Blog

Head and Foot – or: The Blind One and the Lame One

A friend recently asked me how my bLog-Entries usually came about. And I replied ” It’s quite different – sometimes it can even be just one word that sticks in my mind – and a complete Entry emerges from it.”
That’s how it is today, for example, with the word “dependency symbiosis”, which I had picked up some time ago in a completely different context than the universe of multiple relationships.
I was initially confused by this phrase because it appeared to me as if it consisted of two very different halves that didn’t fit together at all – indeed, they seemed to contradict each other.
And then, once I had turned the whole thing over in my mind and then in my heart, I smiled, because all of a sudden I found the term almost somewhat pretty in its symbolism – and in this case especially for the universe of multiple relationships.

According to Wiktionary, “dependency” means being “dependent on, or subordinate to, something else”. And with that, the poor little word “dependency” generally loses most of its charm straight away. Because being “dependent”, being reliant on someone or something, sounds kind of sticky, attached, dependent and restricted. As a result, “dependency” becomes immediately suspected of being the antonym (= the opposite word) or in some ways even the antagonist (= opponent) of our much-loved and longed-for “freedom”.

And then there is the word “symbiosis”. Here Wiktionary defines: “A relationship of mutual benefit, especially among different species” or “The state of people of different types, races, cultures, communities, etc., living together”. Therefore, symbiosis seems to be something good and worthwhile for those involved.

However, this also reveals that the dependency that was initially perceived as negative in our original pair of words and the symbiosis that seems so promising aren’t really opposites at all. Because in order to benefit from the advantages of a symbiosis, the participants would presumably have to get involved in this “being dependent upon each other” for such a symbiosis to come about at all… After all, this is the inherent secret to the success of any symbiosis: for it to work – and “work” in this case means that all those involved experience (additional) benefit – those parties need „not only merely “consume”, but also “provide” voluntarily”, as I wrote in the last Entry.

Today’s Entry is intended as a little ” Reminder” regarding ethical multiple relationships. Because the danger that we ponder too much in our relationships – and often from an overly self-centered point of view on top of that – still seems very high to me.
Especially in a world where we are regularly bombarded with memes on social media that state in calligraphy letters against a romantic photo background “True love sets you free!”.
And now here I am, preferring instead to write “True love… …is symbiotic!” – and I can almost hear the tips of some readers’ hair begin to bristle at this sentence.

Okay, more regular consumers of my bLog will know that “dependency” in relationship matters is not fundamentally a bad thing for me, at the latest since my “Declaration of Dependency” in Entry 24. There I wrote – as a kind of conclusion – that »according to oligoamorous standards, “mutual interdependency” per se is therefore not a deficiency in need of treatment which has to be eradicated, and it is neither toxic nor pathological in its conscious form.
Such a well-adjusted, or even better: well-established, reciprocal joint venture is rather a committed, dynamic and open relationship that benefits from regular negotiations and (re)adjustments.«

For me, however, it is also something more than that. Because at the end of the day, I feel that Oligo- and Polyamory is all about nothing less than true, romantic love between folks who are attached to each other in this way. And as I furthermore stated in Entry 34, based on my life experience so far, »the core of the “romantic narrative” is the voluntary self-sacrifice offered to the community.«

The latter sentence in particular always comes across as incredibly dramatic when you read it, which is why I immediately deprive this dynamic of its (high) tension in the associated Entry.
Symbiosis, if it is meant to be romantic (and not just a relationship of convenience), therefore also requires precisely this self-sacrifice.
And that is probably why we somehow feel such an uncomfortable pinch when we hear the term “self-sacrifice”, because it is not possible without the above-mentioned “dependence” and thus a partial surrender of our full “non-dependence” concerning our greatest possible freedom.

That is also one reason why I have prefaced this Entry with Entry 102, in which I celebrate the very freedom that allows us to make choices about our desire to participate and take up responsibility.
For surely it must be after all an expression of the core of our being, which seeks development, if we find within ourselves the desire to participate in a “symbiosis” (I repeat: “A relationship of mutual benefit”) and thus willingly assume responsibility for our own contribution to the prosperity of this structure.

In relationships, we are therefore initially always dealing with voluntary self-limitation – an extremely romantic motif, by the way. For example, as self-sacrificing and romantic as some gentlemen with stiffened collars acted in 1863 when, in the face of a wild scramble for a leather ball, they resolved henceforth only to move it fairly and gentlemenlike just by using their heads and feet – and in this way became the founders of modern soccer…
Today, during the run-up to the final of the current UEFA Euro 2024, I think soccer is a very apt metaphor in this context. After all, what did these people want to achieve back then when they voluntarily limited themselves – and accepted “less”?
They wanted to create “added value” for everyone – because they believed that with brute strength and physical effort, someone would eventually be able to put a ball in the goal anyway (which sooner or later wouldn’t have been very interesting, except for people who wanted to watch the most pimped-up and reckless protagonists at work…).
Out of their self-limitation, however, emerged a dynamic, exciting and inclusive game in which people of all ethnicities and genders, with their diverse talents in endurance, skill, agility, courage, resourcefulness and luck, compete internationally for attention and prizes to this day.

So after a while, the advantages of reciprocity and interdependence, as in a symbiosis, may come to us after all – even if we realize that we must obviously (voluntarily!) give up part of our personal freedom if we really want to participate and benefit.
And in the vast majority of cases, this refers to the “fair-weather face” of love, about which I wrote in the previous Entry: »Hand on heart: if there wasn’t something in the relationships we enter into that we wanted to “enjoy” – as mentioned above – we probably wouldn’t be in them…«
It’s like soccer again: Sure, with present-day rules (which I agreed to and limited myself by) I can’t knock down the guy in possession of the ball to get access to the leather like in the ol’ times. Instead, I have to stalk the opponent and dribble the ball off his foot, after which I can pass it to my teammates or (hopefully) score myself… But at the end of the day, I’m not just a dull thug who has perhaps even accepted collateral damage for personal success – I’m a sought-after ball artist in a successful team!
And because it’s not about the strongest or most assertive players on the field – because that’s not how symbioses work – maybe next time it will be me who gets the ball to shoot at the goal anyway – because I’m in the best position to do so.

Ok – in my relationships I can benefit by contributing. And through romantic self-restraint, I experience added value that I would otherwise never have been able to enjoy or create on my own.
But what about this implied (= action that suggests a certain declaration of intent without this declaration having been expressly made in the action [e.g. consent to a loving relationship]) responsibility for the prosperity and sustenance of such cohabitation and love?
Why did I write in the previous Entry »However, if we are serious about our desire to share in a (loving) relationship, then responsibility is also involved at the same time – self-responsibility and also responsibility for the well-being, the “state of health” of the relationship«?
Even the Wikipedia entry on “Symbiosis“ shows different degrees of interdependence and actually suggests “[Certain organisms] can generally live independently, and their part of the relationship is therefore described as facultative (optional), or non-obligate”. Wouldn’t that also be a way to handle human, romantic relationships with multiple participants?

I believe that such thoughts creep in primarily when we realize that neither love nor we personally are always able to operate only on the side of the above-mentioned “fair-weather face” of contribution and enjoyment.
On this subject, the Buddhist Shaolin master Shi Heng Yi recently said something very touching in his series “positivegedanken” on Instagram, which even brought to mind parts of the Christian wedding vows:

»And loyalty means knowing that there will be moments when we might disagree.
But precisely because I know that this might be a difficult time for one person, because there will be a lot of criticism and a lot of embarrassment – or whatever – that’s exactly why this person needs support now.
If everyone always talks positively, favourably and optimistically, then it’s [easy] to find a crowd of people to surround yourself with.
But there is a core [of people] that is not only there in good times, it is there above all in times when others run away. And every person should have a core like that – and sometimes that’s no more than a handful.
But what’s the beauty of it? That it gives you stability. Because you know that no matter what comes your way: I have a job, I don’t have a job – they’re there. I have a girlfriend, I don’t have a girlfriend – they’re there.«

Master Shi Heng Yi thus says that the important concept of loyalty is not a “fair-weather standard”, but one whose value is precisely proven when it prevails in conflicts with one another – and gets confirmed that way.
And “loyalty”, which is already listed as a basic value of Oligoamory in Entry 3, has the following great definition on the German-language Wikipedia “The intrinsic solidarity that is based on shared moral maxims or guided by a rational interest and its expression in conduct towards a person, group or community. Loyalty means sharing and defending the values of others in the interest of a common higher goal, or defending them even if one does not fully share them, as long as this serves to preserve the jointly shared higher goal. Loyalty is demonstrated both in behavior towards the person to whom one is loyal and towards third parties.”

Both elements are contained here: The romantic, voluntary self-restraint (“…to represent these even if one does not fully share them…”) and the responsibility for the greater entirety, which is to be preserved and supported (“the preservation of the jointly represented higher goal…”), which are entwined by our desire for – and our free choice of – “intrinsic solidarity”.
The bottom line is that even the “(dependency) symbiosis”, which might initially be viewed with a frown, is not at all a fair-weather event. Because once united, the door of weal and woe swings in every direction for all those involved.
“You see, and that’s why I would avoid such a symbiosis right from the start…!”
Really? That would be exactly the wrong lesson to draw from the above. For it is precisely the symbiosis that makes it possible to absorb grievances or misunderstandings in a completely different way than we could ever succeed in acting as mere individuals.

Nowadays, a soccer team is usually put together in such a way that talents complement each other as much as possible to achieve top performances.
But centuries ago in the Middle Ages – a time when people were probably much more fundamentally aware of their imperfections and dependencies than we are today – the double figure of “the Blind One and the Lame One” was created, to which the German folk-rock band “Ougenweide” created another acoustic monument in modern times on their album “All die weil ich mag” (1974) with the setting of a text by the German poet Christian Fürchtegott Gellert¹. In the song, a lame cripple and a blind man meet. After a short negotiation, the blind man carries the lame man, who in return guides the blind man in the right direction. The song culminates with the lines:

Conjoined, this pair realises
What no one could do individually.

You do not have what others have
And others lack your gifts.
From this imperfections
The sociability springs forth.

If he did not lack the gift,
Which nature chose for me,
He would be for himself alone now
And not be troubled for me…

Do not burden the gods with complaints!
The advantage they deny you
And bestow on him will be made common:
We must be sociable only!

“Sociability”, as the people of the Middle Ages (and even Mr. Gellert in the 18th century) once called it, has a slightly different meaning today: We now say “community” or “companionship”.
“Dependency symbiosis”? Perhaps it’s a word that should be consigned to the past as well. We could call it “solidarity” these days. Or, in a romantic relationship involving several people, we could simply call it: love.

¹ Incidentally, the German poet and moral philosopher Christian Fürchtegott Gellert saw himself in continuity with the ideas of the English philosopher, writer, politician, art critic and literary theorist Anthony Ashley Cooper – 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, whom I admire and quote in Entry 64.

Thanks to Mary Taylor on Pexels for the photo!

The choice is mine!

Just the other weekend in June the European elections were held. And no matter how each of us may judge the outcome of this election, there were certainly three issues that played an important role, which also permeate the dynamics of our ethical multiple relationships like a root network.
These concern the values of freedom, participation and responsibility.
Both curse and opportunity of these three values, however, is that they are huge concepts of enormous scope which, nevertheless, have no crystal-clear external definition boundary – accordingly, their specifications usually occupy several screen pages in the vast majority of online encyclopaedias.

Perhaps we therefore should stick to the basics when it comes to our relationships.
For I believe that the connecting anchor word of the three terms is “participation”.
And freedom, on the other hand, we need if only to be able to openly declare ourselves as belonging to an identity or lifestyle of ethical multiple relationships (regardless of whether we are already part of such a relationship or not!) – which for example would not be possible or permitted in several autocratically governed states.
In this country, eyebrows are certainly still raised – or we’re told the stereotypical “… well, if it works out for you – but that’s nothing I would consider…” – nevertheless, in our society in the Federal Republic of Germany, we are free to be romantically involved with as many partners as we want at the same time.

So, by now, we are quite used to this degree of freedom for our individual decisions – it’s almost like breathing.
Indeed, the freedom of the individual: precisely because our legal system in this country attaches such great importance to it, we can be concerned with such non-conformist philosophies of life and partnership models as Poly- and Oligoamory at all. This is because romantic (loving) relationships are considered personal privacy in this country (according to Wikipedia: “…the non-public area in which a person exercises their right to free development of personality, undisturbed by external influences.”).
In this respect, however, our ambitions regarding multiple relationships also have limits: as of today, for example, we are not allowed to marry more than one of our favorite people and officially authorize this with a federally legitimized contract. This is where our freedom (still) reaches a legal limit: where our private sphere passes into public domain.
However, the same public domain in turn attaches great importance to our freedom of opinion and the free development of our personality. If we proclaim out loud on the streets that we love Fritzi, Luka, Renée and Robin and that we are currently in a romantic relationship with all of them with mutual knowledge and approval, then that’s ok (except for the aforementioned raised eyebrows…) – and we are free and entitled to do so.

Even more: If we (and Fritzi, Luka, Renée and Robin) don’t necessarily insist on a official ceremony followed by the signing of a civil contract at the registry office in order to feel that we belong to each other, then we also have a large deal of freedom when it comes to the way we arrange our relationship. So large that I even refer to this freedom in Entry 28 as a privilege (ask someone from Rwanda or Myanmar what freedom concerning multiple relationships looks like in those countries…).
And because individual freedom is a privilege, freedom also has exactly the same shadow that every privilege has: “the thing that you own – but are not aware that you own it”. And in this way, freedom is once again similar to our breath: we perform it constantly – even when we sleep – and normally never have to give it a single thought in order to be aware of it.

But when it comes to relationships at last, our attitude of great personal freedom may become difficult if we regard it as an “absolute” asset that no circumstance can or may diminish.
Because with participation (!) in a relationship, responsibility suddenly enters the field.
The German philosopher and professor Michael Pauen wrote: “A responsible person is considered to be someone who […] can make a deliberate decision and also realize it through an action, even though they could have acted differently. According to this view, a free action takes place without coercion and is not random. In this view, freedom is the condition for the possibility of human self-determination.” ¹
Ah! So my freedom has enabled me to choose whether I want to participate in a particular relationship – a decision that I could have denied myself to that extent…
The German philosopher, theologian and educator Georg Picht went even further: “Therefore, responsibility is first and foremost a claim on oneself and for oneself. The individual is both the subject of his or her own responsibility and the authority to which he or she must answer.” ² And in my opinion, this sentence is quite splendid, as it does not require a dogmatic system, state authority or religion as a justification – and is therefore also valid on an anarchist or atheist basis.

Thus, responsibility arises out of my freedom due to my desire for participation (in a relationship) – and then my free choice of actual participation.
This is an important conclusion for me, because in the world of multiple relationships, the freedom of those involved is often very strongly emphasized – and frequently in this way, as I wrote in Entry 87, »“freedom” is used as a kind of “defensive right” against any perceived paternalism, against any supposedly unjustified liability – but therefore, unfortunately, sometimes also too lightly against some real responsibilities.«

This is precisely why it is important for me to show once again that “responsibility” is not imposed on us from outside, as if a heavy cloak is laid over our shoulders by our loved ones, but rather that it is an accompanying co-pilot of our own individual freedom.
In contrast to other types of non-monogamy and open relationships, this is why the basic values of “commitment” and “continuity” are so strongly emphasized in Poly- and Oligoamory.
Let me outline this briefly: Of course it’s also possible to show commitment in a short-term relationship, for example by sticking to a given promise. Yet real commitment is based on a sum of such experiences that my loved ones share with me – and I with them – because commitment as a perceived attribute requires the observation of predictability and reliability – qualities that call for a longer period of time in order to fully develop.

Participation, which according to Wikipedia can also be read as “involvement, partaking, co-determination, co-decision, inclusion”, therefore automatically entails responsibility – which actually becomes obvious when you read these terms again.
But why do we still too often believe that this responsibility is imposed on us by the other parties in the relationship?
Because once we are part of a relationship, it is very easy to shift our point of view – our perspective on what has happened.

In Entry 9, I wrote about the “mysterious emotional contract” that would emerge invisibly the moment people entered into a relationship.
What was that again…?
The “implied acknowledgement and agreement – as a result of a mutually established emotional close-knit relationship – regarding the totality of voluntary yielded obligations, self-commitments and care which have been reciprocally contributed and are potentially enjoyable by all parties involved.”
Once again “Ah!”: I have entered into a relationship, as shown above, out of free will and free choice, – also for the reason that I can “enjoy” something in it; something that contributes to my “cocktail of needs”.
And to “enjoy” something that does not come from myself, I need to have it contributed by other people.
The scientists S. Cohen, L.G. Underwood and B.H. Gottlieb added very precisely to this in 2000:

Contributing to this perception is trust (the expectation that partners can be counted on to respect and fulfil important needs) and acceptance (the belief that partners accept one for who one is).
Empathy is also relevant because it signals awareness of an appreciation for a partners core-self.
Attachment also contributes to perceived partner responsiveness, notwithstanding its link to interdependence and sentiment, because of the fundamental role of perceiving that one is worthy of and can expect to receive love and care from significant others.”
[For detailed information and source see Entry 14]

The German-American philosopher Hans Jonas called this relational experience somewhat complicated:
“Responsibility, for example for the welfare of others, not only ‘sifts’ given intentions to act for their moral permissibility, but also obliges to acts that are not intended for any other purpose.” ³
Oh boy – I’ll try to interpret that for you to some extent:
Responsibility in a relationship does not arise because it is imposed on me from outside, e.g. by moral authorities (law, church, state, “the good”, at the request of other partners, etc.) – and then I “must” or “should” act in this way, but rather by the very fact that I am actually part of a relationship, since enjoying the well-being of all those involved (and contributing to it) is already the main purpose of the relationship out of its own accord, so to speak.
By which Hans Jonas also implies that a relationship is only truly a relationship if the parties involved not only merely “consume”, but also “provide” voluntarily.

In short, neither a “responsibility light” nor a “participation light” can exist in committed romantic relationships. Both would be contradictory, although I have regularly heard the desire for the two, especially in multiple relationship contexts.
Yet if we are serious about our desire to share in a (loving) relationship, then responsibility is also immediately involved right from the start – personal responsibility and also responsibility for the well-being, the “state of health” of the relationship.

The playwright and lyricist Bertold Brecht expressed this connection very wisely in his short poem “To Read in the Morning and at Night“:

My love
Has told me
That (s)he needs me.

That’s why
I take good care of myself
Watch out where I’m going and
Fear that any drop of rain
Might kill me.

I am not sure whether we literally “need” each other – Marshall Rosenberg, the father of “Nonviolent Communication“, suggested the somewhat gentler expression “contribute to each other”, which I personally appreciate very much. Because hand on heart: if there wasn’t something in the relationships we entered into that we wanted to “enjoy” – as mentioned above – we probably wouldn’t be in them in the first place…

Freedom, that quality of being able to choose and decide between different options without coercion, therefore remains a privilege – particularly with regard to the specific relationships we enter into and the choice of our underlying relationship model.
Only freedom enables us to participate in a way that is worthy of the name; enables us to really get involved in our romantic relationships and to actively shape “the totality of voluntary yielded obligations, self-commitments and care“ out of our own free will.

Let us therefore no longer treat the responsibility associated with this as an annoying by-product of the trials and tribulations concerning our relationship housekeeping.

We should assign it the same significance as our desires for freedom of life and participation in love, because the three are inextricably linked.
So let’s apply to it the same level of passion, idealism and conviction that the next time it comes down to it – and we have a choice – we can welcome it just as well:
“Responsibility? Sure – that’s (also) me!”

¹ Michael Pauen: “Freedom, guilt, responsibility. Philosophical considerations and empirical findings.” In: Gunnar Duttge (ed.): “The self and its brain” Göttingen 2009, p. 78.

² Georg Picht: “The Concept of Responsibility.” In: “Truth, Reason, Responsibility. Philosophical Studies.” Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1969 / 2004, p. 321.

³ Hans Jonas: “The Principle of Responsibility. An attempt at ethics for technological civilization.” Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1979 (new edition 1984, pp. 174-175).

Thanks to Jon Tyson on Unsplash for the photo!

Looking for more about Europe? Then read Entry 10!

Happy & Content

Sometimes, when I gather with my family of choice (which also includes my polyculeª), we indulge in a homemade tradition, especially while raising a toast or at the beginning of a meal, when we cheerfully exclaim to each other in chorus: “Happy… – and content!”
This little ritual originated a few years ago, when we had been studying “Non-Violent Communication” according to Marshall Rosenberg for some time whilst working on the culture of our communal conversation. Rosenberg once said that people often wish for “happiness” in their relationships – but that they actually mean “contentment”, as “happiness” is only a rather limited, situational experience, whereas “contentment” is a desired, lasting state. This was also explicitly confirmed by the German happiness researcher Stefan Klein ( to whom I will return later in this article) in his book “The Formula of Luck – or How Good Feelings Arise” ¹ , which indicated that also the Swiss writer and philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel was already on the right track with his insight he put down in his diaries around the middle of the 19th century, writing “The true name for happiness is contentment”.

Hence, we humans long for contentment – and our interpersonal relationships in particular are affected by this to a very considerable extent.
How do we fare in this respect?
“From the outside”, for example, people who dedicate themselves to a life of multiple relationships are often diagnosed of being constantly on an ongoing pusuit for renewed happiness whilst never being able to join Goethe’s Faust in the joyful sigh “To the moment I’d like to say: ‘Tarry a while! You are so fair!.”

Let’s have a look at the bigger picture:
On March 20th of this year, the time had come once again: in the latest World Happiness Report (which focused on the years 2021 to 2023), Germany dropped 8 rankings from 16th to 24th position. Quite surprising countries such as Costa Rica, Lithuania and even the United Arab Emirates now register higher in Fortuna’s favour than we do in Germany.
What is going on in our otherwise quite lively republic that we are gradually struggling to keep up with the top group of happier nations and increasingly are on the verge of “mediocrity” just as it unfortunately too often feels in our everyday lives.
And what could we possibly adopt from the 23 happier competitors ahead of us?

For example, we live in a country where even immigrants are soon introduced to the somewhat feisty phrase “Frohes Schaffen!” (“Happy work!/Happy toiling!”) during their first German lessons. When I was working in the garden the other day, one such newcomer – who happened to pass my small building site – wished me with pursed lips and a somewhat alienated and astonished emphasis (as if he couldn’t quite believe that people in this country would actually bestow such words on each other as they would elsewhere share a traveler’s blessing or the hope for a safe reunion): “Well then, – Happy toiling…”.
The Austrian-American philosopher, psychotherapist and communication scientist Paul Watzlawick addressed such phenomena in his aptly titled book “Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein” (“The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness“)² and wrote about this type of motivation, among other things: Those who, contrary to the claim of the issuers of such messages (such as “Just be spontaneous…!” or “Simply be joyful once in a while!”), would not be able to appear “spontaneous”, “joyful” or “happy” would soon feel somehow “faulty” and would then develop feelings of guilt (which was not entirely unintentionally imposed in the first pace…).

The latter (“guilt–”) impression in particular was also taken up in October ’23 by the German cabaret artist Urban Priol, who stated in a television interview³ after a prolonged visit to Canada: “When a social problem arises in Canada [current Happiness Report ranked 15th, by the way], people look for a solution together, while in Germany they first of all look for the culprit…”

Accordingly, we live in a country in which we all still regularly have to deal too much with more or less concealed allocations of guilt, which we receive – but probably also too often hand out among each other. And supposedly well-intentioned support in the form of stereotypes such as “Just be happy for now!”, “It can always be worse…” or “Others are much worse off…” are downright counterproductive negative psychology, which is unfortunately still encountered far too regularly in our society.
I even believe that we are currently in a phase where we need to pay even more attention to the way we interact with each other – be it romantically, amicably or just from one human being to another.

Thus wrote the British author Matt Haig (Great Britain is currently in 23rd place in the World Happiness Report…):
»It might seem a stretch to tie psychological healing with political healing, but if the personal is political, the psychological is, too. The current olitical climate seems to be one of division a a division partly fueled by the internet.
We need to rediscover our commonality as human beeings.
[…] There is n o panacea, or utopia, there is just love and kindness and trying, amid the chaos, to make things better where we can. And to keep our minds wide, wide open in a world that often wants to close them.«*

He adds, particularly with regard to our lives in western industrialized nations:
»Even when the world is not overtly terrifying us, the speed and pace and distraction of modern existence can be a kind of mental assault that is hard to identifie.
[…]
That is the biggest paradox, I think, about the modern world. We are all connected to each other but we often feel shut out. The increasing overload and complexity of modern life can be isolating.
Added to this is the fact that we don’t always know precisely what makes us feel lonely or isolated. It can make t hard to see what the problems are. It’s like trying to open an iPhone to fix it yourself. It sometimes feels like society operates like Apple, as if it doesn’t want us to get a screwdriver and look inside to see what the problems are for ourselves. But that’s what we need to do. Because often identifying a problem, being mindful of it, becomes the solution itself.«*

In terms of interpersonal relationships, especially when they are supposed to be loving relationships, the above-mentioned ” allocation of guilt” is therefore a huge burden – and often an “invisible elephant”. This is because people resort to allocating guilt especially when, in their insecurity, they hope to at least be able to display themselves in a more favourable light by using a downward comparison (for the personal consequences of a downward comparison and a covert “You’re not ok the way you are!”, see Entry 98). In the medium term, that way we are belittling the people in our immediate surroundings, but ultimately, by continuing to think this way, we are also belittling ourselves.
And “belittling” is, of all things, the complete opposite (antonym) of the empowerment desired for all participants in ethical multiple relationships. Why it is important to cultivate “empowered relationships” in Poly- and Oligoamory, I have described on this bLog particularly in my three-part series on “Meaningful Relationships” 1 | 2 | 3, with the focus on Part 1.

Accordingly, in our culture and society (especially in the more “unhappy” cultures and societies!) we are faced with the increasing dilemma that this leads to an unsettling feeling of disconnectedness and thus, to a certain extent, “homelessness”. Using the example of a hostel for displaced people, Matt Haig, whom I have already quoted, explains:
»A vounteer there told me the idea is that ‘the people here are lacking more than somewhere to sleep, they are lacking belonging. The problem is homelessness not houselessness. When you are homeless you are missing more than just a bedroom.«

Concerning the important qualities of feeling-at-home and belonging – and that it is so fundamental to experience these in our close romantic relationships – I have been talking about on my bLog since Entry 5.
So it’s high time now to take a look at the “lucky dogs” (at least the “luckier dogs”…) ahead of us and hopefully learn from them what we could gain for ourselves.
Regular top candidates in the periodic “World Happiness Reports” are, for example, the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and Switzerland as well.

The German psychologist and happiness researcher Judith Mangelsdorf (German University of Applied Sciences for Health and Sports, Berlin), for example, on the one hand attests to the high level of perceived social support in all of these countries.: She explains that if you were to ask people in these countries, they would subjectively have the feeling that folks would be there for each other, that they would care for each other and that in this way the commonality within their country would really contribute to the well-being of all.
On the other hand, she mentions the subjective experience of freedom: That residents would enjoy the feeling of being able to make their own decisions and shape their lives freely.
Happiness researcher Stefan Klein confirms this in his book “The Formula of Luck”:
»In case of doubt, being free to make your own decisions is worth more than having your wishes fulfilled. For most of us, control over our own destiny is an essential prerequisite for happiness and contentment. To experience the feeling of being at the mercy of others is one of the most unbearable sensations. Both humans and animals react to this with severe mental and physical disorders. If something desired can only be obtained at the price of dependency, those who choose freedom usually fare better.«
As far as I’m concerned, by the way, these are all factors that I also would like to experience in my relationships if I want to feel comfortable in them…

Questions put directly to the inhabitants of the affected countries yield even more specific results – especially with regard to the above-mentioned allocations of guilt and the downward comparisons.
In Finland, which is currently ranked 1st, already pupils are learning to recognize and identify their emotions. Teacher Annika Lehikoinen comments: “Teenagers are highly emotional, and they learn that it’s okay to experience all their feelings. It’s very important that they understand: Even if I have negative emotions, I still have to encounter everyone else with appreciation.” This is where Matt Haig resonates and I hear him saying “Often recognizing a problem, being mindful of it, becomes the solution itself.”

The Canadian economist John F. Helliwell has analyzed Finnish society in even greater detail. He points out:
»In Finland, your own contentment is closely linked to the contentment of others. Finns trust each other, they look after each other. And they have a very high level of equality of opportunity. Finns compare themselves less and are not in competition with each other like people in many other countries.«
The Finnish psychologist Frank Martela underlines this by describing that it is not so much a matter of Finland having the most exceptionally happy people, but rather that there are very few extremely unhappy people in Finland. This also contributes to people comparing themselves less with others. It would be precisely this equalisation that makes a difference. One Finnish proverb would say: “There’s no need to be envious.” Because even if someone else has or can do something special: I still lack nothing because, after all, nothing has been taken away from me.

Happiness researcher Klein becomes very explicit about this in his “Formula of Luck”. In his 13th chapter (“The power of perspective”), Klein names five “traps” that would directly counteract the experience of contentment and happiness. Traps four and five are – hardly surprisingly – entitled “Sideways Glances” and “Envy” and Klein writes bluntly: “If you compare yourself, you lose” – as people could very easily undo even the contentment they have already gained by means of these inner adversaries.

And in the same chapter, Klein agrees with the approach of Finnish teacher Annika Lehikoinen: a lot of unhappiness could be avoided if we were able to understand why we react the way we do and to what. The way forward therefore would be to pay more attention to our perception in the immediate present than we are used to. For it would be enormously beneficial to train the ability to notice emotions before they become distorted by comparisons, thoughts and memory.
At the same time, people would often deprive themselves of their comfort because they would usually experience their genuine contentment only too nebulously, especially because – if things were running smoothly – they would be only too willing to let their attention slip away. But particularly good feelings, such as the pleasant sensation of sitting opposite a familiar person for example, should be fully savoured.

Klein therefore refers to the Socio-Economic Panel, which also in Germany has brought “happy circumstances” to light by means of its surveys:
Accordingly, the most satisfied people in Germany are by far those who likewise prioritize the happiness of their fellow human beings. In the best-case scenario, this would create a community that feels connected and supports each other with mutual help – even in cases where political conviction is required (“…if the personal is political, then so is the psychological…”).
It’s the basic foundation for belonging and any true sense of community.

Having said all this about the source of happiness and contentment in our close and very close relationships, it seems right to me today to leave the closing words as well to the author Matt Haig, who wrote:

Maybe happiness is not about us, as individuals.
Maybe it is not something that arrives into us.
Maybe happiness ist felt heading out, not in.
Maybe happines is not about what we deserve because we’re worth it.
Maybe happiness is not about what we can get.
Maybe happiness is about what we already have.
Maybe happiness is about what we can give.
Maybe happiness is not a butterfly we can catch with a net.
Maybe there is no certain way to be happy.
Maybe there are only maybes.
If (as Emily Dickinson said) “Forever is composed of nows” maybe the nows are composed of maybes.
Maybe the point of life is to give up certainty and to embrace life’s beautiful uncertainty.

ª “Polycule” is a humorous portmanteau of “Polyamory” and “molecule” and refers to a group of people who are involved in ethically non-monogamous romantic relationships. As these “structures” or clusters can sometimes look like hydrocarbon rings, complex molecules or other medium-chain compounds when drawn for graphic illustration, the tongue-in-cheek term “polycule” has been coined.

¹ Stefan Klein, “The Formula of Luck – or: How good feelings arise”, [“Die Glücksformel”] Fischer 2012; expanded new edition 2014 [German edition only]

² Paul Watzlawick, “The Situation Is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness”, ‎ Norton & Company; Reprint Edition (1. Juli 1993)

³ Urban Priol in SR-Gesellschaftsabend No. 294; broadcasting series of the Saarländischer Rundfunk [German language only]

* All in-depth quotations in this Entry by Matt Haig are taken from: “Notes on a nervous planet”, Canongate Books Ltd.; Main Edition (28. Februar 2019)

I would like to thank the Tagesschau (News Portal) archive for the article on the World Happiness Report 2024 “Finland remains the happiest country“ (as at: 20.03.2024 11:28 a.m.) and the interview with Judith Mangelsdorf “One of the strongest factors is togetherness“ (as at: 20.03.2024 2:59 p.m.)

And of course thanks to Zachary Nelson on Unsplash for the photo!

Resource Cake

Festive weeks on the Oligoamory-bLog – and one anniversary follows the next: The 100th Entry can be admired today! Behind the speedy succession of outstanding milestones (just last month we celebrated 5 years of Oligoamory) this time, however, there’s first and foremost arithmetical finesse: Since I had written 4 articles every month in my first year of blogging, the 100th Entry is the result of the sum of 61 diligent months, after my project had become a monthly edition in year two.

Of course, there are nevertheless candles and cake for the nice round lot – and the latter is a kind of symbol for my topic today, which always plays an important role in the world of ethical multiple relationships: Resources.

A resource, according to the German-language Wikipedia, is “a means, [a] condition as well as [a] characteristic or [a] quality for pursuing goals, coping with requirements, carrying out specific actions or allowing a process to proceed in a certain goal-oriented manner.” The Wikipedia entry also adds: “A resource can be a material or immaterial asset, […] in psychology for example also abilities, personal characteristics or a mental attitude, in sociology for example education, health, prestige and social connectedness. In psychological and psychosocial contexts, the terms ‘strengths’ or ‘sources of power’ are also frequently used.”

Three sentences from an online encyclopedia and it becomes clear that no one who is involved in a structure of several romantic partnerships – and possibly with several physically existing loved ones – can avoid this topic.
Because for truly practicable multi-person networks rooted in green life, personal resources are a decisive – how do we say nowadays? – “benchmark“, precisely in terms of their feasibility, their establishment and their sustainability.
Why this is so important, I already outlined in the first year of this project in my “Dating”-Entry 30” by asking: “Do I currently have the capacity in my life to appreciate a (further) WHOLE person as such?”
This question naturally arises when engaging in any form of romantic relationship – but when it comes to a life with even more than just one other “relationship participant”, the challenge of providing and allocating resources can increase accordingly (at least it sometimes seems that way…).

Which brings us to today’s title photo with the (anniversary) cake as an allegory for our resources. Which I think is pretty fitting, because of course a cake like this is usually there to presumably be shared with others.
At the same time… – as it lies there, pre-cut in its plastic tray – this resource, for its part, seems to be part of something bigger as well. And that’s wonderful: After all, I’ve been stating about ethical oligoamorous multiple relationships almost from the very beginning (and it says so on my starting page) that they constitute an experience that is “greater than the sum of its parts”...

However, the current climate change and the turn towards a new ecological mindset also remind us that resources are not infinite. This also applies to our personal resources in relationships. It is no coincidence that the subtitle of the Oligoamory project is “committed-sustainable relationships” (and I already talk about the “sustainability aspect” in the last section of Entry 3).
Limited resources mean that they should be managed carefully, but this sometimes also leads to division and rationing: Who receives which, when, from what and how much – and instead of a lavish cake, a purely functional pie chart with its colored larger and smaller segments comes to mind…

This tendency does not stop at multiple relationships – after all, sharing in a cake to which everyone contributes is only one side of the coin. The British author and journalist Matt Haig describes the other side as follows:

»Although it is said that the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the last person who read everything, this is a technical impossibility as he died in 1834, when there were already millions of books in existence. However, what is interestingis that people of the time could believe it was possible to read everything. No one could believe such a thing now.
We all know that, even if we break the world record for speed reading, the number of books we read will only ever be a minuscule fraction of the books in existence. We aredrowning in books just as we are droening in TV shows. And yet we can only read one book – and watch only one TV show – at a time. We have multipled everything, but we are still individual selves. There is only one of us. And we are all smaller than the internet. To enjoy life, we might have to stop thinking about what we will never be able to read and watch and say and do, and start to think of how to enjoy the world within our boundaries. To live on a human scale. To focus on the few things we can do, rather than the millions of things we can’t. To not crave parallel lives. To find a smaller mathematics. To be a proud and singular one. An indivisible prime.«¹

So let’s hope that we haven’t chosen multiple relationships out of our multiplication reflex of not missing out on anything. In any case, the temptation to pursue several relationships as “parallel lives” is quite real in Polyamory (my concern about this in Entry 2!). Self-care, on the other hand, is advisable if multiple relationships should prove “sustainable” in terms of our resources.

Concerning that, according to my experience, I would generally differentiate between “external” resources (e.g. money/income, means of transportation, housing, infrastructure, access to support, constitutionality, etc.) and “internal” resources (e.g. resilience, empathy, openness, relationship skills, ability to deal with conflict or criticism, etc.) – although there are certain overlapss:
A typical phenomenon for overlaps is the timing, like for example: Do I just have to deal with my mother’s admission to a nursing home, who received her dementia diagnosis last week? Or am I in my third trimester of pregnancy?
Get me right: When love enters our lives, it often doesn’t necessarily ask whether it’s a good time. However, sometimes there are serious external circumstances and processes that occupy us already factually – but also mentally and psychologically – to such an extent that we may not be the best version of ourselves – also with regard to our ability to be confronted with additional, groundbreaking decisions beyond the current stress (further typical “overlapping resources” are therefore e.g. health, integration/participation, as well as social inclusion and personal contacts in general).

Indeed, especially the important “resource time” itself – seemingly a mathematical external factor that literally squeezes our lifetime into the pie chart segments of the clock face: Time for eating, sleeping and the commitments we have made, e.g. often work – but also other obligations and relationships of various kinds that we want to maintain. As a result, we begin to allocate – and divide – and the organizational effort involved grows proportionally with the increasing scarcity that we ourselves are creating.

The author Matt Haig is right, however, when he points out that – controversial to the saying about love – that not everything always “becomes more when you share it”. Because at the end of all duplication, multiplication and any “more”, we ourselves – with our senses and sensations that allow us to experience all that – remain indivisible (see last third of Entry 98: in-dividual).
And precisely because this is the case, there is a danger that we will begin to deplete our lifetime – particularly when it comes to our relationships! – until we feel as the fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien makes the poor troubled Bilbo say in “The Lord of the Rings“ (Vol.1 “The Fellowship of the Ring”):
“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.“
At that point there is nothing left of cake, pie and enjoyment. And forget about sustainability…

As far as our resources are concerned, however, we can also be misled by two further factors, which in turn will probably lead to us literally “loading too much onto our plates” – causing us to be unable to get off a potential (pre-)worry carousel in good time.

On the one hand, this is due to the unfavorable biographical learning experience, which I already mentioned in Entry 27 and Entry 98, quoting the words of Friedrich Schiller “He who is strongest is most powerful alone”.
Such a manifested conviction usually arises from the negative (life)experience that one cannot rely on others, which often results in the attitude that “…if you want something done, you’d better do it yourself!”

On the other hand, this can happen if we overdo it with the beautiful oligoamorous principle of “thinking the other participants into the equation” from Entry 53, and try to co-manage the sovereignty hemisphere of these other participants in the relationship in a certain form of anticipatory concern.

I’m writing this paragraph because it’s something I keep catching myself doing – precisely because I sometimes forget that the other people involved in the relationship are also truly WHOLE, competent people.
Then I find myself – while I’m about to arrange an appointment – juggling with distances and navigation applications, fiddling with meal plans or comparing the pros and cons of entire weekend schedules with the known likes and dislikes of the possible participants.
And before I’ve even come close to successfully slaying such a coordination monster, I sometimes receive an email from one of my loved ones telling me how she*he can easily travel the (in my eyes terrifyingly annoying) kilometers to my place, what she*he is contributing to lunch and that we don’t need so many plotted activities because our coming together would be the most important priority. Period.

But sometimes I don’t – and I get tangled up unnecessarily in a mess of well-intentioned, anticipatory obedience, seasoned with a few subliminal patronizing suggestions due to the omission to inquire in time on my part…

Incidentally, such an unfavorable “cat-and-mouse game with yourself” can be taken to extremes. Because it’s of course good and right to be clear about your resources – and about what capacities are (still) available for (further) interpersonal relationships. However, asking yourself what you have to offer another person because you already have such a jam-packed life is above all a self-deprecating but ultimately rather insubstantial endeavor – since it is in the eyes and hearts of the others who hopefully choose us for their own – and uniquely good – reasons.

By which I mean to say: Even BEING in a relationship can still occasionally make us forget that we don’t have to bear the weight of the universe on our shoulders alone. Or that only our shoulders might be the most appropriate on which it should rest…
After all, it is also an important resource to acknowledge the limits of one’s own sphere of controllability.
For one thing, that we can finally free ourselves from the fact that since we are NOT alone, we still always have to be strong in everything.
Because, for another thing, the other (relationship) parties involved are absolutely great, capable – indeed – WHOLE human beings, with ideas, talents and resources all of their own, which probably relate to domains and potentials that are luckily quite different from ours.
Ideas, talents and resources that in turn allow us the extraordinary and beneficial experience of drawing from something greater than the mere sum of its parts…

Of course, in ethical (multiple) relationships, it remains true and important to think about the effects of one’s own plans and actions on other participants. Selfishly managed resources, which are allocated as we see fit, primarily with a view to maximizing our own benefit, render us incapable of relating and unlovable.
In line with the words of Matt Haig above, the German social pedagogue and conflict researcher Klaus Wolf, for example, already worked out at the beginning of this millennium that individual self-nurturing coping styles such as optimism or dedication (in the sense of: turning towards, opening up, accepting) are among the most essential personal resources.²
And that is precisely why sharing in intimate relationships also allows us to experience this unique sentiment with regard to our resources, which for me was most impressively put into words by the deeply perceptive Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke³:

Rest!
Being a guest for once.
Not always entertain your own desires
with meager fare.
Not always grasping for everything with hostility;
let everything happen for once and know:
What happens is good.

¹ Matt Haig: „Notes on a Nervous Planet“, Canongate Books Ltd.; Main Edition (05. July 2018)

² Klaus Wolf: Sozialpädagogische Interventionen in: Karin Lauermann, Gerald Knapp (Edt.): Sozialpädagogik in Österreich. Perspektiven in Theorie und Praxis. Volume 3. Publishers: Hermagoras/Mohorjeva, Wien, p. 92–105, esp. p. 95; 2003

³ Excerpt from: Rainer Maria Rilke – “The Love and Death of Cornet Christoph Rilke“, written in 1899, first publication by Insel-Bücherei in 1912

Thanks to MatissDzelve on Pixabay for the photo!

Don’t dream it – be it…!

Dear readers, the time has come:
With today’s 99th Entry, the Oligoamory project turns an incredible 5 years old!
A proud age for a private bLog as a one-man business, which many similar ventures do not reach, though all of them also started out with passion and the convinced enthusiasm to have something to say on a certain topic.¹
Accordingly, I call out to you today: “I’m still here!” – and in accordance with Oligoamory’s three core values of “commitment”, ” involvement” and “consistency”, I will endeavor to ensure that this remains true next month, as it has been the case for the previous 60.

In a way, it’s a bit peculiar. Five years ago at this time of year, my last polyamorous multiple relationship had just ended with mutual misunderstandings and some boundary violations as well (also on my part). Strictly speaking, it was the end of a series of three shorter polyamorous arrangements that had disintegrated one after the other and all left a meagre feeling of – how do we say it nowadays? – “underperformance”, in fact: having fallen short of the potential possibilities.

Escaping into another relationship was not an option at the time – and I also felt that this would be highly counterproductive.
So I urgently needed some silver lining to stay true to my relationship-philosophy despite the fresh wounds on my heart and to keep moving forward – as well as I needed a space to reflect on what I had learned from the experience – and at the same time a vehicle to record what I actually expected for myself from an intimate romantic relationship with several people involved (a process that I had skipped every time before in a somewhat carefree way).
Additionally, I had assumed that the people I was in relationships with would perceive the phrase “ethical multiple relationships” in more or less the same way I did. Finding out specifically that this was not the case at all was one of the most painful realizations I gained from that time.

Ok, this is now probably a somewhat solemn introduction into today’s festive anniversary article…
Nevertheless, yes, the Oligoamory sprouted from this root, growing and unfolding with each Entry – and at the same time strengthening my confidence towards a way of loving that I felt for myself from deep within: The possibility of romantically desiring and cherishing some (select few) people at the same time.

From that point on, the Oligoamory, which had begun as “my journey”, so to speak, became more and more “your journey”, or rather, I should say “our journey” – as an undertaking and an affair of the heart for all those who feel similarly in this particular area of interpersonal relationships.

Yet from the very beginning, my “Oligoamory” was not born in a vacuum. Because its author and tour guide is a self-confessed idealist, it stood on the shoulders of all those bright minds who had already dedicated their lives (or at least an important part of them) to the possibility of multiple relationships – AND who had always consequently added the important little word “ethical” to this whole concept in order to clearly distinguish it from dishonesty, cheating, flingss or mere paramour status.
Which brought us full circle, because this clearly emphasized the importance of “working on the self“: finding out exactly what people would hope for themselves from such a kind of relationship – and at the same time what they would be able to contribute according to their own personal disposition…

As I compile the 99th Entry today, I come to think of three further insights that have repeatedly struck me over the past few years:

Firstly, and it is therefore no coincidence that I mention it right here, how important it is – especially in the “realm of Poly- or Oligoamory” – to seek, establish and maintain relationships with people and not with relationships.
In their Polyamory book “More than Two” ² – and also on their former joint website – the authors Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert even postulated this important maxim as a fundamental principle, which they consequently anchored in their “Relationship Bill of Rights“.
What may seem oddly self-evident at first glance is in fact not at all – especially if you rummage through almost 600,000 words of Oligoamory in order to find your way around. Because that way the danger of succumbing to “function follows form” in the end is surprisingly significant. This does not necessarily mean, as in classic “worst-case scenarios”, that people in multiple relationships are only assigned a certain predefined place with their specific role if they have literally signed a “contractual relationship agreement” beforehand (no joke: there were/are multiple relationships that really try to implement this with a self-written set of rules…). No, the much more present danger is that we simply unconsciously put on some “contractual relationship glasses” in our everyday lives and thus subject the people we approach – and who may even be attracted to us – to a kind of “ethical multiple relationship checklist”.
But what usually makes things even more difficult for us, as proponents of ethical multiple relationships, is that we in particular are often only perceived “from the outside” in this limited view, i.e. only in our capacity as “multiple relationship practitioners”. And that’s not only problematic, it usually nips any initial delicate relationship building in the bud.
It is precisely this initial delicate relationship establishment that is a very sensitive process. Because, of course, in the second step, it is absolutely essential to directly disclose your chosen relationship philosophy and how you identify with it in order to give all sides an informed choice. But the FIRST step is and remains to find out whether the people involved like each other, might enjoy and appreciate each other, maybe are able to develop feelings for each other…!
Too often in the last 5 years, I have experienced that the precautionary clarification of the relationship model at the beginning of a relationship has quenched every spark of infatuation, almost before it could even blossom. And this is not a human scale when the form becomes more important than the function. How much sympathy, how much understanding, support, empathy, chance of connection, yes, of possible infatuation and possibly real love are we missing out that way?

The 21st century should teach us that no ready-made blueprints for relationships can be pulled from the xerox machine of the past. Rather, the imperative of the time is that previously agreed structures must be revisited again and again and adapted to the current situation and topicality in order to endure and be appropriate for those involved.
That is why I say here and now: “Love, you wonderful people out there, love and fall in love if you have the opportunity to do so – and in the next step, establish the ethical framework for this serendipity – in which everyone involved feels perceived, valued, cared for and accepted to the greatest possible extent!”
The pre-emptive contractual relationship discussion is a bit like someone saying “You’re buying cauliflower – nah, I can’t love you…” or “Oh, you’re wearing polka dots – I don’t even want to find out if I could like you…” Does that sound silly? Then all it takes is a glance into the social networks, for example, to realize with disillusionment that our interpersonal discourse has long since reached this rather shallow level. And that we give up the chance to get to know someone else, who might otherwise have been a very likeable person – who might have enriched our life – because of petty outward formalities.

600,000 words of Oligoamory are (also) a lot of theory. But please don’t let that stop you from putting function before form. Get into conversation, get involved with each other, allow a first tender connection, the first perceived sparks, air and space to breathe and grow: Therefore, please initiate relationships with people, not immediately with relationships – or relationship models (as important as these – and the agreement on them – may be in the second step).

My secondly has – in a sense – a connection with the “firstly” above.
In last year’s March Entry 87, I wrote that many of “us” – in other words, those who deal with the topic of “ethical multiple relationships” with regard to their interpersonal contacts – have often already “thought themselves free” in certain other areas of their lives (e.g. ecological lifestyle, political activism, queerness, spirituality, identification with subcultures, veganism, etc.). Since such alternative approaches often require a conscious, often resistant stance against the normativity of mainstream society, these lifestyles often go hand in hand with establishing personal boundaries and asserting one’s own identity for example in language, commitment, clothing, choice of environment and the choice of like-minded peers.
After a while, one danger of being non-ordinary is that, because of the vigor that such an extraordinary approach requires adverse to the majority of society, even nonconformists tend to assume that this extra-ordinary approach has always to be essential for themselves.
However, this is not just a minority phenomenon, it also affects the aforementioned normative society: our ever increasing event and achievement culture is more and more numbing us against the subtle nuances – while establishing the spectacular as the expected standard.
The German-born spiritual teacher and self-help author Eckhart Tolle once appropriately commented on this:

»Why do we wait for something extraordinary to happen to feel alive?
Why does the excitement only kick in when a certain event occurs – a promotion, a vacation, a major change in life?
The truth is that every moment – yes, really every moment – can be a spectacle.
Even the most mundane activities, like drinking a cup of tea or walking to the bus, can become something great.
When you drink a cup of tea, take a moment to feel the warmth of the cup in your hands, savour the aroma of the tea, notice the taste on your tongue. Suddenly, this simple act becomes an experience full of sensuality and presence.
As you walk to the bus, you can observe the rhythm of your steps, breathe in the freshness of the air, perceive the sounds of your surroundings. You are fully there, in the moment, and every second becomes alive and meaningful.
This does not happen through magical transformation, but through your conscious and present perception of the moment.«

In Entry 45, in which I write about the “Wonderful Ordinariness of Being”, I also allude to this. The danger of missing out on 100% of life, because our threshold of stimulation has long since passed the 110%, causes us to regard everything supposedly below it as less authentic or even worthwhile. Which means we ourselves are pushing the bar higher and higher for ourselves as to what it takes to get us “excited”… And this is problematic for any establishment of a relationship – and thus also for our existing relationships – because by means of this artificial “upward comparison” we trivialize and diminish our current experience, which leads to the fact that we are always already on to the next (expecting) step – and thus are rarely actually present in the here & now.
However, love that expresses itself precisely in involvement, appreciation and being-there-for-each-other is an entirely present moment! Let’s not miss out on this moment because, in our attitude of entitlement, we are waiting for nothing less than the manifest appearance of the rainbow unicorn in the flesh in Cinemascope format and HD – and overlook the gift of luck that is just putting the canned peas in the shopping cart right next to us…

Thirdly – and because “firstly” and “secondly” can nonetheless feel frustrating after a while, especially if there is little actual progress and the longed-for loved ones are foreseeably not going to show up as speedily as we would wish it:
Stay true to yourself. And don’t lose faith and confidence in the rightness of your romantic feelings.
What’s more: don’t let anyone talk you out of it or let it be denigrated as a phase that surely must have expired due to a lack of evidence…
Not even by the fact that you yourself have perhaps not yet dared to take the final step – and have not yet acknowledged your desire for multiple relationships to the outside world.
Because that would be like someone else maliciously diagnosing: “What, you’re not outed yet? – Then you’re probably not really gay, lesbian, trans etc…!”
But here too, “form follows function” applies: An “outing“, the step towards openly admitting that you are capable and willing to engage into multiple relationships, is the final step in a process whose original, outgoing source is your own innermost feelings in the first place.
Take it from me, someone who hasn’t actually managed to be part of a more continuous multiple relationship in the last 5 years.
Because have I therefore become less poly- or oligoamorous?
On the contrary, every day, every single step along the way has constantly reassured me more about who I am and what my romantic experiencing is all about.
If I were to find another beloved person, no one would be happier than me, of course. At the same time, the self-knowledge gained from the initial hullabaloo of the past 5 years is the wealth I have gained by myself and for myself, which will accompany me throughout my remaining life (a treasure which will certainly still increase I think when I look back…). And after all, I have to put up with myself the most – especially when I mingle with other, perhaps potentially wonderful, people…

“Don’t dream it – be it!” – with these words from today’s title, the extraterrestrial transvestite and non-conformist Frank-N-Furter in the colorful musical “The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show” challenges his audience to live and act boldly.
I can only agree to his invitation if we don’t lose sight of the fact that we are always dealing with human beings as counterparts in relationship matters, that we recognize that our wishes can be extraordinary – but that doesn’t automatically mean “more spectacular, better, more” (here Frank-N-Furter would have disagreed…😉) – and that being true to ourselves – even in times of “drought” and even if our inner sparkle has not yet fully emerged to the outside world – is always the best kind of authenticity.

Not so simply as Frank-N-Furter – but much more straightforwardly – the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh expressed all this for me with a quote that I’m sticking in the virtual buttonhole today to mark the fifth anniversary of Oligoamory:

»Normality is a paved road,
you can walk on it well,
but there are
no flowers
on it.«

So let’s meet off the road again! For another 5 years? I don’t want to promise that much today – but in any case: as long as love (for bLogging) lasts.

¹ Like for example, the feminist kleinerdrei project, which I used to hold in high esteem and which was supported by a number (!) of authors. Unfortunately, after 5 years they decided to quit…

² The book by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert “More Than Two – A practical guide to ethical Polyamory”, Thorntree-Press 2014.

Thanks to Alfonso Scarpa on Unsplash for the photo!

You are welcome!

…not only on Valentine’s Day

Throughout our lives – and especially in the moments when we establish relationships – we humans move between different polarities: On the one hand, we naturally want to preserve our individualism, our self, with our own set of thoughts and values. On the other hand, we also usually want to contribute to the well-being of others – on whose support we ourselves are often dependent – and therefore practise altruism. Altruism – according to Wikipedia, a “principle and practice of concern for the well-being and/or happiness of other humans or animals above oneself” – is therefore an important quality in our interpersonal relationships, but – like the proverbial medal – it has another side. And this second side expresses itself in our fear that by becoming too involved with our fellow human beings and due to our longing for participation and inclusion, we will ” disappear”, so to speak as a person, and lose ourselves in conformism by adapting and fitting in (giving up our own individuality to the norms and opinions of the reference group). As a result we head back towards individualism, but sometimes overdo it with our striving and end up with its “medal backside”, egocentrism (self-centeredness, self-indulgence)…

This could be just a nice theory if we weren’t all constantly oscillating through this 4-factor matrix in our multiple relationships. “Us and the others” is THE dynamic basic motif, according to which we orbit like in a dance – sometimes closer and sometimes more distant.
The challenge: to remain true to one’s own values and goals – and at the same time not to succumb to ego-tripping, narcissism or bossiness; to willingly contribute to the overall well-being of a group to which one belongs (also because it can benefit oneself) – and not to do so out of fear to assume responsibility, self-underestimation or the neediness for belonging.
This is why Polyamory so often calls for the cultivation of a balanced self before establishing a multiple relationship, and why I emphasize here on my bLog concerning Oligoamory the creation of the famous “mutual we“, which is supposed to constitute the center of a relationship – in order to enable the perception of being integrated and simultaneously individually appreciated for all participants.
In this way, connectedness, to which I dedicated my last Entry among others, could benefit from the extent of our ability to commit ourselves as individuals and our ability to bond as social beings.
Accordingly, the trauma therapist Maria Sanchez, for example, points out that the amount of ability we have at our disposal to get in contact with ourselves we also possess in an equal amount to get in contact with the outside world…

Ms. Sanchez assumes, however, that most of us in our Western society have already sustained an attachment trauma in early childhood, which resulted from the discrepancy between how we were originally laid out and how the outside (especially our closest caregivers) wanted us to be.¹
Since then, a mostly unconscious part of us would regularly experience ourselves as “disconnected“, especially in situations that would affect that first violation of our innermost core for the sake of approval by attachment figures (or later: loved ones and significant others!).

The social scientist Stefan Ossmann said three years ago in an interview in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “The scarce commodity [in polyamorous relationships] is not love or sex, but attention.” ²
I would say that this is a fairly accurate observation, considering the many videos, reports and forum discussions on our topic that I have been following ever since – and above all the challenges and difficulties that are regularly presented therein.

A perceived lack of attention today can thus trigger a kind of re-traumatization, so to speak, in which the above-mentioned injured part of us once again registers that there are probably (recently / currently / once more) facets of our being that are still not welcome.
However, what is also not obvious to those affected and the other people involved in the relationship – and what becomes problematic for the relationship as a whole – is that we almost always derive convictions from such an experience that we henceforth impose on ourselves (or we negatively confirm those that were already ingrained anyway).
I say “problematic for the relationship as a whole” because injuries at this level are always rooted in a “we-field”, since the (re)traumatized person acts from an attitude in which they are already over-sensitively focused on external events or already anticipate some menacing occurrence (foreshadowing) – and are no longer well grounded in themselves [By that “The way you are, you’re not ok!” becomes “The way I am, I’m not ok…”].

At this point it can also be seen how a mere feeling (“…something irritated me…”), which would subside after the irritation if it were free of bias, develops into an emotion (= feeling + [biased] evaluation), which continues to remain “triggered” from then on. Thus, a process kicks in that permanently ties up vital energy that could be used much more beneficially elsewhere.

Trauma therapist Sanchez concludes that such processes should contribute – and in any case have contributed – to the fact that we were not allowed or supposed to become mature individuals within certain areas of our personality – and accordingly we never did.
She further concludes that as a result, many of us have developed “chronic symptoms” that correspond to an “inner dictator” who continues to dictate doctrines to us with instructions on how we should behave instead, an “inner critic” who devalues us when we supposedly fail – and above all includes our environment in this downward comparison, as well as an “inner seducer” who tries to temporarily remove us from this field of tension by means of external distractions (addictive structures such as media, drugs, sex, food, cash/consumption, etc…).
In turn, according to Ms. Sanchez, addictive structures are dangerous because, as she puts it, they “swap the stages”: A supposedly “controllable” substitute would be offered instead of a path towards a genuine joy of existence.

Anyone who has followed my bLog up to this Entry knows that this harbours critical potential, especially in multiple relationships, as “situations of insecurity” present a rather different set of challenges than in monogamy – and if only because there is no retreat into the “usual”, because, on the one hand, more “new beginnings” may have to be dealt with – but also because simply the (not even so large) number of individuals involved will produce an ever-changing diversity of nuances, facets and shades of togetherness [in comparison to (only) two long-term partners].
For this reason, especially conflicts in multiple relationships offer the ambivalent potential of having to be overcome – because in the medium term, the parties involved are not likely to be dismissed into a false peace of retreat into their snail shells of silence (which would still be an option with just two people – as our parents’ and grandparents’ generations proved…).

I mentioned it for the first time in Entry 62: ambiguity tolerance is therefore required – which Ms. Sanchez, by the way, calls more specifically and appropriate to the topic of relationships “encounter competence”.
So here we are again invited as individuals (as I indicated from the Latin in-dividuus : “indivisible”) to develop this competence; and because we were unfortunately not allowed to become fully individual (and multi-layered) – as I wrote above – this has also ensured that we are acutely more helpless in the face of every dilemma than would otherwise probably have been the case.

Our beliefs and symptoms consisting of inner dictators, critics and seducers benefit when we remain in such a continuous (dissatisfactory) fight with ourselves and the external circumstances.
Consequently, this would mean for us to get out of this fight. But please not by means of the next seduction in disguise (which could also come in the shape of an ambitious sports program or the strict practice of a spiritual practice…)!

The path to the aforementioned joy of being, to an “I am”, means above all getting in touch with this strangely perceived disconnectedness within us. Even including the sides of us that do not want to feel this disconnectedness at any price and therefore want to dictate that a strong person is strongest when alone*, criticize us as dependent and needy – or who want to distract us from feeling, acknowledging and self-awareness with somewhat inappropriately customized distractions.
In this way we create the opportunity for ourselves to realize that we have very good reasons for everything we feel: We begin to unravel strongly internalized traumas and convictions, because we see through them to the fact that WE HAVE NEVER BEEN WRONG!
And since I already referred in Entry 26 to the consequences of unfavourably acquired thinking when it comes to conflict resolution strategies (key words “win / lose”), this takes us full circle to Ms. Sanchez’s opening remark about how much our ability to make contact “inwardly” has to do with our ability to get into contact “outwardly” – meaning above all with our loved ones.

So our past is indeed always involved when we want to connect with our partners. This is why encounter competence is so important, because this can only succeed in a life where we are in touch with ourselves.
Genuine touch means that this love we all long for does not want to “get rid of” or “change” anything. This love even embraces all our subjunctives of “if” and “might have”: True love gives all aspects a right to exist.
And if – as Stefan Ostmann said above – attention is the scarce commodity that we all covet, then we often realize that we are already taking too little time for ourselves.
This is where encounter competence begins: encountering oneself ever more deeply – in a loving relationship with oneself.
So “I” should be more present; “I” should be happening to a far greater extent…

As far as I’m concerned, the way something like this could potentially take shape was expressed quite appropriately by the British author Matt Haig in his book “The Midnight Library” ³:

»It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living. Easy to wish we’d developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we’d worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn’t make and the work we didn’t do the people we didn’t do and the people we didn’t marry and the children we didn’t have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It’s the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people’s worst enemy.
We can’t tell if any of those other versions would have been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.«

¹ from: YouTube: Transgenerational trauma, Maria Sanchez in an interview with Simon Rilling (25.10.2022, German language only)
Additional thanks to Ms. Sanchez for her therapeutic online offer, from which I quote excerpts in my current Entry (my household has duly paid for access to the content concerned).

² Online service Süddeutsche Zeitung from July 02, 2021, interview by Thomas Bärnthaler with Stefan Ossmann [Polyamory-researcher University Vienna] (SZPLus subscription required; German language only)

³ Matt Haig: “The Midnight Library”, ‎ Canongate Books; Main Edition (18. Februar 2021)

* “The strong man is strongest when alone” – Friedrich Schiller: “William Tell”, Act I, Scene 3

Thanks to Valiant Made on Unsplash for the photo!

Safely connected? #Connectedness

A new year – a new annual review: My Entries in the past year 2023 were mainly dedicated to our most favourite people and loved ones:
Therefore, last January’s Entry started with the question of why we would want to have other people as romantic partners in our lives in the first place.
In February, I focused on the question that is so often heard in relationships: “Do you (still) love me?” – and how much the answer would be related to the appreciative nature of the connection that arises from it.
Accordingly, in the March-Entry I described our deep longing for attachment on the one hand and our desire for autonomy on the other; a dichotomy that sometimes makes it difficult for us to prove ourselves commited and reliable in our relationships.
Expanding on this, in April I shed light on the topic of “exclusivity”, which is controversial discussed time and again, especially with regard to multiple relationships – but which is certainly justified as long as the underlying principle of communality isn’t ignored.
That’s why, in the May-Entry, I recommended that we don’t venture out into the world as “irresistible dating gods”, but continue to pay attention to the much more important, groundbreaking inner signals when real love and infatuation enter our lives.
Otherwise there might be a risk of what I satirized in the June-Entry: a lack of communication and overconfidence that would soon lead to misunderstandings – and to always assuming that everyone else involved has the worst possible motivation for their actions.
In July, I supplemented this with an appeal to research your own needs carefully so as not to engage into multiple relationships with too fixed an idea in your head as a rescue plan for yourself.
The August-Entry therefore emphasized once again how important it is for the maintenance of multiple relationships to constantly cultivate and expand our “team player traits” with skills such as a change of perspective, tolerance and forbearance.
Something I specified in September by explaining that relationship work is always a “joint project”, which must not be performed by the same people over and over because of the pressure to perform, fear of loss or even business thinking.
In October, I used a personal example to explain how important our own transparency and honesty are in these matters for our loved ones, even if it is not always pleasant for ourselves.
The November-Entry once again dealt with the topic of “coming out” in multiple relationships – and how the decision to do so would also affect our self-image.
2023 finally ended with the December article, which invited us to show kindness, empathy and generosity towards our loved ones – beyond evaluative reason and critical judgment.

I would also wish for kindness, empathy and generosity in 2024, if it were possible, especially as a remedy for the numerous conflicts that our world is obviously currently facing.
As the bLogger Oligotropos, I will therefore continue to campaign for human beings to come together in small, loving communities and thus create a vision of a more harmonious and consensual coexistence.

To achieve this, multiple relationships (which are after all the subject of this bLog) nonetheless require a high degree of connectedness.
Connectedness is certainly a value that develops a certain “momentum of its own” at a certain point in a relationship – especially if the parties involved feel a deep sense of belonging to each other. But it will never be “self-sustaining” or even “self-generating”.
To achieve this, relationships also need the deep investment and dedication of their participants.

In this aspect, multiple relationships always have to deal with a kind of shadow, in terms of how much we actually dare to fully immerse ourselves in them.
After all, the catchphrase “multiple” in “multiple relationships” can lead us to believe that the mere choice of such a relationship-model will provide us with a “multiplicity” of love, attachment, security, closeness, respect, appreciation, intimacy, sexuality, friendship, companionship, acceptance or joy.
As a consequence, we may – if we find the potential for it in ourselves – begin to intentionally strive for several relationships.
Sometimes, however, this is the beginning of us starting to – in a manner of speaking – “spread our butter increasingly thinner”.
In this respect, I think of the play “Much Ado About Nothing“ by William Shakespeare, for example, in which the first scene of the second act mentions:

Don Pedro: “Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.”
To which the rather emancipated Beatrice replies:
“Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one.”

Whereby “double” here, in subtle irony, does not stand for “multiple”, but actually for “inauthentic / fake” (thus being even less than “single”…).
However, I don’t believe that – in contrast to Shakespeare’s play – for us who are affected the issue here is one of deliberate (pre)deception.
But at the same time, when it comes to this interpretation of “multiple-love” (which is also one of the direct translations of “Poly”-“Amory”), I regularly fear that the best that this relationship philosophy actually has to offer is in danger of falling by the wayside due to this kind of approach.

Above I used the terms “investment” and “dedication”. Both are quite similar in meaning, and both were introduced into our current language by the Romans. “Investment” comes from the Latin word “investitio” = equipped with clothing (just as the word “vest” still refers to a singlet/chemise in British English and a waistcoat in American English). The word “dedication” in turn once meant “endowment with a gift”.
So when we “invest” or “dedicate” ourselves, we are in a sense putting on a new dress and are bestowing ourselves on someone or something.
What a beautiful metaphor!
However, this metaphor implies above all that I a) prepare myself and b) let go of control. And so these are two processes that first and foremost have to do entirely with myself.
In my desire for a relationship – and also later IN a relationship – I therefore don’t look so much at what the others could contribute to my completion and the elevation of my state, but rather commit myself – and let go.

In a way, that’s quite a feat to be honest, pretty easy to write it down – but truly challenging to implement. That is because our world is largely based on control – while at the same time emphasizing the greatest possible individual autonomy to maintain it.
At the same time, however, this tends to make us feel even more powerless and insecure in the face of all kinds of events – precisely because we have to realize time and again how little we can actually influence after all.
Buddhism, among others – but also many similar philosophical schools of thought – have long since exposed “control” as an illusion.
For example, the relationship therapists Christine and Hendrik Weiß write in the foreword to the German translation of the book “The Two of Us” ¹ by Veronica Kallos-Lilly and Jennifer Fitzgerald, that secure bonds are formed precisely when those involved succeed in turning to each other, are able to show their own vulnerabilities and want to be emotionally present for each other. Only in this way would those involved in the relationship feel safe enough to share feelings, hopes and disappointments with each other in order to have new emotional experiences in which they would no longer experience themselves as alone, isolated or “not right” – but as being seen and valued.

The main character in the dramedy series “Undone“, Alma Winograd-Diaz [played by actress Rosa Salazar] (Season 2, Episode 8 “We all love each other”) exemplifies it even more impressively for me:

»Maybe that’s what we’re ultimately meant to do here: Face ourselves, for the sake of our relationships. For the people we love. Maybe that’s all that matters: These invisible threads running between us and through us, throughout time. These invisible lines that bind us and set us free.«
And to further illustrate the nature and intensity of this bond, she even adds the following about her deceased father:
»I can still feel the tug of that tie. Someone very cool told me that part of life is accepting that bad things are gonna happen. And finding ways to move through them together.«

In order to enjoy this kind of connectedness, we have to literally “recover ourselves” in our relationships. And increasingly, also science has worked out more and more how significantly our (previous) bonding experiences play an important role in this². Once again the therapist couple Weiß:
“At most half of all people have grown up ‘innately’ securely attached. […] We take these experiences with us into our bonded relationships in adult life – until we become aware of them and change them.”

Already in my Entry 7 on this bLog I explain that connectedness and freedom are not contradictory in the world of multiple relationships.
We should therefore not fear the “loss of our personal freedom” in this everyday world, which by contrast so loudly proclaims the hymn of autonomy.
But in order to truly feel ” both connected and free”, it is important to initially find our way back to our own basic trust.

A year ago, I wrote that personal needs are often like looking in the pantry when you feel an unresolved inner desire or longing – usually with the realization when looking over the shelves: “What I actually need isn’t in here at all…” So instead of choosing the shopping tour as a solution “…then surely what I need will be out there somewhere…”, I wish that we would pause and first of all reflect on ourselves so that we can afterwards clothe ourselves anew and give ourselves away – then positively trusting that good things will indeed happen to us.

¹ Veronica Kallos-Lilly und Jennifer Fitzgerald: “An Emotionally Focused Workbook for Couples: The Two of Us”, Routledge; Workbook Edition December 2021

² The author Jessica Fern, for example, recently wrote about the influence of biographically learned attachment behaviour in polyamorous relationships in her book “Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Non-monogamy”, Scribe UK, September 2022

Thanks to Anne Nygård on Unsplash for the photo!

Caretaker

The practice of ethical multiple relationships with a small number of participants, as I use the term to characterise my vision of Oligoamory, has a lot to do with community-building processes – which is something I point out in several of my Entries.

And in my example today, it is a truly amazing community that has been brought together.
I would like to briefly introduce them to you – starting with the adults:
There is, of course, the ever-active Cat, who is always bursting with ideas and does everything in her power to improve the group’s quality of life. A hard-working housekeeping hen called Marianne, who is often up for a little chat, is happy to help and advise her. They are also supported by a somewhat elderly dog, Captain Knaak, who once sailed at sea and acquired all kinds of practical skills there. The group also includes a light-shy arthropod known as “The Centipede” (an avid collector of burnt-out light bulbs) and the twin brothers Erbsenstein, two tinkerers and inventors who are so similar that not even their first names matter. The eldest member of the household is a stork-like animal that is affectionately known as “The Stumbling Bird”, since its long legs have become a bit tired by now and sometimes fail to perform.
This community also involves young people: There is a daydreaming female Llama teenager who spends a lot of her time napping and a talented wild boar kid, “Baby Hübner”, who vigorously pursues his ambition of a career as a composer and singer at the opera.
Of course, there are also smaller children: a lizard-like creature called “Zappergeck”, whose impulsiveness and audacity may possibly be an expression of a hyperactivity disorder. And – last but not least – a gentle bumblebee toddler, the “Puddingbrummsel”, who for her part still struggles a little with the world of language, but is nevertheless able to express herself.

Incidentally, this community was assembled by the two writers Desi and Simon Ruge in their book “Katze mit Hut” (→‘Cat with a Hat’, first: Beltz & Gelberg 1980¹) and the follow-up volume “Neues von der Katze mit Hut” (→‘News from the Cat with the Hat’, Beltz & Gelberg 1984).
The two books offer a wonderful, child-oriented overview of a community-building process, as it was set down seven years later by the “father of community-building”, Scott Peck, for an adult audience in his book “The Different Drum – Community Making and Peace” (Simon & Schuster, New York 1987).

Likewise in “Cat with a Hat”, the community members regularly have to pass through all the phases of shared life, which Scott Peck identified in his observations as “pseudo-community” (an initial, still rather superficial get-together), “chaos” (arguments, mutual lecturing and self-justification), “emptiness” (a phase of contemplation, reorganization and relaxation) and “true community” (genuine coming together and standing up for each other).
With such diverse characters involved, no one should be surprised!

I have already written a little about Scott Peck’s community-building process in Entry 8, so I won’t go into it too deeply here.
Today I would like to reflect on an aspect of cohabitation that appears in a minor marginal scene in “The Cat with the Hat”, but which seems to me to be of great importance (and I think it is no coincidence that Desi and Simon Ruge have included this detail in their work):

On the day the Cat discovers the new housemate “Centipede”, she, the dog Captain Knaak and Marianne the hen hear strange nocturnal noises from above the top floor. Together with the dog, the Cat climbs up to the attic (Marianne stays behind watching over the kitchen), where they are addressed by a hidden creature as soon as they switch on the light. The Cat asks the dog to switch off the light again, whereupon they both meet the arthropod “Centipede”, who is in the process of shelving his collection of burnt-out light bulbs – and who urges them never to turn on the light because it would cause pain to his sensitive eyes (which is why he would prefer the night for his activities anyway). A friendly dialogue ensues, at the end of which the Cat welcomes the Centipede into the domestic community and confirms his place in the attic – and assures him that he should not be disturbed by the rest of the group during daytime.
Cat and dog go back downstairs, but because Captain Knaak is also something like the janitor (the caretaker!) for the entire community, the Cat asks him on the stairs: “And take care that the shutters on the top floor stay closed during the day from now on.” Whereupon Captain Knaak replies committed and sincerely: “I don’t understand – but I care.” [Afterwards, the two return to Marianne and everyone goes to bed]

It was not until a couple of decades later, after I had encountered the “Cat with a Hat” in my own life as a literary figure and on the puppet stage, that I gradually realized that the simple words »I don’t understand – but I care.« were one of the most profound expressions of true affinity and loyalty I had ever encountered.

After all, meeting the centipede was almost too instantaneous for Captain Knaak, and his intellect doesn’t work as swiftly as the quick-witted Cat: A new, somewhat peculiar housemate, the dark attic, the odd collection of light bulbs…, a lot of information all at once.
Apart from a reasonably robust trust – both in the situation and with regard to the judgment of his companion Cat – Captain Knaak uses another important resource that goes beyond pure comprehension. “Comprehension” already contains the word “to comprehend” – and thus normally means that we have assessed a situation with our thinking, our reasoning and our intelligence. But when we do this, we also switch on our ability to judge and therefore always involve a certain degree of evaluation, which – depending on our previous experiences or our individual state of mind – it may not always be favourable.

By admitting “I don’t understand – but I care.”, Captain Knaak is expressing on a much more instinctive level a realization of the situation, his unconditional consideration, his respect – and above all his empathy (→ there is a living being with a need that I myself may not yet fully understand – but because I myself have needs where I am happy when they are respected, I can care even without exact intellectual insight into the situation).
Without much thought or additional contextual knowledge, Captain Knaak even manages the famed change of perspective in this short scene, according to the Indian proverb “Walk a mile in his*her moccasins.”

In a December Entry shortly before the Christian festival of Christmas, this is a touching message – without any spiritual monopoly, by the way – because the vast majority of other religions and faiths as well as numerous philosophical schools of thought in the world would also like to invite people everywhere to this form of kind-heartedness, tolerance and generosity – beyond evaluative reason and critical judgment.

Also the graduate psychologist and couple therapist Ulrich Wilken², who among other things has developed the relationship-counselling app “myndpaar”, lists as the five most important pillars of every stable and strong relationship: 1. having trust in the relationship (by which he means above all the basic trust in the consistency of the love shared within it), 2. identifying and overcoming old patterns (especially the self-sabotage caused by internalized beliefs such as “I am inadequate” or “I am unlovable”), 3. accepting your partner’s differentness (above all, maintaining respect and curiosity for your partner’s approach and view of the world), 4. communicating mindfully (golden rule: stay with yourself, speak in the first person, don’t hand out “diagnoses”) and 5. appreciating what is (keep consciously recognizing and honouring the many small treasure-moments of a relationship without demanding perfection).

Close human communities, whether at home or like in the animal commune of the Cat from Prune Alley, are always loving relationships in this best sense.
And these loving relationships are true as such when Mr. Wilken’s first two pillars are mutually dependent, if you like: I have “trust in the constancy of love within a relationship” when I feel safe and accepted there; when I feel – even unconsciously at best – that I am being seen, because I experience in many small ways that I am considered and respected.
If this experience is given, my place of love is also a place of trust – a place where I can rely on this trust without having to intellectually check every day whether I (still) belong there.
For multiple relationships – as in the case of the “relationship expansion” by the addition of the Centipede in the example above – this means that it enables me to engage more calmly with the dynamics of several partners (including new ones) because I have a resilient confidence in myself, my position and towards my other partners.

Oh, by the way – Captain Knaak also lovingly reminds us of the pillars 3 and 4:
Although it all happened very quickly for him, he is probably also curious about his new housemate – just like the Cat. As a dog, he can’t quite understand the Centipede’s passion for darkness and burnt-out light bulbs – but since he already lives with a cat and a hen in the same household, he has long since begun to accept that there are as many different ways of looking at the world as there are people – beg your pardon – housemates. Therefore, for him, this means that the Centipede with its individual characteristics will certainly contribute to further enrichment.
At this moment, Captain Knaak also manages to communicate a residual uncertainty while keeping things in a personal perspective: “I don’t understand.” In this way, he does not shift the responsibility to the Centipede (“Now that guy is creepy…”) or to the Cat (“It’s always you and your impulsive invitations…!”) – but because of his trust in the already existing overall relationship, he manages to remain optimistic, which allows him to contribute his own great asset of commitment and reliability (“I care.”).

Pillar 5 (appreciating what is) is very often a somewhat tricky part in all relationships that already have a certain lifespan (…we can see that the ” Cat with a Hat” is doing well by the fact that there are even two whole books about her house-sharing relationship…):
Spotting the “little relationship-treasures” is a bit like mixing Christmas and Easter together (or hiding the contents of an Advent calendar all over the home). We can encounter “appreciation” in many different forms, in the form of words or deeds, even items or services.
And it doesn’t matter whether it’s our favourite chocolate in the cupboard or the extra detour in the pouring rain: Above all, it is important that we ourselves sharpen our focus to welcome these little “treasures” for what they are – and not let them fall prey to a gray registry of obviousness and routine.
To prevent the latter, it is also important to pause, to reflect and actively ask yourself (and the others) how you have experienced the relationship recently (even a conversation like this can be a sign of appreciation in itself!) – and, for example, to consider jointly how the relationship could be strengthened for future challenges.

Anyone who encounters or experiences one of these little “treasures” in their everyday life – sometimes especially in an unlikely place or in an unforeseen situation – will usually immediately feel confirmed and strengthened in pillar 1 (trust in the flow of love).
Which is the best autoimmune cure for our relationships at any time of year…

My end of year wish today is therefore a very simple one. As we embark on such a journey with ourselves and with our loved ones, I hope that just like the Cat – and whatever the next year will bring – we will all exclaim together from the bottom of our hearts:

“But I like it here. Oh, I like it very much!”

¹ Currently: Simon and Desi Ruge – “Katze mit Hut”, Atrium Verlag 2019 and “Neues von der Katze mit Hut”, Beltz & Gelberg 1996 (no new edition available yet)
▪ Also note the very touching screen adaptation by the Augsburger Puppenkiste from 1982 (director: Sepp Strubel) on DVD or on YouTube. [content only available in German language]

² Dipl.-Psych. Ulrich Wilken is a psychological psychotherapist and founded the Institute for Systemic Studies in Hamburg over 30 years ago. Since then, he has worked as a lecturer and couples therapist. In 2021, he founded myndpaar – an AI-based psychotherapy app – with his daughter Leonie.
[The app can be used by anyone in “single person mode”, in “relationship mode” there is unfortunately only one version for a maximum of two participants – German language only].

Thanks to Moi Lolita on Pixabay for his AI-generated image that didn’t require a real cat to wear a hat!

Where things end

Sometimes it can be tough to decide on a lifestyle of ethical multiple relationships. Especially when we have largely internalized this way of life for ourselves at some point – and then start to consistently clean up the rest of our lives accordingly:
No more shamefully hiding additional loved ones from the family at auntie’s coffee table, no more keeping quiet when friends make a joke at the expense of non-normative ways of life, no more compromising on dating offers that promise heaven on earth right in the second sentence if…, yes, if you would simply commit to just one lifetime companion.

No.
At some point, we’ll be past all that. We’ve been ashamed of ourselves long enough for our double standards and our lukewarm compromises “for the sake of peace”. We have repeatedly turned our philosophy of life over and over in our minds and hearts and finally freed ourselves, at the latest when we realized how much our way of comprehending intimate relationships has to do with our innermost self.

At some point, we begin to accept that we probably belong to a minority (so far) and start to come to terms with the fact. However, we no longer allow ourselves to be driven back into the broom closet and hold our heads up nonetheless.
Instead, we now sometimes interrupt some of our colleagues at work when they gossip about who is allowed to live with whom these days and whether someone should be allowed to choose their gender depending on their mood – and so we are now sometimes considered “weird”, “difficult” or even “annoying”.
We no longer travel to some members of our birth family because we no longer submit to their recurring dictate that our deviation from a “proper middle-class relationship” would surely damage our reputation and a future career.
And our number of friends is decreasing, because for some of them we now seem downright indecent with our commitment to multiple relationships – or at least appear like a ticking hormone bomb that will probably soon burst with concrete sexual desire where there were previously just amicable ties…

So sometimes an almost peculiar effect sets in. Our coming out into a world of ethical multiple relationships such as Oligo- or Polyamory means that instead of having more relationships in our lives – as we might have assumed – we actually end up with less: The phone stays increasingly silent, the email inbox is becoming increasingly sparse, the messaging service and the dating app on the mobile are chirping less and less – and some invitations to the usual social get-togethers are noticeably dwindling.
A somewhat strange feeling of emptiness instead of fulfilment and acceptance begins to emerge…
“You have successfully logged off.” it says – and you think: “Obviously more complete than I had suspected…”

This is my Entry for November, a month that often carries a distinct note of farewell with its ghostly Halloween figures, All Saints’ Day candles on graves, thick fog and bare trees.
That is why I would like to dedicate this entry to farewells and parting (and some of the grief that goes with it), especially to parting from relationships – which, strictly speaking, is a parting from familiar ideas and cherished projections, as I will try to outline in a minute.

At the beginning of this Entry, I wrote that choosing a lifestyle and philosophy of ethical multiple relationships can be tough. Because if we have not been raised and socialized with its values from an early age, we are indeed embarking on a path of many small farewells. And for our inner sensitivities, it makes no difference whether we part from specific people – or from other familiar terrain.
In a way, there is no difference for our mind, as it is initially confronted with an experience of frustration every time.
As already mentioned in my “Steep Ground”-Entry 22, frustration is “an experience of (actual or perceived) disadvantage or refusal that is perceived as an emotional response to an unfulfilled or unfulfillable expectation (disappointment), e.g. due to the failure of a personal plan or to the complete or partial lack of satisfaction of primary and secondary needs. On the one hand, frustration can lead to a constructive change in behaviour, but often triggers regressive, aggressive or depressive patterns of behaviour.“

The US-American psychologist Pauline Boss has also intensively researched farewell and loss. In the specialist publication “Family Relations” ¹ she writes that partings and separations, whether in friendly or romantic relationships, often seem like an “ambiguous loss”. This means that sometimes, in our frustration and pain, we are not quite sure what it is exactly that we have lost.
Psychologist Eva Siem, who is one of the co-designers of the German meditation app “7Mind”², explains on the corresponding website:

»It is often not just the loss of a person, but also the loss of dreams, emotional support and an identity that is closely linked to that person.
Interpersonal relationships can be closely linked to our own self-image. For example, someone in a friendship can take on the role of the empathetic adviser. When the friendship ends, the loss of this role can lead to a conflict of identity and raise the question: “Who am I without this role?” Shared dreams and plans, such as travelling or raising a family, can also be shattered. Whether we leave or are left, when we break up, it can feel like a part of ourselves is lost.«

The extent to which we experience or are able to process such losses is related to a topic that I have already discussed in Entry 14 – and which is emphasized once again in the most recent book publication on the subject of Polyamory, which is titled “Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Non-Monogamy” by Jessica Fern (Thornapple Press 2020): The attachment styles we experienced and cultivated while growing up³.
I quote again from the 7Mind article because of the concise explanation concerning the most common kinds of “anxious-preoccupied” and ” dismissive-avoidant” style:
»For example, people with an anxious attachment style often rely heavily on the reassurance and closeness of their partner [or their surrounding environment] and are afraid of losing the relationship(s), which makes it difficult to let go. They may prefer to stay in an unhappy relationship for fear of being alone.
Similarly, avoidant people often find it difficult to let go because they have learned to maintain emotional distance and avoid intimacy. For them, an unfulfilling relationship may seem better than the vulnerability and fear of closeness in a potentially deeper connection.«

Thus, when we actually step out of certain circumstances or relationships at some point, it is not at all unlikely that we may initially feel a guilty conscience, remorse or even loneliness and fear.

Which is why even the 7Mind app recommends taking the time to reflect on what has actually been lost – but also possibly gained:
After all, in many cases, letting go not only means saying goodbye to a part of our past, but also to an imagined future (which could at least perhaps have been realized if we had left everything as it was).

In their thesis paper “Who am ‘I’ without ‘you’? – The Influence of Romantic Breakup on the Self-Concept”, researchers Slotter, E. B., Gardner, W. L., and Finkel, E. J. (2010) explain that such a transition passes through three phases, namely the departure from a previous self-concept (“This is who I think I am”) – a mourning phase, which is accompanied by an unravelling of this self-concept and therefore disintegrating certainty, which leads to emotional stress (“So who am I now anyway?”) – and finally an adaptation with the integration of a new self-concept (“This is who I am now”).

So for us, who accordingly have to let go of cherished/familiar attachments or even certain people from our past on our journey into ethical multiple relationships, it is important to consciously release a part of our previous identity – an outdated identity that we frankly no longer want to realize.

What’s more, a loss of relationship always means first and foremost a loss of emotional or perhaps even economic support.
This habitual “support” is likely to be lost if, for example, we confess to being part of a minority in our relationship life – because we no longer join in the unanimous round of collegial gossip, we no longer appear at the coffee table with just one selected favourite person and play “perfect family” – and because we have re-evaluated the concept of “friendship” (and what can be part of it?).

Above, the 7Mind app termed the resulting question “Who am I without this role?” – and in my opinion, that seems to point in the right direction:
Because if we transform our (love-) life with regard to our feelings and actions into an approach of ethical multiple relationships, then we will hopefully leave a role that we have merely “assumed”, but about which we were probably unquestioningly convinced for a very long time that it was the only one that seemed feasible.
In the English language, the word “role” is wonderfully connected to the word “evolve”. We may therefore find ourselves in a traditional “role” – but we can and may e-volve out of it.
On many pages of my bLog here I have tried to explain that I consider it a conscious and courageous decision to evolve towards one’s own true core self when we realize that we have uncovered our capacity for committing to “more than two” (or strictly speaking “more than one”) love(s).
The experts cited in this Entry emphasize that our interpersonal relationships are closely linked to our own self-image. Thus, if our developing self-image takes us closer and closer to the core of our being, this will always have a constructive influence on the type of relationship we enter into – and how we want to pursue them.

Opting for ethical multiple relationships will therefore most likely also mean going through a personal “consolidation phase” first. But consolidation also means reinforcing, strengthening or stabilizing something in order to create something that is more meaningful, committed and sustainable.
For my Oligoamory, I have always emphasized that, as far as I am concerned, quality should always take precedence over quantity. It is not the quantity of our potential (romantic) connections that counts, but their quality – no matter how few they may be.
Engaging in committed, sustainable (multiple) relationships can therefore actually mean successfully disconnecting from certain outdated aspects of our lives in order to become more true to ourselves.

Or as psychologist Eva Siem from the 7Mind team puts it – and in order to avoid getting too November-like (especially when there doesn’t seem to be another exciting relationship opportunity on the cloudy and overcast horizon yet…):
»You are not alone in the challenge of letting go. Grief and change are an essential part of life that all people have to face sooner or later.
Whatever the process looks like for you personally, consider it with kindness and remember that letting go can also be an opportunity to get to know yourself and your needs better.«

¹ Boss, P. (2007). Ambiguous Loss Theory: Challenges for Scholars and Practitioners. Family Relations, 56(2), 105-110.

² The main page of 7Mind HERE
The article on loss and farewell by Eva Siem HERE

³ The attachment theory was influenced in particular by the British psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist John Bowlby; e.g.
Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. (1991), An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 331-341.

“Oh…, it was nothing…”

My favourite people and I share numerous relationship values that have emerged from Polyamory – and which, of course, apply to Oligoamory as well.
I even wrote a separate Entry on this in the beginning of this bLog: For example, we agreed on accountability for our actions, responsibility for our overall relationship, commitment with regard to the recognition of our values, integrity, reliability, consensus, equality, transparency, honesty, loyalty to – and identification with our relationship model.
Especially for my nesting¹ partnership these core elements are important, all our agreements – but especially our common view of how we envision life in multiple relationships – are based on them.

Those values listed above, which seem to appear quite grave in my Entry “The Oligoamorist’s Stone”, however, do not play a constantly dominating role in our everyday life. Rather, they form the invisible framework of our shared “emotional contract“ – that is, our „acknowledgement – as a result of a mutually established emotional close-knit relationship – regarding the totality of voluntary yielded obligations, self-commitments and care which have been reciprocally contributed and are potentially enjoyable by all parties involved.”
And also this “contract” is not something that is filed away in some file folder in multiple copies – it is rather the commitment towards our shares lives, gained by many aligning conversations and experiences – and also a little bit our blueprint and vision for our approach to and acting in multiple relationships.

An agreement on certain values and also an “emotional contract” resulting from that are something like a railing, which hopefully provides support when people hold on to it – which is especially important in situations that are not everyday, accustomed or familiar.
And these situations in multiple relationships include, for example, those in which a new person is about to join.
Because those relationship shareholders who are just falling in love often have their heads in the clouds at the beginning – whereas the “established partners ” who are witnessing these events from the second row would like to know, for quite understandable reasons, what the status of this first “flirtation” is at the moment: Is it merely a flirt – or the prelude to the fact that a whole new beloved person will soon be added to the relationship network? And are there just shooting stars in the hearts and minds – or is a move in towards table and bed already being discussed?

To some readers, the range described here may sound exaggerated – but at the same time, it quite accurately reflects the possible spectrum of developments when romantic relationships are open to more than just one partnership.
Consequently, the above-mentioned mutual agreements and values do carry a certain graveness.

Enough with all the theory – and let’s have a very personal example:

I dated Annika, who was quite a whirlwind, perhaps a bit of a minor cyclone in terms of neediness.
When it comes to sexuality, for example, I prefer that things proceed slowly. All of my successful, long-term relationships had begun with a rather gradual engagement on this topic, from extended face-to-face getting to know each other, to cautious approaches to permitting exchanged caresses, to eventually shared, real sexuality weeks later.

Uh, wait a minute.
“Real sexuality”…, what is “real sexuality”?
Is that important?
Yes, I think it is important – especially with regard to our other existing loved ones. For shared sexuality is certainly a somewhat relevant familiarity marker in several aspects, and its importance in multiple relationships points predominantly in two directions:

On the one hand, of course, for the two persons who share sexuality – in whatever way – specifically with each other. Obviously, both persons have decided that they want to have – and experience – this area of intimate interpersonal exchange in their relationship.
On the other hand for all other favourite people and partners in the Polycule; in particular with the signal that besides the necessary familiarity here now a specific, physically intimate connection has emerged, which besides an unambiguous deepening of the level – as far as the kind of loving connection is concerned – can also in case of doubt have health and even legal consequences for all pending participants.
[Ok, I know, there are people out there who don’t attach so much importance to shared sexuality – but you may turn it this way and that – with regard to extended sexuality in a relationship consisting of more than just two people, an expansion of the field of sexual activity is in any case relatively substantial in its consequences.]

All right, then, so what is “real sexuality”?
In their Polyamory guidebook, “More Than Two” ² authors Eve Rickert and Franklin Veaux suggest working with a very broad definition in multiple relationship contexts because of the enormous potential for discord or hurt when definitions of “sexuality” do not match between people. So, in case of doubt, “sexuality” would actually be anything that ranges from kissing, making out, clothed or unclothed fondling, sharing sexual fantasies, text or cybersex, phone sex, erotic massage, same-room masturbation, mutual masturbation, oral sex, anal sex, all the way to an explicit contact of sexual organs.

“Oligotropos, that’s quite a rigid approach – and now what does that have to do with Annika and your personal example?”

Oh yeah – so Annika, well… when she met me, she had not had sex for quite some time (but that was something I found out later).
On the first date we kissed, realized there was potential for more; and I was really looking forward to this journey (which I assumed would follow my usual script…) and so I reported my progress transparently to my nesting partner after that initial meeting.
My nesting partner knew me well and said ok to that, she only wanted to be informed about further steps on this “sexual journey” so that she would know how far that new relationship had progressed.

So far so good…
Already at the second meeting, however, Annika’s hands dug deep into my pants, which took me quite by surprise (and was not at all according to script…) and soon I found myself more or less in horizontal position under her thighs on the sofa, next to which I had just served the tea, – while Annika assiduously continued her explorations and also provided ample physical contact.
I considered it all a bit abrupt, a bit too fast – but part of me enjoyed it nonetheless – but after the encounter I was a bit embarrassed by all of it, not least in front of myself.
My mind thought that all this was “not right” – but also didn’t quite manage to activate my mouth for talking about it – and anyway, especially because I didn’t experienced it really as nice and relaxed, as I would have wished regarding a cosy get-to-know-you session there was nothing to fuzz about – accordingly “nothing had really happened”.

On the third date with Annika, she was well prepared from her point of view, because she was only wearing a one-piece dress and shoes. After not so long a time most of that was sufficiently arranged away and Annika’s unwrapping talents also had proficiently proceeded in my territory, as she already squatted expectantly on the edge of the sofa between my legs…
At this point, I’m fading out of the scene to ensure this bLog stays G-rated. But I admit that I carried a part of voluntary-involuntary complicity in me, which contributed to the eager-lustful striving of Annika simply because it gave me such pleasure to witness her pleasure-gaining.
But meanwhile my mind was again standing somewhere on a windy bridge in the drizzle with the collar turned up and only thought: “…but that’s not how I wanted it – that’s not right at all, that’s just harum-scarum and meaningless…”.

And since it was again somehow embarrassing for me – if only because I was in a sense being run over for the second time thereby overstepping my own personal (feel-good) boundaries – and sexuality in this sofa-edge style was uncomfortable, inadequate and as a matter of fact – specifically as well as figuratively – ineffective for me, I felt afterwards like a certain U.S. president in 1998, when he said in front of the world public: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.“
And that’s how I kept it in front of myself and, unfortunately, – while clinging to this awkward self-assessment – in my further external communication.

But when my favourite and nesting person found out not so much later, nevertheless, what had really happened in our cosy parlour, she was of course – and rightly – extremely embarrassed, disappointed and hurt.
And it came to a quarrel, in which I myself, however, had to realize after a very short time that I had virtually nothing at hand for my justification.
On the contrary. I realized with dismay that I had quite completely ignored our relationship values and agreements mentioned at the beginning, on the one hand, due to an easily perceptible cognitive bias and, on the other hand, due to the nature of my own interpretation of the situation, which I had tried to stipulate as the generally valid standard.

The cognitive bias is quickly explained: It is a phenomenon known in the English-speaking world as “shifting baselines“. It is best illustrated by the example of a child and a candy jar:
A child loves candy – and in the kitchen cupboard there is a jar filled with candy on Monday. Now the child takes out a few candies every day and does so, as it thinks itself, very skilfully – each time only a few, so that the fill level in the candy jar almost does not change. The child does this every day – and to it’s eyes the level in the glass has hardly changed after every 24 hours. On Saturday, the surprised mother asks the child why it had secretly emptied half the jar of sweets…!
The mother, of course, recorded the actual total level decrease from Monday to Saturday – the jar is, no doubt possible, visibly reduced to only half full.
“Shifting baselines” are unfortunately a very present and human phenomenon of our everyday self-deception (and currently playing a significant role in the field of climate change, for example): Only because a position changes only gradually (minor annual whaling in Japan and Iceland, for example) and it seems for a long time as if almost nothing happens, things change objective measurably nevertheless – and the effects are considerable and undeniable after a certain time (e.g. no more whales because they no longer find mating partners in the oceans due to spatial distances that have become too large to cover).
In relationships, “shifting baselines” are therefore the proverbial “silent poison”. In my case with Annika, I gave in more and more and thus deviated increasingly from my own wishes, values and agreements. Kissing became petting, petting became genital contact – and “sexual” was, strictly speaking, all of the above. Because that’s exactly how I would have judged it myself if I had been the mother in the example above confronted with the half-empty candy jar. So if a video had been played to me with a guy engaged in my activities on the sofa, I would have objectively said from the outside without hesitation, “Yes, what’s happening is sex.” But instead, I cheated myself by getting involved in an occurrence in which I was gradually selling out my own limits.

Those “shifting baselines” are what I and my battered self-worth in particular have to deal with – for my nesting partner, the U.S. presidential preference for my own perceptual evaluation definitely weighed heavier.
To get back to the camera recording and the plain statement: What has happened there was shared sexuality. This should have been the sole – and therefore also my sole – criterion with regard to what happened. Because this was the only piece of information my favourite person had asked me for: to communicate transparently and sincerely to what extent sexuality would already be involved in the deepening of my relationship with Annika.
This was the information that was essential for my favourite person, so that she, in turn, could have adjusted to it, could have made informed choices, could have expressed sensitivities, concerns, sympathy, could have sought a conversation – whatever. I, however, put my own perceived notion of “That wasn’t the way it should have been / That somehow wasn’t right…” above everything else – and thus deprived her of all of those options.
And by doing so, I also jettisoned at the same time the relationship values of “equality” and “participation. Exactly the same values that are usually so important to me as well.

In my case, it was indeed sexuality – but it could also have concerned (multiple) relationship topics like “telling each other personal stuff”, “spending time together”, “visits (yes, also overnight stays or vacations)”, “spending time with the kids”, “introducing someone (or being introduced) to friends or families”, etc.
Regarding any of these things, we probably all have personal ideas about how and when we wish they would occur. And presumably we all have “shifting baselines” when, for example, we pick someone up from the parking lot one time, ring the front doorbell next time, and are invited in for coffee the third time…
But each time there is only one actual, definite chain of events, as an observer – who has nothing to do with the situation – would have been able to perceive and describe it without embellishment.
This version is the reality and with respect to second or third parties – especially for the preservation of their full agency – it is the only relevant thing that counts – and therefore should be the only version to be told.

The mayhem in our minds may throw us into turmoil in many a situation and lead us astray in numerous ways. On some of these ways we may come to terms more favourably with what has happened, and we may cope better with our role in it in front of ourselves.
Our favourite people, however, need our undivided integrity for their well-being – and thus our courage to face reality – even if it is unpleasant for us.
Or, to put it a little more lightheartedly with US author Ernest Cline in his bestseller “Ready Player One“: »I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.«

¹ “Nesting partner”: In multiple relationships, a term for the people with whom one shares a “nest” – i.e. who live closely together and also spend a lot of everyday time, e.g. in a shared home.

² The book by Franklin Veaux and Eve Rickert “More Than Two – A practical guide to ethical Polyamory”, Thorntree-Press 2014.

Thanks to 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash for the photo!