I’ve been slow in answering letters lately. I’ve got lots of material for lots of columns and I’m noticing a pattern.
Lack of love.
So much of the advice I give is crap unless you proceed from the assumption that all partners love each other. And cupcake, I ain’t talkin’ here about hormonal carbonation, nor am I talkin’ any of that soul mates shit, or any other frou-frou nonsense that movies and songs pass off as love.
I’m talking about the blood and bone of love. I’m talking about the kind of love that gets you up in the middle of the night to clean up after a sick child. I’m talking about the kind of love that gets you ruthlessly examining how you treat your partner and owning your mistakes (we all make ’em). I’m talking about a deep and profound commitment to knowing partners down into their bones and still having a commitment to being available to them for their growth and welfare.
Love in this context can’t work one way, though. That’s the tragic rub. Sometimes I do give advice to DTMFA, and that’s because in the letters, if I see any love at all (and more often I see hormonal carbonation) it’s one way.
For poly to work, the love’s gotta be real, friends, and it’s gotta be real all the way around. Partners have to love each other, really no kidding, or it can’t possibly work.
one-way love. yeah, that’s a doozy.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. My secondary partner (she also has a primary) has seen me through thick and thin. She has been there through both my surgeries, I’ve been there through her job hunts. I love her as much as I love my primary, just in a different way. Love has to be present, otherwise there is no reason to keep going, it just makes everyone involved tired.
This post really made an impact on me. Thank you.
I’m coming at it from a different angle, though, as there’s someone in my life (for a couple years, now) who loves me and who I love, deeply, in all the way you describe, and we can (and do) talk about EVERYTHING; but on my part there’s always been a lack of “hormonal carbonation”.
I have grown to be reasonably attracted to him, but I just don’t get flooded with oxytocin/swooning adoration/etc in the way that I associate with being “in love”. I have had long-term partners who I had those kinds of feelings for, from the beginning and lasting the length of the relationship (2 years or longer). Those relationships were also dysfunctional and there was constant arguing, ongoing misunderstanding, and viciousness on their part; none of which is an issue with the person in question.
I’m curious what other people have made of similar situations, and what conclusions they came to about them.
Well, that’s why I think love has more to do with commitment, action and behavior than any actual emotions. Emotions are fleeting, after all.