Note Details
- Topics: relationships
“Relationships that are non-monogamous are relationships in which the focus is uniqueness, meaning: “What we have is special, you and I. And I can have something very special with somebody else that is very different and these two don’t threaten each other because what I value is the specialness of what I have with you.”
That’s very different than a model which is based on exclusiveness, in which what I have with you is determined by the fact that you can’t go and have it elsewhere. There is the fantasy of a certain kind of oneness that ‘what you have with me is only with me because I am so special to you and that is the one thing you won’t share with anyone else.
Exclusiveness works with restriction, it works with boundaries. Uniqueness works with elevating specialness and maintaining that as something that will delineate this relationship and separate it from the others. It won’t be the borders that are going to separate me from me and you from others, it will be the content of what exists between us.
Non-monogamous people say ‘because I care about you so much I want you to have other experiences like that with other people. Never would I want to deprive you of that. I want you to be able to have other experiences that are meaningful of that sort with other people and it makes me happy to be able to give this to you.”