Keerist

[kyburg]

I'm not poly - and this bugs the CRAP out of me:

And even if you never so much as touch him, this emotional attachment has just as much potential as a sexual fling to damage your marriage. "We only have so much emotional energy; the more of it we spend outside of our marriage, the less we have inside our marriage," says Neuman. "And after a while, we simply do not have enough emotions and love and caring and time for both."

I'll admit it - I know I can't maintain the same level of intense with more than one partner at a time.

But to just simply la-de-da into something? And then make the base assumption this is true ALWAYS?

Wow. Fall in love, don't have friends. Matter of fact, you have kids? By this token...okay. COME ON.

Of course, you read on - and HAY. You always start lying about stuff like this, and it ends up in bed and....

Discuss amongst yourselves. I've got things to do.

EDIT: OH FUCK IT'S ONLY WOMEN WHO DO THIS. *shreds*

Comments

[mdlbear]

Haven't read the whole thing. Will, for reference, because I've already posted about my having had an emotional affair.

What made it hurtful were two things: I wasn't sharing enough information with Colleen to keep her from being jealous, and I didn't know what I was doing, or that she was jealous, or why. It took half a year and a lot of figuring-out to untangle, but both our marriage and our friendships are in much better shape for having done so -- and Colleen and the woman I now call my sister are much closer now than I think either of them ever expected to be.

[relevantpink.livejournal.com]

As someone who has tried poly but feels it is too hard for me personally, and as someone who has had emotional affairs, I still think that article is crap. Too smug and sure that there is a very narrow spectrum of relationship types out there. At the core, basically replacing lost intimacy with intimacy from outside your established relationship without talking about it or realizing what is going on is a big problem, definitely. However, assuming that everyone has the SAME cap on emotional energy is foolish, and leaving no room for individual adjustment leaves me feeling very unsympathetic towards the author.

Also, no male examples. This is NOT a "woman thang."

[mdlbear]

Agree completely.

It's from a mainstream "women's magazine", but even so... It's a confession, not something that might be useful for anyone but the author.

[rin-o.livejournal.com]

wow. it really totally absolves men from trying to make their relationship work. who the hell wrote this sexist tripe?

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Some people with professional credentials, it looks like.

UGH.

[rin-o.livejournal.com]

"professional credentials" seems to be the excuse for insolence this month....i've have gotten into that argument five times already.

wait....HA! no she isn't! she's just a freelance writer, she probably did her "interviews" with some friends at a starbucks! oh man....lame. a column from Dr. Google, i bet...

[ms-hecubus.livejournal.com]

HA! Like my mother-in-law calls her degrees, Bull Shit, More Shit and Piled High and Deep.

[thatwordgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm not going to declare my relationship status (you know already anyhoo), but I totally call BS on this.

A woman is supposed to ONLY turn to her husband (note the assumtion that it is a het relationship) for emotional bonding?

Really?

I love Himself. We are qulte well bonded.

But I guarantee that if I need Girl-Trouble advice, I'm far more likely to turn to another female for that sort of bonding.

It sounds like the author is trying to justify feeling guilty by making it Somebody Else's Problem so that she does not need to feel all alone in her guiltiness.

Feh!

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

*fistbumps*

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

You and I haven't shared f-list long enough for you to know, probably, how much I really really REALLY hate "everyone is the same, and if one person has this problem, everyone else in a similar situation has it, too," blah blah blah.

I learned through experience that I cannot carry on two, for want of a clearer term, "romantic-attachment" relationships at once. Sexual relationships with affection, yes. But "in love with" one person and sex with another, no. It didn't work. And this goes back to when I was a teen, just dating, with "making out" being as far as the sexual component went. Dating two guys, sure. But if I fell for one, the other one had to go. I just couldn't manage otherwise. But to assume that everyone is that way, just because I am? Crap.

And yeah, what if you have kids? Because kids whose parents spend no emotional energy on them don't fare so well.

Sure, people's emotional energy is finite. But so is people's physical energy, and no one expects everyone to be the same in that way. The key is to know oneself, to know what one's own limits and boundaries are.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

So the more kids you have, the less love you have for each? If one of your parents dies, do you love the other one that much more or do you transfer that reserve of now-unused affection to someone else?

This theory of limited amounts of emotional energy never stands up to any poking.

There is a beloved-by-polyamorists sketch from an old educational TV program which nails this fallacy like a nail gun: it's from Square One and called "Eight Percent of My Love". It's a giggle, and might make folks feel better after this tripe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDqrW85RECE

[browren.livejournal.com]

Article is wrong from square one, I have unlimited emotional energy.

Unfortunately it's all anger. ;)

[ororo.livejournal.com]

No male examples, but next month's article could be "how I stopped my husband from having an emotional affair."

Either way, fiddlesticks. Depending on one person to feed your emotional energy, is insane.

I work at home, my sweetie is unemployed. We're each other's main source of human contact, but we still need contact and feedback and, dare I say it, emotional energy from other people.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_darkvictory/]

"When you have more interests in your life, you have less of a desire to find something exciting and taboo to intrigue you"

This really lept out at me, especially having known someone who more or less made a hobby of these kinds of relationships. Maybe these ladies have MORE emotional energy than they have outlets for.

My understanding of poly is that it's the opposite of any kind of exciting taboo - more like finally being comfortable with one's emotional and sexual arrangements.