Let's Eat Cake!

I’ve been reading lately about the “secondary perspective,” or the point of view of the non-primary partner(s) in an open relationship.

Often times, the primary people in an open relationship get so caught up in “their rights,” and focusing on their own needs, that they often don’t pay enough attention to the other people in their partner’s lives.  Here are a couple of excerpts from a blog I was reading that gave me a little different perspective. 

 I’m almost terrified of being the new person entering an established relationship. I’ve met and connected well with one partner, but have yet to meet the other. Will she like me? Will she be jealous? Will she and I hit it off amazingly well? It’s a big step for all involved.

I was the new person. The “fun one” for a while. And yes, resentment built. And yes, it was rocky and ouchy and very not fun. The long and short of it — He & I had more hobbies in common, and his wife saw that as me being “the fun one”. Much fighting, crying and therapy later, we’re working it out. But let me say, from this perspective, this is a really crappy place to be. You sit there, as they fight and inside your head is spinning “is this really b/c of me? Did I do/not do something to that made this marriage so wobbly?” and so on and so forth.

Whew.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to step out of my position in the relationship and look at what the other person might be feeling.  Sometimes the word “Girlfriend” or “Boyfriend” is such a scary shadow, like this looming possible threat to a primary relationship, it’s easy to forget that there is a living, breathing, complicated human being behind the title, and they deserve equal respect and recognition as a vital part of the relationship.

This isn’t always easy.  Regardless of how logical we can be, and how we both know that being open is what we truly want, and the good definitely outweighs the bad, it’s still hard sometimes.  Of course it is!  We’re human, and are functioning humans, complete with jealousy, insecurity and fear.

There’s this word that’s used a lot in the poly community, and it’s a word that irritates me:  Compersion.  This is the act of being happy for someone simply because they are happy.  It’s supposed to override jealousy and feelings of being left out, and many people strive for it in their open relationship.  To be completely honest, I’m happy just to be able to handle jealousy as well as I do (which isn’t that well!), and get through every day knowing that my partner and I are pursuing the kind of relationship we want to have, even if it sometimes seems like a horribly daunting task.  Finding inner joy because my partner’s face lights up when he goes on a date?  Sorry, that ain’t me.

I am, however, capable of recognizing the joy my partner feels with the other people in his life, not only because I feel it in my own relationship, but because the people he chooses to share his heart with are good people.  It takes an incredibly selfless person to be a non-primary partner in a relationship.  The person you love isn’t always going to be available to you when you need them.  There are certain restrictions on your relationship, and after several years of being together, that may not seem quite fair.  Then there’s the torture of wanting more with your boyfriend/girlfriend, like “next step”-itis.  You’ve been with someone for a long time and you begin to get feelings of nesting, of living with that person.  These things aren’t really possible if the person you’re in love with lives with or is married to someone else (except in those truly remarkable cases where everyone lives together).  I know I feel these things at times, and I can’t imagine being on the other end, where you have to feel these things and go home alone. 

I find it truly remarkable, the capabilites of the selfless heart.