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Is Love Really Monogamous by Nature?

The modern frames within which our human relationships grow and evolve, are ever defined by the pervading social morals and codes of our collective psycho-sexual politics. This is modeled by our personal upbringing, direct life experience, religious and cultural belief systems and even our own archetypal/ mythical hopes and dreams of what healthy intimacy is "supposed" to mean.

Often, instead of calling into question the true authentic feelings we experience within spoon-fed consensus-reality relationship "codes", we may find ourselves conforming our aberrant or radical ideas into more polite, acceptable and conventional modes of relating. One such relationship "institution"of rather immense gravity and weight upon our life-choices for partnership and relating is M-O-N-O-G-A-M-Y.

There is certainly the potential for immense sacredness within monogamy. When it is a healthy model of monogamy, it can provide an encirclement, a safe vessel for containing the potent energies cultivated and intimately exchanged within. Monogamy may also help to establish a deeper mutual trust, build a solid, working foundation, concentrate the focus of subtle-energies between lovers and help to further establish the divine alchemy between masculine and feminine polarities.

However, long-term monogamy can begin to feel oppressive, compromised, stale and lifeless if the relationship doesn't become more permeable in it's shared skin to honestly allow the passing through of energies from the outside in and from the inside out. This may include outside attraction and desires, new hobbies and interests, or simply the active cultivation of intimate friendships, liberated dreams and inspired ambitions.

Monogamy may become dangerous when it houses too many ghosts such as one's fear of abandonment, and need to possess, and all those night-prowling insecurities, jealousies and mistrusts we unwittingly imagine and project onto each other. When we fear loss to such a debilitating extent, we may become unconsciously manipulative and then ensnarl our mate to increasingly demanding levels of commitment such as shared domesticity, co-parenting and exhaustive business partnerships. Or we may emotionally deplete our relationship of it's juicy vitality and resourcefulness. This can build an immense pressure cooker within a relationship and trigger it to become rather destructive after a time if repressed energies are not given space to vent, to creatively express in healthier ways.

No ONE person can be someone's 'all or nothing'. This is TOTALLY unrealistic and exhausting. Culturally, we tend to epitomize romantic love, glorify it, blow it out of proportion in impossible ways hoping it will play out in epic fairy-tale narratives in our lives, forever and ever, amen. Sometimes it does play out like this for a time, until hard-core human conditions begin to poke at it, weather it, test it's resolve, erode it. The unrealistic expectations we place upon our mates to be exactly what we need of them 24/7 is crazy-making. We can only change ourselves, not our partners, and the person we need to perfect first and foremost is the ME, MYSELF and I inside and out.

Yes, the ultimate responsibility we have in relationship is to OurSelves, though this is no selfish act of megalomania. WE are the only reality we can truly change. The projections of our fears, insecurities and jealousies onto our mate are really ours to own, to process with brute honesty, and to ultimately heal. Holding someone emotionally hostage to our past-pain and hurt is hugely inappropriate, especially when we inadvertently manipulate them with our habitual reactions, dramas, guilt complexes and such. We need to be accountable to our stories, to learn to share our personal tragedies without enslaving our mates as underpaid janitors of our shadow-realms. This requires an empathy and a non-violent communication style based upon compassion and understanding, otherwise we are merely salting each other's wounds and creating an alienating and unbearable separation between us.

We can all learn to directly ask for what we need of our mates so they can feel empowered to choose their own way of giving back to us,(or not) We can then negotiate understandings together in a mutually empowered way. But we must ultimately set ourselves and our partners free. This is the only way to truly align with LOVE.

Freedom can be defined in a myriad of ways and does not necessarily equate to a sexually polyamorous freedom taken to literal extremes of reckless promiscuity and a string of broken hearts trailing behind a notorious Don Juan complex. Freedom is really an inner state of mind/heart being-ness which requires a seasoned and mature responsibility and accountability motivated by Heart. This kind of freedom ALWAYS takes into compassionate account the affect and impact our lifestyle choices have upon others and is as selfless as it is centered upon choices made for and of the Self.

Polyamory is defined as "many loves", which again, does not necessarily mean multiple lovers. Tantrika Robert Allen, of the site 'Rogue Tantra' speaks of polyamory in the follow way:

It seems to me there are as many kinds of love and love relationships as there are people: we love our partner(s), we love our parents, our spiritual advisers, our neighbors, our kids, the extended hearts across the world. We have loving sexual relationships, loving spiritual relationships, loving parental and familial relationships, we have loving circles of friends, even, if we truly want to extend it, with our pets, our plants, our homes, the world. Many Loves extend in many ways--the world and our hearts are multiform.

And within the construct of polyamory there are many diverse communities with as many diverse relationship styles, from sexually open ("swinger"/"lifestyler") to more heart-centered -relationship focused, and all use the same moniker, "Poly."

So there is a great opening here for discussion and increased communication: Define what you are, define who you want to be, define your loving, allow your partner to do the same, and that's co-creation in form. It's the two people (or 3, or 4) in the relationship that define the relationship and you can define "many loves' in any way you wish. Simply make sure you both understand the shared definition. By doing so you can avoid the common pitfalls around jealousy and personal sexual expression (which exists in all relationship styles, whether monogamous or polyamorous, and the vast in-between).

A quick note on sex: there is a lot of exaggerated focus on the relationship of sex and polyamory by non-polyamorous people. Sex is part of love but focusing on sex all the time has as many negative consequences as never focusing on it. Polyamorous folks do not necessarily have more sex than others--having more than one partner might make this pragmatically so but it in no way is a guaranteed road. Sex is part of love relationship, not The Relationship. Our negative societal attitudes about sexuality often obscure polyamory to those outside it.

And so it may be that we can explore our universal polyamorous freedom within a primarily monogamous relationship by empowering that which we genuinely love and desire. By choosing to express our affections for it (or him or her) openly, without shame or guilt, we open up the restrictive barriers which may create feelings of "separateness" in our relationships. This may or may not be expressed as a sexual act or sexual need. Again, this can be mutually or individually determined in an openly transparent way, with the terms of any intimate contract being carefully negotiated between all involved parties, in ways enriching, loving and supportive and most of all INCLUSIVE.

Most ungrounded fears are born out of the shadow of the unknown, so to involve our lovers in our intimate experience of our 'many loves' is important to their sense of belonging and sense of security, which we respect and honour. Feeling "other" or inadequate inevitably breeds contempt. By bringing our lover or heart-ner nearer, closer to our inner stories, whatever they may be, whomever else they may involve, is ultimately worth the telling and the stretching of the parameters of trust.

Weigh the consequences of free-will based Choice together and when needed, alone. Look at the bigger picture and learn to redirect base lust to allow a more open flow of love in all it's myriad form beyond the physical need 'to have and to hold'. Suppression breeds resistance which breeds imbalanced decision-making, lack of clarity which further ferments into forms of rebellion or sabotage. True freedom inspires honesty, integrity and clear, genuine choices.

In actively choosing the freedom to be mates each and every day, we can relax into the love between ourselves and our mate. Instead of being suspicious, fearful, or insecure, love will radiate. illuminate and inspire. If monogamy emerges as a true expression of a shared and lucid intimacy, it will be all that much more real, sustaining and enduring. It will also liberate any socio-political/ religious pressures, elevating love to it's higher intent and purpose which is ultimately to COCREATE AND BE FREE.

Live and let live.

Non-Violent Communication
World Polyamory Association
Tantra!
David Deida on 'Sexuality as Art