Yesterday, I posted a tongue-in-cheek collaboration between a couple of snarky, but very wise men who were expressing concerns about how secondaries are often treated.\u00a0 Is it funny?\u00a0 Yes. Will it make some people cry because it was true for them?\u00a0 Sadly, yes.<\/p>\n
This is not to say that a secondary relationship is automatically bad.\u00a0 It is a sad and painful truth that secondary relationships are often treated as disposable or experiments by newly-poly couples.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n While I don\u2019t label my relationships according to a hierarchical standard, the reality is you could<\/em> label some of my relationships as secondaries.[2]<\/a> I don\u2019t feel in the least disposable to them.\u00a0 I\u2019m free to express concerns, ask for time, laugh, play, weep, and any of the other things one does in a human relationship without being treated as if my concerns or needs aren\u2019t important, or that if I\u2019m \u201cinconvenient\u201d I\u2019ll be disposed of!<\/p>\n So, if you are in a secondary relationship, you do have the right to ask for what you want.\u00a0 You have the right to express concerns.\u00a0 You have the right and responsibility to own your own feelings.\u00a0 You\u2019re not the caretaker of anyone else\u2019s feelings.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n So, even though there is this snark going on in the poly community about being a secondary to a couple, keep in mind that it\u2019s not that being a secondary is bad.<\/p>\n It\u2019s being treated as a disposable thing<\/strong> that\u2019s bad.<\/p>\n And we all know that sin begins with treating people as things, boys and girls, don\u2019t we?<\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> At least, it seems more common among the newly-poly.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that old-timers are never guilty of this.<\/p>\n