Wednesday, May 25, 2011
A Different Kind of Commitment
Open relationships involve a very different kind of commitment. One is essentially committing to conceive of the relationship in a non-comparative light; to value it for its intrinsic character rather than the way it compares to others; and to care about your partner, and how they treat you, in a non-possessive fashion. It involves the recognition that: What matters is your relationship, not any other one – even if the other involves your partner.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
Don't you think it's much easier said than done? (Regarding this post and the previous one) The least feeling one would get is jealousy.. and not to generalize but middle eastern men and women get jealous from their own shadows let alone seeing that someone else is 'close' to their partner some way or another. Do you speak of experience, or do you anticipate that you will act this way when in a relationship? Let's not even mention that we also lack depth in our relationships, so sometimes friends are thought to be crossing borders, what if your partner actually connects on some higher level with someone else, or even develops that curiosity for that person, you'd accept to lose your position?
Ease is not the question. As they say, no pain no gain. When you know that something is worth fighting for, then whatever the price is, you would pay it.
Open relationships require a great amount of trust, which is something not many people are willing to grant their partners. However, a relationship that does not involve trust, in my opinion, is not worth the trouble.
And if my partner wants to be with someone else?! I have to respect their wishes and desires. I find no pleasure in forcing someone to be with me if their heart is somewhere else. I don't know why anyone would find that okay.
If you cannot accept and respect your partner's desires and choices, then I doubt you love your partner in the first place.
As for anticipation/experience question, it's a little bit of both. I have some experiences that make me sure that this is what I want and how I feel. But this was never applied in practice. But for me, this is more than what I want, because I believe that only open relationships have meaning and depth, and so closed relationships seem like a cheap substitute.
I didn't mean that one should force his partner to stay with him that's absurd of course, but say someone gets in the picture, allowing them to get as close to your partner as you are means there's a chance for something to develop, and if it were me I'd freak out and try to get in the way of that happening if I want that person bad enough.
I understand that you are talking about a concept and not just about you or what you want, and if I were to reply to you about the concept itself then I would say it would be perfect if all people were fine with open relationships, but I was just trying to put myself in that position and be honest about how I'd react, and if I can't handle it then maybe I shouldn't expect it from a partner.
I guess the most important thing is to be clear and open about whatever one and his partner have, cause otherwise an open relationship, in our lovely middle east, will lead to many problems, I think we're not fully ready for that concept. We have more pressing issues to accept and live with before we reach this stage.
But how is doing something that tries to stop your partner from developing a connection with another person not equivalent to forcing him to stay with you?!
Thinking that those two are different is absurd. When that person is deprived of a real choice, then that's equivalent to forcing them.
To make an analogy, let's say a girl wanted to marry someone that her parents disapprove of, and her father says: "You are free to marry that guy, it's your choice. But if you do, I will disown you, cut you off the inheritance, and will not call you my daughter ever again. But... It's still your choice, you are free to do what you want!" - Would you call that a real choice?! Putting obstacles in someone's way, and then calling that a real choice, does this make sense to you?!
you misunderstood me, a closed relationship by definition implies that one should not emotionally or physically get involved with someone else,that in itself stop the partner from developing anything.
Like I said earlier, it would be great when one can apply this, talking is easy.
You should add that thing that notifies us when a comment is replied to.
Saying that by definition you are not supposed to have relationships with others doesn't solve anything. It just says that by definition you are forcing someone to stay with you. Which makes closed relationships -IMO- bad by definition!! (Assuming that forcing someone to stay with you is bad)
With regards to comment follow up emails. This feature already exists, however it is only available for people with blogger or Google accounts. I will look into this and improve that if possible. Thanks for the feedback.
Post a Comment