're your partner, but at the point at which fidelity has been agreed e.g. they... owe you EITHER honouring that agreement OR signalling, clearly and unambiguously, that they are no longer going to do so. (This is important because of e.g. knock-on effects on the ability to give informed consent.) My partner doesn't owe me shit, and also it's actually okay for me to want their actions to coincide with their stated intentions.
7ish. I think there's also some conflation of ideas around, mm, the ability to grant permission vs negotiation. I don't get to dictate to my partners where they spend their time and energy; however, a relationship in which I don't get to ask how much time and energy they're intending to spend on me, so I can budget reciprocally, is not a relationship that's going to work for me. "In order for outlay of effort/emotional energy/etc to be sustainable for me in ways XYZ, I would need ABC from you. Are those things you're willing to do/provide? If not, what do you want this to look like?" isn't inherently dictatorial or bad or wrong.
10. No, actually, my partner getting another partner doesn't necessarily "add to" my relationship with them. Unless we're treating "increased risk of being lied to" and "reduced emotional intimacy" as "additions", which I'm not inclined to. (Specifically: at the point at which A & I both started dating someone else, who'd been a longstanding if occasionally fraught friend of mine, A's willingness to act as a sounding board about my feelings about said third party abruptly evaporated. This is fair! It's reasonable! But he's somebody I trust to help me sort through things, who prior to that point had been willing to help me sort through this manner of thing, and I categorically do not view the abrupt absence as "an addition". Similarly, histories of trauma mean that A is... genuinely most likely to substantively fuck up communication with me, up to and including lying in response to a direct yes-or-no question though that's only happened once and we sorted it out, where said communications relate to his interactions with other partners. Again, I am... struggling to see how "actively fucks up communications" constitutes an implied-positive "addition" to my relationship.)
I think there are good points! And I think the follow-up thread gets a bit into some of the issues I'm raising above. I just also think some of them don't... quite land.