I and my partner sat down as very earnest 16 year olds (23.5 years ago and yes we’re still together) because we both agreed we were annoyed by unexamined defaults inherited from society and upbringing. We said we were fine with being monogamous if after careful consideration we decided we wanted it, but we didn’t want to just drift into it.
Thus we sat down and spent quite some time cataloging what we thought monogamy would provide us, and how much we valued those things. Week after week we seemed to keep coming back to the conclusion that we didn’t actually think we needed or even greatly wanted those things, and so we started considering whether that meant we wanted explicitly to not be monogamous. It remained an ongoing (low-key, non-fatiguing) discussion for a few months, and then we said, ok, non-monogamous. (This was really before “poly” had gained much traction as a term.)
It remained a theoretical construct for maybe another six months until there was a convergence of opportunity and interest for one of us, and we took some first steps. In hindsight we made a lot of rookie mistakes that I think people would avoid more easily today given there are now many poly resources and communities online and in realspace. (For example I helped vote for the creation of the alt.polyamory newsgroup which I think was very important in its day for developing poly discourse.)
I guess I’ve answered the “how” but not the “why”. Our motivation was actually not what it gained for ourselves but how we felt about the other. No doubt this will sound hopelessly idealistic but a quick summary is that we wanted someone to have more opportunities in their live due to us loving them, rather than fewer. I had trouble reconciling what it meant to me to love someone with actively preventing other good relationships in their lives.
(This by the way is why “being untroubled by one’s partner(s) being with others” is more critical to my concept of poly than “being involved with more than one person”. Consider that monogamous cheating satisfies the latter.)
We were adorably earnest at 16. We also poked at our attitudes towards having children, and to materialism/wealth/possessions. I’m not recalling anything else that we discussed up-front like that. Maybe home ownership.
Results: we identified discrepancies in our desires for some of these things and flagged them as something to be extra careful in figuring out, and also identified some congruences which meant less conflict than expected, but we also flagged them explicitly as something to re-examine every five years.
We’ve been together 23 years and have toggled our position on one of the points; the others have (EDIT) not changed substantially.
I and my partner sat down as very earnest 16 year olds (23.5 years ago and yes we’re still together) because we both agreed we were annoyed by unexamined defaults inherited from society and upbringing. We said we were fine with being monogamous if after careful consideration we decided we wanted it, but we didn’t want to just drift into it.
Thus we sat down and spent quite some time cataloging what we thought monogamy would provide us, and how much we valued those things. Week after week we seemed to keep coming back to the conclusion that we didn’t actually think we needed or even greatly wanted those things, and so we started considering whether that meant we wanted explicitly to not be monogamous. It remained an ongoing (low-key, non-fatiguing) discussion for a few months, and then we said, ok, non-monogamous. (This was really before “poly” had gained much traction as a term.)
It remained a theoretical construct for maybe another six months until there was a convergence of opportunity and interest for one of us, and we took some first steps. In hindsight we made a lot of rookie mistakes that I think people would avoid more easily today given there are now many poly resources and communities online and in realspace. (For example I helped vote for the creation of the alt.polyamory newsgroup which I think was very important in its day for developing poly discourse.)
I guess I’ve answered the “how” but not the “why”. Our motivation was actually not what it gained for ourselves but how we felt about the other. No doubt this will sound hopelessly idealistic but a quick summary is that we wanted someone to have more opportunities in their live due to us loving them, rather than fewer. I had trouble reconciling what it meant to me to love someone with actively preventing other good relationships in their lives.
(This by the way is why “being untroubled by one’s partner(s) being with others” is more critical to my concept of poly than “being involved with more than one person”. Consider that monogamous cheating satisfies the latter.)
Were there other social defaults you examined? If so, with what results?
We were adorably earnest at 16. We also poked at our attitudes towards having children, and to materialism/wealth/possessions. I’m not recalling anything else that we discussed up-front like that. Maybe home ownership.
Results: we identified discrepancies in our desires for some of these things and flagged them as something to be extra careful in figuring out, and also identified some congruences which meant less conflict than expected, but we also flagged them explicitly as something to re-examine every five years.
We’ve been together 23 years and have toggled our position on one of the points; the others have (EDIT) not changed substantially.
This is adorable.