Often when people ask me about being in a poly relationship and I have more than one partner I will get the loaded question;
“But which one do you love MORE”?
Now this question is incorrect on many levels but I am not going to talk about that… No. I am going to talk about the concept of quantifying love on levels of ‘less or more’.
In our culture so many subjects of cinema, literature, music, etc are focused on finding “the one” or being in relationships. ‘who is so-in-so dating now’? ‘will such-n-such get back with whats-her-name after she did that thing’? “have you heard Taylor Swift’s new love song? It speaks to my SOUL”
It often seems like in all of these mediums we are told that there is only one person who is the one person that we love more than anyone else.
But I don’t see it that way.
Ask a happily married mother who is extremely close with her twin sister, who she loves more, her husband, her child, or her sister? odds are she could not tell you. She probably could not imagine her life without any of these people! She loves them all but DIFFERENTLY. The love she feels for her husband is extremely different from the love she feels for her sister which is also different from the love for her child. This is a fact that we as a society acknowledge.
However when talking about romantic partners society tends to get a little squeamish on the subject. I ask you now to think of all of your past partners. Where they all the same? Was every relationship cookie cutter? When you fell in love did it feel exactly the same each and every time? Chances are you answered ‘no’.
This is how poly people love. They acknowledge the differences in people and in their relationships. They understand that EVERY relationship is different. They love each person they are involved with exactly how they can only love them. Every relationship is like a unique love snowflake.
Even if I have a primary hierarchy dynamic (like I have now). I would still not feel quite right telling someone else that I love MT MORE than my other partners I just love him differently. I love him in a way that tells me that I want to spend the rest of my life with him by my side. I love another partner I am with in a way that says that I want him in my life for as long as it lasts. I love the time we spend together and value it completely differently from my time with MT. We connect on different levels and we function in a different capacity but i do not love him LESS.
To quantify something as more or less you have to be able to have a constant variable. Love is not constant. it is fluid and ever-changing and cannot be constrained by the simple box of “less and more”.
So a better question could be “what is your dynamic like with each partner?” or “tell me what makes your relationships special”.
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
snowghoul
janainaart
germansingergirl
annaxmalina
romaincrisis
prguitarman
